Code Name Edelweiss by Stephanie Landsem

Author:Stephanie Landsem [Landsem, Stephanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Christian / Historical, FICTION / Historical / General
ISBN: 9781496460691
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers
Published: 2023-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 34

LIESL

“Will Daddy ever come back?” Tess said in a whisper that wrenched my heart.

The excitement over Chester caused chaos, and by bath time, I was ready to wring Wilhelm Otto’s neck. Finally Steffen settled into bed and closed his eyes, his arms around Chester, who purred by his side like she hadn’t any idea of her recent transformation.

“Mommy?” Tess said when I didn’t answer.

I sat on the bed beside her, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland open on my lap. Did she suspect her father would not return? Did she feel the same abandonment that I did? I would give anything to keep that darkness from her. But how could I? I considered my answer carefully. She would see through vague assurances and I would not lie to my children. “I don’t know, sweetheart. But I know one thing. Daddy loved you.”

“If he loved me, why did he leave?” Tess asked.

I had no answer to that. “I will never leave you,” I said. “I promise.”

Tess surprised me, as she often did, with an abrupt shift. “Why does God let people do bad things, Mutti? Like the mean man at the cafeteria?”

It was a night of hard questions, and a proper answer did not immediately come to me. I thought of the man in the cafeteria, refusing service to a woman with hungry children. Men who said they loved you and left. Men who wanted power and hated. Women like Gertrud and Thekla. Why did God allow it? “I think God allows people to choose. And some choose bad.”

“But he could stop the bad, couldn’t he?” Her little face was so serious, so intent on my answer, I felt a flutter of panic. What if I got this wrong? But the answer came to me after a moment. One that I thought correct. “He can do anything. And he does—sometimes. Maybe not how we would do so. And maybe we don’t see it right away.” Or even in our own lifetimes, I wanted to say. But that was too much for a child her age to understand. Too much for me to understand.

“And God can do something else,” I told her, snuggling down close to her. I could tell Steffen was still awake, still listening, even as he pretended sleep. “He can make good come from bad. Like when he let his Son die on the cross, everybody thought he was dead and was sad, weren’t they?”

“And then he was alive and everybody was happy,” she finished.

“Yes, just like that.”

Tess was not done with her questions. “What do you do when you do something bad and you wish you hadn’t?”

An easier answer, one I was sure of. “We ask God to forgive us. And if we hurt someone, we ask them to forgive us also.”

She fidgeted with the pink satin ribbon at the neck of her flannel nightgown, twisting it around her finger. “Hildy and Katya, they told me not to play with Frieda. That she had germs.”

Here was the heart of the matter.

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