by Marta Perry
“It wasn’t that.” Lydia’s throat was suddenly tight with apprehension, as if some unknown fear clutched her. Just say it, she scolded herself. She’d always been able to take any problem to Mamm, and Mamm always had an answer.
“Aunt Sara was talking about my mother. My birth mother, I mean. Diane.”
“Ja?” The word sounded casual, but the lines around her mother’s eyes seemed to deepen, and she set the coffeepot down with a clatter, not even noticing it was on the countertop and not the stove.
“She was . . . She must have been confused.” The kitchen was quiet, so quiet it seemed to be waiting for something. “She said that Diane had three kinder. Three little girls. I thought certain-sure she . . .”
The words trickled off to silence. She couldn’t say again that Aunt Sara was confused. Not when she could read the truth in Mamm’s face.
“It’s true?” The question came out in a whisper, because something that might have been grief or panic had a hard grip on her throat. “It is true.”
Mamm’s face seemed to crumple like a blossom torn from a branch. “Lydia, I’m sorry.”
“But . . .” The familiar kitchen was suddenly as strange as if she’d never seen it before. She grasped the top of the closest ladder-back chair. “I had sisters? Two little sisters?”
Mamm nodded, her eyes shining with tears. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “You didn’t remember, and so we thought it best not to say anything. We didn’t want you to be hurt any more than you already were.”
Hurt. Lydia grasped the word. She’d been hurt in the accident that killed her parents. She knew that. She’d always known it. Her earliest memories were of the hospital . . . blurry images of Mamm and Daad always there, one on either side of the bed each time she woke up.
“Sisters.” Having had three younger brothers, she’d always wished for a sister. “What were their names?”
Mamm moved around the table toward her, as cautious as if she were approaching a spooked buggy horse. “Susanna. She was not quite three at the time of the accident. And Chloe, the baby, just a year old.”
Lydia pressed her palm against her chest. Her heart seemed to be beating very normally, in spite of the pummeling it had taken in the past few minutes. She had to hear the rest of it. “They died in the accident, too?”
Silence. She saw in her mother’s face the longing to agree. Then Mamm shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said again, as if she couldn’t find any other words. “They were injured, but they healed. Like you.”
“But . . .” Lydia’s mind kept tumbling, her thoughts rearranging themselves and breaking apart again. “I don’t understand. What happened to them?”
Mamm pressed her fingers to her lips for a moment, as if to hold back the words. “They went with different families. I’m sorry. We didn’t want to split you up, but . . .” Her voice broke, and it was a moment before she went on. “Since you didn’t remember, it seemed best not to tell you.”
“Best not to tell me?” Lydia’s voice rose as she echoed the words. A wave of anger swept away the pain for a brief moment. “How could it be best for me not to know that I had two little sisters? Why were we split up? Why didn’t you take all of us? Why?”
“Lydia, hush.” Mamm tried to take her arm. “It’s going to be all right.”
Lydia pulled away. This was not something Mamm could make better with hugs and soft words.
“You have to understand how difficult it was.” Mamm’s voice was pleading. “There were your parents dying out there in Ohio, and the three of you kinder in different hospitals, and the rest of the family frantic to get there—” Tears spilled over onto her cheeks, choking off her words.
Ohio, yes. That rang a bell in Lydia’s mind. The accident had taken place when her family was in a van on the way to a wedding in Ohio. Mamm had told her that once, when Lydia was of an age to ask questions and wanted to know more about the accident.
“I don’t understand. You should have told me.”
“Just sit down and calm yourself. Your daad will be home soon. He can explain.” Mamm reached for her, her face and voice pleading.
Lydia wanted to step into her mamm’s loving arms. She wanted to feel the comfort that had always been there. She wanted to hear Daad’s deep, soothing voice chasing her fears away, as he’d done when she was a child having nightmares.
Her breath seemed to catch in her throat. She had relied on them always, just as Daniel and David relied on her and Adam. Now it seemed she couldn’t trust them at all.
The urge to flee nearly overwhelmed her. She had to get out of this house that had always been her sanctuary.
“I can’t.” Tears threatened to clog her voice, but she wouldn’t let them flow, not yet. “The boys will be home from school soon. I must be there for them. We’ll have to talk later.”
Tears nearly blinded her, but her feet knew the way to the back door without the need to look. She was vaguely aware of Mamm’s voice, protesting, urging her to stay, but she couldn’t. She had to think this through. She had to talk to someone she knew she could trust.
She had to go home to Adam. He was her rock. He would know what to do.
* * *
Adam climbed out of the van at the end of the lane, raising a hand in acknowledgment as the driver pulled away. Strange to think that his time of riding in the van that carried Amish workers to the camping trailer factory in Fisherdale would soon end.
Usually the half-hour ride home from work was a time to exchange a few stories, air a complaint or two, chaff each other the way men did in their tight-knit community. Today the van had been as still as the farmhouse in the darkest hour of night. With good reason. They’d learned today that most of them would be unemployed come Friday.
Adam straightened his shoulders as he headed up the lane. No matter how shocked he felt, it wouldn’t do to let Lydia and the boys see him looking down or uncertain. They relied on him to take care of them.
Maybe he should have seen this coming and been better prepared for the news. Times were rough for a lot of folks, and it seemed fewer of them were willing to spend the money on a new camping trailer. The factory in Fisherdale was a small one. It was certain-sure the owners couldn’t afford to keep a full staff on when the orders weren’t coming in.
Jobs were scarce all around, it seemed. It had been bad enough traveling to Fisherdale every day. If he had to go even farther to find work . . .
The farm seemed to unroll ahead of him as he walked, and the sight of it eased the knots of worry in his shoulders with its peaceful familiarity. The pastures on either side of the lane provided for the buggy horses and the two milk cows they kept, and the white frame farmhouse settled into the sheltering trees like a hen sitting on a nest, the outbuildings her chicks around her.
Beyond the house the orchard spread clear to the property line with the Miller place. As old as many of those apple trees were, they still produced fine fruit, bringing in extra money in the fall.
The farm was a productive place, with a good orchard. He should be counting his blessings that Lydia had inherited it from her birth parents, instead of fretting over the fact that it wasn’t big enough to support a family of four with farming alone.
He spied the boys. Daniel and David were chasing each other among the apple trees, looking like twins from this distance in their black pants, blue shirts, and straw hats. Daniel was in front as always, with six-year-old David trying to keep up. He and Lydia joked that David might as well have been born saying, “Me, too, me, too.”
Spotting his daad, Daniel veered from his course and raced toward Adam, David scurrying behind.
“Daadi, Daadi, you’re home!” They always greeted him as lavishly as if he’d been gone a month.
Adam scooped them into a quick hug, feeling a pang as he realized all over again how tall the two of them were getting. The boys were not babies anymore, and no others had come along to fill the cradle. He wished for more children just as Lydia did, and he h
ad to keep reminding himself that it would be as God willed.
Daniel took Adam’s lunchbox, always proud to carry it to the house. David tugged at his sleeve, his face tilted up with a serious expression.
“Mammi’s sad, Daadi. You have to do something.”
“Sad?” Adam’s heart seemed to turn over. He’d counted on telling Lydia the bad news himself, finding a way to break it gently so she wouldn’t worry. How could she have found out from someone else so quickly?
“Her eyes looked funny when we came in from school,” Daniel said, with the precision that always seemed to mark his words. “And she gave us an extra snickerdoodle and said to go play. So we think she’s sad.” Daniel’s hazel eyes, so like his mother’s, were fixed on Adam’s face. “I told David you would make it better, ain’t so?”
“I’ll do my best,” he promised, hoping he could find a way to make good on those words. “Suppose you two get moving on your chores. I’ll go in and see your mammi, ja?”
“Ja, Daadi.” Daniel nodded, handing him back the lunch pail. “Race you to the barn, David,” he said, starting off slowly so that his little brother could catch up.
Daniel had a kind heart. And David had a gift for making people smile. Adam watched them for an instant before he headed to the back door. Good boys, both of them.
They were his responsibility, just as Lydia was, entrusted to him by God. He was the husband and father. He had to take care of them, and right now he wasn’t sure how that would happen.
He went quickly up the two steps to the back porch and into the hall that served as a place to hang up coats and take off muddy boots. Lydia was always in the kitchen when he came in, with supper on the stove and a smile that reminded him how lucky he was every day of his life.
Supper was almost ready, all right. He could smell the chicken cooking and the biscuits baking when he moved through the doorway. But Lydia’s gentle smile was missing, her peachy skin pale and her hazel eyes shadowed. When she saw him, her lips trembled, and tears filled her eyes.
“Adam.” In an instant she was in his arms, clinging to him. “I’m sehr glad you’re home.”
He nestled her close against his chest, feeling the familiar warmth of her slender body, and his heart hurt that he was the cause of her tears. “Hush, now. It’s all right. Don’t cry.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice soft with the tears. “I shouldn’t be acting like a boppli, crying all over you. It was just such a shock.”
He smoothed his palm down the long, sweet curve of her back. “It’s not that bad, after all. We’ll manage.”
She shook her head, her hair silky against his cheek. Then she stepped back, wiping tears away with her hand the way David would.
He opened his mouth to say that he would find another job, that she could count on him like always. But she spoke first.
“Here I am carrying on, and you don’t even know what it’s all about.” She tried to smile, but her lips trembled at the effort.
He didn’t know . . . Maybe it was just as well that Lydia didn’t seem to expect him to say anything, because he was speechless. If this wasn’t about him losing his job, what was it? Clearly the boys were all right.
“Your great-aunt?” he ventured, knowing she’d been going to her mamm and daad’s place to visit with Aunt Sara that afternoon.
“She told me something . . . something I could scarcely understand or believe.” Lydia’s smooth, wide forehead furrowed. “She said she remembered seeing my mamm in the orchard, long ago, with her three little girls.” Lydia’s gaze met his. “Three little girls.” Her voice emphasized the number. “She was talking about my birth mother.”
Now his frown must match hers. “Your great-aunt must have been confusing Diane with someone else. Sara’s been sick, and at her age it’s easy to get mixed up, ja?”
“That’s what I told myself.” Lydia cupped her palm against her cheek in that way she had of comforting herself when things went wrong. “But when I repeated her words to Mamm, I could see in her face that what Aunt Sara said was true.”
“True?” He struggled to get his mind around it. “But if you had sisters, for sure we’d know about it. How could we not have heard? I mean, your parents were living right here in this house when they died. Everybody would have known.”
“They knew.” Lydia’s voice hardened in a way he’d never heard before, and he’d have said he was familiar with every tone of it. “They knew, and they kept it a secret.”
He realized what must have happened, and his heart hurt for her. “Your sisters died?” His voice filled with sympathy. “Is that it?”
He and Lydia had talked about the accident. Her parents had died, and people said Lydia was lucky to survive, and that losing her memory of everything that had gone before the accident was a small price to pay for having lived.
“No. They didn’t die.” Her voice was sharp with pain. “Maybe I could understand better if they had. But they survived the accident—two little sisters, and each of them was adopted by someone different. The family parceled us out to different people like . . . like leftovers.” Her hands clenched into fists.
Somehow that gesture, so foreign to his gentle, loving Lydia, galvanized him. He crossed the small space between them, taking her hands in his. “There must be a reason for such an action. What did your mamm say?”
“She wanted me to wait until Daad came home. She kept saying he could explain it so I’d understand. But how can I ever understand something like this?” Her eyes filled with tears again, and Adam moved quickly to put his arms around her.
“It will be all right.” The words sounded worse than useless, and he longed to have something better to offer her. “They must have meant it for the best. You’ll see. We’ll sit down and talk to your mamm and daad together, and they’ll tell us everything. You’ll see.”
Even as he said the words, he wondered. Clearly there was more going on than any of their generation had been told. Something had happened . . . something so serious that not just the family but the whole church had decided to keep it a secret. He couldn’t begin to imagine what it could be.
One thing was certain. He couldn’t burden Lydia further at a time like this by telling her about losing his job. That news would have to wait.
He held her close, murmuring soothing nothings, just as she would do with the kinder when they’d suffered some hurt. How had their peaceful lives unraveled so suddenly and so completely? And how were they going to find the faith to accept all of this trouble as God’s will?
* * *
Lydia wasn’t surprised when she heard a carriage rolling up the lane not half an hour after she’d settled Daniel and David in bed. She’d known Mamm and Daad would come to talk to her again, and it would be after the kinder were asleep for a matter so painful.
She rose, brushing a slight dusting of flour from her black apron, and exchanged glances with Adam. With two rambunctious boys around, they hadn’t yet had much space for a quiet talk. Still, she hung on to the sensation of his arms around her as she headed for the door.
“That’ll be Mamm and Daad.”
“Ja.” Adam followed her, maybe thinking she needed his support. “They’ll be able to explain it all, so you can accept what happened as God’s will.”
She felt certain they’d explain, and now that she was calmer, maybe she’d understand. Or at least find the right questions to ask. But as for accepting . . . well, she wasn’t sure acceptance would be easily found.
Adam supported her, just like always. But did he really understand that the very foundations of her world were shaken?
There was no time to talk about it now—Mamm and Daad were already at the door. Adam pulled it open.
“Joseph. Anna. It’s gut you’re here, so we can talk.” Adam’s voice had deepened with the gravity of the situation, his level brows lowered over his blue eyes, his strong face solemn above his short brown beard. He gestured her parents into the kitchen.
&n
bsp; “Ja. We must talk.” Daad’s tone was heavy. As he and Mamm stepped farther into the light, a shock ricocheted through Lydia.
Daad’s square, ruddy face seemed to have drawn tight against his bones. And her mother . . . Lydia’s heart thudded against her chest. Mamm looked near as old as Great-aunt Sara, her eyes red-rimmed behind her glasses, the fine wrinkles of her skin turned into sharp valleys.
The urge to put her arms around her mother was almost too strong to resist, but somehow she managed. If she and Mamm started crying together, she’d never regain her calm, and somehow she had to stay focused enough to hear this story to the end.
“I’m sorry, daughter.” Daad kissed her forehead gently. “Sorry that you had to find out this way.”
Lydia pressed her lips together for an instant, feeling the flicker of anger again. Are you sorry for telling me lies to begin with, Daad?
“Let’s sit down.” Adam pulled out one of the chairs around the table. “Will you have coffee?”
“Not now, denke, Adam.” Daad sank heavily into the chair at the head of the table, planting his elbows on the surface in the way he had when he was about to tell the family something they needed to hear. He’d looked that way when he’d gathered them to say that Grossdaadi had died, Lydia realized. In a way, maybe this was a death as well.
But if Daad looked square and solid and unmovable, Mamm seemed to shrink into her seat. When Adam moved to take her jacket she shook her head, drawing it around her as if she were cold. She did remove her black bonnet, and the overhead lamp picked up the gray strands in her brown hair.
“Bishop Mose said from the start that we were wrong to keep the truth from you,” Daad said. “It’s the only time in my life I went against something the bishop said, and I feared we’d regret it one day.”
So the bishop had known, too. Well, he’d have had to, wouldn’t he? Every older person in the church district must have known, and they’d kept silent all this time.
Adam had seen that already, she realized with a separate little shock. That was why his gaze was so wary. He was afraid of what they were about to find out. She’d like to touch his hand for support, but he’d taken the chair across from her, the width of the table between them.
