by Gayle Roper
When the ambulance slowed and turned into the Zook drive, Todd and I looked at each other, fear and uncertainty on our faces.
“Jake!” Todd said, and we ran toward the house.
But it wasn’t Jake. It was Mary. She had taken the basement stairs too quickly in the fading light, jars of cooled jelly in her arms, and she’d tumbled to the bottom.
When we reached the house, the emergency medical technicians were already inside checking her. Mary lay half on the basement floor, half on the stairs, her right leg twisted around the upright that supported the railing. There was blood all over the place.
“She cut herself on broken glass,” Jake said from his wheelchair when he heard my gasp. John and Elam stood at the foot of the stairs watching, their faces pale and frightened.
Mary was in severe pain and trying not to show it. She did fairly well—probably much better than I ever would.
“Breathing’s okay,” said a curly haired young woman with glasses. “Her lungs are clear. Blood pressure’s okay too. No bleeding in the ear. The blood appears to be from external wounds.”
“Her pupils are equal,” said the second EMT, a short, stocky man who was busy applying pressure to a large gash in Mary’s right thigh. “Hand me some pads and a couple of cling bandages.”
“I missed my step,” Mary managed to say. “I was almost to the bottom, but I missed.”
The woman nodded. “And your arms were full so you couldn’t protect yourself.”
“I fell on the jars.”
Quickly the EMTs staunched the hemorrhaging.
“We want to protect this leg, Mrs. Zook, but we don’t want to straighten it right now. We’re also going to put a KED splint on you to protect your back. A fall down the stairs is always dangerous,” the young woman said.
“But I only fell three or four steps,” Mary said in a weak voice.
“We can’t take a risk here in case of spinal or cervical injury.”
Working with speed and care, they padded Mary’s leg with blanket rolls and wrapped it to hold the rolls secure. In a few more minutes she was wrapped in a splint that went from her head to her hips and closed with Velcro straps down the front. Then the EMTs transferred her to a rigid backboard.
The female EMT positioned herself at Mary’s head, the man at her feet.
“On three,” she said. “One, two, three.” They lifted the backboard.
The woman began to ascend the stairs, and Todd moved quickly to grasp the board and help her with the weight. Elam stepped up to help at Mary’s feet. I held the front door, and in no time Mary was in the ambulance. Jake had followed us outside by way of a detour into his apartment to use his ramp. His face was closed and dark, and when he turned to his father and brother and spoke, his voice was harsh.
“Come on. We’ll follow her to the hospital.”
John and Elam nodded and trailed him to his van, looking back at the ambulance as if they wanted to do something more for Mary. Jake kept his eyes straight ahead and his shoulders rigid. I thought he was struggling to hold himself together—and not just because his mother was badly hurt.
He hadn’t been able to help. When it was time to carry her, he’d had to sit helplessly as others lifted her. He’d had to watch his brother and Todd do what he yearned to do. Even I, in holding the door, had assisted his mother while he was forced to endure being useless. He’d had to turn away and roll into his rooms so he could use his ramp. He’d discovered yet another searing limitation of his injury.
My heart ached for him as much as for Mary.
When Jake was in his van, the young woman EMT approached me where I stood with Todd. She kept glancing over her shoulder toward the van.
“Excuse me,” she said very softly. “Can you tell me his name? The guy in the wheelchair?”
“Jake Zook,” I said.
A smile swept across her face. She doubled her small fist, pumped it discreetly, and said softly, “Yes!”
I watched her, intrigued. “Do you know him?” I asked, realizing that was a foolish question even as I said it. If she knew him, she wouldn’t have to ask his name.
“Yes,” she said as she turned to the ambulance. “But not really.”
Now there was a clear answer if ever I heard one.
The other EMT leaned out of the back door of the ambulance.
“Come on, Rose,” he called impatiently. “You’re holding us up!”
On Wednesday afternoon I went to Todd’s office for my appointment. Mrs. Smiley was just as moved by my presence this time as she had been last week.
“Hello, Mrs. Smiley,” I said with gusto. “It’s good to see you again too. I’ve missed you. And I love your brown dress. It just matches your brown shoes. But aren’t long sleeves a bit warm?”
I got no response beyond a look that would curdle milk, but then I didn’t expect any, especially in the face of my phony jocularity.
“Miss Bentley, please have a seat.” Her voice was cool and correct, and she gestured to the paisley chairs with a beautifully manicured hand. I noticed her nails were bright red today, with the ring finger of each hand sporting one white and one blue diagonal stripe on the scarlet enamel with a small white star blinking at me as she typed. I didn’t know who did her nails, but she clearly knew how to reach that hidden, repressed part of Mrs. Smiley that I could only guess at.
After ignoring me for a few minutes, Mrs. Smiley rose from her chair and nodded briefly at me. “This way, Miss Bentley. Mr. Reasoner will see you now.”
How did she know he’d see me now, at this precise moment? I hadn’t heard her contact him. I hadn’t heard him contact her. Maybe in her other wild fingernail life Mrs. Smiley was a spy and the office was full of sophisticated electronic gadgets that allowed her to snoop on Todd, clearly a man dangerous to the United States. She would call Homeland Security any minute now. I smiled at Mrs. Smiley, imagining her karate kicking a villain from here to Paradise—the small town over on Route 30, not the one Jesus invited the thief on the cross to share with Him.
When I entered his office, Todd rose from behind his massive desk with alacrity, his hand extended in welcome. He showed me to the cozy alcove beneath Kristie’s and Mary’s paintings. He took a seat beside me on the sofa.
Mrs. Smiley noted our physical proximity and signaled disapproval by a slight sniff as she closed the door.
“I don’t think she likes me,” I said.
He grinned. “She just likes playing mother hen by protecting me from predatory females.”
“Ah.” I grinned back. “Of course.”
“So how’s Mary?” he asked. “Is she still in as much pain?”
“She’s still in the hospital, but she’s going to be fine. I stopped in for a few minutes earlier today. She has a broken right leg, but the break is clean. They had to wait for the swelling to go down to cast it. She also has several gashes from the broken jelly jars; the ones on her right hip and leg and one on her right forearm are especially deep. They’ve been stitched, but one’s developed an infection. They hope to send her home by the end of the week, and the home-health nurse will come to check on her daily.”
“How are they managing at the farm? Are you cooking?”
“On that wood stove? Are you kidding?”
He folded his hands across his stomach. “It is pretty intimidating, I imagine.”
“Understatement.” I shuddered at the thought of tackling it. “No, they’ve got a maud.”
“A maud?”
“A maid. A single woman from their church has moved in for the duration. She’s living in Ruth’s old room. Her name’s Esther Yoder. She’s this cute little thing about nineteen years old with big dark eyes and rosy cheeks. And I notice that her eyes follow Elam more than casually.”
“Watch it, romance writer. You’re hatching a plot here.” He smiled.
“No,” I said. “If I wanted to hatch a plot, I’d go after Rose, who knows but doesn’t know Jake. Do you think she’s the Rose that Kristi
e mentioned? The one we’re not allowed to talk to Jake about?”
“I’m supposed to know the answer to this?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’m paying you to know all the answers or at least to know where to find them.”
“Well,” he said, settling back against his end of the sofa like he’d finally found a topic of discussion he was comfortable with. “I’ve done some checking around and have come up with some suggestions for you on trying to find your grandfather’s background.”
I leaned forward eagerly. “So tell me.”
“First, it’d be a good idea to go to the agency he was adopted through and ask them if they’ll open his records. They’ll probably say no, not without the consent of the Biemsderfers. They should be willing to trace the family and ask on your behalf if they’ll agree to open the records.”
“I thought of that,” I said. “I went to the library yesterday, and the research librarian and I spent some time trying to trace the Children’s Home Society of the City of Lancaster: For the Relief of the Poor and the Care of Destitute Children.” The long title rolled off my tongue. It’d never make it in today’s world of acronyms, but it sounded solid and slightly stuffy and very proper to me, very 1918, like men in neckties and vests and bowlers and ladies with gowns to the floor and gloves and large-brimmed hats. “We found that the agency headquarters burned to the ground in 1926, and all records were lost. There is no hope of any information there.”
“Oh.” Todd looked slightly nonplussed, though I wasn’t sure if it was at my wealth of information or at the fact that I’d beaten him to the idea.
“When I learned there was no help to be had there,” I continued, “I went to Harrisburg to the Bureau of Vital Statistics and talked to them.”
“I told you that would be a useless trip.” He was somewhat abrupt in his comment. “I told you not to waste your time.”
“You were absolutely right,” I admitted. “But I had to try, you know.”
“Why?” he asked. “My word isn’t good enough?”
“It’s called double-checking,” I said.
“You think I don’t double-check everything, Cara?”
“I’m sure you do,” I said to soothe his ruffled feathers, though why they should be ruffled was beyond me.
He cleared his throat, trying to keep his pique controlled. “There’s another very slim possibility, but you could check the newspapers for a birth announcement. I don’t imagine there would be one, given that this was probably an illegitimate birth, but…” He shrugged.
“I thought of that too” I said. “I went to the Lancaster Newspapers, Inc., offices today and spent some time with the researcher in the morgue. There’s not a Biemsderfer mentioned in the paper from 1917 to 1919. In 1920 a Dwayne Biemsderfer married a Rebecca Crum. But I need a birth announcement, not a wedding announcement. And I need a female Biemsderfer, not a male.”
Todd sat still, staring at me with surprise, I supposed.
“Next I went to visit Orphan’s Court to see if they could help me.” I turned to him accusingly. “Did you know that Orphan’s Court has nothing to do with orphans and adoptions? It has to do with probate issues and estates. Why in the world don’t they just call it Probate Court or Estate Court? It would save innocent people lots of confusion. By the way, Lancaster has a very nice courthouse. I was impressed.”
I smiled and sat primly, my bone sandals neatly side-by-side. Mrs. Smiley would have been proud had she seen me. I hoped Todd noticed that my cream pants outfit had a tiny coral flower pattern through it. Not all beige today, though certainly not full of pizzazz.
Todd’s fingers, still folded over his stomach, were tapping, tapping. His face was carefully devoid of emotion. Completely gone was the pleasure he’d shown when I first arrived.
“May I ask you a question?” His voice was deadly soft.
“Sure,” I said.
“Why did you bother to hire me?”
“For your legal advice.”
“Which you’ve either ignored or not waited to hear.”
“You’re mad because I went to Harrisburg?”
“I did not say that.”
“You didn’t need to. It shows. You’re really used to people doing exactly what you say, aren’t you?”
“I did not say that either. Cara, if you’re going to run off here, there, and everywhere all on your own, you don’t need a lawyer.”
“In other words, you don’t want to be my lawyer anymore?”
“I did not say that.”
“You aren’t saying much of anything, are you?”
We stared at each other, jaws set.
“You really like to be in charge, don’t you?” I said coolly.
“That’s what I’m hired for,” he said. “Because I’m the authority.”
“So you say.” I couldn’t help it. Bentley genes.
“If you want to talk about people who like control, you might just want to look at yourself,” he suggested, ice in his voice.
“I’m only doing what I do every time I write a book,” I said. “I’m researching. We romance writers pride ourselves on our research skills.”
He ran one hand through his hair, and the curls on the left side of his head leaped to disarrayed life. With his other hand he straightened his already straight tie. I could tell he was struggling for a calmness he didn’t feel.
There was a gentle ping from his desk, and Todd spun toward it. “My next client is here,” he said.
So that’s how she did it. I rose. “Fine.”
We walked stiffly to the door. He reached to open it for me.
“What time will you be picking me up Friday night for dinner with Ward and Marnie?” I asked, my voice neutral.
He started. “You still want me to go?”
“Of course. Why not?”
“But we just had a fight.”
I almost laughed. “You think that was a fight? That was just a good, old-fashioned clearing of the air.”
“It was?”
“If you want to talk fight, you should have seen Mom and Pop when they had one of their rare disagreements. Those were real fights.”
I told him the story of the time Pop was going to San Francisco for a convention and Mom wanted to go along and stay for a week or two afterward for vacation.
“We can’t do that, Tess,” Pop had said, making a unilateral decision just like he made at work all day. “I need to get back to the office as soon as I can. And you can’t leave the kids anyway.”
I was ten and Ward was twelve at the time.
“I can’t not go with you,” Mom said, her voice crisp and emphatic. That half-strident tone should have been a warning to Pop, but he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts to notice. Mom plowed on, her voice getting louder and louder. “You have become a workaholic, John. We have to get away together so you can remember who you’re married to. And it isn’t business in spite of what you seem to think!”
He stared at her, unable to believe his gentle wife was screeching, but he wouldn’t yield. “No, Tess. The issue isn’t open to discussion.”
“Then I am also not open to discussion.”
And she didn’t talk to him for four days. She did all her regular things around the house with a pleasant manner and she joked with us kids and loved us kids as usual, but whenever Pop spoke to her, it was like she had gone deaf.
Finally on the fourth night he came home from work late to find Mom, Ward, and me eating dinner. He stalked up to the table and threw a pair of airplane tickets down in front of her.
“Satisfied?” he roared.
Mom picked them up, read the dates, looked at him and smiled. “Completely. I’ll call the babysitter tomorrow.”
“No more sulking?” he demanded.
“No more dictating?” she shot back.
He grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her out of her chair and into his arms.
“I can’t stand it when you’re mad at me, Tess,” he said, his vo
ice soft and hurt.
“And I can’t stand it when you forget me, John.” There were tears in her eyes.
He gave her a huge kiss while Ward coughed and gagged expressively. Then with arms about each other’s waists, Mom and Pop disappeared upstairs, giving Ward and me a whole evening to watch TV, which we did until our eyes bugged out.
“That was a fight,” I said, smiling at Todd. “You and I had a mere clashing of wills.”
He looked at me thoughtfully. “Cultural divergence due to family background.”
“Seems like it.”
“A great gulf fixed? Or is there a sturdy bridge we can cross?”
I squeezed his hand, which I found myself holding somehow. “We’ll find one.”
He squeezed back. “Or build one.”
We were staring at each other when Mrs. Smiley opened the door and snorted.
Chapter 7
I liked Alma Stoltzfus immediately. She was just the kind of woman I’d always wanted for an aunt. She laughed easily, talked readily, and seemed genuinely interested in helping me. If she didn’t have the information I needed, she would do her best to help me find it.
Her brown eyes snapped and her expressive face showed a keen intelligence. She had legs to die for under a slightly plump, chesty body, and like Pop and Ward, she seemed unable to talk without using her hands. They sliced through the air in whorls and lines and circles, pointing, underlining, explaining. She was hard-pressed to get her spoon full of Tuscany potato soup to her mouth without waving it and losing its contents en route.
While we ate lunch, I told her about Pop and Mom and my family, and she told me about her husband, Art, and their children, Art, Jr., called Bub, Suzanne called Sissy, the twins, Theodore called Ned and Theodora called Dolly.
“I don’t know why we named the kids one thing and called them another. I’m sure it says something about Art and me, but I haven’t the vaguest idea what, and I frankly don’t care. All I care is that Bub and Sissy have given me four of the cutest grandkids you ever saw, three from Bub and one so far from Sissy. When the twins finally get married, I expect several more. Oh, lucky me! Believe me, young lady, there’s nothing like grandkids.” And she pulled out a passel of pictures.