Refuge of the Heart, page 21
She smiled. “I am glad you think of me.”
“Hmm.” Lately not thinking of her was more of a problem than savoring the possibilities. Planning the future. There was no denying he felt more at peace as both a man and a Christian since meeting her. She slipped into her chair and picked up her hook once more. She held it up for Mitch’s inspection. “It is crocheting I do tonight. Knitting is with straight needles generally. Two of them.”
“Uh huh. Thanks for the home ec lesson. One of us needs to concentrate here.”
“Oh.” Smiling, she ducked her head as her hook wove in and out at warp speed, creating row after row of delicate stitches. Mitch angled his head, watching.
“What are you making?”
She held up the miniature frock. “A dress for Anna’s new baby doll. If I hurry, I can have many clothes made for her by Christmas.”
He looked closer, amazed. “It’s a tiny dress.”
“And a sweater for the cold days.”
“They’re beautiful, Lena.”
“Thank you. Anna will have a wonderful Christmas to remember.”
Mitch nodded as he connected the rear wheel assembly. “Have you thought of staying at my house on Christmas Eve so she wakes up and finds everything under the tree?”
“I have thought of this, yes. But I worry that your family does not approve already. How would they feel about me sleeping in your house?”
“Does that matter to you?”
“Very much.”
“Then I’ll pick you girls up at seven in the morning.”
Lena groaned. Mitch smiled as he tightened a hex nut. “Unless six would be better.”
“I think I will sleep with the chickens on Christmas Eve in this case.” His smile deepened at the fractured adage as Lena continued, “Anna is an early riser, but seven is early enough. She can snuggle with me until it is time to go.”
It wasn’t a difficult stretch of his imagination to go from the sisters snuggling under the covers to the image of Lena cradling their child someday. He swallowed hard, drew a deep breath, and went on to the pedal assembly. Definitely safer waters.
They shared a tranquil quiet. He scanned, plied, and tightened. She wove with lightning-fast fingers, the metal hook flashing in the glow of the lamp. His muffled groan brought her head up. “You have reached a problem?”
“Nothing that reversing the entire process and doing it right won’t cure.” He frowned as he started to spin his locking wrench in the opposite direction.
Her lips twitched, but she didn’t laugh. “What shall we plan for Christmas dinner?” she asked in a smooth change of subject. “Shall I cook for you that day?”
“Nope. We’ll do it together. With the kid,” Mitch answered, eyes down. He laid out the series of interconnecting hardware, then got back to work. “I always loved helping Consuelo make special holiday things. What’s your favorite food?”
Lena didn’t hesitate. “Djirdigish.”
“Say what?”
“Djirdigish. It is like American pasta but better. Then served with a garlic sauce. You will not want to kiss me, I think.”
“Well, if we both eat it, we should be all right.” He smiled up at her as he realigned the back tire, sliding a washer firmly into place. “And I’ve got mouthwash.”
“It would take more than American mouthwash to soften Djirdigish sauce. It is, how you say...” she paused, groping for the word. “Pungent.”
“How do you make it?”
She answered as she fitted the top of the little dress to the skirt. “First you boil meat. Chicken or beef. With seasonings that are very, very good. A little onion as well. Then, when the meat falls to pieces, you spoon it off and set it aside.
“The dough is prepared.” Lena frowned at a tight stitch, then nodded in satisfaction once she’d joined it to its partner below. “It is simple dough,” she continued. “Flour, salt, and water, but it must be just right. You roll and cut it, so, and give it a little twist. Then you cook the Djirdigish in the soup water from the chicken or beef. Too many and they stick, so you must watch with care. Then they are drained and placed on a tray with a dish of garlic sauce. Then you feast. The meat may be served as well, or put back in the chorp.”
“Chorp?”
“Soup. Broth. The liquid you have cooked the meat in.”
“Sounds good. Like a trumped up chicken noodle soup.”
She nodded. “It is similar but the noodles are big and thick in Djirdigish. Like American dumplings. They are the focal point, not the soup.”
“This is popular in Chechnya?”
“In my region, yes.”
“What did you do for fun?” Mitch asked, finding that putting the bolts on in the proper position really made the entire job a whole lot easier. “Before things got bad.”
Lena lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “There were many things. I played as a child when Mama did not have me work. Sometimes we would go to the Puppet Theater in Grozny. There we would see wonderful things that the puppets could do. I was very old before I realized they were not real.”
“I’ve never seen a puppet show like that.”
“This country is different. You have amusement for children everywhere. Playgrounds, movies, rooms filled with games at the mall. Television. It was not like that in Chechnya, although new things were coming. That was a time of great excitement for a little while. Then war.” Her voice settled on a down note.
Mitch reached out a hand to her knee. “I’m sorry it ended for you that way.”
She paused in her piecework, then sighed. “I think of this often. What has happened, what will happen. I pray to God for peace. For a good future for Anna. Sometimes I think that the terrible must happen for the good to come. But then I think that makes no sense, for why would God want the terrible?”
“Isn’t it man in his sin who makes the terrible?”
“But, if there is a plan...”
“God wouldn’t orchestrate the evil to lead to glory.”
“Then perhaps the word is allow? Because man can choose?”
Mitch sat back and eyed her from his spot on the floor. “We have free will, yes. And we choose. But the choice of evil is ours alone, and nothing to do with God.”
“What of necessary evil?”
“As in?”
“Protecting one’s self from others. Taking a life to spare a life.”
“A trade? I don’t think God’s into commodities.” Mitch shook his head. “He wants us righteous for His name’s sake, not resetting the rules to suit our needs.”
Lena kept her eyes on the work in her lap. “I can see why you are a good lawyer. You speak well, and are convinced of much.”
He smiled. “Thank you. But now,” he lowered his gaze to the training bike in his lap. “I must move once again to front end assembly.”
She nodded, silent.
By the time he was done the hour was late but the bike was fully functional, right down to the training wheels. A little girl’s dream.
“I’ll take it with me tonight, then hide it so she doesn’t see it before Christmas morning.” Mitch said before turning to Lena. “You must be tired. You got awfully quiet.”
She didn’t meet his eye. Her smile looked forced. Unnatural. “This is unusual for me.”
“Totally out of character,” was his wry reply. “Come here, Miss Serida. Warm me up a little before you send me off into the cold, dark night.”
She turned her glance to the window. “And no snow again. Anna was hoping for a white Christmas, but it comes and goes.”
He nodded, drawing her in. “The thermometer’s been fickle, but I heard there’s a low-pressure system moving across the plains that should hit here on Christmas Eve. They said as long as the jet stream holds, we should be in for several inches at least.”
Lena’s hand fingered the shiny chrome of the bike. She smiled as her fingers traced the shimmering pink and white tassels that flowed from the handle grips. “Your house is quite beautiful when it snows.”
He bent to give her a light kiss. “You’ll love it in the autumn as well. When the leaves turn every shade imaginable, and the spruce are green and firm. It’s a picture.”
“I am sure this is true.”
Mitch’s words framed an inviting image, but not one Lena dared dwell on.
Autumn.
The season of fall seemed far away as they made plans for a coming Christmas.
Where would she be next autumn? A new job? A new life? She felt the pressure of Mitch’s hand on her back, and for just a moment dreamed of the life they could have, the dreams they could share.
If only she hadn’t killed a vicious Russian soldier. The memory jolted her into reality.
Mitch felt the shiver and leaned the door shut. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t prop the door like that. You’ll take a chill.”
“No. I’m fine.” It wasn’t air that caused her bones to freeze, her skin to shudder. Leaning back, she looked up at him, at all that was good and beautiful about him. His compassion and attentiveness, his faith in the strength of right and wrong. She reached up and traced the side of his face with her hand. “I believe I care for you too much.”
His face softened. His smile grew. “You love me.”
“Yes.”
Sighing, he pulled her in, the bike shifting against his legs. “I thought it was too soon to tell you.” His mouth pressed kisses to her hair, her cheek, her ear. “I didn’t know how to keep it in any more. Less than two months.” He set her back, his head angled, his expression puzzled. “I feel as though I’ve been given a new path. New direction, that somehow God put you in that parking lot that night. It wasn’t chance or coincidence, Lena. I believe he meant you for me.”
“There are things we must speak of.” Her voice sounded dull and wooden. She couldn’t force a normal tone around the lump of fear swelling her throat.
Mitch indicated the sofa. “Shall we talk now?”
Lena pushed back and frowned. “It is late this night. I cannot think what to say when I am this tired.”
“You need to sleep because you have work in the morning, and I have a lot to catch up on before we decorate the tree tomorrow night. I’ll pick you and Anna up at six, okay? We’ll have a tree-trimming party.”
Pushing her confession aside, she agreed. “We will enjoy it. With Christmas music, yes?”
“And a Christmas movie in the DVD player. We’ll let Anna pick.”
“She is in love with Christmas movies. My sister is a dreamer.”
“Then she’s in the right country. We encourage dreams here.”
“Yes.” Lena looked around at the small apartment. A refrigerator with milk and eggs. Cereal in the cupboard. A stove that worked. She remembered what it had been like to hide in a dark, moldy basement with Anna, how she worried for the child’s health in such an environment.
But Anna had lived, then thrived with her sister’s love and sacrifice. Lena brought her eyes back to Mitch. “This is surely the land where dreams come true.”
Anna’s excitement as the holy day approached proved contagious. She helped Lena decorate their little tree, festooning it with a string of lights and tiny, crocheted ornaments. They made garland of cranberry and popcorn, Anna’s needle slower than Lena’s. The garland strings stretched long, and Anna knit her brow. “Why are we making so many? One is enough for our tree.”
Lena shared a Christmas secret with her precious sister. “We are making for Mitch’s tree as well. Then, he can hang the strings in the yard for the deer to eat. It is a Christmas present for him.”
“Lena,” Anna’s eyes went round, as if the thought of cranberries and popcorn was too amazing to believe. “That’s a great present.”
“I think so, too.” Through Anna’s eyes, it was a wonderful gift. Multi-purposed. But secretly she worried that her meager offerings would not be enough for a man accustomed to fine things.
She had no money to spend on lavish colognes or fancy silk ties. She knew he liked to fish when the weather was warm, so she’d found a selection of apparatus at the discount store. Hooks, bobbers, sinkers. These she could afford. She knit him a scarf in soft, black yarn, then bought black leather gloves to go with it. She made him a cheesecake topped with nuts and caramel. And the garland. Biting her lip, she thought it through.
Would he mind that she had little money to spend? She thought of the way he’d kissed her days before. The look on his face, full of love and joy. His hands, strong but gentle, holding her close.
He would not mind. She was sure of it. But the charade would have to come to an end after Christmas. They were in too deep, professing love, when Mitch knew little of her past.
That had to change. She was out of options. Keeping to herself had never been a problem, and the church people who knew of her time in Chechnya accepted her in spite of her transgressions. The blood on her hands.
But Mitch needed to know, to understand. If he could not handle the truth about her, she would deal with his absence. Some way, somehow, she would get through it, remembering the finest Christmas she ever had. Treasuring this time always.
The phone rang, scattering her thoughts. “Hello?”
“Lena, it’s Dominic. I’ve been approached by our state senator about the upcoming senate subcommittee hearings on war crimes. You know that your case was brought to their attention last month. He was calling with a personal invitation for you.”
Stiff with fear, she sank into the corner of the couch. “I cannot. They will lock me away.”
“No. No, Lena they won’t.” The pastor sighed. His voice slowed. “They will listen to you, if you care to speak. I told him it was up to you, that I would not press. After all you’ve gone through, I’m not sure what would be more therapeutic. Getting things out in the open or shunning the very thought. You’ve moved on, made a nice, solid life for both you and Anna.”
“Father, I cannot—” Fear overwhelmed her. The idea of confessing before a panel who might jail her when they learned of her treachery, pushed her to panic. “How would I live in jail? How would I care for Anna? Who would be her big sister in times of need?”
“Lena, what are you talking about? You’re not going to jail.” Dominic’s voice deepened. “Your testimony would help highlight the atrocities people suffer at the hands of unscrupulous soldiers.”
“Then this is not a hearing to put me away?”
“It is not anything of the sort. They’d have to get through Mariel and me first. Simply put, you would prepare a statement, as long as you need it to be, explaining what happened to your family in Chechnya. Testifying will not be easy,” he warned, his voice deepening. “You would relive things step-by-step, first as you write them, then as your report them to the Committee on War Crimes and Ethnic Cleansing. Of course, we would go with you.”
“I would tell all?”
The pastor drew a deep breath on the other end of the phone. A short silence ensued. Then he uttered one quiet word. “Yes.”
Quiet stretched between them. Lena gripped the phone, visions bouncing through her head. Visions she’d been able to keep at bay for long years, but which had risen in strength and importance these last weeks. Her mother, so pretty and kind. Her father, tough and hard-working, a man of great faith. Her brothers, Tomas, Andreas, and John, all dead, all gone. Her village, wiped clean of Christians. Young kindly Muslims, tortured and killed for their faith alone, simply because they were part of the wrong sect. The small Christian group in Grozny, where her father would sometimes go for fellowship, murdered one by one.
As far as she knew, she and Anna were the lone survivors. The last of their kind. Christian Chechens seeking a new world, a new way of life. She drew a breath.
“I must think on this. I am not certain I am strong enough to do this job.”
“I understand.” The pastor’s reassuring voice empathized. “If you decide to do it, we will be there for you. Every step of the way. You know that.”
“I thank you for that. I will think and pray. The answers will come from God.”
“As they should,” the pastor agreed. “Will I see you at the Christmas Eve service?”
“Yes. Mitchell and I are bringing Anna.”
“Lena,” the hesitation in the older man’s voice caught her attention. “Have you told Mitchell yet? Explained things to him?”
“No. It will wait until after Christmas.”
This time there was no hesitation in the gentle priest’s voice. “We spoke of this, child. He needs to know. He needs to hear the facts from you.”
She sighed. “I know this. But every time I make attempts, my tongue becomes tied. My throat closes and I have a hard time breathing. I am afraid,” she admitted.
“You fear him?”
“I fear losing him,” she confessed, her voice strangely calm. “To risk something so special makes me truly afraid. When something is quite dear, it hurts to lose it.”
A short silence filled Dominic’s end of the phone. He drew a breath. “It’s not always easy to trust God’s plan, Lena. To see what He has in mind. If Mitch loves you, he will understand what had to be. If he can’t, perhaps it’s better to know that now.” Once again he paused before continuing, “Think about the testimony, Lena. It wouldn’t be for some weeks yet. The committee will reconvene in late January and hold session until all are heard, sometime in February. I’ll respect whatever decision you make.”
“Thank you, Father. I will think hard.”
His voice held a gentle smile. “I’m sure you will.”
Hanging up the phone, she sank against the worn cushion of the small couch.
Nudging truths piled around her. In spite of how badly she longed to put the war in the past, forget the years of anger and want, the memories taunted, like a specter in the night. She’d guarded her privacy, secured her independence through years of hard work, and safeguarded her little sister.
Anna knew nothing of the immoral details of her conception and birth. Nothing of the days of hunger, weeks of dampness. They’d survived and put that horrific time behind them. Why couldn’t it just stay buried?
“Father, I beseech you,” she prayed in a voice humbled by apprehension. “Clear my mind, focus my vision. I do not know what choice to make. I have many truths to face, and no wish to face them. I comfort myself with how I have done for Anna, but my guilt pulls.
