by Beth Wiseman
“Wie bischt?” Lydia set the carrier on the floor. Mattie sucked on the corner of her blanket, something she’d just started doing. “Are you in pain?”
A hazy expression settled over Margaret’s somber face. “Ya, I guess so. Are you the person coming to give me the medication?”
Lydia hadn’t realized how vested she’d become in Margaret’s well-being, and not being recognized stung more than Lydia would have expected.
“Um, nee. It’s me, Delila.” She lifted the carrier by the handle. “And I brought Rebecca.” I’m sorry for the lie, Gott. Lydia didn’t know what else to do. She longed for a time when lies and avoidance of truth would no longer be a part of her life.
“Nice of you to come.” Margaret flinched, and Lydia wondered if she should find a nurse.
“Do you want me to read to you?” Lydia reached for the Bible she’d left on the table by the bed.
“Nee, but danki for offering.” Her eyes were glassy, and she slurred her words a little. Maybe they were giving Margaret too much medication. “Mei dochder, Rebecca, was here earlier.” She spoke in a whimper. “Somehow, she’s all grown up now, and I don’t remember how that happened. I could have sworn she was still a boppli.” A look of despair spread across her face. “But I told her where the money is buried. I figure she’ll need it to bury me.”
Lydia’s mouth fell open, and she suddenly felt very protective of Margaret. If the rumor about buried money was true, then someone was taking advantage of Margaret. Or did she really have a grown daughter taking advantage of her mother after not bothering to see her all these years? A more likely scenario was that Margaret just thought someone else was Rebecca.
“I’m going to go see about your pain medication.” Lydia lifted the carrier and was almost out the door when she turned back around, her heart heavy. “Do you need anything else?”
“Nee,” Margaret said softly as the hint of a smile came across her face. “That’s a lovely boppli you have.”
“Danki.” Lydia tried to smile but quickly left the room. She knew she and Mattie had become endeared to Margaret, but she hadn’t realized how mutual the sentiment was until now. At least she hoped it was mutual. Maybe Margaret would know them if they came back tomorrow.
She stopped at the nurses’ station, which had been vacant when she’d first arrived. Now Daisy was seated behind the counter.
“Did Margaret have a visitor today?” There was a little hostility in her voice, and the woman must have heard it since she frowned.
“Yes. Her daughter was here.”
Lydia waved her arm around the area. “No one was here when I arrived this morning. Did the woman just walk into Margaret’s room? She could have been anyone.”
Daisy stiffened as she glared at Lydia, her early friendliness gone. “If no one was here when you came by, I assure you, this station was left unattended for only a few seconds.”
“I’m sorry. It just worries me that someone might be trying to take advantage of Margaret. At the hospital where she was before she was moved here, no one could find her daughter.”
“Well, the woman here earlier was her daughter, and when I mentioned you, she was worried about the same thing. But we do not let people visit patients unless they’ve been cleared by a doctor. Or they’re a relative, which you, by the way, are not. I would think you’d be happy Margaret has a family member.”
Lydia lowered her head. Then sighing, she looked back at Daisy. “Did she tell you her name?”
“Yes, she did. And she had all the paperwork to prove she’s Margaret’s daughter.”
“Can you tell me her name?” Lydia’s heart pounded.
“I suppose I can.” She fumbled around on her desk until she found a tablet lined with names. “Rebecca Henderson.”
Lydia was speechless.
“Oh, and we made a copy of her birth certificate.” She scrounged through all the unorganized papers on the desk. “Here it is. She was born Rebecca Marie Keim. Her mother is Margaret Catherine Keim, and the father is listed as unknown.”
“I know this will sound odd, but I really need to find this woman. Did she say where she was going?”
Daisy huffed. “Well, since Margaret seemed to think you were her sister, and your little one her daughter, I can see why you’d want to talk to her real daughter. She said someone had deeded her a house, and she was going to see about it. I only know that because she asked me if I knew where it is, which I don’t.”
Lydia set down the carrier, then found her phone and called Samuel. All the while, she willed her heart to stop beating so fast.
Chapter 22
Lydia and Samuel dropped Mattie off with his parents, and when they arrived at Margaret’s house, they saw a car with an Indiana license plate in the dirt driveway. Lydia didn’t know much about cars, but this one was shiny and black. It looked fancy and like a smaller version of the limousine that had taken her and Samuel on their date.
Samuel quickly tethered the horse.
Recollections of how this all started swirled in Lydia’s head like a tornado as she and Samuel held hands walking across the yard and up to the porch. Mostly he helped her step through the overgrown weeds and debris, but recently they’d started holding hands during devotions in the evenings—one more way they were growing closer.
“It’s as bad as you described,” Samuel said as he guided her around a loose board.
“Wait until you see the inside.” Lydia paused at the partially open front door. “Should we knock?”
Samuel shrugged. “You would think whoever is here would have heard the buggy pull up.”
When Samuel’s light knock brought no response, Lydia followed her husband inside, staying close behind him. They stopped in the middle of the living room, and she noticed the framed photograph of the woman in the red dress wasn’t on the mantel.
“Hello?” Lydia spoke louder than she normally would, but she didn’t yell. They stood quietly but heard no answer.
“I hear someone crying,” Samuel said as he moved toward the stairs. He pointed upward, then began the ascent to the second floor with Lydia on his heels.
At the top of the stairs, they made their way to the nursery, where the sobbing was coming from. The door was open.
“Hello?” Lydia spoke softly from behind Samuel, her head peeking around him.
The woman sitting in the rocking chair jumped, clinging to the frame she held tightly against her chest. “I’m not robbing the place. Apparently, I own it.”
“Are you Rebecca?” Lydia came from around Samuel.
“Yes. Do you know my . . . mother?” Rebecca stood with the photograph still pressed against her. Lydia thought she looked to be in her fifties, maybe. She wasn’t good at guessing people’s ages. Her wavy brown hair was parted to one side and tucked behind her ears. Like Margaret, she was tall and big-boned but not overweight. Her eyes were dark like her mother’s too.
“We know her, but not well.” Lydia glanced at Samuel, who was looking around the perfectly decorated, well-supplied nursery.
“Is this where she lived? Before she was institutionalized?” The woman took a tissue from a pocket and wiped her nose.
Lydia had questions of her own, like how Rebecca learned Margaret was in that facility. Had someone finally tracked down Delila? She supposed it didn’t matter now. But before she could answer, the woman pierced her with a glare, causing her to shiver.
“Are you the Amish girl visiting my mother with a baby you were pretending to be me?”
Samuel cleared his throat. “Margaret was parking her truck close to our house, the truck she seemed to live in, and at first we felt threatened by her. Then we realized she thought my wife was her sister and that our daughter was you. Lydia went along with it because the doctor said Margaret was dying. She thought it would give her joy until she journeyed home.”
Lydia held her breath. Surely Rebecca had been told Margaret was dying.
Rebecca sniffled. “This house should be con
demned.” She sat back down, then lifted the framed picture. “This is me at my senior prom. It seems cruel that my mother . . . that Delila would send this to her.”
“Mother? Or aunt?” Lydia found Samuel’s hand and squeezed it.
Rebecca shook her head as more tears flowed. “Well, until a few days ago, I thought the woman who raised me was my mother. She waited until she was dying before she revealed that her sister is my biological mother.” Slamming her hand to the glass in the frame, so hard that it broke, she cut her hand in the process. Samuel was quick to offer her his handkerchief.
“Thank you.” She wrapped her hand, which looked like it had already stopped bleeding. “I mean, I guess I should try to understand that my mother was trying to protect me.” She tossed her head back. “My aunt. My mother is my aunt. I’ll just keep saying that until it sinks in.”
“Maybe your aunt was trying to protect you too. Maybe because Margaret isn’t right in her mind.” Lydia squatted beside the rocking chair. “But there might have been a better way to do it. And I suspect Margaret tended to this room all these years because she was waiting for Delila and you to come home. That’s just my speculation based on what Margaret has said. But, please know, I wasn’t intentionally trying to deceive Margaret.”
Lydia told Rebecca about the hospital trying to find Delila and how no one really knew if there was a baby. Then she filled her in on other details, like when Margaret pulled her out of the road and saved her from getting hit by a car.
“I guess you felt you owed her after that.” Rebecca had stopped crying and was listening intently.
“Maybe a little,” Lydia said. “But I felt sorry for her, that she had no one. I was afraid she would die alone, never knowing anyone cared for her. I also thought she’d lost her way with Gott, but she goes back and forth on that.”
“I’m sure you know my grandparents were killed in a car accident, and that my mom—Delila—and Margaret were alone from the time they were sixteen.” Lydia nodded. “I didn’t know anything about that, nor that Delila, as I’ll be calling her from now on, even had a sister, much less an identical twin. When I went to see Margaret—my mother—it seemed like I was looking at a ghost. Margaret . . .” She sighed. “I don’t even know what to call her. But although their features are identical, Margaret has obviously led a much harder life than Delila did.”
Did. So Delila had already died.
“This must all be such a shock for you.” Lydia remained squatted beside the chair. Samuel had a hand on her shoulder.
“Did Delila tell you why she took you and left?” She nodded to the photo. “Clearly she didn’t continue to practice her Amish ways, and you didn’t grow up Amish.”
“My mother . . . Ugh.” She grunted. “Delila was my mother for over fifty years, so it’s hard to just drop the title.” Putting a hand to her forehead, she blew out a long breath. “Delila was lucid up until the time she died, so I have no reason not to believe everything she told me. She said Margaret had mental health issues starting early in life, but she did have a boyfriend, someone named Ben. She got pregnant, and he left. Delila said that was the beginning of a total meltdown for her. Margaret talked constantly about having a wedding in the house and raising her baby with her husband, but it was like a five-year-old playing house. With baggy dresses, it was easy for them to hide the pregnancy, and she had the baby at home. Can you imagine? With only her sister there? These days, young unwed girls would tell someone what was going on. Well, maybe. But they were scared, so they kept me a secret.
“Then when I was two months old, Margaret—my mother—closed me up in a dresser drawer when I wouldn’t stop crying.” Her eyes traveled to the white dresser against the wall. “By the time Delila found me, I was turning blue. And there were other things.” She shook her head. “So Delila packed me up and ran away, sure I’d never be safe with Margaret.”
“I’m so sorry.” Lydia spoke in a whisper even though it wasn’t intentional. Saying sorry didn’t seem to be enough.
“I loved the woman who raised me very much. She loved me, too, as did my father, who died last year. Well, apparently, he wasn’t my father, but I just found that out as well. And he knew the truth all along.” She shook her head again. “They’ll always be my parents, but this lie they carried . . . They should have told me long ago. Margaret seemed so confused when I visited her. She didn’t believe I was truly Rebecca at first. But after I recalled some things my mother told me about her childhood, like the tire swing that hung from a tree in the yard, she did believe me. Before I left, she said, ‘Goodbye, Rebecca.’”
Lydia stood, and out the window, she could see the old tire barely attached to a rotting rope.
“I guess what’s so upsetting is that she lived like this for most of her life, mentally ill and waiting for her sister and baby to return.” Rebecca unwrapped her hand, which barely had a nick on it. She locked eyes with Lydia. “Why didn’t any of your people try to help her?”
Samuel cleared his throat again. “People have been trying to help her for decades, but she wouldn’t allow it. As children, we were told to stay away from her. And to be honest with you, at first, I wasn’t happy that my wife was having anything to do with her. We were concerned for our boppli—baby.”
“But I had planned to continue visiting her.” Lydia took a deep breath. “They did tell you that she doesn’t have long to live, right?”
Rebecca nodded. “Margaret told me money is buried on the property—even where—so I’d have enough to bury her. Honestly, I have all the money I need, so I have no plans to dig up the yard. Delila didn’t say anything about buried money, so I doubt it’s even true. Even if it exists, it’s probably not much anyway. My mother said once she got settled, she sent Margaret cash every month. But it must have been just enough for her to get by.”
She paused. “Once I let the shock of this situation sink in, I have to decide what to do with this house and property. But for now, I’m going to spend as much time with my mother as I can, whether she knows who I am or not.”
Lydia’s heart ached for the woman. “Do you have a place to stay?” She glanced up at Samuel, who nodded in agreement. She’d known he’d be fine moving Mattie’s crib into their bedroom so Rebecca could use the twin bed in their daughter’s room. Lydia had been glad for that bed when their newborn had her up much of the night.
“It’s so crazy. We live in Indianapolis. All this time, we’ve been only two hours away from here. But I’m staying in a hotel in Bedford, which is less than a mile from Margaret’s facility.” She stood and walked to the crib, gingerly running a hand along its railing. Then she moved to the dresser and pulled open the top drawer. She lowered her head and stared into the empty space. Delila must have taken all the baby clothes.
Lydia moved to put a hand on her arm. “Please be our guest. I know our house isn’t as close to Margaret as the hotel in Bedford is, but we’d really like for you to stay with us.”
Rebecca lifted her head but kept her eyes on the drawer. The woman was older than Lydia’s mother, but at the moment, Lydia didn’t think she should be alone. “You don’t even know me,” Rebecca said as she shook her head.
Lydia smiled. “In some ways, I feel like I do. Besides, you have a car, and all this hiring drivers back and forth is bothersome.” She was only halfway joking, but Rebecca turned her way and smiled.
“You still plan to visit her?”
“Unless you don’t want me to. It might confuse her. When I was there earlier, she didn’t seem to think I was Delila. But her thoughts and ideas seem to shift from day to day. Either way, I’d still like to visit her—if you don’t mind.”
“That would be lovely. You obviously know her better than I do, and I’ll just follow your lead.” Rebecca’s shoulders slumped in defeat.
“My wife is a very good cook,” Samuel said. “And you’d be welcome in our home.”
“It’s a kind offer, but I feel like I’d be intruding.”
S
omething about the way Rebecca said that led Lydia to believe she really would prefer to stay with them. “It will be no intrusion, and we would enjoy having you there. If you like babies, of course. Our Mattie is eight months old.”
Rebecca’s expression came alive. “I’m going to be a grandma for the first time in about a month, maybe sooner.”
“How many children do you have?”
“Just one, a daughter. Her name is Dawn.” Rebecca’s face was still glowing. “At first I just assumed I would sell this place. My husband, Peter, wouldn’t do well out in the country. But I might hire contractors to clean it up and then give it to Dawn and her husband. They wouldn’t be able to live here because of their jobs, but a piece of history would stay in the family. And they’ve always said they would love a place in the country. It’s close enough to Indianapolis that they’d be able to come here often.”
She paused. “Peter knows I’m here and why. I’ll tell Dawn about this, too, but not until I can do it without crying. It took her and Liam a long time to conceive, and it’s been a rough pregnancy. I don’t want to upset her. I was a bit vague when I told her I was taking a short trip here, saying it had to do with a piece of property I’m interested in.” She shrugged. “Partial version of the truth, but I just needed to process all this on my own first. I even asked Peter not to come.”
After she closed the dresser drawer, she laid the photograph on top of the white piece of furniture, then looked first at Lydia, then Samuel. “Wow. I’ve had a total breakdown, telling you my life story when I’m sure you both have places to be.”
“We’re just happy that you exist.” Lydia folded her hands together in front of her. “Although I’m sorry about the circumstances.”
Rebecca wrapped her arms around Lydia and held her tightly. “Thank you for listening to me, but mostly for being good to my mother, which couldn’t have been easy.”
Then she hugged Samuel. “Thank you, too, for listening.”
They left the room, and Rebecca closed the door, locked it, and put the key back where she’d obviously found it. Then she placed a palm on the door and lowered her head. Lydia believed she was praying, so she also said a prayer—for Rebecca and her family, asking God to give them peace.