Plain Truth (59 page)

“I do. I think Katie's a perfect candidate for the electronic monitoring program.”

Judge Ledbetter took off her half glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Mr. Callahan, we set an example for society by taking this case to trial and putting it in front of the press. I see no reason to shame the Amish community any more than the media attention already has, by sending one of their own into Muncy. The defendant will serve time—but in private. Which somehow seems like a little bit of poetic justice.” She scrawled her signature across the papers in front of her. “I'm sentencing Ms. Fisher to a year on the bracelet,” Judge Ledbetter said. “Case closed.”

The plastic cuff went under her stockings, because she wouldn't be able to take it off for nearly eight months. It was three inches wide, implanted with a homing device. If Katie left Lancaster County, Ellie explained, it would beep, and the probation officer would find her in minutes. The probation officer might find her anyway, just for the heck of it, to make sure she was keeping herself out of trouble. Katie was officially a prisoner of the state, which means she had no rights to speak of.

But she got to stay on the farm, live her life, and go about her own business. Surely the sin of a small piece of jewelry could be overlooked when she was getting so much in exchange.

She and Ellie walked through the hallways, their shoes echoing in the silence. “Thank you,” Katie said softly.

“My pleasure.” Ellie hesitated. “This is a fair deal.”

“I know.”

“Even if it's a guilty verdict.”

“That never bothered me.”

“Yeah.” Ellie smiled. “I suppose I'll get over it, in another decade or so.”

“Bishop Ephram says that this was a good thing for the community.”

“How so?”

“It keeps us humble,” Katie said. “Too many English think we're saints, and this will remind them we're just people.”

They stepped outside together into the relative quiet of the afternoon. No reporters, no onlookers—it would be hours before the press got wind that the jury had been dismissed and the trial abruptly aborted, due to the plea bargain. Katie stopped at the top of the stairs, looking around. “This isn't the way I pictured it.”

“What isn't?”

“After.”
She shrugged. “I thought that everything you talked about at the trial would help me understand what happened a little better.”

Ellie smiled. “If I do my job right, then I tend to make things muddier.”

A breeze, threaded with the cold of winter, blew the strings of Katie's
kapp
across her face. “I'm never going to know exactly how he died, am I?” she asked softly.

Ellie linked her arm through Katie's. “You know how he didn't die,” she answered. “That may have to be enough.”

TWENTY
Elite

I
t's funny how you can accumulate so many things in such a small amount of time. I had come to East Paradise with a single suitcase, but now that it was time to pack up my things I could barely make them fit. Now, in addition to my clothes, there was my first and probably final attempt at a quilt, which would one day grace my child's crib. There was the straw hat I'd bought at Zimmermann's, a young boy's broad-brimmed hat, but one that managed to keep the sun off my face when I was working in the fields. There were smaller things: a perfectly flat stone I'd found in the creek, a matchbook from the restaurant where I'd first had dinner with Coop, that extra pregnancy test in the two-for-one kit. And finally, there were the things that were too grand in scope to fit the confines of any luggage: spirit, humility, peace.

Katie was outside, beating rugs with the long handle of a broom. She'd unrolled her stockings to show Sarah the bracelet, and I made sure to explain its limitations. Coop would be here any minute with his car, to take me home.

Home. It would take some getting used to. I wondered how many mornings I'd wake at 4:30
A.M
., imagining the soft sounds of the men going to the barn for the milking. How many nights I'd forget to set an alarm, sure that the rooster would do the job.

I also wondered what it would be like to flip through the channels of a TV again. To sleep beside Coop every night, his arm slung over me like an anchor. I wondered who my next client would be, and if I would often think of Katie.

There was a soft knock at the door. “Come on in.”

Sarah moved into the room, her hands tucked beneath her apron. “I came to see if you need any help.” Looking at the empty pegs on the walls, she smiled. “Guess you've pretty much taken care of it.”

“The packing wasn't so hard. It's
leaving
that's going to be a challenge.”

Sarah sank down onto Katie's bed, smoothing the quilt with one hand. “I didn't want you here,” she said quietly. “When Leda first suggested it in the courtroom that day, I told her no.” She lifted her face, eyes following me as I finished cleaning up. “Not just because of Aaron, neither. I thought you might be one of those folks we get every now and then, looking to pretend they're one of us because they think peace is something a body can learn.”

Her hand picked at a small imperfection in the quilt. “I figured out quick enough that you weren't like that at all. And I have to admit that we've learned more from you, I think, than you ever could have learned from us.”

Sitting down beside Sarah, I smiled. “That would be debatable.”

“You kept my Katie here with me. For that, you'll always be special.”

Listening to this quiet, solemn woman, I felt a quick kinship. For a while, she had entrusted her daughter to me. More than ever, I understood that remarkable leap of faith.

“I lost Jacob, you see, and Hannah. I couldn't lose Katie. You know how a mother would do anything, if it meant saving her child.”

My hand stole over my belly. “Yes, I do.” I touched her shoulder. “You did the right thing, having me defend Katie in court. No matter what Aaron or the bishop or anyone else told you, you shouldn't doubt that.”

Sarah nodded, then pulled from beneath her apron a small packet wrapped in tissue paper. “I wanted to give you these.”

“You didn't have to do this,” I said, embarrassed that I had not thought of giving a gift, too, in return for the Fishers' hospitality. I tore at the paper, and it fell away to reveal a pair of scissors.

They were heavy and silver, with a marked notch in one blade. They were polished clean, but a small loop of twine tied to the handle was dark and stiff with dried blood. “I thought you could take these away,” Sarah said simply. “I can't give them back to Aaron, now.”

My mind reeled back to the medical examiner's testimony, to the autopsy photos of the dead infant's umbilicus. “Oh, Sarah,” I whispered.

I had based an entire legal defense on the fact that an Amish woman would not, could not, commit murder. And yet here was an Amish woman, holding out to me the evidence that incriminated her.

The light had been left on in the barn, because Sarah knew her daughter was pregnant all along. The scissors used to cut the cord, covered with blood, had been hidden. The baby had disappeared when Katie was asleep—and the reason she didn't remember wrapping and hiding his body was because she had not been the one to do it.

My mouth opened and closed around a question that never came.

“The sun, it came up so quick that morning. I had to get back to the house before Aaron woke for the milking. I thought I'd be able to come back later—but I had to go. I just had to.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “I was the one who sent her out to the English world in the first place—and I could see how she was changing. No one else noticed—not even Samuel—but once he did, well, I knew what would happen. I only wanted Katie to have the kind of life she'd always imagined having—one here, among all of us.

“But Aaron had sent Jacob away, and for much less than this. He would never have accepted that baby … and Katie would have been sent away, too.” Sarah's eyes went to my abdomen, where my child lay safe. “You understand now, Ellie, don't you? I couldn't save Hannah, and I couldn't save Jacob. … I had one last chance. No matter what, someone was going to leave me. So I chose. I did what I thought I had to do, to keep my daughter.” She bowed her head. “And I nearly lost her, all the same.”

Outside, a car horn sounded. I heard the door slam, and Coop's voice tangling with Katie's in the front yard. “Well.” Sarah wiped her eyes and got to her feet. “I don't want you carrying that suitcase. Let me.” She smiled as she lifted it, testing its weight. “You bring that baby back so we can meet her, all right?” Sarah said, and setting down the suitcase, she put her arms around me.

I froze, unable to embrace her. I was an attorney; I was bound by the law. By duty, I needed to call the police, to tell the county attorney this information. And then Sarah would be tried for the same crime for which her daughter had been convicted.

Yet of their own volition, my hands came up to rest on Sarah's back, my thumb brushing the edge of one of the straight pins that held her apron in place. “You take care,” I whispered, squeezing her tightly. Then I hurried down the stairs, outside to where the world was waiting.

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KEEPING FAITH

Jodi Picoult

As Mariah White struggles with depression, her seven-year-old daughter Faith seeks solace in a new friend—who may or may not be imaginary—and begins to recite passages from the Bible, a book she's never read. After a succession of visits to psychiatrists, all of whom conclude Faith is not hallucinating, the unimaginable starts to seem possible: perhaps Faith may actually be seeing God. When Faith's cachet is enhanced by reported miracle healings and alleged stigmata, she is touted as a prophet. Amidst the gathering storm of controversy, Mariah finds herself fighting to keep her daughter: she has to push past her own insecurities and stand up for herself and her competence as a parent.

Keeping Faith
explores a family plagued by the media, the medical profession, and organised religion in a world where everyone has an opinion but no one knows the truth. At her controversial and compelling best, Jodi Picoult explores the moment when boundaries break down, and when the only step left to take is a leap of faith.

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THE PACT

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‘This psychologically shrewd tale is as suspenseful as any bestselling legal thriller … she forges a finely honed, commanding and cathartic drama. '
Booklist

For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty. Parents and children alike have been best friends, so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more.

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The profound questions faced by the characters in this heartrending novel are those we can all relate to: How well do we ever really know our children or our friends? What if …? As its chapters unfold, alternating between an idyllic past and an unthinkable present,
The Pact
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