by Amy Lillard
“Where’s Elam?” Lorie asked once they were out on the sidewalk. The fresh air didn’t help. She still felt as bereft as she had before. This time maybe more so since the bright, cheery sun seemed to mock her very being.
“I sent him home, so we could talk. I had a feeling . . .”
Lorie nodded as they crossed the street to sit in the park directly across from Esther’s bakery. Had it only been two years since she had sat here with her friends enjoying the beautiful spring day when Andrew Fitch pulled up on his uncle’s tractor? It seemed like yesterday and forever ago at the same time.
They sat in the swings, pushing themselves with their feet. The wind stirred the untied strings on her prayer kapp. Lorie pushed them over her shoulders wishing for the umpteenth time that she could just cut them off. But that was a sign of rebellion, and Emily’s father, Bishop Cephas Ebersol, would never allow that in his district. The last thing she needed right now was trouble with the bishop. Not after . . .
“My father has . . . had a tattoo.” Would she ever stop referring to him in present tense?
“He what?” To Emily’s credit she didn’t raise her voice, didn’t drop her chin in surprise or any of the other shocked reactions that Lorie had been expecting.
“I saw it when we went to the coroner’s office to, uh, you know.”
Emily nodded. “Are you sure?”
There was nothing else it could be. “I’m sure.”
They sat there in the warm summer sun, not speaking, just being.
Then Emily said, “We all make mistakes, Lorie.”
“I know,” she whispered in return.
“Do you want me to talk to my dat? Maybe he can give you some peace about the matter.”
But it wasn’t peace she needed. Answers, that was what she wanted. “I’m not worried about his soul, if that’s what you mean.” And most people would be.
“Maybe he did this on his rumspringa.”
That had been Lorie’s first thought, too. But she had heard the story of how her parents had met and fallen in love. Though her father had never come right out and said it was after he joined the church, she knew he had been well past his run around years.
“It’s a heart,” she said. “With an angel’s wings. And my mother’s name.”
“He must have loved her very much,” Emily said.
Lorie nodded. Her father had never said as much to her, but any time she asked him a question about her mother, his eyes would light up, Mamm’s frown would grow a little deeper, and things around the Kauffman household would become tense. “I know he did.” She stared off into the distance. “I don’t think Maddie ever forgave him for that.”
“For loving your mamm?” Emily asked.
“I know it sounds dumb, but it’s just a feeling, you know?”
“Sometimes there is only one love in a lifetime,” Emily said.
Lorie smiled at her friend. If anyone knew about the unpredictability of love it was Emily Riehl. She had loved Luke Lambright her entire life, only to realize the love wasn’t real. Luke left the Amish to join the fast-paced world of stock car racing while Emily had stayed behind in Wells Landing and fallen truly in love with Elam Riehl. “Maybe,” she said. “But—”
“But what?” Emily asked.
“I think he got the tattoo after my mamm died. He would have been around thirty years old.”
“What does that matter truly?” Emily shrugged. “That is between him and God, don’t you think?”
“Jah,” Lorie said, pleating her fingers in the material of her apron. She was already tired of wearing black. “But what if there’s more to it than that?”
A frown pulled at Emily’s brow. “What do you mean?”
“I feel like there’s so much of his life that I didn’t know about.” More than the cook who ran a tight kitchen, who made regular trips through the restaurant greeting his guests and checking on their meals. More to the man who loved his family and always had a smile on his face no matter what the day handed him.
“Of course there is,” Emily exclaimed. “Are you sure you just haven’t realized that your father was a person other than just being your father?”
Lorie shook her head. “It’s more than that. I don’t know how I know, but—”
Emily took Lorie’s hand into her own, stopping the gentle sway of their swings. “Listen to me,” she started, her voice soft, but threaded with steel. “Give yourself time to grieve before you do anything.”
“I’m fine,” she lied. What else could she say?
“Lorie.” At Emily’s stern tone, Lorie turned to face her friend. “You’ve got that look in your eyes.”
“I just want to know,” she whispered. “How could Maddie have not seen it?” She had called her Mamm for the last twenty years, but now there was a chasm between them, bigger than before. She and her stepmother had never been very close, but this tore the fragile trust apart.
Emily sighed. “Okay,” she finally said. “She had to know it was there.”
“Then they were both keeping secrets.” Lorie studied her fingernails. She couldn’t bring herself to tell her friend the rest, about the box of his possessions hidden away in the storeroom. About the car the police found and claimed belonged to her father. “Why?”
“I wish I had an answer for you.”
The birds in the trees chirped to one another even though they were in the middle of town. From the street came the clop of horse hooves against the pavement, the purr of the car engines as they drove by. That was Wells Landing, a perfect blend of city and country, of Amish and English. And one of the reasons she loved it so much.
But everything seemed a little dim today, dull, as if the sparkle had gone out of the world. Was that just the pain of losing her father? Or did it have more to do with the secrets he kept?
“Promise me,” Emily said. “Promise me you won’t do anything for a while. Give yourself a chance to heal before you start digging around. There may be truths that you don’t want to know.”
That was exactly what she was afraid of, but now she knew what she did, how could she ever go back?
“Can I talk to you for a bit?” Lorie slid into the booth opposite her mamm. It had been nearly a week since the funeral. A week of sleepless nights and exhausting days of learning to get along without her father.
She reached for the stack of napkins. In the restaurant business, there was no such thing as downtime. Something always needed to be done. Lorie started rolling the flatware in the paper napkins like she had been taught when she was eight years old.
“Jah, of course,” Mamm said. Her mouth turned up at the corners, but still managed to look more like a frown than a smile.
Lorie stopped rolling silverware and instead started to tear little pieces from the napkin in her hands. “I think we should talk about the tattoo.”
Mamm shook her head. “I don’t.”
“So you did know it was there.” A small part of her had hoped that by some miracle, her mamm didn’t know about the mark on her father’s chest.
Maddie shot her a look, but continued to roll the silverware.
“Did you ever ask him about it?”
Her mamm took a deep breath, Lorie was sure to remind her that she had said she didn’t want to talk about the tattoo. Instead she slowly released it. “Jah. He told me he got it during his rumspringa.”
Lorie shook her head before Maddie even finished. “That’s impossible, and you and I both know it. He owned a car, Mamm. A car.”
Maddie slammed the last rolled bundle of flatware into the tub they used for storage. Her lips were pressed even tighter than usual, her eyes shooting sparks like the firecrackers on July Fourth. “He got it on his rumspringa, and that’s all there is to say about it.” Maddie’s words held such conviction Lorie wondered if she was trying to convince Lorie or herself.
“But—”
Maddie stood, towering over Lorie, a frowning menace in head-to-toe black. “We will not speak of th
is again.” She picked up the tray of utensils and marched toward the waitress station.
Lorie watched her go, feeling defeated and worn. So many unanswered questions floated around in her head. So many secrets kept for so many years.
“What did you say to Mamm?” Melanie slid into the booth opposite Lorie, her blue eyes searching.
“Nothing. It’s just hard right now.” She did her best to smile at her sister. In all actuality Melanie Kauffman was her half-sister, though Lorie had never felt that way before. What was happening to her?
Grief, Emily would say. She was probably right.
“I know,” Melanie said with a nod. “It’s hard when I miss him so.”
Lorie blinked back the tears welling in her eyes and squeezed Melanie’s hand. Their father’s death had been hard on them all. Melanie would have to postpone her wedding since she was now in mourning.
She looked over to where her sister Cora Ann brewed fresh tea for the afternoon crowd. At twelve, Cora Ann was still in school, working on the weekends and every time they needed an extra hand. Sadie was in the kitchen, most likely preparing food for the supper crowd. She was actually Lorie’s stepsister, but since she was an infant when Maddie married Dat, he was the only father she had ever known. Six-year-old Daniel sat at the table by the kitchen coloring a picture. His tongue was stuck in the corner of his mouth, his eyes nearly crossed behind his glasses as he concentrated on his work. He was so special, their Daniel. Of all of them, Lorie knew he was the most confused. He didn’t understand why his vatter was never coming back.
They had all been devastated by his untimely death. So why was she the only one with all these questions?
She stood and smoothed her hands down her black dress. She felt antsy, like her skin was too small and itchy from the inside out.
“Where are you going?” Melanie asked.
Lorie shrugged, another lie she would have to pray about. “Nowhere.”
“Mamm won’t like it if you’re not here when the dinner crowd starts coming in.”
She didn’t like a lot of things too, Lorie thought. Then she pushed the hateful thought away. Grief, that was all it was. “I’ll be back before then. I just need to . . .”
Her legs were stiff, and her heart pounding as she walked away.
She just needed to get some answers. She needed peace, understanding. As if her father’s death wasn’t enough, there was a tattoo and a car. And a stepmother who wanted to ignore it all.
The bell on the door dinged behind her as she stepped out into the overcast day. She could almost smell the rain in the air and hoped the clouds didn’t produce a storm. They bothered Daniel like nothing else. He had been through so much lately she didn’t know if he could handle any more right now.
Slowly she walked around the building as if she was out for nothing more than a casual stroll. Once she was out of sight to anyone looking out the window at Kauffman’s, she removed the key she’d tucked into the waistband of her apron. Sneaking around was not the best way to handle this, but she didn’t have many options.
She eased up the staircase to the storeroom above the restaurant. It held a little of everything from extra to-go lids and spare chairs to the paintings she hid there where no one could find them.
And the box of things given to Maddie by the police.
Her mamm might want to push everything aside and forget it, but Lorie couldn’t. The box was sitting just inside the door, as if Mamm didn’t want to spend any more time on it than was necessary.
Lorie looked at the box. She took a deep breath. She knelt on the floor. But she didn’t touch it.
What if what she found in there changed everything? Emily was right: she couldn’t un-see whatever the box contained. Yet she couldn’t unsee her father lying there in the morgue.
Her hands were sweaty, and she wiped them down the front of her dress skirt.
She had to know. No matter how bad she felt about disobeying her mamm and opening the box, she had to know.
Her hands trembled as she reached for the length of tape sealing the box shut tight. She pulled on it, wincing as it tore a little of the cardboard as she stripped it away. There was no going back.
She folded down the flaps, and tears sprang to her eyes. All that was left of her father was in this box. All the stuff collected by the police. It seemed pathetic, such meager remains from a full and happy life.
His black felt hat lay on top. She lifted it out and sat it in her lap, her fingers trailing around the brim.
She hadn’t asked what had happened to his clothing. She supposed they had removed them at the hospital. She wasn’t sure she wanted them anyway.
She wasn’t sure she wanted the box in front of her.
She moved the hat to one side and took out a set of keys she had never seen. The ring held about five keys, none of them marked. Perhaps they went to the restaurant. At least that was what she wanted to believe, even though in her heart she knew it was more than that.
A denim vest was the next thing she pulled out. It was so unlike anything her father ever wore, but when she held it close to her face, it smelled of him. The soap he used and the tangy scent of the restaurant.
In the very bottom of the box was a leather wallet.
Her heart pounded in her throat as she removed the wallet she had never seen before.
Somehow she knew this was it. As much as she wanted to put it back inside the box, tape the thing up, and pretend it didn’t exist, something inside her could not let it go.
She opened the wallet and her gaze fell upon an Englisch driver’s license. Her father’s face smiled back at her from the tiny picture. There was no mistaking that it was him. But the name . . .
Henry Mathis.
Her father’s name wasn’t Henry Mathis. His name was Henry Kauffman.
Yet it was his picture.
She ran her fingers across the plastic holder. The birthday was right: June 16th. And his eye and hair color. He was an organ donor, though she didn’t even know what that meant.
The address was in Tulsa, not Wells Landing. How could this be right?
She pinched the bridge of her nose where a headache was starting to throb. How could this be?
But there it was, right in her hands. No matter how she looked at it, only one conclusion came to mind. Her father had been living a double life.
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2015 by Amy Lillard
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Zebra and the Z logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-1-4201-3455-1
ISBN-10: 1-4201-3455-8
First Electronic Edition: January 2015
eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-3456-8
eISBN-10: 1-4201-3456-6
