“I asked for a month off.”
Seth wrinkled his brow. “You did? Now? When it’s summer and school’s out, and you can work fulltime? I thought you were trying to get tuition money together.”
“I was. But now I’m using my tuition money for something else.” She braced herself for his reaction.
“What? That makes no sense, Faith.” He’d raised his voice a notch and quickly looked around, his face flushed. He leaned close and lowered his voice. “What’s going on? Are you all right? And what do you mean for something else?”
She swallowed past the tightness that was creeping up her throat. “I’m going to Indiana.”
“Indiana?” He gaped at her and then all of a sudden, realization dawned across his face. “Aw, Faith. This has to do with your birth mother, doesn’t it? What are you planning to do?”
“I’m going to find her, that’s what. It’s time.”
Seth grabbed her hands and ran his thumbs over her skin. “You’ve heard something then?”
“No.”
“But how will you find her?”
“I don’t know.” She pulled her hands back from his. “It’s something I have to do, and deep in my gut, I know the timing’s right.”
“But how?” Deep concern was etched on his face. “You can’t just wander the state.”
She blew out her breath. “I have a bit more of a plan that that.” Her voice was curt. She sagged. “I’m sorry. I know you’re just worried about me.”
“I am. I am worried about you.” He leaned back on the bench and observed her. “When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Faith…” He shook his head. “I’m coming with you. I’ll beg off here. Meg will agree. She likes me.” He gave Faith a smile, and she knew he was trying to lighten the situation.
“No, Seth. I appreciate it, but no.”
He moved further back on the bench. “Why not?”
“I have to do this myself.”
“Fine. You can do it yourself with me in the car with you. I won’t try to influence you in any way.”
Tears burned the back of her eyelids. She shook her head. “Thank you, Seth. But no.”
He was silent then, but his eyes didn’t leave her face. She straightened her shoulders. “I won’t change my mind.”
“What do your parents say?”
“I haven’t told them yet. Well, they know I want to find her, but I haven’t said I’m going.”
He whistled under his breath. “Your mother is going to be upset.”
She sighed. “No. She knows I need to do this.”
He shook his head. “She’s going to be upset,” he repeated.
She clenched her jaw. Why was he pushing against her? She picked up her phone and started to leave the booth.
“Wait, Faith!” He grabbed her arm. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
She paused and looked at him. She blew out her breath, suddenly weary. “I know. I’m sorry, too. I’m a bit on edge. It’s not your fault.”
“So.” He touched her cheek lightly with his fingers. “You’re going tomorrow then.”
She nodded.
“What can I do to help?”
She shrugged. “Nothing. There’s nothing to be done. The adoption was completely private and confidential. I don’t think there’s any paper trail to follow. It was an untraditional adoption, given the girl was Amish. And of course, the Amish aren’t online. But I have some tidbits of information. It’s going to be all right.”
“There have to be records somewhere, right? In this day and age, isn’t everything recorded and double recorded? I mean, there’s probably a video camera taping us right now.”
“You sound like Mr. Hedge in civics,” she said, but Seth had managed to make her smile.
Seth raised his fist in a political gesture. “The government has too much power!” he cried, mimicking Mr. Hedge’s voice perfectly.
“Not with the Amish, it doesn’t,” Faith said. She looked down at her hands. “I’m scared.”
Seth put his arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “I’ll come immediately if you need me,” he said. “And you can call me anytime. Day or night. You know that, right?”
“I know that.” Her voice was soft, and she let herself snuggle on his shoulder for a brief moment. If she stayed any longer, she might lose her nerve to leave, and she couldn’t allow that to happen. It had taken her over three years to work up her nerve in the first place. She couldn’t back down now.
She wriggled from the booth. “I need to pack.”
“You sure you have enough money?”
“I’m not sure of anything. Except that I need to go.”
He slid out of the booth and stood beside her. He was tall and towered over her. She pressed against his side for a moment.
“I’ll take you out to your car,” he said, grasping her arm. He led her outside and over to her bright orange Volkswagen bug. He took her keys and opened the door for her. Before she got in, he put his arms around her and held her to his chest. Then he leaned down and kissed her. It was a tender kiss, gentle and sweet. He pulled away and looked into her face. “Come back,” he said. “That’s all I ask. Come back.”
She nodded, a lump of tears growing in her throat. Unable to speak without bursting into sobs, she climbed into the driver’s seat. Seth shut the door for her and stood back. She put the car into reverse, backed out of the parking spot, and drove away with only a slight wave. She blinked rapidly, concentrating hard on her driving.
Her parents. All she had to do was tell them, and then she could go. A small kernel of excitement pinged in her stomach. She could go.
After three longs years of wondering and wishing, she could go.
Faith walked into the kitchen where her mother was licking a wooden spoon. Mrs. Baldwin wrote recipes for her online blog and after two years of yard work, she was actually making a profit. She sold her recipes in a self-pubbed book, and she now had advertisers who paid her for a spot on her blog page.
“Taste this, Faith,” her mother said, holding the spoon out toward her.
Faith dipped her finger into the scoop of the wooden spoon and then tasted the fruity concoction. “Yum,” she said, licking her lips. “Peaches and what? Some orange?”
Mrs. Baldwin laughed, her blue eyes twinkling. “You’re going to take this blog over for me one day, my dear.”
Faith plopped onto a tall stool next to the kitchen island where her mother had ingredients spread from one end to the other. “I doubt that. I don’t like cooking.” She smiled at her mother’s teasing stern look. “But I do love eating. So, feel free to keep inventing new dishes.”
“I think I’m a frustrated scientist,” Mrs. Baldwin said, sticking a pan into the oven and setting the timer. “I do remember loving chemistry. Mixing all those chemicals was better than a hot date.” She laughed at her own joke.
“Mom?”
Mrs. Baldwin’s laughter faded at her daughter’s serious tone. “Yes?”
“It’s time.” Faith felt like she had stones in her stomach. She prayed her mother would react well. She prayed that she’d send her off with warm wishes.
Mrs. Baldwin took a moment to rearrange some of the spices strewn over the island. Faith knew she was stalling, getting herself together. After a moment, her mother looked at her.
“So, you’re going in search of her, then?”
Faith gulped and nodded. Her mouth had suddenly gone dry.
“I saw her from a distance you know.” Her mother’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at Faith. “I told you that, didn’t I?”
Faith nodded, ready to burst into tears herself.
“She was being hustled back into a buggy. She was a thin slip of a thing.” Mrs. Baldwin blinked and continued, even though she’d told Faith this story many times. “Her mother, or I assume it was her mother, got her into the buggy and then climbed in behind her. There was a man driving the horse. I couldn’t see him well. Mainly hi
s silhouette. He wore a wide-brimmed hat. I don’t think he spoke to them when they got in.”
She took a long deep breath. “Poor thing. I got the strangest feeling. Like the young girl was heading toward even more pain. Something in the way she moved. Now, granted, she’d just given birth. But it was more than that. There was an awful dejection about her.”
Faith’s chest tightened. She knew the story well, and whenever she heard it, it made her feel not only guilty, but deeply sorrowful. If it hadn’t been for her, the girl would have gone on with her life and been much happier. She knew this as well as she knew the world revolved around the sun.
“Maybe it wasn’t her mother,” Faith said unexpectedly. She rarely if ever interrupted her mother’s recounting of the tale.
Mrs. Baldwin looked startled. “Maybe it wasn’t.”
“Maybe it was her aunt and uncle or something. Or just someone she stayed with while she was … pregnant. Maybe she went home to a very loving family.”
Mrs. Baldwin nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes. I’ve often hoped that myself.”
“You have?”
Mrs. Baldwin looked at her. “Certainly, I have. I’ve rewritten the story many times in my head. But it always has the same ending.”
Faith’s brows raised.
“It always ends with your father and me welcoming the most beautiful, sweet, loving baby into our arms and our home.” A tear slid down her cheek. “I do love happy endings, don’t you?”
Faith nodded, but her mind was on her birth mother’s ending. What was the ending to her part of the story? Faith shuddered. She was going to find out.
Mrs. Baldwin leaned over and patted Faith’s hand. “I know you need to go. I wish there was more I could tell you.”
“You’ve told me that the girl’s hair was brown, so I know that. You told me that she was from northern Indiana. That’s plenty to start with.”
“Not really,” Mrs. Baldwin said. “I think we need to be realistic about it. It’s not much at all.”
Faith tensed. “It’s enough to get started.”
“I wish I’d gotten the name of the lawyer who handled it. We only knew her as Rose.” Mrs. Baldwin shook her head. “You must think your father and I were daft. But we were so excited, so thrilled in fact, that we simply let ourselves be carried along with the flow, paying attention to nothing but whether we would actually get you for ourselves. And our lawyer, unfortunately, whose name we did know, is dead.”
“I know, Mother. I know. You don’t have to keep telling me. I don’t blame you for forgetting or not knowing. It’s all right. I’ll figure it out.”
“We don’t know exactly where the girl was from. But there was at least one thing we did find out. We know we picked you up in the Hollybrook area, but that she was from elsewhere. The place where we collected you wasn’t the house where you were born. I know that, too. Oh, you were the littlest thing. So precious.” She closed her eyes and smiled. Then she looked at Faith. “For some strange reason, I got the impression that the birth mother was from further up north. Where are you going to start?”
“I’m going to start in Landover Creek. That’s in the north. The top of the state. Then, I’m going to go south, through Hollybrook and then continue to Meadow Lark, and on.” Faith looked at her mother. “You think I should just start in Hollybrook?”
Her mother shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she spoke slowly. “I think you’re right to start further north and then travel down.” She wiped a tear from her cheek. “How I wish we’d gotten more names for you.”
“It’s all right, Mother. I told you.”
“Your father will want to give you money.”
“I don’t want his money. I have my own.”
“But he’ll want to do this for you,” she said, her eyes large and pleading.
Faith stood. “No. If I need more money, I’ll call you.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Mrs. Baldwin smiled, though her eyes were still watery. “You’ll check in with us every day?”
“I’m not sure if I’ll be able to. I’ll try, though.”
“We’ll worry if we don’t hear from you.”
“I’ll try hard. Okay?”
“The offer to hire a private investigator still holds.”
Faith sighed. “I know that. If I need help, I’ll call. Truly, I will.”
“Your sister will miss you.”
Faith stepped around the island and faced her mother. “Penny has no interest in finding her own birth mother. You don’t need to worry.”
Mrs. Baldwin shook her head as if the thought hadn’t crossed her mind, but Faith knew that it had. “I’m not worried,” Mrs. Baldwin said.
“Good.” Faith paused. “I haven’t tried to influence her.”
“No, no,” Mrs. Baldwin said. “I never thought you would.”
But Faith knew that wasn’t true, either. Her mother worried about it constantly. Little comments she had made here and there made it obvious.
Faith gave her mother a lingering hug and then went to her room to pack.
When Faith’s father came home, it was clear that her mother had already called him and filled him in. He insisted on taking Faith out to dinner and had driven straight to her favorite health food restaurant. Faith appreciated it, but it was a bittersweet meal.
“Do you want dessert?” he asked her. “We can get some of their sugarless berry cobbler.”
Faith shook her head. “Dad, I’m stuffed. I couldn’t eat another bite.”
“All right. You sure you don’t want some almond milk ice cream?”
“I’m sure.”
He rubbed his chin with two fingers, his characteristic gesture when he was stressed. “The Amish probably won’t welcome you.”
She swallowed. “I know.”
“They don’t take kindly to outsiders pushing their way in.”
“I don’t plan on pushing my way in.” Faith frowned.
He held up his hand. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
Faith put her napkin on the table and fiddled with the corners of the white cloth. A strained silence fell over the two of them. So was that the purpose of this dinner? To warn her? Or to scare her off?
Her dad sighed. “I’m worried is all.”
“I know you are. If I have trouble, I can come home, you know.”
His face relaxed and a look of relief swept over him. “You will come home, won’t you? If it doesn’t work out like you’d hoped.”
“Of course, Dad. I’m not trying to be a martyr or anything.”
He laughed at her use of the word. “I know that.”
“It’s going to be all right. You’ll see.” Why did she suddenly feel like the parent?
He reached over and patted her hand. “Of course, it is. Your mother and I will be praying for you.”
“I know.”
“And your sister will, too.”
Faith wasn’t as sure of that, but she smiled and nodded.
Her dad stood. “All right. Let me pay the bill and get you home.”
All in all, Faith thought it had been a pleasant meal, but just the same, she was glad it was over. She wanted to go to bed and then get up and be on her way.
Chapter Three
Faith was up, showered, and dressed by five o’clock the next morning. She had said her good-byes the night before and didn’t want to repeat them again. She picked up her suitcase, slung her purse over her shoulder, tucked her cell into her pocket, and crept out of the house. Even though it was the middle of summer, it wasn’t light out yet. Sunrise would happen closer to six. Her car sat at the end of the driveway, full of gas and ready to go.
As quietly as possible, she put her luggage into the trunk and then slipped into the driver’s seat. She started the engine and the lights came on. She was ready to back up when she noticed something on the windshield. Odd that she hadn’t noticed it when she’d gotten into the trunk. She stepped back out and picke
d up a single rose lying there. With the light from the headlights, she saw it was just opening and was a lovely deep yellow. She brought it to her nose and smelled the sweet fragrance. As she inhaled, tears came to her eyes. There was a ribbon tied around the rose with a small card.
I love you.
She held the rose to her chest and closed her eyes. Seth. He was amazing. She got back in the car and laid the rose on the passenger seat. She’d text him later when he was awake.
There was hardly anyone on the road. When she entered the freeway, there were mainly freight trucks but very few cars. She’d beat the rush hour and was glad. As she sped along, the sun rose behind her. At this rate, she’d be in northern Indiana by lunchtime. She wished she’d brought something along to eat. She wasn’t much of a breakfast person, but right then, she was hungry.
Nerves, she thought. It was probably not hunger at all.
Just before noon, she entered the fairly large Amish community of Landover Creek. She’d made great time, stopping once for gas and once to use the restroom. Now, she was hungry. She observed what appeared to be a tourist area. For some reason Amish and tourist didn’t seem to mix in her mind, but then she realized the allure of the Amish lifestyle. It only made sense that people would flock to the area to gawk and learn.
She pulled to the side of the street and parked. An Amish restaurant was directly across from her spot. She got out, locked her door, and easily ran through the light traffic to enter the establishment. She paused just inside the door. The place was set up with large wooden tables. It looked more like a family reunion than a restaurant. Along the far side was a buffet table.
“May I help you?” came a soft voice from her side.
She looked over at a young Amish girl smiling at her.
“Uh, yes. I’d like to have lunch.” Faith stared at the girl, knowing that had things gone differently, it could have been her standing there in Amish garb, waiting on an Englisch customer.
“Of course. You can serve yourself and someone will be around for your drink order. You pay when you leave.”
“Thank you.” Faith noted the girl’s tightly pulled bun at the back of her head. Her kapp was pristine white and pinned in place with bobby pins. She wore a light blue dress with an attached short cape. She stood behind a counter so Faith couldn’t see her shoes, although Faith was sure they’d be heavy-duty black ones. From what she’d read, Amish folk usually wore sturdy black shoes.
Amish Romance: Faith's Story: Three Book Box Set Page 2