The Postcard (12 page)

“ ’Cause I wanna know.”

Rachel didn’t know how to begin to tell anyone the truth, let alone her own little girl. And her heart thumped against her rib cage, so hard she wondered if Annie might be able to see her apron puff out.

“Mamma? Won’tcha tell me what you see?”

She moaned, resisting the question, not wanting to say one word about her blindness. “I . . . it’s not so easy to tell you what I see and what I don’t,” she began. “If I lift my hand up to your face, like this—” and here she reached out to find Annie’s forehead, allowing her fingers to slip down over the warm cheeks and across to the familiar button nose—“if I do that, I can see you in my own way.”

“But what if I got up real close to you, like this,” said Annie. “
Then
could ya see my face without feeling it?”

Sadly, Rachel knew enough not to try. “Sometimes I see light flickers, but that’s only on good days. It doesn’t matter, really, how close you sit to me, Annie; I don’t see any part of your face at all.”

“What about my eyes, if I make them great big, like this?”

Rachel suspected what her daughter was doing. “Are your eyes as big as moons?” she asked, playing along.

“Jah, very big moons.” Annie giggled.

“And are they big and beautiful
blue
moons?” she asked quickly, hoping to divert Annie’s attention.

“How’d ya know, Mamma? Jah, they’re blue!” Annie was in her lap now, hugging her neck. “Oh, Mamma, you
can
see me! You can!”

She waited for Annie to settle down a bit. “No, I really can’t see your face. But I
do
know how beautiful and blue your eyes are. I saw you the night you were born, and I saw you every day of your life until . . .”

“Every day till what, Mamma? Till the accident?”

Rachel sucked in air suddenly, then coughed. Someone had reminded Annie about the Crossroad, about that horrible day. Surely they had, for her daughter, at only four years of age, would never have remembered without someone prompting her.

Who?

It was then that she actually tried to force herself to see, that very moment as she pulled her darling girl into her arms, holding her close. She tried so deliberately that it hurt, like knowing there was surely a light at the end of a long, long dark tunnel. Knowing this only because people told you it was there, and trying so hard to see it for yourself.

Leaning forward . . . straining, with Annie still tight in her embrace, Rachel strove to catch a glimpse of the minuscule, round opening—the light—at the end of the blackness,
her
blackness. At the end of the pain.

“Why can’t you see, Mamma?”

“I . . . well . . .” She couldn’t explain, not really. How could she make her daughter understand something so complicated?

“Mamma?”

She felt Annie’s tears against her own face. Oh, her heart was going to break in two all over again if she didn’t put a stop to this. “Now, ya mustn’t be cryin’ over nothing at all,” she said, stroking the tiny head.

“I won’t cry,” Annie said, sniffling. “I promise I won’t, Mamma, if
you
won’t.”

Again, the pain cut a blow to her heart. How did Annie know about Rachel’s tears? Had she heard what her grandfather used to say, back before they’d come to live here? Was Benjamin still telling folk that his daughter had cried her eyes out—that’s why she couldn’t see? ’Course, no one in their Plain community really and truly believed what the English doctor had said—not anymore anyway. He’d said Rachel’s sight would return quickly, but it hadn’t. No amount of wishing or hoping could make it so.

“Will you promise, Mamma?” Annie said again.

“I can’t promise you for sure, but I’ll try at least.”

“That’s wonderful-gut. Because we’ve got us some pumpkins to pick tomorrow. Won’tcha come help me?” Annie wrapped her slender arms around Rachel and hugged her hard.

“Maybe I will,” replied Rachel, hugging back. “Maybe tomorrow I will.”

Philip was contemplating his interview questions, crafting them wisely as his sister had recommended, even getting them down in longhand for a change. Stopping, he stared at the desk, tinkering with his pen. He noticed the many cubicles and cubbyholes, realizing that most men probably would not have concerned themselves over the size of a compartment to store paper clips, staples, and the like. But he was one to enjoy a systematic approach to order, and the current location of his computer work station and filing cabinets in his home office were not conducive to anything akin to organization.

In the process of opening and closing the various drawers and investigating the nooks in the magnificent desk, he acquired the notion that his system was too limited, at best.

Where can I locate such a desk?
he wondered. Almost immediately he decided against inquiring of Susanna or Benjamin Zook. Perhaps someone at the Country Store might be able to direct him to an antique auction or estate sale. Yes, that’s what he might do after his interviews tomorrow. The plan of action, though rather simple, gave him a surprising surge of energy. Not to say that he wasn’t still thoroughly worn out, but the idea
was
a grand one.

Just as he thought he might head downstairs to have another look at the tourist guide before turning in for the night, he tugged on a rather flat, thin drawer. No more than two inches deep, it was ideal for fine stationery or a slim stack of computer paper.

The drawer was entirely stuck. He tried opening it again. It didn’t move one iota. More struggling brought no result. The drawer was simply not going to budge.

“That’s strange,” he said aloud. Then, getting down on his knees, he peered under the desk, trying to see what was causing the drawer to malfunction, if anything.

The ceiling light, along with the several lamps on either side of the desk, cast a dense shadow on the underside of the desk. So much so that he got up and went over to the reading lamp on the table beside the bed and unplugged it. He carried it over and plugged it into the outlet near the desk, then removed the lampshade so that the light bulb was exposed. He felt like a Boy Scout—though he’d never been one—on an adventure of some sort.

Squatting down, he shone the light directly under the desk, into the inner recesses, hoping to see what was jamming the drawer. As he held the light steady, he spied something sticking out beneath a seam in the wood. He reached for it, holding the lamp in the other hand. Just what it was, he couldn’t be sure. But he was determined to find out.

Reaching up, he made a jiggling motion, discovering that the item was heavier than typical writing paper, more like card stock. He peered closer, trying to see how to dislodge it.

Getting up, he placed the lamp carefully beside his computer, then began to work on the narrow drawer again, wiggling it from this angle. “Out with you,” he grumbled impatiently, and carefully, little by little, he coaxed the drawer out of its too-snug spot.

Once free, the drawer was clearly empty. But it was within the far end of the slot that the problem lay. He reached his fingers into the narrow mouth and tugged.

The culprit proved to be a wrinkled plain postcard, slightly torn and yellowing around the edges. The stamp had begun to fade, but the postmark—May 17, 1962—was clear enough. So was the writing, though the message looked to be a foreign language. What it was he did not know, since they were words he’d never seen. Possibly German. Could it be that this was Pennsylvania Dutch, the language of most Old Order Amish?

Philip was curious, but he had more important work to accomplish here than obsessing over a crumpled postcard. “Ach, such awful important work,” he said, mimicking some of the phraseology he’d heard repeatedly during supper.

Then an idea came to him, possibly just the thing to get Susanna Zook talking again. He would produce the postcard tomorrow, sometime prior to breakfast, before the other guests came downstairs. Perhaps in a private encounter, she might even offer to decipher the message, though he would never be so forward as to ask.

More than likely, the postcard belonged to the Zooks. Something they might be quite glad he had uncovered, or perhaps it was worth nothing at all. Yet he wondered how long the card had been lodged in the drawer. Even more fascinating— how had it found its way into the dark confines of the old desk in the first place? In his line of work, he was constantly asking the “Five W’s” of good reporting—Who? What? Why? Where? and When?
How
was never to be overlooked, either, of course.

Nine

P
hilip was restless.

Philip The night was exceptionally warm for mid-September, though too early to be classified as Indian summer, since the first frost had not yet occurred. He rolled out of bed to open the window, then switched on the ceiling fan, hoping the night breeze and the whirring sound might help him drift off again. Not accustomed to sleeping in total silence, he searched the room once again for a clock radio, anything for a little background noise—something to soothe his wakefulness.

There was not even an alarm clock, let alone a radio. And no TV. Such were the heralded benefits of a back-roads bed-and-breakfast—peace and tranquillity accompanied by nighttime silence, broken only by a multitude of night insects, including some loud crickets.

Philip lay on the bed, concentrating on the vigorous chirping outside the window. Listening to the rhythm in the crickets’ song, he noticed after a while that the various cadence patterns gradually began to correspond with each other. He’d read of this phenomenon, kindred to clock pendulums on the same wall aligning themselves over a period of time.

For one ridiculous moment, he thought of Lauren Hale. How fortunate for him that they had parted ways. To think that he might have begun to match the ebb and flow of
her
spirit and general approach to life was appalling and made him roll out of bed again to shake himself. He should’ve known better than to get involved with a stubborn, selfabsorbed young woman.

Thoughts of the ill-fated romance made him more unsettled than before, and he decided to turn on the light, thoroughly disgusted with his insomnia. Perhaps his body was too tired, too wound up to relax; that had occurred on any number of occasions in the past.

Pacing the floor, he caught a glimpse of the postcard on the right side of his laptop, where he’d placed it before retiring. He picked it up, studying the steady hand of the writer. The addressee was a Miss Adele Herr, and though the street number and name were illegibly smudged, the city and state—Reading, Pennsylvania—were remarkably clear. The message was signed simply,
Gabe
.

Post-office issued, the card seemed in fairly good shape, but then, it may have been kept from the light for who knows how long. Nevertheless, he sat at the desk and scrutinized the handwriting, the unfamiliar prose stirring his interest.

He leaned back in the chair, his long legs sprawled out before him, taking in the country-red apothecary chest on the opposite wall, the wide-plank pine floors scattered with braided oval rugs, and the tall highboy. Even the ceiling fan had the appearance of being bent with age. If he hadn’t known better, he might’ve suspected that he’d been tricked somehow—transported back in time. He wondered if, on some subconscious level, the discovery of the postcard had indeed roused him from slumber—the soul-deep slumber of spirit that had marked him for too long, despite the frenetic rhythm of his days.

Rachel turned in her sleep, aware that a window was being opened in one of the guest quarters at the far end of the house. In her drowsiness, she reached for her daughter, who often slept next to her these lonely nights. Annie had a small single bed across the room but didn’t often start out the night sleeping there. Annie much preferred falling asleep next to her mother, and Rachel didn’t mind at all.

“Annie?” she whispered, sitting up.

“I’m here, Mamma” came the reply from the foot of the bed. “It’s too hot to sleep.”

“Well, let’s open the window, then.”

“Open them
all
up,” Annie suggested.

“Gut idea.” Getting up, Rachel counted four short steps to the first window. In an instant Annie was next to her, pushing against the wooden panel, helpful as always. “There, that’s better, ain’t so?” she said, breathing in the clean night air.