Ernest slapped his hat on his head. “Faron and I’ll make a quick count of our sheep so we know how many are missing. I’ll see the two of you tonight. Until then, play nice, children.” He laughed as he went out the door.
“Sometimes that man really annoys me.” Ruth limped into the kitchen. “I’m going to need more bread.”
Owen followed her, still holding Grace. “I find him refreshing. Is your knee hurting again?”
“It’s the least of my troubles.” She began pulling out pans and clanking them on the counter with more force than necessary.
“Is there anything Grace and I can do to help?”
She spun around. “Stay out of my kitchen.”
Grace had her arms around Owen’s neck. “Is she mad at us again?”
He looked into her worried eyes. “The thing you have to understand about Ruth is that she pretends to be mad at us, but she is really only mad at herself.”
Ruth fisted her hands on her hips. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means exactly what I said. Are you mad at Grace?”
Her expression softened. “Of course not. I’m delighted that Grace can stay with us for a while.”
“Are you mad at me? Be truthful.”
“You’re putting me on the spot.”
“Tell Grace the truth. Are you mad at me?”
“Oh, I guess not. I’m upset with the situation and don’t pretend you don’t know why.”
He managed a sad smile for Grace. “Ruth is upset because she likes me a little, but she doesn’t want to admit it and she doesn’t want me to know.”
Grace tipped her head to the side as she looked up at him. “Why not?”
He fixed his gaze on Ruth’s face. “Because it makes her feel disloyal to someone we both loved. The sad thing is, he always wanted us to be friends.”
He smiled at Grace. “Let’s go in the other room and play a game.”
After he walked out of the kitchen, Ruth sat down at the table feeling as if all the air had been pulled from her lungs. He was right. When had Owen learned to know her so well?
She slowly pushed to her feet and followed Owen into the living room. He was on the sofa with one of the children’s books Ruth kept on hand to entertain the kinder of her friends when they came to visit. Grace was leaning against him to see the pages. He looked up and waited for Ruth to speak.
It took her a moment to find her voice. “You are right about one thing.”
“One thing? I’m right about a lot of things. Which one do you mean?”
Ruth rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why I bother.”
She turned to leave but his voice stopped her. “I’m sorry, Ruth. I was trying to be funny. It didn’t come across that way. What you have to say is important to me. Go ahead.”
She took a deep breath. “My husband did want us to be friends. You are right about that. He thought a great deal of you.”
“I loved him like a brother. There was very little I wouldn’t have done for him. I know it must not seem like that to you, but there were reasons I couldn’t stay on after the funeral.”
“It doesn’t matter. The past can’t be changed,” she said quickly.
Had she judged him unfairly? It went against the teachings of her Amish faith to judge any man, and yet what a man did was more important than what a man said. Owen had a poor record of dependability in her eyes. “Only Gott can see into the hearts of men and women. He is the ultimate judge of our thoughts and actions.”
“He knows my only intention is to aid you while Faron and Ernest are gone. If you can put the past aside, do you think we can become friendly if not friends for the weeks that I’ll be here?” There was a look of pleading in Owen’s eyes that belied the calm tone of his request.
She studied his face for a long moment. She would need help and she couldn’t afford to pay a hired man. Not if she was to make a decent profit on the lambs.
Was it a mistake to trust him? What choice did she have? She finally nodded. “I can do that.”
He smiled. “Danki. That means more than I can say.”
Ruth relaxed and the knot between her shoulders eased. It was only for a few weeks, and then Owen would be gone again and Faron would be home with his foolish need to travel out of his system and her life would return to normal.
Grace sat up straight. “Come listen to the story, Ruth. This is the good part where all the animals come to the ark.”
Ruth grinned at her. “What animals came to see Noah?”
Grace tipped her head. “How do you know his name is Noah?”
Owen chuckled. “I think she read this book to Ella and Faron many times when they were little.”
Grace seemed impressed. “I think there were elephants and camels and horses, but I don’t know why he let the spiders on. They’re yucky.”
“I agree. I think he could’ve left the mice off, too. I don’t like mice.”
Grace’s eyes grew round. “Mice are very quiet. In our game, Mamm says I have to be quiet as a mouse and she’s always happy when I am.”
“What game is that?” Ruth asked.
“The safe place game,” Grace whispered.
Ruth and Owen exchanged puzzled glances. He leaned forward a little to meet Grace’s gaze. “I’ve never heard of that game. How do you play it?”
“You show me the safe place. Then you say, ‘Go to the safe place,’ and I do.”
“This is a game you played with your mother?” Ruth asked.
Grace nodded. “Every day. Sometimes at breakfast. Sometimes at night. She tells me to go to the safe place and I run, run, run and hide.”
“What do you do in the safe place?” Owen asked.
Grace pressed both hands to her lips. “I’m quiet as a mouse, even if I hear yelling.”
Ruth wasn’t sure what to make of Grace’s story. “Did you hear yelling very often?”
“Sometimes. I stay quiet in the safe place until Mamm comes to get me. She says I’m the best mouse ever.”
“I’m sure you must be,” Ruth said as she glanced at Owen.
“Wanna play?” Grace asked hopefully.
“Sure. What makes a good safe place?” Owen asked.
Grace wiggled down from the sofa and studied the room. She walked around it once and then proceeded out into the hall. Ruth and Owen followed her. In the bathroom she opened the door on the vanity and looked inside. She stood up and smiled. “This might be a good safe place.”
“Okay, now what?” Owen asked.
Grace pointed out the door. “We go in the other room and you tell me, ‘Go to the safe place.’”
They followed Grace as she went back to the sofa and sat down. She picked up her book and began to turn the pages. Owen and Ruth sat down on each side of her. After a moment, Owen said, “Grace, go to the safe place.”
Grace dropped her book and ran out of the room. Ruth heard the bathroom cabinet open and close. She looked at Owen. “What sort of game is this? You’ve been to many other Amish settlements. Is it a kind of hide-and-seek?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve never heard of it. To me it sounds as if Grace’s mother was fearful something would happen to her child or maybe there was something she didn’t want Grace to see.”
Ruth shook her head in disbelief. “That is not the way Amish folk live their lives. Gott is our protection. We must accept the good and the sorrow in this world without question, for He allows it according to His plan and not ours. His goodness and mercy give us strength. What mother teaches her child to hide at all hours of the day or night?”
“A better question might be what is she hiding Grace from? When I first asked her what her father’s name was, she whispered, ‘I can’t say.’ I thought it was odd at the time, but that could be who her mother wants to hide her from.”
&nbs
p; “An abusive husband?” Ruth frowned as she digested that thought. She wasn’t naive. It was rare in their community, but she knew abuse happened in both the Englisch and Amish worlds. “I’m afraid we’re just guessing. Do you think this is something we should tell the sheriff?”
He nodded. “I do. If Grace’s mother is hiding from someone, that may be why we haven’t found her.”
“How do we contact the sheriff?”
“He will be back to see Grace before long.”
“How do you know that?”
“Unless they find her mother today, Grace is the only one who knows where her mother is. I figure he will question her again, hoping for some new clue.”
Owen’s prediction proved to be true. Ruth’s family and the sheriff returned a little after one o’clock. Melting snow had turned the gravel and dirt roads into slush. Everyone was peppered with mud thrown up by the tractor tires.
The sheriff took off his hat when he stepped inside. “Afternoon, Ruth. Is it okay if I speak with Grace again?”
“Of course. She’s in the living room with Owen. Any sign of her mother?”
“Nothing.” He walked away. She explained to her family about Grace’s strange game. No one knew quite what to make of it. Ruth nodded toward the kitchen. “I have food ready for you. Are you going out to search again?”
“We are,” Zack said. “I hate the idea of leaving tomorrow with this mystery unsolved and that poor woman still missing.”
“I agree,” Faron said.
“You can always postpone your trip,” Ruth suggested. “Or forget it altogether and stay home.”
“We did talk about it,” Ella said.
Ernest hung up his hat. “We have covered every road, lane and farmyard for five square miles without any sign of a stranded car. What the searchers really need is warmer weather. If I thought there was a chance of finding her, I’d stay, but I’m beginning to believe she isn’t out there.”
Ruth held her hands wide. “Grace didn’t fall from the sky. Her mother has to be somewhere.”
“Or maybe she drove away,” Faron said.
“What an appalling thing to suggest.” Ruth couldn’t believe Faron would say such a thing. “You think she put her child out in a snowstorm and then drove off and left her? I can’t believe that.”
Ella brightened. “That’s what I said to the sheriff.”
“And what was his reply?” Ruth asked.
Ella sighed deeply. “He says it happens.”
Ruth shook her head at the sorrow in the world. “If that is true, there are parents who need our forgiveness and our prayers. For themselves and their children. How very sad. Go in and get something to eat. I’m going to see what the sheriff has to share.”
* * *
OWEN LOOKED UP from his place on the sofa as Ruth entered the room. She was visibly shaken. He started to get up, but she quickly composed herself and came in to sit beside Grace, who was putting a puzzle together at a table by the window. The sheriff sat opposite the child. Owen relaxed but kept an eye on Ruth as well as Grace.
“I was just wondering if Grace remembered anything else about the night she arrived,” the sheriff said, turning his trooper’s hat slowly around in his hands. “Let’s start at the top, Grace. Where were you when you and your mother got in the car?”
“I told you.” She kept her eyes down.
“My memory’s not so good. Why don’t you tell me again?”
“We were at home.”
“Do you remember the name of the town?”
“Not in town. On Grossmammi’s farm but she isn’t there. She’s in heaven.”
“What’s your grandmother’s name?” Sheriff McIntyre laid his hat aside and pulled a notebook from his pocket.
Grace tipped her head to the side. “Grossmammi.”
“Did she have a last name like Granny Weaver?” Owen asked.
Shrugging her shoulders, Grace held her hands wide. “I don’t know.”
The sheriff closed his eyes. “Did your mother have blankets or quilts in the car? Did she have a suitcase?”
Grace shook her head.
“Where was she planning to go on this trip?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you going to the grocery store or to visit someone?”
Grace sighed with exasperation. “I don’t know.” Owen could see she was getting upset.
The sheriff softened his tone. “I’m sorry, Grace, but I have to ask these things. Anything you can remember might help. Did your mother often take trips in the car?”
“Nee, she drove Pansy and the cart.”
The sheriff perked up. “Who is Pansy?”
“Our pony. She’s black-and-white. Mamm says I’m too little to drive her, but I think I could do it.”
The sheriff looked up from his notepad and smiled at her. “Did the car belong to your mother?”
She gave him a don’t-be-silly look. “Amish can’t own cars.”
“That’s right. Did it belong to a friend of your mother’s?”
Grace’s expression turned guarded. “Not a friend.”
“Okay, the car didn’t belong to a friend. Who did the car belong to?”
She got down from her chair and came over to whisper in Owen’s hear. He glanced at the sheriff. “She can’t say.”
The sheriff’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t that what she told you when you asked her father’s name?”
“It is.” Owen leaned toward Grace and whispered, “Did the car belong to your daed?”
Tears spilled down Grace’s cheeks. “I can’t say. I want to go home now.”
“Honey, you don’t have to say. Just nod if it’s true.”
She crawled into his lap and buried her face against his chest as she nodded. He patted her back. “It’s okay. This is the right thing to do. It may help us find your mamm.”
“I want her to come get me. I don’t want to stay here anymore. I want to go home,” she mumbled against his shirt and began crying.
“I think that’s enough questions for now,” Owen said.
The sheriff looked disappointed. “Just one more and I’ll leave. Grace, did you and your mommy take the car the same day you ended up here?”
She sniffled and peeked at him. “I think so.”
The sheriff smiled at her. “That is a big help, Grace.”
Ruth held out her arms to the child. “I’ll take her upstairs. I think she’s ready for a nap.”
Owen handed her over and waited until the pair left the room. Then he turned to the sheriff. “Is it really helpful?”
“There are no databases on missing Amish women or teens. It’s rare that we even hear about missing children. Not all Amish communities are as comfortable sharing information with the law as this one is. I sent out alerts to law enforcement near the Amish settlements in Missouri and Kansas. So far nothing. If the Amish don’t come to the law for help, our hands are tied.”
“What about contacting the Amish directly?”
“How? There are hundreds of Amish communities in the US. Only a few have telephone listings.”
“I have contact information for 122 Amish bishops.” Owen got up and walked to where his coat hung in the entryway. He withdrew a small book from an inside pocket. He removed his sister’s letter from it and tucked the letter back in his coat pocket. Then he returned to the living room and held out the book to the sheriff.
“I spent more than twenty years searching for my little sister and my aunt. Wherever I went I collected the names and addresses of other local bishops. I wrote to them all. These should be current unless one of them has passed away. Becoming a bishop is a lifetime appointment. One more thing. Grace has this game she played with her mother where Grace has a special hiding place. She scurries to it when her mother told her to and didn’t co
me out until her mother asked her to. She found her own safe place here under the sink in the bathroom.”
“That’s odd.” He took the address book from Owen. “This could be useful, thank you. It doesn’t sound as if Grace’s mother had a good relationship with the child’s father. Did he loan her the car, or did she take it? If it was the latter, maybe her dad reported his car as stolen, even if he didn’t report his child and her mother missing.”
“How does that help you? There must be thousands of cars stolen across the US in a year.”
“There are but now we have a date to match up with any report. That will narrow the field considerably. If we concentrate on the ones closest to us, say within a day’s drive, and within twenty-four hours of when you found Grace, I think we can find the dad. Maybe he can tell us where Mommy went.”
“You don’t think she is out there in her car?”
“It’s possible the car is buried under a drift, but I’m starting to doubt it.”
“Are you calling off the search?”
“Not yet, but after that storm and the frigid temperatures, the odds of finding her alive are shrinking by the hour.” The sheriff settled his hat on his head and went out.
Owen was still sitting in the living room when Ruth came down. She sat in her recliner by the fireplace but didn’t take up her knitting.
“Is something troubling you?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.
“All of it troubles me.”
“I understand what you mean. The weather is warming up and the snowdrifts will be melting in a few more days. I’m guessing we will find her car at that time if not before.”
“Poor Grace. She has been through so much. Did you tell the sheriff about her safe place game?”
“I did before you came in the room. That is partly what leads him to think the father is the one who may be at the bottom of this.”
“I hope that isn’t the case.”
“So do I, but if Grace’s mother had anyone else to go to she wouldn’t have ended up out here in a community of strangers.”
“We shouldn’t give up so easily,” Ruth said, rising to her feet. “I’m going to join the searchers if you are okay with watching Grace.”
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