A Daughter's Truth

by Laura Bradford

  She retrieved the water bottle from the floor and set it, instead, on the table. “Yah. But I can get myself home. I have my scooter.”

  He grabbed the bag off the shelf and held it open as, one by one, Emma put her birthday presents back inside. When the only one left was the napkin she’d set beside her water, she scooped it up and lingered her gaze on the cheerful pattern. “May I ask what Ruby made for your Amish picnic?”

  Relinquishing his hold on the bag, Brad wandered over to the window, his voice taking on a seemingly faraway quality. “She made the best fried chicken I ever had, these potatoes that practically slid down my throat, and a slice of homemade bread with apple butter. When that was done, there was a slice of apple pie and two oatmeal cookies. No Frisbee, though.”

  It was the kind of picnic Emma would likely pack for Levi if she could. If he fancied her the way he did Liddy Mast . . .

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  Startled, she looked up to find his back now flush to the window and his attention trained solely on her. “I was just thinking of a friend who likes oatmeal cookies, too.”

  “Levi?”

  “H-how did you know?” she stammered.

  “You mentioned him the other day.” Bracing his hands on the lip of the sill behind him, he watched her fidget the picnic napkin between her fingers. “You said he was just a friend. Maybe someone’s brother?”

  “Yah. He is Mary’s brother.”

  “And Mary is one of your friends?”

  She didn’t mean to laugh. But something about his question and the way in which he said it made it impossible to react any other way. “Mary is my only friend.”

  His brows, like his mouth, seemed to frown. “I don’t believe that. . . .”

  “It is true. Mary does not see me as others do.”

  “How do others see you?”

  “As someone who does not belong. But I do not think it is that way with Levi. I think Levi does not see me at all.” She added the napkin to the bag and pulled it closed with the string. “I will stop out at the pond on the way back to the farm and put this back inside the tree. Perhaps you can tell me about the rest of the presents tomorrow or one day next week.”

  He pushed away from the window and joined her at the desk, his hand coming down atop the bag as he did. “If Levi does not see you, he is blind. His problem, not yours. And the other part? About not belonging? That’s about to change, I assure you of that.”

  Her head was shaking before he’d even finished his sentence. “It won’t change. Ever. Because I can’t change. I know this now.”

  “Why do you have to change anything?”

  “Please. It is getting late. You must go.” With the help of her chin, she led his gaze off her face and onto the wall clock to her left.

  His answering sigh was muted by his hand just before it slid down his own chin. “You’re right. We need to wrap this up for now. But we will talk more about this tomorrow, okay?”

  She looked past him to the window and what she could see of the February sky beyond. Soon dusk would begin to settle across a day in which she hadn’t done any chores. When it did, Dat and the boys would come in from the fields hungry for a dinner she, once again, had no part in preparing.

  It was only a matter of time before Sarah’s and Annie’s curious glances over Emma’s lengthy and unexplained absences morphed into fully formed questions. Especially if she spent the bulk of yet another day away from the farm. But she needed answers. Different answers than the ones her siblings would soon have.

  “Emma?” he prodded, stepping forward. “I will see you tomorrow, right?”

  She looked down at the strong hand now resting on her forearm and then back up into the eyes of the only person truly capable of providing those answers. “Yah. Tomorrow.”

  Chapter 13

  One by one, Emma took the eggs from Esther’s quick-moving hand and added them to the same basket the task demanded each morning—a basket she, herself, had made when she wasn’t much older than Esther. She tried to keep count as the little girl’s hand maneuvered its way around curious chickens and through piles of straw, but Esther’s running commentary on the latest additions to the barn was making even simple math difficult. Still, she was pretty sure they were up to fifteen, maybe six—

  “I helped Bean clean the brown and white kitty.” Esther pulled an egg through the door of the chicken coop and handed it to Emma. “Her eyes look like this, see?”

  Emma deposited the final egg into the basket and then looked up to find the five-year-old peeking out at her from otherwise closed eyes. “You mean the kitty?” At Esther’s nod, Emma stood and brushed some loose straw from her dress. “That’s because she’s a newborn. It takes a little while for them to open their eyes. But when she does—assuming she’s a girl, of course—I bet she’ll be really curious about you.”

  “She has to be a girl. I gave her a girl’s name.” After a final wave to the chickens, Esther wrapped her hand around Emma’s and began to tug. “Her name is Flower, and you can’t hardly hear her meow.”

  “What has you in such a hurry this morning?” Emma asked. “Usually I’m the one pulling you away from the chickens.”

  Esther pointed toward the barn. “I want you to see Flower and all the other kitties, too!”

  Emma swung her gaze from the barn, to the fields, and, finally, to the side yard and Sarah. On any other morning, Emma would take the eggs into the house, make sure Esther, Annie, and Jonathan were ready for school or, in today’s case, their list of Saturday chores, and then join Sarah at the clothesline or Mamm in the garden.

  But it wasn’t any other morning. Nor had it been any other morning since she set off for her birthday visit to the cemetery some twelve days earlier.

  “Come on, Emma! Flower is waiting for me to say good morning.”

  She followed along for a moment, only to stop as they reached the open barn doors. “Esther, I can’t. I have something I have to do today—somewhere I have to go.”

  The pressure on her hand intensified and then released as Esther’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t want you to be gone again, Emma. You keep going away and I miss you. I want to help you bake bread, I want to watch you quilt, I want to sit on your lap and hear stories, and I want you to see Flower and all of Bean’s new kitties!”

  Squatting down, Emma bobbed her head until the sad eyes she sought were trained solely on her face. “I’m sorry, Esther. I know I haven’t been around very much. But there is someone I must see. Someone I need to know.”

  “Is it the man with the toys?”

  She glanced over her shoulder toward the house as she scrambled for an answer that wouldn’t be more of the same lies, yet also wouldn’t stoke the same old medley of anger, fear, and confusion that kept her awake most nights now. It was a tricky balance, no doubt. “Yah.”

  “I can come with you,” Esther suggested. “I like toys, too!”

  “You do?” Emma teased. “I didn’t know that!” Then, tapping the little girl on the nose, Emma jutted her own chin toward the open barn doors. “You know what? I could take a few minutes to meet Flower. But not too long, okay?”

  Esther rose up on the tips of her shoes, spun around, and then beckoned for Emma to follow her inside, her excitement over Bean’s new kittens turning her walk into more of an all-out run. “Look! Look, Emma!” the child said as she ran over to the stall in the far corner of the barn.

  Sure enough, tucked neatly inside a bed of hay, no doubt created by Bean, herself, were five mounds of matted fur nestled against their mother. Each kitten appeared to be sleeping as Bean proceeded to clean those in easiest licking range. “Jakob named the white and black one Mewer. Jonathan calls the gray one Whiskers. Sarah says the black one is Jumper. And Annie says the one with the gray and black stripe right there”—Esther touched her own forehead and then pointed at the kitten now wiggling itself closer to Bean—“is Apple Pie, even though that’s a very silly name for a kitty.”

/>   Following Esther’s lead, Emma, too, lowered herself onto the recently mucked ground and leaned in for a closer look at the outlying kitten. “I take it this little cutie is the one you have named Flower?”

  Esther grinned. “She is! I like her best!”

  “You should like them all,” Emma reminded gently. “They’re all Bean’s babies and they are all mighty cute.”

  “I do like them all, Emma! But I got to name Flower and I got to lick her, too!”

  Emma drew back. “You licked her?”

  “Yah! Bean forgot to do it, so I helped!”

  Feeling her lips begin to twitch, Emma turned back toward the new kittens and did her best to stifle the urge to laugh lest she hurt Esther’s feelings. “While I’m sure Bean was glad for the help, you really should let her do it. She has a lot of babies to lick right now, Esther, but she’ll get to all of them. Besides, you don’t want to fill your tummy with fur the way Bean does, sometimes, do you?”

  Esther stilled her little fingers atop the sleeping ball of brown and white fur, her face solemn. “No. I don’t want to get sick.”

  “Good. Then let’s leave the job of cleaning to Bean, okay?” At Esther’s slow nod, Emma scooped her hands beneath Flower and gently pulled the newborn kitten against her aproned overlay. “Well, hello, little Flower.”

  “Do you know why I named her that?” Esther climbed onto Emma’s lap for a closer look. “Why I named her Flower?”

  Emma took in the tightly closed eyes, the tiny little ear nubs, and the soft brown and white fur before turning her attention back to Esther. “Why?”

  “Because her eyes are closed real tight like Mamm’s flowers when they first pop out of the ground. When it gets warm and sunny, they all open real pretty. Just like Flower’s eyes will do when she gets a little bigger.”

  She considered the little girl’s reason and, after a follow-up glance at the other four kittens, found that it fit perfectly. “I think that’s a great reason to call this little one Flower.”

  Esther’s smile spread across her tiny face only to disappear seconds later. “I am sorry there is not a kitten for you to name, Emma. If Bean had another kitten there would be six to name. Like there is six of us!”

  Biting back the urge to correct the lie they’d all been told, Emma, instead, returned the sleeping kitten to its indent in the hay and stood. “I must go, Esther.”

  “Can’t you stay just a little while longer? Flower likes when you hold—”

  The rest of the little girl’s pleas fell away as the clip-clop of an approaching horse just beyond the barn doors brought Esther to her feet, as well. “Someone is here! Someone is here!”

  “It certainly sounds like it.” Emma took one last look back at Bean and her babies and then followed Esther back across the barn, stopping every few feet to run a hand across the head of one of its tenants.

  * Mabel, the aging dairy cow . . .

  * Dusty, the field mule . . .

  * Robbie, the rooster . . .

  Jakob popped his head around the corner of the open door, acknowledged Emma and Esther with a nod, and pointed at the wall where Dat kept many of his farming tools. “Emma, could you grab the saw? Levi Fisher is here to borrow it for his dat.”

  Startled, Emma looked past her brother to the driveway beyond. “Levi is here? Now?”

  “Yah. He is speaking with Dat.” Again, Jakob pointed at the saw. “Seems his dat’s saw got bent so bad on a fallen tree, it can no longer be used. The tree is blocking the way to Miss Lottie’s house.”

  Emma drew her hand to her chest. “Is Miss Lottie okay?”

  “Yah.”

  Relief sagged her shoulders as the elderly English woman filled her thoughts. Loved by many in Emma’s community for her wisdom and gentle ways, Miss Lottie, as she was known by everyone, lived not more than a quarter of a mile to the east, in a small cottage-style home nestled in a field of sunflowers and overgrown grass. “That is good to hear.”

  “Jakob!”

  Together, Emma and Jakob turned toward the back of the barn and its view of the fields Jonathan was painstakingly combing for any rocks the girls might have missed before plowing and planting could start. “I have to go, Emma. I must see what Jonathan needs.”

  Hooking her thumb across her shoulder, Emma took a step backward toward the tool wall, her gaze flitting between Jakob and the sliver of buggy she could just barely see beyond his shoulder. “I will see that Levi gets the saw.”

  “Thank you, Emma.”

  She watched the twenty-one-year-old disappear from her view and then crossed to the series of hooks used to keep track of the various tools and implements used around the farm. The saw she sought hung above a row of hammers and a long piece of metal she recognized as a level. It was also several feet out of her reach.

  Glancing around, she spied an empty feed bucket, carried it back to the wall, and turned it upside down atop a nearby hay bale to create a makeshift stool. She stepped on, rose up on the toes of her boots, and extended her hand as far as she could reach, coming within a finger’s length of the saw’s handle.

  Rocking forward even more, she balanced atop the very tip of her boot and stretched a little more, the deficit shrinking to that of a mere fingertip. Determined to get the grip she needed, she inched her toes onto the bucket’s rimmed bottom and extended her reach still farther, her fingers grazing the underside of the saw as the bucket tipped to the left.

  She felt herself beginning to fall, but just as her predicament was beginning to register, a pair of strong arms encircled her from behind and deposited her safely on the ground.

  “Whoa, Emma. I do not want you to get hurt.” Setting the now righted bucket off to the side, Levi reached up to the proper hook, retrieved the saw from its resting place, and leaned it against the barn wall as he sought Emma’s eyes with his own. “Hello.”

  Aware of the sudden warmth that claimed her cheeks, she broke eye contact long enough to catch a glimpse of her reflection in the saw’s blade. When she confirmed her kapp was on straight and her dress was relatively wrinkle free, she found the smile he deserved for warding off what would have been a nasty fall. “Thank you for catching me.”

  “I am glad I came in when I did. You could have gotten hurt.”

  She shrugged away his concern and, instead, collected the saw from its temporary resting spot. “Jakob said you need to borrow this from Dat to clear a tree blocking Miss Lottie’s house from the road?”

  “Yah.”

  “Here you go.” She handed him the tool. “I hope this one does not get stuck in the tree.”

  His deep, rumbly laugh filled the space between them. “Perhaps the Beilers will have a saw I can use if it does.

  “But if that breaks, too,” he added, shrugging, “I will need to buy many new saws for many people.”

  It felt good to laugh. Great, even. In fact, the image of a half dozen or more saw handles sticking out of a fallen tree made it so the murkiness surrounding everything about her life the past twelve days paled. And for that she was grateful.

  “I am glad to see that it is back,” Levi murmured.

  “It?”

  Lifting his free hand into view, he pointed to her mouth. “Your smile.”

  The last of her laughter faded as she drew back. “I do not understand.”

  “Your smile. It has been missing for many days.”

  Unsure of how best to respond, she cast her eyes down at the ground. “I did not mean to not smile. If I have been rude, I am sorry. I—”

  At the feel of his hand on her arm, she stopped talking and looked up to find his warm brown eyes studying her closely.

  “You must not apologize for sadness, Emma.”

  Two weeks ago, she’d have rushed to counteract his impression of her and her demeanor with the biggest smile she could muster. But it wasn’t two weeks ago. It was now. The Emma who had always tried to please her way into everyone’s hearts was gone. In her place was the Emma who finally knew
she never could.

  Smoothing her hands down the sides of her mint-green dress, she jutted her chin toward the saw, and then the driveway. “Now that you have Dat’s saw, I really must go.”

  Surprise traded places with concern on his kind face. “I am sorry, Emma, I did not mean to keep you from what you must do.”

  “If I’m late, it is because I let Esther talk me into meeting Bean’s kittens.”

  “Kittens?”

  “Yah. There are five of them.” She swept her hand and his eyes toward the back stall. “Would you like to see them? Bean had them in a bed of hay in Mini’s stall, just out of reach of the mare’s hooves.”

  “It sounds as if Bean chose wisely.”

  Emma led the way down the same hay-strewn path she’d walked with Esther not more than ten minutes earlier. When they reached Mini’s stall, she pointed down at the still sleeping kittens. “The one closer to Bean’s back foot is Flower. Esther named that one.”

  With the help of her finger, she introduced the others, starting closest to a sleeping Bean. “Mewer, Whiskers, Jumper and”—she cast about for the right name—“Apple Pie.”

  His lips twitched with the smile he couldn’t hide. “Apple Pie?”

  “I think Annie was hungry when it was her turn to choose a name.”

  “I think you are right.” He bent down, ran his hand across all five sleeping bodies, and then flashed a sheepish smile up at Emma. “Though, if I was hungry when naming a new barn cat, I would choose Oatmeal. After the cookies you would bring to hymn sings each week.”

  With one final stroke, this one atop Bean’s head, Levi stood. “I miss those very much.”

  “I do not know why.” Emma took one last glance at the kittens and then motioned Levi to follow her outside. “Liddy Mast brings oatmeal cookies now.”

  “They are not the same.”

  Lifting her hand as a shield against the midmorning sun, she stopped near the back of his buggy. “Oatmeal cookies are oatmeal cookies. They are all the same.”

  “Then you have not tried Liddy Mast’s.”