Read Online Tomorrow's Dream by Janette Oke, Davis Bunn - Free Book Online Page B

Simon through the day’s work. That afternoon, Simon invited him to go along to the Brueder farm. Simon had been calling on the middle daughter, a lovely young woman named Patience. She carried her name with grace, a quiet, steady girl who reminded Joel of Simon’s mother. She had been Ruthie’s friend all their lives, and her joy over Joel’s news was something to behold.
    The Brueders made them both welcome with buoyant noise, full of jokes and plannings and heavily accented English. The two men returned home with the sunset, the horse-drawn cart full of boisterous laughter and shared memories.
    But when they pulled into the Miller farm, they were greeted with silence and lengthening shadows. Even the farm animals seemed subdued. Simon exchanged a puzzled glance with Joel, then frowned, and instantly Joel knew Simon feared for his father.
    They leaped from the cart and raced up the stairs and through the front door. Relieved to see Joseph seated at the table, they were slowed by the sound of quiet weeping.
    Joel looked from one tearstained face to the other before saying, “It’s Charles Kenneth, isn’t it?”
    â€œYah, yah,” Joseph Miller sadly rumbled. “The little baby, he has gone home.”

10 
    The summer heat hung as heavy as the clouds, thick and cloying. The day begged for rain, but none fell. The air was still and hot and hard to breathe. The somber group that had gathered for Charles Kenneth’s funeral took their cues from the day.
    Kyle sat in the church’s front row. Kenneth was there beside her, weeping softly. Abigail was on her other side, alternating between stubborn stoicism and heaving sobs. Beside her sat Martha and Harry Grimes, both of them far beyond the power of speech. Throughout the service, Kyle remained so quiet and still her black veil did not even move with her breath. She had no more tears to weep.
    She had shed the last tear back in the hospital, when she had appeared in time to see the frantic activity surrounding her baby’s crib. So many people had gathered and reached in and pulled over equipment and prepared syringes and shouted in panic-stricken voices that she could not even see her child.
    Her scream was so loud it had felt as though her throat had split. Her cry had shocked the entire tableau into stillness. Two of the nurses had hurried forward to catch and hold her away from the crib. But the young doctor had been there and called to them in a sharp voice of his own.
    They had formed an aisle of mourners, those doctors and nurses. She flew through them and collapsed there before the small bed. She threw her arms around the tiny baby boy and emptied her heart of everything that was left. All feeling, all hope, all life of her own. All had flowed out to spill upon the baby she had lost.
    After the church service, Kyle felt a moment’s overwhelming anguish when the people rose to watch them leave. It came and went too quickly for her to speak, even if she had had the strength to utter a word. Then she slipped back into the shell that had enveloped her ever since leaving the hospital that day. She was glad for this shell. It was her preservation. It kept her from going insane—not from grief, but from emptiness. The rebellion passed, and Kyle managed to stand on her own strength. She felt Kenneth grasp one arm and Abigail the other. Together they turned and followed the tiny coffin, borne in the arms of one pallbearer, down the aisle and out of the church.
    The drive to the cemetery took forever, yet was over in minutes. Kyle allowed hands to guide her into a chair at the side of the grave. The void at the center of her being filtered everything. The moment lacked color. It was as gray and featureless as the sky. Still, she managed to hear the weeping which surrounded her. Across the grave from where she sat, the Miller family stood and keened with grief. Numbly she wondered why they should cry now. Charles Kenneth was