Shadows of Lancaster County

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “That’s rather impressive,” Mr. Wynn had said, adding that UPenn was a top-notch school and a member of the Ivy League. When he learned that Bobby was in premed, hoping to continue on after graduation at the medical school there, he stopped cutting his steak and gave me a nod. “Do you know if he has plans for next summer? Because we’re expanding our research extension out in Lancaster County. We’ll have a few openings for summer interns in the DNA lab, if he’s interested.”

  I had no idea if Bobby was into DNA work or not, but I told Mr. Wynn I would ask him.

  “We’ve already filled one spot with a fellow down from Harvard, a first-year med student named Reed Thornton. There are still two spots left though, so have your brother give me a call.”

  Have your brother give me a call.

  It was just a chance remark, a kind offer from a family friend, but it would end up being the seven words that were the beginning of the end for all of us.

  Mr. Wynn owned Wynn Industries, a huge pharmaceutical company based in Hidden Springs. I didn’t think his offer of an internship was any big deal, but when I called Bobby at school a few days later and conveyed the conversation to him, he was beside himself with excitement.

  “DNA is where the future is!” Bobby cried. “Of course I’m into DNA work, you goofball.”

  Bobby had contacted Mr. Wynn immediately and arranged an interview, and about a month later he learned that he had been hired. The third internship went to a student from yet another Ivy League school, a guy from the Midwest named Doug Brown. That June, as soon as the semester was over, Bobby packed up the things from his dorm room and moved them out to a rental in Dreiheit, where the lab was located. Unlike the other two interns, Bobby was already very familiar with the town and its environs from the years of visiting our grandparents there.

  A few weeks later, Haley and I drove to Dreiheit to spend the Fourth of July weekend at her mom’s. We decided to pay a visit to Bobby at the lab while we were in town, and though I enjoyed seeing his workplace and meeting his boss, the brilliant Dr. Updyke, Haley had been more interested in one of Bobby’s fellow interns, the one from the Midwest named Doug. Haley and Doug hit it off immediately, and by the time the fireworks went off on the night of the Fourth, they were making a few fireworks of their own.

  Soon they were officially a couple, the guy from Harvard had arrived and stepped into his position as the senior intern, and Haley was talking about staying in Dreiheit for the whole summer. Once she found a job at the local ice cream parlor, it was a done deal. Her job was a lot of fun, and when another opening became available soon afterward, she started bugging me to come out and apply for the position myself and spend the summer at her mom’s with her. I was already bored with the random babysitting jobs I was getting at home, so I took her up on it. Haley was thrilled, as she was hoping to play matchmaker with me and the intern I hadn’t met yet, Reed Thornton, whom she described on the phone as a “major hottie” and exactly my type.

  When I first met Reed, I thought Haley had made an understatement. He wasn’t just a “hottie,” he was, in fact, the most gorgeous guy I had ever seen. He seemed attracted to me as well, at least until my big-mouthed brother stepped in and pointedly referred to me as his “seventeen-year-old baby sister.” Reed, who was twenty-one at the time, quickly seemed to lose interest, though he was still very nice to me. Instead of having the romance I would have liked, Reed and I became good friends instead. The five of us—Reed, Doug, Bobby, Haley, and I—ended up spending a lot of time together that summer. We would work all day, and then in the evenings we would go to the local tourist traps or drop in on the occasional rumspringa party or just spend time hanging out at Haley’s mom’s house. Melody worked in agriculture and was fascinated with the potential of exploring plant DNA, and she loved to pick the guys’ brains about their research with human DNA at the lab. Their conversations were often way over my head, but I loved to listen anyway, simply because Reed was so incredibly smart.

  Just as Haley had predicted, that summer was great fun. The men were brilliant and funny and loved to tease, and of course Haley and I enjoyed being around older, more mature guys for a change. The more time I spent with Reed, the harder I fell for him, and soon I was convinced I was absolutely in love, though he still treated me more like a sister than anything else. Reed may have been oblivious to my charms, but Bobby certainly noticed the vibes I was giving off. More than once he warned me not to fall too hard for Reed, saying there were things about him I didn’t know and would not like. I just assumed Bobby was being an over-protective big brother, and I ignored most of his advice. As the summer progressed, I continued to make a shameless play for Reed, and he continued to treat me like a close friend.

  To everyone’s surprise, the real romance of the summer ended up being not me and Reed or Haley and Doug, but Bobby and an Amish girl named Lydia Schumann. The Schumanns were the ones we had played with as children, who lived next door to our grandparents. As kids, Lydia and her siblings had taught us Dutch Blitz and taken us sledding and pretty much showed us how much fun you could have without a television set or sophisticated toys of any kind.

  Bobby and Lydia were the same age, and as children the two of them had been positively unbeatable in any game we played. They both loved pulling practical jokes and weaving fantastic stories and rounding up every possible person for pickup games of stickball. When our grandparents died, my brother and I had felt sure we’d never see the Schumann kids again.

  Once Bobby began his internship there in Dreiheit, however, one of the first families to walk through the door of the lab was Lydia’s. A rare genetic disorder ran in her family, and her mother, Kate, who was pregnant, had come in for some genetic testing. Around her family Lydia acted quiet and shy, but when Bobby saw her that weekend at a rumspringa party, she was anything but. Still mischievous, fun, funny, and smart, she was now also beautiful as well. They fell in love almost instantly and began spending every possible moment together that they could.

  Lydia was nineteen at the time, the age when she should have been preparing for baptism into the Amish church and marriage to some nice Amish boy. Instead, she had fallen for Bobby, and she had begun to seriously question whether she was going to be baptized as Amish or not. The stakes were high, and she knew it. If she went ahead with a baptism and later changed her mind, she would be shunned by the Amish community forever. If, instead, she made a break with the church now and never was baptized at all, she could remain in contact with her family and would not suffer the complete social ostracization that shunning created. Either decision would lead to serious consequences and could not be taken lightly.

  Bobby and Lydia continued to date the rest of the summer, but the more in love they grew, the more frustrated he became with not being able to see her except on weekends. Amish parents usually looked the other way on Friday and Saturday nights when their kids were on rumpspringa, hoping that a little taste of freedom and a brief exploration of the outside world would be all they needed to make the decision to remain Amish for the rest of their lives. It was a little harder to pull off sneaking out during the week, but Lydia was determined to start trying. Because the family had no phone, however, she and Bobby had to come up with a system of communication for the weeknights that he didn’t have to work late and wanted to see her.

  It hadn’t taken long for Bobby to figure out how to get a signal to Lydia. Her bedroom was the only one in their house with a view of the family’s back fields; the rest of the bedroom windows were obscured by a row of maple trees. Because she could see so far, Bobby bought a pack of fireworks, and to signal her to come out and meet him, he would simply drive around to the back of their farm—on the property that used to belong to our grandparents—and shoot one off. Eventually, he changed to Roman candles because they didn’t make as much noise and they contained six flares in a row. That was almost always enough to get her attention, and whenever she saw those bright orange streaks across the sky in the distance, sh
e would quietly get dressed and slip outside and run down the long, straight rows of the cornfield until she reached him at the other side.

  Usually, they didn’t even go anywhere. They would just spend time together out there in the darkness, sometimes late into the night. On cooler evenings, they would make a small fire or bundle up inside Bobby’s truck. Despite the risks of dating a girl who was off limits, we all thought it incredibly romantic that Bobby and Lydia had each fallen for their childhood friend. Their clandestine meetings were made even more special by the notion that the very ground they were sitting on had once belonged to his family and now belonged to hers.

  One night near the end of the summer, Bobby was planning to meet Lydia as usual. That time, however, the rest of us had nothing better to do, so we asked if we could come along, maybe build a fire in their fire pit, roast marshmallows, and just hang out. It was a beautiful night and it sounded like something fun to do. We all piled into Bobby’s big truck, making one stop on the way for Doug, who wanted some beer.

  Out at the farm, I could see why Bobby enjoyed being there. In the place where our grandparents’ house once stood, all that remained were the front and back cement steps, the basement, which was now open to the elements, and their old garage, in which Lydia’s father now stored some farm equipment. Otherwise, Mr. Schumann hadn’t done much with the property, so the graceful old trees that used to shade our grandparents’ front lawn were still there. Our old rope swing even hung from the tallest of those trees, though the rope had nearly rotted away.

  When we arrived, Bobby sent us out into the yard to gather sticks for the fire. As we did that, he pulled out a Roman candle from his secret stash in the back of the truck and shot it off so that Lydia would know to come. Doug wanted to shoot some off too, just for fun, but Bobby lied and said he didn’t have any more. I knew he did, and I knew where he kept them in the truck, but I didn’t say anything because I felt sure the reason he didn’t want Doug playing with them was because they would make us too noticeable back here. One Roman candle could come and go without attracting too much attention. A whole bunch of Roman candles could light up the night sky and draw the neighbors—or maybe even the police.

  While we waited for Lydia, Bobby directed us to the fire pit, which he and Lydia had constructed with a circle of rocks and some sand. The guys started our little bonfire while Haley and I chose the perfect sticks for roasting marshmallows. We spread a couple of blankets on the ground around the fire. At that point, Lydia joined us, out of breath from her dash across the field but happy to see the whole gang.

  For the next hour we all simply sat around and talked and laughed and roasted marshmallows. Over the summer of hanging out with this group, I had become used to seeing the two couples hang all over each other while Reed and I kept a platonic distance. That night, however, he seemed to sit a little closer, let his hand linger on my hand a while longer. I had long ago given up hope of his being interested in me, but it was still fun to see him flirt back for a change.

  When Bobby and Lydia excused themselves, we knew they were going off to find a little privacy. At that point, I wasn’t sure how far they went when they were alone, but I hoped that their faith gave them the strength to resist going too far.

  According to Haley, she and Doug were not having sex even though he wanted to. As I watched the two of them finish off one six-pack and start into another, I wondered how drunk she would have to be before her boundaries flew out the window.

  Eventually, Reed reached for a beer too, though when he offered me one, I declined. At seventeen-almost-eighteen, I was pretty much a good girl. I was a virgin, didn’t drink, had only tried smoking once, rarely cursed. It wasn’t that I enjoyed being known as a Goody Two-shoes. It was just that I happened to take to heart the behavioral elements of my Christianity. When I accepted Christ at thirteen, I had accepted the whole package: to be like Him, to learn about Him, to worship Him, to love Him. As far as I was concerned, the kids I knew who went a little wild sometimes never really enjoyed it beyond the moment anyway, and sometimes, most times, later they were really sorry. Puking in the toilet, they were sorry. Trying to get the smell of smoke out of their hair before going home, they were sorry. Seeing the little line in the tiny window turn into a plus sign, they were really, really sorry. To me, it seemed easier—and smarter and certainly more Christlike—to just not go there in the first place. I didn’t freak out if my friends crossed the line, but I wasn’t going to cross it with them. Fortunately, except for Doug’s drinking, our whole group was pretty tame anyway.

  As the tamest one of all, I usually wasn’t given a hard time by these guys because they knew my limits and seemed to respect them. But for some reason, that night Doug started teasing me, calling me a party pooper. Haley, who was supposed to be my best friend, soon joined him. To their mind, it was all in good fun, but they were drunk and that made it obnoxious and a little too aggressive. I looked to Reed for help, but he just smiled and said, “I can’t see how one beer could hurt.”

  Much to my amazement, I found myself pressured into a corner. I was very uncomfortable, but on the one night that Reed had finally shown some interest in me, I really didn’t want to blow it by looking like a prude—or worse, like a little kid. That was why I said what I said next. Later, if I could have taken it back, I would have—a thousand times over, I would have.

  “Hey, guys,” I said in a desperate attempt to change the subject, “I know where Bobby keeps all those Roman candles. He was lying to you, Doug. He’s got a whole case in the back of his truck.”

  The night took on a life of its own after that. Doug and Reed forgot all about teasing me and ran to get the fireworks instead. For the next fifteen or twenty minutes, they managed to shoot off half the box. Doug even threw a handful in the fire to see what would happen. Unfortunately, they still went off, only the shots came out horizontal rather than vertical. Laughing hysterically, we all jumped and ducked to avoid the orange fireballs as they shot past.

  The whole time the guys were playing around, I kept expecting Bobby to come running out from the shadows and tell them to stop. He never did, though, and we later learned that was because he and Lydia were in the garage. He testified later that they could hear us laughing but they didn’t see the flashes of light because the door was firmly closed.

  When Doug grew tired of shooting off Roman candles, he scooped Haley into his arms and began kissing her aggressively. She seemed to return his passion, and after about a minute, they whispered something to each other, joined hands, and just like Bobby and Lydia had done, they disappeared into the shadows.

  That left me alone with Reed. We sat beside the dwindling fire and talked about the fact that the summer was almost over and how sad we were for it to end. He talked about his family back home, the rich parents who were more interested in their next vacation than they were in their own son. I talked about how eager I was to finish high school so I could get started with college.

  “Yeah, it’s easy to forget you’re just seventeen,” he said, suddenly focusing in on me with those blue eyes. “Sometimes, Annalise, I just don’t know what to do about you…”

  With one hand, he reached up and gently brushed the hair from my face. What happened next was the fulfillment of the dream that had hounded me the entire summer. Slowly, Reed leaned forward, and then he kissed me.

  Heart racing, I kissed him back, placing a hand on his muscular shoulder. I loved him so much, in the way that only seventeen-year-old girls can love. I wanted the hearts and the flowers and the words and the promises. He was the man of my dreams, and he was kissing me.

  Afterward, he touched his warm lips to my cheek and my forehead and then he simply pulled me close. We sat there like that, beside the fire, silently holding on to each other, not saying a word. I would have been happy to stay there forever, but after a while I realized that the gentle caresses his hands were making on my shoulders and back were gaining energy, were moving wider and lower and more to the
front. I was trying to think how to calm his ardor without sounding like a child when he suddenly pulled away, chuckling softly.

  “Like I said, it’s easy to forget how young you are sometimes. Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I said, looking up at him, knowing that not only was he the most handsome, sweetest, greatest guy I had ever known—he had also found the wherewithal to act like a gentlemen in the face of his most desperate passions. “I’ve been dreaming all summer of your kiss.”

  He chuckled again, shook his head, and then utterly destroyed the moment by scooting further away, reaching into his pocket, and pulling out a joint.

  To say that I was surprised was an understatement.

  “This’ll help us cool down,” he said, and then he lit it, took a deep drag, and held his breath as he passed it to me.

  Maybe I was naive back then. Maybe it shouldn’t have been that big of a shock, but I didn’t do drugs, and I didn’t think he was the kind of guy who did either. Slowly, as he held out that joint, I realized that all the good things I had thought about him weren’t true. He wasn’t the greatest guy in the world. He wasn’t the man of my dreams. Finally, I understood what Bobby had been hinting at all summer that Reed was a pothead.

  This time I didn’t need a diversion to avoid being pressured. I just shook my head and told him no thanks. I tried to play it cool, but after a minute my eyes filled with tears. Heartbroken, I got up and ran to Bobby’s truck hoping Reed would follow me and apologize. Maybe he would say he was just kidding, it was a joke, it was a fake. But as the sweet, acrid smell of marijuana smoke reached my nostrils, I knew it was no joke. I turned around to look at Reed, who had simply laid down on his side, elbow bent, head propped on his hand, and continued to smoke as he stared at the fire.