The Postcard

by Beverly Lewis

  “No, Daughter, it’s not all right.” She was surprised at herself, revealing her true feelings at long last. She probably should’ve said something a year or more ago, after the appropriate time for mourning had ceased. But Rachel’s grieving seemed endless, and she worried that her daughter was downright content with it.

  The peculiar symptoms of lingering blindness bothered her almost as much as her daughter’s indifference to life. She viewed Rachel’s condition as something other than a true affliction. A Philadelphia doctor—an eye specialist—had conducted a battery of tests, even attached sensors to Rachel’s head. Measured her brain-wave activity no less, and had found nothing physically wrong. Not mincing words, he’d said there was no medical basis for Rachel’s inability to see. According to the tests, her brain was actually registering sight!

  He’d termed Rachel’s problem a conversion disorder—a hysteria of some sort—like hysterical blindness, which the specialist said sometimes comes on a person who has witnessed something so appalling that the mind chooses to block out visual awareness. He had also mentioned studies of refugees from Cambodia, mainly women, who, after being forced to watch the slaughter of their families, experienced one form of this hysteria or another, including temporary blindness, deafness, or paralysis. “I’ve heard of cases lasting as long as ten years or more,” the English doctor had told them, “but that’s very rare.”

  Susanna sighed, thinking back to that trip to Philadelphia and the specialist’s peculiar comments. Honestly, she had suspected something mental, and to compound her suspicion, Rachel continued to shy away from talk of powwow doctors, which wasn’t the only thing her poor, dear daughter was disturbed about these days. She also avoided talk of the accident that had taken her husband’s and son’s life, even to the point of excusing herself and fleeing the room if the slightest comment was made. And she’d shielded Annie from the truth, too. Rachel sidestepped, no matter what, the possibility of stirring up perplexing memories in both herself and her little girl. Emotionally wounded, Rachel was a bit ab im Kopp—off in the head. And though time seemed to have run out for Rachel’s sight ever returning, Susanna hadn’t given up hope of a full recovery. One way or the other.

  Overall, her daughter was a joy to have around. In fact, inviting her and Annie to move in with them two years ago was the best thing Susanna and Ben could’ve done for their daughter, granddaughter, and themselves. Rachel cheerfully pulled her weight with the housework, especially helping with the numerous loads of laundry. She was a good cook, too, and helpful in the vegetable and flower gardens close in toward the house. She was always more than happy to lend a hand; a diligent worker, no getting around it. But the spring in her step was long gone.

  Rachel reminded them frequently to avoid the Crossroad, and Susanna understood, for she was loath to go near it as well. This meant they had to spend precious time driving horse and buggy out of the way, going west on Route 340—away from the accident site—then south on Lynwood Road to attend church and to visit several of Susanna’s sisters and cousins, and Lavina Troyer, too, for quilting frolics and such.

  Avoiding the Crossroad was one of the few things Rachel requested. It made no sense, really, especially since she couldn’t see much of anything. But they humored her—at least on that matter. Something else bothered Susanna to no end. It was Rachel’s desire to attend her own church—the Amish Mennonite church she and Jacob had chosen— though there were times when it simply didn’t suit. So more often than not, Rachel had to be content with Old Order preaching services at one aunt’s house or another.

  Despite the random inconveniences, Susanna had reconciled herself more and more to doing certain things Rachel’s way. When all was said and done, wasn’t it the least she and Benjamin could do for their disabled daughter?

  “Mam?” Rachel’s voice interrupted Susanna’s brooding. “You’re ever so quiet.”

  “Jah, I ’spect I am,” she replied, wiping her hands on her apron. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. Honest, I didn’t.”

  Rachel fidgeted, gathering up the dinner plates. “S’pose I had it comin’, really.”

  Annie glanced up; her blue eyes blinked several times thoughtfully. Then she got up quickly, calling for Copper, who came bounding into the kitchen through the doggie opening in the screen door. The girl and the dog scampered outside.

  “Don’t go off too far now,” Susanna warned. “Supper’s almost ready.”

  “Ach, she needs to run a bit,” Rachel said. “Annie’s been cooped up all day.”

  “And what about you, Daughter?” Susanna stood at the back door, watching the early autumn haze as it settled over the apple orchard. “Why don’tcha go out and sit in the sun for a bit? Fresh air will do you gut.”

  Rachel sighed. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  Susanna turned, watching her daughter place freshly laundered cloth napkins, dinner plates, and the supper silverware on the wooden tray. Then, slowly, Rachel moved toward the dining room, shuffling her bare feet across the floor, feeling her way as she’d come to do.

  Maybe tomorrow . . .

  Susanna had tired of Rachel’s alt Leier—same old story. Would tomorrow ever come? she wondered. And if so, what would it take to move Rachel past her complacency?

  Somewhat annoyed, she opened the screen door and went out to sit on the flagstone patio in the waning sun, watching Annie and their lively pet run back and forth through the wide yard. They chased each other around and through the oval gazebo.

  There was a hint of woodsmoke in the air, and Susanna relished the scent, breathing it in. A flock of birds flapped their wings high overhead, and she suspected they were making preliminary plans to head south.

  She delighted in the hydrangeas just beginning to turn bright pink, spilling long and bushy into the yard beyond the house. Soon they’d bronze with age as September faded. The lawn was still green, but she could see it beginning to lose its lush color, leaning toward autumn dormancy. When had that happened? she wondered. The circle of seasons was evident all about her, an inkling of the fall brilliance—reds, oranges, and golds—to come.

  Annie was smack-dab in her springtime, while Susanna and Benjamin were fully enjoying the early winter of their lives.

  But Rachel . . . where was she? To look at her, you’d think she was older than all of them put together! Yet Susanna forced herself to dwell on the bright side and silently rejoiced that her widowed daughter possessed a resolute spirit. The girl was ingenious when it came to needlework, especially crocheting. Why, she’d designed the prettiest pattern for several of the bow-top canopy beds upstairs and seemed right joyful in making them. When the womenfolk gathered for apple picking or canning, Rachel put herself in the middle of things, always a smile on her face. It was at such times Susanna suspected the key to bringing Rachel out of her shell was keeping her hands busy. ’Least then her mind couldn’t torment her so.

  “Come along now, Annie,” she called, chuckling at the girl’s antics. So like her mother she was, playing and enjoying the out-of-doors. Or how her mother used to be, was more like it.

  Rachel had always been the last one to come dragging into the house when the dinner bell was rung, back at the old homestead. As a girl, she’d rather have stayed outside, even all night long, than come inside to a hot house in the summer, or, as she liked to say, to the dunkel Haus—dark house in winter. Young Rachel had decided that houses were dismal places of retreat compared to the shining meadows and ample pastureland surrounding the large farmhouse. Even now, Susanna surmised that Rachel missed the farm where she’d romped through the fields of her childhood, helping her older brothers and sisters work the soil and bring in the harvest.

  Getting up, Susanna called to Annie again. “Bring Copper with you, please. Time to wash up for supper.”

  “Already ’tis?” Annie asked, eyes wide. “Seems like we just come out here.”

  “Jah, I ’spect it does.” And she headed into the house.

  Susanna found Benjam
in washing up as she hurried into the kitchen. “Smells gut, jah?” she said, greeting him.

  “It’s bound to be appeditlich—delicious—if you’re doin’ the cooking.” His smile stretched across his tawny, wrinkled face. He wore his best white shirt and tan suspenders, all dressed up for supper. It was his gray hair that looked a bit oily, and she suspected he’d been out working all afternoon in his straw hat, tidying up the front lawn. The man never tired of odd jobs, whether it was around the B&B or over at the old homestead, helping his sons work the land.

  “We’re full-up in the guest quarters tonight,” she told him, turning her attention to the meal at hand.

  “Yes, and I do believe we’ve got ourselves a big-city reporter in residence.” Benjamin reached for the towel and dried his hands.

  “A reporter? Here? Are you sure?”

  He smiled, slipping his arm around her waist. “Sure as the sugar maple turns crimson. I sniffed him a mile away. Philip Bradley’s the name, and you best be watchin’ what you say at supper, hear?”

  Ben oughta know, she thought. He’d smelled a rat before, not from visitors up north or anywhere else for that matter. But she’d seen his God-given gift in action many a time. It was the gift of discernment, all right. He could pretty much tell who was who and what was what before anyone fessed up to much of anything. And Susanna, well, she liked it just fine that way. Jah, she’d be mighty careful what she said from now on.

  ’Twould never do to have some dark-headed English reporter snooping around here, living under their roof and writing stories that weren’t one bit true—or slanted at best. Wouldn’t do, a’tall.

  They’d had more than their share of false reporting. Amish were forever being featured in one newspaper or another, especially after that drug business broke last summer. But for the most part, far as she was concerned, the reporting was heavy on exaggeration and sensationalism. She’d never known a single Amish teenager doing drugs of any kind. Net—never! ’Least not in their church district. English newspapers were cooked up by many a misguided writer, hoping to turn a few heads and make a dollar. When it came right down to it, a body had to stick to what he believed—wrong or right. And that was that.

  Eight

  Philip stared at his laptop computer screen, scanning the description he’d written before supper. Before the cordial hostess—Mrs. Susanna Zook—had decided to give him a rather cold shoulder. At first he had just assumed that her detached manner during the meal was due to the fact that both she and her husband were busily engaged in conversation with a number of other guests, three couples from the Midwest who seemed rather ignorant of the Plain lifestyle and who fairly dominated the evening’s chatter. This turn of events had suited him fine because he merely had to listen to the responses given by Susanna and Benjamin, though occasionally guarded, to learn tidbits of Amish tradition.

  Interestingly, the most fascinating aspect of the evening had been the grand entrance made by Annie Yoder, introduced by Benjamin as their “littlest helper.” She was as candid and bright as his own niece had been at the same age. However, he did not hold out false hope of making friends with the Zooks’ granddaughter. The B&B owners had become somewhat cautious around him, and the obvious shift in their demeanor had him utterly intrigued.

  First thing tomorrow, he would wander down the road to the village shops—see if he could eavesdrop on some of the locals prior to his formal afternoon interviews. In leafing through the tourist handbook, he’d noticed that several Bird-in-Hand stores—among them Fisher’s Handmade Quilts and the Country Barn Quilts and Crafts—offered genuine Amish quilts, wall hangings, and other handcrafted items. Folks at country stores often stood around conversing while they drank coffee or sipped apple cider. Most likely, there would be some Amish person he could connect with in the immediate area before his interview with Stephen Flory’s contact, unless, of course, he was able to get things back on an even keel with Susanna Zook.

  What had he said or done to make the Zooks so suspicious?

  “Ach, you’re not sittin’ very still,” Rachel chided her daughter. She let her fingers run down the long, silky tresses, weaving Annie’s hair back and forth, doing her best to make a smooth braid.

  “It’s awful hard to sit still, Mamma.”

  Rachel understood. “ ’Twas hard for me, too, at your age.”

  “It was?”

  “Oh my, yes.” She remembered the many times her mamma had asked her to stop rutschich—squirming. “That was long before you were born,” Rachel added.

  “How old were you when it started . . . the rutsching, I mean?”

  She had to laugh. “Well, ya know, I was born with the wiggles most prob’ly. Was forever running through your dawdi Benjamin’s farmland—makin’ mazes in the cornfields an’ all. Just ask him.”

  Annie must’ve moved again because Rachel lost hold of the braid. “Ach, where’d you go to?”

  “I’m right here, Mamma. Right in front of you.” There was a long pause, though Rachel heard Annie’s short, breathy sighs. “How much of me can ya see just now?”

  A pain stabbed her heart. “Why do ya ask?”

  “ ’Cause I wanna know.”

  Rachel didn’t know how to begin to tell anyone the truth, let alone her own little girl. And her heart thumped against her rib cage, so hard she wondered if Annie might be able to see her apron puff out.

  “Mamma? Won’tcha tell me what you see?”

  She moaned, resisting the question, not wanting to say one word about her blindness. “I . . . it’s not so easy to tell you what I see and what I don’t,” she began. “If I lift my hand up to your face, like this—” and here she reached out to find Annie’s forehead, allowing her fingers to slip down over the warm cheeks and across to the familiar button nose—“if I do that, I can see you in my own way.”

  “But what if I got up real close to you, like this,” said Annie. “Then could ya see my face without feeling it?”

  Sadly, Rachel knew enough not to try. “Sometimes I see light flickers, but that’s only on good days. It doesn’t matter, really, how close you sit to me, Annie; I don’t see any part of your face at all.”

  “What about my eyes, if I make them great big, like this?”

  Rachel suspected what her daughter was doing. “Are your eyes as big as moons?” she asked, playing along.

  “Jah, very big moons.” Annie giggled.

  “And are they big and beautiful blue moons?” she asked quickly, hoping to divert Annie’s attention.

  “How’d ya know, Mamma? Jah, they’re blue!” Annie was in her lap now, hugging her neck. “Oh, Mamma, you can see me! You can!”

  She waited for Annie to settle down a bit. “No, I really can’t see your face. But I do know how beautiful and blue your eyes are. I saw you the night you were born, and I saw you every day of your life until . . .”

  “Every day till what, Mamma? Till the accident?”

  Rachel sucked in air suddenly, then coughed. Someone had reminded Annie about the Crossroad, about that horrible day. Surely they had, for her daughter, at only four years of age, would never have remembered without someone prompting her.

  Who?

  It was then that she actually tried to force herself to see, that very moment as she pulled her darling girl into her arms, holding her close. She tried so deliberately that it hurt, like knowing there was surely a light at the end of a long, long dark tunnel. Knowing this only because people told you it was there, and trying so hard to see it for yourself.

  Leaning forward . . . straining, with Annie still tight in her embrace, Rachel strove to catch a glimpse of the minuscule, round opening—the light—at the end of the blackness, her blackness. At the end of the pain.

  “Why can’t you see, Mamma?”

  “I . . . well . . .” She couldn’t explain, not really. How could she make her daughter understand something so complicated?

  “Mamma?”

  She felt Annie’s tears against her own fa
ce. Oh, her heart was going to break in two all over again if she didn’t put a stop to this. “Now, ya mustn’t be cryin’ over nothing at all,” she said, stroking the tiny head.

  “I won’t cry,” Annie said, sniffling. “I promise I won’t, Mamma, if you won’t.”

  Again, the pain cut a blow to her heart. How did Annie know about Rachel’s tears? Had she heard what her grandfather used to say, back before they’d come to live here? Was Benjamin still telling folk that his daughter had cried her eyes out—that’s why she couldn’t see? ’Course, no one in their Plain community really and truly believed what the English doctor had said—not anymore anyway. He’d said Rachel’s sight would return quickly, but it hadn’t. No amount of wishing or hoping could make it so.

  “Will you promise, Mamma?” Annie said again.

  “I can’t promise you for sure, but I’ll try at least.”

  “That’s wonderful-gut. Because we’ve got us some pumpkins to pick tomorrow. Won’tcha come help me?” Annie wrapped her slender arms around Rachel and hugged her hard.

  “Maybe I will,” replied Rachel, hugging back. “Maybe tomorrow I will.”

  Philip was contemplating his interview questions, crafting them wisely as his sister had recommended, even getting them down in longhand for a change. Stopping, he stared at the desk, tinkering with his pen. He noticed the many cubicles and cubbyholes, realizing that most men probably would not have concerned themselves over the size of a compartment to store paper clips, staples, and the like. But he was one to enjoy a systematic approach to order, and the current location of his computer work station and filing cabinets in his home office were not conducive to anything akin to organization.

  In the process of opening and closing the various drawers and investigating the nooks in the magnificent desk, he acquired the notion that his system was too limited, at best.

  Where can I locate such a desk? he wondered. Almost immediately he decided against inquiring of Susanna or Benjamin Zook. Perhaps someone at the Country Store might be able to direct him to an antique auction or estate sale. Yes, that’s what he might do after his interviews tomorrow. The plan of action, though rather simple, gave him a surprising surge of energy. Not to say that he wasn’t still thoroughly worn out, but the idea was a grand one.