“He says he’s your ride.”
“I’ve already called someone else to come and get me.”
“Can I tell him how you’re doing?”
Rebecca turned her head from the nurse and stared at the wall. “Tell him I’m much better off without him.”
* * * * *
Mrs. Johnson pulled the car in front of Rebecca’s house. “I’ll help you in,” she said.
In spite of the searing pain up her arm and shoulder, Rebecca popped the door open and jumped out. “I can manage.”
“You sure?”
“I’ll be fine.”
The hospital ordeal was finally over. After the doctor gave her a crisp sling and discharge instructions, Rebecca had sneaked out the back way to Mrs. Johnson’s waiting van. Undeterred, Levi tracked Rebecca’s escape and tenaciously followed in his Toyota, back to Apple Lake like a stray puppy.
Glancing behind her, she saw Levi sitting in his dented car at the entrance to the long driveway, leaning as far forward as he could and waiting for Mrs. Johnson to back out. “Thank you a million times for the ride, Mrs. Johnson. You saved me today.”
“You called at a good time. My soap was over, and I had nothing else to do all afternoon. Get some rest, and I’ll see if one of the Newswenger girls can clean for me until you’re better.”
Rebecca made her way to the house as rapidly as she could without jarring her shoulder. She must be safely hidden inside before Levi could intercept her. Oh, that she had never asked him to take her skiing!
Rebecca slammed the front door behind her and stormed into the kitchen. She stopped short, and her heart sank. Wednesday afternoon. Marvin was here.
He sat at the table with Linda, Max, and Danny. Linda must have been in charge of dinner. They were eating hot dogs and dill pickles, and the cupboards practically sagged with dirty dishes.
They stared at her in silent disbelief. She must look a sight. Englisch clothes, hair askew, arm in a sling… She chastised herself for not sneaking through the back door.
“What happened to your arm?” Danny asked with his mouthful of pickles.
“Where have you been?” Linda said.
Rebecca ignored the questions and Marvin’s shocked expression and went to the sink. She turned her back on her family, filled a pot with water, and put it on the stove to heat up. Then she put the plug in the drain and turned on the faucet. She poured dish soap under the cold running water and filled the sink with dishes left from breakfast and lunch. Disregarding her throbbing shoulder and the deafening silence behind her, Rebecca started washing dishes with her one good hand.
As expected, she heard a knock at the door.
She looked at Marvin and tried to remove any emotion from her voice. “Tell him I will not see him.”
Without taking his eyes off her, Marvin rose deliberately from his chair, laid his napkin on the table, then disappeared into the living room. Rebecca could imagine his smug expression when he opened the door and discovered who stood on the porch.
Levi’s voice cut through her soul. “I need to talk to Rebecca.”
A long pause. “What did you do to her arm?”
“I would never hurt her.”
“She will not see you.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Go away,” Marvin said. “She does not want to see you.”
Rebecca heard Marvin shut the door partway and Levi put out a hand to stop it. “Please,” he said, talking louder. He must have suspected she could hear him. “Someone as good-hearted as Rebecca would give even her worst enemy a chance to explain and ask for forgiveness.”
“So you did hurt her arm.”
“Please ask her to come out.”
Marvin shut the door, and Rebecca heard him slide the dead bolt into place. When he came into the kitchen, she picked up the frenetic pace of her pot-scrubbing.
“What did he do to you?” Marvin asked, his words charged with indignation.
Rebecca winced as her sudden movements pulled at her shoulder.
Max jumped to his feet. “Sit, Rebecca. Danny, finish the dishes.” He pulled Rebecca gently by her good arm and led her to his chair at the table. Kneeling beside her, he laid his hand over hers. “You’re as pale as a sheet,” he said. “Is your arm broken?”
Rebecca shook her head. “Collarbone.”
Marvin towered over her and folded his arms. “Why are you dressed like that? Your fater warned me that boy would be trouble.”
Rebecca met eyes with Max in unspoken communication. Max stood and gave Marvin a firm pat on the shoulder. “Denki for coming today, Marvin,” Max said. “But it is time for you to leave. Rebecca needs rest.”
“I will stay,” Marvin said, straining for the bravado he didn’t have. “He won’t dare threaten you while I am here.”
“Levi would never harm us,” Max said. “And we will take care of our own.”
Marvin looked to Rebecca for support. She averted her eyes and grabbed on to Max’s hand. Fourteen-year-old Max stared Marvin down until Marvin surrendered. After a brief hesitation, he lifted his hat from the stand and reluctantly put on his coat.
“Send to my house if you need help,” he said.
Rebecca nodded and tried to hide her relief that Marvin was going. Max turned to her, and she mouthed a “Thank you.”
Marvin frowned in frustration and stomped out of the kitchen. The door closed with a loud bang, and they heard his heavy steps on the porch.
“What happened, Rebecca?” Max said. “And what does it have to do with Levi?”
Rebecca covered her face with her hand. “I fell, skiing. It’s starting to hurt terrible.”
All heads turned when they heard another knock at the door. Rebecca couldn’t find her breath.
“Do you want me to make him leave?” asked Max.
“Jah, please.”
Max walked out of the kitchen, and Rebecca heard him go outside.
“You went skiing?” Danny said, abandoning his dish duty and sitting next to Rebecca.
“Did they take you to the hospital?” Linda asked.
Rebecca nodded.
“How will we pay?”
“I don’t know,” said Rebecca.
“It’s not coming out of my money,” Linda insisted. “I am saving for a scooter.”
“Did Levi go skiing with you?” Danny asked.
They heard the door open. Max walked through the kitchen and down the hall. He came back carrying a thick quilt from his bed.
“What are you doing?” Rebecca said.
“He won’t leave. He says he will stay on that porch until you come out. I’m taking him a blanket because it’s cold out there, and from the set of your mouth, it looks like he’ll be out there a long time.”
Rebecca took deep gulps of air to keep from breaking down. “He can freeze to death out there, for all I care.”
Max’s dark expression made him appear years older. “He’s crying, Rebecca. Crying. What happened?”
“He’s a liar and a fake. An Englischer, Max. He pretended to be Amish so Fater would let him come to the farm.”
“That is no reason to leave him out in the cold,” Max said, raising his voice. “Levi is a gute person, Englisch or not.”
“You don’t know what he did!” Rebecca yelled back.
Max pulled Danny off his chair and sat next to Rebecca. “Whatever it was, as a Christian, you should hear him out. Get off your high horse and go out there.”
“You don’t know, Max. Stay out of it.”
Still clutching the quilt, Max scowled and stormed out of the house.
Danny immediately slid into the chair beside her. Tears filled his eyes. “He will get real cold out there.”
Rebecca’s resistance slackened. Danny was a better Christian than she. “He will leave when it gets cold enough,” she said.
“I don’t think so,” Danny said. “Remember how he stayed until midnight painting the last of the red on the barn? He won’t quit easy. I don’
t think he’ll go away unless you talk to him.”
The thought of facing Levi made Rebecca sick to her stomach. How could she look into those penetrating brown eyes that stunned her senses with their depth, knowing what he had done? But Danny was right. Levi refused to give up on Rebecca. He loved her too much to ever quit trying.
She caught her breath. He loved her—she knew it beyond a doubt. Her heart pounded with miserable longing. That was why he would wait on her porch until he turned to dust and the wind blew him away. He loved her, and she could not bear the thought of it.
Keeping his eyes glued to Rebecca’s face, Danny wiped a tear from his cheek. “Do you want me to come out with you? I don’t mind the cold.”
Rebecca sighed. “Nae, I will go myself.”
Danny supported her arm as she slowly rose to her feet. Every movement sent shock waves through her body. “Are you okay?” he said.
“I will call if I need you,” she said.
Danny helped her walk to the door and opened it for her. She let go of his shoulder and stepped out onto the porch.
Levi sat on the bench, his knees to his chin, with his arms wrapped around his legs. His forehead rested on his knees with the blanket draped around his shoulders. When Rebecca emerged, he jumped to his feet. He grabbed a stunning bouquet of long red roses from the bench and held them out to her. “Rebecca,” he said, his eyes brimming with sorrow.
She stood her ground. “I don’t want your roses.”
Dejected, he laid them on the bench. “You must be cold,” he said. She stood motionless as he took the quilt from his shoulders and wrapped it around her, taking care not to bump her arm in the process. She refused to be moved by his singular kindness. She shrugged the quilt off her shoulders and set it down on the bench, smothering his roses.
The gesture was not lost on him. He riveted her attention with a tormented look. His eyes were too brilliant. She couldn’t look away. “What do you want, Levi?”
“Tell me what words to say so you won’t hate me.” He took a step closer. “I’ll do anything.”
She didn’t answer. He reached out and grabbed her good hand. She snatched it away. “Don’t touch me.”
“Rebecca, you have to believe how sorry I am about the accident. That memory tortures me every day of my life. I relive it over and over, wishing like crazy that I could change the past. Please forgive me.”
“Forgive you? Dottie Mae is dead. Dead. And you and your friends drove off and let her die because you didn’t want to get caught.”
“That’s not true—”
“You will answer to God.”
Levi hung his head. “You told me once that you always take people at face value. That you see what I really am inside. Can’t you see that now?”
“How can I ever love you? You are a liar and a drunk. And a—and a murderer.”
Rebecca immediately chastised herself for that part about loving him. Where had that come from? Of course she didn’t love him. She never had. The thought of loving such a person repulsed her.
Her words struck him dumb. They stared at each other for a thirty-second eternity.
“Please, Rebecca,” he said.
She turned to go back into the house. “I have chores.”
“I can’t change it, Rebecca,” he said in one last-ditch effort to sway her. “I wish it had been me in that buggy instead of Dottie Mae.”
“So do I.”
Her words found their mark. Levi caught his breath and stumbled a few steps backward. His chest heaved up and down as the tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Rebecca,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“So you’ve said. Now go away.”
He backed slowly down the steps, never taking his eyes from her face. And then he was gone. Rebecca stood motionless on the porch, staring in the direction Levi had gone, listening as the rumbling echo of his Toyota slowly faded to nothing.
She didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath. She took air into her lungs in spasms, as if she had just spent hours weeping bitterly for what might have been. Closing her eyes, she bit her lower lip. Hard. Block out every other pain, no matter how intense. Don’t scream in frustration or guilt or heartbreak.
Don’t cry.
Never, ever cry.
Why would she ever waste tears on Levi Cooper? Dottie Mae would scold her harshly.
Did our friendship mean nothing? she would say. Spend your tears on me, not on one of my killers. No matter that he has stolen your heart. Do not love him.
I don’t. I won’t love him. He is dead to me now.
With her good hand, Rebecca scooped up the quilt and the bouquet of roses from the bench. They probably cost Levi upwards of sixty dollars. He shouldn’t have bothered. She thudded her foot a couple of times against the front door, and Danny immediately opened for her.
“Where’s Levi?” he said.
Rebecca pushed past her eager brother, marched to the kitchen, and shoved the roses into the garbage bin.
“He’s gone,” she said. “Gone for good.”
* * * * *
Levi stumbled to his car, slammed the door, and tore out of Rebecca’s driveway. He drove in whatever direction the road took him until his vision blurred and he couldn’t seem to find his way.
He was going to lose it.
After pulling into an ancient gas station spotted with rust, he parked his car and rested his head on the steering wheel to stop the world from going in circles.
Her name was Dorothy. Levi hadn’t even made the connection.
Oh, please, dear heavenly Father. Anything but this. Could You hate me any more than You do? I can’t bear this punishment.
He felt as if he were plunging from a jagged cliff into a river of stones that tumbled and crushed and pulverized him into dust. He longed for a stiff wind to blow him into oblivion.
“I wish it had been me in that buggy instead of Dottie Mae.”
“So do I.”
Crying out in pain, he put his car into Drive and squealed the tires in an effort to get away. He had to find a drink. He had to have a drink.
* * * * *
The gravel crackled under Levi’s tires as he pulled up along the side of the road. He parked far enough from the shoulder that there was no risk of a passing motorist hitting his car in the dark. The cold night air felt good after sitting in his stifling car. Clutching the neck of his unopened bottle, he staggered to the rocky bank of the half-frozen river where he and his dad used to spend lazy afternoons, fishing.
For a moment, Levi forgot his self-loathing. Anger at his dad welled up inside him. If it hadn’t been for Dad, Levi wouldn’t have been so reckless, wouldn’t have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Dad were still around, none of this would have happened.
But rage at his dad couldn’t hold Levi for long. He knew precisely where to lay the blame. Oh, how he hated himself for what he had done! The despair engulfed him. Now Rebecca hated him too. There were no words of comfort that would sway her. She despised the very sight of him. How could he bear her contempt?
He had lost her.
He raised his bottle of whiskey in the moonlight. This was the only thing that ever gave him comfort. It dulled the pain enough to let him function, let him forget for a few hours what he was. He eagerly peeled the wrapping off the lid. In his carelessness, he pulled the wrong way, and the sharp foil sliced through his finger. Good. A new pain to dull the old one. He tried to twist off the lid, but it wouldn’t budge. No matter. He’d never met a liquor bottle he couldn’t open.
Doubling his efforts, he grasped the bottle tightly, but his hand slipped around the lid as if it were greased.
Growling, he took a deep breath and contemplated bashing the thing with a rock, when a glint of light on the river caught his eye. A cloudless night in Wisconsin in December was rare, and the moon glowed unhindered in the sky, bathing the frosty water in a sparkling glow. Momentarily captivated by the brilliance, he gazed out over the water, a
nd Rebecca’s bright eyes seemed to appear in the reflection. He heard her voice.
“Jesus will carry it for you if you give it to Him.”
“It’s my burden, Rebecca, not His.”
“Everything is His burden.”
He wished he could believe it. He wanted to believe it with all his heart. But how could God ever love, ever forgive him? He tapped a knuckle between his eyebrows in an attempt to drum Rebecca’s voice out of his head.
“Can a woman forget her sucking child? …yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.”
Levi didn’t know how that Scripture found its way into his brain, but he heard it again and again. Focusing his eyes across the river, he pictured Jesus standing on the other side with His arms outstretched.
“I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.”
What did that mean?
In a flash of insight, Levi knew exactly what it meant. The Lord had paid a high price for sinners like him. Anyone could see the price if they looked at His hands.
Rebecca’s voice rang inside his head like a bell.
“There are no lost causes.”
Just look at the hands.
He felt as if he were standing on the railroad tracks as a train came full speed and bowled him over. The weight of his life, his mistakes, hit him and threw him into an imaginary brick wall. Unable to support himself, he groped his way to the nearest tree and wrapped his arm around it.
Bowing his head and letting the grief overcome him, he wept, spilling out tears with every emotion he had buried deep.
That poor girl. Her death threw countless lives tossing and rolling in its wake: her family, her friends, his old friend Derek who was with him in the car that night, his family, Rebecca, his own…. Tonight, more than ever, the weight of consequences crushed him. How could Jesus ever lift it? It was too heavy.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
He moaned in exhaustion, his strength spent.
Levi looked down through tear-filled eyes. He still had the bottle. Again he tried to unscrew the lid. This time it opened with ease. He tipped the bottle upside down and poured out every drop. The whiskey sloshed and splashed on the rocks.