“You’re angry, child. You’re also human. But so, too, is your mamm. Remember that.”
Emma snapped her eyes back to Miss Lottie. “She didn’t tell me Ruby was my real mamm! She had Dat tell Brad I did not live! For twenty-two years, I didn’t know, and Brad didn’t know! For twenty-two years, I didn’t know why I couldn’t make Mamm smile the way the others could!”
The hurt, the anger, and the confusion were back, only this time, instead of manifesting themselves in tears, alone, they claimed her voice, too, thickening it until her words were little more than rasped breaths, hitched out between sobs. “How? How could she do that, Miss Lottie? How could she do that to me?”
“There is only one person who can tell you that, dear. But you have to ask . . . and then you must listen. It is the only way you will have the answers you need to do what is right. For you.”
Chapter 24
She was sitting by the kittens when she heard Mamm’s footsteps, a sound she’d once welcomed as an assurance of safety. Yet, now, after everything, anger and dread were all she felt. Anger over the lies. Dread at the thought that Brad was right and Mamm and Dat belonged in jail.
“Sarah said you were out here.” Closing the straw-covered gap with tentative steps, Rebeccah Lapp reached down and ran her calloused fingers across first Bean, and then each of her babies. “Esther talks most about this one,” she said, stalling her hand on the brown and white mound lying farthest from Bean. “She has named it Flower because—”
“When she was first born and her eyes were closed real tight, it reminded Esther of your flowers when they shoot up out of the ground, and that when they finally opened, they’d be warm and sunny like your flowers always are.” Bracing her hand against the side of the stall, Emma stood, her gaze on everything in the barn but Mamm. “I know. Esther tells me things, too. She loves me.”
“Of course she loves you, Emma. You are her big sister.” Rebeccah straightened to a full stand, her step forward toward Emma quickly negated by Emma’s step back. “I have tried to give you space the past two weeks, to let you learn what you need to learn and—”
Emma’s humorless laugh earned her more than a few curious glances from Dat’s horses. “Learn what I need to learn? You mean to learn about my real dat and my real grossmudder? My aunt and my cousins? The people I knew nothing about until I found the locket Brad left for me at Ruby’s grave? Those people?”
“Emma, please.”
“You had Dat tell him I died!”
Rebeccah started to speak, only to stop and bow her head in shame.
“How could you do such a thing?” Emma yelled. “How could you tell such a lie? He wanted me! He wanted a life with Ruby and me! And you? You did not even love me enough to smile at me!”
Whipping her head up, Rebeccah stumbled backward, the thump of her back against the half wall startling Jakob’s horse. “Did not love you? Emma, why would you say such a thing?”
“Because it is true. It has been that way for as long as I can remember!”
“Emma! That’s not—”
“I remember when I was younger than Esther is now, wanting so much for you to smile at me the way you did Jakob, but you did not. Soon, you smiled at Sarah, and then Jonathan, and then Annie, and then Esther. But never me.
“For so many years, too many years, I thought it was because I had come into the world on the same day you lost your sister—that my birthday, my birth reminded you of a sad day and that is why you could not smile at me the same. But that is not all it was, was it? It was not because I was a reminder. . . . It is because I was—I am the reason, aren’t I?”
Rebeccah flew a trembling hand to her mouth only to let it slip down her chin in horror. “Ruby didn’t die because of you. She died because of that boy!”
“You mean my father?” Emma countered, her voice shrill.
“Because of him, Ruby was in a family way when she wasn’t married!”
Emma turned, her hands clenching her hips. “I am not here because of Brad alone! Your sister was part of it!”
Pain skittered across Rebeccah’s face, pushing her back a step. “Ruby was young.... She made mistakes. . . .”
“Mistakes?” Emma echoed. “You mean me?”
“You should have been born to a Mamm and a Dat.”
“You are right, I should have been! But you and Dat did not let that happen. You made decisions about my life that were not yours to make,” she rasped. “And why? So I could wonder why you never smiled at me?”
Rebeccah stepped forward, and again, Emma stepped backward, maintaining the distance between them. “I smiled at you, Emma.”
“This is not a smile.” She emulated the wobbly smile she’d seen on occasion. “People do not have tears in their eyes when they are happy!”
The smile she’d just tried to demonstrate flashed across Rebeccah’s face. The tears that sprang to her eyes, however, remained as she matched each of Emma’s steps until the back wall of the barn eliminated the distance once and for all.
Extending both her arms, Rebeccah bookended Emma’s shoulders with her hands and waited until Emma’s eyes were on hers. “I smiled right here”—she touched her chest—“every time I looked at you, Emma. But if it did not always show it was because I was afraid this day would come.”
“This day?”
“The day I might lose you.”
Feeling her breath begin to saw in and out with the kind of emotions she didn’t know how to process, Emma closed her eyes, only to open them at the feel of Mamm’s hand on her cheek. “Emma, you are not the reason Ruby died. And you are not the reason I was sad. Ruby died because something was not right with her heart. If I am sad when I think of her, it is because she was my sister . . . and because she never got to know you, or hold you the way I have. And Dat? He held you even before I did. When I was tending to Ruby, he held you as his own.”
“But I wasn’t his own. I was Brad’s!” She wriggled free of Rebeccah’s hand and stepped around her to return to Bean and the kittens. Bean, clearly aware of their presence, was licking her babies while keeping a wary eye on the activity happening just beyond their makeshift bed. Emma wiggled her finger at Bean and then spun around as Mamm began to speak again.
“You are very much like her, you know. Having you has been like having a little bit of her still here. The same sweetness, the same joy, the same love of home and family. Sometimes, when you are baking something in the kitchen, your smile is so like hers—so full of joy and excitement. And the way you are with Esther? Ruby was like that with your uncle Jeb when he was little—always kind, always patient. She would have made a good mamm.”
Emma shifted from foot to foot. “Perhaps, with her, I would have fit.”
“Fit?”
“I have never fit, anywhere,” she said around the tightening in her throat. “Not here, not at school, not at hymn sings . . .”
“Emma, you have always fit here. Always. And at school, the children did not refrain from playing games with you because they did not like you. They didn’t play with you because you would stay inside helping the teacher. When you finally went outside, it was almost time to stop playing.”
“How-how do you know?” she stammered. “You . . . you weren’t there.”
“Because I spoke with your teacher. That is why I gave you cookies to bring, so you would go outside sooner. But you didn’t. You stayed inside and put a cookie on every desk while the children played. You did not want to make those who did not bring cookies to share feel poorly.” Step by step, Rebeccah made her way back to Emma. “And the hymn sings? I think you fit better than you realize.”
“You cannot know that.”
“Perhaps you are right. But I know you, Emma, and I know you are quiet. I know you can get lost watching a butterfly or a frog. I know you look to see the smiles that come when people try your cookies and cakes. I know whenever you saw a frown or a hint of sadness on anyone’s face—even someone on the other side of a room—yo
u wanted to fix it, as if you were the reason they were not happy and—”
Rebeccah pressed her hand to her lips as a single tear rolled down her cheek. “Oh, Emma . . . I did that to you, didn’t I? I-I made you think that anything short of laughter was your fault.”
“No, Mamm, I—” And then she stopped. She was doing exactly what Mamm said. “Maybe. I do not know.”
Lowering herself to the ground beside Bean, Emma ran a soothing hand across Flower’s back and waited for the repetitive motion to calm her thoughts and her breath enough to continue. When she was fairly certain any lingering shake wouldn’t manifest itself in her voice, she looked back up at Mamm.
“You will be shunned for keeping me,” she whispered. “Maybe even worse.”
“Bishop King knows, Emma. He has always known.”
“The bishop has . . . known?” At Mamm’s nod, she pulled her knees to her chest and tried her best to make sense of everything. Something was missing. Something—“Why didn’t you tell me about them?” she asked. “Why did you let Brad think I’d died with her?”
“Because Ruby wanted you to be raised Amish. It was her wish.”
A swell of renewed anger pushed her legs back to the ground with an audible thud. “I don’t believe that!” Emma countered. “I have seen pictures of my real mamm and dat together. She loved him!”
“Maybe you are right. I don’t know. She did not speak of him with me until you were on the way. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that she wanted to raise you in the Amish way.”
“How? How can you know that?” she demanded. “Ruby died!”
Rebeccah’s shoulders lifted in a pained shrug. “She chose baptism just one month before you were born.”
“She chose . . .” A deafening roar filled her ears, making it difficult to think let alone speak. But still, she tried, skipping ahead to the only part that mattered. “But then, she couldn’t be with my father.”
“It was her choice, Emma. For her and for you.”
* * *
The snap of a twig from somewhere off to her left stole her attention from the afternoon sun shimmering atop the pond and sent it skittering toward the man now picking his way around old branches and stumps for the meeting she’d walked a quarter of a mile to request.
Much like Esther needed all the pieces of her wooden puzzle to create a farm, Emma needed all the pieces of the past in order to know her future. And from what Emma could tell, Brad held the second-to-last piece.
“Sorry your call went to my voicemail, kiddo. I tried you back as soon as I got out of the shower and saw that you had called, but the phone just rang and rang.”
“I did not stay.” Emma slid the drawstring bag into the center of the rock to clear a spot for Brad to sit, and, when he did, she looked back over the water once again. “I am sorry I got so upset yesterday.”
“You’ve been through a lot. We all have. And I probably should have warned you about the video call with the police chief sooner than I did, but I guess I wanted to try and spare you as much of the nasty stuff as possible.”
“You mean like sending Mamm and Dat to jail?”
“That’s—wait . . . Does that mean you’re ready to talk to the chief?” he asked.
“No.” The sound of his weighted exhale propelled her gaze back to the pond long enough to gather her breath and her courage. “I did not know Ruby chose to be baptized. That she wanted to raise me in the Amish way.”
“Okay . . .”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, I guess you can only cram so much into two weeks.”
She took one last look at the pond and then turned so the only thing in front of her was Brad. “I mean why did she choose to be baptized when she knew I was coming? When she knew baptism would mean she could not share a life with you?”
“She didn’t want to lose Rebeccah and Jeb and her parents.”
“But she wouldn’t have. Ruby hadn’t been baptized when she learned I was coming. She could have lived a life with you and still spent time with her family.”
Brad pushed off the rock, picked a small stick up off the ground, and snapped it against the edge of the rock. “That is what I told her. Time and time again. I talked about the company we wanted to open, the floor plans she could design while you slept, and the house I would build for us as soon as I could.
“Those first months after we found out she was pregnant, she seemed all onboard with everything. She even drew up the house she wanted me to build. It was much plainer than the other ones she’d drawn, so I told her to draw it again. I told her to think big, think fancy, and think splashy because our baby was going to grow up having the very best in life—the best toys, the best schooling, the best clothes, best car in the high school parking lot, et cetera.”
She made herself nod as if she understood, but she didn’t.
“I would have raised you to be a princess, Emma. And I would have treated Ruby like a queen.”
A princess . . .
A queen . . .
“But she didn’t draw it again, did she?” It was a silly question considering Emma already knew the answer. She’d seen the drawing. Seen the large front room Ruby had wanted yet Brad had insisted on dividing . . .
“No, she didn’t. So I just figured I’d change it when I built it. But I never got the chance to do that because, a few weeks later, she told me she wanted to be baptized and to raise you Amish.” He tossed the stick a few yards and then raked his now-free hand through his hair. “And that is when she told me we were over. That her decision meant we could not be together.
“We argued. Or, rather, I argued. I reminded her of all the things she could have and be in the English world. I even reminded her that different doesn’t mean bad. But it didn’t matter. She didn’t want any of that. She wanted better for you, she said.”
He flicked his hand in Emma’s direction. “As if an eighth-grade education and being out of touch with the here and now is better somehow.”
She sat with his words for a moment, letting them roll around in her thoughts. “When Ruby made an Amish picnic for you, did you enjoy it?” she finally asked.
“Very much. The food was great.”
“Was that the only date she planned?”
“No. We came here, many times. She taught me to skip rocks; how to catch a butterfly so it would still fly when I let go. And that field of dandelions I told you about? We found that when we were out in this area, just walking around.”
“Did you enjoy those things?”
He shrugged his assent.
“The Amish see the big and fancy,” she said, quietly. “It is all around us. It cannot be pretended away. It is just not the way the Amish choose to live their lives. You say different is not bad, and you are right, I am sure. But simple, as Ruby showed you, is not bad, either. I have had a good life so far. A happy life. I had warm food in my stomach, a bed to rest my head, and family who love me.”
“Love?” he spat. “You think keeping me from you is love?”
“I think trying to honor Ruby’s wishes for my life was love.”
“Ruby was dead, Emma.”
“Not in Mamm’s heart, she wasn’t.”
“Nor in mine. But Rebeccah has had a living, breathing link to Ruby in you for twenty-two years.” He lowered himself back down to the rock and, ever so gently, tucked a stray wisp of hair back inside Emma’s kapp. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Please don’t put them in jail,” she whispered. “For me. Please.”
Chapter 25
For the second time in less than three weeks, Emma made her way toward the simple white farmhouse with the wide front porch. A quick peek in the barn as she passed revealed little more than a few curious horses, a sleeping barn cat, and an old buggy wheel in need of repair. The tap-tap of a hammer from somewhere just beyond the barn piqued her curiosity, but, still, she kept walking, her need to figure out the final piece of the puzzle leading her to the one person who’d always un
derstood her, even when she didn’t always understand herself.
Mary Fisher had been her friend since the beginning, enabling them to carry on a tradition started by their mamms. They’d chased each other around the pond when they were toddlers, sat beside each other as they learned to read, raced each other to the part of their post-school-day walk that required one to go left and one to go straight, and kept each other’s innermost secrets. But perhaps, more than all that, Mary had a way of seeing things Emma could not always see.
Taking the porch steps two at a time, Emma fast walked across the wood planking to the dark green door she’d helped Mary paint the previous summer. In spite of the heaviness in her heart, the memory of Mary’s howl when Emma accidentally painted her toe brought a fleeting and oh-so-needed smile to her lips. The raw day would prevent them from sitting outside today, but an empty stall in the equally empty barn would certainly work, too—
“Emma? Is that you?” At the familiar voice and the equally familiar flapping it always seemed to kick off inside her stomach, Emma stepped out from behind the upright and waved at the handsome twenty-four-year-old heading in her direction with a hammer in one hand and a level in the other. “Dat left with Mamm and the girls in the buggy not more than twenty minutes ago.”
She tried to hide her answering slump, but if the way Levi’s eyebrows dipped with worry less than a blink later was any indication, she’d failed. Miserably. Before she could come up with something to placate him, though, he settled himself on the second-to-last step and patted Emma over to the top one. “I know I am not Mary, but I am good at listening, too. Maybe even better.”
Her laugh stirred a matching one from Levi as she heeded his invitation. “I think it is good that Mary cannot hear you say such a thing.”
“I think you are right.” He brushed a piece of straw from his pants leg and then swiveled on the step so Emma was his view. “Have you decided what you will do?”
And just like that, any residual laughter on her part ceased, wiped away by the tug-of-war that had become her life. “I thought I had . . . before I talked to Mamm.”
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