The Missing Read online

  “Because of Halloween, maybe?” Lettie couldn’t imagine another reason.

  “Maybe so. I don’t know so much about the English. It’s even become something of a tradition amongst the Amish here to pull tricks on each other—at least at harvest.”

  “Like what?”

  Susan laughed a little now. “Well, for instance, putting two buggies on top of a house. That happened not long ago.”

  “On the roof?” She could scarcely even picture such a thing! “How’d they get up there?”

  Susan gave a wave of her hand. “Oh, there’s ways, if you’ve got a bunch of young bucks with too much to drink.”

  There was some trouble with alcohol back home, too. Lettie shuddered to think of their young people choosing to go down that dead-end road. It seemed the newspapers made a heyday of that from time to time . . . playing up the rebellion of only a few of their youth to boost subscriptions.

  Now they were approaching the corner house. Lettie leaned forward cautiously to study its white clapboard and dark green shutters, watching for the culprits to come running across the lawn.

  She held her breath as the horse slowed up to make the turn at the corner and then hurried to a trot. With arms stiff, Susan held the reins. “Be sure and cover your eyes if something comes flyin’,” she advised.

  Lettie clenched her jaw, suddenly thinking of Judah. Did he ever worry about her, away from the safety of his covering and care? Poor man, he did not even know if she was living in the modern world or with their kinfolk.

  Wishing she’d written more details in her recent letter, she recalled his loving concern during her pregnancies . . . the tender way he had helped her in and out of the family carriage. Not so long ago. Would they ever have such tenderness between them again?

  The fond memory slipped away as the horse and buggy passed the white house and moved along the length of the backyard. “We’re almost in the clear,” Lettie said, hoping it was true.

  “For this trip, maybe.” Susan glanced at her, eyebrows raised. “Are you all right?”

  Lettie said she was. “Frankly, I wish you hadn’t told me. I’ll be ever so jittery now . . . there, at that corner.”

  “Well, if you come to town on your own, you’ll know what to watch for.”

  Lettie appreciated Susan’s concern.

  “My husband had a kindly way of unnerving those kids, back when he was still alive.” Susan’s voice cracked. “Vernon would turn and wave and grin at them while the rotten fruit just came a-flyin’. The nicest man I’ve ever known . . .”

  They were quiet for a time. Then Susan said softly, “Seems like just yesterday he was sittin’ here, driving me to town. Ach, I miss him so.” She dabbed at her eyes with a hankie. “Still, I wouldn’t wish him back, not since he’s gone to Glory.”

  Lettie’s heart went out to Susan. “How long ago?”

  “Nearly three years now.”

  Lettie shared that her dearest sister had also passed away. “Naomi was my closest friend . . . as well as my sister. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten over her passing.”

  “I know that feeling all too well.” Susan nodded knowingly. “And what a blessing when two sisters are that close.”

  “Oh . . . don’t misunderstand me: The Lord gave me some wonderful-gut siblings. But Naomi was mighty special. She not only loved me . . . she liked me, too.”

  “There is a difference.” Susan seemed more relaxed now. The lines lay loose on her lap. “Do any of your siblings live in Ohio?”

  Undoubtedly Susan was itching to know why she’d come to Baltic. “Most all my relatives are back in Lancaster County,” Lettie told her. It struck her once again that her grown firstborn son—or daughter—could very well be living nearby, unknown to her. The thought nearly took her breath away.

  “At the restaurant, you mentioned hopin’ to visit someone.”

  She drew in a shallow breath. “Jah, I’ve been looking but can’t seem to find this person.”

  “I wouldn’t mind helping . . . that is, if I’m not pushin’ my nose in.”

  Lettie hoped Susan wouldn’t be confused or even misled if she revealed her eagerness to locate a particular midwife. She considered what she ought to say, recalling that her mother often urged her to at least say something. To get the words out rather than to think it through till she knew precisely how to express herself. Sometimes that’s the hardest part of all.

  Feeling suddenly tired, she asked quietly, “Do you know of a woman in the area named Minnie Keim?”

  Susan frowned. “You mean Perry’s Minnie?”

  “Jah.” Lettie gave her a searching look.

  “Sure, I know her. She’s a well-known midwife . . . and a counselor for young girls. Unwed mothers, mostly.”

  “Oh?” Lettie’s hands went limp. “That’s just who I came to see.”

  “Well, I know right where she and her husband are stayin’.” Susan explained that they’d recently moved in with Minnie’s uncle and aunt, after Perry had been laid off and was unable to afford their rent.

  “How far from your place?” asked Lettie.

  “Three miles, if that.”

  Only fifteen minutes away by horse and buggy, she thought, her heart aching with anticipation. Soon, ever so soon, I’ll know something about my child. . . .

  chapter

  twelve

  The musky sweetness of lilacs hung in the air the next morning as Grace made haste to the stable. She’d gotten up extra early to be with Willow, anxious for even the smallest sign of improvement. “Such miracles are few and far between,” Adam had cautioned her yesterday after evening prayers.

  It had also been last evening that she’d bumped into Mammi Adah in the hallway, half hidden amongst its assortment of sweaters, black shawls, work jackets, and boots. There her grandmother had stood, face beet red in utter embarrassment, as if she’d been eavesdropping on the family’s time of Bible reading and prayer. Awful strange . . .

  For some time now, since before Mamma had left, Dat had been reading Scripture from the English Bible. Plenty of Amish folk did this, and it wasn’t against their bishop’s wishes . . . not like some Grace knew. Even so, it troubled her to think Mammi was spying on them. Or was she merely looking in on them with pity?

  Who’s to know, tight-lipped as Mammi Adah can be when it comes to Mamma.

  Grace knelt in the soft sawdust and pressed her face against Willow’s. “Hullo, sweet girl. Did ya sleep at all?”

  Grace was heartened to see the horse was more relaxed today, her injured leg not so tightly pushed up against her belly as before. How many feeble old horses had been nursed back to health with various home remedies passed from one neighbor to another? Adam and Joe had given her little hope last night at supper. Dawdi Jakob had sided with her and Mandy, arguing with the boys to give it more time—“and more homemade liniment, just maybe.” Mammi Adah had remained silent on the matter, which surprised Grace, now as she thought about it. Mammi wasn’t one to hold back her opinion, no matter what the supper table discussion.

  Grace touched Willow’s head, tenderly petting her. “You’ll be up soon and walkin’ round the barnyard, gut as new.” The words sounded deceptive even to her own ears as she looked at the beautiful horse lying there. God had made horses to sleep standing up.

  She wondered what Mamma would say if she knew of Willow’s condition. Surely she would be distraught, too. “Did Mamma tell you where she was going?” she whispered to Willow. “Did she come here and talk to you before her nighttime walks?”

  Grace had slipped out of the house several times to see if her mother was indeed pouring out her heart to Willow. Like I sometimes do. But she’d never seen her mother do any such thing.

  Willow turned her head slightly and gave a muffled whinny.

  “You know I’d make ya well if I could, hmm . . . ?” She leaned forward, rubbing the upper part of the mare’s injured leg as she softly hummed a hymn from the Ausbund.

  Then, sitting ev
er so still, she absorbed the sounds around her. From across the road, she thought she heard the soft babbling of Mill Creek. And then . . . the crunching of gravel underfoot.

  “Dat must be up already,” she said, still stroking Willow’s neck. “We’re all so worried ’bout you.”

  Grace heard a shuffling sound and the barn door creaking open.

  She turned toward the door, straining to see. If only there was a smidgen of light from the moon. But she’d crept here “on the deepest side of the night,” as Mamma sometimes referred to the span of time after midnight, before sunrise.

  Returning her attention to Willow, she said softly, “A lantern would help, jah?”

  When the footsteps were nearly upon her, she jerked around and saw the dim silhouette of a young man. She wouldn’t have known who it was, except that he spoke her name in such a gentle, hushed manner, she recognized him immediately. “Yonnie?” she asked. “What’re ya doin’ here?”

  “Same as you . . . looks like.” He squatted down close to Willow and opened a bottle of liquid that smelled like turpentine mixed with vinegar. Methodically, he began to apply it to the injured leg. “I mixed in some egg to make it creamy. My Dat always used this on our horses out in Indiana,” he said.

  Her eyes were accustomed enough to the darkness to see his hands making light, flowing circular movements.

  “You don’t mind, do ya? My comin’ here to help Willow.”

  “No.” She surprised herself by not thinking before speaking. Yet how could she say otherwise?

  “Gut, then.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe you misunderstood.”

  “Oh?”

  “Willow’s our pet.”

  “Why, sure she is, Gracie.” He clucked his tongue as he leaned closer to Willow. “And I can see why you’re fond of her. She’s one special mare. Mighty good-lookin’, too.”

  Grace was wary of his tender talk. What right did he have to sit out here in the dark like this with her wounded horse? Or with me, for that matter? “I best be goin’ inside.” She rose quickly.

  “Well, I’ll be right here.”

  She considered that. “Ain’t at all necessary, really.”

  “Jah . . .” He paused, and she waited to hear what he’d say. “Grace, I’m doin’ this for your father. Just so you’re clear on that.”

  She blushed in the darkness—she’d sounded awfully presumptuous. The air felt ever so still, as it often did just before dawn. In but a few minutes, Dat and Adam would come to look after the sheep and the new lambs, flinging their arms into jackets, their boot tongues flapping as they trudged into the barn. What would they think if they saw her here with Yonnie?

  “All right, then,” Grace said gently. “Make Willow gut and well . . . for Dat.”

  Martin Puckett’s van was filled with Amishmen. He was glad to be receiving frequent calls for transportation again, par ticularly since he’d lost some days of business following Lettie Byler’s disappearance last month.

  His wife was right—the strange rumors about his running off with Lettie had blown over, and he’d come out smelling like a rose, just as Janet had predicted. Her kiss as he left the house this morning had lingered on his cheek.

  Presently he was driving a whole smattering of farmers, carpenters, and one draftsman named John Stoltzfus to different locations. John, the youngest of the group, wanted to go to the Bird-in-Hand Family Inn, where he was to meet an out-of-towner.

  “His name’s Roan Nelson,” John told his cousin and the others in Pennsylvania Dutch. “To think a fella from Virginia with a good-payin’ job would want to pull up stakes and build smack-dab in the midst of us.”

  “Jah . . . what’s wrong with him?” said one, to which the passengers in the van burst into laughter.

  “Doesn’t this Roan fellow know he’ll be surrounded by slow-movin’ traffic?” said another. “And smelly road apples, too?”

  Martin smiled, enjoying all the fast-talking Deitsch. Eavesdropping was one of the perks of his job. Daily he heard tittle-tattle, putting the pieces to an enormous mosaic together in his head at the end of each week—the struggles of living “in the world but not of the world.” To think these good folk adhered to the lifestyle of another era altogether while living in the twenty-first century. Searching for happiness is like trying to catch a feather in the wind no matter who you are.

  “Hey, is Mr. Nelson the one who bought the undersized piece of land over on Gibbons Road?” asked John’s cousin.

  “That’s right,” said the oldest-looking man in the bunch. “I guess Roan Nelson told Preacher Josiah he’s always wanted to run a small farm of sorts.”

  “What’ll he grow on such a small acreage?” a farmer piped up from the backseat.

  “Guess he’ll have to get his house built first,” John replied. “Which is why I’m meetin’ him today . . . and his daughter, who’s staying over at Riehls’ for the summer. Preacher says Roan wants some Amish influence in the look of his house, but he also hired an English guy to rough out the blueprints.”

  Martin wanted to interject a niggling thought: Don’t you find it peculiar when outsiders want to live among you? The Amish he knew best wanted to keep their neighborhoods cloistered and free of worldly ways. Folks like Roan Nelson had a tendency to break down the long-held barriers within the Anabaptist community—bring in too much of a modern mentality. Martin assumed no amount of the contemporary world, even in small doses, was any good for the young people of this tight-knit community.

  “Why was that parcel of land sold off to an Englischer?” John’s cousin asked. “Who slipped a cog on that?”

  Several of the men chuckled, and one mentioned that a Mennonite named Bender was the original landowner. A man in the second seat spoke. “The way I heard it, the owner’s attention was caught mighty quick by the first person who came along with the right amount of cash in hand.”

  That was precisely what Martin had suspected, too. Some folk will sell most anything, if they’re desperate enough.

  But this Virginia businessman they were joking about . . . Martin was very interested in meeting him. Likely he would have the opportunity when he was hauling Josiah Smucker and his crew of workers over there every day.

  What’s Roan Nelson’s motive for worming his way into an Amish neighborhood, anyway?

  Heather badly needed a morning caffeine fix, but the naturopath had strongly advised giving up coffee—all day, every day. Anything with caffeine, including chocolate, she recalled. Even the green tea she was allowed to drink had to be decaf. As a result, she was dragging around like the old-fashioned string mop Marian Riehl used to wash her big kitchen floor. Once again, Heather had taken her supplements upstairs before breakfast, then downed two full cups of the Japanese green tea.

  She sat respectfully studying the rough blueprints in the pavilion near the Bird-in-Hand Family Inn, where her father had acquired a room last night. Her dad and the draftsman—an Amishman named John Stoltzfus, whom her father had met last month at an animal auction—sat across from her, drinking their coffee and tossing ideas around. The smell of the rich brew taunted her nose with its aroma.

  John finally posed a question directly to her. “Do ya see any changes you want to make, Miss Nelson?” A flat pencil was pushed through his cropped brown hair and perched just above his ear.

  “Well, let’s see.” She looked over the blueprints, wishing she felt more interest. She scrutinized the placement of the bedrooms but her thoughts wandered. It was still so disorienting to think her father was building a new house.

  What would Mom suggest they do about the number of proposed bedrooms? Wouldn’t she be heartbroken at all this talk of moving away from their longtime family home?

  As if to center her thoughts, Dad pointed to the sheet that depicted the upper level. “What about the layout of the upstairs bathrooms, kiddo?”

  His enthusiasm for the plan was evident in his cheerful tone. What sort of daughter discourages her widower father? �
��How about a private bath for the second bedroom?” she ventured.

  “Separate bath it is.” He leaned back and clapped his hands. Oh boy, Heather thought.

  Focusing on the floor plan was difficult, almost impossible, when she should be prying open her heart and telling Dad about her illness. And she wouldn’t mind his input on the Wellness Lodge program she was still deliberating. Insurance wouldn’t cover the cost, and it would be tough for her to devise a way to pay the considerable expense on her own. And, too, if she enrolled in the program ASAP, she’d be disappearing from life in general even more than she already had here in Amish country.

  Her father’s chin jutted forward as he moved his attention to the area of his future home office. What use will he have for an office here? she had to wonder.

  As she studied the blueprints more carefully, it seemed apparent a woman had been involved on some level. Maybe Josiah Smucker’s wife, Sally? The dining room was only a few steps away from the compact yet serviceable kitchen . . . where a smallish breakfast nook was situated near a fireplace at one end of the room. Perfect for morning coffee and sweet rolls, she thought, but caught herself. No . . . perfect for raw-milk yogurt smoothies and fresh fruit.

  “You look tired,” Dad said unexpectedly.

  She glanced up. “Guess I am.”

  “Late-night party?”

  “Right, Dad . . . with you at the buffet, pigging out, remember?” She smiled, feeling slightly embarrassed, thanks to the Amishman sitting across from them. “Besides, most people go to bed with the chickens around here. Isn’t that right?” She looked at John.

  The man chuckled, his beard touching his chest as he nodded.

  “I’d like to sign off on this today, but perhaps a short break would do us all some good.” Dad motioned for her to walk with him. “Excuse us, please,” he told John, who politely said he could use a moment to review the revisions up to this point. “My daughter needs to stretch her legs.”