Keeping Secrets (5 page)

Now, seeing them both in the intimacy of the upstairs bathroom, Barbara’s old suspicion and mistrust rose like sick bile in her throat.

“I don’t suppose…” she began, despair clutching her throat.

“Barbara! Come here!”

Richard Caldwell’s voice boomed out, and Barbara hurried to his side. All suspicion disappeared, and the despair fell away as her husband’s arm encircled her ample waist, pulling her toward him.

“Look at this, honey.”

This new term of endearment brought a thickening to the back of Barbara’s throat, the place where tears begin, and she knew she would never be able to hear it enough.

Bending her head, Barbara peered at the jewels in disbelief. “Let me get my glasses.”

The purple kimono swished expensively as she sailed from the bathroom, returning almost instantly with her reading glasses perched midway down her nose.

Then, “Wow! Oh wow! Richard! What is this?”

“They belong to the kids, I guess. According to Sadie.”

“What?” Barbara was incredulous.

Sadie nodded. “When … when they had their baths, this was left on the countertop,” she said, gesturing to the leather purse.

Barbara shook her head. “Are we sure we’re not getting ourselves into something dangerous? This is unreal. Perhaps some … mobsters or gang members staged all this. They could be using those innocent children as a prop or something. We should absolutely report this to the police.”

“I agree,” Richard Caldwell said.

Sadie started to leave. But she turned. “Then I’ll let it up to you. I just didn’t feel right without at least showing you what I found. I’ll return to my cleaning now, if you don’t mind.”

“Wait, Sadie,” Barbara said, reaching out to her. “What do you think we should we do with these two little ones? I don’t know… I mean…” she lifted her eyes to her husband.

Richard Caldwell acknowledged the questioning in his wife’s eyes with a very small shake of his head. Then he looked at Sadie, telling her that they didn’t feel as if it was the right time for them to be caring for two small children. Did she have any suggestions? If the police were called in, the children would be placed in foster homes unless someone intervened.

“Would your family be able, or willing, to take them in?” he finished.

It was a hard question, one Sadie felt unable to answer. Her mother’s mental health had been a real issue in the past. She had found help and resumed a healthy, balanced existence. Aided by her unwavering faith, she was peaceful and happy again. But to require this of her?

Sadie shook her head. “My mother hasn’t been well, but there is a possibility. We’ll discuss it and I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you, Sadie.”

That afternoon, Bertie, the gardener, asked Dorothy if she or Sadie would be available to help him plant the annuals in the garden down by the fishpond.

Dorothy was taking one of her many breaks, forking cheesy clumps of steaming macaroni and cheese into her mouth from the small microwavable dish in her hand. She washed it down with a resounding gulp of sweet tea, the ice clattering against the plastic tumbler as she set it on the kitchen table.

“Now, Bertie, I ain’t goin’ down there and breaking my back diggin’ around in that there mud. It ain’t no use. Come September, those plants will be froze stiffer’n my knees, so they will.”

Bertie waved a hand in her direction, then snorted derisively.

“Aw, you old grouch. Then stay here in the kitchen and eat your macaroni and cheese. Where’s Sadie?”

Sadie peeped out of the pantry door and smiled at Bertie, joy in her eyes. She loved Bertie, but she loved the banter between these two salty individuals even more.

“Sadie girl! You want to help me plant a few annuals down by the fishpond? My old back could sure use some help.”

“Your old back? Well, why’d ya think my old back would be any different?” Dorothy spat out.

“I didn’t ask for your two cents.”

“Well, you got it.”

Dorothy chuckled loudly before lifting another great forkful of macaroni to her open mouth.

Surprisingly, Bertie kept his peace and told Sadie he’d be ready in about half an hour.

“I guess, if it’s all right with you, Dorothy?” Sadie asked.

“Yeah. May as well help him out if his back can’t take it. We’re havin’ beef stew and rice for dinner this evening, so there’s not so much to do. Go on and help him out, the poor, old man.”

“You know, if you wouldn’t be settin’ there eating all that macaroni and cheese, you wouldn’t be as…”

“Say it, Bertie! Go ahead and say it!”

Dorothy’s eyes were snapping and twinkling at the same time. Bertie smiled, and Sadie suddenly became ravenous for the cheesy concoction Dorothy was enjoying.

“You want a dish of macaroni? Some sweet tea?” Sadie asked Bertie.

Sadie smiled to herself, thinking how English she could sound when imitating the lovely people that she worked with.

She heated more macaroni, punching the buttons of the microwave. At home, she would put her food in a saucepan, add extra milk, and set it on the gas burner of the stove. Then she would wait at least 15 minutes until it was heated through. She cringed at how Reuben burned food every time. He consistently plopped a saucepan on the gas stove, flipped the dial to high, and walked away. Sticking his nose in a magazine, he forgot about the stove until the house filled with the stench of burning food. Then he always blamed the girls for not making him something to eat. Using a microwave in an English person’s kitchen was pretty handy.

Bertie settled into a kitchen chair, greatly enjoying his glass of tea and tucking into the dish of macaroni and cheese with as much enthusiasm as a much younger person.

Watching him, Dorothy started on a tirade of the different metabolism rates in people’s bodies. Bertie said he didn’t know, he never went to school for that. What he did know was this—if you ate too much, you got fat.

“Huh-uh. No. It ain’t true. Look at you hoggin’ that down. If I ate the way you do, I’d weigh 300 pounds!” Dorothy said testily.

“Is that all you weigh?” Bertie returned, then made a laughing retreat out the door and back to work, leaving Dorothy fussing and fuming and checking the refrigerator for some leftover coleslaw.

Sadie found the flats of purple and pink petunias, the hose with the gardener’s wand, and a trowel. Bertie wanted the flowers planted beside the brick walkways and on the side of the slope leading to the fishpond, but none in the shade by the trees.

“Petunias don’t do well in the shade, you know,” he explained. “If you need anything, give me a holler. I’ll be mowing by the garage.”

Sadie set to work, getting on her knees to dig, plant, and water. She loved the feel of the soil and reveled in the warm sunshine, the beauty of her surroundings, and the drone of bees as they flew busily from different sources of nectar.

Cows bawled, calves answered, horses roamed the paddocks and pastures, dogs barked, and pickup trucks came and went. But Sadie heard very little of these sounds that made up daily life on the ranch. Instead, her thoughts turned to Mark Peight.

Now why would he call Richard Caldwell? Yes, she knew he was looking for work, but… Did he know her parents forbid her to see him? No. How could he? She hadn’t told anyone. Even her sisters didn’t know. So, he wasn’t coming to the ranch as a way to see her.

And now these children. A responsibility for someone. Had the police been here yet?

She was turning away from the dumpster after depositing the used plastic pots, when she spied Louis and Marcellus running toward her. What a difference the soap and shampoo had made! They were beautiful children. They almost seemed adjusted to the ranch, and they’d been here less than a day. Perhaps this was due to Dorothy’s assurance that they would definitely be staying, that they had nothing to be afraid of, and that their mother was coming to get them as soon as she possibly could.

Sadie greeted them, and they answered with shy acknowledgement, perfectly worded in soft English.

“Would you like to help me?”

They declined, shaking their heads from side to side. Then Marcellus spoke up. “Gustav, our gardener, says we are too small to help.”

Sadie nodded. Our gardener? Ach, my! The children must be from a well-to-do home.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sadie saw the tall form of Mark Peight enter the garden. He came down the brick walkway in his easy, cat-like stride. An electric jolt charged through her body, and, instantly, her hand went to her hair, leaving a dark smudge on her forehead. The children turned to face the tall stranger, keeping their eyes lowered respectfully.

“So there you are,” Mark greeted her.

Flustered, Sadie got to her feet. “Hello, Mark.”

“How are you, Sadie?”

“I’m doing well. How are you?”

“Good, good. Happy to be back in Montana.”

He looped his thumbs in his suspenders and looked around appreciatively. “So this is where you work?”

Sadie laughed, “Not always.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Bertie, the gardener, asked me to help him out this afternoon.”

“These Caldwell’s kids?”

Sadie turned to Louis and Marcellus, and then introduced them. “We don’t know their last names. They just came today. They…”

Sadie’s voice was cut off by Dorothy’s agitated yells, asking the children to come up here right now.

Sadie got down on her knees, eye-level with Louis, and told them to be very good. Some men were here to talk to them about coming to the ranch. She told the children that they should not be afraid. These were good men who wanted to help them.

Tears crowded her eyes as she watched Louis take Marcellus’ hand protectively. Together they walked obediently up the brick walkway.

“What?” Mark began.

Sadie quietly explained the situation to him, omitting the jewels, then asked if he wanted to sit down. They seated themselves on the iron bench by the day lilies, and Sadie turned a bit sideways, tucking one foot under her leg.

“But…” Mark was curious.

“I know. It’s the most unusual thing. You can tell by the way they talk that they aren’t just some squatters’ or sheepherders’ children. Yet their black hair and eyes, their dark skin, all seem to…”

“They seem foreign.”

“Mexican. Latino of some kind. The police are here now speaking to Richard and Barbara Caldwell. You know how it is, if no one wants them, they’ll enter the foster system.”

Mark looked unseeingly across the fishpond, the pasture in the background.

“Yeah, well, you’re not going to let that happen, are you?”

Sadie shrugged her shoulders.

When she felt Mark’s big hands grasp her shoulders much too tightly and give her a little shake, she snapped her head up in alarm, her eyes weak with fright.

“How can you sit there with that smug expression and shrug your shoulders?” he asked, his voice grating unevenly on the hard words.

His face was inches from hers, his eyes blazing with raw fury. The force of his emotion drew the air from her lungs like a huge vacuum. She was too powerless to stop it, and her shoulders slid downward away from his grasp.

“Don’t,” she whispered weakly.

He released her, then abruptly turned to lower his face into his hands. She thought she heard the word “sorry” among the murmurings that followed, but she couldn’t be sure.

He stayed in that position until a sick fear began in the pit of Sadie’s stomach. What if he was mentally deranged, violent, or dangerous? Why would he become so agitated at the slight shrugging of her shoulders?

Just as suddenly, Mark sat up, brushed back his hair, cleared his throat, and turned to her.

“You have no idea, Sadie. None. If you did, you wouldn’t sit there one second longer, knowing those sweet, polite children would be put in foster homes. Believe me, it’s not a good place to be.”

“How do you know? And how do you expect me to know, living the sheltered Amish life I have always lived?”

“How do I know? Because I was a foster kid,” Mark said, emotion causing him to whisper.

Sadie was incredulous. “You were?”

“Yes.”

“Why? I mean… How could you have been? Your parents were Amish. Why didn’t your relatives keep you? Why in the world were you put in a foster home? Didn’t you have any sisters or brothers? No aunts or uncles?”

The questions poured from Sadie, like water rushing and tumbling toward the ocean. Her desperate need to know more about Mark’s life crowded out all reason.

“If I tell you why I was a foster kid, you will never look at me again.”

The words were stiff, forced between clenched teeth, as if keeping his teeth in that position would keep Mark’s past hidden and intact.

Sadie faced him, forced him to look at her. “Try me.”

She had never seen eyes change the way his did, going from brown to deep black then back to brown. But it was a hooded, reserved brown. Suspicious even. Mistrusting. Finally, when Sadie’s gaze did not waver, his eyes acknowledged her request, but without faith, barren and afraid. Then he took the plunge, baring his soul.

“I found my father. He was drowned. On purpose.”

“No!” The word was wrenched from Sadie and she lowered her head, sobs completely controlling her.

“See. I told you. Now I did it. You will never speak to me again.”

There were no words from Sadie, only the heaving of her shoulders as he got slowly to his feet.

She felt his presence leaving and was jolted to reality. She raised her tear-streaked face, and in a desperate need to keep him there, blurted out, “Oh Mark, you poor, poor thing! How old were you? I cannot imagine. Please don’t say you’ll never speak to me again. Don’t even think it. I care about you, Mark. I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes … I do. Please, Mark. You said…”

“Just forget what I said. Go back to work now. Go find yourself a good, normal guy who will make you a good, normal husband. Forget about me and the fact that I came back to Montana.”

Suddenly Sadie grasped both of his arms, held on, and said clearly, “I am not going to do that. And neither are you. I’m only going to say this once, and then it’s up to you. I love you.”