Suspendered Sentence

by Laura Bradford

  Claire stepped back, tapped a finger to Annie’s nose, and offered what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “Don’t you worry, Annie, this job is yours.”

  And then Annie was gone, her ankle-high lace-up boots barely making a sound as she followed Leroy Beiler’s father out the door. Claire moved closer to the front window and watched as Annie climbed onto the seat of the waiting buggy.

  “Claire?”

  Startled, she spun around to find Ben and Eli’s sister, Ruth, standing in the back of the shop with a plated brownie in her hand.

  “I did not mean to frighten you, Claire. I just wanted to bring you this brownie before more customers come.”

  Claire tried to quiet the answering rumble of her stomach with her hand but it was too late. Ruth had heard the ruckus from across the room.

  “Perhaps I should have brought a sandwich, too?” Ruth added.

  “No, I brought something to . . .” Her reply fizzled away as she glanced toward the counter and the simple metal pail sitting atop the stool. “Oh no . . .” She trotted over to the stool, grabbed the lunch pail, and ran back to the front window, only to find Annie and The Pest gone.

  “Is something wrong?”

  She looked down at the pail and then over her shoulder at Ruth. “It’s not a big deal, I guess. But Annie Hershberger just left to help her sister with the arrival of baby number six and she forgot her lunch.”

  “I could bring it to her when I close. Or, perhaps, Eli could bring it to her after his noon visit.”

  She considered both options and subsequently discarded each one. “Thank you, Ruth, but I think I will bring it out to Annie, myself. That way I can say hi and make sure she’s doing okay.”

  Chapter 21

  Claire lowered her window halfway and reveled in the promise of spring and its not-so-gentle response to Sunday’s late-season snowfall. All around her, snow was continuing to melt—on the cobblestoned street that was Lighted Way, on the gravel road that linked the popular thoroughfare with the Amish side of town, and on the two-inch-high stalks that marched like soldiers across the fields to her left and to her right.

  She knew, from her first spring in Heavenly, that the yellowish-brownish stalks would soon turn a vibrant green as the wheat, rye, and barley crops began to really grow. Come June, soybeans, oats, and tobacco would be planted in neighboring fields to ensure maturity in time for the harvest season.

  Sometimes, when she drove along these roads, she couldn’t help but feel as if the pages of her calendar had drifted backward a hundred years to a simpler time when life was governed by people rather than technology. It was as if the world was passing the Amish by in so many ways, yet they didn’t care.

  For them, an open-top wagon or a gray-topped buggy was all the transportation they desired.

  For them, an inexpensive bolt of durable fabric and a sewing machine were all they needed to clothe their families.

  For them, communication with friends and family came not through social media and cell phones but, rather, with face-to-face visits.

  For them, mates weren’t found with the help of Internet dating sites. No, they were found across the room at church, or during a Sunday afternoon hymn sing or volleyball game.

  For them, helping a neighbor through tragedy meant rolling up one’s sleeves and doing whatever it took to get someone back on their feet.

  She turned the wheel with the subtle curve of the road, her thoughts mentally ticking off the family name of each farm that she passed—King, Lapp, Stoltzfus, Lehman . . .

  Lehman. Sadie Lehman.

  Ever since Jakob had placed odds on the discovered remains being those of Sadie Lehman, Claire found herself trying to put faces to the young woman’s parents—Zebediah and Waneta. She vaguely remembered their names from Esther’s wedding to Eli, but which couple they’d been out of the nearly two hundred and fifty people she’d been introduced to that day, was the true question.

  Yet, somewhere in her not-so-good-with-names-and-faces memory, snatches of one woman’s face kept resurfacing each night as Claire laid her head down to sleep. The woman she recalled had been nice—friendly, even. But her eyes had stood out to Claire for their hollowness—as if whatever joy could be mustered to create a smile, burned out before it could ever reach her eyes.

  She tried to imagine the other people she’d met that day, tried to see if anyone else jumped out as a possibility, but she always came back to the same woman.

  And it made sense.

  Claire didn’t need to be a mother to be able to imagine the torment one would feel if their child simply up and disappeared without a single word. It was an experience she prayed she’d never have to know, and hoped no one would ever have to face again.

  But even worse than having that child run off, would be learning that they’d never really run off at all. That the whole time you were thinking one thing, your child’s body was buried within sight of your kitchen window. Suddenly, any hope you might have had for a reunion was gone, ripped from your world along with the good-bye you never got to say.

  It was too much to even try to fathom. Too painful to try to put herself in Waneta Lehman’s shoes. All she could do was hope for truth and justice for Sadie and her family . . .

  She passed her favorite turnoff in all of Heavenly and continued on even as her thoughts opted to take the turn, climb the hill, cross the covered bridge, and settle on a particular rock with its breathtaking view of Heavenly’s Amish country below and its promise of a brilliant star-filled sky above.

  At the next dirt-and-gravel driveway, she continued ticking off land in the order Ruth had schooled her—Hochstetler, another Lapp, Hershberger, heavily wooded area, and, finally, Beiler. If she kept going, she knew she’d pass the large wooded area that separated the Beilers from the first of three farms owned by a Miller on the remaining stretch of Amish road.

  Ben’s parents and sister . . .

  Ben, himself . . .

  And, eventually, Eli and Esther . . .

  Other farmers were sprinkled around between them, but those farms belonged to families she didn’t know, with names she hoped to learn in the years to come.

  She veered onto the shoulder to allow a rare car to pass and then turned up the lane that would lead to Leroy and Eva Beiler’s farmhouse. To her right stood a large barn open to the mild day. She could just make out a horse in one stall and a pair of barn cats meandering out of another.

  Up ahead, and to the left, was the farmhouse, its two-story white exterior like so many of its neighbors to the east and west. Any notion the home might be owned by an English farmer was quickly squelched by the presence of dark green shades in the windows, a pair of clotheslines, and the trio of buggies parked under a grove of trees.

  She slowed to a stop, shifted into park, and cut the engine. Then, armed with Annie’s forgotten lunch pail, she stepped from the car and headed toward the farmhouse and the five hatted towheads that stretched across the front stoop like a second set of stairs.

  “Mamm just had a baby,” said the tallest step—a boy Claire guessed to be about ten, maybe eleven. “His name is Melvin, Dat says.”

  “How exciting!” Claire stopped at the base of the steps and smiled at each one of the children, with the youngest of the group—a girl—not much more than two years old. “And who are all of you?”

  The oldest spoke again, his finger moving from himself to the rest of the stair steps that were his brothers and sisters. “I’m Samuel. That’s Mark, Joshua, Mary, and Katie at the end.”

  “It’s very nice to meet all of you. I’m Claire.”

  Mary, the second to last stair step and the one Claire guessed to be about four, pointed at Claire’s left hand, her eyes wide. “That is Annie’s pail.”

  “You’re exactly right, Mary. She left it at work and I came out here to make sure she gets it back.”

  “Annie makes good lunch!”

  Claire shifted her focus to the right and the little boy with the gap-toothed
smile. “You know what? I like her chicken, myself.”

  “Yum! Yum!”

  She took a step back and viewed the children as a whole, their wide eyes, cheerful smiles, and plain dress stirring something inside her she couldn’t deny. One day, when the time was right, she wanted children of her own. They might not dress like the youngsters in front of her, but she’d do everything in her power to make sure they were just as sweet and happy.

  “What are you five talking about out here?” Annie pushed open the screen door, stepped onto the porch, and stopped. “Oh. Claire. I did not hear you come.”

  The teenager scurried across the porch to the top step, with a brown sack in one hand and a pair of baby bottles in the other. Crouching down, she handed the sack to Samuel and the bottles to Mark. “Samuel, take Joshua and Katie with you to feed the chickens. Mark, you take Mary to feed the new calves.” Then, looking up, she flashed a half smile at Claire. “One of Leroy’s cows and one of his horses just had babies this morning, too. All boys. All will stay except the calf. He will be going to another farm soon.”

  “They don’t keep male cows?”

  Annie laughed. “Not on a dairy farm, they don’t,” she said before officially shooing her nieces and nephews in the direction of the barn on the other side of the driveway. When they were out of sight, she sunk onto the step previously inhabited by the children and invited Claire to sit, too. “I see that you brought my lunch pail. That was not necessary.”

  Claire placed the pail between them and gave in to a laugh of her own. “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have had the pleasure of meeting your sister’s adorable crew.”

  “You should see the new one. He looks just like the rest of them.”

  “His name is Melvin, right?”

  Annie nodded in surprise. “How did you know?”

  “Samuel filled me in.” She closed her eyes for a moment and drank in Katie’s and Mary’s squeals as they helped feed their assigned animals alongside their older brothers. Something about their innocent joy was mesmerizing. “So how does it feel to be an aunt for the sixth time?”

  “Melvin makes twenty for me.”

  “Tw-twenty?” she stammered in disbelief. “Are you serious?”

  “Yah. My brother Luke has seven. My other brother John also has seven.”

  “Wow,” she whispered. “Just wow.”

  “I do not see Luke and John and their families often. They live fifty miles from here. But when we are all together, there is much noise.”

  “It sounds wonderful.” And it did. Especially to someone like Claire who’d been an only child with older parents. “So how is Eva doing? Everything go okay with her?”

  Annie reached up, loosened the ties on her kapp, and leaned against the corner of the closest upright. “She makes it all look so easy—giving birth, raising children, helping Leroy. She is a good mamm.”

  Claire studied her young friend closely, the uncertainty she saw on Annie’s face understandable. “You still have time, you know. You’re only sixteen.”

  “I do not know if I will do a good job. Eva had Mamm to show her how. I do not.”

  Claire reached across the pail and gently tugged one of Annie’s dangling kapp strings. “Hey, of course you’ll do a great job when the time comes . . . how could you not?”

  When Annie said nothing, Claire continued. “I saw the way those kids looked at you just now when you came out. They adore you—the you that you are because of your mamm, your dat, your sister, your brothers, and yourself.”

  Annie lifted her eyes to meet Claire’s. “You think that is so?”

  “I know it’s so.”

  The screen door banged shut behind them and Annie leapt to her feet with such force the lunch pail tumbled down the steps to the dirt path below.

  “I’ll get—”

  “Tie your kapp, Annie!”

  Claire missed the handle of the pail as she turned toward the voice behind Annie’s initial reaction and the subsequent shame with which the teenager now rushed to fix her infraction. There, standing not more than three feet away, was the same bearded man who’d collected Annie from Heavenly Treasures earlier that day, his emotionless expression on the heels of becoming a grandfather again stoking a sudden and irrefutable protective streak inside Claire.

  “She didn’t untie it, she just loosened it.”

  Annie waved Claire off only to be reprimanded for that, as well.

  “Respect your elders!”

  The screen door banged shut a second time to reveal a taller, younger version of the man still staring at Annie. “Dat, I will take care of Annie. It is time for you to check on Mamm and bring her news of Melvin.”

  “I must first stop at the bishop’s home.” The older man lifted a single finger in Annie’s direction as he passed her on the steps, the silent gesture and its accompanying glare of disapproval making the reason for his stated itinerary change clear.

  When his feet left the last step, he turned toward his buggy, climbed onto his seat, and urged his horse down the driveway and onto the main road. Claire continued to stare at the empty driveway left in the elder Beiler’s wake for several long minutes, the residual fallout from the man’s lingering presence still heavy in the air.

  “Leroy, I am sorry. I did not mean to loosen my kapp in front of your dat,” Annie pleaded.

  Claire looked back onto the porch and allowed herself a moment to soak up Annie’s brother-in-law. Like the elder Beiler, Leroy’s face was narrow, his brows thick. The shape and color of their eyes was the same, too, but, thankfully, in Leroy’s she saw only kindness.

  “Do not worry, Annie. Your dat will understand. It has been a busy day for you, for Eva, for all of us.”

  “What on earth was that about?” Claire finally asked as she looked from Annie to Leroy and back again, the cessation of happy squeals from the barn making the thump of her heart sound even louder in her ears.

  Leroy stepped forward and extended his hand to Claire. “I feel as if we have met before but, in case I am wrong, I am Leroy Beiler.”

  “And I’m Claire Weatherly.”

  “Claire Weatherly,” he repeated slowly. “You are the Englisher who was at Eli and Esther’s wedding, yah?”

  “Yes, that was me.”

  “We work together in town,” Annie interjected in a tone that could best be described as wounded. “It is Claire’s shop—Heavenly Treasures—where I work. I left my lunch pail at the shop this morning when your dat came to fetch me. Claire was kind to bring it to me.”

  “Can I ask why your father was so hard on Annie just now?” she asked, determined to understand. “I know her strings are to be tied, but his anger was over the top.”

  Annie’s head sunk low, her voice still lower. “Please, Claire. It is I who was wrong.”

  “You loosened your kapp strings, Annie . . . you didn’t hurt someone or steal something.”

  “Kapp strings are to be tied, Miss Weatherly,” Leroy explained, not unkindly. “My father wants Amish to be Amish.”

  She assembled a protest in her thoughts but stopped short of verbalizing it aloud. Arguing with the man’s son accomplished nothing. Still, it couldn’t hurt to let Leroy know how she felt about Annie. “Annie has worked with me just three days now and she is a hard worker. Perhaps I should make a point of stopping by her father’s home to tell him that.”

  “I am sure Atlee would welcome such news,” Leroy said as he crossed to the step and sat down. “She was a big help with Eva today, as well.”

  “The children are in the barn looking after the chickens and the calves. I should go inside and check on Eva and the baby, see that they do not need anything before I go home.” Annie stepped off the porch, lifted her lunch pail from the ground, and then retraced her steps, continuing on to the door before stopping to offer Claire a half nod, half smile. “Thank you for bringing this to me. I am sorry I was so forgetful.”

  “It’s fine, Annie. You had a lot on your mind when you left.”
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br />   She saw the answering flash of relief and gratitude that crossed Annie’s face but knew it stopped short of being able to undo the hurt and worry ushered in by Leroy’s father.

  “Annie will be fine,” Leroy said in a quiet voice when they were alone on the porch. “My father only seeks to teach.”

  “There are far more patient ways to teach than yelling.” She pulled her gloves from the pockets of her coat and slipped them on in an effort to combat the evening chill that was officially beginning to roll in.

  “And it is with that patience that I teach my own children. But I am not my father and it is not for me to judge his ways.”

  “He isn’t Annie’s father, either,” Claire reminded him before opting to change the subject. “I met your little ones when I arrived. They are adorable.”

  “Do you have children, Miss Weatherly?”

  “No. But one day, I hope.”

  “Yah.”

  If he thought it was odd that she continued to stand there long after Annie had taken her lunch pail and gone inside, it didn’t show. Instead, there was something so natural about his ensuing silence that made her feel almost welcome.

  “Sometimes, when I look at your world, I see such peace and joy that I’m almost envious. But then, I realize that the Amish world is not immune to sadness, either. Bad things happen here, too.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Here, in your home, there is much happiness over a new life. Yet, just five farms from here, Waneta and Zebediah Lehman mourn the loss of their child—a child that has likely been dead for more years than Annie has been alive.” She cast a glance in Leroy’s direction and tried to make out his expression in the gathering dusk. “And they didn’t even know.”

  The steps creaked beneath Leroy’s body as he shifted forward, his hands leaving his beard in favor of fidgeting with his suspenders.

  “I can’t imagine that, can you?” she continued, casting the net still further.

  The shifting and fidgeting continued for several long minutes before Leroy finally spoke, his words, his tone, his meaning rendering her coat and gloves completely ineffectual. “Back then, as Dat’s son, I did not want to imagine. But now that I am a dat, too, I cannot stop.”