Plain Truth

by Jodie Picoult

  She went all the way to the pond where I’d been earlier that day. I stayed behind, hidden, just close enough to be able to see and hear her. She sat down on a small wrought-iron bench set before the big oak tree, and closed her eyes.

  Was she sleepwalking again? Or was she meeting someone here?

  Was this where Katie and Samuel had their trysts? Was this where a baby had been conceived?

  “Where are you?” Katie’s whisper reached me, and I realized two things at once: that she was too lucid still to be asleep; and that I understood her words. “How come you’re hiding?”

  Clearly, she knew I had followed her. Who else would she be talking to in English?

  I stepped out from behind the willow and stood in front of her. “I’ll tell you why I’m hiding, if you tell me why you came out here in the first place.”

  Katie scrambled to her feet, her cheeks flushed with color. She looked so startled that I took a step back-right into the edge of the pond, wetting the edge of my pajama bottoms. “Surprise,” I said flatly.

  “Ellie! What are you doing up?”

  “I think that’s my question, actually. In addition to the following: Who were you expecting to meet here? Samuel, maybe? You two planning to get your story straight, before I corner him for a little interview?”

  “There is no story-”

  “For God’s sake, Katie, give it up! You had a baby. You’ve been charged with murder. I’ve been appointed as your legal defense, and you’re still sneaking around behind my back, in the middle of the night. You know, I’ve done this a lot longer than you have, and people don’t sneak around unless they have something to hide. Coincidentally, they also don’t lie unless they have something to hide. Guess which one of us fails on both counts?” Tears were rolling down Katie’s cheeks. Steeling myself, I crossed my arms. “You’d better start talking.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not Samuel. I’m not meeting him.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I’m telling you the truth!”

  I snorted. “Right. You’re not meeting Samuel; you just decided you needed a little fresh air. Or is this some midnight Amish custom I need to learn?”

  “I didn’t come out here because of Samuel.” She looked up at me. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “You were talking to someone. You thought he was hiding.”

  Katie ducked her head. “She.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “She. The person I was looking for is a girl.”

  “Nice try, Katie, but you’re out of luck. I don’t see a girl. And I don’t see a guy, either, but something tells me if I give it five minutes a big, blond fellow is going to show up.”

  “I was looking for my sister. Hannah.” She hesitated. “You’re sleeping in her bed.”

  Mentally, I counted everyone I’d met that day. There had been no other young girl; and I found it difficult to believe that Leda would never have mentioned Katie’s siblings to me. “How come Hannah wasn’t at dinner? Or praying with you tonight?”

  “Because . . . she’s dead.”

  This time when I stepped back, both feet landed squarely in the pond. “She’s dead.”

  “Ja.” Katie raised her face to mine. “She drowned here when she was seven. I was eleven, and I was supposed to be watching her while we went skating, but she fell through the ice.” She wiped her eyes and her nose with the sleeve of her nightgown. “You . . . you wanted me to tell you everything, to tell you the truth. I come out here to talk to Hannah. Sometimes I see her, even. I didn’t tell anyone about her, because seeing ghosts, well, Mam and Dat would think I’m all ferhoodled. But she’s here, Ellie. She is, I swear it to you.”

  “Like you swear you never had that baby?” I murmured.

  Katie turned away from me. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. The only person who ever did was-”

  “Was who?”

  “Nobody,” she said stubbornly.

  I spread my arms. “Well, then, call out for her. Hey, Hannah!” I shouted. “Come and play.” I waited a moment for good measure, and then shrugged. “Funny, I don’t see anything. Imagine that.”

  “She won’t come with you here.”

  “Isn’t that convenient,” I said.

  Katie’s eyes were dark and militant, filled with conviction. “I am telling you that I’ve seen Hannah since she died. I hear her talking, when the wind comes. And I see her skating, right over the top of the pond. She’s real.”

  “You expect me to fall for this? To think you came out here because you believe in ghosts?”

  “I believe in Hannah,” Katie clarified.

  I sighed. “It seems to me you believe a lot of things that may not necessarily be true. Come back to bed, Katie,” I said over my shoulder, and left without waiting to see if she’d follow.

  Once Katie was asleep, I tiptoed out of the room with my purse. Outside, on the porch, I withdrew my cell phone. Ironically, you could get a decent signal in Lancaster County-some of the more progressive Amish farmers had agreed to allow cellular towers on their land, for a fee that negated the need to grow a winter crop. Punching in several numbers, I waited for a familiar, groggy voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “Coop, it’s me.”

  I could almost see him sitting up in bed, the sheets falling away. “Ellie? Jesus! After-what? two years? . . . You call me at. . . good God, is it three in the morning?”

  “Two-thirty.” I’d known John Joseph Cooper IV for nearly twenty years, when we were at Penn together. No matter what time it was, he’d growl-but he’d forgive me. “Look, I need your help.”

  “Oh, this isn’t just a three A.M. social call?”

  “You’re not going to believe this, but I’m at an Amish family’s home.”

  “Ah, I knew it. You never really got over me, and you chucked it all for the simple life.”

  I laughed. “Coop, I got over you a decade ago. Just about the time you got married, actually. I’m here as part of a bail provision for a client, who was charged with murdering her newborn. I want you to evaluate her.”

  He exhaled slowly. “I’m not a forensic psychiatrist, Ellie. Just your run-of-the-mill suburban shrink.”

  “I know, but. . . well, I trust you. And I need this off the record, a gut feeling, before I decide how I’m going to get her off.”

  “You trust me?”

  I drew in my breath, remembering. “Well. More or less. More, when the issue at hand doesn’t involve me.”

  Coop hesitated. “Can you bring her in on Monday?”

  “Uh, no. She isn’t supposed to leave the farm.”

  “I’m making a house call?”

  “You’re making a farm call, if it makes you feel any better.”

  I could imagine him closing his eyes, flopping back down on his pillows. Just say yes, I urged silently. “I couldn’t juggle my schedule until Wednesday at the earliest,” Coop said.

  “That’s good enough.”

  “Think they’ll let me milk a cow?”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  I could feel his smile, even all these miles away. “Ellie,” he said, “you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  FIVE

  Aaron hurried into the kitchen and sat down at the table, Sarah turning in perfect choreography to set a cup of coffee in front of him. “Where is Katie?” he asked, frowning.

  “She’s asleep, still,” Sarah said. “I didn’t think to wake her yet.”

  “Yet? It’s Gemeesunndaag. We have to leave, or we’ll be late.”

  Sarah flattened her hands on the counter, as if she might be able to smooth the Formica even further. She squared her shoulders and prepared to contradict Aaron, something she had done so infrequently in her marriage she could count the occasions on a single hand. “I don’t think Katie should be going to church today.”

  Aaron set down his mug. “Of course she’ll go to church.”

  “She’s feeling grenklich, Aaron. You
saw the look on her face all day yesterday.”

  “She’s not sick.”

  Sarah sank down into the chair across from him. “People will have heard by now about this baby. And the Englischer.”

  “The bishop knows what Katie said, and he believes her. If Ephram decides there is a need for Katie to make a confession, he’ll come and talk to her here first.”

  Sarah bit her lip. “Ephram believes Katie when she says she didn’t kill that baby. But does he believe her when she says it isn’t hers?” When Aaron didn’t answer, she reached across the table and touched his hand. “Do you?”

  He was silent for a moment. “I saw it, Sarah, and I touched it. I don’t know how it got there.” Grimacing, he admitted, “I also know that Katie and Samuel would not be the first to get ahead of their wedding vows.”

  Blinking back tears, Sarah shook her head. “That’ll mean the Meidung, for sure,” she said. “Even if she confesses and says she’s sorry for it, she’ll still be under the bann for a while.”

  “Yes, but then she’ll be forgiven and welcomed back.”

  “Sometimes,” Sarah said, her mouth tightening, “that’s not the way it goes.” The memory of their oldest son, Jacob, suddenly flared between them, crowding the table so that Aaron pushed back his chair. She had not said Jacob’s name, but she had brought up his specter in a household where he was supposed to be long dead. Afraid of Aaron’s reaction, Sarah turned away, surprised when her husband’s voice came back soft and broken.

  “If Katie stays at home today,” he said, “if she acts sick and don’t show her face, people are going to talk. People are going to think she’s not coming because she’s got something to hide. It’ll go better for her, if she makes like it’s any other Sunday.”

  Overcome with relief, Sarah nodded, only to stiffen as she heard Aaron speak quietly again. “But if she’s put under the bann, I’ll side with my church before I side with my child.”

  Shortly before eight o’clock, Aaron hitched the horse to the buggy. Katie climbed into the back, and then his wife sat down on the wide bench seat beside him. Aaron picked up the reins just as the Englischer came running out of the house, into the yard.

  She was a sight. Her hair stuck up in little tufts around her head, and the skin of her cheek was still creased with the mark of a pillowcase. At least she was wearing a long cotton dress, though, Aaron thought, instead of the revealing clothes she’d had on yesterday afternoon.

  “Hey,” she yelled, frantically waving her arms to keep him from leaving. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To church,” Aaron said flatly.

  Ellie crossed her arms. “You can’t. Well, that is, you can. But your daughter can’t.”

  “My daughter will, just like she has all her life.”

  “According to the state of Pennsylvania, Katie’s been remanded into my custody. And she’s not going anywhere without me.”

  Aaron looked at his wife and shrugged.

  There were many misconceptions Ellie had had about the Amish buggies, but the biggest one by far was that they were uncomfortable. There was a sweet, gentle gait to the horse that lulled her senses, and the heat of the July sun was relieved by the wind streaming through the open front and rear window. Tourists in their cars sidled up to the rear of the buggy, then passed with a roar of gears and a racing engine.

  A horse moved along at just twelve miles per hour-slow enough that Ellie was able to count the number of calves grazing in a field, to notice the Queen Anne’s lace rioting along the edge of the road. The world didn’t whiz by; it unrolled. Ellie, who had spent most of her life in a hurry, found herself watching in wonder.

  She kept a lookout for the church building. To her surprise, Aaron turned the buggy down a residential driveway. Suddenly they were part of a long line of buggies, a somber parade. There was no chapel, no bell tower, no spire-just a barn and a farmhouse. He pulled to a stop, and Sarah dismounted. Katie nudged her shoulder. “Let’s go,” she whispered. Ellie stumbled from the wagon and then drew herself up short.

  She was completely surrounded by the Amish. Numbering well over a hundred, they spilled from their buggies and crossed the yard and gathered to quietly speak and shake hands. Children darted behind their mothers’ skirts and around their fathers’ legs; a wagon filled with hay became a temporary feed trough for the many horses that had transported the families to church. As soon as Ellie became visible, curious eyes turned in her direction. There was whispering, pointing, a giggle.

  Ellie could remember feeling like this only once-years ago, when she’d spent a summer in Africa building a village as part of a college inservice project, she’d never been more aware of the differences between herself and others. She started as someone slipped an arm through hers. “Come,” Katie said, drawing her across the yard as if nothing was amiss, as if she walked around every day with an Englischer by her side.

  She was stopped by a tall man with a bushy white beard and eyes as bright as a hawk’s. “Katie,” he said, clasping her hands.

  “Bishop Ephram.” Ellie, who was standing close enough to notice, realized that Katie was trembling.

  “You must be the lawyer,” he said in English, in a voice loud enough to carry to all the people who were still straining to hear. “The one who brought Katie home to us.” He extended a hand to Ellie. “Wilkom.” Then he moved off toward the barn, where the men were gathering.

  “That’s a wonderful good thing he did,” Katie whispered. “Now the people won’t all be wondering about you while we worship.”

  “Where do you worship?” Ellie asked, puzzled. “Outside?”

  “In the house. A different family holds the services every other Sunday.”

  Ellie dubiously eyed the small, clapboard farmhouse. “There’s no way all these people are going to fit inside that tiny building.”

  Before Katie could answer, she was approached by a pair of girls who held her hands and chattered urgently, concerned about the rumors they’d heard. Katie shook her head and soothed them, and then noticed Ellie standing off to the side, looking distinctly out of place. “I want you to meet someone,” she said. “Mary Esch, Rebecca Lapp, this is Ellie Hathaway, my . . .”

  Ellie smiled wryly at Katie’s hesitation. “Attorney,” she supplied. “A pleasure.”

  “Attorney?” Rebecca gasped the word, as if Ellie had sworn a blue streak instead of just announcing her profession. “What would you need with an attorney?”

  By now, the women were organizing themselves into a loose line and filing into the house. The young single women walked at the front of the line, but having Ellie there clearly presented a problem. “They don’t know what to do with you,” Katie explained. “You’re a visitor, so you ought to follow the lead person. But you’re not baptized.”

  “Let me solve this for everyone.” Ellie stepped firmly between Katie and Rebecca. “There.” An older woman frowned and shook her finger at Ellie, upset at having a nonmember so far up front in the procession. “Relax,” Ellie muttered. “Rules were made to be broken.”

  She looked up to find Katie staring at her solemnly. “Not here.”

  It was not until Katie began to visit Jacob on a regular basis that she truly understood how people could be seduced by the devil. How easy it was, when Lucifer wielded things like compact disc players and Levi’s 501s. It was not that she thought her brother fallen-she just suddenly began to see how one archangel tum bling from heaven might have easily reached out a hand and tugged down another, and another, and another.

  One day when she was fifteen, Jacob told her he had a surprise for her. He brought her change of clothes to the train station and waited for her to put them on in the ladies’ room, then led her to the parking lot. But instead of approaching his own car, he took her to a big station wagon filled with college kids. “Hey, Jake,” one of the boys shouted, unrolling the window. “You didn’t tell us your sister was a hottie!”

  Automatically, Katie patted her sw
eatshirt. Warm, maybe . . . Jacob interrupted her thoughts. “She’s fifteen,” he said firmly.

  “Jailbait,” called another girl. Then she dragged the boy backward and kissed him full on the mouth.

  Katie had never been this close to people kissing in public; she stared until Jacob tugged at her hand. He climbed into the car and shoved aside the others so that there would be room for his sister. He tossed a hurricane of names at her that she forgot the moment she tried to remember them. And then they were off, the car shimmying with the heavy beat of a Stones tape and the muffled movements of two people making out in the back.

  Sometime later, the car pulled into a parking lot, and Katie glanced up at the mountain and the ski lodge at its base. “Surprised?” Jacob asked. “What do you think?”

  Katie swallowed. “That I’ll have a hard time explaining a broken leg to Mam and Dat.”

  “You won’t break your leg. I’ll teach you.”

  And he did-for about ten minutes. Then he left Katie on the bunny slope with a ski school full of seven-year-olds and raced up to the top of the mountain with his college buddies. Katie wedged her skis into a triangle and snowplowed down the gentle hill, then let the J-bar tug her up to start all over again. At the bottom, each time, she shaded her eyes and looked for Jacob, who never came. The whole world was unfamiliar-slick and white, dotted with people who cut her a wide berth. This was what it was like, she thought, to be put under the bann for ever. You’d lose everyone who was important to you; you’d be all alone.

  She glanced up at the chairlift. Unless, of course, you could do what Jacob had done: turn into someone else entirely. She didn’t know how he could do it so seamlessly, as if he had never had another life in another place.

  As if this new life was the only one that mattered.

  She was suddenly flushed with anger, that she and her Mam should work so hard to keep Jacob tucked under their hearts, while he was off drinking beer and barreling down ski slopes. She snapped off her rental skis and, leaving them in the snow, marched back to the lodge.