A Daughter's Truth

by Laura Bradford

  “Yah. Here. Feel it.” She handed the pewter flower to her friend and, at her friend’s nod, pulled out one of her favorites—a tiny snow globe with even tinier skaters inside. Mary’s answering intake of air made Emma smile. “I know, it is pretty, isn’t it? And look . . .”

  With practiced hands, she turned the clear-fronted globe upside down, shook it gently, and then righted it for Mary to see.

  “It’s snowing!”

  “Yah.” Emma’s smile morphed into a giggle as her thoughts traveled back through fourteen years’ worth of birthday afternoons. “Every year, since I was nine, I have made it snow on the skaters.”

  “I would, too.” Mary watched with fascination as the final flakes fell and then, with little more than the nudge of her chin at Emma’s hand, added, “Can I try?”

  Nodding, Emma handed the snow globe to Mary, watched her shake it, and then reached inside for the small brown horse with the black mane. “It is good I found this when I was ten instead of seven. It would have been hard to leave this in a tree.”

  “Oooh, that looks like Levi’s horse, Hoofer, doesn’t it?”

  Emma turned the horse around in her hands. “You are right, it looks very much like Hoofer.”

  With great reluctance, Mary set the snow globe down next to the horse and pointed at the bag. “What’s next?”

  “A picture.” She rooted around in the bag until she felt a familiar glossiness. “It is of a dandelion.”

  “A dandelion?” Mary echoed. “Why would someone leave that?”

  Emma shrugged and handed it to her friend. “It’s the puffing part of a dandelion . . .”

  “Still.”

  Again, she reached inside. “This was when I turned twelve.”

  Mary traded the picture for the bubble wand. “What? No bubbles?”

  “No bubbles . . .”

  “You blew them all, didn’t you?” Mary teased.

  “No. It was just the wand.”

  Mary pulled a face. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Emma returned to the bag and yet another odd item. “This one was there when I turned thirteen. I don’t really know what it is except a piece of ripped paper inside a plastic covering . . .”

  “Let me see.” Mary took the plastic-encased paper and turned it over a few times. “It looks like it is part of a ticket. But I can’t quite read what it—wait . . . It says—”

  “Admit one,” Emma finished for her friend. “I know. But I do not know what it is for.” She reached inside the bag again and pulled out the small round rock she’d found on her fourteenth birthday. “This is pretty, don’t you think?”

  Mary’s brows scrunched together. “It’s a rock . . .”

  “Yah, but look”—she spun it around for Mary to see—“someone drew a heart on it!”

  They examined the rock and its drawing from several different angles and then added it to the growing menagerie atop the rock. Next up was the miniature covered bridge that reminded Mary of the one just past the grain mill on Route 35, the small, red rubber ball Emma caught just before it bounced into the pond, the yellow spinny thing on a stick that had Mary blowing so hard her cheeks turned bright red, the baseball with the name they couldn’t read beyond the uppercase B and uppercase H, and the dried flower with the pale blue and pink ribbons Mary suspected had been a rose at one time.

  “Wow. This is quite a lot of things,” Mary said, sweeping her hand toward the rock.

  “There is one more. From last year. When I was twenty-one.” Again, Emma reached inside and pulled out the lone remaining object—a whittled bird.

  Mary’s hushed breath mimicked Emma’s. “Wow . . . That is beautiful! And . . . it even has a worm in its mouth.”

  “Yah.”

  “It is a shame such things must stay in a bag in a tree.”

  “Dat would be angry if he saw them.” Emma stepped around Mary to place the bird alongside everything else. “He threw away the ones before these.”

  “Do you remember what they were?” Mary asked.

  “Not really, no. Dat would scoop them up before I could see what they were. I knew only that they were small and that they made him angry.”

  Mary looked from item to item before looking back at Emma. “These were there every year?”

  “Yah.”

  “Haven’t you ever wondered why?”

  “When I was little, yah. But I wondered more why they upset Dat and Mamm so. After that, when I would go to the cemetery alone before school, I mostly just wondered what the new thing would be.” Aware of Mary watching her, Emma busied herself with gathering up the objects and returning them to the bag. “I know it is wrong to keep them, but they are too pretty to throw away—even the picture of the dandelion and the ripped ticket. It is as if they mean something.”

  “Maybe they do.”

  Emma paused her hand atop the stuffed horse and studied her friend. “What are you saying?”

  “Maybe those things”—Mary pointed at the remaining objects still lined up along the top of the rock—“are from your father.”

  She pulled a face. “I told you. Dat didn’t put them there. He got angry when he saw them, remember?”

  “I’m talking about your birth father.”

  Clutching the bag to her chest, Emma stumbled back a few steps. “My-my birth father?”

  Mary nodded.

  “But . . . but Mamm—I mean, Rebeccah, said he didn’t care about my mother or me,” Emma sputtered. “That-that he left her to face her sin alone. That he was . . . English.”

  Silence settled around them as Mary pried the bag away from Emma and filled it with the last few items. When everything was safely inside, she pulled the bag closed and handed it back to Emma. “It seems to me there is only one way to know if that is true.”

  “What? That he didn’t care about us?”

  Mary’s nod was slow yet unmistakable even in the growing dusk. “Find him, Emma. Ask him.”

  Chapter 4

  “She brought them again.”

  Emma shifted her focus from the group socializing by the side of the Troyers’ barn to Mary and waited for further explanation. Mary, of course, didn’t disappoint.

  “I tried to put yours in a spot everyone would see first, but I could not find them.”

  She sidled closer to the fire Benjamin Troyer had lit in an effort to ward off the dropping temperatures and rubbed her hands together. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who is she and what did she bring?”

  Rolling her eyes, Mary dropped onto the vacant bench beside Emma. “Liddy Mast. She brought oatmeal cookies again. But it is okay, because her plate is still full and I did not see a single one of yours anywhere.”

  Emma glanced over her shoulder, surveyed the table of food, and returned her gaze to start. “Mine are still there.”

  “Where?” Mary asked, jumping to her feet once again.

  “Right next to Liddy’s . . .”

  Mary marched over to the table and splayed her hands. “I don’t see them, Emma.”

  “The chocolate chip ones are mine,” she murmured.

  “Chocolate . . .” Mary rested her hands on her hips and stared at Emma. “You always bring oatmeal. Because Levi likes them.”

  “Liddy Mast brought them to the last hymn sing. Because Levi likes them.”

  “So . . .”

  “He will not notice that I did not bring oatmeal cookies. He will notice only that Liddy did.”

  “Maybe, if you went over and talked to him . . .”

  Emma pointed her chin toward the male version of Mary and the pretty girl hanging on his every word, and waited for her friend to catch up. When she was certain Levi and Liddy’s conversation was seen, Emma shrugged. “Levi will smile at me if he catches me looking, but he doesn’t speak to me the way he speaks to Liddy.”

  “Have I ever told you about the time Levi tripped over his own foot and broke his nose?” Mary grabbed two cookies, fast stepped it back to the bench, brok
e off a piece of chocolate chip cookie, and held it out to Emma. When Emma declined, Mary helped herself. “Levi does not always see what he should see the first time.”

  “Just because he does not see me, does not mean he doesn’t see.”

  “He broke his nose, Emma. By tripping over his own foot. Who does that?” Mary joked before waving the rest of the first cookie between them. “This is very, very good. Maybe even better than the oatmeal ones.”

  She mustered a smile worthy of her friend’s kind words and then dropped her own voice to a level only Mary could hear. “I thought about what you said at the pond on Monday.”

  “Good.” Mary popped the rest of the cookie into her mouth and grinned. “About what?”

  “About trying to find him.”

  Mary stared at her for a second. “Wait. You mean your birth father?”

  “Shhhh . . .” Emma glanced toward Levi, Liddy, and the rest of their peers and, when she was certain they had not heard, returned her words and her focus to her friend. “Yah. My birth father.”

  Mary took another bite, eyeing Emma closely as she did. “How have things been going at home? With your mamm?”

  She fought back the urge to correct Mary’s use of the word mamm and, instead, shrugged. “I keep busy with my chores. Sometimes, I feel her watching me, but I do not say anything about it.”

  “You could ask her about your birth father.”

  Her answering laugh earned more than a few funny looks from their peers, but, as was always the case, they soon turned away, making it so she could turn to words, instead. “I told you the other day, Mary. She said he didn’t care about my real mamm or me.”

  “That doesn’t mean she doesn’t know where he is . . .”

  “I asked that night, after you and I spoke.”

  “And?”

  “She told me I wasn’t to speak of him. Ever.”

  Mary stilled the second cookie mere inches from her lips, her eyes wide. “Then what are you going to do? How are you going to find him?”

  “I don’t know. A stuffed horse and a bubble wand can’t talk.”

  “It would be great if they could, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yah. It would be—wait!” She turned on the bench so fast, her knees crashed into Mary’s. “You can see the cemetery from your fields! Perhaps you have seen someone there on the morning of my birthday . . . or maybe even the night before!”

  Mary’s brows furrowed. “I am not out in the fields at night or that early in the morning. That would be Dat or Levi.”

  Emma’s gaze ricocheted off Mary’s and onto the dark-haired man nodding his head at something Liddy was saying while looking at . . .

  Emma?

  Unsure of what to do or how to respond, she cast her eyes down at her lap, counted to five in her thoughts and, when she looked back up, found him focused on whatever Liddy was saying once again.

  “I could ask him if you want. Or, you could ask him!” Mary suggested.

  She watched Mary’s brother for a few moments and then turned back to her friend. “He is busy. With Liddy.”

  “I can fix that.” Returning to her feet, Mary tugged Emma up and on to her own. “Come with me.”

  When they reached the outskirts of the group, Mary relinquished Emma’s hand a few steps shy of Levi. “Liddy? Could you help me with something over by the food table?”

  Liddy’s impossibly blue-green eyes widened behind even more impossibly long eyelashes as she stopped talking, followed Mary’s finger toward the table, and, after a slight hesitation, nodded her assent.

  “Now ask him,” Mary whisper-hissed as she fell into step behind Liddy, in route back to the table.

  Feeling her hands begin to tremble ever so slightly, Emma steadied them against the sides of her coat and glanced over at Levi. “Hi . . .”

  “Hi.” He stepped forward, cutting the space between them in half. “I did not see your cookies today.”

  “Liddy brings oatmeal now, so I made chocolate chip, instead.”

  “I will need to try one.” Levi leaned against the tree at his side. “Did you have a nice birthday?”

  Not wanting to lie, she used her sudden shiver to change the subject. “It is hard to think spring will come soon, yah?”

  “Are you cold?” he asked, pushing off the tree. “Because we could go sit by the fire if you’d like.”

  “No . . . I mean, a little, but Liddy will be back soon and I don’t want to take you away from—”

  He reached up, readjusted his black hat, and then dropped his hand to his side. “I am sure she will find me wherever I am.”

  “But—”

  “Let’s sit.”

  Together, they moved over to the fire. When she was settled on the bench, he sat beside her, warming his hands as he did. “Are you having fun, Emma?”

  She tried to nod, even tried to add in a smile, but neither felt normal. For years she’d wondered what it was about her that left her on the outskirts with Levi and the rest of her peers. And for years she’d scurried about trying to fit where she never would. But now, thanks to a heart-shaped necklace and the picture of an Amish girl, she knew her inability to fit in had nothing to do with her bent toward shyness as Mary had always guessed, or any other shortcoming she’d seen in herself.

  No, her difference traced back to the very beginning—her very beginning. There was no changing that. For her, or for anyone else.

  “You can see the cemetery from your fields, yah?” she asked.

  Levi’s brows traveled up toward the brim of his hat. “The cemetery? Yah. I can see it from Dat’s fields. Why?”

  With fingers that were suddenly fidgety, she smoothed down the part of her dress she could see sticking out from the base of her coat. “I . . . I was wondering if you can see people there sometimes.”

  “See people?”

  “Walking around, visiting the graves, that sort of thing.”

  “It does not happen often, but yah . . .”

  She could feel him studying her, clearly wondering about her questions, but she couldn’t stop. Not yet. “Is it always Amish who come?”

  “It is an Amish cemetery, Emma.”

  “I know. But perhaps English come sometimes, too?” He looked from Emma to the fire and back again. “Sometimes the English drive by. Sometimes they slow down and look. I have seen some get out of cars and take pictures with their cameras the way they do our farms, and our buggies, and our school. They do not stay long. Except one.”

  She snapped her head left and stared at Levi. “One?”

  “Yah. He does not take pictures. He does not stop at the school or pay me any mind in the field. He just comes to stand inside the cemetery.”

  “H-he?” she stammered.

  “Yah.”

  “When? When does he come?”

  “Every winter.”

  “E-every . . .” She wiped the ever-increasing dampness from her hands onto her black winter coat. “How do you know?”

  “Because I remember the cold, and I remember his jacket. It is black like his truck. It is because of his truck that I see him.”

  “I don’t understand . . .”

  “It is hard to see things that early in the morning. A black truck is even harder to see. But I can hear his truck when he comes down the road, and I can hear him shut the door when he gets out, too.”

  “Does he always come in the morning?” she asked.

  “Yah.”

  Gripping the edge of the bench, she willed the spinning in her head and the thumping in her chest to stop. It didn’t. “Have you seen him yet this year?”

  “Yah.”

  “When?”

  She followed Levi’s gaze to the stars twinkling in the night sky above. “It was just a few days ago.”

  Her answering and audible inhale pulled more than a few sets of eyes in their direction. “Do you happen to know which day? Like was it Wednesday or—”

  “It was Monday.”

  “Monday?” she e
choed. “Are you sure?”

  “Yah. I am sure.”

  Monday . . .

  Her birthday and the anniversary of her real mamm’s death . . .

  The day the locket with her birth mother’s picture had been left at the grave . . .

  Palming her mouth, Emma forced herself to breathe while mentally picking her way back through Levi’s words. Surely it had to be the person who’d been leaving those gifts beside Ruby’s grave all these years, didn’t it? It was the only thing that made any sense.

  “Emma? Are you okay?”

  Was she? She wasn’t sure. But either way, she needed more information.

  “What does he do if he does not take pictures?” she finally asked.

  “He bows his head for a long time.”

  “In prayer?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Does he say anything?”

  After a brief pause, Levi shook his head. “Not that I can hear.”

  It was all so much to take in, so much to imagine. “Perhaps it is someone different each time?” she suggested.

  Again, Levi shook his head. “No. It is the same person.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “It is the same shiny black truck.”

  “There are many black trucks, Levi.”

  “Yah. But this one has a sign. On the door.”

  She drew back so hard, she would have toppled off the back of the bench if not for Levi’s hand. “A sign? You mean with words?”

  “Words and pictures.”

  “Do you remember what the pictures are?” she prodded. “Or what the words say?”

  Slowly, Levi removed his hand from Emma’s back and closed it around the edge of the bench, his gaze locked on hers. “I remember both.”

  “Tell me. Please.”

  “It is a construction company.”

  “A construction company? How do you know?”

  “Because the sign says Harper Construction. And there is a picture of a hammer on one side and a toolbox on the other. The words and the pictures are white.”

  “But you said it is dark when he is there. How can you see pictures and read words?”

  “He stays until the sun comes up.”

  Unsure of what to say, Emma turned back to the fire, its decreasing warmth a sure sign that the week’s hymn sing was drawing to a close. Soon, the remaining food would be brought into the Troyer home, benches would be put away, and her peers would be getting into buggies and wagons for the drive home. Those who were courting would ride home together. Those who weren’t would ride home with a sibling or friend.