by Marta Perry
They wouldn’t be able to picture the rundown, dirty building or the cluttered apartment. Or imagine the triple locks on the door.
She took a breath. “Jannie, my roommate, had a boyfriend. Pete, his name is. He was in and out of trouble all the time, mostly for selling drugs.”
Daad shook his head slowly, not in disbelief but in sorrow, it seemed. “That is a bad thing, it is.”
“Jannie got pregnant, and I could see something wasn’t right.” That was one benefit of growing up Amish. She’d been around enough pregnant females, animal and human, to know what was normal. “I got her to go to the clinic. They found she had leukemia.”
Someone around the table sucked in a breath. Leah. “Poor thing.”
“Ja,” Myra said softly.
“When she told Pete, he couldn’t handle it. He just wanted out.” She was consolidating into a few sentences the weeks of anguish, of comforting Jannie and trying to see the path ahead.
“Jannie . . .” How could she make them understand a waif like Jannie, rootless in an uncaring world? “She didn’t have anyone. No family, no one who could help. When she lost Pete, she was desperate.”
“So you helped her.”
If there was a trace of surprise in Daadi’s voice, she decided to ignore it.
“I was all she had.” She took a shaky breath. “When she realized she wasn’t going to live, all she wanted was to know that her baby would be safe.” Jannie, who’d never seemed to have a mind of her own about anything, had proved unexpectedly strong when it came to her baby. “She asked me to raise her child, and I promised that I would. The nurse put Gracie into my arms minutes after she was born.” She dropped a kiss on Gracie’s hair, inhaling the sweet baby scent. “I knew she was mine in that moment.”
A faint murmur of understanding came from the other women. Barbara nodded. They knew that moment.
Daadi was frowning, though. “What about the father? He has the right to his own child.”
She bit back angry words. They wouldn’t help. Daadi could never really understand a man who would put his next fix ahead of his child. Daadi would always try to be fair, even to someone like Pete.
“He didn’t want her.” She cradled Gracie in her arms. That was true. Pete hadn’t wanted the baby. “He signed the papers giving her away. She’s my child, both in law and in my heart.”
Her words seemed to linger in the silence that greeted them. She pressed one hand against the rough wood of the picnic table, willing someone to speak. No one did.
Rebellion rose in her. “You’d be happier if I came back an unwed mother,” she snapped. “Would that be easier to forgive?”
“Don’t, Anna.” Leah might have been chiding a fifteen-year-old Anna for hiding English clothes in the barn. “You know that’s not so. We’re just trying to understand, ain’t so?” Leah glanced around the table, seeking agreement.
Several heads nodded. Mahlon, her next-older brother, usually so happy-go-lucky, still looked faintly shocked, but he nodded, too.
To her surprise, it was Barbara who reached over to pat her hand. “You love her, whether she came from your body or not.”
“Ja,” she said softly. “Denke, Barbara.” Too often her annoyance with Barbara’s nosiness made her overlook the woman’s warm heart.
“The Stoltzfus family, over by Big Creek, they adopted three English kinder,” Samuel said, dropping the words in quietly.
“Ja, but they are a married couple.” Mahlon glanced at his young wife, as if trying to gauge her opinion.
“You’ve all accepted my three young ones as family,” Daniel, Leah’s husband, said, wrapping his hand around hers. A blind person could see how much those two loved each other. To think she’d once been furious with Leah for considering marriage to Daniel.
“If the law agrees the baby is Anna’s,” Joseph said, “then we’ll have no quarrel with the English over it.”
Anna should have been grateful for their support. She was, for Gracie’s sake. But still her rebellious spirit rose. They all thought they had a share and a say in her life. That was what she’d jumped the fence to escape.
“I will talk to Bishop Mose,” Daadi said at last. “No one else needs to know anything but that our Anna is back with her child.” He looked at her, and his face softened. “You are here, where you belong. You’ll talk to Bishop Mose, kneel before the church, and be accepted back. It is what we’ve all prayed for, and we are thankful.”
She nodded, lowering her face so that she didn’t have to meet his gaze. How could she kneel before the church and ask them to accept her back when she didn’t intend to stay? How could she hide among her own family without telling them the whole story about Pete?
A shiver ran through her. She seemed to see again the twisted anger on Pete’s face, the maudlin tears he’d shed when he’d shown up at her door, demanding to see his baby, dismissing the papers he’d signed. Saying little Gracie belonged to him.
The baby’s safety came first, no matter the cost.
“Ja, Daadi,” she said softly. “Denke.”
She looked up then. The others appeared happy, or at least relieved.
But Samuel—Samuel looked as if he saw right into her heart and knew what she was hiding.
“Hand me that wrench, will you?”
Samuel passed the tool to Joseph, smiling a little. There was nothing Joseph enjoyed more than a challenge like the one posed by the balky baler. “You won’t be content until you’ve fixed it, will you?”
“Course not.” Joseph looked up at him, grinning. “Converting tractor-drawn machinery to horse-drawn might seem like a step backward to the outside world, but to me, it is fun. Any real mechanic would feel the same.”
The Amish ban on connecting to the power grid meant plenty of work for someone like Joseph, who could use a portable electric generator, powered by a gasoline engine, to run a welder. And because the end purpose was to keep horse-drawn equipment in the field, the bishops agreed to it.
“I guess I’m not a real mechanic.” Samuel didn’t need to be embarrassed about admitting it to Joseph. Joseph knew it as well as anyone, but said they made a gut team anyway.
Samuel could only hope that was true. Joseph’s offer to go into business with him had come at a time when he’d desperately needed it. It had made him feel like a useful part of the community again. He wouldn’t soon forget what he owed Joseph.
Which maybe partly accounted for how troubled he felt over Anna. Joseph cared so much about his little sister. It would be a shame if he ended up getting hurt.
Joseph gave the baler a frustrated tap with the wrench. “So tell me something.”
“Ja, what? If it’s something about the machine, you know it better than I do.”
Joseph shook his head, concern slipping into his eyes. “What are people saying about Anna coming back? And the boppli?”
“I haven’t said a word to anyone.” That wasn’t really an answer to the question, but maybe Joseph would let it slide. “Your daad didn’t want us to talk about it.” He shrugged, rising from where he’d been squatting next to Joseph on the rough floor of the shop. “I wouldn’t, anyway. I remember how it felt, coming back, figuring every blabbermaul in the valley was gossiping about me.”
“I know you wouldn’t say anything, but I bet you hear plenty. I saw how everyone shut up fast when I stopped at the feed mill. They had to be talking about Anna.”
“Ja, well, you know how folks are.” Samuel shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “They’re bound to talk, but soon as they see that things are all right with the family, they’ll settle down.”
At least, he hoped so. Anna’s situation was a bit different from his. He hadn’t come home with a baby.
“Little Gracie makes a difference,” Joseph said, echoing Samuel’s thoughts. Hands on his hips, he stared out the open shop door toward the house. “It’s not like the usual.”
No, it wasn’t. The usual was a young man like he’d been, who,
at the end of his rumspringa, decided to taste the outside world instead of getting married and settling down as people expected. Most of them came back, convinced they belonged here.
He’d come back. But the conviction—that was what he was missing. That was why he hadn’t found a bride, despite the broad hints of his friends.
How could he, when he didn’t know his own mind? When he didn’t know how much of his father was in him, ready to burst out and bring the world crashing in on people he was supposed to love?
Joseph sighed, and Samuel knew his thoughts were still on Anna. “I guess we just have to ride it out until somebody else does something to get folks talking. It’ll be better once Anna has seen Bishop Mose.”
“Ja.” If anyone could help ease Anna and her babe back into the church, it would be Bishop Mose. Samuel just wished he felt sure that was what Anna really wanted.
“Somebody’s coming.” Joseph stepped out into the sunshine, and Samuel followed him. “A car.”
“Maybe the English are starting to hear how gut you are with the machines,” he said, nudging Joseph.
“Not likely. If a thing doesn’t run on the electric, they’re not interested.”
It was a pickup truck, not a car, bright red and shiny as could be. Samuel made a quick comparison to the rundown vehicle Anna had arrived in. This glossy piece of metal wouldn’t want to be in the same garage as Anna’s heap.
The Englischer got out, tugging his ball cap into place. With his jeans and flannel shirt, he looked like most of the English farmers in the valley, but most of them wouldn’t be driving such an expensive rig. Farmers put their money into stock or equipment, not something fancy to ride around in.
“Good day.” The man nodded, looking from one to the other of them. “I’m looking for Samuel Fisher.”
“I am Samuel Fisher.” Making the switch to English was easy enough. Dealing with reminders of the outside world was not. “How can I help you?”
“I’m Jase Bartlett.” The man thrust out his hand. “Have a place over on Shady Point Road.”
Samuel shook hands. The name was familiar, even if the face wasn’t. “You have the horse farm, ain’t so?”
“That’s me.” Bartlett didn’t seem surprised that he was known. He’d come to the valley more than a year ago and snatched up a farm that several Amish had had an eye on. He’d torn down the old farmhouse and put up something new, torn down the barns and sheds as well, putting in new stables and what seemed like miles of rail fences around acres of pastures.
“I’ve been hearing about you, Fisher. People say you’re pretty good at training difficult horses. That true?”
Samuel kept his face expressionless. “I like to train horses, ja.”
Bartlett raised his eyebrows. “The way I heard it, you’re some kind of horse whisperer, able to get through to any animal.”
The man seemed intent on making Samuel brag about himself. “Are you wanting some work done with one of your horses, Mr. Bartlett?”
Bartlett’s face seemed to darken. “I’ve got a new gelding that’s proving troublesome. Good breeding, and I paid a fancy enough price for him, but he’s a mean one. Not that I couldn’t break him of his bad habits myself, but I just haven’t got the time right now. So, what do you say? You interested?”
Somehow Samuel thought that if Bartlett were able to train this expensive animal himself, he wouldn’t be here. His instincts were telling him that both the man and the horse might be more trouble than they were worth.
“I am sorry, Mr. Bartlett, but working with horses is a sideline for me. We have much to do in the shop right now, and I don’t think I’ll have time to take on a raw animal now.”
Bartlett’s flush deepened. It seemed he wasn’t one to take no easily. But before he could speak, Joseph clapped Samuel on the back.
“Ach, it sounds like a job made for you. Don’t worry about the shop. We’re not so busy right now that we can’t spare you.” Joseph switched to Pennsylvania Dutch to add, “Besides, a man like this will pay well.”
“Sounds like your friend can spare you,” Bartlett said quickly. “What do you say? If you do a good job, there’s more work I can throw your way.”
Samuel glanced at Joseph, who nodded encouragement. “Well, I guess I could give it a try. When did you want to bring the gelding over?”
The slam of the back door punctuated the question, the screen probably caught by the breeze. Anna stood on the back porch, seemingly frozen in place by the sight of the Englischer.
Then, before Jase Bartlett could turn to look that way, she whisked back into the house, closing the door behind her.
Bartlett rattled on, talking about the arrangements, and Samuel nodded and responded. But inside, he was back to wondering and worrying about Anna’s return. Did he think she was telling the truth? That had been what Joseph really wanted to know, even if he hadn’t come right out and said it.
The answer wasn’t a simple one. Samuel did believe that what Anna had said was true. He just didn’t believe she had told them everything.
The Englischer was gone. Anna pressed her hand against the screen door, surprised that her thoughts had taken that form.
Her alarm really had nothing to do with the fact that the man was different from the Amish, but only with the reminder of the outside world, where Pete might be looking for her.
That was foolish. The fear that curdled her stomach was irrational. She had to believe that.
But could she? Probably not as long as her memory of the last time she’d seen him was so vivid. He’d been high—she’d realized that the moment she’d opened the door.
Her fingers tightened on the handle she held now, as if she could go back, relive that moment, and not open the door.
That’s what she should have done, but she hadn’t. How was she to know? She hadn’t seen or heard from Pete since long before Gracie was born. She’d hardly expected him to decide, after all that time, that he wanted to see the baby.
Not just see. Take. Her skin crawled with the memory. He’d gone from tears to fury and back again, talking wildly about running off with Gracie. He’d go to Mexico, or Canada, where no one would look for them. He’d be a good father to his little girl.
She’s not yours. That’s what she’d screamed at him. She’s not yours.
He’d come after her then, tossing her out of his way as if she were a rag doll. Her ribs still hurt from where she’d hit the floor.
That was what her neighbors had heard. Two college boys, who hadn’t seemed interested in anything more serious than girls and games, had rushed to the rescue, hustled Pete out, and told her to call the police.
She hadn’t. Maybe she’d still been more Amish than she thought. The Amish didn’t turn to the law to settle their problems.
Instead she’d packed up everything she could carry, put Gracie in the car seat, and fled.
She shook her head, trying to make the memory go away. Pete had never known anything about her background, so even if he wanted to come after her, he couldn’t. The Amish, living off the grid, possessing no computers or cell phones or credit cards, could not easily be traced. They were safe here.
That should make her feel better, but she knew she wasn’t going to be content until she was sure that visitor had nothing to do with her.
She went out onto the porch, picking up the basket she’d dropped when she’d seen the truck, and glanced across the yard. Joseph had disappeared, probably into the shop. Samuel stood where he’d been, watching her, as if he knew she would come and speak to him.
Swinging the basket as if the garden were the only thing on her mind, she went across the yard, the grass whispering under her feet. The walnut tree was heavy with nuts, the green pods starting to fall and blacken.
Mamm had always said the black walnuts were the most delicious—that they had to be because they were so difficult to harvest. She could help Myra with that, if she was still here. Samuel watched her, his face unreadable. She gestured w
ith the basket.
“I’m going to get some peppers to roast. Myra wants to put some up.”
He nodded, looking at her as if knowing that wasn’t all that was on her mind.
Annoyance pricked at her. “Who was the Englischer?”
“His name is Bartlett.”
He was telling her as little as possible. Why?
“Did he say anything about me?”
Now something did flicker in Samuel’s eyes—surprise, maybe. “Mr. Bartlett has a troublesome horse he wants me to work with. That’s why he came here, to ask me about the animal.”
“I see.” She tried to smile. “I’m glad you’re getting some more business.” She hitched up the basket. “I’d better get on with the peppers.”
She started to turn away. Samuel reached out, his hand clasping her wrist. She stopped, startled, feeling the warmth of his grip.
“Why would you think the Englischer had come about you, Anna?”
“I . . . I don’t.” She’d been an idiot, asking him that. “I just wondered. I mean, I suppose my coming back made a lot of talk.”
“Among the Leit.” The Amish. “Why would the English know? Or care?”
“They wouldn’t.” She tugged at his hand, feeling the strength of his grip. “What are the Amish saying, then? You’re in a position to tell them plenty, aren’t you?”
His face tightened, making him look far older than she knew him to be. “I would not do that, and I think you know it.”
She’d rather hang on to her anger, but he was right. That didn’t make her feel any more kindly toward him. She took a breath. “Sorry.” The apology was ungracious, but it was the best she could do. “I don’t believe you’d gossip about me.”
He let her hand go, a smile flickering across his face. “I’m the last person who’d do that. I remember too well what it was like when I came back.”
“Plenty of talk, I suppose.”
“Ach, it soon died down. They found something else to talk about.”