Disappearances (3 page)

Yes, he believed it was as serious as the men had said. Paris would have to go to an undisclosed location, despite Sadie’s vehement protests that Paris would be perfectly all right in the barn.

“Who knows I got married and live with Mark now?” she finished, a note of rebellion hanging on the question.

“You want my personal opinion, Sadie? You better do what you’re told. Until this whole thing is cleared up, anyway.”

Sadie said nothing, still hoping for a chance to keep Paris in the barn where she would be perfectly all right, thank you very much.

However, they agreed to tell Dorothy about the children together. When she was called into the office, she waited a good 10 minutes before making her appearance, then blew through the door, prickly with irritation, sat solidly on a leather wing chair, then almost slid off, her short legs putting a halt to it by digging into the carpet, definitely not helping her dignity.

“Now what do you want, Mr. Caldwell?” she said, putting all the impatience she could into the “Now.”

“This is very important, Dorothy,” Richard Caldwell said soberly.

“Hardly more important than my roast of beef. That Erma don’t know how to trim it, so she don’t.”

Sadie squelched a giggle. Erma Keim had only one name here at the ranch, and it was “That Erma.”

Continued combat, she thought.

Richard Caldwell assured her it was much more important than roast beef and proceeded to tell her in a level, quiet voice everything that had occurred, which left poor Dorothy rocking from side to side in agitation.

“Oh, come on now, they can’t take my babies. They’re in school! You can’t take kids out of school. They’re mine. I don’t care if those men say they’re the government, you can’t take kids out of school.”

With that, she pulled a bobby pin out of her gray hair and dug so viciously in one ear that Sadie was afraid she’d never find it again. Dorothy remembered what she was doing and put it back in her hair, clearing her throat self-consciously.

A wave of pity rolled over Sadie’s heart. Dorothy was so small and plump, her polyester slacks too short around the ankles, her beige shoes from the Dollar General splattered with bacon grease, her multicolored shirt exposing too much of her wrinkled neck, a cloud of bluster and sense of self riding solidly on her gray head.

Richard Caldwell went on explaining patiently. If they found the mother of their children and she was proved innocent, Dorothy would have to give them up.

Shaking a plump finger in Richard Caldwell’s direction, Dorothy told him the Lord had sent Marcelona and Louise; they were her beloved angels sent straight from heaven, and he’d not allow them to be taken away. And don’t you kid yourself, she was going to go back to her roast beef, and if he wasn’t going to do anything about Erma Keim trimming off too much fat, then she’d have to do it herself, or he’d be eating a roast beef that had the taste and texture of good shoe leather, and she meant it.

She slid off the leather chair after that display of territorial words and bustled straight back to the kitchen, leaving a vapor of martyrdom behind her. Richard Caldwell shook his head, then exploded in a volcanic bellow of laughter that brought one just like it from Sadie.

They wiped their eyes, smiled, then agreed to let it go. They had told her the truth, and now it was up to Dorothy to accept it.

Sadie vacuumed and dusted, scoured bathrooms, and as always, thoroughly enjoyed cleaning this grand house. There was just something about being in a home as beautiful as this that fulfilled a sense of longing for the finer things in life.

In her circles, Sadie knew this lust of the world, this lust of the eyes, was accompanied by a firm denouncing of it. She was admonished to take up the cross, deny herself, and follow the narrow path of Jesus, which she felt was good and right. Sadie wanted no life other than the one she led, the goal of which was to live in a way that would lead to heaven.

That was how she was born. Amish. To parents who wanted this way of life, this security for their children. The heritage passed on from generation to generation.

It was hard to explain when English people asked questions, implying the senselessness of driving a horse and buggy or having no electricity. And if it was so wrong, why ride in a car at all?

It wasn’t wrong for Richard and Barbara Caldwell to have their beautiful home. They were living their lives the way their parents lived theirs, doing what, to them, was right. That was fine.

Sadie loved her employer and his wife, defending their lifestyle if anyone dared say anything negative. They were kind, caring people, who did what was right for their employees, even if they lived lavishly, according to Amish standards. She would never judge them.

She stopped in the upstairs bathroom to lift the slatted wooden blind and gaze out across the snowy ranch land. It spread as far as the eye could see, the scenery so beautiful it could take your breath away, especially in winter.

She would have to ride Paris this evening. One more time before they took her away. Paris loved the snow, taking great plunging strides, spraying clouds of it when she ran, the cold air slamming into Sadie’s face, Reuben at her side, yelling and laughing.

She’d have to leave a message for him on her parents’ phone. Maybe he could ride over tomorrow after work.

As it turned out, Reuben had to work late. Dat started a new log cabin that needed the concrete poured for the footer before the next snow arrived.

A week later, the government men came and took Paris away. Sadie refused to watch, throwing herself on their bed, shutting out any sound with the pillow clamped over her head as tightly as possible. She lifted it cautiously to listen for any sounds before emerging from the bedroom, her ears red, her eyes swollen from crying.

Catching sight of herself in the mirror, she was shocked to see how old and careworn she appeared. So she took a shower, changed to a dress the color of cranberries, brushed her teeth, and decided to grow up and stop being so immature about Paris. She was just a horse.

Then Sadie thought of Paris stepping down from that trailer after a long cold journey, her large brown eyes with the thick, bristly lashes looking at everyone and everything with so much trust in them. Sadie’s lips trembled, her nose burned, and she started sobbing all over again.

Mark told her to go home and spend the day with her mother and sisters. She needed it.

And that’s exactly what she did, being greeted with cheers and hugs and coffee and French toast, maple syrup and chipped beef gravy, fried cornmeal mush, and Mam’s perfect dippy eggs.

Leah was working at her cleaning job, but Rebekah and Anna were at home. They caught up on the latest news, the life of dating, being with the youth, their work, Reuben turning 16 before too long, and Mam’s concern about Reuben’s time of
rumspringa
, literally translated as “running around,” which is exactly what the youth did after they turned 16.

Mam was in high spirits, making them all laugh with stories about the last quilting she had attended. She had to get started piecing Leah’s Mariner’s Star quilt, with the feeling goading her that Kevin had marriage on his mind.

“But, can you imagine, a Mariner’s Star in black and beige? It’s enough to give me the blues. All that black!”

“Get Fred Ketty to piece it,” Rebekah suggested.

“Fred Ketty?”

“They said she did one with black and … I forget what else, but she got over 900 dollars for it.”

“Where?”

Mam was so incredulous her mouth formed a perfect
O
, then closed tightly after she pronounced the “where.”

“She sold it at the fire hall, remember? That auction in August.”

“See, that shouldn’t be allowed. That’s too much display … of … Well, it’s just too worldly, parading a quilt like that at a fire hall. Likely it was raffled off or whatever, and that’s too much like gambling, and that’s strictly
verboten
, you know that.”

Mam became so agitated she started scraping leftover crusts of French toast into the garbage, her face with heightened color, her nostrils flaring.

Rebekah winked broadly at Sadie, with the sort of look that said, “Mam’s just jealous,” but in a loving way. You could never hate your mother. You could get irritated, even angry for a short time, but if she had a whole list of failures, you sort of loved even the shortcomings. Mam so obviously prided herself in her own ability to piece outstanding quilts that this sort of news was a bit much.

After the conversation lagged, Anna got up, saying she had a dress to sew, so Rebekah and Sadie could do the dishes.

“What color are you making?” Sadie asked.

Anna brought out a three-yard piece of fabric, the color a hue of brilliant magenta with a decided stripe in it.

“Mam!” Sadie gasped. She was clearly shocked.

Why would Mam allow a color that bold, a stripe that pronounced? She obviously hadn’t. Calmly, Mam laid down her plate, then came over to peer at the offending color and texture.

“Where did you get this, Anna?”

“Walmart.”

Anna’s eyes were very large in her too-thin face, the angle of her beautiful cheekbone so pronounced, her chin so tiny, the cleft in it showing so plainly. Her dress, as usual, hung on her thin frame, gathered about her tiny waist by the broad belt of her apron.

Anna was the youngest and battled eating disorders. With little sense of self-worth, always appearing overweight and ugly in her own eyes, she had taken to purging. Sadly loathing herself and her pitiful ability to be a friend, she felt she had nothing to contribute to a conversation or any circumstance in which she found herself. Anna was one of the reasons it had been difficult for Sadie, often acting as a mentor to her troubled sister, to leave home.

Mam pursed her lips now and said evenly, “I hope you know I can’t let you make a dress with that fabric, Anna.”

It was all Anna needed to release the spring of tension, the bottled up volcano of rebellion against Mam, or Sadie, or anyone who tried to take this dress away from her. It was completely essential that she wear this dress, the object that would surely grab and keep Neil Hershberger’s faithful devotion.

“Oh, no! You’re not taking this dress away from me!” she shouted, her beautiful eyes already forming tears. “I paid for it with my own money! No. You’re not. I’m going to wear it!”

She turned, sobbing, running up the steps, the priceless magenta-colored fabric clutched tightly to her thin chest.

Mam started to follow, a hand out, calling her name, but Sadie stopped her. “I’ll go after awhile.”

“I don’t know what to do. She is so different from all you other girls. I plum don’t know how to handle it.”

With that, Mam sat down wearily, suddenly overcome with her daughter’s rebellion coupled with Fred Ketty’s 900 dollar quilt.

“Mam, you know her whole problem is that she has to be on top of the pile,” Rebekah said harshly.

“Ach, Rebekah,” Mam said sadly.

“I’m serious. She can’t give up. If that would have been me, you would not have been overwhelmed very long. Bingo! In the trash! Subject closed!”

Mam laughed, her plump stomach shaking with mirth. “Now stop it,” she said, still laughing.

When Sadie got to Anna’s room, she found it hard to see her sister that way, lying on her stomach, as close to the wall as she could get, her fingers in her ears the minute Sadie opened the door. Human nature made Sadie feel like smacking her, calling her a big baby, and telling her to get off that bed this minute, go eat something, and stop obsessing about yourself and Neil Hershberger. Maybe that’s what Sadie should have done.

There were too many big girls in the family while Anna was growing up. Somehow, she had been shorted, whether it came from Mam’s mental illness, or whether she was born with this decayed sense of her own worth. Whatever the cause, she needed help.

“All right, Anna. Stop it. Get your fingers out of your ears. Look at me.”

“Go away.”

“All right, I will.”

She walked away, closed the door firmly behind her, then heard it open and Anna calling, “Come back, Sadie.”

“Not unless you’re
chide
.” (nice, normal)

“I’ll try.”

Sadie picked up the fabric, took it over to the window, parted the curtains and looked at it, peering closely, as if it were a foreign object.

“You weren’t really going to make this, were you?” she asked, kindly and unaccusing.

“’Course I was.”

Her words were hard stones pinging against Sadie’s flinching face. Somehow that answer was a solidified thing, an assurance that Anna was no longer the harmless little girl who ate great dishes of Lucky Charms cereal. She was actually a concern, a problem to be addressed, like a broken porch step or a refrigerator that stopped working. You had to acknowledge that it needed fixing and then apply yourself, even if it put you in a state of despair. This thought swam into her consciousness, like a shark in a peaceful barrier reef.

Softly, but firmly, Sadie addressed her sister. “Wouldn’t you be afraid? Ashamed to wear it to the hymn singing?”

“Huh-uh!”

“I bet you would.”

“Hah-ah.” So pronounced, her words were almost guttural.

“Come on, Anna. It’s way too bright. The parents would have a fit.”

“Hah-ah.”

“Tell you what. I’ll buy you another one if you’ll go shopping with me.”

Anna rolled over on her back, then sat up, pulling her knees to her chin, wrapping her arms around them. Her dark hair was disheveled, a lock hanging into her large, dark eyes and the dark shadows of … what? Tiredness? Lack of good nutrition? Her eyes made her appear older, much older in fact, than her years.

Anna said nothing and just looked at her steadily, unflinching, with a cold look Sadie could not fully perceive.

“I want the dress I chose.” The voice was flat, the words hard as nails.

Sadie said nothing, sighed, turned toward the dresser, picked up a small bottle of cologne, winced, gasped in shock at the words written diagonally across it. Still saying nothing, she plucked off the cap, spritzed a small amount on her wrist, rubbed it with the palm of her hand, and sniffed. “Mmm.”