Plain Threats

by Alison Stone

  “I don’t want Flo to worry.”

  He pulled out his phone and held it up. “I’ll call the diner. Let her know.”

  When she angled her head with indecision, he said, “You’ll save her a trip.” He waved his hand in a come-on gesture and she let out a long sigh before closing her umbrella and climbing into the truck. She rested the wet umbrella against the seat while the professor made a quick phone call.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, compassion in his tone.

  “Um, yeah...” A slow ticking started in her head. She wasn’t ready for this conversation.

  “It had to be tough to see Samuel leave.”

  And there it was. The conversation she was dreading. Not because she was still reeling from Samuel’s departure, but because there was something else she had to do.

  Rebecca bowed her head and played with the straps of her tote at her feet.

  “Rebecca,” he said softly, “don’t be hard on yourself.”

  Tears started to build and she feared if she opened up to him she’d crumble with all the emotions she had kept locked inside. She wrapped her hand around the door release but stopped when a lightning bolt exploded nearby.

  The professor touched the crook of her arm. “I’ll just drive you home. We don’t have to talk about Samuel.”

  She met his compassionate gaze. “I should have at the very least thanked you for posting bail and for working within the English system to allow him to travel. I understand that’s not always allowed.”

  “I promised I’d help you.”

  “Well, I’ve known men not to keep their promises.”

  “I’d like the opportunity to show you that some men keep their word.”

  Rebecca tracked a raindrop as it raced down the window in a wild zigzag, much like her thoughts.

  The professor pulled out onto the road. “I’m free this weekend to help you with the harvest again.”

  Rebecca twisted the handles of her tote bag. “Some neighbors have already helped me. You’ve done more than enough for my family.” She hadn’t meant to sound so accusatory. She turned to smile at him in apology.

  The professor rubbed his jaw and kept his eyes on the road. The worn wipers scraped across the windshield.

  Screech-swoosh-screech-swoosh.

  “I enjoyed working the land.” There was a faraway quality to his voice. “I guess it’s in my blood.”

  “You learned very quickly.” She remembered his easy smile as she’d instructed him on how to operate the farming equipment. Not only was he eager to learn, but he also had asked all the right questions.

  “I be a college graduate.”

  She frowned, his joke having fallen flat.

  Rebecca fingered the strap of her seat belt. “I appreciated your help, but I need to rely on the Amish. I need to be a better example for Samuel and for my daughters.” She turned and stared out the window, watching the scenery change outside. Heat pumped out of the vents in the dash and she was grateful she wasn’t in a buggy or still out in the rain.

  “Well, I’m glad you finally got the help you needed.” He sounded hurt, but she had to stick with what she felt was best for her family.

  “I should have never gone to an outsider. It’s not our way. I should have relied on our community.”

  The professor slowed at a stop sign and glanced over at her. A muscle ticked in his jaw. With the rain pelting his truck, she felt as if they were all alone. In a cocoon. As if there was no one else in the world.

  He reached over and placed his hand over hers. Warm. Protective. Gentle. Qualities she had never seen in her deceased husband. She resisted the urge to pull her hand away. She needed to put distance between them. At the same time, she wanted to savor this connection with the professor one last time.

  He brushed his thumb across the back of her hand. “You did nothing wrong by reaching out to me. I’ve done a lot of research on the youngie here. I’ve gotten to know your son. You weren’t wrong in thinking I’d know something that could help you.”

  “But you didn’t. These young men have been doing things and hiding things right under our noses. I should have been harder on Samuel a long time ago.”

  “You think he’ll be better off away from here?”

  “He needs to be away from his gang.”

  The professor nodded. He lifted his hand and touched her cheek briefly. “Don’t push me away, too.”

  A car honked behind them and the professor dropped his hand and turned his attention to the road.

  “I have to,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the noisy wipers. “I have to.”

  * * *

  Jake’s truck bobbled over the puddle-filled ruts in Rebecca’s driveway. The rain pelted the roof of his truck, filling the silence with a steady drumming beat.

  “When Samuel comes home for the trial, I hope you make him feel welcome. He needs you now more than ever,” Jake said.

  Rebecca’s bonnet was damp from the rain. The look on her face pained him. “You think I was wrong in sending him away.” He was surprised by the harshness of her tone. “I’m not the King family. I didn’t throw him out on the street, leaving him to fend for himself. I sent him to an Amish home.” She drew in a shaky breath and continued, “I can’t have all these worldly influences around my young daughters.” She tucked a stray hair behind her ear and bowed her head. Her cheeks flared pink from the heater vents. He adjusted the knob to moderate the heat.

  “I didn’t mean to add to your pain.” He rubbed his jaw. “I played a part in Elmer getting kicked out of his home. I encouraged him to share his troubles with his father. His father responded by kicking him out of the house.”

  “And you feel that led to his car accident?”

  “Yes.” Jake’s gut tightened, remembering the fury Mr. King had unleashed on his son. His father hadn’t been understanding and had kicked his struggling son out of the house. Before Jake had had a chance to defuse the situation, given Elmer hope for the future, the young man had revolted and gone on a drinking and drugging binge.

  Guilt welled up inside him again. He ran a hand across his forehead, realizing guilt was one of his primary driving forces. It was a horrible way to go through life.

  “I’m sure Samuel will be fine,” he said, his voice softening.

  “I’m doing the best I can to protect my family. My entire family.”

  Did Rebecca think Samuel was guilty? That she had to keep him away from her daughters?

  “I wished I could have done more to help you.”

  “You have. You really have, but I need to learn to rely on my own community. It may or may not be too late for Samuel, but I can’t allow him to get away with doing all sorts of worldly things.” The lines around her eyes grew tense. “Soon Samuel’s case will come to court. Hopefully then we can put this all behind us.”

  She wrung her hands. “I’m really sorry, Jake.”

  “Jake? You called me Jake.” He couldn’t help but smile.

  A deep line marred her forehead in confusion.

  “You’ve always called me Professor.” He laughed. “Now you finally call me by my given name at the same time that you’re brushing me off.”

  “Brushing you off?” She repeated his words as if she was trying them out, unsure of what they meant. She bowed her head. “I’m sorry. I should have never let you think you could court me.”

  Jake reached out to touch her cheek, but he pulled his hand back. “Can we still be friends?” He hoped her insular childhood wouldn’t allow her to recognize how cliché his comment was.

  She pulled the door handle and the dome light clicked on. He studied her. “Can we?”

  Rebecca shook her bonneted head. “It would be better if we didn’t. I will never leave the Amish and you’re not Amish.”

  “You don’t have any non-Amish friends?”

  Their gazes lingered. “We aren’t friends.”

  Her words took the wind out of him. “So,” he said, his voice hard-ed
ged, “that’s it? I don’t get a say in this?”

  She lifted her brown eyes and stared at him. “We’re from two different worlds. It would never work. I could never be happy anywhere but here on the farm.”

  “Work on the farm is peaceful.”

  She glanced at him, confused, and suddenly Jake felt as though he wasn’t being fair to Rebecca. She was struggling; she didn’t need him muddying the waters.

  “Give it some time. Wait until Samuel’s situation is settled. Don’t just...” He let out a long breath. “Don’t throw this away.”

  Rebecca pulled the door closed and the dome light faded to black. She turned to him, her features cast in darkness. “You of all people know how hard it would be for some Amish to leave.”

  The silence stretched between them as his mother’s forlorn face came to mind. Rebecca pushed open the door again and the light revealed a sad smile on her beautiful face.

  Jake cupped her cheek. Slowly, she wrapped her fingers around his wrist and pulled his hand away. “Good night, Jake.”

  He sat back in his seat and watched her run through the rain toward the house, not bothering to stop to open her umbrella. Her tote swung by her side. Once she was inside, a light came on and her shadow paused in front of the window and then disappeared.

  He put the car in Reverse and backed out of Rebecca Fisher’s driveway.

  And out of her life.

  TWELVE

  “The Amish have moved into New York as land has become more expensive in parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania.” Jake paced in front of his Intro to the Amish class. He stopped and scanned the students, mostly composed of freshman and sophomores. He’d never get used to staring at the tops of heads hunched over their laptops, recording his every word. “Others moved here because they had disagreements within their communities.”

  Or perhaps if they weren’t documenting his every word, they were updating their status on whatever social media was popular at the moment with the college set.

  He continued, “Many Amish are moving away from farming and into other areas to make a living. They work at local factories or businesses, and some hop into vans and are taken to new neighborhoods to build homes.”

  As he went on speaking on the subject he knew so well, his mind wandered to the glorious fall afternoon he’d worked on the farm, enjoying every minute with Rebecca.

  Jake’s heart thudded dully in his chest. Rebecca’s request to keep his distance still stung. But it was a request he had to honor.

  A young man’s hand shot up near the middle of the lecture hall. Jake flattened his palms on the large black marble surface of the long table in the front of the room. “Yes?”

  “How come I see all these young Amish guys driving around in cars? Are the buggies simply for show?”

  Jake put the cap on the dry erase marker and twisted it. “We’ll be talking more about Rumspringa and the youth in the Amish next week. But in short, no, the buggies are not for show. The Amish in this community—the baptized Amish—do not drive cars.

  “But they can ride in cars?” A young girl in front with her chin resting on her palm scrunched up her nose.

  “Right.” Jake glanced at his watch, trying not to show his frustration. “Are you guys also reading the text? It might help you retain some of the information we’ve gone over in class. You’re in college now, so you need to step up your study skills. You’re all registered for or have had Study Skills 101, right?”

  He heard a few groans and laughed. Not many of these kids appreciated their education and probably thought nothing of the Amish not being allowed to attend school past the eighth grade.

  Class was winding down. “Okay, be sure to turn in your papers by 5:00 p.m. tomorrow online. Or if you have them now, I’ll take them.”

  Jake closed his laptop and Tommy approached his desk as the students filed out. “When do you need the papers graded?” Tommy graded the shorter papers and Jake graded the term-length project and their final.

  “Next Monday would be great.”

  Tommy made a noise of dissatisfaction.

  “Too much work for you?”

  Tommy shook his head. “Not at all.”

  “If you’re unsure, I’ll spot-check a few to make sure you’re on the right track.”

  Tommy nodded.

  “You finish your applications for grad school?”

  “Working on it.” The young man drummed his fingers on the table.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing I can’t work out.”

  And Jake didn’t doubt it. Tommy had left his Amish home at eighteen and worked his way to a GED and then college. He was nothing if not resourceful.

  “How’s your senior project going?” Jake asked.

  “The King family isn’t thrilled with me coming around. Samuel and I are friends.” He shrugged. “Guilty by association.” He lifted his eyebrows. “Jonas and Uri were key to some of my research.” Tommy seemed uncharacteristically glum. He was usually pretty easygoing.

  “Reach out to other youngie. You can be resourceful.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Things will calm down.”

  “It usually does.” Something dark fluttered in the depths of Tommy’s eyes. “How’s Mrs. Fisher doing? All this had to come as a blow on the heels of the tragedy with her husband.”

  “Yes, it has.” Jake purposely kept his answer short, not wanting Tommy to know that Jake had crossed the professional line with Rebecca. But that was all in the past.

  Tommy frowned. “Sounds like we’ve both alienated the local Amish. It doesn’t bode well for our respective futures.”

  “Did you hear Samuel left town?”

  Tommy arched an eyebrow but didn’t acknowledge what he knew.

  “Rebecca sent him to live in an Amish community near Rochester. For now.”

  Tommy tucked his laptop under his arm. “I better start cultivating more Amish friendships.”

  “Why don’t you find some who are a little less worldly? It might give you a different perspective. Some youngie actually try to follow the rules.”

  Tommy rolled his eyes. “What fun would that be, dude? I’d have to tag along on the farm or at those tone-deaf singings for the goody-goodies. Remember, I’ve already experienced that firsthand.”

  Jake clapped his teaching assistant’s shoulder with the palm of his hand. “Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you haven’t acclimated to the outside world, dude.” Jake smiled when he emphasized Tommy’s favorite word.

  “I am nothing if not adaptable. My life experience up to now has taught me that.”

  “With your background, your senior project will have a unique perspective. Keep plugging away. Don’t let this setback throw you.”

  Tommy’s cell phone dinged and he glanced down at the screen. “Gotta run. I have some things to take care of.”

  “Night. Contact me if you have any questions once the term papers start coming in.”

  “Sounds good.” Tommy stuffed his laptop into his backpack and hiked the strap up on his shoulder.

  “You got your laptop fixed?”

  “Yes. Couldn’t live without one.”

  Jake watched the young man stomp up the stairs of the large lecture hall and disappear through the back exit. Was Tommy happy? Could people make huge life changes and not have regrets?

  His parents were an example that it couldn’t be done.

  Could Jake be any different?

  * * *

  After his class ended, Jake decided to drive out to Bishop Lapp’s home. When he arrived, he double-checked the time. The dark rain clouds hovering in the distance made it seem later than it was.

  Jake climbed out of the truck and strolled to where he’d noticed an older Amish man leading a horse into the barn.

  “How can I help you, Professor Burke?” Bishop Lapp asked without looking at him. The elderly gentleman hiked the leather straps from the horse’s rigging onto a hook; his arms shook under the weight. Ja
ke stepped forward, ready to help the man, when something made him stop. Perhaps it was the quick sideways look the bishop shot at him. Perhaps an offer of help would be offensive to a man who had spent his life on a farm.

  Or perhaps an offer of help from an outsider was unwanted.

  Bishop Lapp limped to the back wall and grabbed his cane. He leaned on it, resting one hand on top of the other. “Looking for more information for your study of the Plain people?” His even tone made it difficult for Jake to understand the elderly man’s frame of mind.

  “Actually, no.”

  The bishop lifted his chin in understanding. “My son Lester told me you were asking about joining the Amish. Do you think coming to me will yield you different answers?”

  “I’m knowledgeable about the Amish. I understand the difficulties of joining the community as an outsider.”

  “Understanding the difficulties on an intellectual level is different—” the bishop enunciated each word as if to emphasize his point “—than becoming a humble man who lives in a community as a baptized member.”

  Jake ran a hand across his jaw. “I love Rebecca Fisher.”

  Did he really say that out loud?

  The bishop leaned heavily on his cane and met his gaze. “Your dat loved your mem?”

  “You knew my parents? You know who I am?” His father had changed their last name once they’d left Apple Creek to further distance themselves from their Amish background.

  “Your parents were Mary Miller and John Leising, right?”

  “Yes.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “How did you know? I’ve told very few people.”

  “You have your mem’s eyes. But I didn’t know for sure until now.”

  “So, you knew them?”

  “I wasn’t bishop then, but yes, I knew them. Your mother was a fine woman and your father had a taste for the worldly.” The older man pressed his lips together. “How are they?”

  Jake glanced down, then back up at the bishop. “They’re deceased.”

  The bishop ran a hand down his unkempt beard. “I’m sorry. Too young.”

  Nostalgia twisted Jake’s insides as long-forgotten memories of his parents crossed his mind.