by Claire Adams
The next day, we all began learning sign language so that we could communicate with him. Mamm turned the learning into a game and Danny had taken to the lessons like a fish in water. For the rest of us, it was a struggle to balance lessons with our other responsibilities, but Dat reminded us that it was part of our duty to perform good works and if communicating with our younger brother wasn't something important to us, then we might want to reevaluate our commitment to God.
"Mamm didn't tell me you were coming," he signed as he pulled back and looked up at me.
"No, she doesn't know," I said shaking my head trying to swallow the lump that rose in my throat and threatened to choke me.
"We better tell her, don't you think?" Daniel signed as he took my hand and tugged me toward the front sitting room where Mamm usually sat at this time of day mending clothing or reading verses from her family Bible while Verity and Honor did the mending.
"Gracie! Gracie! Let's tell Mamm!" Daniel signed excitedly with one hand as he tugged on my arm with his other pulling me toward the front room. I looked down into his smiling face and, for a moment, felt completely helpless.
"Let's go help Verity by setting the table, okay?" I suggested, trying to distract him. If I could hold off the questions about Mamm and Dat until Faith and Hope arrived, then we could try and explain what had happened together. My main concern was making sure that Daniel knew he would always be loved and cared for.
"Okay, Gracie!" he signed cheerfully as he dropped my hand and headed for the kitchen to gather the plates and utensils. When I followed him, he held up the napkins and signed that he'd fold them in a special way for dinner.
"That would be nice, Danny," I said facing the empty room. I looked around and felt the enormity of Mamm's absence as I realized she'd never sit in her chair quilting or darning socks again. I bit my lip to hold back the tears as Verity called me over to the stove to help her prepare supper.
"Let me take my things upstairs out of the way, okay?" I said to her as we exchanged a look over Danny's head. She nodded and I grabbed my suitcase and slipped out of the room.
I quickly climbed the stairs and dropped my suitcase off in the bedroom I had once shared with Faith and Hope. There were three twin beds placed at different angles, each with a small, wooden desk that Dat had made positioned next to it. The desks were old and worn as many a homework assignment had been done while sitting at them. Mamm had made the quilts on each bed using the scraps of fabric each of us had liked best as the base. They were traditional flower garden quilts that had been on the beds as long as I could remember. Mine was blue, Faith's was purple, and Hope's was green. As I sat down on my bed and ran my hand over the complex pattern of fabric stitched together and sewn by hand by my mother, the tears began to flow.
I raised my hand to my mouth and held in the sobs that were forming in my chest. I couldn't break down now. There wasn't time for me to grieve; my family needed me and I had to step in and keep everything in order until we could figure out how to live without our parents.
"Grace!" Faith called from the living room. "Come down and help with dinner!"
"Coming!" I called as I stood up and looked around the room one more time. No matter how far I'd gone away from the farm, whenever I came home, I felt like a child again. Today my childhood was officially over. I nodded, smoothed my dress, wiped my eyes, and steeled myself for what was about to come.
"Gracie, it's good to see you," Hope said as she signed to Danny to get the glasses out and fill them up. "How was your trip down?"
"Good, it was good," I said as we exchanged silent looks of pain.
"It's good to have you home for a bit," Faith said as she stirred the vegetables cooking on the stove. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Verity bite her lip as she mixed peas into the salad she had fixed.
"It's good to be home," I said trying to keep things from going south before we ate. "Where are Jacob and Samuel?"
"Oh, they're taking care of some farm business," Hope said in a tone that was a little too bright. "We thought it would be nice to have a family dinner here with all of you."
A small sob escaped Verity's lips and I walked over and put my arm around her whispering encouraging words. Danny looked up from his place at the table and signed, "What's wrong with all of you? You seem very sad."
Hope and Faith shot me looks that told me it was time to break the news. I knew the task was going to fall to me, so I slid in next to Danny on the bench at the table and put my arm around him.
"Where's Honor?" I asked.
"Right here," Honor said as she opened the back door and walked into the kitchen, covered in straw and dirt.
"Okay, well, Danny, we are sad because we have to share some very sad news with you," I began. I had no plan for breaking this news to my fifteen-year-old brother, so I just plowed ahead hoping that my sisters would jump in when necessary. "Danny, Mamm and Dat were in an accident this morning."
"Are they okay?" he frantically signed. "Where are they?"
"No, Danny, they're not okay," I said as I felt the tears welling up again. "Danny, Mamm and Dat were badly hurt and they didn't make it."
"Didn't make it home?" he signed hopefully.
"No, they didn't survive," I said quietly. "Mamm and Dat are gone, Danny."
My brother dropped his head and sat silently staring at the table for a long time, while the rest of us stood utterly still. Suddenly, Danny brought his hands up to cover his face and then let loose a long, thin howl. My sisters and I looked at each other stunned. I squeezed his shoulder tightly as he turned and buried his face in my neck. He held out one hand and signed a single word over and over: "No."
Chapter Eight
Adam
The next morning, I woke up ready to do battle with my best friend, but as usual, Bugsy had found a way to try and disperse the tension to make the problem seem to go away. When I went into the kitchen, I found him making breakfast for us as he sang show tunes.
"Morning," I grunted as I pulled a mug from the cupboard and poured myself a cup of coffee.
"Good morning, my friend," Bugsy said cheerfully. He turned around and I nearly dropped the mug I was holding when I saw he was wearing an apron with the words, "Domesticated bitch" over a picture of a dog holding a spatula.
"You are warped," I said grumpily as I recalled the night before. "And gay."
"I own the first, but reject the second," he replied. "Not that there's anything wrong with it."
"God, you are such an asshole," I said shaking my head as he turned back to the stove and carefully flipped what looked like an omelet.
"And you take life entirely too seriously," he replied as he added cheese and ground pepper to the fluffy, golden mixture in the pan. "Why can't you just let go and have fun for a change?"
"Because my best friend is paying hookers to seduce me!" I shouted as I slammed my fist on the counter. "Goddamnit, Bugsy, do you not see how completely fucked up that is?"
"I only did it to—" he began.
"I know, I know! You only did it for the business!" I shouted. "I'm not the business! I'm a person, Bugsy! Do you have any idea what it's like to have spent my life growing up with parents who hate each other but will band together to hate me more? And on top of that, I have followed in your genetically blessed footsteps and wondered if the girls like me because of me, my father's money, or if they simply want to use me to get closer to you?"
"I had no idea that bothered you so much," he said flipping a perfectly folded omelet onto the plate in front of me and adding a slice of buttered toast on the side.
"Oh bullshit, you've always known," I said as my ego-driven brain tried to convince my rumbling stomach to reject the peace offering. "You just choose to ignore it."
"Fine, if that's true, then I'm sorry," he said, catching me off guard. "Just eat your breakfast. You've got to be starving."
"What the fuck, Bugsy?" I muttered as I picked up a fork and dug into the eggs.
"Look, I didn't m
ean any harm, Adam," he said as he slid more eggs into the pan and turned the heat down. "I honestly thought I was doing you a favor, but I can see how it might have been the wrong way to go about things, and, for that, I'm sorry."
I ignored him, but continued eating his peace offering.
"Adam, we have a huge weight on our shoulders right now," he said as he turned back to the stove and stirred the eggs. "Honestly, I'm a little worried that we're not going to be able to make this idea work unless you are able to quickly negotiate a deal with the farm folks down south. We need to secure enough space for at least twenty turbines to land the manufacturing contract, and I'm not entirely certain that there's going to be enough interest for us to do that."
"So? If we don't land Corner Grove, we move to the next farming community," I said.
"You don't get it, do you?" he replied as he flipped the second omelet onto a plate and offered it to me. I shook my head and he picked up a fork and began shoveling food into his mouth as he spoke. "The next potential farming community where we can actually make a profit after Corner Grove is outside of Topeka fucking Kansas! You read the DOE report, too, Adam. Don’t play dumb with me now."
"And the problem with that is?"
"We're talking increased supply chain and installation costs because of the distance," he said. "And the maintenance and upkeep visits are going to exponentially increase our cash needs. Plus, it's not rated as highly as Corner Grove in terms of wind levels."
"So, I need to sell the idea in Corner Grove," I said flatly. "This still doesn't explain why you hired a hooker to fuck me in a broom closet last night."
"Jesus, are you ever going to let that go?" he sighed. "Look, you and I both know that you're in desperate need of a woman's touch."
I winced as Bugsy stated the obvious, but said nothing.
"You're a red-blooded American male! You needed a release! You deserve to have a good time!" he insisted. "Why can't you just thank me for the effort and let it go?"
"Because fuck you, that's why," I said as I stood up from the counter and shoved my plate across the surface. "Thanks for the eggs. I appreciate you not hiring breakfast out."
"Dammit, Adam!" Bugsy shouted as I walked out of the kitchen and down the hall to take a shower.
#
As usual, Bugsy and I resolved our differences through a complex mechanism of silence, peace offerings and falling back on business talk to smooth over the rough edges, and after a week of camping out in his guest bedroom, I'd gathered all the information I would need for the trip to Corner Grove.
Ten days after I’d moved in with him, I decided it was time to head out and get to work. I caught a cab to the car rental office and signed an agreement for weeklong rental of a black Mustang. Despite Bugsy's warnings about costs and keeping a low profile in Corner Grove, I figured that if he could afford to hire hookers for me, then we could also afford the cost of the car that I wanted to drive.
"What the hell, Wallace?" Bugsy yelled when I tossed the receipts for the car rental on his desk. "I told you we don't have this kind of money to be throwing around!"
"Yeah, but you had enough to rent a hooker for me?" I shot back. Bugsy said nothing as he fumed in silence for a few minutes.
"Fine, the car is it, though," he said sternly. "We seriously do not have a lot of money, Wallace. We have to conserve resources if we're going to land this deal and make it generate a profit."
"Understood, boss," I said giving him a mock salute as he handed me the paperwork for the bed and breakfast I'd be staying at in Corner Grove. "What is this? Don't they have online check in?"
"You've got to be shitting me," he said shaking his head. "You're going down to Amish country, Adam. You'll be lucky if you can find a phone down there. Forget about online check in and anything related to the modern world. Speaking of which, don't forget your phone charger."
"Oh please, I've read about the Amish in those communities, Bugsy," I said giving him a skeptical look. "They're not nearly as backward as you think they are. How the hell do you think they do business down there?"
"I think you're in for a major surprise, my friend," he said shaking his head. "But, whatever."
We spent the next hour hashing out the possible appointments I'd have over the next two weeks. Our goal was to land enough farmland to be able to install the twenty turbines, and in order to do that we'd need at least five farms to agree to sign on. I was optimistic that I could sell the technology based on what little I knew about the Amish and their way of life.
"I hope you're right about all of this," Bugsy said as he rubbed his chin.
"C'mon, man, they hate government involvement and they don't take energy from the electrical grid," I said trying to convince him I was right. "There's nothing here that says they wouldn't give it back to the grid and make some money from it. Look at all their businesses in this area! Furniture manufacturing and grocery stores, forget about the farming they do. It's gonna be like shooting fish in a barrel!"
"I hope you're right, Wallace," Bugsy repeated with a worried look.
Later that afternoon, I watched Chicago's skyline disappear in my rearview mirror as I headed down to Corner Grove. The drive down provided an interesting contrast in landscapes as the city quickly gave way to miles of lush, green farmland stretching out in front of me. I noticed the air becoming cooler the farther south I drove. Halfway to my destination, I rolled down my windows and breathed deeply, filling my lungs with clean, fresh air.
I thought about what Bugsy had said, and grudgingly admitted to myself that he might have had a point. I didn't have a good track record with women, and there had been a long line of women I'd thought I could love, but the reality was that I had never trusted any of them.
I sighed as I ran a hand through my hair and stepped harder on the gas pedal, and quickly drove the thoughts from my brain. Now was not the time to be doing self-analysis about my romantic failings; I had a job to do. I chuckled as I thought about the fact that I was headed into a community largely made up of Amish people. Women were not going to be a problem there.
I arrived in town just as the light was fading. I flipped on my lights as I drove through the small town to get familiar with its layout. Corner Grove was one of those blink-and-you'll-miss-it towns where the stores and restaurants were centralized in a few blocks along Main Street. I quickly found the place I would be staying at the end of the strip.
"Oh, hell no," I muttered as I double-checked the address on the paperwork Bugsy had given me with the address on the front door.
I sat outside the large, white house with the meticulous garden in front and a sign hanging from the front porch that read, "Yoder's Lodgings. Doing the Lord's work since 1987." Bugsy had conveniently picked the most traditionally Amish bed and breakfast in town. I cursed him under my breath as I looked up and down along the street to see if there was a Best Western or a Holiday Inn somewhere around. When I realized that I was out of luck, I climbed the stairs and went to check in.
The desk clerk looked up from her knitting, pulled a pair of half glasses off the bridge of her nose, and let them hang around her neck on a black lanyard as she smiled warmly at me.
"Welcome! Welcome! Are you looking for lodgings?" she cheerfully inquired as she stood up and walked around the desk. She was a plump woman in a purple dress, wearing a starched white cap pulled tightly over her white hair. "If so, we've got a room for you!"
"Yes, I do need a room," I nodded. "For a couple of days."
"We can most certainly do that! I'm Mrs. Elsa Yoder," she said in a cheerful voice that put the emphasis on the Mrs. and had the hint of an accent I couldn't quite place, but knew was related to German or Dutch. "Welcome to Corner Grove."
"Hello, Mrs. Yoder," I said holding out my hand, which she ignored. "I'm Adam Wallace."
"Did you have a long drive, dear?" she asked as she looked around for my suitcase. "You don't seem to have any things, do you?"
"No, not long. It was a short drive f
rom Chicago. My bags are out in the car," I said waving toward the street. "I'll go out and get them."
"If you like, I'll have my son, Gabe, go bring them in for you," she said with a wide smile as she gestured to me. I shook my head to discourage her from calling Gabe to get my bags, so she shrugged as she continued, "Come and let me get you registered, and then show you around our establishment, Mr. Wallace."
I filled out the paperwork, showed my identification, and then paid for two nights before following Mrs. Yoder into the sitting room where she informed me that tea would be served at eleven in the morning and four in the afternoon, if I was so inclined. She moved on to the dining room where she said that breakfast and dinner would be served each day.
"Breakfast is at seven sharp and supper at six," she said cheerfully tapping the large oak table. "We're very prompt, Mr. Wallace. And if you want to eat, you'd be wise to follow suit!"
I nodded as she moved out of the dining room and began to climb up the wide staircase that led the second floor. I marveled at the polished wood stairs and gleaming banister. Someone had taken a great deal of care of the interior of this house, and it showed.
On the wall to my left hung an assortment of large quilts with designs that looked plain, but were probably much more complex than my untrained eye could discern. Mrs. Yoder gave a brief history of each one as she quickly climbed the stairs and as we reached the top step, she turned and said, "Have you ever slept beneath a homemade quilt, Mr. Wallace?"
"I can't say that I have, ma'am," I said shaking my head.
"Well, tonight we'll change that," she said nodding her head as she walked down the long hallway and stopped in front of a door at the end. She pushed the door open and walked into a room that looked like it had been pulled from another era.
The walls were painted mint green and the wood floors were a dark brown. There was a double bed, a nightstand, and a dresser all made of the same, dark wood on the floor. It felt like I was in a carton of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I looked around for the closet, but the room didn't seem to have one.