William Krueger - Ordinary Grace

“I’m just thinking.”

“What?”

“Miracles happen, Frank. But they’re not the kinds of miracles I thought they’d be. Not like, you know, Lazarus. Mom’s happy again, or almost, and that’s kind of a miracle. And yesterday I didn’t stutter, and you want to know something? I think I never will.”

“Terrific, I’m happy for you.”

Which was true, although the happiness was greatly overshadowed by the terrible enmity I felt toward Emil Brandt.

“I just think maybe we should let things go, maybe put everything in God’s hands is what I’m saying, and hope for some kind of regular miracle.”

I stopped pacing and looked at Jake’s face. There was something so guileless about it and-I don’t know another word except beautiful. I sat down beside my brother.

“What was it like?” I asked him. “Your miracle?”

He thought a moment. “It wasn’t something that came over me, like I saw a light or heard a voice or anything. I just. .”

“What?”

“I just wasn’t afraid anymore. I mean, maybe nobody else would even think of it like a miracle, but for me it felt that way. And that’s what I’m saying, Frank. If we put everything in God’s hands, maybe we don’t any of us have to be afraid anymore.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

“I thought so, too. I guess I was wrong.”

Gus walked into the sanctuary. “Okay,” he said. “I think it’s best if we have this discussion here, keep your mother out of it for the moment. Who wants to fetch your dad?”

I knew Jake wouldn’t go so I turned and left the church. The sun was just beginning to set and above the hills the clouds were already ablaze with an angry orange glow. I walked into the house and the first thing I heard was my mother playing the piano, the Moonlight Sonata. She hadn’t played since Ariel disappeared and I realized how empty the house had been without music. And there was my father on the sofa reading the newspaper as he often did on Sunday evenings when the business of the day was finally finished for him. I almost stopped and turned back because as much as I wanted Ariel’s killer known I wanted more for life to be normal again. But once the question of Emil Brandt’s guilt had come to me it was a consideration too awful to hold on to alone and so I went to where my father sat and said, “Gus wants to see you.”

“What about?”

“It’s important. He’s at the church.”

“Where’s Jake?”

“He’s there, too.”

My father gave me a puzzled look and folded his paper and set it down. “Ruth,” he said, “I’m going to speak with Gus. I’ll be gone a bit. Frank and Jake are with me.”

She continued playing and without looking up from her keyboard said, “Stay out of trouble.”

As we walked to the church my father put his arm around my shoulder. “It’s going to be a beautiful sunset, Frank.”

I didn’t answer because I didn’t give a crap about the sunset and in another minute we were standing with Gus and Jake.

Gus said, “Do you want to tell him, Frank, or do you want me to?”

I told my father everything.

When I finished Gus said, “He makes sense, Captain.”

My father leaned against the altar rail, deep in thought.

“I need to talk to Emil,” he finally said.

“I want to be there,” I blurted.

“Frank, I don’t think-”

“I want to be there. I have a right to be there.”

My father shook his head slowly. “This won’t be the kind of discussion that a thirteen-year-old needs to be a part of.”

“Captain, beg your pardon, but I think Frank has a point. He’s been involved in this mess all along. It was him who pointed you toward Brandt. Seems to me he has a right to be there, if that’s what he wants. I know I’m an outsider, but I thought you might want another point of view.”

My father considered then he looked at my brother. “What about you, Jake? You feel a burning need to be there?”

“I don’t care,” Jake said.

“Then I’d rather you didn’t come. You either, Gus. I don’t want Emil to feel ganged up on.”

I was amazed. My father didn’t sound angry at all. He seemed far too calm.

I said, “He did it, Dad.”

“Frank, it never pays to convict someone in advance of knowing all the facts.”

“But he did it. I know he did it.”

“No. What you’re thinking makes a certain sense, but it doesn’t take into account the kind of man Emil Brandt is. I have never sensed from him the depth of violence what you’re talking about would require. So I’m believing that we know only part of the story right now. If Emil is truthful with us, we may know it all and understand.”

Through the chancel’s stained-glass window the setting sun shot fire and the altar and the cross blazed and the chancel rail and the pews and the floor all around my father burned and I couldn’t understand how amid all that flame he could stand so calm. His reasonableness was something that in the past I’d admired greatly but I found it maddening now. Me, I just wanted to get Emil Brandt strung up.

“If you go with me, Frank, you have to be quiet and let me do the talking. Do you promise?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I mean it.”

“I promise.”

“All right. Gus, why don’t you and Jake go keep Ruth company. She’s in a mood to play, and I know how she appreciates an audience.”

Gus said, “If she asks where you’ve gone?”

“Tell her anything you like,” he said, “except the truth.”

The drive to the home of Emil Brandt was no more than five minutes but it felt like forever getting there. Because of my father’s doubts, seeds of doubt had been planted in my own thinking and I thought maybe Jake was right. Maybe I should have said nothing and left the resolution of the whole mess in God’s hands. But what was done was done and when we parked in front of the old farmhouse I got out and steeled myself for the ordeal ahead.

As we approached the porch I could hear Emil Brandt playing his grand piano inside. I knew the piece. It was something Ariel had composed and in the wash of its beauty I swore I could feel Ariel’s presence. We stood on the porch until the piece was finished then my father-reluctantly, I could tell-raised his hand and knocked on the screen door.

He called, “Emil?”

“Nathan?”

Through the screen I saw Brandt rise from the great piano and come to greet us. He pushed open the door and said, “Who’s with you?”

“Frank,” my father said.

He smiled with pleasant surprise. “What brings you both back so soon?”

“We need to talk.”

The smile fell away and Brandt looked troubled. “This sounds serious.”

“It is, Emil.”

Brandt stepped outside and we took the wicker chairs where not long before he’d sat in good friendship with my parents. With the sun down, we sat in the moody blue of dusk.

“Well?” he said.

“Did you father my daughter’s child, Emil?”

My father asked it so directly that it startled even me and I could see that Brandt was clearly taken aback.

“What kind of question is that, Nathan?”

“An honest one. And I would appreciate an honest answer.”

Brandt turned his face away and held himself motionless for a long time. “She was in love with me, Nathan. Blind and battered as I am, she loved me.”

“Did you love her, Emil?”

“Not in that way, not really. I’d come to rely on her greatly, and I loved her presence in this house, and she reminded me so much of. .”

“So much of whom?”

“Of her mother, Nathan.”

“And that’s why you made love to an eighteen-year-old girl? She reminded you of her mother?”