The Search (20 page)

As soon as they reached the yard where the gathering was held, Billy jumped down, tied up the horse, and sauntered off to join his friends at a game of volleyball. He didn’t even notice where Maggie and Bess had gone until Andy Yoder pulled him aside.

“Who’s that?” Andy pointed across the yard to a tight knot of girls.

“Who?”

“The blond.”

“The skinny one? That’s Bess. Bertha Riehl’s granddaughter.”

Andy snorted a laugh. “Maybe you need eyeglasses. She ain’t so skinny now. Seems like she’s got a different shape up above.” He handed the volleyball to Billy and walked across the yard to meet Bess.

Billy watched Andy make his way to sit next to Bess. It occurred to him that Bess was going to be quite a nice-looking girl. It was a thought he’d never had.

After volleyball and dinner, then hymn singing, Billy was ready to go home. When he found Maggie, he told her to go get Bess and he would meet them at his buggy.

“She already left,” Maggie told him. “With Andy Yoder.”

Bess woke up in the morning with a firm resolution: last night was the final time she would cry herself to sleep over Billy. She could feel how swollen her eyes were and wondered if she could sneak out to the garden to snatch a cucumber without Mammi spotting her. She had heard girls talk about putting cucumbers on their eyes as a cure. She tiptoed down into the kitchen and was glad to find it empty. She was just about to open the side door when she spotted Mammi, picking beans and filling up her apron, talking to Billy in the garden. Bess couldn’t go out there now.

Maybe pickles would work. She grabbed a jar from the pantry and hurried back upstairs. She opened the pickle jar and lay down on the bed, placing a sliced pickle over each eye. Within seconds, her eyes were stinging from the vinegar. She jumped up and reached for a pitcher of water. What a terrible idea! Her eyes were bloodshot now and even more swollen-looking than before. A sharp scent of dill and vinegar hung in the air.

An hour later, she was in the barn spreading rose petals when Billy came in with a freshly filled basket. “Where do you want them?”

She kept her head low and pointed to an empty tray.

He carefully spread the petals out, single layer, on the screen. “So Andy Yoder took you home last night?”

She shrugged. That was her business and no one else’s.

“You could have at least told me. I wasted time looking for you.”

Bess looked up, pleased. “You did?”

“Sure.” Billy shook out the basket and set it on a shelf with the other baskets. “Last thing I want is to have your grandmother sore at me for not bringing you home.”

Charming.
“Well, she’s not sore at you.” She gave him a sideways glance. “She thinks Andy Yoder is a fine fellow.”

“Bertha Riehl said that?” he asked, amazed. “Andy isn’t very selective about girls. He’ll take any female who smiles his way.”

She brushed past him to go to the farmhouse.

He sniffed the air as she walked by him. “Strange. I keep getting a whiff of pickles.”

Jonah was about to turn off the kerosene lamp in the kitchen and head to bed when a knock on the door surprised him. He opened the door to find Lainey standing there in the moonlight.

“Jonah, I would have come sooner, but I was working late tonight in the bakery for a big order tomorrow. A call came for you today. From the hospital.” She bit her lip. “Bess is a perfect match for Simon. Six for six.”

Jonah was stunned. “How could that be? How could that possibly be true?”

Lainey looked past him with a hard stare.

Jonah turned to see what she was looking at. His mother was on the bottom stair. It looked as if she had come down, overheard them, and was starting to tiptoe back up.

“Tell him, Bertha,” Lainey said in a firm voice.

Bertha stopped in her tracks.

“Tell me what?” Jonah asked, looking from his mother to Lainey and back again.

Lainey and Bertha locked gazes. “If you don’t tell him, I will.”

“Oh, I’ll tell him. I said I would and I will.” Bertha scowled at Lainey but sat down at the kitchen table.

The tendon of his mother’s jaw was working, so Jonah knew to prepare himself for a revelation.

Bertha looked at him carefully, paused a long while to gather her thoughts, then slapped her palms on the table and turned to Lainey. “Fine. You tell him.”

Lainey gave Bertha a look as if she couldn’t believe what a coward she was. She dropped her head and let out a deep breath. She pulled out a chair across from Jonah. “This is a story that goes back to that night fifteen years ago when you and Rebecca and . . . your baby . . . were in that horrible accident.”

Jonah stiffened.

But Lainey didn’t waver. She told him the entire story, she didn’t leave anything out. When she was done, she looked directly at him. “I switched those babies, Jonah. Your baby for my little sister.”

Jonah was stunned silent. The kitchen was so quiet that the sound of a fly buzzing against the window echoed through the room. He stared at Lainey as if she had been speaking in a foreign language. The full realization of what she said slowly started to dawn on him.
No. It couldn’t be
.
It couldn’t possibly be true.
He had trouble speaking—the words tangled up in his throat, and he had to stop and unravel them before he could say what he needed to say.

In a hoarse voice, he spoke at last. “You were only ten. You must not be remembering clearly. You must have it mixed up.”

“I remember it right, Jonah,” Lainey said softly. “I’ll never forget that night.”

“But . . . how? How could you . . . how would you even know if a baby was dead?” He leaned forward in his chair. “Maybe she wasn’t. Maybe—”

Lainey shook her head. “She died instantly. I know I was young, but I knew she was gone.” Her eyes welled with tears.

In a tight voice he said, “But I was told my daughter was completely unhurt. I was told it was a miracle.”

“I put my baby sister in Rebecca’s arms—to bring her comfort—and waited until I heard the sirens. I just stayed right by the two of you, telling you over and over again not to quit. Not to give up. But by the time the ambulance arrived, I had made a decision.”

Silence fell over the table. Jonah’s mind struggled to grasp what Lainey was saying. He grabbed hold of the table, feeling like the victim of a hurricane, his life strewn to pieces. Everything seemed to be floating.

Bess wasn’t really his daughter. It shocked him to the core.

Then he had an even greater shock. His eyes met his mother’s and he realized that she wasn’t at all surprised. She
knew
this. She knew this!

As if Bertha could read his thoughts, she crossed her arms defensively against her chest. “Yes, I knew about this, Jonah. I knew. The night of the accident, I went to the hospital and found out Rebecca had passed and you were in bad shape. They said the baby had come through the accident unharmed. A miracle, they called it. They kept her overnight for observation. Then the next day, she was given to me to take home. But she wasn’t our Bess. By that time, I had already heard about Lainey’s sister’s passing and put two and two together. I went to the county morgue, to be sure. I planned on telling you, but it got harder and harder, and then . . .” Her voice drizzled off.

He lifted his eyes to look at his mother. “And now you’ve finally come clean because of Simon.”

Slowly, Bertha nodded. “When Lainey showed up out of the clear blue sky, I knew the time had come.”

“How could you do that? How could you lie to me for fifteen years?”

“Some things are just worth a little bit of trouble.”

Jonah exploded. He rose to his feet and leaned his palms against the table. “Don’t you dare make this sound like something trivial!”

Bertha didn’t back down. She looked straight at him. “You needed that baby, Jonah.” She pointed a strong finger on the table. “And she needed you.”

Once again, silence covered the room. In a voice so calm he hardly recognized it, he said, “Tomorrow, Bess and I will return to Ohio. This topic is closed. Forever.” He stared at Lainey, hard, for a long moment, then reached for his cane and went up the stairs.

At breakfast, Bess could tell that something had happened between her father and grandmother, but she had no idea what had made her father decide to leave Stoney Ridge so suddenly. It saddened her when he told her at breakfast. She tried to object, but she could read the stubborn look on his face. There was no changing his mind. And Mammi, as usual, wasn’t talking.

Bess went up to her room to pack up her belongings. As she folded her dresses and aprons into her small suitcase, she could hardly believe how attached she had grown to Mammi, to Lainey, to Rose Hill Farm. To Billy. It had been only two months, yet she felt as if she belonged here. As if this was her home.

She heard her father call to her to come downstairs. She looked around the room one last time to brand the image on her memory: the pale green walls rimmed with pegs for clothing. The scratched-up wooden floors. The small wooden bed with Mammi’s handmade starburst pattern quilt on top, the nightstand with a glass oil lamp, the windowsill where she sat some nights, watching the moon rise and cast shadows over the rose fields. She sighed and trudged down the steps.

Billy was out front, waiting for them by the buggy. Jonah had asked him to drive them to the bus station to catch the noon bus. She walked up to him and he took the suitcase from her.

“What’s going on with your dad?” he whispered. “What’s the big rush to leave town?”

Bess shrugged. “Just needs to get back to his business, I guess,” she said nonchalantly. Bess felt a small sense of dignity rise up in her. After all, Billy had disappointed her tremendously. Maybe it was good that she was leaving. Maybe he would pine for her. Maybe he’d even write long letters to her.

“I’ll go scrounge up that black cat of yours,” he said, heading over to the barn.

Blackie! She’d nearly forgotten him.

Mammi and Jonah came out to the buggy.

“What’s keeping Billy?” Jonah asked, looking anxiously at the barn.

Not a moment later, Billy let out a large whoop. He came outside, cradling two small kittens in his arms, with an angry Blackie trailing behind. “Hey, Bess! So much for your scientific skills! I thought you said your cat was a boy!” he cried out, laughing.

Bess ran over to see the kittens. Blackie curled around her legs. She looked back at her father. “I can’t take them! They’re hardly a day or two old!”

“They’ll stay,” Mammi said decisively. “Their mother stays too. She’s a decent mouser after all.”

Bess gave each kitten a kiss and let Billy take them back to the barn where he found them. She reached down to stroke Blackie, but he . . . she . . . glared at her and hurried after her kittens.

Bess watched them go and turned to say goodbye to Mammi. When their eyes met, Bess felt tears choke in her throat. She ran to her grandmother and threw her arms around her big shoulders. She felt Mammi’s arms reach up to pat her on her back. When Bess finally let go, Mammi took off her spectacles, breathed on them, and rubbed them with her apron. Needed polishing, she said.