by Beth Shriver
Alma nodded and spoke to little Ana as if she were her own daughter. “Attitudes are caught…”
Ana’s shy voice could barley be heard. “Not taught.”
“Always tell the…” Alma bent over so she could hear the small child.
“Truth.” Ana gave her a smile, gaining confidence with each correct answer.
“Never question those in…”
“Author-ty.” Ana rocked back on her heels.
“Be sure the cup is half full.”
“Be cheerful.” Ana smiled.
“Always help…”
“Those less fortun…” Ana’s dark brown hair slid back and forth across her back as she moved her head.
“…nate. Fortunate. Good, that’s a hard word.” Alma smiled a mamm’s smile. “And the last one…Don’t…”
“Gossip.” Ana shut her eyes and beamed a smile.
“Well done, Ana.” Annie patted Ana’s head and watched her walk away with pride in her step. She turned to Alma. “You forgot one.”
“‘Don’t remove the twinkle in their eye’—should be for adults, in my opinion.”
And Alma always did have an opinion. Annie nodded in agreement. “I never thought of it that way.”
They left the house with the satisfaction they’d helped twins enter into the world. The first had come slowly, but the second was almost right upon the first—two boys, to their daed’s delight.
“After five girls, that’s a nice sight to see,” he had told Annie.
“You could do this alone, Annie.” Alma’s rosy face took on a serious expression as she marched to her buggy. “You delivered that second one so quick I didn’t see it happen.”
“You were busy with the first.” Annie knew better than to get sucked in to what Alma was referring to. No one could do what Alma did the way she did it. “And I’ve learned from the best.”
Alma lifted one side of her mouth in response and shoved her medical bag into the back of the buggy. It creaked with the weight of the old leather handbag, full of everything, much more than Alma needed.
They pulled up to the chicken coop, where the proud daed stood with twice the eggs he’d promised. “Considering they were twins,” he explained as he handed one basket to Annie and the other to Alma. They carried their compensation to the buggy and wedged the baskets in next to the bag to keep them from shifting. There would be more eggs in the coming days. Alma needed the payments more than Annie because she was busier with her work, but Mamm always appreciated any extra food for the family.
Once Alma got situated, she fell silent for a moment before speaking her mind. “What are you going to do, Annie?”
Annie stepped into the buggy and paused before she sat down. She knew what Alma was asking and didn’t like the answer. She thought constantly of her birth mother, trying to decide whether it was right for her to pursue a relationship with her or whether it was impossible. Yet a small voice inside her yearned to know more about this woman who had braved so much and received her so openly, unlike the reception she had received upon her return home. “It seems I don’t have the luxury to decide.”
Alma picked up the reins and stared at Annie. “Of course you do.”
Annie sighed in frustration. “Then when will the stares stop?”
Alma grunted. “When you quit looking.”
Something Alma could do and Annie should learn to. Annie wrinkled her forehead. “Do you think it would work?”
“Without a response, there isn’t much encouragement to continue.”
“I never thought people would react this way. They didn’t before. Why now?”
“It was there, although I have to say your generation has made it worse.”
“Why is that?”
“They experience more of the world than we did. And the world has more to experience.”
Annie looked over at Alma. “Why is it everything you say makes sense?”
“I don’t know that it does. I just keep things simple.”
“Maybe I should do more of that.” Annie thought about how her secret continued to haunt her. She could not accept the thought of being a rapist’s daughter, and if she couldn’t accept it, how could others? She had kept the circumstances of her conception a secret, but her parents had kept her identity a secret as well. How could one be right and not the other? There was nothing simple about it.
“What’s on your mind?” Alma slapped the horse’s hide, increasing the click, click of the horse’s steel shoes.
“Everything. What I’ve done, if it was worth it, how to get on with life, how to change it.”
“What’s done is done. You move on by making a choice and setting it into motion. Then things change on their own.” She looked at Annie out of the corner of her eye. “What about John?”
Annie felt a shot of loneliness at the sound of his name. “I haven’t seen him since singing on Sunday.”
“Probably ’cause of those stories David’s been telling.”
Annie looked over at Alma. “What stories?”
“Nothing I believe, but those kids who go to those rumspringas sure do love to tell a tale. Something about a ride in his buggy the other night.”
Annie believed Alma. She made her way around the community delivering babies, gaining more information than she cared to hear. “I did take a ride with David.”
Alma turned toward her. “So it’s true?”
“Hanna was pulling one of her tricks, so David and I decided to find our own way home.”
Alma pursed her lips and leaned her head slightly. “Sounds like John believes it. Maybe he should hear from you.”
Annie looked out over the brown earth and barren trees, much like she felt since she’d come home, dark and hollow inside. “I don’t know if he still wants me…us.”
“He just doesn’t know what to do with you. You up and leave him, then come back silent as a mouse.” She steered the horses around a bend in the dirt road. They both leaned left with the turn. “I say it’s about time you told somebody something about what happened to you while you were gone.”
Annie sat stiff on the wooden bench, which gave no comfort to the ache in her back. “If it was good, I would have shared what I learned.”
Alma was abnormally quiet for a couple of minutes. “Even more of a reason to tell someone you trust.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
AT DAYBREAK JOHN headed for the eastern edge of the valley. His black horse, Rob, kicked up dirt as John urged him into a lope. The morning was new and crisp, perfect for a ride before more chores needed to be done.
John slowed his horse at the sound of another set of hooves pounding behind him. As soon as Otto’s hooves hit the first field, John knew Annie was there. He pulled back the reins and let Rob settle down while he waited for her.
A dark blue coat, far too large, was gathered onto the horse’s bare back in front of her, covering her dress. Her kapp was held loosely with a few pins that barely held it in place. John guessed it was Eli’s boots she’d rushed off with, because they came up to her knees.
“Morning.”
“Good morning.” Her tight smile told him she was up to something.
“Are you following me?”
She squinted into the early morning sun creeping up over the hills. “Jah, I am.”
He couldn’t contain the swell of emotion her presence created in him and smiled broadly. “Don’t you want to know where I’m going?”
Annie scanned the direction he was headed and made a confident guess. “The caves?”
He grinned and turned his horse. She followed and stayed close by his side. This slowed his pace, but he enjoyed her presence much more than a quick run on a horse to blow off steam. He wanted to glance at her again. It wasn’t often he had seen her hair so tousled, and he liked it flowing down. She was close to defiling herself by wearing her kapp so carelessly. This was abandoning one of their sacred rules, exposing her hair to a man who was not her husband.
When the wind picked up, he had to turn to her. Her smile was as fresh and clean as the morning, bringing back memories of their many rides in the summer, before the sun became too hot to ride.
The silence between them didn’t bother him, and the look of contentment on Annie’s face told him she was comfortable with it as well. This was so familiar; he felt for a moment that nothing had changed between them.
“Delivered twins yesterday.” Her voice was thoughtful, sentimental in fact.
“I heard. Two boys. I bet Ervin was bursting with pride.”
“Jah, we were happy for him.” She gazed at him. “One’s handicapped.”
John nodded. “Blessed are the meek.”
“The girls were all over him. Patting him, caressing his withered limbs.”
“What is the babe’s toil?”
“He has no strength in his legs.”
John thought of an uncle who had lived in a wheelchair for as long as John could remember. The chair had grown dust over the years since his passing, but it seemed that it would be used again soon.
“They’re fortunate to have him.” Annie smiled thoughtfully. “Ervin’s mamm said it had taken her sixty-fourth grandchild to show her true humility.”
They rode the rest of the way to the cave in silence. The entrance had been carved out into a larger opening due to the increasing popularity of tourists who came to visit. Limestone stalactites hung down, the crystals shimmering in the bright sun. Light bounced off the tiny pools full of rimstone.
John made his way over to a group of level rocks to sit on. “I’ll never get used to these lights.” Once the caverns had been acquired, the owner had installed electrical lights and paved pathways through the tunnels.
“Hide-and-go-seek just won’t be the same.” Annie scanned the place.
“You haven’t been here for a while.”
“Not since Frieda made us a picnic.”
“Bread and crackers don’t make for much of a meal.”
Annie scowled at him. “No one ever found you when we hid. Where were you?”
He pointed to a dark cubby just past the first tunnel.
She smiled and then folded her hands in her lap as if garnishing her courage to say something important. He thought he’d help her along with a little history.
“Did you know the first Deitsch immigrants settled just north of here in seventeen fifty-five?”
She gave him a skeptical look. “How do you know this?”
“I hid in that same cubby during a tour.”
“You listened to a tour guide?”
“Jah. Did you also know the slaves sought refuge here during the Civil War?”
She wrinkled her brow, trying to look interested, but her mind was obviously elsewhere.
“Deserters from both sides of the conflict hid out here.”
“Really?”
“Can you imagine the conversations that went on?”
“Is that all?”
He almost stopped so he could admire her beauty, but he didn’t want to be distracted. “Actually, no. The Native Americans stored their food here. The twelve-degree-Celsius temperature in these caves enabled them to store buffalo meat here year-round.”
“Why are you telling me this?” She wrapped her arms around her legs.
He hesitated long enough to get her full attention. “To remind you that there are larger problems, harder times, and bigger lies than anything you’ve been through.”
Annie hugged her knees and closed her eyes. “I found out why she gave me away.”
“You found her.” John moved closer. “Where?”
“In Harrisonburg.”
John was momentarily disappointed that Annie’s concern was more for justifying why she was unwanted than the fact she’d found her mother. “Go on.”
“She runs a boardinghouse near the college. She’s round and short.” Annie half smiled. “She wore a blue dress and a white apron. She almost looked Amish.”
“Is this the Mennonite College?”
“Yes, but most of them dress like Englishers.”
John rubbed his forehead, taking in the information.
“She had my eyes too.”
John’s heart warmed to the light in her eyes as she said it. “You mean you have her eyes. How did you find her?”
“She’d gone to a hospital, so there was a record. I was then able to fill out a form at the registry to give her information if she wanted to contact me. A few weeks later we got a phone call from the registrar telling us she’d responded. I’d almost given up, but the Glicks encouraged me to stay on a bit longer. At first I was glad I did…until I went to see her and found out.”
John suddenly felt guilty accusing Annie for staying longer with Rudy, now realizing it had been to wait for a response from her mother. “That’s why you were gone so long?”
She nodded. “She was assaulted.”
John felt a pang in his heart, not expecting those words. “She was hurt?”
“She was raped.”
A rush of emotion flooded his mind, knowing why this had been so hard for Annie to share. “I’m sorry, Annie.” He drew her to him, trying to know how this must have felt for Annie when she first heard it. “So that’s why you’ve come back accusing yourself, expecting the shunning.”
“I feel so tainted.”
“Like the rest of us?” John grabbed her by the shoulders. “A sin is a sin to Gott. We are the ones who categorize them, not Him.”
“That’s not the reception I’ve been given. People I thought would accept me didn’t, and the ones I thought sure would accuse me haven’t.” She looked at him with red-rimmed eyes. “I’m so confused. I don’t know how to redeem myself.”
“Gott’s already done that.”
She nodded and squeezed her eyes shut.
“The others might not have gone so far if it weren’t for Zeke.”
Annie whipped around to look at him. “But he’s one I thought sure would understand me.”
John scoffed. “Zeke’s a hypocrite.” He heard Annie suck in air at his accusation. “He lives by legalism and the laws.”
“I’d never seen him that way.”
“That was before the shootings. For most, it strengthened them, but Zeke went a different way with it.” John laughed sarcastically. “And you were one of his chosen.” John smiled. “You would have been one selected to know the Torah if you’d been a boy back in the days of the Bible.”
She shook her head. “Now a rapist’s daughter, coming back a prodigal.”
“The prodigal son indulged in the worldly things. You didn’t do that. And even if you had, the Father would have forgiven you.” John hugged her to him. “He’s glad you’re home.”
Annie’s body shook with sobs of cleansing tears as John caressed her back and spoke softly to her. “Think of what is true and noble, what’s right and pure. Whatever is lovely and admirable, excellent or praiseworthy.” He repeated this verse over to her until she was still, exhausted of the self-hate and loss of identity.
When she looked into his eyes, he knew he had his Annie back.
Chapter Thirty-Five
MAMM’S ATTEMPT to bring Annie and Hanna together hadn’t worked. Sending them into town should be a treat, a special outing, but that had not been the case. They’d gathered the items Mamm requested and started back without even visiting Abraham and his family.
Dusk was a bad time to walk Route 340 home from town. The two-lane highway had seen more Amish fall prey to buggy and pedestrian accidents than any other in the state. The speed limit had been lowered, but the accidents still happened regularly.
“Almost home,” Annie said more to herself than to Hanna.
“Jah, ’tis good, since we’ve been at each other the whole day.” Hanna tromped through the tall grass that hadn’t been mowed consistently, forcing them onto the road.
Annie felt like doing the eye-roll thing that Essie did and now understood why she did it. “I meant because the tr
affic is beginning to pick up.”
Hanna nudged Annie closer to the ditch alongside the road to avoid traffic. “I think David’s asking me to singing on Sunday.”
Annie felt what little patience she had left dissolve. “Don’t you ever get tired of who’s asking who to whatever?”
Hanna stopped and glared at her. “It’s because of you that I have to worry about all this.” She planted her hands on her hips
“I won’t take the blame for all this anymore. I went through a lot to put all the pieces together so I could go on knowing the truth.”
Hanna waved as if to shoo the words away. “I don’t care about that.”
“Then you don’t care about me.”
Hanna drew back as if pushed away. “Your leaving showed us the same.”
“What I did had nothing to do with you. That’s become your problem, Hanna. You only think of yourself.” Annie heard herself shouting.
The roar of an upcoming car caused Hanna to wait to answer, not wanting to compete with the noise. Annie turned to see an approaching vehicle. It was close, too close to the edge of the road. Annie heard Hanna scream. She reached out to shield her from the inevitable blow.
The car swerved in attempt to avoid them, but the right front bumper nicked Hanna’s side and sent her tumbling into the nearby ditch. Immediately Annie felt incredible pain in her arm.
The car whizzed by. The young man driving stared as he passed. That’s all Annie remembered before seeing Hanna’s body heaped in the ditch.
“Stop!” Annie screamed as the car swerved down the road. Colors flashed by: his blue shirt, the red car, a dark stripe. He wasn’t going to stop. She saw the still body of her sister less than a yard from her, heard the engine fade, and saw the dust settle. Then all went black.
Annie woke to the sound of sirens. Her head throbbed as she peeled her forehead from the dry grass. She reached up to adjust herself, but felt a blast of pain shoot up from her wrist. When she lifted her head, she saw Hanna lying next to her toward the edge of the ditch.
Annie fought the pain and moved her head slightly, just enough for her to see Hanna crumpled into a ball. Her arm twisted strangely over her still body. Her blonde curls held bits of pink and red—dried blood. A deep shade of red flooded the dry dirt around her and dripped from the colorless grass. Annie pushed herself up and sat next to Hanna.