Another Homecoming Read online

  “Thank you,” he murmured, uncertain quite how to react. The family became so traditional at certain moments. As he entered, he had a closer look at the sadness in her eyes, and he said, “I’m sorry about . . . about your farm home . . . being so far away, Ruthie.”

  She rewarded him with a look of such gratitude that it warmed him all the way down. “I am glad you are come, Choel,” she replied. “You make happy the whole family with your coming.”

  “Choel, hello, welcome.” Simon approached in his simple clothes and lace-up boots. “It really happened yet. To believe it is hard for me. You have come.” Simon’s accent was stronger today, and the words came out sounding like you haff gom.

  Joel allowed himself to be guided into the living room where the family was gathered. They all called a hearty welcome—even the baby cooed a hello. Yet as Joel settled himself into place between Simon and Ruthie, he could feel that sadness still cast a pall over the gathering. He felt his own thoughts sobering. He shuffled and cleared his throat, his eyes passing from one face to another.

  He found that Mrs. Miller was watching him from grave, dark eyes. He heard her say, “Such a feel for folks you have, Choel. You come, you sit, and already you know how we ache some more.”

  Joel was astounded by her words. He stared at the fine-featured woman with her brown hair tucked under a kerchief and wondered how she could know this. He had a lifetime’s experience at keeping himself hidden, yet this woman was aware of his thoughts and how he studied others. He lowered his eyes and nodded. “You miss your farm,” he said simply.

  From her place beside him, Ruthie gave a quiet sigh. Across the room, her younger sister, Sarah, choked back tears.

  Mrs. Miller turned to her husband. “Did I not tell you? A tender heart has the young man.”

  Mr. Miller nodded slowly. He was a big man, his work-hardened hands twice the size of Joel’s. His sparse blond hair rose back from a broad face that seemed perpetually sunburned. His beard was reddish brown and cut so it ringed his chin and left his mouth clear. He rumbled in his heavily accented way, “Such a greeting we give to Choel, our honored guest. Such a sadness on the Lord’s day.”

  When Joel first had come to the Miller home, he had found it very difficult to understand what Mr. Miller was saying, since he was missing every other word. But with time Joel had come both to understand him and to feel the same relaxed comfort around the big man as he did around the rest of the family.

  The youngest boy, Gerth, whimpered softly, “I want home again, Papa.”

  “Me too,” whispered Sarah.

  This was greeted with none of the impatient anger Joel would have found in his own home. Instead, Mr. Miller nodded his head again, the motion slow and measured, the eyes grave. He stroked his long beard a moment. “Yah, yah, this have I heard now many times.”

  Joel felt his glance drawn to Mr. Miller’s right pant leg, which was folded and pinned back above where his knee should have been. The first time Joel had seen the man without his artificial leg, he had felt sick to his stomach. But he had come to pay it as little mind as Mr. Miller did. In truth, the big man moved about his home and carpenter’s shed as agilely as any other man would on two legs.

  But today seemed to be different, because Mr. Miller bent forward and began massaging the end of his stump. His wife’s face instantly showed her concern. “Choseph, something the matter is?”

  “Ach, it is chust a little soreness. Nothing. Nothing.” But he did not stop his rubbing. Instead, as one great hand massaged his leg, the broad face with its rounded features turned and stared at each of his children in turn. He said nothing, but a sense of growing power seemed to fill the room. A sense of communication on a level far beyond that of words.

  “Something to help, Choseph?” Mrs. Miller asked.

  “Perhaps my shot should I have early this day,” he said.

  “Yah. So I think too.” Mrs. Miller was up and moving for the kitchen before she finished speaking. The room was silent enough for Joel to hear her open the refrigerator, shut it, and hasten back. “Here now.”

  “Thank you, wife.” Without taking his eyes from his family, he pulled the stopper from the needle, pointed the syringe straight up, tapped the glass base, and pushed the plunger until a little liquid squirted up.

  Joel knew from Simon that Mr. Miller had to have these injections several times a day. But when Mr. Miller swabbed a patch of skin, pointed the needle downward, and prepared to plunge it into his arm, Joel had to look away. He turned to his friend. Simon’s gaze remained fastened upon his father. His brow was furrowed, as though he was concentrating hard, trying to understand something. Some lesson, some message that he was attempting to grasp.

  “Well, now.”

  Joel allowed his gaze to return to Mr. Miller as he set the syringe on the side table and lifted the big family Bible. “Why do we not show our guest how we like to sing? Ruthie, you choose, why not.”

  She suggested something that Joel did not understand, and only when they began singing did he realize that the words were in German. But it did not matter. The whole family sang. But it was more than just singing. Each took a part of the harmony, even the youngest girl, and made music together with such ease and beauty that Joel could scarcely believe what he was hearing.

  He glanced from one face to the next. They sat in a loose circle around the room, some in chairs and some on the floor. There was no accompanying instrument. Some sang with eyes closed, others with eyes gazing unfocused. But there was an effortless calm to each one, a sense of having cast aside all the world and joining with one another in song.

  Hymn followed hymn. As the music continued, Joel stared at the bare walls and saw how the lack of pictures and decoration matched the simple majesty of their music. He looked at the plain table and chairs and hook rug and saw in the homemade quality the same strength of spirit and self-sufficiency that he heard in their voices. The home held neither radio nor television. Yet it now seemed complete in a way he could not understand.

  Finally the music drifted away, but the calm remained. Mr. Miller adjusted the big Book in his lap and said, “Choel, you speak no Cherman, yah? So I read the Cherman, then another for you to read in English. Who? Ruthie? Yah, you with the lovely voice. Good. We start with Isaiah, chapter fifty-two, verse seven.”

  Slowly he intoned the unknown language, one that seemed to roll much more comfortably from his tongue. Then Joel listened as Ruthie read carefully from a smaller Bible, “ ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth good tidings, who publisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good things, that publisheth salvation, that saith unto Zion, “Thy God reigneth!” ’ ”

  “Good, good. And now chust one more, I think, yah.” He turned the pages, licking his thumb and tracing one finger down the page. “Here at Matthew, chapter ten, verse thirty-four.”

  Ruthie waited until he had finished before reading, “ ‘Think not that I came to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword.’ ”

  “Such a dilemma,” Mr. Miller said when Ruth had finished. “Such a paradox.” He cast an eye to Joel and said, “Such words I understand because they are the same in Cherman. But my English, so bad it is. Can you understand?”

  “I understand you fine,” Joel said, liking the big man very much.

  “Good, good, you listen well, you try, you understand. That is good. So. These verses, do they talk of two men? No, how can it be, for does not Isaiah speak of the one who brings salvation? There is only one who this great thing can do.” He smiled down at the little girl at his feet. “And who is that, my sweet Sarah?”

  “Jesus, Papa. He can.”

  “Yah, only Jesus. But He the one is who says He comes with a sword. Such a paradox. How peace and conflict can exist together yet. In one world. In one family. In heaven or on earth? Such a mystery, yah? Such a great problem.”

  He looked from one face to the next. His expression was somber, yet his eyes were glowi
ng. “So. Let us think. What could this mean? Perhaps it is this. Perhaps peace is not meant to be man’s at all.”

  Ruthie cried out, “But, Papa—”

  “Wait, my little one. Chust wait and think. Not man’s. Never man’s. But that does not tell us, peace we can never have. No. It says, peace is only God’s. All other peace, it comes, it goes, you cannot hold any more than you hold water with a fork.”

  He paused a moment, then asked, “So a peace that comes only from what we have, will it stay?”

  There was a long pause before Simon quietly responded, “No, Papa.”

  “And why not, my son?”

  Joel was surprised at how Simon seemed embarrassed as he replied, “Because it is earthly peace, not God’s.”

  “Yah!” Mr. Miller cried triumphantly. “Peace to earthly things cannot be tied. Why? Because they come, they go, they are cut from us like with a sharpened sword. We lose this and that, health and puppies and even maybe a farm. But does this mean that saddened we must be?”

  Joel watched as one head after another gave a small shake in response.

  “But God, peace He has. God says, turn to me, and peace always yours will be. Peace is His to give. A great peace, yah. But also a dividing peace.” Mr. Miller’s eyes continued to search, probe, look from one to the other with a force that seemed to press each to look within, to think, to find the answer for themselves. “God’s peace, it is a sword. God’s peace says to us, choose. Between heaven and earth, we must choose. And those who choose, those who seek, those who for Him live, peace He gives. His peace. For us to have. For us to keep. For now, for always. Ours, because His we choose to be, and true peace is with Him only.”

  Joel sat at the Millers’ big kitchen table, silent and watchful, and waited as dinner was set in place. Here in this noisy family, all was so different from what he was accustomed to in his own home. Mrs. Miller brought her dishes to the table with a beaming pride, as though not just her work but somehow her heart was involved with what she made for dinner. The children, all five of them, chattered and laughed at once, and the father was there in his big chair at the head of the table, inhaling the steam from the dishes and already complimenting his wife.

  But it was more than just the words and the smiles. There was something else. Something Joel could not describe, yet he knew was there. The mystery that had seemed to surround their Sunday service was wrapped around them now, even though the solemnness was gone with the sadness, and all was laughter and happy talk.

  “All right, now,” Mr. Miller said in his funny accent. “Am I forgetting something, maybe? Do we chust eat now? What for is it to do next?”

  “The blessing, Papa,” Ruthie said as she came over with a huge platter of mashed potatoes, then explained to Joel, “That’s a not-funny choke Papa says every dinner.”

  “All chokes are funny, they chust need good ears to hear them,” Mr. Miller said good-naturedly, then motioned for all at the table to bow their heads. Mrs. Miller placed one hand upon her husband’s shoulder and closed her eyes. For once, Ruthie was quiet and stood by her chair, her head bowed with the others.

  Joel followed their example and listened to the strange words. He strained to understand with Mr. Miller’s accent, and he wondered how praying felt so natural in this household.

  “Amen,” the whole family chorused, and instantly the noise and tumult resumed. Joel looked from one face to the next and could not help but compare it to home. Mother would set the plates down, then take her place across from Father. They would sit there, the three of them, not looking at one another, with rarely a word said among them. Here there was not the slightest hint of discomfort. The baby squalled and was plucked up by Mr. Miller, set on his one good knee, and bounced. The child squealed with delight and tried to catch the fork as it rose and fell. It seemed as though four or five different discussions were going on at once, and everyone seemed genuinely excited about listening and talking and arguing and laughing. Joel ate and watched and wondered. He had never heard so much laughter at one table.

  After dinner, Mr. Miller took up his crutches and walked out to the front porch. When Mrs. Miller refused his offer to help clear the table, Joel followed, almost as though he was being drawn by something beyond himself. As he was leaving the kitchen, Ruthie called out, “You’re not leaving so soon yet, are you, Choel?”

  “I . . .” His voice trailed off. He pointed vaguely in the direction of the front door, not understanding at all the reason.

  Ruthie turned from the sink and gave him a smile that seemed to transform her from girl to woman. “Don’t leave now—leave next time.”

  “Sha, child, sha,” Mrs. Miller quietly scolded.

  Ruthie blushed and suddenly was once again Simon’s younger sister.

  Even more confused than before, Joel turned and walked toward the front door. He found Mr. Miller seated in the big porch swing. The day had warmed up, so if he sat in the sun, it felt genuinely comfortable. Joel selected the side of the front step that would direct his face toward the sun and eased himself down.

  Simon came out for a moment, looked at them, and left. The two of them sat there a long time, looking out at the street. Joel wondered how it was that he could remain alone with the older man and feel so comfortable.

  Finally Mr. Miller said, “The things my son tells me, Choel. Things like, your father is not a happy man.”

  “No, sir.” There was no hesitation. The comment seemed to pull an unseen plug deep within his heart, and before long the words were spilling out. How his family was, how his father acted. Mr. Miller sat and rocked and stroked his beard and listened, his craggy features set in somber lines.

  Joel talked until he ran out of words. Then he just sat there, not knowing what else to do or say. He felt as though he had suddenly become connected to someone. The emotions he had kept stored up inside for so many years had formed some sort of barrier. Now that they were out, the barrier was gone, and he could think and feel at a different level.

  Finally Mr. Miller said, “Hearts of darkness. Hearts of stone.” The words were a gentle rumble, like distant summer thunder arching through a clear sky. “Is such confusion, to think they can ever heal, no?”

  “Yes,” Joel agreed and found himself trying to swallow a sudden lump in his throat.

  “Ach, such sorrow one heart of stone can make. Impossible sorrow. Yah, yah, I know. Impossible pain. But one way there is to find healing. One way, for the hurt and the heart both. For the one who moves in blindness, and for the one who cries deep down. The same One way.”

  Despite the heavy accent, despite the rolling speech, the words seemed etched in the air between them. There was such a power that even Joel’s heart could not suppress the surge of hope. “How?”

  “Ach, that I cannot say with words. Such words I do not know. Not in English—not even in Cherman.” And yet he spoke with a smile. A soft one, but with incredible meaning upon those broad, strong features. “Perhaps there are no words for such a heart, yah? Only that which is beyond words. Only that which straight from God comes. Only His healing miracle.”

  He leaned over close, his voice falling to a murmur. “What to do, I think, is you must speak with the Master. Perhaps if you are healed, then the healing you to others can give, yah?”

  “You mean, pray?”

  “Ah, my son Simon, he says you are a smart young man. Smart, yah, I can see. You listen. You think. That is the good sign.”

  “But I don’t know how to pray,” Joel said, and somehow saying the words were not hard. Not here. Not with this strange, big, comfortable man.

  Mr. Miller stopped his rocking and leaned over until he had brought his face down close to Joel’s. “Well, well. An honor it would be, such an honor indeed, if would you let me pray the words with you.”

  11

  THE READING OF THE WILL was postponed indefinitely. The caterer was canceled. Abigail’s secretary was hastily summoned and spent a frantic weekend contacting all the relatives
and telling them not to come. From a quiet corner, Kyle watched the racing back and forth. She listened to her mother’s voice, sometimes on the verge of panic, commanding everyone within reach. For some reason, her mother never called for her or ordered her about, which was strange. Usually when these storms struck the household, Kyle was treated with the same imperiousness as the servants. But not this time. Her mother did not seek her once. It appeared that Abigail preferred not to have her around.

  Winter slowly moved to spring, and still the will was not read. Kyle knew only because there were occasional visits from irate relatives, who would arrive unannounced and demand to see Abigail immediately. They would convene in the library, where soon the voices rose to a pitch that seemed to rattle the house’s very foundations. Kyle took long walks down along the yard’s perimeter whenever the relatives arrived. She hated those bitter arguments. She hated even worse how her father’s study was turned into a battlefield. Those visits sent tremors through her, as though their angry words sullied his memory.

  By March, gatherings at the house began to take on an even grimmer tone. Groups of dark-suited men arrived, to be instantly met and taken into the library. They sat behind closed doors for hours, their voices droning on and on, punctuated by Abigail’s strident tones. Kyle heard Maggie mutter to Bertrand about how business should be taken care of in the office, not at home. But he always shushed her after a quick glance at Kyle.

  Kyle was not the least bit sorry to be excluded from those proceedings. Just as she was glad not to have to go down to the office. She did not want to visit the top floor of Rothmore Insurance and view it without her father. She was glad to not be a part of any of it. The little snippets of words she caught whenever the library doors opened and closed were more than enough—those and the harried glances the dark-suited men cast her way. She did not want to know what was going on. She wanted to keep her father’s memory detached from all this friction and scheming. He had been a businessman, yes, a good and honorable one. But he had also been a kind and loving father. Kyle wanted to know nothing that would shake her hold on this remembrance.