“As in my birth father. My real dat.” Propelled forward by Mary’s answering gasp, Emma met and surpassed her earlier pace, the crunch of the sparsely graveled road beneath her boots rescinding against the memory of the past two days.
Mary ran to catch up. “How can you say that? You can’t know if you are like him!”
“I can, and I do.”
“How?”
“Because I have met him. And we have spoken.”
Mary’s boots skidded to a stop while Emma continued walking. “Wait. You have? When? Who? How? And, more importantly, why did I not know?”
“It just happened. Yesterday. And it is because of Levi that I found him.”
“Levi?” Mary echoed. “As in my brother, Levi?”
“Yah!”
This time when Mary caught up, it was to grab Emma’s arm and pull her over to the fence that separated the Weaver farm from the county road. “Talk to me, Emma. Please! What did my brother do?”
“He told me what he saw the morning of my birthday.” Turning toward the empty field, Emma rested her forearms atop the fence. “That he saw the same thing on many of my birthdays.”
“Meaning?”
“You were right. It was my real dat who put those things on Ruby’s grave each year. Levi saw his truck and him from your dat’s field.”
“He did not say anything to me.”
Emma shrugged. “You did not ask. I did.”
“Did Levi speak to him? Is that how you knew who your real dat was?”
“No. But Levi described his truck and the name of the English company it said on the truck’s door. I figured out the rest.”
“English company? I don’t understand . . .”
“Yah. It is a construction company. In New Holland. Harper Construction—that is my real dat’s name. Brad Harper.”
Mary hoisted herself up onto the bottommost rail and thrust her upper body forward enough to afford a view of Emma’s face. “You went to New Holland?”
“Yah.”
“By yourself?”
“Yah. On Sarah’s scooter.”
“And you saw him?”
“Yah. At first, I did not know it was my real dat. I knew only that he’d been at the cemetery on my birthday. So I waited behind an old shed to see him come out to his truck. But when he didn’t, my anger led me inside.” She took in the barn and farmhouse in the distance, the cows grazing in the foreground, and, finally, her friend. “The minute I saw his picture on the wall, I knew he was my real dat. His eyes are the same blue as mine. His hair is the same color, too.”
“Was he mad that you came to his work?” Mary asked.
“He was shocked.”
“That you found him?”
Closing her eyes, Emma revisited the exact moment her birth father looked up and saw her, his blue eyes rounding and then widening, his skin draining to the color of her kapp, and the raspy sound of his voice as he said her birth mother’s name.
“He was shocked that you found him?” Mary repeated.
Emma shook the memory from her thoughts and met her friend’s eyes through her own parted lashes. “No, he was shocked that I was alive.”
“But . . .” Mary stepped down off the rail. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would he be shocked about that?”
“Because they told him I died with her.”
Mary’s mouth gaped, closed, and gaped again. “Who would tell him such a thing?”
“Who else? Wayne and Rebeccah.”
“Your mamm and dat?”
“No, Wayne and Rebeccah. Ruby and Brad were—I mean, are—my real mamm and dat.”
“But you did not die with Ruby!”
“I know. They lied to him, just as Rebeccah lied to me when she said Brad did not want Ruby and me. He did want us. He did want me.”
Mary, too, looked out at the field but not for long. “So? What happened?”
“We talked and then he drove me home. And then today, we spent many hours together at the pond, having a picnic and talking.”
“That is where that cookie came from?”
“Yah.”
“Your mamm—I mean Rebeccah—was okay with you spending time with him like that?”
“I did not give her a choice.” She could feel Mary studying her and turned to meet the inquiry head-on. “She lied, Mary. To my real dat and to me. She should be shunned for what she has done. Dat, too.”
“Shunned?” Mary echoed. “Are . . . are you going to tell Bishop King?”
“I don’t know. I-I haven’t thought about it. But why shouldn’t I? They lied. For twenty-two years.” She pushed back from the fence and returned to the road, her anger-filled pace making it so Mary had to run to catch up once again. “They were wrong to do that, Mary. Wrong to keep the truth about Ruby . . . and Brad . . . and me. It was not for them to choose!”
“Maybe there was a reason, Emma. Something you don’t know. Something they will tell you if you ask.”
“I’m not asking them!”
“Why?”
Emma whirled around. “Don’t you get it? They’ve been lying to me for twenty-two years! Why would I ask them anything? If I did, they would just tell more lies!”
Mary opened her mouth to speak, yet said nothing, her worried eyes searching Emma’s as the silence between them dragged on.
“I should have known, Mary,” Emma insisted, her voice hoarse. “Ruby was my mamm! And Brad—he . . . He really loved her!”
Slipping her arm inside Emma’s once again, Mary set their pace at a speed more conducive for talking. “Did he explain what they all meant? The scrap of paper? The bubble wand? The—”
“You mean the presents?” She shrugged away Mary’s answering nod. “I didn’t ask about them. I wanted to listen to him talk about meeting Ruby.” And it was true. She’d been so caught up in hearing the story about how her parents had met, she’d forgotten all about the bag of trinkets stowed in the hollow of the tree on the other side of the pond.
Mary slowed. “Don’t you want to know what they mean?”
“Of course. That is why I will ask tomorrow.”
Once again, Mary stopped, necessitating a stop on Emma’s part as well. “You will see him again tomorrow?”
“Yah.”
“But why?”
She tugged her arm free and turned to face her friend. “There is much to learn. For both of us.”
“But he is English,” Mary warned.
“Yah. Perhaps I would be, too, if he was not told I was dead.”
“Emma Lapp, don’t you talk like that!”
“Why? It could be the truth.”
“Could be does not mean should be!” Mary said, stamping her foot. “And you have been baptized!”
It was on the tip of her tongue to share what she’d learned about her birth mother, but, in the end, she kept Ruby’s history to herself. Everything was so new, so fresh. And really, she just wanted to sit with it herself, to digest everything she’d learned at her own pace and in her own time.
Still, the knowledge that Mary’s concern was born out of friendship helped tone down some of Emma’s anger. “When you look across the table at your mamm and dat, you see parts of you. You know that your smile is like your dat’s, and your laugh is just like your mamm’s. You know that you have that funny spot on the back of your head like your grossdawdy has.
“All my life I have seen parts of my brothers and sisters in Ma—” She paused for a lengthy inhale. “In Rebeccah and Wayne. But not me. Never me. I want to fit somewhere, too, Mary. Just like you and Levi do. And just like Jakob, Jonathan, Annie, Sarah, and Esther do.”
“You fit with me, Emma. You always have. Since we were very little.”
“Getting to know my birth father does not change that, Mary.”
“I pray that you are right.”
* * *
She heard Mamm’s footsteps crest the top of the stairs and pause outside Emma’s door, waiting no doubt, for something to indicate
Emma was still awake. Emma, in turn, sat perfectly still on the edge of her quilt-topped bed, waiting, anxiously, for the steps to continue down the hall and the faint glow of Dat’s bedside lantern beneath the door to finally disappear.
The nightly ritual, save for the part that had her praying Mamm wouldn’t come into her room to talk, had always been so routine. So . . . normal. Or so she’d always thought. Yet now that she knew her place in this home had been a lie from the start, she couldn’t help but feel as if she were suffocating.
How many times had she sat there, in that same exact spot, wishing Mamm would come inside her room, sit on the edge of her bed, and talk to Emma the way she did sometimes with Annie and Esther. But it never happened, leaving Emma to rationalize the reason the same way she did so many other aspects of her life—she was odd, she didn’t try hard enough, she’d done something poorly . . .
Yet now that she knew the real reason, Emma wanted nothing more than to be left alone. To think. To feel. To look forward to the next day and more time with her real dat.
Still, she couldn’t quite shake the guilt she felt when she’d turned away from Mamm in the kitchen earlier in the evening only to spy Esther watching them, wide-eyed. Emma wasn’t entirely sure how long the little girl had been there as Emma had silenced Mamm’s every attempt to talk with a raised palm, but it was clear her behavior had caused confusion and fear—feelings she never intended the five-year-old to share.
Clutching the sides of her dress with renewed anger, Emma looked at the gap beneath her door, the shadow of Mamm’s feet a reminder to remain still, to keep her breath quiet. Finally, mercifully, the shadow rescinded, followed soon after by all vestiges of light as Mamm joined Dat in their bedroom.
It took a moment to adjust her eyes to the total darkness, and another moment to cross to the window, lift the dark green shade into its daytime position, and look out over the dormant moonlit fields. Just last week, she’d walked those same fields with Sarah and Annie, working to rid them of the rocks and pebbles that always seemed to mysteriously appear in the months following the autumn harvest. It was a task they did every year in preparation for the tilling Dat and the boys would do as February became March.
Closing her eyes, Emma imagined the golden-yellow wheat stalks that would soon grow so tall their soft beards would tickle her cheeks. Spring was her favorite time on the farm. There was something exciting about green replacing brown, food for the animals growing in one field, crops Dat would sell in another, Mamm’s vegetable garden behind the house springing back to life, and the insistent moo of yet another new calf through the open barn doors.
She willed her nose to conjure the smells of freshly plowed soil, spring flowers from the garden, and Mamm’s apple pie cooling on the kitchen windowsill. . . .
Mamm.
Emma turned and surveyed her room—the quilt-topped bed, the chest of drawers, the porcelain bowl and pitcher she used to wash her face at night, the plain dresses that hung from hooks to the right of her closed door, and, finally, the heart-shaped silver locket and chain resting beside the glass of water on the small bedside table. On quiet stocking-clad feet, she made her way back to the bed, her fingers closing over the locket as she settled against her moon-drenched pillow.
For a few long moments, she simply lay there, soaking up every part of the necklace. The heart shape . . . The delicate flowers etched around the edges . . . The way it shone in the moonlight . . . The featherlight feel of the chain as it snaked across her wrist . . . The smooth simplicity of the locket’s underside . . .
Slowly, carefully, she worked her thumbnail into the tiny slit she could just barely make out by sight and popped open the locket, the audible whoosh of air that had marked her first and every subsequent peek at the picture it contained echoing against the plain white walls of her room.
It didn’t matter how often she looked at the young girl inside, or how she mentally prepared herself for what she’d see when she did. The near mirror image of herself stunned Emma every single time. In fact, sitting there in a room lit only by the moon, the differing hair and eye color was difficult to discern. Yet as she continued to study the woman who had been her mother, another difference emerged—a difference that was suddenly so glaring she didn’t know how she’d missed it until that moment.
Ruby’s smile was like nothing Emma had ever seen or felt on her own face. It was all encompassing in the way it drew Emma’s gaze in before sending it skittering upward to the girl’s cheeks and eyes. She tried to imagine a time she might have looked like that, too, but every time her mind started to search her memories, the face nestled inside her palm pulled her back.
All her life, she’d known Ruby as one thing: Mamm’s younger sister. Beyond that, she knew only that Ruby had died at eighteen—on the same day Emma was born, making the day a painful one for the woman she’d been raised to believe was her mamm.
But what Ruby was like? The things she’d liked to do? The moments that had made her smile as she did in the picture? Those were the things Emma didn’t know. Those were the things Emma had never dared to ask lest the very subject upset Mamm.
Yet this girl, this sister, this person who’d died on her birthday was Emma’s real mamm. She’d given birth to Emma and then died. At eighteen. And now, thanks to Brad, the name she could never so much as mutter as a child was beginning to take shape as a person in her thoughts. A person whose smile had made her real father take notice. A person who had strayed from the life she was supposed to lead and died because of it.
Because of her....
Tugging the locket to her chest, Emma finally gave in to the tears she could no longer hold back.
Chapter 10
Emma heard the telltale crunch the moment his work boots hit the leaves. It was quiet, even a little tentative at first, but as she lifted her head from her knees and their eyes met, it became faster and more purposeful.
“There you are.” Brad strode toward her rock. “I was worried when you didn’t come to the office as we planned, so I took a chance you might be here. At your spot. And . . .” His words trailed off momentarily as he studied her face. “You okay, kiddo? You look a little worn out.”
“I’m just tired. I-I did not sleep well.”
Slowly, he lowered himself to a vacant spot beside her. “So why didn’t you come to the office like we talked about?”
“I thought better of it.”
“Better of it? I don’t understand.... Do you not want to spend time with me?”
She looked out over the pond, willing her voice to remain steady. “I do. It’s just that . . . I don’t know. I just thought this would be best.”
“There’s nothing best about not seeing you, Emma. Nothing at all.”
“But you loved her,” she protested around the ever-present lump lodged halfway down her throat. “I mean, really truly loved her.”
“Ruby? Yeah, I loved her. Still do. Always will.”
Pushing against the invisible yet almost crushing weight pressing down on her shoulders, Emma stood. “Then I do not think you want to spend time with me.”
Brad, too, rose to his feet, only instead of looking out over the water, he looped around until they were standing face-to-face. “I can’t imagine why on earth you’d think that. You’re all I’ve been able to think about since I saw you standing in my office the other day. All I’ve been able to talk about—ask Sue Ellen. She’s had to clap her hands in my face at least a dozen times when I go from talking about site plans and blueprints, to the way you look so much like Ruby.”
“Why must she clap her hands?”
“When a client calls, and I’m too buried in my thoughts to pick up the phone.... When I’ve been mid-order with a supplier and start thinking about all the places I want to take you and all the people you need to meet.... When she’s trying to ask me a question and I haven’t heard a word out of her mouth . . .” He scrubbed at his chin and then reached for her hands, holding them gently inside his own. “Do yo
u know how hard it is waiting to tell my mom until she’s back from her trip to see her sister? She’s going to be absolutely beside herself, Emma!”
Tugging her hands free, she sidestepped him and made her way closer to the water, the answering crunch of leaves letting her know he wasn’t far behind.
“Emma, talk to me. What’s wrong? Are they giving you a hard time about seeing me? Because I could have them—”
She shook off his words. “No. It’s not that. I will see you when I choose. They cannot stop me. But I don’t know why you’d want to see me.”
“Emma, you’re my daughter. Ruby’s and my daughter.”
“I’m also the reason she’s dead,” Emma whispered as the tears that had soaked her pillow during the night made their way down her cheeks once again. “I’m . . . the . . . reason . . . you don’t have her . . . anymore.”
Silence greeted her raspy cry and renewed sniffling, but only for as long as it took Brad to suck in his own breath and spin her around. “Whoa. Don’t ever say that again. Ever. You are the best thing that’s happened to me in more than twenty-two years. Losing Ruby tore me apart, it really did. And I still haven’t fully recovered from her death, either—not sure I ever will. But she made up her mind.
“But you? Being here? That’s a gift. An unbelievable gift that I’ve thanked God for more times than I can count these past few days.”
Lifting her watery gaze to his own emotion-filled eyes, Emma marveled, again, at the ability to finally see part of herself in another person. “You are sure?”
“I’m sure.” He released his grip on her arms and stepped back, sweeping his hand in the direction of the road. “So, what do you say we get in the truck and head into town? We can grab a bite at the deli, or order in some lunch to my office. I know you want to hear more about your mother.”
Emma paused, mid-nod. “Actually, if it’s okay, maybe we could stay here again today? I-I have some things I want to ask you about.”
“Okay, yeah, sure. We can do that. But let me call Sue Ellen and let her know I found you. I suspect she was worrying along with me when you didn’t show.”
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