Mother's Promise Read online

  Rachel couldn’t help it. She laughed. This was the best news she’d had in months. For the first time since James’s death she could actually see the possibility that God had a new plan for her life, one where she and Justin could start again and perhaps recover a measure of the joy they had known before. “I need two weeks if that’s all right,” she said.

  “Suits me,” Mark said. “Here’s Pastor Cox.”

  “Let’s make that Paul, okay?” the minister said as he took back the phone. “And may I call you Rachel?”

  “That’s fine. Oh, thank you so very much. You have no idea what this means to me. Please thank the others for me.”

  Paul laughed. “Happy to have you, Rachel. Now Mark will be sending you some materials about the hospital, the certification program, and the general area to look over. It’ll give you a head start before we see you in a couple of weeks. Until then, as Mark so aptly put it, welcome aboard.”

  Chapter 2

  Just two days after the Kaufmann family celebrated Justin’s twelfth birthday his mom gave him the news. Somehow he knew that what he would remember most about this birthday wouldn’t be Gramma’s spice cake with its caramel frosting—his favorite. Or the new clothes his aunts and uncles and cousins had given him. No, this was the birthday he would remember most because his world had just been turned upside down—again.

  “Justin, I’ve been offered a job,” she told him as the two of them sat on the wooden swing that hung from a large horizontal branch of the willow tree just outside the farmhouse kitchen.

  He couldn’t help but think about another day almost two years before when his mom had made a similar announcement just after Dad’s funeral.

  “The thing is,” she continued as she pushed the swing into motion with her bare foot, “the job is in Florida.”

  Florida? Justin’s mind raced as he tried to take in the idea of moving not just off the farm where his dad had grown up and he’d been born, but halfway across the whole country.

  He didn’t know a single person in Florida. Mom kept going on about her good friend, Hester. But Hester wasn’t family. How could Mom even think of leaving Gramma and Gramps?

  “We can start fresh there,” he heard her say.

  I don’t want to start fresh, he thought, feeling a wave of the anger that was pretty much the way he felt most of the time these days. I want our old life. The one where I helped Dad with the chores. The one where Dad and I fished in the pond in summer and went ice-skating in winter.

  “What do you think?” his mom asked him.

  Justin mentally ran down the list of things that he’d learned about Florida from the books he’d read and stuff he’d learned at school.

  “I know it’s a big change,” she continued when he didn’t answer right away. She brought the swing to a halt so she could lean forward, her elbows resting on her knees as she stared out at the fields surrounding the farmhouse and its outbuildings. “But just think,” Mom said, her voice high and nervous, “you can go swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.”

  “They have alligators,” Justin said, as if that alone illustrated the scope of the change she was asking him to make.

  “Alligators don’t live in the Gulf,” she replied.

  “Sharks, then. And snakes—big poisonous ones, and what about how hot it is? Those skinny palm trees I’ve seen in pictures don’t seem like they’d provide much shade.” Justin was desperate to find something that would make his mother listen to reason. She didn’t like hot weather all that much.

  “They have seasons just like we do in Ohio, just no snow or hardly ever. And there are other trees besides palm trees.”

  “We don’t know anybody there,” he pointed out.

  “I just told you, Justin. When we first get there, we’ll stay with my college roommate, Hester, and her husband, John Steiner. When we were in college Hester and I were best friends.”

  Then why can’t you understand that I’m not excited to leave my best friend, Harlan? Justin wondered, but his dad had taught him not to question his elders, especially his mom and grandparents. And now that his uncle Luke was in charge, Justin knew that he’d be risking a paddling if Luke heard him challenge his mother.

  It had been a year, nine months and eight days since Justin’s dad had died. Justin had heard people say that the force of the car’s speed gave his dad no chance at all for survival. He’d died right there next to a stack of rocks that Justin and his cousins had pulled from the field earlier that year and piled by the roadside ditch. He died even though Mom had tried so hard to save him. The driver of the car had been drunk.

  At first Justin had been so mad at that man for being drunk and driving his car, but his gramma had reminded him that as Mennonites they believed in forgiveness. He must not harbor hard feelings against the man. So Justin had tried to forgive—he really had. He and his mom had even gone to a kind of school to help people like them get past being so mad.

  In the end Justin went along with the program mostly because it came up about the time his mom lost her job, and she was pretty excited about it. Afterward she even took some training so that she could help other people like them and the drunk man.

  “It might lead to a paying job,” she’d told him.

  But it hadn’t, and his dad was still dead.

  He hated the way people at the funeral had kept clutching his shoulder—the men—or touching his cheek—the women—and saying that Justin was now the “man of this family.” He wasn’t sure what that meant. Was he supposed to get a job now? Or maybe they were saying that he needed to take on managing the farm like his dad had.

  Justin pushed himself off the swing and walked a little ways from his mom, his back to her. He had to think. He had just turned twelve years old, and his world kept getting twisted inside out.

  “What about school?” he asked, grasping for anything that might keep this from happening. He stopped short of reminding her that Dad had always talked about how important it was for him to keep up with his studies, especially math. The night his dad died he’d been working on his math assignment and he’d been excited about showing his dad how he’d solved every problem.

  “There’s a lot you have to figure in running a farm,” Dad was always reminding him. “Not just what things might cost but how to know how many fence posts you need to fence in a certain field. Stuff like that.”

  And what about the fact that his dad had liked to read? Not just the scriptures or about farming but other stuff. Justin also liked to read, and he was good at it. And Dad was always real proud that Mom had gone to college even though as Mennonites, being proud about anything was considered a bad thing. But Dad was always teasing Mom about being the brains of the family. She would get all giggly like the girls at his school did and tell him to stop, but Justin could see that she liked it. Yes, school was important to both of his parents.

  “Is there a school—one of our schools?” he asked again.

  “Hester says that there’s an entire Amish and Mennonite community right there with churches and a school and shops and everything.” Her voice went all soft and dreamy. He turned around so he could see her face. She looked up at him with a smile and then bit her lower lip before adding, “We’ll go to church there and shop and you’ll meet people and—”

  “Do the Steiners live near there?”

  “Well, no. They live some distance away, but they shop there and attend church.”

  Justin frowned. Ever since his dad died school was his world—the one place where he could escape his uncle’s constant criticism.

  His mom sat back again. She wasn’t looking directly at him—a sure sign that he wasn’t going to like whatever she was about to say. “You see, when we first get there, we’re going to need to be closer to everything—my work, your school. We won’t have a car. There’s public transportation of course—a bus line.”

  Justin’s suspicions went on high alert. This was sounding like more change than he was ready to face. “But we’ll be
close to the school—the Mennonite school?” When his mom didn’t answer immediately, he began guessing. “A Christian school? A church school?”

  “A public school,” she said, and then her words came out in a rush. “It’s only for the first semester. Until after the first of the year. By that time we’ll know for sure that my job is secure and we’ll have had time to explore different neighborhoods and places to live. I’m in hopes that we can rent a little house in Pinecraft near the church and the Mennonite school, but in the beginning—”

  “Pinecraft? You said Sarasota.”

  “Pinecraft is what people call the Amish and Mennonite community right there in the middle of Sarasota, Justin,” she explained. “From what Hester tells me it’s more like a neighborhood than a separate town. But the hospital where I’ll be working is some distance from there, and the public school is close to the hospital.”

  Public school. “I’m not dressing the way our people do in a public school,” he said defiantly.

  “No. I wouldn’t ask that of you.” She sighed as if she finally got it that he wasn’t as excited about this as she was. “I know it’s a big move, Justin,” she said as she stood up. He was almost as tall as she was—something he wished that his dad could see.

  “Justin!” His uncle was standing outside the barn, his hands on his hips. He looked mad. Of course, whenever he talked to Justin at all, he always seemed to be mad about something. “Chores?”

  “He’s coming,” his mom called back. She sounded almost as mad as Uncle Luke did. His mom and uncle had never really gotten along, especially not since his dad had died.

  “Justin,” his mom said. “I promise you that it’s all going to work out—for both of us. We’ll come back for visits, and Gramps and Gramma will come see us in Florida. You can take Gramps fishing.” She brushed his hair away from his forehead with two fingers the same way she’d done a million times before. “I need you to trust me, okay?”

  Justin knew that she wasn’t asking his permission. In their world the adults made the rules and the decisions.

  “Yes ma’am,” he murmured.

  As he trudged off, he clung to the promise she had made—a promise he didn’t see how she could keep, but one that he intended to hold her to.

  As the bus half-filled with passengers sped along the highway connecting the life that Rachel and Justin were leaving behind to the one she prayed would not turn out to be a mistake of catastrophic proportions, she absently fingered the fine silky wisps of her son’s hair. He was asleep now, his head on her lap, his lean, long body so like his father’s folded into the bus seat beside her. He was tall for his age and looked older than his twelve years.

  The growth spurt he had experienced this last year was not all that had changed about Justin. Ever since his father’s death, he’d become more introverted. Before that, he had asked questions about everything from the weather to learning about the path the Kaufmann family had taken generations earlier in settling in Ohio. His insatiable curiosity was a source of gentle teasing from everyone in their large extended family. But after the funeral, and especially after Luke’s family had moved into the farmhouse, Justin had taken to spending much of his time alone. When he was with family, he barely said two words. It was as if he had buried all of his questions and curiosity about life along with his father, and that worried Rachel.

  She felt so uncertain of everything now that James was not with her to make the decisions for their family. It was the way of their people that the man of the house made all the major decisions while the woman cared for the children and managed the household. But James wasn’t here. This was a decision she had made completely on her own. Maybe she was making a mistake. Maybe Justin would be better off living close to his cousins and grandparents even if Luke insisted on taking out his dislike of her on her son.

  If she challenged him, Luke excused his strictness by telling her that Justin needed the strong hand of a man now that James was no longer around to guide him. He had actually laughed at her the first time she’d worked up the nerve to express her concern. “You and my brother have always been far too easy on the boy. He will not thank you for it when he is grown,” he’d warned. “Do not question my authority here, Rachel. You are too much tied to the ways of those outsiders you work with.”

  As she stared out the tinted window of the bus, she could see little but the reflected lights of passing cars on the highway and the silhouettes of buildings in the distance. She searched the eastern sky for the first signs of the new day and saw only darkness. It was in these blackest hours before dawn that Rachel thought most often of James.

  Of course, in the weeks that immediately followed his death, she had thought of little else. How could she possibly go on without him? They had known each other all their lives. Her parents had raised chickens just up the road from where James and his family had their dairy farm. She and her siblings had walked to school with James and his siblings. Her brother had married one of his sisters. The two families had joined forces numerous times to register the hallmarks of their lives—holidays, weddings, births, and deaths.

  James had never been sick a day in his nearly forty years. Even the normal childhood illnesses like measles or mumps had passed him by. He had been a tall man with a kind of gauntness to his body and features. After they had married and he had let his beard grow out, more than one person had commented on his resemblance to Abraham Lincoln. It was a comparison that James found flattering in spite of the Mennonite call to avoid such compliments. More than once when he seemed to puff up a bit after someone made the comparison, Rachel had teased him that she might buy him a stovepipe hat like the one that President Lincoln had worn.

  Oh, they had laughed together about so many things. And they had cried together as well. After she had miscarried four times, James had held her close, the tears leaking slowly down the burnished plains of his face. “God has a plan for us, darling girl.”

  And then their prayers had finally been answered with the arrival of Justin. “I’ll never ask for anything again,” Rachel had vowed.

  But James had placed his fingers against her lips, shushing her. “That’s a promise you cannot keep. God is with us,” he told her. “You can ask.”

  She had prayed every day since the funeral for God’s guidance. Then Hester’s letter had arrived, and here they were less than two weeks later on their way to Florida. Of course, Hester was already way ahead of her.

  “Malcolm and his wife have a guest cottage on their property that they never use,” Hester had told Rachel when she called a week earlier. “They’d be willing to rent it to you. It’s small but it’s only half a mile from the hospital. As soon as you get here we can take a look at that, and I’ll check on other possibilities as well.”

  “What about a school for Justin?”

  “If you decide to rent the Shepherds’ guesthouse, he can walk to the public school I told you about. The Shepherds’ daughter, Sally, attends classes there, so that will give him someone to know right away. I know public school is not ideal, but the main thing is to get you both down here. Once you get into the routine of work and school and such, we can look at other options—hopefully something closer to Pinecraft.”

  “I don’t know about this, Hester. Mr. Shepherd is on the hospital board and—”

  Hester had laughed. “He’s on half a dozen boards around Sarasota, including the one here at the co-op, but don’t let that intimidate you. Malcolm and his wife, Sharon, are salt-of-the-earth people, Rachel. And as for Sally—I mean, you are going to love her. She’ll introduce Justin to a host of friends in no time, so that’s a plus.”

  “It would be nice for him to have a friend right away,” Rachel had said.

  Hester actually squealed with delight. Her obvious excitement was contagious. “Do you believe this? You are coming to Florida.”

  Rachel laughed. “You seem to have everything arranged.”

  “Just get here. We’re going to have such fun getti
ng you and Justin settled. Having you near will be like old times when we were back in college.”

  Except our lives have changed. We have changed, Rachel thought. But she’d been unwilling to dampen Hester’s enthusiasm with her doubts. “We’ll be there this time a week from tomorrow,” Rachel had promised.

  “John and I will meet the bus. I can’t wait for the two of you to meet.”

  As the bus rolled on she caught sight of a sign welcoming them to Florida. She glanced down at her sleeping son. He had said little about the move, but she knew him so well. She understood that he was not happy about leaving his friends and the familiar routine of the farm and family—even his uncle—to strike out for the unknown. Truth be told, she had no idea if she had just made the best or worst decision of her life.

  She wished James were there to reassure them both.

  Chapter 3

  Dr. Benjamin Booker stood outside the front entrance of Gulf Coast Medical Center, marveling at the twists and turns his life had taken to bring him to this moment. As the son of a small-town preacher, he’d been raised with the idea that he would follow in his father’s footsteps into the ministry. But ironically it was his father’s example that had made Ben run as far and as fast as he could from that career.

  Instead Ben had excelled in the sciences, eventually earning a free ride to one of the best premed programs in the country. His goal had been simple. He would get his medical degree and then go overseas to bring his healing skills to the malnourished and suffering children he’d seen as a boy on the TV news. He was going to go out into the world and not mouth the words his father preached, but do his best to put his faith to the test by offering real solutions.

  But then he’d gotten seduced by the opportunities that came his way after he’d completed his training. In those early days when he’d gone to work for Sarasota Memorial, the teaching hospital, he’d told himself that the post was temporary. That he needed to hone his skills, learn everything he could before he tried to save the world. But that year had lengthened into two, then four, then eight….