The Englisch Daughter

by Cindy Woodsmall

  Behind the darkness, she saw lanterns shining from inside the stables. When Abigail arrived at the farm after school, she usually came inside to eat and chat before starting to work. But she hadn’t today. All three workers should’ve been in for supper an hour ago. What was keeping them?

  Jemima had fed the children two hours ago. She’d then bathed Simeon and Nevin, who managed to wear as much of their dinner as they had eaten. Laura was currently doing her homework while Carolyn and her brothers played.

  The baby giggled, and Jemima turned in that direction. In the play area of the kitchen, Carolyn was on the floor, making silly faces at Simeon. Nevin was nearby, playing with an array of toy marine life.

  Jemima grabbed the large round thermos from a cabinet. Within a few minutes, she’d ladled into it enough soup to share and packed it in a picnic bag, along with a few mugs, some tortillas to dip into the broth, spoons, napkins, bottles of water, and a couple of apples.

  “Carolyn.” When her little girl looked up, Jemima spoke Pennsylvania Dutch, telling her they were going to take mugs and soup out to her Daed, Abigail, and Chris.

  “Gut.” Carolyn clapped her hands and jumped to her feet.

  Earlier, she and her brothers had seen the horses arrive while Laura was at school. They’d watched from the window for quite a while before growing restless and moving on to other things. “Kann Ich helfe?”

  Jemima appreciated her daughter’s desire to help, but she’d told her, “Not today.” The workers were too distracted when they received new horses, and the horses were flighty. It wasn’t a good time for a five-year-old to do anything but observe from a safe distance.

  But now Carolyn ran to the back door and grabbed her and her brothers’ coats. “Bischt geh, Laura?”

  “Nee.” Laura looked up from her homework, catching her Mamm’s eye, and smiled as if to say, Aren’t those little ones the cutest? It was sweet of Carolyn to ask Laura if she was going.

  Jemima nodded and grinned. Her heart felt a little lighter as Carolyn helped her brothers get their coats on. Their family could do this. Roy and she could get the finances under control and buy a food truck. It would be a while, but the dream wasn’t dead, only postponed.

  A desire to pray for Roy washed over her, but anger stared it down. She wasn’t ready to pray for him, not yet. Why hadn’t he told her about using the money? Why? Maybe Abigail was right after all: men did whatever they made up their minds to do. But Jemima couldn’t afford to look at her marriage with cynicism. Roy was struggling with something, and she needed to respect his right to work through it on his own.

  When the honeymoon was over—and for them it had lasted about two years—marriage seemed to be a constant war between gratefulness and resentment, between contentment and restlessness, between what was too real and what wasn’t real enough.

  A lot of women criticized Abigail for being too picky and finding reasons to push away every interested man, and there had been many of them. But on days when Jemima was painfully honest with herself about what marriage was and wasn’t, she secretly cheered for Abigail. However, being single wasn’t for Jemima, even on those days when she felt as if she were crossing a stretch of desert in search of an oasis. She loved Roy and their children with all her heart.

  She strapped Simeon and Nevin in the little red wagon that she frequently used to transport the littlest ones and other things across the farm. She placed the packed supper on the other end of the wagon.

  Jemima put her coat on and grabbed a flashlight. “Kumm, Carolyn.” She turned on the flashlight and passed it to Carolyn. “Loss uns geh see Daed un Aenti Abi?” There really wasn’t any reason for Jemima to ask Carolyn if she wanted to go see her dad and Aunt Abi. Of course Carolyn wanted to go see them.

  “Un guck beim wege da gauls!”

  Jemima nodded, agreeing that they would look at all the horses.

  Carolyn bounced out the door, and Jemima followed her, pulling the wagon.

  Why was the veterinarian’s car here? Jemima had seen the small SUV many times over the years. Ed provided good medical care to their herd, but she couldn’t think of another time when he’d come the same day as the new arrivals.

  The wagon wheels crunched the gravel and then the brown grass on their way to the stables, and Carolyn went ahead of them, having a great time making the flashlight beam go wherever she wanted. After a few minutes they reached the stable, and Jemima slid the door open to let in herself, Carolyn, and the wagon with the boys and food. She shut the door behind her, but the group of adults didn’t seem to notice them. Abigail was standing next to the vet, listening, her thumb curved around her chin. Jemima had seen her make this face before. Something was wrong. Roy was next to his sister, and Chris stood apart from the group but was still in the conversation.

  Roy reached into a stall and rubbed Thunder’s forehead. “How much contact has Houdini had with Lucky and Thunder this past week?”

  Abigail shrugged. “I’m not sure. They spent one afternoon in the same pasture, but that’s all, I think.”

  Roy looked into Lucky’s stall, probably searching for signs of illness.

  Abigail spotted her niece and waved. “Hey, mei lieb.”

  Carolyn’s face lit up, as it always did when Abigail called her “my love.”

  “Hallo, Aenti Abi! Hallo, Daed!” Carolyn held up a mug and blurted out in Pennsylvania Dutch about the tortilla soup and helping to make it. Abigail smiled and responded warmly, despite whatever was troubling her. Jemima continued to pull the wagon and moved in closer.

  Roy looked up from his phone, quickly slid it into his pocket, and came to embrace Jemima. “We have something of a pickle going on.” He turned to his young daughter and pointed across the barn. “Carolyn, can you go sit on that bale of hay and keep an eye on the horses in those stalls over there?”

  Jemima reached into the picnic bag, handed an apple to Carolyn, and told her that when she was finished eating it, she could feed bits to some of the horses as a treat.

  Carolyn’s eyes lit up at the mention of feeding the horses a treat. She took it and the flashlight and went across the barn to sit on the hay bale her Daed had pointed out.

  The vet tucked items into his bag. “As I said, I don’t have the right equipment to test for EHV-1, so I’ll send off these blood and nasal secretion samples to be tested. I might get the results back in two days, but it could take as much as three.”

  “Your advice?” Abigail asked.

  “I agree with you. If it was my string, I’d treat this situation as if we already knew it was EHV-1.”

  “EHV-1?” Jemima’s heart moved to her throat. “I’ve heard of it, of course, but would you tell me more?”

  Ed gave her a sympathetic half smile. “It’s in the family of herpes viruses, though it can’t be passed to humans. A large percentage of horses have it but are asymptomatic, meaning without symptoms. Sometimes stress causes it. Has Houdini been sick lately?”

  “Not that I know of.” Roy pulled his phone from his pocket and gave a quick look at the screen. “He was leased out last week to an Englisch family who’s leased many horses over the years. They have one horse, so I’ll call them a little later to give a heads-up and see what the week was like for Houdini.”

  “Stress may not have been the cause. It’s a very contagious disease. Maybe their horse has it. Either way, it can result in neurological symptoms. See how he’s holding this back leg?” Houdini was standing on three legs, but the other leg was wobbly.

  Jemima turned to her husband and his sister. “What does this mean for the herd?”

  Abigail drew a deep breath. “Hopefully nothing more than two tons of work. But the timing couldn’t be worse.”

  “Ya.” Roy shook his head, looking anxious. “The new horses are under stress from the move. The older horses are under stress because of the arrival of
the new horses. Both situations make them more susceptible to catching the virus. If they catch this strand that’s causing the hind-limb weakness, they could develop the same symptoms, or way worse, and then have to be euthanized.”

  “Euthanized?” Jemima couldn’t believe it. She knew such an illness existed but never imagined it might happen to their horses.

  Ed snapped his bag closed. “We see breakouts of this virus at racetracks. Roy is right. You could lose a decent percentage of your new herd if the virus runs rampant.”

  Abigail took down a couple of ranch ropes hanging on the wall and looped them over her head and shoulder. “We need to separate the horses as quickly as we can.” She grabbed several harnesses.

  Ed held up his phone, showing the screen. “The Doppler radar shows the temps dropping more than they already have. The cold snap—colder snap—will hit in a few hours, and it’s supposed to start sleeting around three in the morning. Cold weather can cause stress too. Plus, treating a virus like this should take place in as warm and comfortable a setting as you can get.”

  Abigail rubbed her forehead. “We don’t have enough stable space to put a disinfected empty stall on each side of every occupied stall.”

  Roy seemed distracted. How was that possible? The lives of the horses and the family’s livelihood were at stake and he looked bored with all of it. He looked at his phone again.

  Chris stepped closer. “When I was out riding on Saturday, I saw an old poultry barn about a mile from here.”

  “Ya.” Abigail looked pleased. “It belongs to our Grossdaadi, and it hasn’t been used in forever. All we need is wood to put up temporary stalls.”

  “Is there a sawmill nearby where we could get wood this time of evening?” Chris asked.

  Roy looked up from his phone before he shoved it back into his pocket. “Not this late, but we should have the supplies over in—”

  The phone buzzed several times, as if someone was calling, and he seemed to lose his train of thought. He looked at his phone again.

  “Roy?” Jemima said.

  “Uh, ya.” He shoved his phone back into his pocket. “Abigail, you know where the whole Graber family stores leftover wood from their projects.”

  “Ach,” Abigail gasped. “That’s right. I haven’t thought of that in a really long time. Everyone still does that?”

  “Ya.” Roy pulled out his phone and glanced at it again.

  “Okay.” Ed slung his bag over his shoulder. “You guys have a plan. The quicker you act, the better. I’m going to send these samples off to the lab. Good luck to you all.” He gave a quick wave and left.

  Roy gestured at the food Jemima had brought. “We better wash up and eat while we have time. We may not get another break until daylight. Should we—”

  His phone rang again, and he walked away. “What?” He used the same tone as he had that early morning three days ago. He stormed out of the barn.

  Jemima gestured to Roy’s exit with her head, silently asking Abigail if she knew what was going on.

  Abigail shrugged and turned to Chris. “The horses still outside need to be caught and tethered at fence posts a good distance apart.”

  “What can I do?” Jemima asked. She would have to get the children in bed quickly and get Laura to keep watch until they fell asleep, but she needed to help in some way.

  “We’ll need some sort of food and water containers for every horse,” Abigail said, “just big and strong enough that we can keep them comfortable for the next twelve hours. We’ll also need enough blankets to cover them.”

  Chris grabbed ropes and harnesses. “Every container that’s not coming from your kitchen, even if it’s been in storage in a barn, needs to be disinfected, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Ya, no problem,” Jemima said. “But what—”

  “Sorry.” Roy hurried back into the barn, his face drained of color. “I have to go. I’m so sorry.”

  “What?” Jemima’s knees threatened to give way. “This is your horse farm, and it’s in crisis!”

  Roy pointed to his sister. “She can do anything I can. And Chris is all the help she needs. I’m sorry. I’ll be back as quick as I can.” He grabbed a bridle off the wall and opened the stall to his horse.

  Jemima looked at Abigail and gestured at the children. “Watch them for a sec?” The boys were still in the wagon next to the adults, and Carolyn hadn’t moved from her perch on the bale of hay as she continued to sing to herself.

  “Ya.” Abigail patted Simeon’s head.

  Jemima went to her husband. “Roy?”

  He turned to face her, wearing a grimace as if he was in pain, but didn’t slow down as he put the bridle on his horse and led it out of the stall and out of the stable.

  She followed, the cold wind biting through her coat. As he put his foot in a stirrup, she said, “Wait!”

  Roy lowered his leg and faced her, and in the silvery glow of the moon, she saw unbearable stress on his face.

  “It’ll be fine. I promise. But I have to go.”

  “Who called you? What’s going on?”

  “There’s no time to explain, but I’ll tell you everything later. I promise. Right now I need you to trust me and let me go.”

  He had made a lot of promises of late and kept very few.

  Holding on to one rein, he took a few steps closer and kissed her on the forehead. “Okay?”

  She nodded.

  He rode off, his retreating figure soon blending with the nighttime shadows. Was one or more of their boarded horses sick too? That had to be it, but why didn’t he just tell her that?

  Seven

  Roy nudged his horse to go faster as he rode toward Tiffany’s, each gallop of Amigo’s hooves jolting him further into his grim reality. The wind blew his hat off, but he couldn’t stop to retrieve it. How on earth was this his life? It was all wrong.

  How could a night he barely recalled bring this much grief?

  The trees whooshed by as he turned the corner to Tiffany’s long gravel driveway. Good grief, he was such a fool. A fool to think Tiffany could be a decent mother, a fool not to tell Jemima what was going on as soon as she recovered from giving birth to Simeon, a fool to have entered Tiffany’s house without a family member with him. He was choking on all the lies and regrets that had grown wild like weeds, and he had no way to get rid of them or even pare them back. He couldn’t stay outside the barn today for even five minutes and tell Jemima what was happening because he had no time.

  Tiffany’s last text had read, If you want to have a say in where Heidi will be for the rest of her life, I need cash now. We both know the Amish stash their money at home more often than in banks. If you don’t have any, your Daed does. Get it. In twenty minutes I’m gone. Alone.

  Would innocent little Heidi pay the price for his and Tiffany’s mistakes? He couldn’t let that happen. He urged his horse faster until he arrived at the rental house.

  He dismounted in one motion and wrapped the reins loosely around a shrub near Tiffany’s house. Amigo was a good horse and wouldn’t go anywhere without Roy. Tiffany’s car was parked in the driveway. He glanced in the sedan’s window. Despite the darkness, he saw that the removable infant car seat was gone, but the base was still buckled in. Please, God, let Heidi be okay.

  With a few giant strides, he bounded to the front door and banged on it with his fist. “Tiffany, are you here?” He looked through the window next to the front door. No sign of anyone. He could see Heidi’s bassinet but couldn’t hear her. He pounded on the door again. “Tiffany!”

  He could hear stomping, and then the door was yanked open. “I told you I couldn’t do this! I asked you to bring me money and take her. Did you at least bring it today?”

  What did that mean? He hit the door with his fist. “Where is the baby? Where is Heidi?” Who was he becoming? He couldn�
��t recall ever raising his voice this way to another person. When she didn’t answer immediately, he pushed past her and ran through the house. His heart thudded as if he’d sprinted here.

  As he looked in Tiffany’s bedroom and hurried to check the tub in the bathroom, memories and shame flooded him. The night he’d come here to fix the plumbing, Tiffany and her friends had been drinking pretty heavily. He remembered the cold drink in his hand, the ice clinking against the glass. He recalled some flowery scent that clung to Tiffany as she leaned in and kissed him on the lips.

  He tried to shake the memories. The bathroom was empty, but as he left it, he saw the bed, Tiffany’s bed. His gut twisted at the thoughts of that night, but everything had gone blank after the kiss until the next morning when he woke with his pants missing.

  Would it matter to Jemima that he had no recollection of wanting Tiffany, no memory of their night together? He swallowed the fresh shame and remorse and thundered into Heidi’s room.

  There was no sign of her other than the clothes and baby items strewed about the small rental house.

  When he came back to the living room, he saw Tiffany standing by the door with her arms crossed. “She’s safe. I’m not a monster.”

  That’s what she told herself—she wasn’t a monster. Not long ago he would have agreed with her assessment. He’d convinced himself that she was struggling under the confines of their unfair, unwanted relationship, overwrought with changing hormones, and pushed to the brink from lack of sleep. But maybe reality was trying to get the truth through to him. Maybe she was a monster. Whatever was the most accurate description, he wanted to shake some sense into her. “Where is Heidi?” He punched each word.

  “I’ll tell you when you bring me the money I need to start my life over. I know you have it, with your beautiful horse farm that your father just gave you, and your herd of new thoroughbreds.”