“Nah, I should get on home but come on by if you want to talk more about this. By the way, have you officially accepted the Altoona job?”
“Not officially, but I led this guy to expect me up there in a couple of weeks.”
“Well, hold off and take your time. Make sure this is what’s best for you and Penny.”
“Thanks, pal. You’ve given me something to think about. Hey, the games over. Who won?”
“I don’t even know who was playing,” Charles responded with a chuckle. “I’ve never been much for sports.”
“I like baseball,” Timothy said. “I coached a company team up north.”
“Well, there you go.”
“What do you mean?”
“Little league? Or maybe get these old men in the village out on the field. They’d love it.” He saw a glimmer of interest cross Timothy’s face.
As he was snapping Barney’s leash onto his collar, he noticed that Penny was in the hallway grinning ear to ear. She heard everything we said, he realized regretfully. He hated giving her hope if none was there.
Later that evening as they were having dinner, Charles told Sarah about his conversation with Tim. Sarah laid down her fork and looked her husband in the eye. “And you told me to stay out of it….”
They both laughed when he responded with, “Well, I guess we’re just a couple of old busybodies.”
Chapter 15
“She’s been gone now for thirteen days,” Anna was saying when Sarah arrived at Stitches the next evening for their second Friday night club meeting without Ruth. Anna was in the back room speaking to someone Sarah didn’t recognize. “Oh Sarah,” Anna said when she saw her arrive. “Come in and meet Aunt Joy.”
“Aunt Joy?” Sarah hadn’t heard mention of an aunt before. She turned the corner and saw an elderly woman dressed in a long sleeve blue cotton dress covered with a black apron. She wore a white cap that Ruth had told her was called a prayer cap. She appeared ageless, but if Sarah had to guess, she would say the woman was probably in her seventies. Sarah was surprised to see her, knowing that both Ruth and Anna had been shunned by their community for marrying outside the Amish community. “I’m very happy to meet you,” Sarah responded.
“You look surprised to see my aunt,” Anna said, “and believe me, I nearly fainted when she arrived this afternoon.”
“I was worried about my nieces,” Joy explained in broken English. “We heard about Ruth and I had to come. The bishop gave me permission to come for one day,” she added turning to Anna.
“How did you get here,” Sarah asked, remembering that the Amish didn’t own cars.
“An English family up the road drove us to the bus station, and we hired a taxi when we got to Middletown.”
“We?” Anna asked, looking startled.
“Jacob is with me.”
“Jacob,” Anna cried. She hadn’t seen her brother for over fifteen years. “Where is he?”
“He didn’t come to the shop,” Joy responded. “He’s waiting at the bus station.”
Anna’s face fell with disappointment. “He didn’t approve, did he?” she said sadly.
“No, but he was willing to come with me. Your brother took good care of us after your folks died. Jacob let us move into the grossdaadi haus on the farm.”
“I’m glad, Aunt Joy. I often think about you and uncle…” but as she said it, she saw a flicker of pain cross the elderly woman’s face and she knew her husband was gone. Anna patted the hand of her mother’s stoic sister. “I’m sorry.”
Turning to Sarah, she said, “I’ve caught Aunt Joy up on what I know about Ruth’s disappearance. I told her you were coming, and that you might have more information. Has Charles spoken with anyone in Chicago?”
“He has, but since the FBI took over there hasn’t been any new information – at least none we’re able to know.” The three women were still in the back room when the front door opened, and four or five club members entered chatting excitedly.
“What’s going on?” Anna called out to them as she and Sarah joined them.
“Myrtle has an idea she wants to tell us about.”
“It sounds like she already has,” Sarah said laughing. “Let us in on it.”
“Wait,” Anna interrupted. “First let me introduce my Aunt Joy. She came down to find out about Ruth, but she’s heading home and can’t stay for our meeting.” At that moment, the front door opened again, and Nathan arrived to drive Anna’s aunt back to the bus station.
Taking him aside, Anna whispered, “Jacob is waiting at the station. If you can, tell him I love him.”
“I will,” he assured her with a sad smile. He knew how much she missed the young man who was only a toddler when she left.
Everyone said goodbye and wished Anna’s aunt a safe journey. “I wish Katie could have met her,” Anna said to Sarah once the car pulled away from the curb. “Nathan convinced her to go back to Paducah. There’s nothing she could do here but worry, and her father thought that her job at the museum would give her something else to think about.”
Once everyone was seated at the worktable, Anna said, “Tell us about your idea, Myrtle.”
Myrtle got up and walked to the head of the table, and Sarah couldn’t hold back her surprise. “Myrtle,” she cried. “Look how good you’re getting around. You could barely walk last year when you were in my class.” She wondered why she hadn’t noticed before, but the only time she’d seen Myrtle was the night of the special meeting, and her mind had never left Ruth that night.
“I know,” the octogenarian responded proudly. “You told me that I should do what the doctor said and have that hip replacement, and you were right. I can get around now, and I can even play with my great-grandchildren,” she added with a proud smile.
“So tell us about your idea,” Sarah said.
“Well, it’s not really my idea, but when I was in the nursing home after my surgery, they put me in a room with this woman who had old-timers’ disease.” Sarah smiled at the term which she assumed was a distortion of the word Alzheimer’s. She’d heard it used before, particularly with older people. “So anyway,” Myrtle continued, “this lady had a visitor who brought her this little quilt she called a fidget quilt. Before Agnes had that little quilt, she’d moan and carry on all the time, but after she got it she’d sit up and, well…” Myrtle paused for a moment and then continued, “I guess you’d say she fidgeted with it. It had buttons and zippers and snaps that she could worry with. There was this fringe around the edges. She let me hold it once, and I realized it had different kinds of touchy fabrics like fleece, fake fur, and even shiny satin. I just thought it might be something we could do for those poor folks over in Twilight Manor.”
Sarah smiled as she listened to Myrtle and saw the excitement among the members. She started to say something about the quilt Ruth had bought at the show, but she decided to wait and not interrupt Myrtle, who was clearly enjoying the group’s attention.
“How big was this quilt?” Christina asked.
“Oh, I’d say it was only about twenty-four inches square,” she responded as she returned to her seat and reached into her purse. “I had my granddaughter take this picture.” She handed it to Christina who studied it and passed it on to the others.
Everyone was fascinated with the picture and thought it would be a great project for the club.
“I read about something like this in my nursing magazine,” Allison commented as she looked at the picture. “They called them sensory stimulation quilts and they can have a calming, soothing effect. They’re using them therapeutically for people with dementia and stroke patients.”
“I didn’t know you were a nurse,” Anna commented.
“Actually, I’m not practicing right now. I had just started working when I got pregnant with Nicky, and I decided to stay home with him for a year or two. I just try to keep up by reading the journals.”
Once Myrtle was clearly finished with her presentation and had returned
to her seat, Sarah reached into her tote bag saying, “This is quite a coincidence.” She pulled out the fidget quilt that Ruth had purchased at the show, and everyone gasped in surprise.
“Where did you get this?” Anna asked. Everyone stood up to see it more closely.
“This is Ruth’s,” Sarah responded.
“What…?”
“Let me explain.” Sarah told them about the last day in Chicago when they were all still together. “Ruth found a vendor who was selling these and she knew right away that we would all love it. She was going to ask if we could take this on as a project for the dementia wing of the nursing home.”
“My answer is absolutely yes.”
“Mine too.”
“Let’s see how many we can get made before Ruth comes home,” Delores said. Sarah smiled to herself realizing that Delores had adopted her tactic of simply assuming Ruth would be returning.
“I think it’s a fantastic idea,” Anna responded. “We can use our scraps of interesting fabrics and take a field trip into town to the craft shop to get some other types of fabric -- fabrics with texture like chenille, velvet, and even shiny fabrics.”
“…and fringe,” Caitlyn said. “And we should use very colorful fabrics and familiar designs like cats and dogs, cars, barnyard animals…”
“Yes, and I like the idea of having things like zippers, snaps, and buttons that work. Maybe a pocket if we can think of something to attach that can be put into it.”
“How about attaching a small furry animal, something like a dog toy that squeaks?”
“My grandmother has these yarn balls that I think would feel good to touch,” Frank added, eager to contribute.
The ideas continued to fly as their excitement grew. “This will be great fun,” Sarah said. It made her happy to see her friends smiling and full of enthusiasm for the first time since she returned from Chicago. “Thank you, Myrtle, for sharing this with us.”
The group discussed the idea of fidget quilts and decided to start making them at the very next meeting. “Bring in everything you have around the house that you think would be good,” Anna said, “and I’ll provide the fabric.”
Sarah noticed that Kimberly and Christina were talking about the various items they could bring, and Myrtle was saying that her grandchildren had things they’d probably contribute. Sarah couldn’t think of anything she might have, but decided to stop at the craft shop and pick up some beads and fringe. She also thought she could get some pieces of yarn from Sophie.
Before they left for home, several women asked about Sophie. “She’ll be coming home on Sunday,” she assured them. Sarah had sent out an email to everyone about Sophie’s fall, and several members wrote back to say they would be going by to see her.
“I think she might enjoy company even more once she gets home,” Sarah suggested. She remembered Sophie talking about how lonesome she had been after her knee replacement. “I got used to having all those people around in the hospital, and my house seemed very empty,” she had said. Of course, now she has Timothy and Penny, she thought. At least for now.
* * *
Sarah had just returned from visiting with Sophie the next day and found Charles sitting at the kitchen table staring off into space. He was startled when she spoke to him and said, “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Sorry if I startled you.” She came up behind his chair and rubbed his tight neck muscles. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“John called today,” he responded in a less than enthusiastic tone.
“And?”
“Well, he’s talked with his friend in the FBI. Seymour hasn’t been forthcoming. He told John he couldn’t talk about the case, and that he hadn’t been able to find out very much himself. He said they were keeping a tight lid on it. He did say one thing that may or may not be encouraging.”
“May or may not be? What did he say?”
“Seymour said that all he can confirm is that the FBI is working with the U.S. Marshal’s office and that this is a witness protection case. Your friend must have been in the program and has been very convincing with her new identity. I know you certainly thought that you knew her.”
“Charles, I do know her. Are you thinking that her whole Amish history is just a ruse? Don’t you remember when her father was dying, and she went up to see her family? Do you remember her stories about that trip? About sitting on the front porch with her brother and his wife because she wasn’t allowed inside the house? Are you suggesting that was all made up? Charles, I don’t believe it. I could feel her pain when she told me that story.”
“I know that you believe her…”
“Charles, I…” She couldn’t finish her sentence. She was feeling angry with the FBI, the Chicago police, with whoever took her friend, and at that moment, with Charles as well.
“Honey…” he began, trying to appease her.
“No, not now,” she responded pulling away from him. “I’m going for a walk,” she added, pulling on her sweater and grabbing Barney’s leash.
Chapter 16
It had been two weeks since Ruth disappeared. Sarah had planned to work on one of her quilts, but she was feeling at loose ends. Ruth had been on her mind most of the time since Charles told her about the witness protection theory. She felt certain that Ruth was exactly who she said she was, but then she realized there could be something none of them knew about. When Caitlyn called and asked if she was free to go to the shelter to look at dogs, she was relieved.
“Caitlyn, that’s exactly what I need today. What time does your father want to go?”
“Papa is teaching at the prison this morning, but he said I could go and just look if you were available to take me.”
“I can’t think of anything I’d rather do today. I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes.” Before leaving, she called Sophie to make sure she was okay. She got out of the hospital on schedule, but Tim had insisted she come stay with him and Penny for a few days. Sarah had offered to keep Emma, but Sophie was sure that the dog was worried about her, so Tim came by and picked her up. Sarah had to smile thinking about Timothy, Sophie, Penny, and two dogs nestled into that little bungalow that Tim was renting.
Sarah wrote a quick note to Charles, who was at the hardware store, telling him where she was going and suggesting that they go out to dinner that evening. Their relationship had felt strained the past couple of days, and Sarah knew she should break the ice. She recognized that her husband was just trying to help and that his many years with the police department had taught him to be suspicious of everyone involved in a crime, and to remove himself from his cases emotionally. But she was emotionally involved and would be until her friend was returned home.
As she pulled up in front of Andy’s house, Caitlyn came running out and hopped into the car unable to contain her excitement. “We won’t be able to bring one home today, will we?”
“No, your father will have to go back and fill out the application, and they’ll also do a home visit.”
“Why?” she asked in that whiny tone only a teenage girl can produce.
“Because they want to know the dog is going to a good home.”
“We have a good home, don’t we?” The tone was still there but improving.
“You certainly do. You have a loving home, and you have experience caring for dogs. You have the perfect home to offer a dog. By the way, be sure that your father puts my name and Sophie’s down as references. They know both of us.”
Caitlyn giggled with excitement as they pulled up in front of the shelter but became more subdued once they were inside. She approached the receptionist hesitantly and in a very serious tone said, “Hello. I’m Caitlyn Burgess, and I would like to adopt a dog.”
The receptionist smiled and introduced a young man who had just entered the room. “This is Robert, our kennel manager. He’ll show you the dogs available for adoption.”
After talking with Sarah and Caitlyn for a few minutes to get an idea of what they were looking
for, the young man opened the door to the kennel and escorted them down an aisle of barking dogs. Caitlyn looked overwhelmed. Sarah noticed she moved to the far side of the aisle when passing by the larger dogs. Sarah noticed a medium-sized dog that looked somewhat like her own Barney, and he was just as straggly looking as Barney had been when she brought him home. She wondered what this dog had gone through in his short life. Her heart went out to him.
Suddenly Caitlyn dropped to her knees in front of a small dog with mournful brown eyes and long orange-toned brown hair. The dog’s tail began to wag, slowly at first but then enthusiastically. Caitlyn stuck her fingers through the wire, and the dog licked them affectionately.
“Look at this beautiful dog,” Caitlyn cried. The sign said it was a red, long-haired dachshund.
Robert, the shelter manager, had remained with them and explained that the little dog had only been there for a day or two. “Her owner died last week, and the family couldn’t keep the dog.” He went on to explain that the family had flown in for their sister’s funeral, but they both had busy jobs back in New York and didn’t have enough time to care for a dog. “They were reluctant to give her up,” he added, “but they didn’t think they had any choice since she would be alone all day if they took her back to New York with them.”
“That was a wise decision,” Sarah responded. “Dogs are pack animals and can become very anxious and depressed when they’re left alone too long.”
“I assured them that this cute little dog would have a home in a matter of days. She’s a lovely dog. Would you like for me to take her out so you can walk around with her?”
“Yes,” Caitlyn responded enthusiastically. Although she was sixteen now, Sarah thought she could imagine what the younger Caitlyn could have been, a side the girl hadn’t been able to experience in her very troubled past.
As Robert opened the door and snapped on the leash, the dog began to wag her entire body. “She looks so little from the front, but she’s very long,” Caitlyn commented still sitting on the floor as the dog walked into her arms.
Missing Memories Page 11