Disappearances (25 page)

Tim laughed. “At least they had enough to eat.”

“Right.”

Sadie could not begin to fathom the times of hunger, of not having the security of Mam and Dat, her sisters, the loving home. Yes, their family had problems, still had, but not without the foundation of God and good parenting. The path Mark explained was completely foreign to Sadie. That same evening they sat up late discussing the Amish church, the rules of the
ordnung
, the new birth, what was expected of Tim when the time came and he dedicated his life to God, accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior, took up instruction class, and was baptized into the church.

It was a long and serious conversation. Tim stumbled as he tried to explain what kept him from committing his life to God. The year of not being good enough, mostly. Mark told Tim how that had been the biggest hurdle for him as well. Grasping the fact that God loved him just as he was. That just blew him away. He explained the years of counseling, the difficulties after he met Sadie, his inadequacies.

Tim kept nodding, understanding. Then, “How’s Anna?”

Sadie looked up sharply. “Why?”

Tim shrugged his shoulders. “It’s been awhile since I heard anything.”

“You think she’s pretty bad?”

“Yes, she is. I’m not sure if my girlfriend was any skinnier when they hospitalized her.”

A dagger of fear shot through Sadie. “You can’t mean it.”

Tim nodded. “She desperately needs counseling. Although … I don’t know. I learned a lot with my former girlfriend. If I could see her more, talk to her, I might be able to help her some.”

“We can invite her over.”

“She wouldn’t come if she knew I was here.” Tim kicked the table leg self-consciously, resorting to his usual sniffing.

“She might.”

Then Tim lifted his head and asked a completely surprising question, “Do I have to change my life completely to be able to date … um … someone?”

“You mean follow the Amish way?”

Tim nodded.

“It’s encouraged, but not every couple is a member of the church before they begin dating,” Mark answered.

Tim kicked the table leg again, then left abruptly and went to bed.

The new veterinarian came out, prescribed a different antibiotic, and left, leaving a 200-dollar bill before driving off in his new red Hummer. Mark ground his teeth in frustration. Sadie bedded Paris with extra straw to relieve her feet from any hard surface. She felt as if her heart could break into pieces, watching Paris change positions painfully from one foot to the other, over and over, her head bent, her eyelids half closed as she patiently bore the excruciating pain. Wolf would enter the barn with Sadie, then whine and cry outside her stall, as if he wanted to help but was unable.

Mark talked to Steven Weaver, who said he remembered hearing an old remedy for foundering, but he forgot who said it or what it was. He’d write to his grandfather in Indiana. Richard Caldwell got on the Internet, his remedy for everything, but said he couldn’t find any information other than what the veterinarians had told them.

Mark said he vaguely remembered the Jewish butcher on Second Street coming up with old remedies for animals, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember what it was.

Sadie brought apples and carrots, bits of cookie crumbs, even a few raisins, which Paris lipped off her extended palm halfheartedly, then turned her head away. Sadie even braided her mane and tail the way she did when she was a single girl at home. She braided a length of pink ribbon into the creamy colored hair, then stood back to admire it.

She would get better, wouldn’t she? These antibiotics would work, surely. For awhile, it seemed as if they would. Paris was eating better, her eyes looking only a bit brighter, but definitely not clouded with the same pain as the week before. Sadie was ecstatic.

Anna came to check out Paris’s progress, only to be completely struck when she saw this poor, sick horse sagging against the wooden slats of the stall’s divider. Anna tried to contain her emotions, but the tears spilled over on to her pale cheeks. She looked over at Sadie beaming proudly through the door.

“She’s getting better!” she announced confidently.

“Sadie! She’s so sick! I had no idea.”

“Oh, no, Anna. She’s a lot better than she was.”

And now Anna understood. She could not reach Sadie to tell her Paris was dying.

Was Anna the same? Sadie could not reach her to tell her she was starving.

Sadie was blind when it came to relinquishing her desperate hold on her horse.

Was Anna as blind when it came to seeing why she controlled her determination to be stick-thin? For Neil? For that controlling person who hurt her over and over?

Anna’s heart cried out for help, for herself as well as for Paris. I’m so stupid, God. Sadie is so pathetic, God. Humans are all pretty much in the same boat, aren’t they?

When Tim came to the barn, he found two sisters holding onto each other as they grappled with the bitter struggles of their lives. He backed away silently, lifted the iron latch, and slowly moved through the door out into the biting cold.

H
E TURNED AS THE
latch clicked again and watched as Sadie stumbled through the door, then bent her head to gain momentum as she started running to the house, her only thought to be with Mark as soon as she possibly could. Tim waited, and when Anna did not appear, he turned back, hesitant at first, then decisively. He found her with Paris, a bewildered look in her eyes as she raised her head to find Tim watching her.

“She’s not going to make it.”

Tim nodded.

“Sadie will grieve terribly.”

“Yeah.”

Anna gave Paris a final pat, sighed, then turned, her eyes luminous in the flickering yellow light of the kerosene lantern. She stood, her arms loose inside the too-large sleeves of her heavy, black coat, her thick, dark hair too heavy for her thin, almost translucent face. She shifted her feet self-consciously, bit down on her lower lip, then, as if reaching an agreement, said his name too loudly.

“Tim.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think … do I … ?”

There was a long, painful silence as Anna tried to muster all her courage, her low self-esteem putting up a visible battle. She cleared her throat, jammed her thin, white hands into her coat pockets, then raised her head quite suddenly.

“Paris is going to die, right? There is no such thing as a miracle, right?”

Tim gazed at an object over her head. He would not meet those large eyes, so full of hope already lost.

“They’re few and far between.”

She nodded. She looked behind herself, then lowered her small frame to a bale of fragrant hay. Tim reached down and pulled another bale out, facing her as he sat down, his large hands on the knees of his jeans, as if he was unsure what he should do with them. Neither said anything. Truman scraped his halter across his wooden feedbox with a heavy rumbling sound. Duke snorted, a wet slobbering sound from the automatic water trough built between the two stalls. A black cat slunk along the stable wall, saw them, and quickened her slow creeping pace. The wind rattled a loose piece of spouting in a quick, staccato rhythm, then quieted down. Anna pulled a loose piece of hay out from beneath the baler twine, chewing it reflectively.

“You’re eating,” Tim observed dryly.

Anna looked startled, then caught the twinkle in his eye, her lips parted as she smiled timidly. “Guess I am.”

“Feel free to eat the whole bale.”

Anna laughed. The sound was new to Tim. It was the loveliest thing he had ever heard, a gentle, deep-throated, genuinely delightful sound from this frail, captivating girl. He had never heard her laugh.

She paused, tilted her head sideways, and said, unexpectedly, “Am I so thin?”

Tim searched for the right answer, took his time. “You’re too thin, yes.”

“How much too thin?”

“Hospital thin.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You are not serious.”

“Yes. I am dead serious.”

“Well … ”

Anna stopped, looked at her black, fur-lined boots, then lifted her head to find his gaze, kind, patient, and above all, understanding.

“I … sort of … back there with Paris, when Sadie stood there with all that false … believing … hope, whatever it was, making herself believe her horse was getting better, when in reality she’s dying. I … Well, Tim, that’s me.”

She said his name! The most unique way he had ever heard it pronounced. Tee-yum. Oh, say it again, he thought. Please say my name again. But he said nothing.

“That’s me,” she repeated. “I have to stop forcing myself to throw up. I do it a lot. It’s so repetitive, it’s like going to the bathroom or washing my hands. Eat enough to suit Mam or Dat or Leah, whoever, feel like I weigh 300 pounds, wash dishes, slip away, and … and … well, it’s easy to make your stomach obey after you get the hang of it. Am I out of control, do you think?”

“Sounds like it.”

“I don’t do it every time I eat something. Just mostly. I was dating Neil and he … he … He’s really cute. All the girls wanted him. He likes his … girls thin, he said. I guess it was Neil’s fault. I just tried to get too thin.”

Tim shook his head. “Wasn’t the guy’s fault.”

“Why not?”

“Your own, more than likely. You were trying to control him, yourself, your whole life, feeling if you were only thin enough, he’d settle down, quit his ways, marry you. Am I right?”

Anna nodded, the pain of hating herself contorting her beautiful mouth.

“He never loved you.”

“He said he did!”

Her head came up, her eye’s black with rebellion.

Tim shook his head.

Anna spluttered, searched for words, then dropped her head miserably.

“Sorry. Don’t mean to hurt you. I had a girlfriend once who was probably about as thin as you. She was hospitalized. We almost lost her. She had to remain hospitalized, went for extensive counseling, nothing helped. She died.”

Anna’s eyes were very large and dark. Her thin hands came up to cover her mouth. “No!”

“Yes. She died so completely mixed up in her own world of suffering.”

“Was she a Christian?”

Tim shrugged. “She was very young.”

“Do you still love her?”

Tim said nothing.

“I miss her, I guess,” he said finally.

“I won’t die. I’ll eat.”

“You have to stop making yourself throw up first. Go for counseling.”

“I’ll ask God.”

“You feel as if he’ll hear you?”

Anna shrugged.

“Did you ever become a Christian, Anna?”

“Amish people are Christians always. From the time that we can sit on our Dat’s knee and listen to Bible stories, we’re Christians. We know who Jesus is and God and the devil, and the end of the world and hell and heaven. We’re just sort of raised with all of it.”

“Yeah, Aunt Hannah, the church, the neighbors, all of that, I know what you mean. But sometime, we have to go through that time of taking responsibility. We’re lost, need a Savior. I’m about to start … thinking I need something … or somebody.”

“You mean, get married?” Anna asked, innocently.

“No, I mean, I’m seriously thinking of giving my life to God. Repenting of my past life, accepting Jesus, that whole bit.”

He could feel his face becoming warm. He felt ashamed, lowered his head, his hands hanging loosely between his upturned knees.

“Was your past life very sinful?”

“Yeah. It was bad.”

“Then you need to go talk to Jesse Detweiler. He’s one of the best ministers for the youth to talk to.”

“Will you join the church if I do?” he asked boldly.

“I’m young.”

Tim nodded.

“Why are you going Amish?” she asked.

He found her gaze, held it. She lowered her eyes first, a slow blush creeping up her cheeks.

“Anna, I was raised in the Amish church by my Aunt Hannah, a single, maiden lady. As small and round as a barrel, and rolling around her house, gaining momentum as the day wore on. She was a spitfire! Energy to spare. The house was immaculate, her garden a picture of tilled soil producing tons of vegetables. She’d yell at me for tracking mud into the house, for spilling juice, for everything. But she loved me fiercely. She’d fight with parents of kids who made fun of me, protected me. I had no Mam and Dat.

“It’s Hannah who makes me want to come back. Everything about her life I want for my own. The peace she had. She’d rock on her front porch, listening for the whip-poor-wills behind the house in the mountain. She loved her birds, as she called them. Could tell the name of every bird she heard.

“She chewed people out when she thought they deserved it, but she’d go to their house with a huckleberry pie the next day. She loved God, said she couldn’t die until I became a born-again Christian.”

“How are you going to do that?” Anna asked.

“I don’t know. I guess just tell God that I want to be a new person, accept Jesus, then go talk to Jesse Detweiler like you said.”

“Some people have a very big experience, as if God is talking to them. Did you?”

Tim could tell that Anna was a very innocent, young Christian, not sure exactly how much she understood.