Summer of Secrets

by Charlotte Hubbard

  Swiping at her eyes and still shaking, Miriam studied the young woman more closely. If she were going to demand answers she had to ask the right questions, even if her mind was in such an excited muddle she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “Where’d ya get this little dress?” was all she could whisper.

  Those black-lined eyes flashed, yet their crystal-blue color softened for a moment. Then she glared around the dining room. “Okay, look—show’s over! Got it?” she announced loudly. Her gaze lingered on Naomi and Rhoda, but she didn’t tell them to leave. Once the Brenneman boys and their friends returned to their tables, the girl in black took her seat again. She pointed to the chair across the table.

  Don’t forget about that help I asked for, God.

  Miriam sat down, dazed. She smiled gratefully when Naomi poured her a glass of lemonade and then eased away, to wait on the folks who’d just come in. Nothing could possibly have prepared her for this moment: nearly eighteen years she’d dreamed of it, not daring to hope it would ever come to pass. But there was no denying the little dress she’d sewn with her own hands, and she couldn’t help herself: she buried her face in the faded, yellowed fabric. It smelled faintly of cedar, but what did that matter? The only other person on this earth with a connection to this dress was now seated across from her. Looking as flummoxed as she felt.

  “I didn’t believe what my old man told me.” The young woman leaned on the tabletop to nail Miriam with a doubtful gaze. “I was going through Mom’s stuff after ... after her service last week. Found this at the very bottom of her cedar chest. That’s when Dad said I wasn’t their natural-born daughter—that he rescued me from a tree being washed down the Missouri River in the flood of ’93.”

  The young woman’s eyes misted over and she looked away. “I don’t know what to believe, now that I’m here. But it’s, like, obvious they’ve kept some really huge secrets from me.”

  Chapter 2

  Miriam choked on a sob. Silently she reached across the table to grip the girl’s hand. “But you’re alive,” she rasped. “And to me, that means ever ythin’.”

  There was an awkward pause. In her peripheral vision, she saw Rachel, Rhoda, and Naomi watching this exchange even as they busied themselves with that big bunch of people at the pushed-together tables. What on earth would she say to the daughters she’d raised all along?

  One thing at a time. Word by word—somehow. Miriam sipped her lemonade, hoping to clear her throat.

  “Yeah, well, this wasn’t quite what I expected, ya know? I mean, I’ve stopped at a lot of places this week, trying to get a handle on this thing.” Some of the edge had returned to the young woman’s voice, but she still looked as stunned as Miriam felt. “Never in a million years did I figure I was adopted, much less related to your kind. Jeez.”

  With an inward sigh, Miriam reminded herself that even the best-intentioned Englishers had no real understanding of Plain ways and beliefs. Thank goodness she also had two girls who’d been baptized into the church and who’d never given her a speck of trouble. “Jah, that must’ve been a shock—and findin’ out after ya lost your ... mother, too. I’m sorry about her passin’. Hardest loss there is.”

  How odd it felt to say that. She wanted to jump and sing for joy and tell everyone here who she was talking to! How could she not grab this young woman’s bare shoulders and shout I am your mother?

  But as she searched her long-lost daughter’s face, Miriam sensed it was best not to alienate the girl further with a misplaced word or ... another display of affection. Even though at such a time, love was the only response that made sense to her.

  Across the table, her daughter swiped at her eyes with a napkin, which made raccoon rings appear beneath them. Had she no idea how beautiful she was without all that paint?

  “So you’re saying that flood story is true? When Dad told me about it, I laughed in his face,” she replied defiantly. She plucked at the dress, which was on the table between them. “I mean, get real! How could a kid this little survive the ride from here to Morning Star on a tree trunk? In all that fast-moving water?”

  “I honestly don’t know.” Again Miriam sipped her lemonade, gripping her damp glass carefully. Her whole body was shaking. “But I do know this, Rebecca: as I watched that river wash ya away from me—as I clutched your two sisters and lost my hold on ya—the water knocked a hole in my heart I knew would never be filled.”

  Had she gotten too melodramatic? Miriam stood, looking for Rhoda and Rachel in the crowded dining room. She beckoned to them, her heart hammering, because their faces said it all: What was going on here? Who was this stranger who had made her laugh and cry and go a little crazy, as none of them had ever seen her do? She’d shown little emotion since Jesse’s passing. It took all her energy just to get from one day to the next, keeping herself too busy to think. Or to feel.

  “These are your sisters, Rhoda and Rachel,” she said in a thick voice. “They, like you, have no idea about that dreadful day because your dat and I rarely spoke of that storm, it upset us so. I have a lot of—of explainin’ to do to them.”

  “What’re ya tellin’ us, Mamma?” Rhoda’s eyes looked as round as china saucers in her flawless face as she studied the young woman who remained seated. In her deep green dress, made from the same pattern as Rachel’s maroon one, Rhoda looked so ... untouched by the world. Curious, yet confused.

  “It’s a long story, best left for when we’re not dealin’ with the lunch rush.” Miriam sighed, noting doubt and maybe denial in Rachel’s face. “Girls, ya were born as triplets, and—and this is the sister we lost the summer ya turned three. Her name is Rebecca—”

  “Uh, that would be Tiffany.” Those ice-blue eyes, so dear yet so defiant, assessed two kapps and two modest dresses and two faces identical to her own—at least before she put on her makeup each morning. “Look, I’m not even sure why I stopped here. Just took out driving around, trying to sort this out in my head. But it’s a sure bet I won’t be hanging around. I mean—talk about two different worlds!”

  When Tiffany stood to go, Miriam’s heart lurched. “Please, stay and eat! Rhoda, that meat loaf’s ready now, and we have fresh green beans—”

  “No way. Don’t know what I expected,” she muttered, removing Miriam’s hand from her arm, “but this’ll never work. Sorry.”

  Miriam bit back a cry as the too-slender Tiffany brushed past her and strode to the door. She almost ran after her—surely God hadn’t brought her daughter back home only to drive her away in a matter of minutes!

  But Miriam stood rooted to her spot. Her heart welled up and she wanted to cry as she hadn’t since they’d buried Jesse, but what would that accomplish? And in front of all these friends and lunch customers?

  Leave it be, her soul whispered. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

  Rachel clenched her fists beneath her apron to keep from grabbing the rudest, crudest girl she’d ever met. Tiffany, was it? She’d seen beautiful lamps in catalogs with that name on them, but this creature—this grotesque specter in black and tattoos—had nothing in common with a creation that gave light. Why had Mamma carried on so, over a total stranger with a little pink dress in a Walmart bag?

  And why was Micah standing at the back table with his mouth hanging open? Like his brothers, he’d put on his straw hat to leave, but instead of coming up toward the cash register he went to the window closest to the parking lot. Kept gawking after that spectacle their mother had dared to call Rebecca—her sister!

  Didn’t Rhoda and Naomi feel it, the way the earth had just tilted on its axis? The way this total stranger had shown up just long enough to intrude on them before declaring they had nothing in common? And that she wanted nothing to do with them? Any fool could see that! How dare she disrupt their lives and then brush them off as though their feelings about her surprise appearance didn’t matter? Something snapped inside her, and Rachel rushed out the door.

  Tiffany was hurrying toward a flashy red convertible, pushing
some sort of button in her hand that made its lights flash. The skull drawn on her shoulder, which clenched a long-stemmed rose in its teeth, seemed the lewdest sign of all that this Englisher intended to provoke or offend people everywhere she went. And what was the point of allowing that?

  “Tiffany!” she hollered.

  The girl pivoted at her car door. Those black-rimmed eyes dared Rachel to challenge her.

  So who was she to argue? “Do us all a favor and go back where ya came from!” she snapped. “Don’t go upsettin’ Mamma’s applecart ever again, hear me? With Dat gone, we don’t need any more nasty surprises like you!”

  Rachel hugged herself tightly as the scarlet car sent gravel flying behind it and then surged onto Route C. “Didn’t even look!” she muttered when the vehicle sped around a horse and buggy clip-clopping up the road.

  But someone else was looking: first thing Rachel noticed when she turned to go inside was Micah’s face at the café window. And he wasn’t watching her.

  And what’s that all about? Seems Mamma’s not the only one with some explainin’ to do!

  “Let’s get this talked about, girls. Your sister Rebecca came and left in the blink of an eye, but the situation’s landed in our laps like a load of horse apples, ain’t so?”

  Miriam sighed tiredly as they entered the kitchen of the big white house Jesse and his friends had built while he was courting her. Her days of baking began around three each morning, and she usually stayed until after the Sweet Seasons closed at two. Never had she imagined herself a partner in such an all-consuming business, but goodness knows it kept her from fretting over the death of her husband—not to mention the loss of his income as the only blacksmith in Willow Ridge.

  And never had she imagined coming face-to-face with her lost daughter. Lost in more ways than one, by the looks of her.

  “I got worried about you, clutchin’ this little dress, Mamma,” Rhoda murmured as she took the garment from Tiffany’s Walmart bag. “It’s not your way to shout or throw your arms around complete strangers.”

  “And this one is stranger than most!” Rachel muttered. “Who does she think she is, bargin’ in durin’ the lunch rush to gawk at us like we’re the odd ones? And did ya see how Micah was eyeballin’ her?”

  Rhoda snickered. “Everyone was starin’ at her, Sis. Amongst all the folks on God’s lunch menu, Tiffany’s not exactly the blue plate special.”

  “So if she just now found this pink dress, why’d she come here? Today?” The daughter in maroon shook her head scornfully. “I’m not sure I believe it. I’m thinkin’ she’s after somethin’. Thinkin’ she can trick us Amish into fallin’ for her fancy scheme. After all, Morning Star is upriver from Willow Ridge!”

  “Why did her—the woman who raised her—tuck that dress into her trunk? Why did I think your dat was at the river fishin’ that day the floodwaters rose so fast?” Miriam replied as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. “Life’s full of questions, girls. And we find out, sooner or later, that some things’re best left as mysteries for God to solve in His own gut time. The bishop we had before Hiram insisted we handle the accident that way all those years ago and ... I believed he was right. Mostly.”

  And when was a good time to face up to these mysteries? To deal with the disappointment that burned so deep when things hadn’t worked out the way she’d hoped? The six bedrooms along this hallway had often mocked her, a reminder of plans to fill them with the rest of the children she and Jesse had both hankered for ...

  Perhaps Rebecca’s surprise return would bring a piece of her grief into the open air so she could release it, like picking a sliver of glass from a festering wound. High time. But, of course, nothing ever went easy, when it came to explaining past tragedies tucked away like little dresses in a trunk. Miriam gestured for Rhoda to open the square doorway built waist-high in the wall of the room where they did their sewing.

  The attic’s dry heat enveloped them as they stooped into the cubbyhole and then went up the short flight of stairs, lit by afternoon light from the windows on opposite walls. How her girls had loved to play here on rainy days, among old grocery crates full of odds and ends and cast-off furnishings that had belonged to Jesse’s parents and her own. Rachel and Rhoda had no idea that a battered steamer trunk behind their grandmother’s sewing cabinet kept such a sad secret.

  “I looked for a way to tell you girls ya had another sister,” Miriam whispered as she snapped open the latch of the trunk. “But as years go by, some things just don’t seem as important. And explainin’ them sure doesn’t get any easier. Not many of the People recall that day, on account of how your dat’s parents and mine have all passed now, and Naomi’s bunch moved here to Willow Ridge a couple years after the accident. The other elders insisted we not involve the police or outsiders in the search effort and as the deacon, your dat went along with them.”

  “Oh, Mamma.” Rhoda picked up a handful of little green dresses and the white aprons folded in with them. “You saved our clothes—”

  “Jah, thinkin’ they’d be worn by other babes comin’ along. I wasn’t but twenty when ... when Rebecca wiggled away from me and headed into the river.” Miriam studied the expressions on their dear, identical faces and sensed her girls had enough to digest. No good would be served by revealing the other heartache she’d endured as a result of that ill-fated walk through the storm to find Jesse.

  Rachel nipped her lip then. “There are ... three of these green dresses.” She lifted other sets of clothing, as well, as though counting and searching for evidence to back up her earlier accusations.

  “Jah. Three of most everything in here, except—” Closing her eyes against fresh tears, Miriam lifted the layers of clothing in shades of plum and grass green and sky blue until she came to dresses of pink. “Here’s the ones ya wore durin’ that awful storm. Which is why I have to doubt Tiffany—our Rebecca—is tryin’ to put one over on us. How else would she have a dress identical to these?”

  Rhoda blinked, stroking the fabric that had gone soft with much wear. “And think, Sis, how hard it must’ve hit that poor girl when she found a dress made from this Plain pattern in her mamma’s cedar chest. With only her dat—who’s not really her father—tryin’ to tell her the truth about it, after the fact.”

  “She had no reason to come here buzzin’ like a wasp! Nor to make such a show of shockin’ Mamma!” Rachel retorted.

  Miriam smiled despite the way her heart had been torn in so many directions today. No one could fault her girls for the way they’d stood beside her, in the presence of a stranger whose ways had upset them all. “I can’t imagine the man who raised her as his own is feelin’ much better, or gettin’ any more consideration from Tiffany than we did. She’s sad after her mother’s passin’, and angry and ... troubled in a lot of ways, I suspect.”

  “Jah, well, she’ll know trouble for sure and for certain if she bats those black lashes at Micah—or comes back to haunt us again!” Rachel hastily replaced the sets of baby clothing and slammed the trunk shut. “Let’s go down and start somethin’ gut for supper. Then I’ll be ready for a big piece of Katie Zook’s birthday cake and a ride in somebody’s new courtin’ buggy.”

  Rhoda followed her sister toward the dim stairs, but then turned to smile at Miriam. “Don’t wait up for us tonight, Mamma. I’m thinkin’ ya could use some quiet time and a gut night’s rest, ain’t so? Tomorrow’s a new day.”

  Chapter 3

  “Thought ya could use a little somethin’ sweet after such a day,” Naomi Brenneman said as she approached the porch. “Somethin’ ya didn’t bake yourself.”

  “Is that chocolate I smell? Oh, denki, Naomi. You’re the best friend a woman ever had!” Miriam set aside the pillowcase she was embroidering to pat the swing’s cushion. She smiled at the blonde whose eyes shone like dark, sweet tea. After her full day of cooking at the café, Naomi had changed into a fresh brown dress, and she held up a pan of the most heavenly smelling dessert, still warm fro
m the oven. “Your chocolate zucchini cake calls for forks and plates—”

  “And maybe a little time for talkin’, what with all the kids bein’ at the Zooks’? Sit still, Miriam. I know where everythin’ is.”

  Miriam closed her eyes, exhaled wearily, and let the breeze blowing in from the river soothe her like the sweet perfume of the blooming mimosa trees. How could everything around her seem so normal, after the way her world had tipped like an overloaded wheelbarrow today?

  “Didn’t want to be nosy this noon. I could see you were havin’ a time of it, though, talkin’ to that ... girl in the black getup.” The porch swing creaked and shifted as Naomi settled into its cushion next to her and then handed over a generous square of cake. “I’m guessin’ she’s yours, and ya thought she was—”

  “Long gone, jah. Didn’t see how any toddler—not yet three years old—could’ve survived bein’ carried off in that flood,” Miriam murmured. “And I lost count of the nights I fretted and prayed when we never found her little body. Couldn’t even say a proper good-bye ... couldn’t close the lid and move on. Not for the longest time.”

  The moist cake was a balm to her battered soul. Miriam savored its dense sweetness as she considered how to share such a story with her dearest friend. The bishop and the preachers at that time had advised them to grieve in private, and after a while Jesse had plain-out told her to devote her time and thoughts to caring for Rhoda and Rachel—and him, of course—instead of dwelling on the little one she’d lost.

  No doubt in her mind this long-ago ordeal would’ve been easier to handle had Naomi Brenneman lived in Willow Ridge back then. Some things only a woman—a mother—could understand. “Sorta fits that Rebecca acts so much the rebel now, when ya consider she was always the feisty one,” Miriam recalled softly. “When the river rose so fast that day, it was all I could do to grab those three girls and struggle back up the muddy bank with them—”