Secret, The (6 page)

Lettie kept on, her head down. “Sometimes doin’ the work yourself is better.”

“Does help occupy one’s mind.”

Lettie nodded slowly. “At times, jah . . .”

Not knowing how to broach the subject that nagged at her, Adah rose and walked to the side door, opened it, and looked out. She’d never been one to get anywhere with
this
daughter by making small talk. No, she had always had to take matters into her own hands . . . her own way. “Did I hear ya wanderin’ the house and talkin’ to yourself in the wee hours?” she asked, eyes still fixed on the pastureland to the south.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, your father and I were talkin’ and—”

“You know there’s nothin’ to gain from that.”

Adah turned to see Lettie sitting upright in the middle of the floor, her bare feet peeking out from beneath the green choring dress spread out all around her. “I meant no harm, Lettie.”

“Then say nothin’ further.” Lettie wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “I have enough to think about just now.”

She means without me poking my nose in.
“All right, then.” Adah glanced at the loaf she’d placed on the table. “I just thought you might like some fresh bread this morning. Would you want me to slice a piece for ya?”

Lettie shook her head. “Denki, but I’ll take a break when I’m
gut
and ready.”

Adah forced a smile and said she had work to do, then left for her own kitchen. No matter her hopes, the tension between Lettie and herself had never lifted despite the passing of years. She could only wonder when, or if, her daughter might open up to her ever again.

chapter
five

T
oday the doctor informed me I’m dying. Someday, he’s going to feel
foolish for having ruined my day.

Heather stopped typing in her laptop journal, resting her fingers on the keyboard as she stared at the screen. She sat high on a barstool at the kitchen counter, one of several favorite spots in the house she’d shared with her parents for so many years. Pulling up her file of personal photos, she smiled as she stared at the most recent pictures of her and Devon, taken at Busch Gardens.
Before
climbing aboard the Loch Ness Monster, the most intense ride ever. She studied herself carefully. She looked exactly the same then as now, the picture of perfect health. Her shoulder-length brown hair with golden highlights gleamed in the sunlight, and her blue eyes sparkled with anticipation. Sure, she was tall and slender, but that was nothing new for her.

“See?” she said to a pair of matching black Persians. “I’m absolutely fine.”

The cats had been a gift from her parents to each other on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. The big silver year was celebrated by most couples with a trip to Hawaii or Cancun . . . or silver jewelry and other finery.

But in spite of their practical approach to marriage, her parents had always been anything but typical. For their special anniversary they’d dipped into their savings and bought the purebred kittens.

As cat lovers, they had already owned three beautiful cats since saying “I do.” Tiger’s and Sasha’s lives had been short-lived . . . but the sweetest cat of all, Kiki, had surprised even the vet by living seventeen years before succumbing to old age. Mom had been too heartbroken to replace Kiki right away, so they’d waited a couple years to purchase the black feline siblings.

Heather nuzzled her face into Moe’s gleaming fur. He always seemed to know her mood and liked to meow-talk when alone with her. She sighed and turned to scowl at the computer screen. “Starting over.” She selected what she’d just typed, then pressed Delete. “Hypothetically speaking, if I
were
as sick as the doc seems to think I am, what would I do?” She floated the question to the air.

Meow . . . mew.

She reached for Moe and held him close. “You silly cat.”

What would Mom advise?

She recalled her mother’s calm, sensible response to her own diagnosis. While she had gone the route of modern medicine, in the end she’d wished there had been time to pursue an alternative treatment method.
But Mom didn’t have the luxury of
time. And she had numerous symptoms,
Heather thought, wanting to quell the memories.

Still holding Moe, she got online and found a bunch of emails from friends. The only one she really cared about was from her fiancé, who was still frustrated about having been sent to Iraq. Looking on the bright side of things, though, today Devon had some good news. His tour of duty would be completed by Thanksgiving!

She hadn’t forgotten the night six months ago when he’d made the upsetting announcement about his deployment. Back in his college days, he had thought it a good idea to join the National Guard and had assumed he’d only be gone on some weekends. But when his unit was called up and he was shipped off to Iraq via Texas, she’d inwardly recoiled, not wanting him to know how frightened she was.

Now she kissed Moe’s furry head and decided not to tell Devon about her recent trips to the doctor. In fact, the more she considered it, the less she wanted to tell anyone.
Especially
not Dad.

He was still struggling over his grief—her depressing news would surely send him spiraling back down into a black tunnel of despair. She must spare her father that if possible.

Getting up, she went to pour some apple juice from the fridge and noticed a picture of the three of them, a magnet framing her parents and herself on the occasion of her college graduation. The grand brick buildings of William and Mary created an idyllic collegiate backdrop. The second-oldest school in the nation, it counted Thomas Jefferson among its distinguished graduates.

She flashed through her memories of her first year. She’d been so wet behind the ears and unsure of herself, looking back made her cringe at times.

“You never know what you’ll accomplish if you don’t take the
first step.”
That was her dad’s mantra, and a good one to live by, too. Heather had succeeded as she lived out her academic dream at the challenging college. How she’d loved the feel of the old campus and the engaging professors—so much so she sometimes fantasized about becoming a perpetual student, maybe working toward her doctorate.

But then her mother had gotten sick . . . really sick. Heather had deferred her admission to the master’s program and managed to get out of her apartment lease and move home, driving to and from work near Williamsburg. Based on the oncologist’s prognosis, she’d had high hopes for her mother’s recovery. All three of them had.

Even now, reflecting on the past, a plan began to churn in her head. The idea was quite appealing, actually. Why couldn’t she simply drop out of her world for a while? With Devon serving overseas, who else would really notice?

Well, there was Dad, of course. He might notice if she disappeared, even though he was always preoccupied with work now that Mom was no longer around. He and Heather rarely bumped into each other at the house, which was just the way she liked it.

Frankly, her biggest obstacle to running away from it all was the timing. She was so close to the end of her final semester—just another week away. It would be smart to finish her work first, to keep her credits.

I’m fine,
she reminded herself.
They just got my lab results
mixed up.

Second-guessing was her forte. What if someone else had gotten
her
report by mistake? She’d read about the frequency of misdiagnoses enough to know she wasn’t borrowing trouble, yet . . .

Me and my overactive imagination.
Most likely, they’d only misinterpreted her lab results . . . the other tests, too.

But what if they hadn’t?

I have plenty of time to sort this out,
she decided. Besides, from what she’d observed with Mom, if dying prematurely was absolutely in the cards, you couldn’t argue with fate anyway. When your number was up, it was up.

Setting Moe down, she closed her laptop and headed outside to the two-tiered deck. She moved down the stairs to the large water feature her mom and their landscape architect had decided on before Mom died. The cascading mini falls reminded Heather of their many visits to Pennsylvania Amish country, where they had loved walking the back roads, stopping in at roadside stands, and enjoying the sound of gurgling creeks.
“Cricks,”
one Amish girl had called them, and Mom had looked at Heather with a twinkle in her eye, a smile on her pretty face. The three of them had frequently vacationed there, soaking up the tranquillity offered by rolling, picturesque farmland stretching in all directions.

I need something like that again.

Sipping her juice, Heather strolled through the grass, past the patio gardens and around to the front of the grand old colonial where she’d grown up.

“I miss you, Mom,” she whispered.

She walked around to the opposite side of the house, taking her time as she pushed dry leaves out of the empty birdbath, wishing she could talk to her mom about Dr. O’Connor’s diagnosis. The last thing she wanted was to be unreasonable. Maybe there was something else she could do . . . perhaps she could look into some naturopathic treatment alternatives in Pennsylvania. There was a woman specialist somewhere in Lancaster whom Mom had wanted to see—Dr. Marshall, she recalled. According to the information Mom had jotted down and stuck on the fridge, her expertise was in stress relief, sleep disorders, cancer, headaches, and emotional well-being. Heather thought the list was still around.

Her mind was in a whirl as she slipped back into the house.

Inside, she wandered down the hall to Dad’s den. Somewhere in a drawer, waiting to be inserted into a photo album sleeve, there was a handful of brochures she and Mom had picked up and collected the last time they’d done something impulsive. They had planned the last-minute trip together, anxious to get away from the anxiety-ridden worlds of school and job and housework. Maxed out on stress, both of them had craved a serene spot that summer.

It would be like old times, visiting there.
Heather recalled that her mom hadn’t had a clue about her cancer then, though she’d been experiencing some weight loss and a puzzling lack of appetite. Her mom had been focused on nothing more serious than her obsession with heirloom quilts. While she’d never sewed herself, she loved seeing the quilts up close, even talking with expert quilters. On the final day of their trip, her mother had taken the plunge, purchasing the handmade Amish quilt that now adorned the guest bed downstairs.

“Think. Where
are
those brochures?” she muttered, aware of Moe’s padding close behind her. Of the cat duo, Moe was more eager for company, following her from room to room as if he were her assigned shadow. “My constant companion, huh, Moe?”

She pulled out the top drawer of Dad’s custom maple built-ins. Beneath a road atlas, she found the pamphlets wrapped with a rubber band. “Jackpot!”

Heather curled up in her dad’s recliner next to the bay window. Moe waited until she was settled, then jumped into her lap. “Well, aren’t
you
needy,” she joked. She flipped through flyers touting the Amish Farm and House on Route 30, J & B Quilts & Crafts, a strolling tour of Strasburg’s historic district, and Wheatland, the historic mansion residence of President James Buchanan. She studied the words
Mennonite Information
Center
—
welcome, let us help you feel at home
—and was captivated by the large barn and silo on the front of the brochure.

A page fell out onto her lap. It listed tourist homes in Lancaster County. She slid her finger down the list of people offering lodging in private family homes: Benners, Groffs, Rohrers, Wengers . . . Many families offered places to stay, some suggesting a “hands-on farming experience.”

She sighed. “How cool is this? I might actually get to stay with an Amish family. That’s something we never got to do. What do you think, Moe?”

The cat meowed twice loudly, and Heather gave him a pat. “Hey, now . . . I wish I could take you and Igor along, but I don’t think any of these places accept cats.”
Besides, there are
probably zillions of Amish barn cats running around.

The tilt of Moe’s head seemed to indicate his displeasure. He was never too keen on sharing her with his brother, let alone anyone else.

Sighing, she decided to leave her father a note about her plan to take a break before working in earnest on her thesis . . . something vague like that. No need to concern him. And any way, he’d understand; lately he’d talked of getting away for a while himself.

“Terrific.” She looked down the long list of accommodations, wondering how many phone numbers she’d have to try—didn’t these people have Web sites or email?—before she landed a place to call home.
A place to defy gravity.

Moe leaped off her lap, a black streak across the floor, and dashed into the hallway and out of sight. Headed for what, she had no idea. Maybe to find Igor, who was undoubtedly asleep on Dad’s bed down the hall. Cats were weird like that, but these two were definitely family to her and Dad.

The elegant photo on Dad’s desk caught her eye, and she leaned down to gaze at it.
Christmas past
. She’d had no problem returning to live at home, putting off her master’s studies. Someone needed to be with Mom those final months and then keep Dad from becoming a total recluse during the first shock wave of grief. The emotional anesthesia they’d initially felt wore off quickly, following the funeral.

Then, a year or so ago, she’d moved into the spacious loft over the garage that connected to the rest of the house. The living arrangement allowed her to come and go as she pleased, which suited her need for seclusion.

I’m like Dad. We need our space.
Lately, though, her father had begun to rally some, but just about the time you thought you were home free, waves of grief had an uncanny way of creeping up, building until they overtook like a tsunami. She’d discovered over the long months that one never fully recovered from losing a parent. And although Dad rarely talked about Mom’s passing, she assumed it was even worse to lose a spouse.