by Beth Wiseman
He closed his eyes, trying to envision himself and Irma Rose with a family of their own. But he was having trouble concentrating on that as well. He was worried sick about his mother, and for the hundredth time, he begged the Lord not to take her. The doctors had said she’d be just fine, but that’s what they’d said about his father too.
Chapter Four
IRMA ROSE WALKED INTO THE LAPP BASEMENT WITH JAKE at her side. About fifteen teenagers were gathered around a table of food in the middle of the room. Once everyone was full, they’d likely break off in small groups at first to chat, then someone would suggest a song. This was the only time they would be able to harmonize since it wasn’t allowed during worship service. Irma Rose loved to sing songs that glorified God.
She scanned the room until she saw Isaac. She was glad to see him chatting with several girls on the other side of the room. As she continued to look around, she noticed something in the corner of the room was covered with a sheet. It wasn’t hard to tell that it was a radio. One of the large, box types from the 1930s or ’40s. No one would speak of it, but plenty of families kept a radio hidden from plain view. Mostly transistor radios these days, but some folks held on to the older models. They’d say it was for listening to President Eisenhower talk about world events, but Irma Rose’s mother had said some women she knew admitted to listening to variety shows. Irma Rose’s family had never owned a radio.
“I’m going to go talk with Isaac for a minute. Be right back.” Jake smiled at Irma Rose before he walked off. She greeted several friends hovering around the food, then reached for a chocolate-chip cookie before she scanned the room. Her eyes landed on Mary. Her friend was alone in the corner of the room, munching on a whoopie pie.
Irma Rose sidled up to Mary. “Where’s Jonas?”
“I have no idea.” Mary spoke with her mouth full, and before she had even swallowed, she stuffed another chunk of the dessert in her mouth. “He never showed up, so I rode with Jacob and John.”
Irma Rose glanced around the room and saw Mary’s two brothers standing away from the table of food and talking with two girls whom Irma Rose thought might be a bit too young to be here. “Hmm . . .” Jonas wasn’t dependable; she’d add this to her list. “Awfully rude of him.”
Mary finally swallowed the last of the pie. “Maybe it’s his mudder. She’s not well. She’s in the hospital.”
“Ya, I know.” Irma Rose felt bad that she’d assumed the worst about Jonas without considering the situation with his mother. “I hope everything is all right.”
“Me too.”
“He still should have gotten word to you.” Irma Rose looked around again until she saw Jake. He winked at her, and after a few minutes, he cozied up beside her. Mary excused herself and said she was going to get another whoopie pie.
“Didn’t she just eat one of those?” Jake whispered to Irma Rose as he nodded toward Mary.
“Ya. Mary has always liked pies and cakes. But I’m not really one to talk. I have a sweet tooth too.”
Jake grimaced. “I’m not much of a sweets eater.”
Irma Rose nudged him gently. “Ach, I bet you’d eat my shoofly pie. Mamm says I make better shoofly pies than mei mammi did.”
Jake shrugged. “Nee. I’d rather have something salty, like a pretzel.”
Irma Rose rocked from heel to toe a couple of times, searching her mind for something to talk about. She’d waited a long time for Jake to ask her out, and now that she was sixteen, she’d hoped they would become a couple. Taking a girl to a singing was almost as good as announcing to the world that you were dating. But when Jake didn’t offer up any conversation either, her mind became preoccupied with Jonas. I hope he is okay. She hoped his mother hadn’t taken a turn for the worse.
She pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her apron and dabbed at the sweat starting to bead on her forehead. “I’ll be glad when summer is over and it cools down. And I can’t wait until the first snow after that. I love to make snow angels, then curl up in front of a fire and drink hot cocoa.”
Jake frowned as he shook his head. “Not me. I’ll take summer over winter any day.”
Irma Rose had thought she’d feel different standing here with Jake. She tried to talk to him about a book she was reading, but he said he didn’t do much reading. He wasn’t much of a talker either.
By the end of the evening, her emotions were all over the place. For more than a year she’d waited to be old enough to date. But her first date hadn’t been at all what she’d hoped for. Jake was handsome, polite, hardworking, and would make a wonderful husband and father one day. But as he pulled into Irma Rose’s driveway at the end of the night, another word came to mind. Boring.
Now, as he walked her to her front door, she worried he might try to kiss her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that anymore.
“Danki for taking me to the singing, Jake. I had a really nice time.” That wasn’t a lie. She’d enjoyed talking with everyone, and Ida Lapp was one of the best cooks in their community, so the food had been wonderful. She looked up at Jake and smiled. In one swift movement, he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. As only their lips touched, Irma Rose stood frozen. Should she put a hand on his arm? Why wasn’t he cupping her cheek or the back of her neck? She’d heard that’s how it was done. Her discomfort bordered on painful, and when Jake finally pulled away, Irma Rose reached up and dabbed at her lips.
Jake stood taller, looped his hands beneath his suspenders, and grinned as if he’d just set Irma Rose’s world on fire. As if fireworks would burst into the sky at any moment. He winked at her again, but instead of finding it endearing, she fought a frown. She halfway expected him to start beating his chest triumphantly. Waving, he left her standing on the front porch. If that was how kissing was done, she didn’t know what all the excitement was about.
Irma Rose walked onto the front porch the following Friday, then bounced down the steps and into the yard. It was a beautiful summer day, and she decided to deliver some freshly baked cookies to the Millers. But she was on a bit more of a mission than she cared to admit to her mother. Yesterday, at the malt shop with Mary and Hannah, Mary said she’d never heard from Jonas and that Sarah Jane Miller was still in the hospital. “No one has laid eyes on Jonas in almost a week,” Mary had said.
Irma Rose wondered if members of the community were still taking food to the family, so she’d told her mother she would make a delivery. Mostly, she wanted to find out where Jonas was hiding.
When she pulled into their driveway later that morning, she noticed his buggy sitting alongside two others the family owned. She knocked on the door, and Elizabeth answered.
Irma Rose’s jaw dropped when she saw the girl. No kapp, and not even a scarf over her head. Her blue dress was a wrinkled mess, and she had a smudge of flour on her chin.
“Wie bischt, Irma Rose?” Elizabeth brushed several strands of hair from her face. “Would you like to come in?” Her voice was almost a whisper, and Irma Rose hesitated but finally stepped across the threshold. “Please excuse the mess,” Elizabeth added and then sighed.
Mess? Irma Rose gulped. This was much more than a mess. It was a disaster, with toys everywhere, a half-eaten sandwich on the coffee table next to a spilled glass of orange juice, and at least two piles of clothes sitting on the couch waiting to be folded.
Elizabeth nodded to the clothes. “Mae and Annie will help me with those when they get home. They’re at a friend’s house. I could tell they were worried about Mamm, and I thought some playtime might distract them from their worries.” She picked up the overturned glass and blotted up the spilled juice with a clean towel from the pile.
“I brought you some cookies.” Irma Rose eyed the rest of the room. Mud
dy shoes in the middle of the floor, and it looked like someone had walked across the living room in them.
“Danki.” Elizabeth accepted the bag from Irma Rose and rushed to the kitchen. Irma Rose followed her, stepping over two pots in the entrance to the kitchen, with a large metal spoon nearby. Maybe Missy had been playing the drums. Irma Rose couldn’t even see the countertops. But instead of an overabundance of food like the last time Irma Rose visited, there were dirty dishes, an opened box of crackers, spilled coffee, and a platter of pastries that were a tad green on the edges.
Irma Rose remembered when her grandmother died. For a while, everyone took meals to her grandfather, but after a time, the visitors stopped coming. Maybe no one realized that Sarah Jane was still in the hospital. Irma Rose wished she’d brought more than just cookies. “Where is Jonas, Elizabeth?”
“Um . . . what?” Elizabeth faced the counter and began gathering dirty dishes and putting them in the sink. Irma Rose walked to her and gently latched onto Elizabeth’s arm until the girl turned to face her.
“Where is Jonas?”
Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. “I-I can’t say.”
Irma Rose’s heart flipped in her chest. “Where is Missy?” She realized she should have asked that as soon as she saw the living room.
“Missy is upstairs napping.” Elizabeth sniffled. “Are you going to tell anyone that I’ve let things get in such a mess?”
Irma Rose began rolling up the sleeves of her blue dress. “Nee. I’m going to help you get all this cleaned up.”
“Nee, nee. I can do it.” Elizabeth straightened, still sniffling. “I just got behind on my chores.”
Irma Rose scratched her forehead for a moment. “Do you not know where Jonas is?”
“Um . . . that’s not what I said.” Elizabeth turned away from her and picked up two dirty glasses at the far end of the counter.
“You said you can’t say. So, what does that mean? That you know where he is and won’t tell me? Or you can’t say because you don’t know?” Irma Rose stared at Elizabeth until Elizabeth looked her in the eye. “Tell me, Elizabeth.”
“I told Jonas I wouldn’t tell anyone.” She covered her face with her hands for a few moments before she wiped her eyes and looked back at Irma Rose. “Please don’t ask me again.”
Elizabeth was so upset that Irma Rose just nodded. “Can I go check on Missy?”
“It’s just as messy up there.”
“It’s okay.” She hurried up the stairs and spied on Missy, who was sleeping soundly. She walked back to the kitchen.
For the next two hours, Irma Rose helped Elizabeth clean and put the house back together, and when they were finally done, Elizabeth made them both a glass of tea and they sat down at the kitchen table.
“Much easier with two people doing it,” Irma Rose said as she smiled at Elizabeth.
“Ya. Danki so much, Irma Rose. I’ve been staying up late finishing chores from the day before. I overslept this morning, and everything just piled up on me. But I’m sure I’ll be able to keep up now.”
Irma Rose sipped her tea. “Do you know when your mudder will be home?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “We thought she would be home last weekend, but the doctor said she was bleeding inside her stomach, and now she has some sort of infection too. She would be so upset with me if she knew the haus was like this, and that you saw it this way.” Her eyes rounded as she shook her head. “I’ve been going to see her every day; that’s another reason I got so behind around here. I never stay long because I worry about the girls being alone, especially Missy. I sometimes bring her with me to the hospital.”
Irma Rose chose her words carefully, wondering exactly how sick Sarah Jane was. “Did they give you a time frame, a day she might be coming home?”
“Nee. But when I went to see her yesterday, she looked much better and said she was feeling better. I hope she’ll be able to come home soon.”
Irma Rose couldn’t stand it anymore. “Elizabeth, you must tell me where Jonas is. Even if he told you not to. This is too much responsibility for you.”
Elizabeth covered her face with her hands again. “I promised I wouldn’t.”
“Jonas would want you to tell me if he knew that you were having such a hard time. When is the last time you talked to him?”
Elizabeth uncovered her face, sniffled, and swiped at her eyes. “When he called me last Friday.”
“Was he okay?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Ya. I think so.”
“Where was he?” She waited, her heart thumping in her chest. “Where was he, Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears again. “Jail.”
Chapter Five
“YOU HAVE A VISITOR,” THE YOUNG JAILER SAID AS HE PUT a key in the lock, then opened the door. Jonas stood up from the soiled mattress in the corner of his cell where he’d been sitting.
They exited the cell, Jonas getting in step beside the man.
“Personally, I don’t think it’s right for an Amish girl to be in a place like this, but I reckon it’s your business.” The guard, dressed in all black, didn’t look much older than Jonas.
Elizabeth was the only person who knew he was here, and Jonas didn’t want her in a place like this either. He glanced down at his orange slacks and shirt, thankful the jailer hadn’t put handcuffs on him. They’d let him keep his black loafers, but they’d taken his straw hat. “I’ll tell my sister this isn’t a gut place for her to visit,” he finally said as they rounded the corner toward the front of the building.
“The normal place for visits is down the hall, but there’s a plumbing problem down there, and we got repairmen working on it.” They walked around another corner. “I seriously doubt that your sister is going to try to slip you a nail file in the box of whoopie pies she brought.” He turned to Jonas and grinned. “Which are mighty good, by the way.”
“Elizabeth is a gut cook.”
The guard stopped and faced Jonas, narrowing his eyebrows. “Elizabeth? This woman said her name was Irma Rose.” He scratched his head. “Maybe she is here to break you out after all, if she’s giving a fake name.” The man chuckled.
Jonas’s heart thumped against his chest as he looked down at what he was wearing again before looking at the guard. “I don’t want to see Irma Rose. She’s a friend, but I don’t want her to see me like this.”
The guard laughed again. “Friend, I’m not sure what you’re wearing is any worse than the getup you wore when you came in, but suit yourself.” The guard spun around and took two steps, but Jonas didn’t follow. This might be the only time he’d get to hear how his mother was. Irma Rose might have information. And as much as he didn’t want Irma Rose here, it was probably better than Elizabeth, if for no other reason than Irma Rose was older than his sister.
“Nee. I need to speak with Irma Rose.”
The guard shrugged as he walked back to Jonas, and they took a few more steps to a door on the right. The man let Jonas walk in first. There was a table and two chairs in the middle of the room, and that was all. Except for a box of whoopie pies and Irma Rose.
“This is normally where we interrogate people, but it’ll do for now. You’ve got ten minutes, and we can see you through that two-way mirror over there.”
Jonas didn’t look away from Irma Rose as the guard spoke. Her eyes were teary and she stood up as he walked closer. He wanted to run into her arms. He wanted to cry.
“Is my mother okay?” He folded his arms across his stomach, feeling like he might throw up.
“Ya, ya. She’s much better. She doesn’t know you’re in jai
l. Elizabeth didn’t want to worry her.” Irma Rose blinked her eyes a few times. “Are you okay?”
Jonas nodded, fighting the urge to run around the table and into her arms. “Ya, I’m okay. But why . . .? How—how did you know I was here?” He looked down, then back up at her. “I’m sorry for you to see me like this.” He motioned for her to sit down, and he did the same.
Irma Rose had planned what she was going to say during the ride to the jail. Her hired driver had wanted to chat and seemed particularly curious why an Amish girl would ask to be taken to the county jail. Irma Rose had answered politely, but she’d also stayed busy trying to script her conversation. And now, with Jonas sitting in front of her, she couldn’t recall any of her thoughts, so she asked the question heaviest on her heart.
“What did you do?” She brought a hand to her chest, drew in a breath, and held it.
Jonas hung his head for a few moments before he looked back at her. “Are Elizabeth and the girls all right?”
Irma Rose nodded.
Jonas slouched into his chair and leaned back, sighing. “I’d rather not say.”
Irma Rose let out the breath she was holding and dropped her hands to her lap. She sat taller and spoke to him in the firmest voice she could muster. “Jonas Miller, you listen to me . . .” She started to tell him about the disarray at his house and how much trouble Elizabeth was having, but then she thought about Sarah Jane in the hospital, and the expression on Jonas’s face was one of genuine pain. There was no half smile, and his dark eyes were moist. The whiskers on his face were more than just a dark shadow, almost a beard.
“I asked for a razor, but no one brought one,” he said, as if reading her mind.
