Corruptible, probably, but I’d been watching over this brood for thirty minutes and none of them had tried to wield knives or leap from windows. Perhaps I wasn’t the terrible influence I thought I was.
Perhaps.
I might have sat in that rocking chair forever if Sara hadn’t finished starting dinner.
“She hasn’t bitten you yet, has she?”
“Not yet.”
Sara leaned over my shoulder to look at the baby. “She’s asleep.”
“Really?” I craned my neck to see. Baby Ruby’s soft eyelashes rested against her cheeks, just as Sara said.
No wonder she’d become so heavy. Had to say, Baby Ruby was awfully trusting. She didn’t know me from Eve. How did she know I wasn’t going to kidnap her once she lost consciousness?
I touched her head gingerly. “I can’t believe she fell asleep.”
Sara shrugged. “She’ll wake up hungry at some point. Did she try to root?”
“Root?”
“Try to nurse?”
“You mean, on my—”
“I don’t think she’s nursed anywhere else.”
I could feel my cheeks turning pink. “But I, um, I don’t…have any… you know.”
“Babies don’t know that. Don’t worry. Naomi should be back from town soon.”
A part of me felt disappointed inside. As disturbed as I was about the whole nursing thing, I was liking the sleeping baby, contented children experience.
Was it like this for Beth? Had my niece been anything like Baby Ruby?
How much had I missed?
I asked Gideon over dinner if he’d heard anything from the police.
“No,” he said with a shake of his head. “There has been no call.”
I didn’t point out that the phone, such as it was, was in an exterior shed ten feet from the house and didn’t have an answering machine.
But then, the police probably guessed that the Burkholder residence wasn’t much of a telecommunications hub. I’d wished at the time that Gideon would have given them Levi’s number, but that would have meant acknowledging Levi as a son, and Gideon didn’t seem too keen on that.
Sara and I finished the dishes while Leah and Samuel finished their nightly school assignments. Elam and Amos still seldom spoke to me, although it seemed they avoided me less since the car ride to church.
Meaning that they didn’t necessarily leave the room when I walked in.
I wrote in my journal on my computer that night, wanting to get the details of my time with the kids and the soccer team of conflicting emotions that kicked my thoughts in circles around my head.
Seriously. I was conflicted to the point that my internal metaphors were getting weird. I rolled my head around to the side, willing my tense neck muscles to relax. I remembered my Tylenol PM. And my melatonin. Seemed like a good idea—I could use a good night’s sleep.
The household noises subsided as everyone went to bed. I continued typing until the warning bubble on my desktop advised me to save all my documents lest anything be lost when my computer died. That was fine with me; I could barely see straight.
I tucked my laptop into its case, resolving to drive to Levi’s shop sometime the next day to recharge the computer batteries.
I yawned, burrowed under the layers of quilts, closed my eyes, and let the over-the-counter sleeping pills carry me away.
Noises outside reached my ears just before I fell asleep.
I burrowed deeper. Probably another one of Sara’s many admirers. I’d been through this before, and tonight didn’t strike me as being a good night to fly around in my nightdress.
The amount of clatter increased. For Pete’s sake, this particular boy wasn’t very good at the whole courting-in-secret thing. I heard a horse whinny, and then I heard another sound.
A word. Followed by several more, and not the kind I heard out here. The Amish weren’t much for colorful language.
My eyes opened. Who would talk like that? I could hear the rumble of a motor. I knew some of the boys drove cars before they were baptized into the church, but it’s not as though you’d drive to a girl’s house, impress her with your command of expletives, and bring a horse along for kicks.
I edged out of bed and peeked out the window. Boys with backward-facing baseball caps and saggy pants were leading Shoe out of the barn and away from the house.
I racked my brain for any reason how this could be construed as something harmless. Came up empty. It’s not as though horses need midnight walks when they can’t sleep, and even if that were the case, I don’t think saggy pants are high on the list of horse-wrangling wear.
Before I could talk myself into a different course of action, I shoved my feet into my shoes and pulled on my armored motorcycle jacket.
I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me last time to wear my jacket. Maybe I was getting better at the whole Amish-defense thing.
I burst out onto the porch and assessed the scene. Three boys in hooded sweatshirts skulked in the driveway. One of them held Shoe’s reins.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I yelled, deliberately making as much noise as possible.
Shouts of “Dude!” and “Get out, man!” broke out. They began to scatter, but the boy holding Shoe’s reins made a mistake. In his panic, he tugged Shoe closer to him while extending his foot. Shoe’s hoof landed solidly on the kid’s thin Converse sneaker.
The boy cried out and yanked his foot back, the force of which sent him sprawling on his backside. He tried to get up but yelped when he put weight on that foot.
The other hoodlums didn’t wait for him—they jumped into a beat-up Datsun and sped away, scattering gravel in their wake. The kid on the ground shouted obscenities at them, ending in a whimper.
“What is going on?” Gideon stepped out onto the porch. Behind him I could see Martha, a quilt wrapped around her shoulders.
“Three boys were trying to take Shoe,” I said. “This one got stepped on.”
The kid’s eyes widened at the sight of Gideon, whose sleep-mussed beard gave him a fearsome expression. In desperation, the boy backed away in a sort of crab-walk.
“If you are hurt, you should let us help,” Gideon said. “It’s fifteen miles to town.”
“Do you want me to call the police?” I asked.
“Not yet.” Gideon stepped off the porch and approached the boy. “What is your name?”
The kid looked sideways and back. “Drew.”
I didn’t believe him, and I could tell Gideon didn’t, either. “Oh. What is your real name, Drew?”
This time “Drew” didn’t break eye contact. “Mike.”
“How is your foot, Mike?”
“It hurts.”
“Can you take off your shoe?”
Mike looked from me to Gideon to Martha.
“If your foot is broken,” I said, “it may swell to the point that you can’t get your shoe off and they’ll have to cut it off. Your shoe, not your foot.”
“Oh.” He fumbled with the laces, which were halfway untied as it was. When he removed his sock, the dark purple of the spreading bruise could already be seen.
“Shoe has big feet,” Gideon said.
“Shoe?” Mike shot a confused glance at the sneaker in his hand.
“The horse,” I answered. “The horse’s name is Shoe.”
“He has big feet,” Gideon continued. “He’s a draft horse, used for pulling, not for riding. Did you have something you needed pulled?”
“Huh?”
“Were you taking our horse because you needed to use him for something? A plow or a cart?”
Mike didn’t answer.
“If you needed to borrow him, you only needed to ask. Though, daytime’s the best time for asking. I can understand if you didn’t want to wake us. If there’s something real important that needs pulling, I can wake one of my sons to help you. Is there?”
Mike shook his head.
“Someone borrowed our buggy a day or
two ago. Do you know where’n it might be?”
The boy looked away.
“Your foot does look like it’s swelling. Do you want us to call someone for you? Take you to the clinic in town?”
“We took your buggy,” Mike blurted.
“Oh?”
“We hooked it up to Nate’s truck hitch.”
Creative.
“Why did you take it?” Gideon sat on the ground.
Mike looked down, shame covering his features.
In that moment I was able to see him the way Gideon clearly did—not as a punk kid with an agenda of hate crime, but as a lost kid. A kid not beyond reach.
“It was just a joke,” Mike said in a small voice.
“Hmm.” Gideon thought on that. “Maybe it will be a funny one when we get it back. Do you know where it is?”
“Haight Street,” Mike mumbled.
Gideon nodded. “That is a good joke. Would you like us to call someone for you?”
The boy fidgeted. He had to be awfully cold down there, considering the whole saggy-pant thing. “My sister.”
I retrieved my cell phone from the house and gave it to Mike to make the call. While we waited for her, Martha and Gideon helped Mike into the house and set him up by the stove. Martha clucked over his foot and wrapped it up with ice and a salve that smelled like the inside of the ton-ton from the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back.
Mike’s sister showed up about a half hour later, looking as though she wanted to kill her brother with a pair of dull hedge trimmers. “You were out with Nate and Sean again, weren’t you.”
Mike looked down. “They left.”
“Of course they did. How bad is it?” She gestured toward his purple, swollen foot.
“Probably broken,” Martha offered.
The sister reached for her purse. “Did he break, damage, or steal anything? Do you people take checks?”
Gideon held up a hand. “No need. He ain’t hurt nothing but himself. Take him to a doctor—it’ll be all right.”
She tried to argue, but Gideon wouldn’t budge. They helped Mike to the waiting car.
I think Martha gave them a loaf of zucchini bread on the way out.
When the headlights disappeared down the road, the three of us went back to our respective rooms.
Sara, Elam, and Amos stood in the hallway, concern covering their faces. Gideon spoke a few words in Dutch; everyone returned to bed.
I lay in bed, trying to sleep, not able to get the evening’s events out of my head.
How could Gideon be so gentle, so gracious, so forgiving of Mike the hoodlum and yet refuse to have a relationship with his law-abiding, talented son? Levi’s only crime was to leave the community and join a church with instruments. Mike had taken the family’s main form of transportation and was caught removing one of their horses, and still he had received patience and kindness.
Why was Levi held to such a different standard? Wasn’t he, as Gideon’s son, worthy of a certain amount of grace?
I drove into town the next morning, citing the deadness of my laptop and cell batteries. Truth be told, it felt good to put on normal clothes and head toward civilization. I picked up Starbucks on the way in, filling a tray with an assortment of drinks and carbohydrates.
“Jayne!” Spencer’s eyes lit up when I entered the office. “Nice of you to drop by.”
“Hi, Spencer. I brought coffee for everybody. Did I bring enough?”
“More than. I think Levi’s here somewhere—want me to get him?”
“Yes, please. I need to plug in my computer and phone—all my batteries are dead. This,” I gave the tray a tap, “is my thank-you present.”
“We feel thanked. Hold on.”
He disappeared behind the shop door. Levi stepped through a moment later, followed by Grady.
“Hi, Jayne. How are things?”
“They’re fine,” I said, wondering what Spencer had told him. Knowing Spencer, it could be anything. “I really need to charge my laptop batteries. Do you mind if I plug in and hang around a while?”
Was it me or did the three of them brighten? “I brought coffee for everyone,” I added.
“You’re our new favorite person,” Levi said. “Everyone’s been dragging today. Do you want to come back to my office?”
“Sure,” I said, not particularly wanting to be Spencer’s verbal sparring partner while I worked. “If I’m not in your way.”
Spencer didn’t say a word as I headed down the hall with Levi. A quick glance revealed his face stuffed with scone.
Which was, in fact, the root of my intentions with the Starbucks trip.
“How are things with my family?” Levi asked, sorting through some papers and desk bric-a-brac to make space for me.
I sighed and relayed the events from the previous night.
“Have they said how they are planning to bring the buggy back?” he asked when I finished.
“No.”
“I have a hitch on my truck. If it worked for the boys, I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work for me.”
“Wouldn’t you have to drive awfully slow?”
“I learned to drive a buggy before I learned to drive a car. I’m not a complete stranger to driving slow.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How many speeding tickets did you get after you left?”
“Don’t ask.”
“What made you leave the community?”
“I wanted to go to school.”
“That was all?”
He shrugged. “It was time.”
“You know Sara wants to leave.”
“Did she tell you?”
“She showed me her sketches.”
“Do you mind taking back some contraband? I’ve got a stack for her.”
“What are you going to do if she decides to leave?”
“Help.”
“You don’t think she should stay?”
“I think it’s up to her. If she makes the decision to leave, I’ll support her.”
“And if she decides not to go back?”
“That’s up to her too.”
“Will your dad cut her off as well?”
“I don’t know. Probably. I don’t know how many children he’d have to lose before he changed.” Levi shrugged. “It’s who he is, who he was raised to be.”
“You were raised the same way.”
“Mostly. Everyone’s different. Is this enough space for you?” He pointed at the tidy desktop.
“I’m game.”
“I’ll let you work, then. Want to try to get the buggy with me afterward?”
“Sure.”
He grinned. It was such an engaging grin, I didn’t mind the prospect of driving at fifteen miles per hour, towing a buggy behind us.
Chapter 13
I checked my email in the quiet of Levi’s office. There were the usual memos about sundry office happenings but nothing life altering. Then I poked around online, catching up on current events.
Bombings, earthquakes, corporate shenanigans…life seemed so much easier on the Burkholder farm.
Granted, the previous evening’s events with Mike weren’t exactly a picnic. But in relation to world destruction, the attempted horse theft didn’t amount to much.
I pulled up my word processor, discovering that if I was careful I could still type with my left hand. I wrote about life at the Burkholders’, learning to bake and sew, and my experience with Naomi’s children.
Then there was my confusion over how to deal with Sara.
The part of me that grew up in the English world wanted to support her to be all that she could be, to believe in herself, dream big, stretch her horizons, reach for the stars—all of those cheesy sayings found on motivational posters.
But another part of me recoiled at the thought. I wanted to remind her she was Amish and, because of that, above the English desire to live life in the fast lane. Sara had a family who loved her, who would surround her with strength and love and food
for the rest of her life.
Maybe that was it—the idea that being Amish set Sara and her family at a different standard. They were the last bastions of a nonconsumer existence so foreign to those of us who complained of being sucked into the rat race.
I don’t think I was alone in that belief. The Amish clearly held themselves to a very high standard of behavioral expectations. Leaving their way of life was not included.
Gideon could forgive Mike because he expected Mike to behave badly, being English. It was his nature. But Levi…Levi was raised to join the church and follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.
A knock interrupted my thoughts. “Do you have a moment?” Levi’s head appeared in the doorway.
My hands froze on the keyboard.
It really is awkward when the person you’re writing about walks in. “What’s up?”
“I need an opinion in the shop.”
I closed the lid to my laptop. “Yeah?”
“There’s a sideboard I’m working on and…well, you’ll see. Put these on.” He handed me a pair of safety glasses.
“I don’t know why you’d want my opinion,” I said as I followed him. “Design isn’t really my thing.”
“Do you own a Star Trek uniform?”
“No…”
“Then you’re more qualified than one of the people I would have asked.”
“Grady?”
“Spencer.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as the visual flooded my imagination. “Wow.”
“He goes to the conventions and everything.”
“May he live long and prosper.”
The shop was just as loud as I remembered. Bits of dismembered—or preassembled, I supposed—furniture littered the expanse of the space. A heavy layer of sawdust coated the floor.
“It’s over here,” Levi said, pointing toward the corner.
The sideboard stood six feet tall, and though it was clearly unfinished, the wood gleamed. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s a commission piece,” Levi said, running his hand over the side. “The client was specific about some parts, but not the side shelves.”
Plain Jayne Page 10
