by Gayle Roper
“Mmm,” she said. “That’s a possibility. And who might that be?”
I gave her not only Todd’s name and number, but I fished Mr. Havens’ business card out of my purse and gave her that name too.
“A lawyer in both Pennsylvania and Maryland?” she said.
“I live in Maryland. I’m here seeking this information, and I needed to know Pennsylvania law about adoption and adoption searches.”
“This is an adoption thing?” Alma asked, her voice pricking with interest. “I didn’t realize that.” She was silent for a couple of beats. “Illegitimacy in 1918 was quite a stigma, especially in Lancaster County, steeped as it is in Amish and Mennonite culture.”
“I know. I’ve thought a lot about that and how desperate Pop’s mother must have been.”
“Anyone who was a mother back then would be long dead,” Alma said.
“Yes. Even if I knew her name, I couldn’t speak with her. And adoption papers are guarded like the gold at Fort Knox. Getting to them is next to impossible. Otherwise I wouldn’t be bothering you like this.”
There was a moment of silence during which I could almost hear Alma thinking.
“Look,” she finally said, “I’d like to help you if I can. I don’t know that our family is who you’re looking for, but who knows? Maybe we are. I’m coming to Lancaster next Thursday to get Mom and bring her home for a visit. Why don’t you and I meet then? I’ll check your references, and I’ll bring along the family tree and any other family documents I think might be pertinent.”
“And I’ll bring along Pop’s adoption certificate and the papers I have.”
We set noon as our meeting time and the Olive Garden by Park City Mall as our meeting place.
When I hung up, I was restless and excited. Five days. I had to wait five whole days. I started to pace. It seemed such a long time, but it looked like I might be on the verge of getting some excellent information. I shivered with anticipation. But five days! I could hardly stand it.
I looked around at the tan walls, the brown-plaid comforters with the orange accent stripes, the brown rug, and the cheap bureau with a portable TV bolted to its surface. I thought of the paper-thin towels hanging on the corroded rack in the dingy bathroom. They couldn’t begin to cope with my hair when it was wet. The motel’s saving grace was that it took pets. I smiled at Rainbow, who snored back. Her company made the skimpy towels passable—for the moment.
If I had to wait five days until my appointment with Alma, I didn’t want to wait in this room. I’d go nuts. In fact, I couldn’t stay in it a minute longer. I grabbed my purse and went outside into the humid June noon. The sun was high, the sky a misty-blue wash, and the highway bursting with traffic, mostly tourists if the variety of license plates was any indication.
I looked at all the cars, vans, and tour buses with disfavor, climbed into my car and joined the flow going west toward Lancaster City. I stopped in a little restaurant called T. Burk and Co. and read an inspirational romance by one of my competitors as I ate. I had to admit the book wasn’t half bad, but I also had to admit that I thought I did it better. Feeling somewhat smug, I returned to the Horse and Buggy.
I spent a relaxing afternoon at the pool in the front yard of the motel. Granted, in one way it was hard to relax under the scrutiny of all the traffic streaming by only a matter of feet from the fenced area in which I sat on a plastic recliner, but in another, the sheer number of cars made the people in them meaningless.
When I dragged myself back to my room, I was sleepy with sun.
“Just a quick minute,” I said to Rainbow as I laid down beside her. “Just a quick minute.”
I woke two hours later, rested and restless. I took a shower, pulled my still wet hair back in a tan scrunchie, threw on my new tan jeans and a beige knit top, and went looking for somewhere to eat dinner. This time I turned east and found the Bird-in-Hand Restaurant. The parking lot was full—a good sign. I went in and found a lobby crammed with people waiting for tables. Since I had nothing better to do than wait, I decided I might as well give my name and take a seat. I could people-watch or read the next book on my list. Like many writers I knew, I never went anywhere without a book. When I packed for vacation, I packed my books first and my clothes second. The mere thought of being caught without something to read made me hyperventilate. I patted my purse and the book tucked inside.
On my way to the hostess to put my name on the waiting list, I noticed a circular rack of books and stopped dead in my tracks. Staring at me were several copies of As the Deer. I approached the rack, heart pounding in delight. My book! Here in the lobby of a restaurant! For anybody to buy! I glanced at the top of the rack and read Choice Books. I looked at the other titles and realized every book was from one Christian publishing house or another. Some titles were fiction, some nonfiction, some were by friends, some by people I’d never heard of. As I circled the rack, I came to So My Soul.
Yes! I thought, mentally waving my fists triumphantly in the air and doing a Rocky Balboa trot around the lobby. I hated it when I found As the Deer without So My Soul since they were written to be a pair. As the Deer followed the heroine, one Marci Lerner, to the point of her conversion to Jesus Christ. So My Soul examined the ramifications of this decision on her life and the lives of the others she was involved with. Through both books I developed her romance with Scott Henderson.
By the time the books were finished, I wanted to meet my own Scott Henderson. He was tall and handsome, intelligent, and had a heart for God. He also knew how to make a woman happy. He was always there to support Marci through her trials. He held her hand when she was hurt and offered a strong shoulder to cry on. He prayed for her and loved her unreservedly. He accepted her just as she was, encouraging her in the process of becoming God’s woman.
Sometimes I was afraid that men like Scott existed only in fiction. I certainly wasn’t meeting guys like him. Then I thought of Mom and Pop and Ward and Marnie. They’d found true love…real love. And I prayed almost desperately that God would let me find the same.
I rubbed a finger softly over the cover of So My Soul. Others wrote trilogies. I wrote series of two. Duologies? Maybe some day I’d think up enough stuff to warrant a trilogy, but for now, two did it. And these two were doing it exceedingly well.
I was standing there grinning to myself when someone bumped my arm. I turned to say I was sorry and found myself face-to-face with the handsomest lawyer in Lancaster County.
“Hey,” I said cleverly as I tried not to stare at his magnificent jawline.
“Well, hi,” he said, slightly more articulate.
“Here for dinner?” I asked.
He nodded. “I find restaurants good places to come for dinner, don’t you?”
I grinned. It was either that or blush a zillion shades of red for my inane remark. “Chitchat’s not my strong suit,” I said. “Whatever comes to mind comes out, idiotic or not.”
He grinned politely back.
“Guess what I did today?” I said.
Of course he hadn’t the vaguest idea.
“I called all the Biemsderfers in the phone book.”
He nodded as if he were actually interested. “Any of them confess to being long-lost relatives?”
I shook my head.
“I’m glad,” he said. “I’d hate to lose a billing before I had a chance to reap all the profits possible.”
“Ah,” I said. “Res ipsa loquitor.”
He shook his head. “Carpe diem.”
“I know that one,” I said. “Seize the day. I also know et al, ipso facto, and et cetera.”
“I’m impressed,” he said. “I’ve always appreciated multilingual people.”
I think that this time I actually did blush at his gentle teasing, but I’m not certain. It could have been the heat from my afternoon sunburn.
A woman’s voice said, “Two?” and I realized we were standing before the hostess. She looked at Todd, obviously anticipating that yes, he and I
were two and here for dinner together. I definitely flushed now, expecting him to say, “Oh no, I’m not here with her. I’m just making pleasant conversation because she’s a client. I’m really here with that beautiful woman over there.”
Instead he looked at me and raised an eyebrow in invitation. Surprised and pleased, I gave a small nod.
“Yes, two. Reasoner,” he said. Then, in an aside to me, “Thanks for being here. Now I can claim the meal as a business deduction.”
Startled, I looked at him and caught a gleam of humor in those brown eyes, those bottomless brown eyes. I’d been right.
“Thirty to forty minutes,” the hostess said.
We nodded and moved away. Just then a couple got up from a bench along the wall and we took the deserted seats.
“Tell me about your phone calls,” Todd asked. And for the next twenty minutes, I did. He listened attentively, asking questions every so often, laughing at Mrs. Marlin, Sr., hanging up on me.
“So I’m going to have lunch with Alma next Thursday when she comes to get her mother. She’s bringing the family tree with her.”
When I finished, he just looked at me, a smile on his face. “And you’re not the least bit excited about this meeting, are you?”
“It shows?”
“You’re positively vibrating.”
I stared at him. “Me? Vibrating? I never vibrate. I’m low-key. I’m quiet and laid back.”
He looked at me skeptically.
“Truly,” I said. “I’m a writer. I lead a quiet life. My brother and sister-in-law say I only live through my characters. Mom and Pop kept at me all the time to get a life.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know about then, but this is now and you’re having a hard time sitting still.”
I grinned. “I am fidgeting a bit, aren’t I? But isn’t it exciting? I may be meeting my family!”
Todd seemed to just then catch my admission to being a writer. “Did you say you’re a writer? What do you write?”
“Okay, don’t laugh, but I write inspirational romance novels.” I waited for the inevitable incredulous reaction, but Todd only paused a moment, taking in this new information.
“Well, I guess this is where I should be embarassed to say I don’t think I’ve read any of your books,” he finally said.
“That’s quite okay. I generally give a pass to men when it comes to reading my books.”
“Reasoner, party of two,” a metallic voice called over a PA system. “Reasoner, party of two.”
We followed a young woman with a head covering to a booth along the outside wall of the restaurant. She left us studying two large menus with amazingly inexpensive meals.
“Is she Amish?” I asked Todd.
He glanced at the hostess’s retreating back and shook his head. “No, she’s Mennonite.”
“What’s the difference?” I asked. “They both wear those prayer cap thingys.”
“They come from the same Anabaptist heritage, but they’ve diverged through the years.”
“How?”
“While the Amish have stayed as separate from the general culture as they can, the Mennonites have accepted change and integrated it into their religious lives. They share the Anabaptist heritage of nonviolence and adult baptism, but they’re thoroughly modern.”
I laid my menu on the table. “I know Southern Baptist and General Baptist and Regular Baptist and lots of other Baptists. What’s Anabaptist?”
He leaned back in his seat and rested a hand on the edge of the table. He lowered his menu so he could see me more easily. “Back in the Protestant Reformation, a group of dissidents decided they didn’t agree with the Catholic Church practice of infant baptism. They argued that a person shouldn’t be baptized until he was old enough to understand what faith in Christ was all about. So these dissidents rebaptized themselves in the early 1500s. That’s what Anabaptist means. Rebaptized or baptized again. One group of the Anabaptists followed a man named Menno Simons and became known as Mennonites. Another group broke from the Mennonites more than a century later and followed a fiery preacher named Jakob Ammonn. They became known as Amish.”
“How did the two groups end up in this area?”
“Religious persecution.”
“Pacifists were persecuted? But weren’t they gentle people?”
“Yes, in that they wouldn’t retaliate. No, in that they stood against the institution of the state church and were considered very dangerous to the political and social order of the day. That was a time when church and state were intricately linked, and those of differing religious views were seen as seditious.”
“So they got kicked around?”
“Kicked around nothing. They got drowned and burned and murdered in great numbers. They came here to escape, and by chance they ended up in one of the most fertile areas in the world.”
I grinned at the way he emphasized by chance. It made me think that he might understand how God can make the evil that people do praise Him in the end. Persecution meant flight, which meant the New World and Lancaster County. Plenty after famine.
Our waitress came for our order. I decided on stuffed chicken breast, baked potato, and a salad. Todd had pork and sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, and cottage cheese with apple butter. We both ordered sweetened iced tea.
She returned in record time with our drinks, my salad, and Todd’s cottage cheese, topped with a dark brown substance the consistency of burnt applesauce.
“What’s that?” I asked suspiciously.
“Apple butter.”
“It’s brown.”
“Umm.”
“You actually eat brown food?”
“With great relish,” he said, taking a forkful. “And you eat brown food too. Meat’s brown.”
“Meat doesn’t count. It sort of matches your eyes,” I pointed at the apple butter.
He made a choking sound. “What?”
“Well, it does.”
“If you say so. No one’s ever made that comparison before. Want to try some?” He offered me his dish.
I looked at it dubiously.
“Come on,” he said. “When in Rome…”
“Res ipsa loquitor,” I said.
“Precisely,” he said.
I stuck my fork in his dish just enough to get the tines damp.
“Coward,” he said.
“Precisely,” I said and with great trepidation stuck my fork in my mouth. I was very pleasantly surprised. “It’s sweet.”
He laughed. “What did you expect?”
“Brown food? Meat. Gravy. They’re not sweet.” I took a real forkful this time, making certain to get some of the cottage cheese too. “I like it.”
“Uh oh,” he said and pulled his dish back to the safety of his own placemat. I politely ate my own salad.
“Tell me about your family,” I said as we started our main courses.
He shrugged. “Not much to tell. I’m an only child of elderly parents. My mother died when I was five, and my father tried his best, but it was hard.”
I could tell by the expression on his face that it was still hard, or at least the memories were.
“How old is elderly?” I asked.
“My father was fifty-five when I was born, my mother forty-three. They had long since given up on the idea of a child.”
“So your mother was only forty-eight when she died?”
He nodded.
“Mine was twenty-nine,” I said. “I was one.”
We looked at each other with sympathy.
“So your father raised you too?” Todd asked.
I shook my head. “My dad died with my mother. Automobile accident. One of those massive pileups where they had the misfortunate of being between two semi trucks.”
“Ouch,” he said. “My mother died of ovarian cancer.”
We were quiet a minute, chewing, contemplating.
“So who raised you?” he asked.
I spent most of the main course telling him about Mom
and Pop, laughing, filled with warm memories.
Todd listened, a sad kind of envy just below the surface. “You had a wonderful childhood in spite of everything, didn’t you? Just like in books.”
I nodded. “Lots of love, lots of laughter, and a real, practical faith modeled rigorously.”
Todd sighed. “Well, I had the faith part anyway, and I truly am appreciative of that. My father loved the Lord and saw to it that I had opportunity for real faith too. Church and Bible school every Sunday morning and youth group every Sunday night. Vacation Bible school. Church camp. But the love and laughter part weren’t there.” He put his knife and fork on his empty plate and leaned back against his seat, trying to keep his face impassive but not quite succeeding.
“My father is a nice enough man, I guess,” he said. “He has a PhD in English literature and taught at Millersville University for years and years. He was there when it was a state teachers college, then a state college, and finally a state university. He is very scholarly, highly respected in academic circles, and very introverted. His life is medieval literature and culture. Samuel Pepys and his diary and John Milton are much more important to him than I’ve ever been.”
I thought of Pop and his great lust for life. I imagined little Todd being read a bedtime story from Paradise Lost. I shivered. Certainly one of the rings of Hell.
Todd reached for his iced tea and turned the glass in circles on the table. He stared at the watermarks as he talked. “I learned as a little boy that my father was happy when I was quiet and invisible, so I became quiet and invisible. He almost smiled when I got good grades, so I got good grades, always hoping. He was almost impressed if I excelled in whatever pursuit I followed, from academic teams to science fairs. I tried everything I could think of to please him, but I don’t think I ever got a compliment.”
I leaned my elbow on the table and looked at the handsome, competent, well-educated man across the table from me. I concentrated on his words, trying to see the deeper truths behind them, marveling that he was telling me all this information. I was willing to bet he rarely talked about his father and certainly didn’t talk about their painful relationship. And certainly not with someone he barely knew. I felt complimented beyond reason. He looked up suddenly and saw my intense look.
