A Secret Identity (The Amish Farm Trilogy 2)

by Gayle Roper

  “I know all about you,” Amos began, his eyes on me cold and accusing. “Tel Hai called. So did Alma.”

  “I was very sorry that your mother had to go to the hospital,” I said. “Alma told me she’s doing well and was expected back at Tel Hai today now that her heart is regulated. It was a matter of medication.”

  “Medication, my foot.” He put his hands on his desk, palms down, and leaned forward. “It was you.”

  I jerked as though hit. Todd put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

  “Amos, that’s not true and you know it,” he said.

  “No, I don’t know it,” Amos said. “Mom had been doing quite well until she came along.” And he pointed at me.

  “She wanted to see me.” I sounded desperate that he believe me.

  “Ha! She’s a senile old lady. She doesn’t even understand why you were coming. But I know.”

  Suddenly something felt very strange here. What did he think he knew? “Why do you think I wanted to see your mother?”

  He all but sneered. “Her money, of course.”

  “She’s wealthy? I didn’t know that.”

  This time he did sneer. “Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”

  We Bentleys weren’t used to being called liars, and my spine stiffened. “You might try. It’s the truth.”

  “Cara came to me as a client because she was looking for her family and needed advice on Pennsylvania law regarding adoptions,” Todd said. “She has been following leads carefully since she’s been here. She has not indicated in any way that she seeks anything from her family but acquaintance.”

  “Well, we’re not her family, and even if we were, we wouldn’t want any acquaintance.” Amos’s voice was heavy and final.

  I thought about the call from Alma he’d mentioned. Surely she didn’t call random people about something like this, but I didn’t challenge him. It wouldn’t do any good; that was obvious.

  “I don’t know about us not being her family, Daddy.” Morgan got up from the sofa and walked toward me, studying me intently.

  I glanced at Amos, and while he didn’t look happy with his daughter, neither was he going to stop her speaking.

  “Look at her, Daddy. She’s me. Or me in what? Twenty years?”

  Thanks a lot, I thought, and could feel Todd’s enjoyment of my scowl at the unintended barb.

  “How old are you?” Morgan asked.

  “Thirty,” I said. “How about you?”

  “Eighteen. I graduated this year.”

  “Are you going to college next year?”

  She nodded. “Penn State, main campus.”

  “What will you be studying?”

  “English and journalism. I want to write.”

  My skin prickled. “I’m a writer.”

  “Really? What do you write? Are you published? How did you get published?”

  “That’s enough!” Amos roared.

  I flinched but Morgan didn’t. “We’ll talk later,” she said to me quietly. “When he’s not around.”

  I nodded and opened my evening purse. I pulled out a little gold case and extracted a business card. “Here. It’s my cell phone number and the address where I’m staying.” I smiled at her. “I just made them today in case I saw anyone important tonight.”

  “Thanks,” she said, and with a challenging look at her father put the card in her shorts’ pocket.

  “Morgan,” Amos said in a taut voice, “you will not contact this woman. Do you understand me?”

  Morgan nodded but made no promises.

  Strong-willed parents breed strong-willed children, I thought as she took her seat beside Pip.

  “Dad, Morgan’s right,” Pip said, also apparently not intimidated by his father. “There’s a family something here. There has to be with a resemblance like theirs. Aren’t you at all curious about it?”

  “I already know about it,” Amos said. “She claims she’s the descendant of an illegitimate child of my grandmother.”

  “Yeah?” Pip looked intrigued. “So it’s not you that was adopted?” he asked me. “You’re not Mom or Dad’s kid?”

  My horror at such a thought was second only to that of Amos and Jessica’s. I tried not to shudder as I shook my head.

  “Not me,” I said. “It’s my grandfather who was adopted. He’s the one whose family I’m trying to trace.”

  “And you think we’re yours?” asked Pip. “And you’ve met Aunt Alma?”

  “I’m tracing everyone I can find who is or was a Biemsderfer.”

  Pip nodded. “Well, that’s us a couple of generations back.”

  “Pip,” Amos said, heavily authoritative. “We do not have illegitimacy in our family.”

  Pip didn’t seem impressed by the claim of familial purity. “Dad, who cares if your grandmother had a baby before she was married? She’s been dead for years. Besides, it happens all the time.”

  “That does not make it right!” Amos all but shouted.

  Somehow I didn’t think the issue of having sex outside of marriage was what Amos saw as wrong. It was that his grandmother had gotten caught, that his family had had to deal with it then and was having to deal with it now. And most important, his reputation might get besmirched by this bit of family history, though I had to agree with Pip. Who cared at this point?

  I realized how overwhelmingly important appearances were to my cousin or uncle or whoever he was. Expedient rather than ethical, Todd had said.

  Jessica had sat quietly through the conversation so far. Now she spoke to me, her eyes hot with contained resentment. “When I was introduced to you, I was absolutely shocked. I knew you were out there.” She waved her hand vaguely. “We’ve known you were looking ever since Alma called. She said there was an uncanny similarity between you and Morgan. But when I turned around and saw you right here in my own yard…” She let the sentence trail away, the horror of my presence speaking for itself.

  I nodded. “I can only imagine,” I said. “I had no idea I was coming to your home…that The Paddock was your house.”

  Amos suddenly stood, and with that movement he took control of the conversation once more. He walked out from behind his desk, and Jessica sank back into her chair, looking sorry she had spoken.

  Amos came to a stop a few feet in front of me, standing too close, trying to intimidate me by making me look up at him. I refused to cooperate, looking instead at his belt buckle. I wasn’t a Bentley for nothing.

  Todd stood and moved to the front of the chair we occupied. When he turned sideways to offer me his hand to help me rise, his movement forced Amos to step back. I looked at Todd gratefully.

  “Listen here, whoever you are,” Amos said when we finally stood face-to-face, eyes close to level. “I forbid you to see my mother. I absolutely forbid it.”

  I looked from Amos to Jessica and then to the children, especially Morgan. I felt a burning behind my eyes. I’d had such hopes. To have them dashed like this, especially after Alma had been so kind, was very painful.

  “And one other thing,” Amos said, his voice low and threatening. “If you ever try to insinuate yourself into my home or family again, you will regret it.”

  Insinuate. Ugly word, I thought.

  Todd bristled immediately, but I laid a hand on his arm. “Let’s go,” I whispered. “It doesn’t matter.”

  But it did…it did…and I was desperate to get out of there before I began to cry.

  Chapter 11

  Todd was so gentle and kind to me when he brought me home that Saturday night and then again when he picked me up for church Sunday morning. There’s something quite terrific about a man who supports you even when he doesn’t necessarily go along with your objectives.

  For church Mr. Monochromatic was all in tans, from the tan-and-white stripes of his shirt to his tan slacks. I had on tan too, so we sort of looked like a matched pair if you discounted height, hair, and gender. I had added some color to my cotton knit dress with a necklace of multi-hued wooden
beads Marnie had given me. It was only the second time I’d worn it in spite of having it two years.

  “So you don’t blend in with the woodwork completely,” she’d told me with a loving wink.

  “We Bentleys don’t blend,” I’d told her as I hung the beads about my neck.

  She’d laughed. “That’s one of the truest things you’ve ever said!”

  Smiling, I fingered the beads as I climbed out of Todd’s car. Heart relatives like Marnie were so much nicer than blood relatives like Amos—assuming he was indeed a relative. So why did Amos and the rest of the Biemsderfer clan mean so much to me? And what was wrong with me that they did?

  “I had a thought last night,” Todd said as we walked across the parking lot toward the church.

  I refrained from making a smart-mouth remark because he looked so serious.

  “It occurred to me,” he continued, “that God is a proponent of adoption.”

  “I’ve thought about that too. Jesus and Joseph? Raising the Son of God must have been a tall order. And there’s Pharaoh’s daughter and Moses and Eli and Samuel.”

  “Well, if it was good enough for Jesus, why isn’t it good enough for you?” His question was asked conversationally, not confrontationally.

  “But Jesus knew His Father. He knew His eternal background.”

  Todd frowned. “Okay, I’ll give you that. But how about this? When we believe in Jesus, the Bible refers to us as adopted children of our heavenly Father. I always liked the old King James phrase ‘adopted in the Beloved.’”

  “What are you trying to tell me, Todd? That Pop’s adoption has a spiritual parallel, and because it does, I shouldn’t be looking for our birth family?”

  “No. But maybe I’m suggesting that your adopted family should be enough.”

  I thought about his comment all through the worship service. It was one of those Sundays when I heard little the pastor said, but I knew God was very close. I thought about Amos and Jessica and their rejection of me. I thought of Alma and her friendliness, but I also thought of her not mentioning to me my resemblance to Morgan, though she’d told Amos about it. I thought of Morgan, who wanted to be a writer, and Pip, who wondered aloud if I were the child of one of his parents. I thought of Mick, who didn’t bother to talk to me after his initial response in the hallway. I thought of the branch of the Biemsderfers who no longer lived in Lancaster County but were scattered around the world. And I thought of Mom and Pop and Ward and Marnie and little Johnny.

  And I realized that generation to generation doesn’t have to be blood generations. In theory, family should be bone of my bone as well as heart of my heart. But if you had to choose, maybe love and acceptance were more important than DNA.

  When we left the service, I said, “You know I think adoption is good, don’t you?”

  He quirked an eyebrow. “Do you? Sometimes it seems you’re almost trying to undo Pop’s adoption with this great drive to find your blood family.”

  I gave his comment careful consideration before I answered. “No, I don’t think so. That would say something negative and unfair and unjust about my great-grandparents, and I’d never want to do that. From everything I’ve heard, they were wonderful people. Great-Grandfather Bentley was a doctor and Great-Grandmother was an artist. I have some of the most beautiful hand-painted china that she did. Painting china was popular with the ladies in those days, you know.”

  “Um, no, I didn’t know.” Todd’s mouth twitched.

  “Now why am I not surprised?” I grinned at him. “Most of the ladies who painted were no-talent dilettantes, but Great-Grandmother Bentley’s work is absolutely wonderful. If she lived today, she’d be an artist in great demand.”

  We stopped to avoid getting bowled over by three little stair-step brothers running out the doorway of the Sunday school wing. One ran so close that my skirt swayed in the breeze he created.

  “I’m sorry,” their mother panted as she ran after them with a fourth little boy in her arms. “But at least they like to come to church.”

  “See how much they look alike?” I said as I watched the boys disappear into the parking lot. “That’s genetics. Great-Grandmother Bentley might have been talented, but it didn’t rub off on me. What abilities did Pop’s birth parents have that we know nothing about? That’s one of the strange things about adoption: who do your abilities, your talents, your likes and dislikes come from? Was there a Biemsderfer somewhere who liked to write?”

  “Does it matter?” He shrugged.

  “Doesn’t it?”

  I was still mulling these ideas over as Todd and I stopped for something to eat on the way home following the service.

  “It’s like Pop’s a coin with two sides,” I said over a burger and fries. “I know the Bentley side. I’d like to know the Biemsderfer side too. I think for some who search, there is a driving need to find where they’ve come from, an intensity that is painful and overwhelming and utterly compelling. The need for roots is an unhealthy compulsion for some because they think it will fix all the problems in their lives, and of course it won’t. Locating the Biemsderfers isn’t that all-consuming for me, probably for two reasons: I’m not the adopted person, and I love my family. I’m not looking to replace them. But I can’t deny a compulsion to find out about the Biemsderfers, even the ones who are all over the globe.”

  “In spite of the fact that an omnipotent God allowed the Bentley side of Pop’s coin?”

  “I’m not denying our side of the coin. Truly I’m not. I appreciate and love my family too much to do that. It’s just that I can’t deny the other side either.”

  I was swallowing my last fry when my cell phone rang.

  “This is Elizabeth Yost,” a voice told me when I answered.

  “Oh, Mrs. Yost,” I breathed, looking at Todd with excitement.

  “Jessica?” Todd said in surprise.

  I shook my head and mouthed, “Aunt Lizzie.”

  “I want you to come and visit me,” she said. “I was so disappointed we missed each other on Thursday. Sometimes this old heart gives me such trouble, and at the most inconvenient times. But I’m feeling fine now, and I want to meet you. Alma has told me all about you.”

  “I’d love to come, Mrs. Yost,” I said. “But Amos asked me not to.” Now that was a kind way of explaining his uncompromising order.

  “I’m Aunt Lizzie to you, child. And I don’t care what Amos says.”

  I liked this woman already.

  “He’s always trying to tell me what to do,” she continued. “I’m not senile yet, and I make my own choices. After all, I’m the mother here; he’s the child.”

  Referring to Amos as a child made me want to laugh out loud. He was very much a petulant little boy who demanded his own way.

  “Please come. I want to meet you. And I want to tell you a story.”

  “When do you want me?” I asked.

  “How about later this afternoon?”

  “Later this afternoon?” I repeated with a look at Todd. It didn’t strike either him or me as odd that I expected him to come with me. He nodded. “We’ll see you then,” I told her.

  “I think,” I said to Todd as we drove to the farm, “that it’s okay if I look for family if I don’t need them, if I can function without them. If I find them and they accept me, I’ll know a fuller life. If I find them and they reject me, like Amos did, I’ll know sadness. But it’s not the end of the world. My life is still rich and full—full of people I’ll love and who love me. I keep thinking of what St. Paul wrote: ‘We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.’ That’s me and how I feel about Amos.”

  I felt tears rising again, as I had frequently since we’d left Amos’s last night. “I feel struck down by last night’s events, but I’m not destroyed. I realize more strongly than ever that if I were looking for my birth family to make me whole, I’m looking in the wrong place. Only God can fill m
y deepest longings because only He understands them. People come and go, but God is forever.”

  “He’s there when you don’t know who your family is,” Todd agreed. “And He’s there when you do, but they don’t necessarily give you much emotionally.”

  I looked at him sharply, ready to give sympathy since he was obviously speaking of his situation. But he was already distracted.

  “Would you look at that!”

  I looked and saw the entire Zook drive was full of buggies.

  Todd pulled to the side of the road. “I’ll have to let you out here,” he said. “I don’t want to get in the middle of all that. But I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Why not try to get a nap?” He looked at the circles under my eyes. “I’d say you didn’t sleep very well last night.”

  “I’d say you’re right. And I’d also say my eraser stick isn’t working as well as it should.”

  “Oh, one thing I want to mention before I forget.” He looked at me with concerned eyes. “There are wisps of rumors in the legal community that Amos and Jessica are having trouble with one of their sons. It’s all vague, no specifics.”

  “And given your affection for Amos, you haven’t tried to find out any details, right?” I refrained from noting that guys tended to let the most interesting pieces of information go unexplored.

  “I don’t like gossip. But think about it. Do you want to get involved with a family that has a kid who’s trouble?”

  “Like legal trouble?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It must be Mick. He was very sullen and angry last night.” I pictured him slouching on the sofa, arms folded across his chest. And he was the one who grabbed me.

  Todd leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Just another piece of information to tuck away in that overactive mind of yours.”

  “Overactive is good,” I said as I climbed out of the car. “The alternative is boring.”

  He laughed and I watched him drive away. Then I threaded my way up the drive and inside. The large open room that filled the downstairs was full of people, some of whom, I’m sorry to say, weren’t using deodorant on this very hot June day. The men in their black Sunday suits and white shirts occupied the living room end of the house and were talking in Pennsylvania Dutch. The women occupied the kitchen end of the house, fussing over food, and also talking in Pennsylvania Dutch.