“If you didn’t leave the lawyer’s office with a baby, then how could you have shown up with me at the hotel where Mom was waiting?”
Jim glanced around the room as a feeling of panic threatened to overtake him. He needed a drink—needed something to give him courage and calm his nerves. His gaze came to rest on the bottle of herbal tablets he’d bought at the health food store yesterday. They’d helped him get to sleep last night, but it had taken almost an hour for them to take effect. He didn’t have that kind of time now. He needed something that would work fast.
“Dad, are you still there?”
“I’m here. Just thinking is all.”
“Thinking about what—the next lie you’re going to tell me?” Jimmy’s tone was sarcastic, and Jim knew he’d better think fast and come up with something good if he was going to keep Jimmy from knowing the truth. But what could he say—that he’d gone to some other lawyer’s office and adopted another baby? He swallowed around the lump lodged in his throat. “The—the truth is—we did get another baby—”
“The same day?” Jimmy’s voice had raised a notch, and Jim could tell his son was feeling as much frustration as he was. “How about the truth, Dad? Think you could handle that?”
“Well, I—”
“The truth is always better than a lie.”
“This truth might not be.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Are you sitting down, Jimmy?”
“Yeah, I’m in my truck.”
“Good, because what I’m about to tell you is gonna be a real shock.” Jim stumbled back to the bed on shaky legs and flopped down. “I—I hardly know where to begin.”
“Why not start at the beginning?”
“Yeah, okay. I guess it’s time you knew the truth about your real family.”
“You mean my birth parents—the ones you adopted me from?”
“No. There was no adoption.”
“Huh? I don’t get it. If there was no adoption, then how—”
“Stay with me, Jimmy.” Jim drew in a deep breath, hoping it would give him added courage. “The day I went to pick up our adopted son at the lawyer’s office in Bel Air, I was told that the birth mother had changed her mind and decided to keep her one-year-old boy. Needless to say, I was pretty upset and didn’t know what I was going to tell your mother when I got back to the hotel.”
“So if you didn’t get the baby you’d gone there to adopt, then how did I—”
“I’m getting to that.” Jim shifted on the bed as he tried to form his next words. “When I drove out of Maryland, I was in a state of panic, and by the time I got back to Pennsylvania, I could barely function. I drove up and down some backcountry roads for a while. There were a lot of Amish farms there, and when I spotted a sign advertising homemade root beer, I pulled into the driveway.” He paused and swiped his tongue across his chapped lips. “A young Amish woman came out of the house holding a baby, whom she said had recently turned one.” Another pause. “That baby was you, Jimmy. You were born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Your real family is Amish.”
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania? Amish? Jimmy sat there several seconds, allowing his dad’s words to sink in. His brain felt numb, like he might be dreaming. He couldn’t be Amish. He’d grown up in Puyallup, Washington, and his parents were Jim and Linda Scott. But then, he’d recently learned that he was adopted, so they weren’t really his parents.
“After I asked the young woman for some cold root beer, she left you on the picnic table and went back inside to get it,” his dad continued. “I expected her to return right away, but she didn’t. Then you started getting restless, and I picked you up because I was afraid you might fall off the table. And then I ran to the car and drove off.”
“Dad, have you been drinking this morning?”
“No, of course not. I haven’t had a drop to drink since the night before last.”
“Then why are you making up this crazy story? Do you really expect me to believe that you kidnapped some Amish baby and that the kid you took was me?”
“Yeah, that’s right. I did it without thinking. But then as I drove away, everything started to make sense.”
“How could kidnapping a child make any sense?” Jimmy didn’t actually believe his dad’s wild story, but if he was going to make him admit he was lying, then he needed to ask the right questions.
“I—I guess it didn’t really make sense, but it’s the truth, Jimmy. As odd as it might sound, I believed finding you was a twist of fate and that it was meant to be.”
Jimmy’s face felt like he’d been out in the sun too long. Could the person on the other end of the phone—the man he’d called Dad for the last twenty years—really be a baby snatcher? He shook his head. No, it’s not possible. Dad has to be making this story up to discourage me from searching for my birth family.
“The young Amish woman told me there were eight kids in the family and that her mother was dead,” Dad continued. “I figured I might have done them a favor by giving them one less mouth to feed.”
Jimmy set the phone down on the seat and leaned forward, resting his head on the steering wheel. A spot on the side of his head began to throb as his thoughts ran wild. After several seconds, he sat up again and picked up the phone. “I’ve got to go now, Dad. I’ll call you later, once you’ve sobered up and are ready to tell me the truth.” He clicked off the phone before his dad could respond.
Leona stepped into the kitchen the following morning and found her mamm cutting thick slices of ham. Mom looked at her and smiled. “Did your daed tell you he stopped by the Lapps’ place last night and had a little talk with Emanuel?”
“No, he never mentioned it.”
“He was awful tired last night. Maybe that’s why he forgot to say anything.”
“So how did it go?” Leona asked as she moved over to the cupboard and removed three plates.
“Guess it went well. Emanuel said the reason he didn’t want to go to school this fall was because he thought he should get a job and help support his mamm.”
Leona shook her head. “That’s ridiculous. The boy’s too young to be going to work yet, and besides, Abner’s taking care of his mamm and little bruder just fine with what he makes at the furniture shop in Strasburg.”
“That may be true, but apparently, Emanuel feels he should be helping out, too.”
“So what’d Papa tell him?”
“Said he needed to learn all he could while he’s young so he knows more when he’s older and can do a better job of whatever type of work he chooses.”
Leona smiled. “Papa’s just like Solomon in the Bible—full of good wisdom.”
Mom nodded. “Jah, my Jacob’s been blessed with a special gift, all right.”
“I’m going to see the chiropractor this afternoon,” Leona said, taking their conversation in another direction. “So if you have any errands you’d like me to run, I’ll be happy to do them for you.”
“I do have a quilt finished that I’d like to have dropped off at Abby’s quilt shop. Will you be going near there?”
“It won’t be a problem. I’ll go by the quilt shop on my way home after seeing Dr. Bowers.”
“Are his treatments helping any with your stiff neck or headaches?” Concern showed on her mamm’s face.
“My neck’s feeling better, but the headaches are still there. That ball must have done more damage than I realized.”
“Or maybe the headaches are from tension. You’re still grieving over Ezra, and I know—”
“I’m not grieving, Mom,” Leona said a bit too sharply, and she winced at her own snappish words. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound so testy. It’s just that I’m getting tired of being reminded that Ezra’s dead. How am I ever going to get over him if everyone keeps bringing him up?”
“Your heart will heal in time, daughter, regardless of how many times you hear Ezra’s name.” Mom moved away from the cupboard and drew Leona into her arms. “Sooner or late
r, some other man will come along and win your heart, and then you’ll look forward to getting married again.”
Leona leaned her head on Mom’s shoulder and let the tears flow. If she lived one hundred years, she didn’t think she would ever stop loving Ezra, and she wasn’t about to open her heart to love again.
As soon as Jimmy clicked off his cell phone, he put the truck in gear. His dad’s kidnapping story was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard, but just to prove his dad was lying, he would drive over to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and check things out. If an Amish child had been kidnapped from there twenty years ago, someone in the area should know about it. And if the trip turned up nothing, then he would call Dad again and demand to know the truth about how he came to live with them.
Two hours later, as Jimmy headed down Route 30 in Lancaster, he spotted an Amish buggy. It looked similar to the ones he’d seen in Ohio during one of the few trips he and his folks had made to see Grandpa and Grandma Scott, only this buggy was gray instead of black. Traffic was a lot heavier than he’d thought it would be, and he noticed a multitude of shopping malls, restaurants, and tourist attractions on almost every block.
I wonder how the Amish manage with their horses and buggies in all this congestion, he thought as he turned into the parking lot of a visitors’ center.
Inside the building, Jimmy found a rack near the front door full of brochures advertising Pennsylvania Dutch restaurants, authentic buggy rides, Amish country tours, hotels, and many local attractions.
“Guess I’d better start by finding a place to stay,” he muttered.
“How long will you be in the area, and would you like a couple of recommendations?” the young, dark-haired woman behind the information desk asked.
Jimmy scratched the side of his head. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be staying, but I’d appreciate any ideas you can give me.”
She pulled out a brochure from the stack on her desk and handed it to him. “There’s a nice bed-and-breakfast in Strasburg that has fairly reasonable rates. It’s run by a Mennonite couple and comes highly recommended.”
Jimmy studied the information, noting the picture of the tall, stately looking white house. It was surrounded by farmland, and an Amish buggy was shown heading up the road in front of the bed-and-breakfast.
“Thanks. I should be able to find the place with these directions,” he said as he studied the map on the back of the brochure.
“Can I help you with anything else?” the woman asked.
Jimmy leaned on the counter. “Well, I’m—uh—looking for a place that sells homemade root beer. Would you know of any in the area?”
“There’s lots of homemade root beer sold around here. You might find some at the farmer’s market in Bird-in-Hand.”
He shook his head. “The place I’m looking for is an Amish farm. I was told they had a sign out front by the road advertising root beer.”
“Many Amish families have begun supplementing their income by selling produce and various other items from roadside stands or shops built near their homes. I think I’ve seen a couple of places selling root beer near Strasburg, so you might ask the folks at the B and B.”
Jimmy started to turn away but hesitated. “I don’t suppose you’d know about any Amish babies being kidnapped in the area?”
The woman’s forehead wrinkled. “How long ago?”
“About twenty years.”
“Sorry, but I wasn’t living in Lancaster back then. You’ll have to ask someone who’s lived in the area that long.”
“Okay. Thanks for your time.” Jimmy put the brochure in his shirt pocket, along with a few others he’d plucked off the stand. He would head over to the bed-and-breakfast and see about getting a room. He’d then spend the rest of the day taking pictures of whatever he saw that interested him while searching for an Amish farm selling homemade root beer, which he felt sure was a complete waste of time.
“I’ll be taking off early today,” Jim told his foreman. “You and the rest of the crew can keep working if you want, or you can quit at noon, like I plan to do.”
“I thought you wanted to get this job done by Monday.”
“I did, but after starting it yesterday, I’ve come to realize that there’s too much work involved for us to be able to finish today. We may as well quit for the weekend and get an early start on this old, peeling house come Monday morning.” The house really would take longer to paint than Jim had figured, but the real reason he wanted to quit work early was so he could spend the rest of the day at his favorite tavern, drowning his sorrows and trying not to think about the confession he’d made to Jimmy earlier today.
“I don’t think we should quit working for the day just because we can’t get the job done until next week, and I can’t believe how much work you’ve missed lately.” Ed released a grunt and squinted at Jim. “I hope you’re not hitting the bottle again.”
“What I do on my own time is my business!”
“Okay, okay, don’t get so testy.” Ed lifted his hands. “You can take off whenever you want, and since you’re the boss and this is your business, I’ll just look the other way when your business folds.” He started to walk away but turned back around. “Of course, that will mean I’ll be out of a job, so I’d like to suggest something to you.”
“What’s that?”
“I have a brother-in-law who’s a recovered alcoholic, and he’s gotten a lot of help from AA.”
Not the AA thing again. Jim gritted his teeth. Is everyone out to see me reformed? “I’m not an alcoholic, Ed, so get off my back.”
“Whatever you say.” Ed studied Jim intently. “Mind if I ask you something else?”
“What now?”
“I’m curious to know why Jimmy hasn’t been at work all week, and I’m wondering why you’ve been late almost every day.”
“Not that it’s any of your business,” Jim said gruffly, “but Jimmy’s back East.”
Ed’s bushy eyebrows lifted on his forehead. “Back East? What’s he doing there when we need him here?”
“He’s on a quest.”
“What kind of quest?”
“To find his biological parents.”
Ed’s mouth dropped open. “Huh?”
Jim glared at his foreman. “Well, as you know, we got Jimmy from the East Coast twenty years ago.”
“Yeah, and you asked me not to mention Jimmy’s adoption to anyone because you wanted to tell him when he was old enough and you didn’t want him finding out some other way.”
“Right.”
“So now he knows?”
“Yeah, and he’s determined to find his birth mother.” Which, of course, he won’t be able to do because she was Amish, and his sister said their mother was dead. Jim grimaced. I wonder if Ed knew what really happened if he’d blow the whistle on me.
“Do you know when Jimmy might be coming back?”
Jim rubbed his hand down the side of his face, wishing he and Ed weren’t having this conversation. “I’m not sure. Guess it all depends.”
Ed shrugged. “Guess we’ll just have to get along without him until he gets back then.”
Jim cringed. Yeah, if he ever does come back.
“Maybe I should take one of those buggy rides I saw in a brochure I picked up on Saturday,” Jimmy said to himself as he snapped on the radio. He had checked into the bed-and-breakfast and had driven around Strasburg and the outlying area, but so far he’d seen no Amish farms selling root beer. He’d talked to a couple of people and asked if they knew about an Amish baby who’d been kidnapped twenty years ago, but no one had any helpful information to give him.
A short time later, Jimmy parked his truck near Aaron and Jessica’s Buggy Rides, outside the town of Bird-in-Hand, and waited on a bench with several other tourists for the next buggy. When his turn finally came, he climbed into the front of a closed-in buggy, taking a seat beside the gray-haired driver whose long beard matched in color. The man said he wasn’t Amish but bel
onged to some other Plain group living in the area. The couple who had been waiting with Jimmy took the backseat, situating their little boy between them.
Jimmy removed his camera from its case.
“No pictures allowed on this trip,” the driver announced. “We’ll be stopping by several Amish farms and meeting some of the people who live there. It goes against their religious beliefs to have their pictures taken, so we ask that you respect those wishes.”
“I read an article in the newspaper that said their opposition to having their pictures taken has something to do with the scripture about not making any graven images,” the woman sitting behind them said.
The elderly man nodded and picked up the reins, guiding the horse to move forward. Jimmy slipped his camera back into its case.
Once they’d left the parking lot, they traveled at a fairly good pace down a narrow country road. The wind whipped at Jimmy’s body through the open windows, and the rhythmic clip-clop, clip-clop of the horse’s hooves echoed against the pavement.
Soon, they pulled onto a driveway leading to a well-kept farmhouse. An Amish woman and a little girl stepped out of the house and approached the buggy, each holding a tray filled with cookies and homemade bread.
“This is Mary and her daughter, Selma,” their driver explained. “They make extra money for their family by selling bakery items to the tourists I bring along my buggy route.”
Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. “I’d like to buy a loaf of bread and six cookies, please.”
Just before the horse started moving again, Jimmy leaned out the window and said to Mary, “Would you happen to sell any root beer here?”
She shook her head. “Just baked goods, that’s all.”
Jimmy slouched against the seat. He should have known it wouldn’t be so easy to find an Amish farm selling root beer—if there even was such a place. I’m sure Dad made this whole kidnapping thing up just to throw me off course. He’s been a control freak for as long as I can remember, and I’m almost sure there’s more to my adoption than he’s willing to tell. He studied the tall barn behind the Amish house as they pulled out of the yard. Maybe I ought to see about getting a job in case I decide to stay in the area awhile. It will give me a chance to ask around some more before I call Dad again.
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