And so she did. She told him about the floor plan Ruby had drawn. She told him all the little details Ruby had included with Emma in mind. She told him about the window in the kitchen and the way Ruby had wanted to put Emma’s cradle there. She told him about the front porch and how Ruby had wanted a swing there so she could watch Emma playing. And she told him about the smile she knew Ruby would have had for her if Ruby had lived—a smile Mamm never seemed to have for Emma in the way she did for her real children.
“That is why I am leaving. Why I am going to go home, pack my things, and say goodbye to Jakob, Sarah, Jonathan, Annie, and”—her voice grew hoarse—“Esther.”
“Say goodbye?” Levi shifted on the seat to face Emma. “Why? Where are you going?”
“I should never have been here.” She swept her hands outward. “I should not be Amish.”
“But you are Amish, Emma! You chose the Amish way when you joined the church! We all did!”
She blinked against the tears she didn’t want him to see. “Yah. I did choose to be baptized. But I knew only lies. I did not know who I was.”
“You were Emma then, you are Emma now.” Slowly, tentatively, Levi reached for her hands only to pull back at the last second. “My dat always tells me to think before I do. To think of the good and the bad that will come with each choice I make. Sometimes, I want to just choose. Sometimes, I do not want to spend so much time thinking. But when I do as Dat says, and I think about the good and the bad my choice will bring, I see things I did not see at first. Things it is important for me to see.”
“They wanted me, Levi. They wanted to build a house for us to live in—as a family.”
This time when he reached for her hands, he didn’t stop, the feel of his warm skin against hers stealing her breath from her lungs. “Just think, Emma. Please. Think about the good and the bad that will come if you do this. Then, if you still feel it is right for you to leave the Amish way, you must leave.”
Chapter 22
She was waiting at the usual spot when Brad drove up at eleven o’clock the next morning, the absence of anything resembling a suitcase at her feet clearly registering on his face the moment he stopped the car.
“Hey there, kiddo.” He stepped onto the road, squeezed her hand in greeting, and motioned toward the thicket of trees at her back. “Is your stuff back there? By the pond?”
Casting her eyes down at the drawstring bag beside her feet, Emma shook her head.
A flash of movement sent her eyes back to Brad in time to see him check his wristwatch. “Okay . . . That’s okay. As long as we’re in and out of there inside ten minutes, we’ll still be able to have a little catch-up time together before Sue Ellen starts calling to find out where we are.”
Dropping his hand to his side, he motioned toward the truck with his chin and grinned. “So come on. Let’s make this official and get your stuff.”
“I have not packed my things,” she said.
He stopped, mid-step. “Why not? My mother said that’s why she took you back earlier than planned yesterday. Because you said you wanted to get your stuff together.”
“Yah. That is what I said, what I thought I was going to do. But I didn’t.”
His gaze traveled down the road toward the farm only to return to hers, all signs of lightness gone. “They gave you a hard time, didn’t they?”
“No. I did not tell them.”
He cupped his hand over his weighted exhale but said nothing.
“Miss Lottie says it is not good to make decisions in anger.”
“Miss Lottie?” Slowly, he dropped his hand to his side to reveal lips that were twisted in controlled anger. “Who is Miss Lottie?”
“I have spoken of her before. She lives closer to the Beiler farm. She is English.”
“Does this Miss Lottie know the truth?”
Emma nodded. “We spoke the other night.”
“And that’s what she had to say? Decisions shouldn’t be made in anger?”
“Yah.” Emma wandered over to the truck and stared at her reflection in the driver side window, the hooded eyes and somber expression she wore reaching into her very being. “Levi says I should think of the good and the bad when I am to make a decision.”
“There is no bad to leaving that house, Emma. What they did to you . . . to me . . . to my mom . . . That is what’s bad, not trying to make it right after twenty-two years of lies!”
She didn’t need her reflection to know the tears were there, hovering in the corners of her eyes. She could feel them just as surely as she could the disappointment emanating off her birth father. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I will leave. Soon.”
He took a few steps toward the trees, only to double back just as quickly. “I’m not upset with you, Emma. Please know that. I’m upset about the whole situation. I just want it to be behind us so we can get to immersing ourselves in each other’s lives the way we should have all along. The way we would have if none of this had ever happened.”
“Yah.”
A second glance at his watch had him scooping up the drawstring bag and guiding her around the front of the truck to the passenger side. “As much as I know there’s more to say, we really should be heading over to my office. Sue Ellen can order us in an early lunch and I can tell you the story behind the rest of your birthday presents. Keeps her from getting all angst-y that I’m not there, and has us right where we need to be, when we need to be there.”
“I will do my best to answer your friend’s questions,” Emma said, fastening her seat belt.
“That’s all we can ask, kiddo. So, don’t stress, okay?” At her nod, he closed her door and crossed back to his own side of the truck. Once he was settled and they were on the way to New Holland, he flashed a grin at her that rivaled the February sun. “So Mom told me about your cooking session out at her place yesterday. She even gave me a slice of your bread with some of that apple butter on top and—”
Groaning, she dropped her head in her hands. “The apple butter. I forgot about that when I left. It must be ruined by now.”
“Nope. Mom set an alarm on her phone so she would get up and shut off the slow cooker when it was time. Then she transferred everything over to some sort of container.”
“What kind of container?” she asked, sitting up.
“I don’t know. Technically, the apple butter wasn’t exactly done when I helped myself to some for my bread, but I couldn’t help myself.” A long, low whistle filled the truck’s cab. “I gotta say, Emma, that stuff was amazing. Maybe even better than Ruby’s.”
Pride she knew she shouldn’t feel warmed her cheeks, forcing her to look out the window until she got her emotions in check. “It is just apple butter.”
“There was nothing just about that stuff or the bread. And my mom said you made some suggestions for her pastries she’d never considered before and it made them a million times better.”
“I am sure they would be good without my ideas.”
“And they always were—one of my favorites, in fact. But she’s right, they were better last night. Much better.” He let up on the gas as they approached a traffic light, his attention flitting between the line of cars slowing to a stop and Emma. “Mom says you show signs of having some really amazing instincts in the kitchen with everything from tastes to process.”
“I like to cook and to bake. It makes me happy.”
“That’s how I feel about what I do, and how Mom feels about what she does. It’s called a passion.” When the light turned green, they lurched forward with the line of cars. “Perhaps cooking and baking is your passion, Emma.”
“It is just something I do to help at home.”
“But maybe, with some proper training, it’s something you could do for a career.” At the four-way stop, he turned left toward Harper Construction. “Like I did when I went away to school for architecture.”
She waved at his words much the way Dat’s horse swished his tail at the pesky flies that frequented
the barn. “I do not have enough schooling to go to college.”
“You don’t now, sure. But I can get you a tutor. And I’m sure, if we look, we can find cooking classes that don’t require any sort of degree.” He turned into the Harper Construction parking lot and claimed his usual spot by the back door. “And if you like it enough to pursue it, I’m sure I can find a friend who has an in at one of the bigger restaurants. Or, better yet, you could open your own catering business or your own bakery, or even your own five-star restaurant one day. Of course, I’d help you get it off the ground with funding and whatever else you need.”
She was pretty sure she smiled. If not, maybe a nod? She wasn’t entirely sure. All she knew for certain was that her head was beginning to spin and her heart was beginning to race. Reaching down, she wrapped her hand around the top of the drawstring bag and hugged it to her chest, the need for something familiar impossible to ignore. “Can we really look at the rest of the gifts when we go inside?” she asked as she followed him from the car and up the back steps. “There are only six left.”
He glanced back at the lot, took in the lone sedan not far from his truck, and then pushed open the door. “Sure thing. Let’s just check in with Sue Ellen and make sure everything is still a go with Nicholas and—”
“Brad! Emma!” Sue Ellen abandoned her desk chair to greet them, her warm, welcoming gaze lighting on Emma. “It is good to see you again, sweetheart.” Then, turning her attention to Brad, Sue Ellen tapped her watch. “Everything is on schedule for one o’clock. I’ve set up the conference room for three and I made sure the video feed is ready to go so there are no glitches there.”
“Thank you, Sue Ellen.” Brad reached into a silver tray marked inbox, extracted a small stack of envelopes and pink sticky notes, and tilted his head toward his office door. “Emma and I have some things to go over, but if you could order in some lunch—maybe some sandwiches or pizza or something—that would be great. Oh, and if Nicholas arrives early, let me know that, too.”
“Of course.” Sue Ellen turned her smile back on Emma. “Enjoy your time together.”
“Thank you.” She smiled across her shoulder as Brad ushered her into his office and over to the chair opposite his desk. When she was situated with the bag on her lap, Emma loosened the opening, reached inside, and felt around until she found the covered bridge left on her sixteenth birthday.
“I remember when I found this one,” she said, holding the gift up for Brad to see across the stack of mail he was slowly picking his way through. “It reminded me of the covered bridge on the road to Bird in Hand.”
“Then I picked well.” He separated the envelopes into two different piles and then sat back, tenting his fingers beneath his chin. “Ruby loved to walk down the embankment and sit on the rocks just below the bridge after a hard rain. The first few times, I figured it was just her place to think—like Mom’s bench out by the pond always was for me growing up. But when I asked her about it, she said she liked to sit there and listen. She said the sound of the water rushing across the rocks in the creek bed made her feel closer to God.
“I didn’t really get it until she sat me down on the grass and covered my eyes with her hands.”
“I feel that way by the pond sometimes, too. When the air is perfectly still you can hear everything that is from God—butterfly wings, frogs croaking, and the birds singing.” Emma turned the bridge over in her hands. “If I am upset, His sounds give me peace.”
“I went there after Ruby died—after I thought you had both died.” Brad separated his hands from one another and dropped them to their respective armrest. “The water had frozen, but even if it had been spring and the creek bed had been swollen from a hard rain, I’m not sure I would have heard anything over my anger.”
“Anger?”
“Oh yeah.”
“At me?” she whispered.
He drew back so fast his head actually thumped against his seat. “You? Why on earth would I have been angry at you?”
“Because Ruby died having me.”
“No. I wasn’t angry at you. Never you.” Splaying his hands, palms out, he leaned forward. “You know what? Let’s move on, shall we? What’s next?”
She searched his face for anything to indicate his words didn’t match his true feelings, but when she saw nothing, she pulled out the small, red rubber ball that had been waiting for her on Ruby’s grave the day she’d turned seventeen.
“Ahhh, yes. The rubber ball and the spinner.”
“This?” She pulled out the yellow spinny thing she’d gotten the following year and, at his nod, set it on the table next to the ball.
“I took Ruby to an arcade one day. We knew you were on the way and I wanted her to see some of the fun stuff I got to do as a kid. So we played Skee-Ball and all sorts of games. When we were done, we took the tickets to the counter and picked out silly stuff—the ball and the spinner being the ones we had the most fun with.”
She dove her hand into the bag again, this time producing the baseball with the blue smudges from her nineteenth birthday. “Why did someone try to write on a baseball?”
“Because that’s the baseball I smacked clear out of the ballpark for my team not long after I met Ruby. She came to watch me play and so I stepped up my game. Hit that ball farther than any other ball I’d ever hit. So I signed it like a professional ball player would.”
She studied the ball carefully, smiling as the top of the B and the bottom half of an H suddenly made sense. “I see it now. At least a little bit.”
“What’s next?”
“My twentieth birthday and this dried flower with the pink and blue ribbons tied around the stem.”
“That’s the flower I gave Ruby after she told me about you. And since we didn’t know if you were a boy or a girl, I had the florist put a pink ribbon and a blue ribbon around it.”
A quick tap on the partially open door brought Brad to his feet and Emma’s attention onto Sue Ellen. “Boss, Nicholas just called. He’ll be pulling into the lot in about two minutes.”
“We’ll be ready.” Stepping around his chair, he snuck another peek at the clock. “Is that lunch order going to have enough for all of us?”
“Yes.”
“Perfect. Thanks, Sue Ellen.” Then, turning back to Emma, he pointed at the bag. “We should be able to get in the last one before he actually gets in here.”
Reaching into the bag one last time, she produced the whittled bird. “Esther has named this Emma. Because she says if she were a baby bird, I would bring her worms.”
“That’s how I saw Ruby being with you. Nurturing and loving—hence, the mother bird. I just believed she could do that in my world, too.” He stepped around the desk, motioned her to his side, and led her out to Sue Ellen’s desk in time to see a tall blond man walk through the front door with a pad of paper under one arm and some sort of silver contraption in his opposite hand.
“Nicholas, my friend! I see you’re running early as always.”
Grinning, Nicholas shifted the silver contraption to his left hand and extended his right for a shake Brad returned in short order. “I figured we could go over a few things before we bring in the chief.” Then, turning his attention onto Emma, his jaw slacked open.
“You’d swear she was Ruby, wouldn’t you?” Brad prodded.
“Seriously. Whoa . . .” Nicholas shifted his hand to Emma. “Hi, Emma, I’m Nicholas—Nicholas Forrester. I’ve known your dad, here, since we were two.”
Not entirely sure what to say, she settled for a nod and a smile as the man took one more head to toe sweep before looking back at Brad with an even wider grin. “Lucky for her, the only thing she seems to have gotten from you are your eyes.”
“Ha . . . Ha . . .” Brad sent his gaze to the ceiling, only to drop it back to Emma with a wink. “I’ve been taking this guy’s abuse for a lot of years.”
“And you’re a far finer man because of it.” Nicholas peeked around Brad to acknowledge Sue Elle
n as she walked into the room from the direction of the back door. “Is that takeout I see in your hands?”
“It is. Sandwiches from Melly’s. The delivery boy just dropped it off.”
Nicholas pumped his hand in the air. “This-this is why I really should stop by and see my buddy Brad more often. He feeds me.” Shifting his hand back to his pile of things, he offered a more appropriate greeting to Sue Ellen and nudged his chin toward the conference room. “I imagine we’ll be in there?”
“Yes, and everything is set up.”
“Speakers and video recorder good to go?”
“I tested it all this morning.” Sue Ellen set the bags of food on her desk and shifted her attention to Brad. “If you guys want to get started, I’ll get this stuff ready.”
“Perfect. Thanks, Sue Ellen.” Placing his hand on the small of Emma’s back, Brad guided her toward a room off the building’s front hallway.
The room, itself, was fairly small. Just enough room to hold a long rectangular table with six chairs—two on each side, and one on both ends. A single window, overlooking the road, infused only snippets of light into the room through the partially closed blind. In front of the window, pointing toward the table, was a camera mounted atop a tripod. On the wall, in multiple frames, hung the various floor plans Delia had shown her the previous day. A quick inspection, though, showed no sign of The Ruby.
“Let’s put Emma here”—Nicholas directed Brad to the chair the farthest from the window—“that way we’re not moving her around the table unnecessarily.”
“Emma?” Brad pulled out the chair and motioned her over. When she was seated, he took the chair to her left while Nicholas took the one to her right.
“So, Emma, I’ll be recording your words with this voice recorder”—he lifted the silver contraption off the table—“during this first session for my own records. Is that okay?”
Emma scanned the table and chairs before settling her sights on the tripod positioned in front of the window. “Is-is that a camera?” she asked, pointing.
“It is,” Nicholas said, setting the silver contraption back down. “But it’s not on. This voice recorder is fine for our chat.”
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