Separate from the World

by P. L. Gaus

  Subdued, Branden said, “Hi, Cal,” and looked the pastor over. Without turning from the window, Cal replied only, “Mike.”

  Branden read tension in the muscles rippling along Cal’s forearm. The pastor rolled his shoulders to try to shrug it off.

  Seated in a chair in front of Cal’s desk, Caroline held up several loose pages of a handwritten letter and an envelope. She handed the envelope to Branden, and the professor read the address:

  Pastor Caleb Troyer

  Church of Christ, Christian

  Millersburg, Ohio 44654

  And the return address:

  Rachel Ramsayer

  112 Henry Street

  Montgomery, Alabama 36106

  Caroline took the envelope back and handed her husband the letter. It was written in a confident hand with large script letters, in blue ink on bone-white stationery. Branden studied the pastor a moment longer. When the silence continued, he said merely, “Cal?”

  The pastor turned at the waist to look at the letter in the professor’s hand and then nervously back to the window.

  Branden read the letter while standing next to Caroline’s chair.

  Dear Mr. Troyer,

  I apologize ahead of time for the surprise this letter will give you. We have never met, and you’ll have no reason to know who I am. Please let me explain. The man who raised me was a cruel drunk who beat me and my mother when it suited him. She divorced him when I was eight years old, and we moved to Alabama. We had been living in Toledo. I’ve never seen my “father” since, and I have grown accustomed to hating him.

  Last November, my mother died of lung cancer. She was a long time dying, and we got a chance to talk about matters. She gave me an envelope to open after her funeral. I thought I knew everything about her. I was wrong.

  In her letter to me, she wrote that she was married, briefly, to a soldier. A medic in Vietnam. She met another man, wrote the soldier a “Dear John” letter, and sent him divorce papers through the mail. I have those papers, Mr. Troyer. You signed them in Saigon, in the winter of 1968. She was briefly your wife, but she threw you over for another man, and felt remorse for that the rest of her life. I never knew what caused that underlying sadness in her, but this goes a long way toward explaining it.

  In her letter to me, she wrote that you are my real father. I realize that this will be a surprise to you, but I was born nine months after your rotation home on leave, between two tours in Vietnam. You signed the divorce two months after that leave, and my parents were married right after that. But, I was born less than nine months from their marriage, and my “father” knew that I was not his child. I believe that is why he hated us so much.

  But, now, Mr. Troyer, my mother has told me that you are my real father. I have had a lot of trouble accepting this. Please don’t hate my mother. She was kind and loving to me. She carried heaviness in her heart all her life, I think because of what she did to you.

  But, I never knew about any of this. I never knew about you. Not until my mother died. I don’t know why she never told me. It would have been a comfort to me to know that the cruel man who raised me was not really my father.

  I know this will be a shock to you. I have such an empty hole in my life where you are supposed to be. Do I have any brothers or sisters? Did you ever remarry? Can I come to see you? I have so many questions.

  Please write back to me. Please don’t be angry with me.

  I have checked with the hospital here. If you go to the hospital and let them take a DNA sample (they swab your mouth with a Q-tip), then they can prove that you are really my father. Please do this, Mr. Troyer. Please let me hope that you are my real father.

  Sincerely,

  Rachel Ramsayer

  (Troyer?)

  When Branden had finished reading the letter, he handed it back to Caroline and stood silently beside her, waiting for Cal to speak. Cal stood motionless in front of the window and let silence fill the room. When Caroline started to go to him, the professor motioned her gently back into her chair. Cal cleared his throat with difficulty but still held his silence.

  Eventually Cal spoke. “I never knew why Sarah wanted the divorce.”

  The Brandens waited.

  “It would have been easier to have known she found someone else,” Cal whispered.

  Branden asked, “Cal, you never saw Sarah after you came home?”

  “No. I let her go. I can’t tell you why. She didn’t love me—we were just kids.”

  “What are you going to do, Cal?” Caroline asked.

  Prolonged silence followed, with Cal staring out the window. When he finally turned to face them, his eyes were swollen and red, and his cheeks were lined with tears. Caroline got out of her chair and went to embrace him. The professor stood beside them, his hand laid gently on Cal’s shoulder.

  “I never knew why,” Cal whispered.

  “She was a fool, Cal,” Caroline said. “It’s nothing more complicated than that.”

  Cal said, “A lot of guys got those ‘Dear John’ letters in Vietnam. The girls couldn’t stand the waiting. They found someone else. She never told me we had a daughter.”

  Cal dried his cheeks with the backs of his hands. He sat down behind his desk and looked as lost as an abandoned child. He found it hard to look at either of his friends. Mixed with the sadness in his features, the professor read the signs of nervous discomfort, and said, “You don’t have to be embarrassed, Cal.”

  Cal gave a strangled laugh and said, “I know, but I’m in shock. This feels like panic.”

  The professor glanced at his wife and asked Cal, “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cal.

  “Come out to the house,” Caroline said. “We can talk.”

  “I’m not sure I can. I need time. I need to come at this fresh. Maybe tomorrow.”

  He needed to let this settle a while. He needed to work on something else, be active, before tackling this challenge. Right now, he needed to sit somewhere and rest his eyes, remembering Sarah as he had known her. “I think I need to be alone,” he said, “but I also could use some company. I’m not used to feeling this way.”

  “Come out to the house later,” the professor said. “We’ll talk if you like, or we can just sit. I’ve got an Amish problem for you anyway.”

  Cal raised his eyebrows and took in a deep breath. “I really don’t know what to do.”

  “Come sit on the back porch,” Caroline said. “If you want to talk, we can. In the meantime, I’ll make sure Michael doesn’t bother you.”

  That got a weak laugh from Cal. He rose slowly from behind his desk and faced the professor. “You don’t look so good yourself,” he said.

  Branden looked to Caroline and back to Cal. “One of my students killed herself this morning,” he said softly. “Jumped off the tower.”

  “Oh, no!” Caroline cried and leaped to her feet. “Michael!”

  Cal’s features took a weary sag. “Mike, I’m sorry.”

  “Cathy Billett,” Branden said. “She was in my class this semester. Eddie Hunt-Myers was with her. He’s my student, too.”

  Caroline drew the professor into her arms and held him close, saying, “Michael, are you all right?”

  “No,” Branden said.

  Cal said again, “Mike, I’m really sorry.”

  Caroline released her husband, and he stood slumped a little, arms slack at his sides.

  Cal said, “I won’t bother you now, Mike. Compared to this I don’t have a real problem at all.”

  “Actually, I could use the company,” Branden said. “I need to sit by myself a while, but later I could use the company.”

  Cal studied the professor’s eyes and knew not to protest. Rousing himself with difficulty, he asked, “You have an Amish question?”

  Branden nodded with a sorrowful smile. “Enos Erb came to my office this morning, just before this happened. He thinks his brother was murdered.”

  “The dwarves.”
>
  “Enos is a dwarf, yes.”

  Cal said, “So was his brother, Benjamin.”

  Branden said, “Right. Maybe we can talk about that, Cal. Out at the house, later this afternoon.”

  8

  Friday, May 11 Afternoon

  AFTER LUNCH at the Brandens’, Cal planted himself in a white wicker chair with high armrests on their back porch. He sat there alone much of the remaining afternoon, watching the wind play through the trees at the back edge of the lot. He needed the solitude, and as he watched the trees bend to the weather he let his mind drift on the wind. The spring breeze stiffened gradually and promised rain. Pillow-white clouds grew out of the west and filled the sky. Caroline and the professor gave Cal the solitude he needed to think, and when Caroline once offered coffee, Cal declined.

  The professor called Lawrence Mallory and asked him to bring over the essays he needed to grade. When they arrived, he sat in his swivel rocker, staring uselessly at the blue books. Caroline worked at the kitchen table, editing a manuscript for a publisher of children’s books.

  In midafternoon, Bruce Robertson called to say that Ben Capper had gone back to campus with the promise of forbearance, and that Robertson was going to give “Edwin Hunt-Myers The All-Mighty Third” a good going-over about his night on the bell tower with Cathy Billett. He also reported that although Missy Taggert had not yet finished her postmortem exam, there were no preliminary indications that a struggle might have led to Billett’s death.

  When the doorbell rang, Professor Branden pushed himself wearily out of his chair and answered the door. It was Eddie Hunt-Myers, dressed in blue slacks, white loafers, and a white Oxford shirt. Without speaking, Branden led Eddie into the living room, and Caroline joined them there. Eddie sat on the edge of the sofa and stared at the carpet. He seemed shut off from humanity, assaulted by an incapacitating mental turmoil that made him incapable of speech.

  Caroline asked, “Eddie, can I get you something to drink?”

  Eddie shook his head, glanced over at her briefly with an expression of misery, and turned his eyes back to the carpet. She sat next to him on the sofa. He was big beside her, powerful and tanned, but he seemed as helpless as a child.

  The professor took a seat opposite them, again in his swivel rocker, and said, “Eddie, I’m sorry, but the sheriff is going to want to talk to you again.”

  “I don’t blame him,” Eddie said. He raised his eyes to Branden. “I must be the dumbest man alive. I blame myself. I wish I had jumped, too.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk that way, Eddie,” the professor said. “I hope you aren’t going to do anything rash.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about her, Dr. Branden. I can’t get the picture of her out of my mind.”

  “Eddie,” Branden said, “I think you need to talk to someone.”

  Eddie shook his head, opened his eyes wide with dismay, took a deep breath, and raised his palms as if to say he couldn’t make promises about his actions.

  Branden said, “Eddie, can you help me understand why you wanted to break up with Cathy?”

  With a smile as tragic as his loss, Eddie said, “It wasn’t going to work out. There were too many problems.”

  “Why is that?” Branden asked.

  “I’m a bit of a simpleton, Dr. Branden. I know boats, the ocean, harbors, that sort of thing. I work at my parents’ boatyard in Florida.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “Her folks are big ranchers, Dr. Branden. They want—wanted —Cathy to marry someone with land. Someone who’s big into the cattle business. They had a fellow all picked out for her—the boy she dated in high school. Not some dockhand from the south.”

  “I’m sorry, Eddie,” the professor said. “I want to help you.”

  “It’s helping just to know that I can talk to you,” Eddie said.

  “Come over anytime, Eddie.”

  “Thanks, Dr. Branden. It’d be nice if I could come over a couple of times this weekend.”

  “Anytime,” Branden repeated.

  Eddie nodded his thanks and got up. He looked around the room and said, “It’s nice here.”

  Branden walked him to the door and said, “Call my cell phone if I’m not home, Eddie. You’ve still got my number?”

  “The one in your course syllabus?”

  “Right.”

  Standing at the front door, Eddie put his hand out to shake. The professor accepted his hand and said, “I’ll be here grading essays. Come back if you want to talk.”

  Eddie left struggling to hold back tears.

  When the professor had finished reading essays, he penciled a grade on each blue book and set the stack on the coffee table, hoping he’d be able to read the essays again on Saturday, before transmitting course grades to the registrar. Depending on the second reading, two of his students might fail the course. Cathy Billett had earned a B+.

  The distraction of grading the essays improved Branden’s mood, but he still felt the dismay of loss. He still felt the press of his years. He’d likely change some of those grades once he had a chance to read the exams again. Once his mind was agile again. Still, he was grateful for the familiar task of assessing his students’ work. A second time through, and he’d be happier with his work. It would just have to wait a while to get done right.

  The professor set his lapboard on the floor, got up, and wandered into the kitchen. Caroline’s manuscript sat in a neat stack on the kitchen table. She was working on dinner at the stove and declined his offer to help.

  “Go check on Cal, Michael. He’s been out there for hours.”

  Branden crossed through the family room to the back door.

  The wind was blowing across the screened porch, and the temperature had dropped. Cal’s chair was empty. Branden stepped out onto the long porch and saw Cal standing with his hands stuffed into his jeans pockets, down at the cliff edge of the property. The professor took a seat on the porch.

  “Try not to be morose,” Branden remembered from Caroline’s note that morning. As he watched Cal’s white hair dancing with the wind, the professor found that request nearly impossible to honor. He closed his eyes on a scene from his childhood, and saw a youthful Cal Troyer with a fishing rod, on the other side of a bass pond. He saw himself hunting pheasant with Bruce Robertson, along the fence line of a high pasture. And the cases they had worked on together played through Branden’s mind—the cases he had worked with Troyer and Robertson over the years, mostly involving the Amish. Most recently, there had been Sara Yoder’s kidnapping, a little less than two years ago.

  When Cal touched Branden’s shoulder, the professor’s eyes were closed, and his thoughts, though not morose, were not particularly happy. There had been so many years. They had all blown away on the breeze.

  Cal said, “You don’t look so good,” and took a seat beside Branden.

  “Time is an enemy, Cal,” Branden remarked, true to his mood.

  “Time is life,” Cal answered. “Death is the enemy.”

  Branden nodded. “Caroline thinks I’ve been morose, lately.”

  “Probably you have.”

  “Even before this,” the professor replied.

  Cal asked, “You said you talked with Enos Erb?”

  Branden let a silent moment pass and then pulled his thoughts forward. “Yes,” he said. “Enos Erb. Why would anyone murder an Amish dwarf?”

  “You’re not sure anyone did.”

  “Enos Erb would not have set foot in my office unless he were sure about that.”

  “There, you are probably right,” Cal said. “That congregation at Calmoutier is splitting in half, you know. Families are choosing up sides.”

  “You knew Benny Erb?” Branden asked.

  “Benny, Enos, and Israel. They’re all right in the middle of the biggest congregational split in thirty years.”

  “What’s the split over?” Branden asked.

  “Science,” Cal said. “Specifically, birth defects. More specifi
cally, genetic research. Your Professor Lobrelli wants to develop gene therapy for the Amish—to reverse the damage they’ve done to themselves through inbreeding. The Amish have more genetic diseases than most people realize, because they marry inside their group. And Enos Erb’s district is so divided that brothers and sisters aren’t talking to each other anymore. Worse, parents and children.”

  “Enos didn’t mention any of that,” Branden said.

  “He wouldn’t have,” Cal said. “He’s pro-science. His brother Israel across the road is one of the Antis. Benny was caught in the middle, leaning Pro, but living with Israel. It’s a mess.”

  “How are we going to sort this all out?” asked Branden.

  Cal said, “We’re not going to. There isn’t a sociologist anywhere in the world who’d be able to sort it all out. Families are going to break apart over this. It’s real trouble for Amish folk. If you go pro-science—modern—half of the people you know will consider you lost to them. You’d be shunned. So, right now, everybody out there has a decision to make. The Moderns will work for a cure—cooperate with scientists like Lobrelli. They might have to join a Mennonite congregation if they can’t organize around their own bishop, but that’s what they’ll do.”

  “And the Antis?” Branden asked.

  “They’ll dig in harder than ever before. It’s already tragic, and it’s going to get worse.”

  Branden said, “One of them is dead, Cal. How’s it going to get any worse than that?”

  Cal said, “Until I opened the mail today, I had no idea I had a daughter. It’s a shock. But that’s nothing compared to the shock Amish people face when they decide to go modern—when they’re shunned.”