The Crossroad Read online

  “How’s my sunshine?”

  She let go, stepping back, then twirled about to model her long floral skirt, blond hair fanning out around her shoulders. “What do you think? I made it without any help from Mom.”

  “Wow, is this the sewing project you told me about?” He eyed the new skirt. “So … along with your other talents, you’re a seamstress, too.”

  Kari beamed, still posing a few feet from the arched entrance to the dining room, where the table was set with Janice’s best dishes and tall white tapers, already lit for supper. Kari had chosen the perfect backdrop to show off her newly acquired domestic skill.

  “Hey, wait a minute. I think I may be underdressed for this occasion.” He unbuttoned his overcoat, pulling it open slightly to gaze down comically at his own clothing—dress slacks and a sweater.

  Kari giggled at his antics, her blue eyes twinkling.

  “You’re just fine, Phil.” Janice breezed into the living room, reaching for his coat. “Let me take that for you.”

  Philip exchanged a glance with Kari while his sister hurriedly hung up his coat in the entryway closet. “Hope you’re hungry,” she called over her shoulder as she sailed back to the kitchen.

  Kenneth Milburn, his brother-in-law, emerged from the hall study. “Good to see you, Phil. How long has it been?” He thrust out his hand, and Philip returned the warm handshake.

  “Weeks, I’m afraid,” replied Philip.

  “Too long,” said Kari, still spinning. “It’s about time for the London trip, don’t you think, Uncle Phil?”

  “London?” he teased, knowing she was definitely counting on him to follow through on an earlier promise.

  Ken smiled. “Give your uncle a chance to catch his breath,” he admonished with a wink. Then, turning to Phil, “I’ve heard nothing but good reports about your Vermont vacation. Kari and Janice talked of it for days. And it was educational, which was a real plus.”

  Kari followed her dad to the sofa and curled up on one end, while Philip took the wingback chair across from them. “Dad thinks most everything in life should be educational.” Kari grinned at her dad. “We toured Robert Todd Lincoln’s estate, where one of Abe Lincoln’s three remaining stovepipe hats just so happens to be on display. Can you believe it? Mom and I had Uncle Phil take our picture next to it. For posterity.”

  Philip chuckled. “Don’t forget the Norman Rockwell exhibit in Arlington,” he prompted her. “That was also educational.”

  She took the cue, describing the magazine cover illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post they had enjoyed. “We found lots of surprises in Vermont when we stayed at Great-Grandpap’s cabin.”

  Philip remembered. They had discovered some fascinating treasures on their daily treks through the woods. Things like a rusty horseshoe, old pennies, red and yellow leaves, and aluminum cans imbedded along the trail, which they picked up and deposited into Kari’s backpack to be recycled later. But it was the chatter between him and his niece that he recalled as being the most rewarding aspect of the trip. For some unknown reason, she had been curious about the Amish and their plain attire—especially the women’s clothing—so he had attempted to describe the details he remembered: the length of Susanna’s and Rachel’s dresses, the colors—not mentioning Rachel’s choice of gray for mourning—the cape-style bodice and high-necked, full-length apron, and of course, the white head covering. “Not a sign of makeup,” he’d told her. “But it’s funny, you really don’t notice.”

  “Is that because their cheeks are naturally rosy?” Kari had asked.

  He thought about that. “Well, yes, I suppose they are.”

  “Must be all the gardening they do.”

  He let his niece think the latter, though he knew for a fact that Rachel Yoder had not been one to expose her face to the sun. Yet she was beautiful—pink-cheeked—nevertheless.

  Kari had been so excited upon hearing his account that while they were still in New England, she decided to look for some fabric to sew a long skirt. He’d gone with Janice and Kari to a fabric store, following them around as Kari looked for the “perfect print.” The material instantly reminded Philip of another flower print dress he’d seen while in Bird-in-Hand. It was very similar to a dress he had seen on Emma, the Mennonite woman who owned Emma’s Antique Shop.

  So here was Kari, presently modeling the finished project. “It’s as pretty as you said it would be,” he told her. “I’d say you could compete with any Plain woman I know!”

  With that, she burst into laughter again, and he felt the heat creep into his face. “Oh, so you do know a lady in Lancaster County.” She turned away, calling for her mother. “Mom! Guess what—Uncle Phil has a secret love in Amish country.”

  Secret love …

  When no reply came from the kitchen, Philip was more than relieved. No sense exposing that part of his Pennsylvania sojourn. He preferred to keep his passing interest in Rachel Yoder under wraps. That way, there could be no misunderstanding.

  “What sort of grade did your mom give you on your sewing project?” he asked, changing the subject rather naturally.

  “B plus.” Kari shrugged. “Mom doesn’t believe in perfection, you know.”

  Philip wondered how his sis was managing the home- schooling program she and Ken had chosen this year. “How’re you doing in language arts?” Dramatically, he pulled out a pen and tiny note pad from his shirt pocket.

  “Oh, so you’re going to take notes?” Quickly, Kari fluffed her hair. “Is this an interview?”

  “Just checking up, that’s all.”

  Her face shone with delight. “Tell Uncle Phil how school’s going, Dad.”

  Ken nodded, smiling. “Janice gives Kari plenty of writing assignments, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

  “Glad to hear it.” His niece had real writing talent, quite a surprising way of expressing herself. “Tell me about some of your essays.” He knew they existed because she’d dropped hints several times on their hiking trips.

  “She’s written some excellent poetry, too,” Ken added.

  “Oh, Daddy, please.”

  “No, really, hon. I believe you may be following in your uncle’s literary footsteps.”

  Philip had begun his early writing career by jotting down free verse during adolescence. He preferred to think of that youthful time as purely a phase, mainly because he had felt caught up in the tension of those turbulent years. But when he emerged safely into his early twenties, it was journalism that called to him. Not poetry.

  He put his pen and note pad away. “So you’re going to be a girl after my own journalistic heart.”

  “I’m not a girl, Uncle Phil. I’m almost a teenager!”

  “Hang on to your youth, kiddo.” With that, he found himself pummeled with sofa pillows. Even Ken joined in the trouncing, picking up pillows and tossing them to Kari.

  It was Janice’s dinner bell and “Time to wash up for supper” that brought their rambunctious play to an end.

  “We’re having pork chops,” Kari announced after they’d taken turns washing hands.

  “Really? Where’d you get the recipe?” Philip asked, nearly forgetting himself.

  Janice’s brown eyes shot daggers across the table. “What do you mean, where? It’s my recipe…. I’ve been making it for fifteen years.”

  He would not reveal his thoughts—that Kari’s innocent announcement and the tantalizing aroma of broiled pork chops had sent him drifting back to another supper, served with an astonishing array of colorful and tasty side dishes, freshly baked bread and real butter, various condiments, and sumptuous desserts.

  It was well after supper when Philip brought up the subject he had been researching on the Internet—the treatment for various hysterical disorders. Especially blindness. He hadn’t fully understood Susanna Zook’s comments on the phone the day he’d called Rachel to say good-bye. But after mulling it over, pieces of the full picture were beginning to come together. He was especially curious a
bout any information Ken might have, as he was a nurse and rubbed shoulders with doctors on a daily basis.

  “Tell me what you know about conversion disorder,” Philip said later as Kari helped Janice clear the table.

  Ken scratched his chin, leaning back in his chair. “It’s rare, but we see it on occasion at the hospital. Why do you ask?”

  Philip hesitated, uncertain how to proceed. How much should he reveal? How much of Rachel’s situation did he really know? “I think I may have come across a case of hysterical blindness … in Lancaster County.”

  Ken frowned, apparently concerned. “Do you know what caused it?”

  “Not all the particulars, but the person did witness the death of two family members and her unborn child.”

  Janice emerged from the kitchen with dessert plates. “Was this someone Amish?” she asked.

  Nodding, Philip hoped he wouldn’t have to say much more. He wouldn’t feel comfortable discussing Rachel Yoder—even with his family.

  “There really isn’t any treatment other than psychiatric care,” Ken said, shrugging. “It would depend on the cause of the conversion disorder and the extent of denial and repression.”

  This sort of terminology had been used on the various Web sites Philip had located when he did his investigating late at night on forms of hysteria—the term Rachel’s mother had mentioned. At the time, though, he’d just assumed she was merely flinging angry words. But the more he thought about it, the more he believed that Susanna had not misrepresented the situation to him at all.

  “I don’t know about the denial angle.” He didn’t want Ken or Janice to guess just how much time he had already spent on his net-search. Fact was, the pace with which he had kept at it—feverish at times—had cost him more than a few nights of sleep.

  Yet something urged him to find a way to help Rachel Yoder. She was missing out on her daughter’s life, her precocious little Annie. And as much as he loved children, he was dismayed by that fact alone. So he had worked diligently over the past months, reading accounts of patients who’d received various kinds of intervention, though he assumed Rachel would be resistant to anything involving hypnosis or other forms of New Age therapy.

  So he would continue to seek out medical opinions, talk to Ken and Janice—in a vague sort of way—and most of all, to pray. At some point he would decide how he should go about contacting the Amish widow. That is, if he chose to reach out to her directly. He’d thought of sending information her way, though with Rachel unable to see, the data might very well fall into her parents’ hands, serving no purpose whatsoever.

  Recent correspondence with Adele Herr had shed some light on the fact that Adele and Lavina Troyer, Adele’s longtime Amish friend, still kept in touch through letters. He had actually considered Lavina the better choice for getting the information to the Bird-in-Hand area but had yet to do anything.

  Ken’s comment brought him back to the conversation at hand. “I’d recommend your friend getting some group grief counseling, for starters.”

  Grief counseling …

  It was almost impossible to imagine Rachel seated in a circle of chairs, surrounded by non-Amish folk, pouring out her heart amid strangers, both because of their cultural differences and because she seemed quite shy. No, he couldn’t imagine her attempting such a thing. Too, the way he perceived the Amishwomen’s interconnectedness in the community, no doubt there was a close bond of candor and affection among the womenfolk. More than likely, Rachel had already talked out her memories, her sorrow, and her ongoing emotional feelings of loss.

  “I’ve read that grief counseling can help a person know they aren’t going crazy—that they are experiencing the same sort of symptoms as other members in the group,” Ken added.

  “That, along with a feeling of camaraderie,” Janice spoke up, pulling her hair back away from her face, only to let it fall down over her shoulders again. “No one should face a grief situation entirely alone.”

  “Just so the person doesn’t become too dependent on the group,” Ken interjected, “so much so that he or she gets ‘stuck,’ continuing to focus on the grief event rather than growing beyond it.”

  “Guess I’ll have to go to work with you sometime … so you can introduce me to your shrink friends,” Philip quipped.

  Ken responded to Philip’s jest with a hearty laugh. “The only so-called shrinks I know are brain surgeons.”

  That got all three of them laughing, just in time for Kari to serve up Janice’s surprise dessert of the evening—apple pie à la mode, warm from the oven. The cinnamonrich smell tickled his memory again, buttering the Lancaster County scenes in his mind’s eye with vivid sensory recollections.

  Philip turned the key in the lock, opening the door to his thirtieth-floor Upper Manhattan apartment. On the wall of windows, he noticed the reflection that crept up from the streetlights far below. They cast a silvery glow over the living room walls, tables, and sectional.

  He double-locked the door. Then, instead of turning on the lights, he allowed his eyes to grow accustomed to the dim surroundings. Feeling his way across the wide tiled entrance and toward the living area, he was able to make out more of the furnishings—the long chalkcolored sectional and matching chair, as well as the artsy decorator touches he had scouted out at various bazaars and art exhibits over the past few years. In the absence of interior light, the longer he groped his way toward the windows, the more he was able to see.

  He stood near the central window and stared down at the still busy street, ablaze with red and yellow bands of color. He thought of Rachel, blind by choice, though in no way to blame for it. And he thought of bright-eyed Annie, offering her own sight—her little-girl perspective—on their noncomplicated world. It was not his place to attempt to alter things for them, to stick his nose back into their lives on the slim premise of making things better. Besides, Rachel might not embrace the prospect of regaining her sight as something better at all, although he would certainly assume so. No doubt she had been a sighted person prior to the accident that took her husband’s and son’s lives. Yet she had seemed somewhat content with her state, though he could only speculate on the matter, due to the fact that he’d scarcely had time to really know her. But, surprisingly, what he had discovered about her—her lack of artifice and pretense—well … simply put: He missed Rachel’s old-fashioned mannerisms.

  In contrast to his world, where women willingly and purposefully climbed corporate ladders, it was refreshing to learn that meekness and gentleness were alive and well in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country.

  Even despite the rousing discussion with Senator Thomason this very afternoon—thoroughly enjoyable, since the senator himself craved the writing life—Philip recognized that in the depths of his soul he truly longed for something fresh and new. So he had come upon an unexpected fork in the road of his journalistic career—aware of his own talents, yet desirous of a saner pace and setting in which to work. He had shared these concerns openly with Lily—that is, Adele, as she now insisted on being called—in a recent letter, detailing his soul-searching, explaining how many aspects of life in the village of Bird-in-Hand had strongly appealed to him. He’d let her know, too—as a young man might share with his own mother or father—about his purposeful return to his faith, his renewed journey to know the Lord. And he had mentioned this to his parents, as well. But Adele … well, there was just something about the woman that allowed him to be completely candid with her.

  Adele had replied within a few days of receiving his heartfelt letter. All of us, at one time or another, must make a choice, she’d written back. I’m delighted to know that you are relying on God’s help with your ‘fork in the road,’ as I should have, back when I lost my way spiritually. He knew she had allowed the disappointments of life to lead her astray. Philip had read and reread the passage so many times, he’d come to memorize it.

  Thankfully, he wasn’t standing at such a crossroad, but when the time came for him to choose a
life mate, he would hope to make his decision based on God’s will.

  One thing for sure, in the next weeks he would make a conscious effort to fight off the impulse to entertain even the most subtle thoughts of a plain and simple country Christmas, possibly a few stolen hours with Rachel and her young daughter in the delightful farming village.

  From his perspective—where he stood this night—Rachel Yoder and her People were light years away… .

  At last he turned from the window, disallowing himself the luxury of the track lighting overhead to guide the way to his writing studio, even closing his eyes to experience something of what it might be like not to see.

  Then, fumbling about, he located his office chair, desk, and the computer and monitor, permitting his fingertips to direct him. Eyes tightly shut, he felt his way to the On button, then waited for his computer to boot up. Even before opening his eyes, Philip’s thoughts raced ahead to his nightly research of conversion disorder, namely blind hysteria.

  Four

  What’re we gonna do for you on your birthday?” Susanna Zook asked her younger sister, Leah, as the two women darned socks in Leah’s warm kitchen.

  “Ach, ya know better’n to bring up such a thing,” said Leah, flashing her brown eyes.

  “Well, why not? A body only turns sixty once.”

  “And fifty-nine once, too!” Leah, on the round side of plump, stood up and laughed over her shoulder as she prepared to pour another cup of hot black coffee.

  Susanna shook her head. “Oh, go on. You can’t mean it.”

  “I’m sayin’ what I mean, Susie. You just listen to me ’bout this birthday nonsense.” Leah placed two steaming mugs on the table. “Seems to me a person oughta have a say in how she celebrates—or doesn’t.”

  “S’pose we oughta do something extra special for a stubborn sort like you,” Susanna shot back.

  “Mark my words, if there turns out to be a party or some such thing, I’ll know who’s to blame.” She wagged her finger in Susanna’s face.