Forever Amish (8 page)

“What do you know about their monkey business? They weren't planning a joyride in the Mustang, were they?” I checked my empty pockets, then remembered I'd stashed the key in my purse on the floor by the rocking chair.

“I can't imagine they'd do something that outlandish.” Armin half-filled a glass with apple cider from the refrigerator. As he took a sip, Rhoda opened the door to the living room and entered.

Her shoulders stiffened. “Sally, I thought I heard you and Lizzie turn in. Your door was shut.” She seemed edgy. Because I was here instead of Lizzie? Because I was here, period?

Then what Pops would call “a doozy of an idea” inundated my brain: Rhoda and Armin had planned a meeting—a clandestine get-together.

No, I refused to believe anything bad about Rhoda. Without makeup I couldn't be sure of her age, but I figured she was older than Armin by ten or fifteen years. Not that younger men weren't sometimes attracted to older women. I'd recently seen a movie about such an improbable couple. Rhoda and Armin saw each other every day … and Reuben was as surly as the neighbor's German shepherd back home.

“Lizzie and Jeremy went upstairs,” I said.

Rhoda's gaze homed in on Armin's face, as if she were trying to convey a message, and he stared back at her with intensity, his lips together. Pops and I spoke what we laughingly called “silent pig Latin” on the car lot. With a lift of one brow, he'd tell me he'd hooked a hot prospect, or a slight shake of his head meant he had looky-loos and wanted help getting rid of them so he could make a bona fide sale. But these two were communicating a mixture of anxiety and fear. That I'd caught them together?

Rhoda broke eye contact with Armin and turned to me. “Are you sure our Lizzie and Jeremy went to bed?” she asked. I was struck by the notion she wasn't being straight with me. Was she jealous, finding me alone with Armin? Ridiculous, I told myself.

“I heard footsteps on the stairs and figured they were Lizzie's and Jeremy's,” I said. “Where would they go on a miserable night like this?”

Rhoda sent Armin a sideways glance.

“I haven't seen them since supper,” he said, but I didn't believe he was addressing her real question. No, something secretive was unfolding before my eyes. “You want me to go look for her?” he asked.

“Nee, I'll check her bed. We don't pay you to babysit. That girl of mine—well, no need to burden Sally with our problems.”

“I'd say there is, when you think about it,” I said. “If it weren't for her, I wouldn't be here.” The rain and wind grew in velocity, filling the world with a whooshing sound, air compressing through the cracks around the windowpanes.

“Sally claims our Lizzie sent her emails.” Armin's mouth curved into a smile, but Rhoda's face remained solemn.

As Armin sipped his drink, my cell phone rang. Armin set his glass on the counter. I watched helplessly as he fished my phone out of his pocket and answered it. “Hullo?” he said much to my horror. He bobbed his head. “Yah, she's right here. Hey, wait just a minute. No need to get hostile.” He passed the phone to my outstretched hand like it had turned to a hot coal. “For you, Sally.”

“What did you expect? How dare you answer it!”

“Since when is it a crime to answer a phone entrusted to your care?”

I snatched it away from him.

“Who was that?” Pops said. “You okay?”

“Sure. Couldn't be better.” I felt like a teenager, lying to Honest Ed, who could usually detect deceit in my voice. “Someone was about to charge my phone's battery,” I said. “I can't imagine why he answered it with me standing right here.”

“At the bed and breakfast? Don't lie to me, Sally. I called them and the receptionist said you weren't staying there. Where are you?”

“Why did you call, Pops? Are you all right?” Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Armin handing Rhoda a folded scrap of paper as he passed her on the way to the sink to deposit his glass. She kept her gaze on me as she slid the paper into her apron pocket.

“Yeah, yeah, I'm fine,” Pops said. “I wanted to let you know Donald stopped by. He was none too pleased to hear you'd taken off. And I'll come out and tell you right now we didn't have a pleasant tête-à-tête. Which got me worrying. I don't get it, the way you flew out of here. Where are you?”

“In someone's lovely home.” I glanced around the kitchen at the African violet on the windowsill, the wooden cabinets, the long table that could easily accommodate a dozen if called upon. A room a lot like Pops's and mine in temperament, but double in size and without electric lighting and appliances. And Pops liked to listen to the radio sitting on the shelf above the stove during the World Series or any time the Yankees played, a habit leftover from childhood, he'd told me. Having grown up in New Jersey, he'd always been a Yankees fan. “Not everyone from New Jersey speaks with an accent,” he'd informed me more than once.

As I mused about my father, I turned to Rhoda and was surprised to see her mouth working her lower lip. “I'm staying with an Amish family that rents out rooms,” I said.

“What the—?” Pops let out a puff of air so loud it rivaled the downpour battering the side of the house. “How did you end up there?”

“I'm not exactly sure. Remember those emails?” I peered out the window and saw the windmill whirling with such velocity that its blades blurred together. Rain slanted against the barn. I shuddered to think Pops's Mustang might leak, but I wouldn't mention my neglecting to lock his prized automobile or stow it under cover. I was still sure someone had prowled around it. Here stood Armin looking so concerned, yet he'd chided me when I'd pointed out the footprints in the mud. Was all his kindness aimed at Rhoda? I felt a prick of jealousy for no logical reason.

“You said Donald came over to see me?” I felt a smattering of hope and dared to wonder if Donald brought flowers as he had on our first few dates or whenever we quarreled. Yellow roses. He'd wooed me like a starlet in a Hollywood movie.

“Maybe he came to set me straight,” Pops said, “because the minute I said you were gone, he went ballistic.”

“You had an argument?”

“Donald-schmonald,” my father said.

My sentiments of only an hour ago. But my world felt topsy-turvy. Maybe I'd overreacted to Donald's criticism of Pops's kidney treatment. No, Donald had acted downright mean-spirited.

“Pops, the bed-and-breakfast's roof leaked and the room was flooded, so I went looking for lodging. I came across this huge Amish home that rents out rooms, only they don't have electricity inside, so one of their farmhands was about to charge my phone. Not a big deal.”

I glanced into Rhoda's face and saw apprehension, her features taut. Maybe Reuben didn't allow cell phones in the home. I caught Rhoda and Armin exchanging looks again. Then she gave her head a small shake.

“Is the Mustang all right?” Pops said.

“I'm afraid I had to park it outside, and it's pouring.”

“Wish you'd checked the weather report before you left. I heard the mercury's going to plunge. You could have driven the trusty Caravan.”

“We could store your car in a shed,” Rhoda said, moving closer to me. She could probably hear my father's words.

“Who's that?” Pops demanded.

“My hostess,” I said.

 

CHAPTER 8

“I want you to jump in the Mustang and come home right now,” Pops told me.

I cupped my mouth with my spare hand. “Stay up most of the night and drive in pouring rain?”

“Then I'll come get you. I took in a trade-in a few hours ago, a Chrysler that cruises like a dream. Or the Toyota Highlander.” Instead of his typical easygoing cadence, he sounded frantic.

“What's gotten into you?”

“You'll always be my little girl, Sally, honey.”

“Aren't I safer here? I don't want you on the wet highway.” Pops's ritual over the last year was to turn in early. He'd complained of fatigue and fell asleep in front of the TV. And he rarely took a car out for a road trip without first switching tires and checking the brakes.

“I guess you're right.” He let out a yawn. “It's raining like crazy, and our lights have been flickering.”

“Are you all right, Pops?”

“Sure, Ginger's keeping me company. But you know she hates lightning.” My corgi headed for the shower stall during electrical storms, so I figured she was cowering. But Pops could handle her; he never let me down.

The lantern above the table emitted a warm glow. “The lights won't go out where I'm staying. And there's a fire burning in the hearth in the next room.”

Rhoda extended her hand, then brought it back, laying it on her chest. Did she want me to turn the phone off so I didn't disturb Reuben, who might awaken like a grizzly bear after spring's first thaw?

I lowered my volume. “I need to say good night. I don't want to wake the whole household.”

“But—but, wait.” I'd never heard him sound so uptight. His words stammered out in a rush. “Tell me one thing: the last name of the family you're staying with.”

“Zook.”

“Zook?” He paused so long I assumed we'd lost reception, then he said, “No matter. There must be hundreds of Zooks in Lancaster County.”

“What's the big deal? Hey, wait a minute.” An extraordinary notion unfurled itself in the back of my mind. “Was my mom's maiden name Zook? Are you saying my mother was from Lancaster County and not New Jersey? Does she still live around here?” The puzzle pieces were beginning to jigsaw together. Pops was terrified I'd run into her.

“That's the last place you'd find Mavis.” He sputtered a chuckle. “And Zook wasn't her last name.”

“How dare you laugh about her.” I felt anger boiling through my chest, strangling my throat, cutting off my air supply like a choke chain. “Did she grow up in Lancaster County or not?” My words turned feeble. I pleaded, “Why won't you tell me?”

Rhoda stepped closer, like the tide inching in. But I wouldn't let this opportunity skid by my elusive father. What if he died before I found my mother?

I turned my back to Rhoda and spoke a skosh above a whisper. “Pops, I've made a decision. I'm going to hire a private detective until I find her.”

“Please, Sally, can't you leave well enough alone?”

“No. I can't and I won't.”

Rhoda tapped my shoulder. “Excuse me, Sally,” she said. “May I speak to him?” Her voice was so gentle that I rotated and gave her my phone with a shaky hand.

“Ich bedank mich—thank you,” she told me, then placed the cell phone to her ear as if it were a foreign object. “Hello? This is Rhoda. Your daughter's fine and safe with us. I promise to look after her.” Her facial expression changed from one of wide-eyed expectancy to disappointment. She handed the phone back to me. “I'm afraid we've lost him.”

I placed the phone to my ear and heard nothing—a canyon of silence. “I'm sorry,” I said. “He must have hung up.” Rarely had I felt so mortified.

“Maybe he lost reception,” Armin said. I assumed he was trying to allay my embarrassment. I felt my cheeks radiating heat.

“The signal was clear a minute ago.”

“Perhaps not at his end,” he said.

I checked the battery: I had maybe fifteen minutes max left on it. I'd been fretting about keeping the phone charged because of Pops's precarious health. Maybe his illness was impairing his judgment. But why be rude to Rhoda? He didn't even know the woman.

“Yah, I bet Armin's right,” she said. Her small hand slid into her apron pocket and she fingered something—the note Armin had given her? Truth was, she might not be the wonderfully perfect woman I'd initially thought. Was there no one in the world I could trust? I felt like I did every Christmas and Mother's Day—like a pitiful, abandoned child. But I held in the tears pressing at the backs of my eyes. I never cried in public, and I wasn't about to start now.

“Do you think he might come to our house?” she asked me.

“How could he possibly know where it is?” I forced a smile while my stomach clenched. “I'm certainly not going to tell him. Not after our conversation.”

“Now, please don't be too harsh on him,” Rhoda said.

“Yah,” Armin cut in, “you should show your father respect.”

I glared at him. “Don't you have a brother just down the road?”

Armin opened his mouth, but Rhoda put a finger to her lips as if to shush him.

“I'd appreciate a sibling if I were you,” I said to him. “I'd do anything to have one. And as you might have surmised, I'm looking for my mother.” I froze as I realized I'd revealed a segment of my personal anguish to another near stranger. What had taken hold of me? I'd never even told Donald how much I longed to find her, only that my parents were divorced—although I had no proof.

“I'm ever so sorry,” he said. His words showed empathy, but I doubted he could relate. He had relatives, and from what I'd seen of Reuben, men called the shots in this society. “What kind of a mother would leave her child?” he said, and I cringed. “Was she
ab in Kopp
?” He circled his index finger over his temple as if speaking of a crazy woman. “Or was she kidnapped?”

“That's a new twist I hadn't thought of.” I pictured Pops and me sharing a can of beans for dinner one evening when I was about six. “Since my father's never been rich, I highly doubt she was held for ransom.”

“You mean he's struggling financially?” Rhoda wrung her hands.

I put on what I called my “artificial happy face” that customers and dog-show judges saw. “My father owns a car lot, and it does pretty well.” Yet I knew from doing the books that money was tight.

“Then I guess he wouldn't think much of our horse and buggies,” Armin said with a half smile. “Although you come look at my Thunder in the morning. He's a fine animal, fast and feisty. A Thoroughbred stallion who won a few races. Not that I'm boasting, mind you. God made him that way.”

Had Armin changed the subject to put me at ease? Whatever his motive, I felt my insides relax and my breathing calm to its normal pace.

“Sure, I'll look at your horse,” I said, mostly to be polite. “As long as I don't have to ride him.”

“I'm training him to pull my buggy and spring wagon, but every once in a while I jump on his back and we cross my brother's pasture, over the stream, and through the forest. There's no faster horse in the county.” He seemed to grow in stature.

“You should take Sally over to see the property,” Rhoda said. “Yah, after milkin', you show her the place, and then take her by your brother's. You know he wants to see you.”

“No, he doesn't. I'm as good as shunned.”

“That just isn't true,” she told him.

“I'll be leaving in the morning,” I said. But my curiosity was tweaked. Would he offer me a ride in a buggy?

“Nee, please stay longer,” Rhoda said. “You must. Please.”

“But you'll want to rent out my room, won't you?”

“We have plenty of space. This house is bigger than it looks. Truly.” Her fingers traced her dress's neckline. “There'll be no charge, I promise.”

“I couldn't let you turn away a paying customer.” But staying would give me an added break from my father and Donald. Or was I being selfish? Pops had given up everything for me; I owed him my allegiance. In spite of what I'd told him, I couldn't afford to hire a private detective. I'd do my own sleuthing. I wondered if Pops had kept his old high school annuals; I'd never seen one in our bookshelves. The Internet was where I should have started my search years ago. Maybe Facebook.

“If you stuck around, you'd be doing Rhoda and Reuben a favor,” Armin said. “Seems like you kept Lizzie and Jeremy home tonight.”

“Then my suspicions were right.” Those two imps were ready to hit the trail. “Would they really take a horse and buggy out in the rainstorm?”

Rhoda shrugged one shoulder. “They're in their running-around years, so they have more freedom to do as they please.” She sounded aggravated but not surprised. “However on such a perilous night, Reuben would throw a fit.”

In the news, I'd heard of trucks and cars colliding with horse and buggies. Any parent would worry, including my father. I was being too hard on him. But his driving me back to Connecticut when I already had an automobile was just silly.

Rhoda glanced at the ceiling. “I'd better check to make sure they're home.” She slid her arm through mine. “Before I say good night, Sally, tell me you'll stay another day.”

I felt myself teetering with indecision. I still hadn't corralled Lizzie into our private conversation. Having worked at the car lot, I was skilled at reading people's expressions and body gestures, but Lizzie remained an enigma. My best guess was she'd claimed she was in a predicament to lure me here. But why?

“Let's wait and see what tomorrow brings.” By then I'd be ready to flee this cockeyed household. Yet the surroundings were quaint and cozy; being stuck here, with the wind howling outside, gave me a sense of comfort and peace I hadn't felt for years. “I'll call my father in the morning and see if he needs me. I'll bet Armin was right. A tree branch fell on a telephone line and cut my dad off.” I pulled up my phone's call history and noticed Pops had been using his cell phone. No matter. I refused to believe he'd hang up on Rhoda, a complete stranger. Not like him; he was usually polite to his most difficult customers.

“A nice big breakfast will be waiting for ya in the morning,” Rhoda said. “You pay no attention to any noises you hear before sunup. We eat after milking time. Gut Nacht and sweet dreams.”

“Good night,” I said as she left the room. Then I held my phone out to Armin. “Still willing to charge this culprit?”

“Yah, if you'll help me find the charger.” Armin flicked on a flashlight, and I followed him into the utility room. He lifted my canvas bag from the floor where it lay by the back door and carried it into the kitchen. The fabric was almost dry.

“Thanks.” I unzipped the side pocket and extracted the device. “Glad I didn't forget this.”

“Are you angry at me for answering your phone?” Armin gave his head a slight shake. “I had no right. None at all.”

I'd forgotten I was miffed at him. “Not anymore,” I said, setting my phone and charger on the counter. “Too bad it was my father calling and not a certain man.” I glanced down at my ring. It had lost its luster. “He would have had a fit when you answered.”

“You'd like to make the man you're engaged to jealous?”

“It wouldn't hurt him.” Donald was a head turner; I figured he wasn't used to anything less than adulation from his girlfriends—if we were still a couple. Had he instructed his mother to hold off sending out the invitations?

“I won't answer again.” He raked a hand through his hair. “The Lord admonishes us not to covet. I wouldn't wish to lead a man into temptation, into thinking or doing something he'll regret.”

“That's a new one. I'll turn the ringer off for the night. Then no one will be tempted to answer it.”

“Gut idea.” He scooped up my phone and charger, then propped my bag by the door leading to the utility room. “See you in the morning,” he said, and left.

Fatigue encompassed me the way it had when I used to return from a weekend of showing Mr. Big. Would I ever own another stupendous winner? Not only were his confirmation and gait superb, but he'd smile up at the judges as if to say, “Pick me!”

When would I stop blaming myself for his accident? I'd been negligent and couldn't shake my feelings of guilt. I wished I had my Ginger here to keep me company tonight. But the bed and breakfast had stated no pets allowed, and I wouldn't leave Ginger in the car. Anyway, Pops might need her company. I wondered if he'd let her sleep in his room.

I climbed the stairs with heavy feet. Sure enough, Lizzie's door was closed. But was she in bed? None of my business, I told myself.

My room was chilly. I tossed off my clothing and put on the nightgown Rhoda had lent me. I snuggled into bed, the mattress stiff and unforgiving. But the quilts felt like arms around me assuring me everything was okay when nothing was further from the truth. I recalled the dumb saying “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

Well, tomorrow would be mine.