by Beverly Bird
Adam’s eyes narrowed. Already he wasn’t liking the sounds of this, but it was an instinct more than anything else. He couldn’t put his finger on why.
“This Sunday is Gemeesunndaag, our church Sunday. Everyone will be together. I’ll get a message to Sugar Joe through one of his children, to meet me somewhere isolated and safe.”
“I’m going with you.” The instinct, the unease, was getting stronger. Maybe it was the way she was suddenly avoiding his eyes.
Mariah nodded. “Yes, I think you should.”
She stood and began collecting their dishes. Adam got to his feet as well. He closed some of the various cartons and boxes. Then something she’d said jiggled another thought in his mind—that she would get a message to the man through one of his kids.
“Mariah.”
She looked over her shoulder at him as she rinsed their plates. “Yes?”
“The children can talk to you. They must. You teach them. Do they see you?”
“Yes.”
“What am I missing here?”
She turned around and took a dish towel from a hook on the wall. She dried her hands and still wouldn’t look at him. He went to her, catching her chin with his finger, tilting it up, making her meet his eyes. “What’s the catch?”
“It’s silly, really.”
He refrained from saying that he thought a lot of their Ordnung was—all of it that made her suffer, anyway. He waited.
“This explanation goes back a little way,” she said evasively.
“I’m listening.”
She sighed. “My people broke off from the church in Germany in the sixteenth century because of a disagreement regarding baptism,” she said finally. “We don’t believe in baptizing a child, forcing religion down his throat, so to speak, before he’s old enough to decide for himself what he wants. Adherence to the Ordnung is...hard. Only an adult can voluntarily embrace it. A little one can’t be expected to make a mature decision as to whether that’s how he wants to live the rest of his life or not.”
She was finally holding his eyes. He didn’t like what he saw in hers. “Okay,” he said warily.
“Since children haven’t yet embraced the Ordnung, neither are they bound by it.”
“Then why is everybody so fired up about you having gone to college?”
“I...made a mistake.”
Her voice was so small, he barely heard it. “Come again?”
“I made a mistake. I was wrong. I...goofed.”
“Goofed,” he repeated, because it sounded almost incongruous coming out of her mouth.
“I thought I could do it,” she rushed on. “I was just trying to be obedient, to do what everyone expected of me, to do what I was raised to do. I got my high-school diploma through that correspondence course and that was okay, that was forgiven and overlooked because I hadn’t promised my life yet. I hadn’t been baptized. I put that paper in my drawer and I thought it was enough. It was prideful, but it pleased me.”
Her words were tumbling now, and that warned him. Adam felt his muscles stiffen. “But it wasn’t enough.”
She didn’t answer, not directly. “Then Asher asked me to marry him. I said yes, and he asked the deacons and they said yes, but you can’t marry unless you’re baptized, so I did it. That was in the spring and we had to wait until October, and somewhere in there...sometime that summer, I just knew I couldn’t go through with it. I...couldn’t.” Her eyes became pleading, and it hurt something inside him. “I didn’t love him. I wanted...more.”
He thought she whispered it as though it were some shameful treachery. He felt his rage starting.
“I didn’t go to Penn State because I wanted to be anything. I just wanted to know. Things. Just...things. I just wanted to learn. And nobody can understand why I destroyed my life for the right to do that. But my life would have been miserable either way, do you see? At least if I went to college, I would have something to show for my misery. I would have learned a million things before I had to start suffering in this...this solitude.”
His temper pounded inside his head. He didn’t trust himself to speak. He cleared his throat with a great effort, and his own voice was as low, as tense as hers had been.
“Let me get this straight. If you had gone to college, come back, gotten baptized, everything would have been fine. Forgiven.”
She nodded spasmodically.
“But because you tried to conform, because you did it the other way around, because you attempted to do as they wanted and ended up not being able to swallow it, they’re going to make you suffer for it for the rest of your life?”
His low voice scared her. “That’s too harsh, Adam,” she said quickly, jolted out of her own misery. “I keep telling you. I’m not unhappy. And it was my choice.”
“They’ve robbed from you the right to marry, to have children of your own,” he went on. “They’ve taken—”
“But—”
“They make you live in silence,” he finished harshly.
He didn’t know he was going to do it. Didn’t mean to do it. But she was trembling with pain over a simple, understandable mistake that had gone drastically wrong. And he was furious, he was enraged, that they would punish her for it like this, so severely. Who in the hell did they think they were?
He touched her. He put his hands on her shoulders as though to steady her, and he fought to keep from clenching his fingers and hurting her.
“I had a choice,” she said again, her voice a whisper now.
“No.”
“I made it. I’ll live with it.”
“I’m sorry.” It seemed the stupidest thing to say. But he was—terribly, bitterly sorry for her, though he knew she would resent pity. He thought it was a sacrilege that this woman, this beautiful woman who was so kind, so good with children, so alive with hidden gusto, should live her life as a ghost, should be doomed to stepping into rooms just to have the people there avert their eyes as if she were some kind of pariah.
He wanted to hurt somebody, those who had done this to her. He wanted to fight it, to do something about it. But like the day when he had understood the situation with Bo, he was helpless.
Maybe that was why he drew her slowly toward him—all he could offer was comfort. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on top of her head and closed his eyes and he knew he was crazy. He didn’t dare touch this woman, because she could never be more than a friend. He didn’t dare inch across that line because he had the feeling that he wouldn’t easily get back again. When she smoothed her nightgown over her thighs, when she padded around barefoot with her hair spilling, what he felt toward her left friendly far behind. But she kept trembling, and then she slid her hands beneath his jacket and took fistfuls of his shirt and held on. And she cried.
He didn’t, couldn’t, pull away again.
Her hair smelled like violets, he thought. It carried a hint of something that was the color of her eyes. So he just continued to hold her.
Chapter 8
Adam didn’t see Mariah again for several days. He told himself he wasn’t actually avoiding her. He just didn’t really need her to go stand by the frozen pond in the afternoons. He didn’t need her with him to drive past the Lapp farm and catch a glimpse of Bo chasing the cows into the barn for their afternoon milking. He didn’t need her company in order to digest a meal. And he was busy, too busy to seek her out, anyway.
ChildSearch had problems. Rebecca, the day receptionist, had quit abruptly in favor of a better paying job. Diana, one of the night operators who manned the phones during the off-hours, was currently working sixteen-hour shifts so no potential tip would go unanswered. Jake reported that her energy was beginning to flag.
If Adam had been there, he would have manned the phones himself until he could hire someone else, someone with her heart in the right place, someone willing to work for minimum wage to save children snatched and taken against their will. As it was, the best he could do was hire an answering service for t
he nights at a whole lot more than what he had been paying Rebecca. He moved Diana from evenings to the eight-hour day shifts and promised her Sunday off. Jake would fill in the holes until Adam could get back to Dallas.
That wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
He told himself the decision had nothing to do with Mariah’s opinion that he had nothing particular to go home to, not even for a quick visit to set things straight. It had everything to do with the paralysis of indecision that continued to grip him. He didn’t know what to do about Bo yet. He couldn’t do anything, at least not until he had spoken to this Sugar Joe. And he would not leave this place until there was some resolution. The thought was preposterous.
That was why, on Sunday morning, he turned up at her door a little too early. Because he needed to do something, he told himself, to start setting things in motion. Because he couldn’t just hang in limbo forever.
That was what he told himself.
The truth of the matter was that when she opened her door to him, his heart seemed to kick and flop over at her smile. And not a nightgown in sight. She was dressed as she always was, in her deep purple dress with the black apron, and it all fell demurely to a point just at her knees. The black tights, the plain shoes, the small white bonnet perched at the back of her head—it was all the same. And this time the purple seemed to bring out the violet of her eyes. This time all the black made her skin seem fair as porcelain, except for a faint blush that touched her cheeks when she saw him.
“Hey,” he said awkwardly. “You...uh, said something about church.”
“Yes. We have a little bit of time yet. Coffee?”
He thought that with all the coffee she urged on him, he was going to have a caffeine high that would stay with him long after he left this settlement behind. He looked at his watch.
“It’s already past eight-thirty.”
“Yes, they’ll be starting soon. It takes a while to get the cows milked and the morning chores done and to get everyone piled into the buggy to go to whatever home the services are being held at this time.”
“It changes?”
She smiled and ushered him inside. “Yes. Its—”
“Family,” he interrupted. Somehow he found himself standing in her living room with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets again, though he’d thought he would just pick her up and...go.
“We believe in doing nearly everything in the home, even our church services. So we have no churches. We simply rotate from one family’s barn or living room to the next.”
“You don’t go anymore.” It wasn’t a question.
“No. I can’t.” She hurried off to the kitchen. He followed her.
“Have you had breakfast?” she asked.
“Yeah. A fast food egg sandwich.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That’s awful.”
He felt oddly chastised. “You did all right with that fast food the other night.”
“That was entirely different.”
“In what way?”
“It was real chicken, real vegetables, real cheese. They use egg substitutes in some of those sandwiches, Adam. I heard that when I was away at school.”
She began dragging out frying pans. He moved to put a hand on her arm to stop her, then he snatched it back before he actually touched her.
“Mariah, you don’t have to cook me anything.”
“Of course I don’t. I want to.”
Why? He almost asked aloud and bit the word back.
Everything had changed between them, he realized. Somewhere along the line, somehow, things had changed. He wasn’t even sure when it had happened. When he had held her in his arms and let her cry? As early as when she had come to the door in her nightgown? Or had it been somewhere in between? He honestly didn’t know, but it panicked him all over again. Because there were no doors in this room of hers. He could get in, but it was pretty clear now that she wouldn’t come out.
He didn’t want to go in. He didn’t like the world she subjected herself to. Oh, it had its own unique peace. It was quiet and a man could breathe the air here. It was a tolerable respite, but he didn’t want to stay.
And if he didn’t want to stay, if he could not offer her—or himself—more than a few moments of physical pleasure, then he had no business touching her, getting too close to her, at all. If that was all he could offer, then he doubted if she would entertain the possibility, anyway.
“Adam?”
“What?” He jolted.
“You look troubled. What is it?”
“I’m always troubled.”
“More troubled, then.”
“I’m fine. Put the pans away. We should get to the church—or the barn or wherever the hell we’re going.”
Her violet eyes searched his face. He realized it was the first time he had cursed in her presence for a while now. He wondered if it was just another little way of putting some distance between them or reminding himself of the gulf that was already there.
He was starting to hate understanding himself so well.
“It won’t do us any good until noon or so,” she answered.
“Noon?” He almost hollered. “Why? You said everyone would be getting there now.”
“Getting there, and going right inside. Services last several hours. And I can’t go in, and neither can you. So we should wait until the children come out again.”
“Terrific.” It was his own fault for having rushed over here. He raked a hand through his hair. He was not going to sit in this woman’s kitchen for three hours.
“So...eggs?” she suggested. “Scrambled or fried?”
“Damn it—”
“Perhaps if you take your coffee and relax in front of the fire while I throw something together, you won’t feel so wound up, Adam.”
“I was born this way.”
“But there’s no need to be so tense here.”
He gave a snort of disbelief. Did she honestly not feel it? Did she honestly not recognize the change? Didn’t she feel the danger here?
That possibility shook him, that he was the only one suddenly imagining touching. That only he had been wondering what her skin would feel like, how heavy her hair would be when it finally filled his hands.
“Damn it,” he muttered aloud. He took the mug of coffee she had poured for him and stalked into the other room.
The hell of it was, he did relax. One moment he was glaring into the flames in the open stove as they danced way too gently to give any appreciable warmth. Then her voice called him to the table, and he realized that at some point he had leaned his head back against the rocker and had closed his eyes.
He refused to admit that maybe—just maybe—he had dozed off for a moment or two.
She’d fried eggs and scrapple and potatoes. He ate for a long time, famished, before he looked at her. “How exactly are you going to do this?”
His mind was working again, Mariah realized. But that was okay. He’d slept in the rocker. She guessed he probably didn’t sleep any better than she did these days, and she always felt the tension in him, knew how much he needed to rest.
“I’ve written a note.” She patted her apron pocket and sat across from him. “I’ll give it to one of his boys. If he can, Joe will meet me.”
“Where?”
“I’ve suggested the schoolhouse. Today’s service is at Katya Essler’s place, so the school is relatively nearby.”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Why didn’t you just give the note to one of his kids on Friday? Don’t you teach them?”
“I was afraid there’d be too much chance for it to get lost between their hands and his in the meantime. Or that Sarah might stumble upon it. It will be better if Joe tells her what’s happening.”
He felt an odd twist of something—anger, maybe, tangled with regret and misplaced guilt—as he remembered what Mariah had said about the woman not being able to have any more children.
“Makes sense.” He pushed his plate away abruptly and k
ept his tone inflectionless. “So...we wait.”
“Not much longer now.”
It was nearly eleven, he realized, startled.
Silence fell over the table. Now, a little voice inside Mariah whispered. Tell him about the other children, tell him that you didn’t see Bo in the farmers’ market, that it was you who called his company in Dallas. Tell him, clear the slate now.
It was growing more important all the time, with every day, with every moment that passed. It wasn’t just that she suspected that the more time that elapsed, the harder it was going to be to find Lizzie and the others. Nor was it entirely her fear that the children might be suffering while they were gone. Of course that terrified her. She’d felt urgent from the time she’d first called ChildSearch, from the moment she’d let herself take the first step. But she’d deliberately tucked that urgency away so that Adam wouldn’t see it or sense it. She’d done it at first because she’d been able to convince herself that she didn’t want to burden him with the settlement’s troubles while he was busy with his own.
But she had known, all along she had known, that she was afraid as well.
He’d given her dull gray world such light, a wonderful new texture, when he’d come into it. He brought surprise and pleasure and anticipation to her days. And it was purely selfish of her to base her actions on the probability of losing that when he knew the whole truth. Because she would certainly lose it anyway, sooner or later, when he took his Bo and went home.
But not, she prayed, not before he found the others.
She took a breath and clamped her hands together in front of her on the table. “Adam, there’s something else we need to talk about.”
“I can’t deal with it right now,” he said abruptly, and startled even himself. He had no idea where the words had come from.
Her eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”
Instinct again, he realized. She was going to talk about...them. He was certain of it. She had read something in his eyes, some dawning desire. But there was no them and there couldn’t be a them and every instinct was telling him to make her shut up.