Disappearances (18 page)

Mark’s face was ashen. “I can’t do this Sadie. Please. I’m nothing. He’s an English man. A doctor. He’s so much more than me. He’ll laugh in my face.”

Sadie turned, her hands going to his coat front, giving him a small tug the way she would to a child as a way of slight rebuke.

“Stop it. Those feelings are of the devil, in Mam’s words. Don’t listen to them. Come.”

It was Sadie who led the way, who pressed her finger decisively to the ornate doorbell, who rocked back on her heels, lifted her chin, and smiled a much wider, braver smile than she felt.

A few seconds and the door opened, swung wide. A replica of Mark stood aside. An English replica, his black hair cut short, but the same eyes, the perfect mouth, a plaid button-down shirt tucked into relaxed jeans.

“Come in. You must be Mark.”

Mark nodded, his eyes flat, expressionless. He offered his hand and received a firm grip of welcome.

“Jackson.”

“Mark.” Then, “Do you remember anything about me?”

“Oh, yes.”

Mark introduced Sadie. Their coats and luggage were quickly whisked away by an older person Sadie could only guess was the housekeeper. They were led to a room with a fireplace crackling on the far side, facing beige and white chairs and sofas. Tables and various antique dressers holding tastefully displayed vintage items sat atop expensive rugs strewn across the worn oak flooring. Candles flickered on the mantle, lamps gave off a yellow pool of light, illuminating the room in small circles, as if they were a helpmeet to the stripes of sunlight stealing through the heavy wooden slats of the venetian blinds.

It was a lovely room. The touch of old decor mixed with new required an expert’s eye. Jackson was a year younger than Mark, or was it two? How had he acquired so much at this young age?

Sadie smiled at appropriate times, answered questions, but was so involved in her assessment of the room, she feared she’d be impolite.

Jackson was effusive in his welcome, and Sadie could tell Mark was responding, the hooded, evasive light in his eye replaced by a spark of interest, a small smile that wouldn’t be reined in too much longer.

They were joined by a heavy-set woman who floated into the room on waves of cologne, her dress swirling about her buxom figure in swirls of red. Her hair was dark, cut to just below her chin, her face wide with curiosity, taking an interest in everything surrounding her.

“Hi! I’m Jane. Just plain Jane,” she laughed.

Introductions followed, Jackson pulling her large form against him closely. He introduced her as his wife of exactly six months and a few days, Jane dipping and beaming, exclaiming at the likeness of the two brothers.

They were all seated and served coffee and tea before Jackson settled in for a serious talk.

“Yes, Mark, I do remember. Not everything, likely, the way you do, but I remember the bad times probably just as distinctly as you. The thing, the one single thing, that’s hardest for me is—how could she? How could our mother leave us hungry, uncared for, and simply drive away with that man? You know, it’s funny, but I don’t remember him at all. Can’t imagine his face, his features. That act of a mother abandoning her children is one of the biggest hurdles of my life.”

Mark nodded. “You feel as if there was something you did wrong. Like, perhaps if we had been better children, or we had done more, or looked better, she wouldn’t have done it. Like
we
failed
her
.”

Jackson watched Mark’s face, incredulous. Finally he shook his head. “I find it unbelievable to hear you say that. I thought I was the only one who wrestled with that demon of my past.”

Jane clucked her tongue, then laid her head reassuringly on her husband’s shoulder and was instantly gathered into the safety of his arm.

Jackson continued. “It was tough. Still is. I allow, though, it’s as tough as we let our past control us. The reason I studied medicine … it was a sort of block. The more I buried myself in my studies, the better I was. I was ravenous to learn, to move up the ladder, to excel, to prove myself worthy. I was far ahead in my classes, always. But it really was my saving grace. To stay busy, challenged, immerse myself—it just worked well. My foster parents had the money to put me through college, so I was very fortunate, I realize that. My dad is a surgeon. My mom is the greatest person on the face of the earth. I’m serious. I don’t know why the Lord smiled on me the way he did the day I was put in the foster system, but he did. They are my parents, my stronghold. It’s amazing to this day.”

Jane nodded, her eyes wide with emotion.

Sadie shrank inwardly when Mark cleared his throat and said gruffly, “Yeah, well.”

There was a space of silence where Sadie watched nervously, knowing Mark was fighting that internal battle of feeling worthless. He drank coffee, ran a hand across the knee of his trousers, fought to rise up against the tide of black nothingness his mother had pitched him into the day she left.

Then Mark lifted his ravaged eyes. “Yeah, well, you’re lucky.”

“I know that,” Jackson responded sincerely.

Then Mark launched into his own tale of the foster care system. The abuse, the existence of a loveless world, the hunger for stability, the batting around from home to home, unwanted, used, the drugs, the alcohol, and finally, his grandfather, the reason he became a member of the Old Order Amish church.

Jane got up and extracted a box of Kleenex from a heavy holder, dabbed her eyes daintily, clucked, and gasped, shaking her pretty head from side to side as Mark related his story.

“Wow,” Jackson breathed, finally. “What kept you sane?”

“I know what it’s like to walk on the edge, let me tell you,” Mark said, with a harsh laugh.

“Have you gone for counseling?”

“Oh, yes. A lot of good, positive feelings about myself and my past have come to light through counseling. It’s a good thing. God imparts wisdom to those people, I don’t doubt. I probably would not have made it through my early twenties if it wouldn’t have been for counseling.”

Sadie nodded.

“And Sadie.”

Sadie turned to Mark, a glad light in her eyes, met his own, ignited, but as was the Amish custom, they remained seated apart, awkward and ill at ease with any public display of affection.

“I’ll have to tell you how we met,” Sadie offered. She began a colorful account of the wintery day with Nevaeh lying in the snow, desperately flagging down the cattle truck that had been moving too fast to begin with. Mark laughingly explaining when you drive a rural Montana roadway, you do not expect to meet a half-dead horse and a very pretty girl in the middle of a snowstorm.

Jackson and Jane were delighted, and the conversation took a lighter turn for awhile, until Mark related the demise of their mother, the dark valley of guilt that finally brought her to her knees, the peace she had before meeting her Savior.

Jackson kept shaking his head, repeating, “Unbelievable. Absolutely.” The brothers struggled to restrain their emotions, then got up and left the room together, Jackson turning to Jane, saying thickly, “We’ll be back. Why don’t you show Sadie the rest of the house?”

Jane was just the most lovely personality, Sadie soon decided. She was bubbly without being overbearing, humble in showing Sadie her home, and genuinely interested in Sadie’s upbringing, her family, and the Amish culture.

They ended up in the surprisingly small kitchen, lined with tall dark cupboards and a bar with comfortable bar stools. Sadie perched while Jane served her another cup of ginger tea and made grilled roast beef and goat cheese sandwiches with spicy mustard and olives.

“I love these sandwiches,” she announced happily.

“I probably should have waited till dinner, but, oh, well. You knew Timothy was coming, didn’t you? We’re all going out to dinner later today.”

When the doorbell rang late that afternoon, the talking still had not ceased. Like the floodgates of a dam built into a levee, the river of words burst through and continued to flow, surrounding the two brothers with a sense of stability, closure, and certainly memories, both unpleasant and downright absurd, coming to light. Each was examined with a blood brother’s viewpoint and discarded or put away, leaving in its wake a new kind of peace, threaded with uncertainty, perhaps, but a peace, nevertheless.

As the afternoon wore on, shoes came off, feet were elevated on stools, pillows put behind backs, accompanied by a sense of brotherhood swirling about both of them, infusing their laughter, discovering how much alike they really were. They both loved fresh-squeezed lemonade without too much sugar, slept on their stomachs, had huge appetites, and had a cowlick on the left side of their foreheads.

Finally Jackson looked at the clock. “He said he’d be … be here around 4:00.”

“How much do you know about him?” Mark asked.

“Not much. He’s the only one who responded. You know Beaulah was killed in a car accident, in November of ’08?”

“Really?”

“Yes. She was hit by a fuel truck when she pulled out of a street in town. She lived in Ohio somewhere. She was 24 years old. Not married. I know very little about any of the others. I don’t know, maybe it’s just as well.”

“I agree. So, you never feel as if you’re being sucked into a giant whirlpool?” Mark asked suddenly with urgency, as if he needed to clear this with Jackson before Timothy arrived.

Jackson looked up sharply. “Why would I?”

“I mean, don’t you have days when you feel everyone is against you, and it’s just a matter of time until you can’t take another day of battling these feelings of inadequacy? Of not being enough?”

For a long while, Jackson said nothing, leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor between his feet. Then, “I guess I do.”

“Jackson!” Jane exclaimed.

“No, nothing serious, my darling,” Jackson said, sitting up and rubbing her soft shoulder with affection.

“It’s just that, yes, I know what you’re talking about. When that empty feeling does threaten, which is less and less, now, I put on my shoes and go running. I run for as many as seven or eight miles. It’s wonderful therapy.”

Mark nodded in perfect agreement. “I ran a lot.”

There was a distinct bell-like tone, and they all looked at each other.

“Timothy.”

Jackson nodded, went to the door.

Involuntarily, Jane touched up her hair, sat straight, while Sadie tucked a few stray hairs behind her white covering. What would Timothy say?

Jackson returned, followed by a strapping youth, his long, unkempt, dirty-blond hair hanging over his eyes, his ears, and well down into the hood of his gray sweatshirt. Loose jeans hung sloppily below the waistline of his boxers, the hem torn and scuffed, the threads gray from contact with the ground.

His eyes weren’t visible at first glance, until he picked up a hand and pushed his hair back, then everyone could see that they were as dark brown as his two brothers’. He had the same perfect mouth, but his teeth were brown and crooked, decay spreading across the neglected grayish-white objects in his mouth.

His cheeks were packed with deep scars where acne had taken its toll, the worst of it gone now that the teen years were behind him. He smiled an unsteady smile, an unsure separating of his lips that had nothing to do with his eyes.

“Hey.”

He shook hands limply, a mere sliding of a sweated palm against his two brothers’, a nodding in Jane’s and Sadie’s direction, his eyes glancing nervously at his feet, a small cough, a sniffling sound before tossing his hair to the side again.

“How y’ doin?” he muttered in the general direction of the women.

“Good. Good. It’s nice to meet you!” Jane said effusively.

Sadie murmured something, she wasn’t sure what, her throat swelling with the same emotion she felt that day when Nevaeh stumbled out of the woods, down the embankment, and crumpled her pitiful body onto the road, surrounded by that cold unrelenting snow.

Here was a youth surround by a cold, unforgiving, joyless existence. Sadie sensed in him the same hopelessness, the same victim of circumstances that had shaped his life so much beyond his control. She bit down on her lower lip, averted her eyes as goose bumps raced up her arms and across her back.

“Sit down, Timothy,” Jackson offered.

“It’s Tim.”

The words were spoken defensively, that self-conscious sniff following the words, as if the sniff sent the words out and supported them.

“Okay, Tim. So … you came. That’s good.”

“Yeah, well. I ain’t staying.”

“But you will have dinner with us?”

“Yeah.”

The first awkward silence of the day followed.

“So, you … want to tell us about yourself?”

“No.”

Mark said that was all right, he’d go first, and proceeded to tell Tim his life’s story. He got as far as the Amish uncle, when Tim lifted his head, the anger creating dark, brown fury, turning his eyes into blazing outlets of raw anger.

“I hate him.”

Mark’s eyes opened wide. “You know who I’m talking about?”

“Yeah.”

“Were you raised Amish?”

“Yeah.”

“Surely not by him.”

“No, but I know what he did to you.”

“How?”

“Word gets around.”

“Who raised you?”

“Aunt Hannah. The old maid. Till I turned 16. Then I left. Went to New York City. Big mistake. Came back. Hannah was dead. Heart attack. I stayed in the area among the Amish but never really went back. Guess I’m half-Amish. Remember all of it. It’s good, in a way.”

He shrugged his shoulders, picked at the hole in his jeans, pulled at a thread, then rolled it between his thumb and forefinger, unsure of what to do with it before straightening his back to put it in his pocket, blinking with a terrible embarrassment. As he lowered his head, the curtain of long hair obliterated him into the safety of his shell.

Sadie had to restrain herself from going to him, peering under that hair and telling him he was just fine exactly the way he was.

“So, what do you do?” Mark asked.

“I’m a roofer.”

With that he actually straightened up, flipped his hair back, and looked directly at Mark, a tiny spark of pride passing quickly through his brown eyes.