Secret, The

by Beverly Lewis

  She nodded, still feeling awkward and shy. “Happy to.”

  He faced her, his dark eyes serious. “You must know I’m quite fond of you, Grace.”

  She looked into his face, smiling . . . soaking up his attention. “I love you, too,” she said in a whisper.

  “ ’Tis mighty gut, then.” He lifted her hand to his lips and held it there, eyes fixed on her. Then he kissed her hand. “Will you agree to be my bride?”

  My bride . . .

  She could hardly keep from bursting out in laughter . . . no, in tears. This was the most wonderful moment ever. “I’d be honored to marry you, Henry. Jah!”

  Still clasping her hand, he nodded his pleasure, and she cherished the feel of her small hand in his big, work-roughened one. “We’ll tie the knot sometime this fall.”

  She gave him her sweetest smile. “All right.”

  His eyes searched hers and his head tilted sideways for a moment, as if he might say more. But when his gaze became uncomfortable, she looked down, not sure what to say next. She didn’t want to rush him out in an unfeeling sort of way, yet their time here together should come to an end.

  “God be with ya, Henry,” she said kindly, hoping he’d take the hint.

  He did. He rose and walked to the door, turning briefly to look once again at the chime clock. “Looks right nice there,” he said.

  She agreed and followed him downstairs, both of them tiptoeing as they went.

  When they were outdoors, she saw that he had not parked his buggy in the lane. “It was awful nice seein’ you twice in one day,” she ventured, hoping it didn’t sound forward.

  He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Good night, Grace.”

  “G’night.” She broke into a smile as the feel of his kiss lingered on her face. Waving now, she watched him hurry away, out to the road.

  Good-bye, my love . . .

  Reluctantly she turned and walked toward the dark house.

  chapter

  twelve

  Grace dropped off to sleep after lying awake for a short time, reliving the last hours of this wonderful-good day. Later, she dreamed of walking with Henry along a path strewn with bright yellow rose petals. She could not, however, hear what he was saying no matter how she strained to listen.

  Eventually the dream floated away to nothingness and she slept more soundly. But in her haze, she sensed someone kissing her cheek.

  It was still dark out when she awakened. She had not heard her mother’s footsteps in the night, and Grace marveled at how soundly she must have slept.

  Turning over, she looked at her dresser and saw what appeared to be an unopened envelope propped up against her dresser mirror, to the left of the chime clock. She leaned up, rubbing her eyes. The house was still quiet; it was too early to get up.

  Lying back down, she glimpsed the small alarm clock on the bedside table and saw that it was only ten minutes before five. She looked again at her dresser, wondering where the envelope had come from—had someone placed it there while she slept?

  Her curiosity got the best of her, and she went to look. She carried the letter to the window and opened the shade slightly, letting in the waning moonlight. The words To Grace were written in her mother’s handwriting on the envelope.

  Quickly, she tore it open.

  My dear Grace,

  You looked ever so happy tonight on your birthday. I know you enjoyed the supper and your time with our family and the neighbor friends.

  I promised to tell you what is bothering me, but now, frankly, I can’t find the words in me. I’ve seen the concern on your face since we helped at the big barn raising last month—heard your gentle prodding, too. Your caring heart is such a dear part of who you are.

  It’s very late, and all of you are sleeping as I write. I trust you will share my thoughts here with your brothers and Mandy, as well as with your father. I know if I’d told all of you my plans in person, I would not have had the courage to leave.

  “What on earth?” Grace whispered, her breath coming in short, panicked bursts as she read on.

  I fear that what I’m writing makes little sense and will change your birthday joy to sadness. For that, I’m very sorry, Grace.

  You see, there’s another whole side to this, and such pain comes with all of it. But I cannot spell it out just now. In time, you will understand, I promise. Perhaps all of you will. Even so, my leaving will bring shame to my family . . . and sorrow, too.

  I hope you will not despise this hard thing I must do. My heart is ever so tender, if not breaking. Yet go I must. I love you.

  Always,

  Mamma

  “She’s leaving?” Clutching the letter, Grace fled the room, peering first through her parents’ open door. Dat lay crosswise on the bed, sound asleep. Rushing downstairs, she looked everywhere for her mother, including the cold cellar in the basement, then clear out to the barn, near Willow’s stall.

  Not finding Mamma, she went all the way around the house to the front porch, still pondering the strange letter . . . ever so mysterious. She turned and looked toward the field, where Mamma often walked. How many times had she seen her out there, wrapped in moonbeams, her arms tight around her middle, as if she were holding herself together?

  Breathlessly, Grace returned to her room, where Henry had proposed just hours before. Does Dat know any of this? Looking at the letter again, she read it more slowly and began crying.

  Baffled and confused, she rose once more and headed for the hallway. This time she stopped to look in on Mandy, her arm flung over her head, sound asleep.

  Poor sister, what will she think?

  And what about Dat? Apparently Mamma had written a letter only to her . . . but why?

  Walking to the dormer windows, she peered out and, to her fright, saw what she hadn’t seen before—a faraway dark figure walking briskly from the house, heading west toward Route 340. Can it be? She leaned forward, squinting to see.

  Grace darted back to her room and tossed the letter onto the bedside table, atop the envelope. She yanked her bathrobe off the wooden peg and put it on, not bothering to tie the belt. Then, rushing outside, she dashed past the well-groomed lawns and the pasture fence near the road.

  Grace stumbled and caught herself, running as she tied a knot in her robe. She was gaining some ground, getting closer, desperately hoping that the distant black silhouette was not her mother. That this whole thing was some horrid mistake. Surely her mother wouldn’t just up and leave while everyone was sleeping. Would she?

  Through a blur of tears, she saw a car heading this way, then slowing and coming to a stop.

  There’s another whole side to this, Mamma had written. Grace couldn’t imagine what that meant, or even what it could mean.

  The moon moved out from behind a cloud, making it easier to see more clearly now. The figure was definitely a woman. Suddenly it was unmistakable: Mamma was practically running toward the car, her head covered by a heavy black outer bonnet, something bulky at her side.

  The car door opened. Grace sucked in her breath and nearly choked when she realized what was in her mother’s hand. Their old brown suitcase!

  “Mamma!” she called, gasping for breath. “Come back! Please, come back!”

  Slipping inside the car, her mother did not stop or even turn to look back. Can’t she hear me?

  The door slammed shut, its echo reaching Grace with a final thud. No, this can’t be! Stunned, she slowed to a walk, holding her sides and breathing fast . . . then she stopped completely, unable to go on.

  I hope you will not despise this hard thing I must do, Mamma had written.

  “No, Mamma . . .” wept Grace as the vehicle sped away. “Why must you go?”

  Judah awakened with a jolt. He thought he’d heard someone rushing about. Alarmed, he pulled himself out of bed to flounder down the hall to look in on the children.

  Strange, he thought, I still think of them that way. Especially the girls.

  He peered through th
e open door at Amanda, who was softly snoring in her sleep, recalling that it was Lettie who’d always done this sort of checking. He would sometimes awaken as she returned to bed.

  Before she started wandering all hours, he thought, still feeling guilty for his own cowardice last night. He headed slowly up the narrow staircase that led to the boys’ rooms on the third floor. All was well.

  Back on the second floor, he noticed Grace’s door ajar, and when he looked in, he saw that her bedclothes were thrown back. “Odd,” he said, but on second thought he wondered if she’d gone out to meet her beau.

  He was about to head to the main floor and have a look outside when he noticed a letter lying close to the edge of Grace’s bedside table, as if flung there. Not given to reading other people’s mail, he hesitated. Then, thinking that it was out in the open, he looked at it more closely and immediately recognized Lettie’s handwriting. He shrank back then, thinking of just leaving it there . . . letting it be.

  But something stirred within and he reached for it. He carried the letter back to his room, scanning the first line as he went. Then, with a great sigh, Judah closed the door and sat down to read what appeared to be Lettie’s farewell to them all.

  Grace trudged along the road, her mind in a dither. She was scarcely able to see the road through her tears as she made her way home. And she found herself wrapping her arms around her stomach, just as she’d seen Mamma do.

  In the midst of her grief, her favorite psalm came to mind—the one Mammi Adah had scrawled on Grace’s birthday card. In the night his song shall be with me. . . . The words went round and round in her head as she plodded toward the house.

  What will Dat say? she thought, at a loss for how to tell him.

  None of the family would believe it. Even Mammi Adah would look at her askance if Grace was brave enough to reveal what she’d just witnessed.

  Had Mamma been rehearsing her quick escape those other nights? Had she been getting up the courage to walk away . . . escape from her family, maybe?

  Escape? It was downright strange to be thinking of such a word. “Escape from what?” she said into the chilly air.

  Plain wives and mothers simply did not leave their families. Even when there was trouble in marriages, divorce was unheard of among the People. Only on rare occasions were there even whispered comments about legal separations. No, married folk somehow made do, or they found a way in spite of their difficulties.

  Surely Mamma has only gone to visit someone. Surely . . .

  But the words of her mother’s own heartbreaking letter belied Grace’s hopes, and she trembled.

  Martin Puckett had been somewhat surprised by Lettie Byler’s call early yesterday evening. She’d sounded distraught as she asked him to pick her up at an appointed spot and time.

  “Just before 5:00 am tomorrow . . .”

  He’d had a hard time convincing his wife that it wasn’t out of the ordinary to leave the house when it was still dark to pick up an Amishwoman. “She needs to catch a train,” he’d explained.

  So here he was, behind the wheel of his car, with Lettie sitting in the front seat, a position she’d never occupied while traveling with either Judah or the rest of her family. She’d hopped right in, as if eager to get to her destination.

  He could hear her muttering in Deitsch as he drove toward Lancaster, something about being worried she was doing the right thing by Judah. “I tried to tell him,” she said in her first language. The children, too, were apparently heavy on her mind.

  “Are you all right, Lettie?” He glanced at her.

  She waved her hand. “Ach, don’t mind me.”

  He’d never thought twice about driving the Amish, least of all at an hour when it would seem dangerous to travel with horse and buggy. “You’ll be mighty early to the train station,” he mentioned.

  “I don’t yet have a reservation.”

  He hoped she would be okay traveling alone, as bleak as her face looked. But it was not his place to pry. Unless she is in danger . . .

  When he arrived at the Amtrak station in Lancaster, he stopped in front and got out to retrieve her suitcase. She stood at the door, waiting. “I’d like you to keep mum ’bout this, if you don’t mind,” she said.

  He’d never heard her, or any Amishwoman, speak so pointedly to a man. Nor speak with such determination.

  “You mean Judah doesn’t know about your trip?” he asked, suddenly more concerned.

  She hung her head. “I best not say.”

  “Lettie,” he pressed her, “does anyone know of your travel plans?”

  Her desperate look when he set the suitcase down told him all he needed to know. “Have you thought this through?”

  “Ain’t anyone else’s business. Please keep this mum.”

  At a complete loss as to what should be done, Martin stepped back. “Now, you know I can’t do that,” he told her. “In fact, I have a mind to take you right back and—”

  “No . . . please.” She shook her head. “Someone’s meeting me . . . where I’m goin’. Not to worry.”

  Relatives? he wondered. But it wasn’t his place to ask.

  “As I said, please keep this hush-hush, Martin.”

  “Well, your husband is a friend of mine. If he asks me whether I drove you here, I won’t lie.”

  Worry swept her face and she held out his pay for the trip in rolled-up bills. He stepped forward to take it, then withdrew quickly. “Have a safe trip . . . wherever you’re going.”

  “Ever so kind of you.”

  He offered to carry her suitcase inside, but Lettie declined. “No need, but thank you.” Then she said a quick good-bye.

  Her dejected tone made him shudder as she clutched her suitcase and resolutely walked into the station.

  chapter

  thirteen

  As panicked as she was at the sight of her mother’s leaving, Grace was also terribly upset at not finding Mamma’s letter in her room when she returned. Mentally retracing her steps, she remembered staring out the hallway window, seeing her mother’s dark silhouette. . . . Then hadn’t she tossed it into her bedroom?

  But rechecking her room—and the hallway—the letter was nowhere in sight.

  She made her way downstairs and looked in the front sitting room, searching even on the china hutch, where Mamma displayed her prettiest teacups and saucers and plates. Breathlessly she hurried into the kitchen to look on the table and counter—every imaginable spot she might have inadvertently left it during her rush out the door.

  Could it have been taken? But who would do that?

  And anyway, everyone was sleeping.

  She crawled into bed, still wearing her robe, shaking with a bad case of nerves. She’d witnessed her mother leaving, carrying a suitcase . . . getting into a car even as Grace pleaded for her to stay. Was it possible to ever wipe away that image?

  Doubting she would fall back to sleep, she prayed. Only the dear Lord knew what she should tell Mandy and the boys at the breakfast table, when they discovered Mamma gone. And Dat? What could she possibly say to him?

  She rolled over and covered her head with the quilt. What would cause Mamma to do such a thing? It was incomprehensible, and now she couldn’t even reread the letter . . . unless it had fallen under the bed.

  Tossing off the covers, she got out of bed and peered beneath. Not finding the letter there, either, she opened the narrow drawer on the small round table next to her bed, her heart racing. She slipped her hand inside but found nothing.

  Reaching under the bedside table, she discovered only a coating of dust—she must remember to push the dry mop under there later. Weeping silently, Grace returned to bed and curled up in a tight ball as she recalled the dear way Mamma had signed off: My heart is ever so tender, if not breaking. . . . I love you.

  Oh, Mamma, she cried silently, but it’s my heart that is breaking now.

  Judah’s hand trembled as he held the letter. He hadn’t been able to put it down.

  “Lett
ie,” he whispered, head throbbing. “Why?”

  He stared at the bare wooden pegs on their bedroom wall where her dresses and black aprons had been and remembered their awkward discussion last night. Something compelled him to open her dresser drawers, though he felt oddly intrusive about that. Each one was empty.

  Earlier, he’d searched the house and outdoor perimeter for her, shining his lantern over the pastureland, spreading its light over the area. He’d walked the road, too, heading north, thinking surely she would not go on foot out toward the highway. Route 340 was much too dangerous.

  He’d wanted urgently to call out her name, but that was impractical. Besides, he didn’t want to raise the neighbors. They’d all know soon enough, come daylight.

  Bad news travels faster than good.

  For now, though, his knowledge of her intentions belonged to him alone. Or to him and Grace, if she’d even read her mother’s letter yet. Most likely she had been out with her beau. If so, Grace knew nothing of Lettie’s leaving . . . or the letter.

  Assuming he was correct in his thinking, the best thing to do was to keep the letter hidden for now. That way Grace would be spared having to read it, although Lettie’s words to her daughter were as tender as any he’d heard uttered from her lips.

  “She’s miffed at me,” he said. Maybe she’d simply gone walking in the wee hours and would return when she was ready to forgive him. Certainly, he had offended her.

  After daylight, he thought, I’ll go and find her . . . bring her home. In his bewilderment, he read the letter again, searching for a clue—anything at all.

  But as he reread the puzzling words, it seemed even Lettie was unsure about her destination. Her desperate plea last night rang in his ears. “Won’t ya hear me out, Judah?”

  No, this letter was no mere attempt to get his attention.

  Martin Puckett hadn’t driven but two miles when he noticed something Lettie Byler had dropped on the floor. At the nearest stop sign, he leaned down to get it and saw several phone numbers—all outside the 717 area code. Just what part of the country they were from he did not know. But they were undoubtedly important to Lettie, so he turned around and headed back to the Lancaster train station.