The Choice (12 page)

Carrie didn’t say anything to Daniel during supper, but after they’d eaten and she’d cleaned up the dishes, she went out to the barn to find him. Daniel always went out to check on the animals one last time before evening prayers.

When she slid open the door of the barn, Daniel glanced at her from one of the horse’s stalls. He had been filling the bucket with water, but put it down when he saw her. He closed the horse’s stall, turned the latch, and approached her, a question in his eyes.

She handed him the paper that Sol had given her. “It’s about your cousin Abel, Daniel. I know he caused a fire that killed some people. I know he’s in jail.”

Daniel unfolded the paper and quickly scanned it.

Softly, she asked, “Was she the girl you loved, Daniel? Is she the reason you carry such a burden?”

He didn’t say anything.

“It hurts that you felt you had to keep this secret, instead of telling me. I would have understood.”

He closed his eyes. He seemed to be searching for words. Then he lifted his head and quietly said, “The two women who were killed in that fire were Katie Yoder and my mother.” He looked past her, out the open barn door. “Katie and I were to be married.”

“That’s what I—”

Daniel put up a hand to stop her. “There was another fire. Two other people were killed.” He took a deep breath. “A man and . . . ,” his voice broke on the word, “. . . and a child.”

“Daniel—”

“Abel didn’t cause the fires that killed them, Carrie.” He held up the paper, a copy of a newspaper clipping. “It seems that way from this article, but the truth is that Abel was innocent. I caused the fires. I did it.” He lowered his head. “Abel went to jail in my place. But I’m responsible for the fires. For the deaths. I’m the one.”

She felt all fuzzy headed as if her head was wrapped in her wooly shawl and she couldn’t hear him clearly. As understanding started to dawn, a panic rose within Carrie. She suddenly felt as if this man whom she thought was safe wasn’t safe at all. She didn’t really know Daniel. Or what he was capable of doing.

Carrie knew what she should do. She should stay. She should get Daniel to tell her the whole story.

Instead, she turned and ran.

Carrie didn’t return home for hours. When she walked up the kitchen steps, Yonnie was waiting by the door.

“What are you doing up?” Carrie asked, as she hung her shawl up on the wooden peg.

“We were worried about you,” Yonnie said.

“I’m sorry to cause you concern. I was over at Mattie’s.” Carrie had spilled everything out to Mattie, about Sol showing up and the newspaper article, about what Daniel had said. Mattie listened carefully, then told Carrie to stop making up her mind ahead of the facts. She told her to go home and
ask
Daniel about the fires, to give him the benefit of the doubt, to trust what she knew to be true about him.

Yonnie glanced at the grandfather clock. “Is Daniel still in the barn?”

“No. Isn’t he asleep?”

Yonnie’s chin jerked up. “No! He went looking for you about an hour ago. He took Schtarm because Old-Timer has a sore leg.”

“Schtarm? He used Schtarm in the buggy?” At an auction last fall, Daniel bought Schtarm, a young racehorse that didn’t cut it on the tracks. He wasn’t buggy broke yet and had such a skittish nature that Carrie doubted he would ever be a good buggy horse, but Daniel had confidence in him. She glanced out the kitchen window. “I wasn’t on the road. I cut through the orchard. We must have missed each other.”

All of a sudden Yonnie clasped her hands together and started her chanting, “Gottes willes. Gottes willes.”

Not a minute later, Schtarm galloped into the gravel driveway, skidding to a halt at the barn. Carrie ran outside and saw that he was lathered up, buggy traces hanging by his side. His eyes looked wild and she had trouble getting close to him. She spoke calmly to him and was able to grasp one rein, just as a police car turned into the driveway. Mattie was in the backseat. She opened the door and ran over to Carrie, throwing her arms around her. For a split second, Carrie thought that Mattie seemed as frantic and wild-eyed as Schtarm. She looked over Mattie’s shoulder at the police car, expecting Daniel to come out the other door. Instead, it was a police officer. He approached Carrie and Mattie, standing a few feet back.

“I’m Chief Beamer. Are you the wife of Daniel Miller?”

Carrie looked curiously at the policeman. Why was he here? Mattie released her grip on Carrie. “Oh Carrie! There’s been an accident. The buggy. A car.”

“Slow down, Mattie. Take a deep breath and tell me what happened.”

“Daniel’s buggy was turning left into my driveway when a speeding car passed by him.”

Carrie took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut. When buggies and cars collided, the buggies always lost. She glanced at Schtarm, grateful he wasn’t hurt.

“You’re going to need to come with me, Mrs. Miller,” Chief Beamer said.

“Where’s Daniel?” Carrie glanced at the police car. “Isn’t he in the car?”

“No, Carrie,” Mattie said, her voice breaking on the word. “He’s not.” She started to cry.

Carrie looked at Mattie and the officer. She tilted her head, trying to understand what Mattie meant. Her mind wasn’t working right. She had been up so early with Hope’s new calf, then Sol’s visit, and then finding out about Daniel and his cousin Abel. The fatigue of the long day suddenly hit her.

Mattie braced Carrie’s shoulders to make her look at her. “He’s dead, Carrie. Daniel was thrown from the buggy and killed instantly.” Carrie tried to concentrate on Mattie’s moving mouth, but she didn’t think Mattie made any sense.
Poor Mattie. She looks so
troubled.
Carrie felt like she might be getting a fever, all shaky and sweaty and cold inside. Her leg muscles felt wobbly and she kept forgetting to breathe.
I must breathe. I must.
Everything started to swirl around her before it all became fuzzy and blended together. She didn’t even remember falling, but the next thing she heard was Chief Beamer’s deep voice, hovering over her.

“She’s fainted. Dropped like a stone. Does someone have a blanket?”

6

Over the next few days, Carrie took comfort in the long-established rituals and traditions of burying a family member, as they gave anchor to her churned-up feelings. The day before Daniel’s funeral, the bench wagon was delivered by two men. They helped move out all the downstairs furniture to store in the barn. Then they set up the benches in the empty house. Neighbors stopped by all throughout the day, bearing dishes of food for the shared meal after the burial.

As long as Carrie stayed busy, she was able to push away troubling, stray thoughts. Just like when her father died and Sol left, she found that the sun rose and set and the days would come and go, and there was the washing and the cooking and the gardens to care for. One couldn’t live on the crest of grief every single moment.

The day after the accident, the undertaker returned Daniel’s embalmed body to the farmhouse for the viewing. Tears streaming down her face, Yonnie held the Crazy Quilt in her arms that she had given Carrie for a wedding gift.

“Do you mind, Carrie?” she asked her as they tended to Daniel’s body, just as they had tended to Eli’s only weeks before. “I know it’s custom to use a white quilt to bury him, but I want to wrap him in the quilt he loved best.”

“Of course not,” Carrie said. “I think he would be comforted by being wrapped in the quilt you had made for him.” She felt numb, exhausted to the bone, worried.

The police had taken her to the city morgue to identify Daniel’s body. Mattie came too. It was nearly dawn by the time they returned to the farmhouse. When Andy woke, Carrie told him about the accident. What worried her most was that Andy didn’t cry. He became quiet and still, like a candlelight right before it’s snuffed out. Andy spent the day in the barn, playing with the Cooper’s hawk babies, avoiding the steady stream of neighbors who heard the news and wanted to pay their respect.

At the end of the day, a car turned into the driveway. Mattie climbed out of the backseat, but the other people, clearly English, remained in the car. Carrie met Mattie at the kitchen door.

“Carrie, the girl who hit Daniel’s buggy is in the car,” Mattie said. “She’s with her mother. She wants to ask you to forgive her.”

Carrie braced her hand against the doorjamb as if she needed it to hold herself upright. “Oh Mattie, I can’t. I just can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” Mattie said, firm but kind. “Her name is Grace Patterson. She’s only seventeen. She works part-time over at Honor Mansion. She needs your forgiveness. You need to give it to her for your own sake.”

Closing her eyes for a moment against the pain and loss, Carrie asked quietly, “And what if I don’t feel any forgiveness for her?” Softly, Mattie whispered, “Feelings follow intention.” Mattie took Carrie’s hand and led her out to the car.

An elderly woman got out of the car first, her face solemn and sad. Then the girl got out. Carrie had to force herself to look at her. She was so young. Her eyes were swollen with crying. Her face was red and blotchy. Carrie recognized that kind of misery and despair; she felt it when her father died.

Without thinking, she opened wide her arms. The girl looked at Carrie as if she couldn’t believe what she was offering to her. Then she rushed into Carrie’s arms, breaking into big, heaving sobs.

When Carrie finally went upstairs that night, she saw that Yonnie had replaced the Crazy Quilt on her bed with another quilt. The cold March wind seeped through the windowsills, and she shivered as she undressed. She wore two pairs of woolen socks and a sweater over her nightgown and still couldn’t get warm. She wasn’t sure she had ever felt quite so alone as she did that night, slipping under the covers. Never had so many changes come upon her in so little time. It was as if she had left her old life and stepped into someone else’s life. The last thought she had before falling asleep was:
And now I am a widow
.

The sun shone brightly on the day of Daniel’s funeral, but the wind still had winter’s bite to it. At the graveside, four young men shoveled dirt on top of Daniel’s coffin. Carrie heard no other sound other than that—
whoosh-whump
. . .
whoosh-whump
. No airplanes flying overhead, no cars driving past, no squawking jaybirds, just the silence of grief. A cold breeze blew the strings of her prayer cap across her face. She must have flinched as the clods of dirt hit the pine box, because Mattie quietly linked an arm through hers, as if to say, “You’re not alone.”

Afterward, back at the house, as they cleaned up the kitchen, Emma asked Carrie, “Want me to stay? I could ask Mother to stay too.”

Carrie shook her head. She was in no mood for more of Esther’s advice. Her only word of solace to Carrie had been, “Folks should not overgrieve much, for that is a complaint against the Lord.”

Throughout the long day, Esther made broad hints to Carrie about the bishop’s grandson, John Graber. She had picked him for Carrie’s husband years ago, often inviting him over for supper and family gatherings. Carrie had no interest in him; she thought John Graber was odd.