by Sarah Price
Daniel stared at him, his mouth suddenly dry and his throat tight. “Ezariah, please. What issues? What were you talking about?”
“Ach vell,” he began, tugging at his beard as though deep in thought. “Seem to recall that there was a Lapp family out there who had some problems. The community was all in an uproar about it.”
“An uproar? About what? What happened?” His heart was pounding and he felt as though he would jump out of his skin.
“Seem to recall that there was a daughter working at the vegetable stand at the end of the lane when two Englischer boys came along in a car. They kept bothering her.” He paused and lowered his voice. “There was a scuffle. Some physical contact. There was speculation that mayhaps…” The older man let his voice trail off, not daring to continue hinting at what the boys might have done to the daughter. But, in the silence, enough was said. He lifted his eyes to look at Daniel and nodded once with a very solemn expression on his face. “Ja, Daniel, there was talk.”
Daniel turned his back to the old man. His head spun as the words echoed in his head. Issue. Speculation. Talk. He couldn’t believe that any of this was true. How could he have not heard? How could he have not known? Why had she not told him? It couldn’t be the same family. It couldn’t be his Rachel.
After a moment of silence, Ezariah shook his head and continued, “When the mother came out to help her daughter, one of the boys shoved her and she fell, hitting her head against the side of the vegetable stand,” he said, clucking his tongue and shaking his head again. “Such a shame. The mother died from the injuries.”
Everything seemed to spin around him as Ezariah’s words repeated throughout his mind. It couldn’t be true. Rachel would have told him, he thought. She wouldn’t have hidden something as powerful important as this. Or would she? His mouth felt dry. If it was true, it would explain so much, he realized. The reason why she was sent away from Ohio, the reason why she hated being outside, the reason why she had struggled so much to adapt and become part of the community…part of the family. But, the question remained whether the unthinkable could have happened to her. Had the Englischers harmed her? Could they have done something so awful to her that Rachel couldn’t even speak about it?
“I have to go,” Daniel said, a lump in his throat. He had to get back to the farm, had to speak to Rachel and ask her about this.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The ride back to the Lapp farm seemed to take hours instead of minutes. His horse simply could not trot fast enough for Daniel’s satisfaction. He had to get to the farm, to confront Rachel and hear directly from her Ezariah was mistaken, that it was a mistake. But, the closer he got to the farm, the more time he had to think and come to the realization that Ezariah was telling the truth. And, if Ezariah was telling the truth, that meant that Rachel had not been forthcoming with him.
Indeed, Daniel realized that Rachel had been hiding something powerful important from him. Hiding something was as good as lying, he thought. The deception was the same, regardless of what one called it. And, he told himself, there was only one reason for her to hide the story and that reason was making Daniel’s heart pound inside of his chest.
The farm was quiet for the late afternoon. The sun was dipping down toward the horizon in the sky, although there was still a good three hours of daylight left. Several kittens ran under the shed by the large oak tree, one brazenly peeking out to see who was pulling down the lane.
Daniel stopped the horse by the horse shed and quickly unharnessed her. His hands moved methodically while his mind repeated Ezariah’s story. There was talk, the old man had said. The words echoed in his head and he felt shame. He didn’t have to ask what the talk was for he knew. There was talk meant only one thing and Daniel knew that he couldn’t stomach the thought of what the unspoken words meant. Not if it meant his Rachel was apart of it.
There was talk. The more Daniel mulled over the words, the more questions that he had. Surely if nothing had happened, Rachel would have told him. Yet, instead, she had kept it hidden. A secret. And marriage was not a place for secrets. That was for sure and certain.
He found her in the garden, kneeling in the dirt as she weeded between the rows of growing pumpkins. She was smiling to herself, taking great care in her work. For a moment, he watched her, seeing her in a new light, one that was completely different.
“What did they do to you, Rachel?” he demanded, the words catching in his throat. In his mind, he envisioned the worst. Ezariah’s words seemed to echo in his mind. There was talk. If word had traveled from Ohio to Lancaster, certainly there was more to the story and he needed to know the truth.
Rachel looked up at the sound of his voice. “Daniel!” she said, her eyes wide and bright as he approached her. “Are you back so soon, then?” She quickly wiped her hands on her apron and scrambled to her feet, hurrying toward him with a warm smile lighting up her face. “Do you need help taking the groceries to your mamm? I’m almost finished here.”
“Rachel,” he said, his face stern and his voice low. He took a deep breath and straightened his back, his standoffish nature causing her to stop in her tracks. She had never seen him look so serious. “What did they do to you?” He repeated. “I asked you a question.”
She frowned, not understanding his emotionless expression. “Who?” She looked around herself as if expecting to see someone to be standing behind her. Clearly Daniel wasn’t talking to her, she thought. “Who did what?”
“I asked what they did to you and I’d like an answer.”
“I don’t understand. What are you talking about?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowed on her brow. It was clear that she had no idea what he was asking and, for just a moment, he held a glimmer of hope that Ezariah had been mistaken.
“The boys. The boys back in Ohio.”
Her faced paled. Clearly, boys and Ohio were two words that she hadn’t expected to come out of Daniel’s mouth. Not in the same sentence. To hear those words after the wonderful time they had spent together earlier sent chills down her spine. Unexpected and a bit startling. In response, she stood motionless, staring first at Daniel then over his shoulder, refusing to meet his eyes. “Ohio?”
He touched her arm. “Yes, Ohio. You know exactly what I’m talking about and I deserve to know the truth.”
“Oh Daniel,” she said softly. “You sound so angry.”
“Angry?” he scoffed. “I’m concerned. I’m hurt. I’m confused. But angry?” He hesitated, his eyes sharp and narrow. “Should I be angry?”
“It…it wasn’t what it sounds like.”
“Wasn’t what it sounds like? Your mother was killed, Rachel.”
“I’m well aware of that.”
“How could you have kept that from me? From all of us? And to think that you were there when it happened?”
“I’m reminded of that daily,” she whispered.
“What happened, Rachel? And what did those boys do to you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Daniel.”
He clenched his jaw. “I can only think of one reason why you would not have told me, Rachel. Those boys must have done something to you.” He searched her face, trying to determine if she flinched or faltered from his words. “Is that why your father sent you here? Did those boys do something? Did your community learn about it? Is that what was said about you? Whispered behind your back?”
“Daniel,” she whispered.
“Did they touch you?”
“I…”
“Rachel! I have a right to know.” he demanded with a firm voice. “Did those boys touch you?”
“Yes.”
He lowered his voice, his eyes holding her gaze. He felt his chest swell with anger. The thought of anyone touching his Rachel was beyond his ability to accept. To touch her? Impossible. Unthinkable. Unacceptable. Part of him wanted to find those boys and do anything that he could to them to make the pain in his heart disappear. The other part of him wanted to cry, cry for Rachel and cry for
himself.
“Did they…” He tried to find the right word. “Did they dishonor you?”
“No.” She felt as though she had shouted the word. Then, lowering her voice, she repeated it softly. “No, they did not, Daniel.”
He was silent but he felt the tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t know what to believe. They had touched her but did not dishonor her? Was it true that the unspeakable had not happened? But, if not, why the secrets? Why being sent away? Why the long-distance gossip for anything less than true scandal? It just didn’t add up in his mind.
“Rachel, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid.”
He took a deep breath as though he was thinking heavily about something. Afraid, she had said. Afraid of what? There was talk. Talk meant that someone else was her true husband, even if only in the minds of the community. Could he live with that? Could he live with years of gossip and questions? Finally, after what seemed like hours but was in fact just a short minute, he broke her gaze and looked toward the horizon.
“Now that someone knows it is you, the word will spread, Rachel. You know how that can happen.” He blinked twice, forcing back the emotion from his eyes. He could hear Ezariah now, telling everyone how Daniel Lapp was marrying that girl from Ohio, the one who had a questionable interlude with an Englischer boy who then murdered her mother. Gossip was the only thing that could spread faster and hurt more people than disease. Then, he looked back at her. “You realize that, ja?”
“Daniel…”
“There will be talk and the bishop will hear about it. Mamm and Daed will hear about it. They will all wonder why you didn’t tell us. They will want an explanation, Rachel.”
“There was nothing to tell,” she said emphatically, her hands spread out before her. “There is nothing to explain.”
“And if they don’t believe you?”
“What are you saying, Daniel? Don’t you believe me? Don’t you have faith in me?”
He held up his hand, cutting her off in mid-sentence. “I don’t know anything anymore, Rachel. I need time to digest this, to understand. I need to think on it.”
“Think on it?” she repeated.
“Ja,” he said solemnly. “You ask me to have faith in you, to believe you. But you didn’t have that faith enough in me…your future husband…to tell me the truth. That’s a bad start to a marriage, Rachel.”
“Daniel!” she cried out.
But he looked away. He put his hands into his pockets and glanced at the barn where his younger brother was shoveling manure from the cow aisles. When Samuel looked up and saw Daniel, he frowned and waved, eager for the extra hands to help with the task at hand.
“I best get going then,” he mumbled. “Chores need tending, Need to throw the cows some hay.” he said, his eyes lowered and shoulders hunched. Without any further words or looks in her direction, Daniel simply turned and walked away toward the barn to help his brother.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next few days dragged on for Rachel. With a heavy heart, she wondered what Daniel was doing, what he was thinking. She replayed the scene from the garden in her mind a hundred different ways. There was nothing she could have done to prevent him from finding out about what happened in Ohio but she certainly would never have predicted his reaction.
If only he would have given her the opportunity to explain, she thought as she cleaned the house alongside Lillian. If only he would have believed that gossip is truly evil and rarely true. If only he would have had enough faith in her that she would never have hidden something from him that would hurt him. She could have told him what he longed to hear.
In her mind, she could still see the car as it approached the vegetable stand. She had seen those boys before, driving by in that battered old car, shouting out the rolled down window at her. Just the previous week, one of them had thrown a bottle at her. Their laughter still echoed in her memory. But she hadn’t thought it was funny and had even confided in one of her brothers that she was scared.
She had always hated standing alone at that vegetable stand. With no same-age sisters, she was alone. The hours dragged on, broken only by the occasional neighbor or even tourist who stopped to visit and buy some produce. But she wasn’t about to complain, not with her daed insisting on her taking over that responsibility. And, besides, she knew that the family appreciated the income, not matter how small it seemed to her.
Rachel set down her cleaning rag and stared out the window. She wasn’t even certain why she was cleaning the windows so diligently. It had been three days and Daniel hadn’t spoken to her. Was he second-guessing their upcoming marriage? Would he not take the baptism, a quiet way of canceling their wedding? She knew that the decision resided with him. She would not be so bold as to seek him out and question him. A woman answered to God and her husband, in that order. It was Daniel’s decision.
Her heart felt heavy. Why hadn’t he asked for the truth rather than listen to gossip? Why had he lost faith in her virtue? They had spent so much time together over the past few months. Mayhaps in the beginning it was a bit challenging but she had been adjusting to her new environment and surroundings. When he had begun courting her, their visits had been full of laughter and happiness. She hoped that he remembered that.
Yet, as she replayed once again their last visit in the garden, he had seemed so torn, so distraught. He asked how she could have kept something so powerful important from him? She knew the answer was because she was protecting him from the story. After all, such violence was not typical in an Amish family, she knew that.
It must have seemed shocking to him that her mother had been killed. When such tragedies struck, families quietly mourned but quickly moved on. No one spoke about the circumstances, offenders were forgiven. That was the way of the People. Yet, it was clear that Daniel didn’t know what happened. In many ways, she wished he had asked her, even though it wasn’t the Amish way to pry into situations that were considered God’s will.
She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, wondering how much she would have told him. She would have started with the fact that it had been a hot and sunny day. She hadn’t wanted to go to the vegetable stand, fearful that those two boys would be back. Those boys had been terrorizing the Amish in her community for weeks. They had been driving by the vegetable stand on a regular basis, taunting her with shouts and bad words flung in her direction as they sped down the road. But the Amish wouldn’t complain to authorities. It was up to God to judge them, not the people.
No, Rachel hadn’t wanted to be there alone. Besides being hot and lonely, she was nervous about those boys. But, once her daed commanded it, she knew better than to argue. In the beginning, she was pleased to see the regular people who stopped by for fresh tomatoes and corn. But, during the late morning hours, the cars began passing the stand, not even pausing to glance at her. And then, there was barely any traffic at all.
If only Daniel had listened, Rachel told herself. She would have told him that it had been during that lull, just before the mid-day meal, when she heard the familiar roar of their car. It was old and battered with rust marks around the doors and trunk. The engine was very loud, which distinguished it from other cars that drove past the stand. But this time, the car didn’t just slow down. Instead, the boys began honking the horn and making a lot of noise as they pulled the car to a stop on the side of the road.
Rachel had stood behind the vegetable stand, keeping the counter between her and those boys. They had started laughing at her, calling her a little Amish girl. One of the boys took some tomatoes and smashed them on the road. But it was the taller of the two, the one who had been driving who approached her, a grin on his lips and a gleam in his eye.
When he grabbed her arm and jerked her toward him, she heard herself scream. But he silenced her by covering her mouth with his hand and shoving her against the side of the vegetable stand. With his other hand, he had started to grope her over her clothing, touching her in a way that
no man should touch her. He was rough and pushed his knee against her inner thigh, pinning her against the wall as he held her mouth with his free hand.
Rachel had felt the tears streaming down her face and she tried to scream once again but nothing came out of her mouth. The other boy stopped throwing the tomatoes long enough to see what was happening and, to her further humiliation, began cackling as loud as he could, encouraging the other boy to continue. The groping continued and might have gotten worse, perhaps progressing to a place of no return, as he was reaching for the hem of her dress, trying to push it up over her hips.
But that was when she had heard her mother. Her mother was racing down the driveway, screaming for the men to come from the field and barn to help her save Rachel. The boy touching Rachel looked up, quickly assessing what was happening. He shoved Rachel way from him, laughing as she fell down to the ground. She was sobbing, pulling her legs under her body and wrapping her arms around her chest.