by Leslie Gould
Tommy glanced in the rearview mirror again, smiling at me. I asked Jane, “Did Emma continue to work as a midwife?”
“Jah, she did. Even though she thought of her two children she lost every day for the rest of her life, she grew in confidence and ability as a midwife, all the more determined to care for others and bring babies safely into the world. She ended up exceeding her mother in her midwifery skills,” Jane said. “She also made it a special point to minister to the women who didn’t have a built-in community—the newcomers, the Irish women, such as Betha, and also the few Native women still in the area. In fact, she traveled to Michigan frequently to see women in the Potawatomi tribe up there, both to see to their health needs and also to learn from them about midwifery, medicine, and crops.”
That warmed my heart. “What happened to Eli?”
“Well,” Jane said, “he continued to prosper and became a leader in the community, but whenever she could, Emma stood up to him and others who were critical of the Native population. And, of course, Judah did too.”
“And to think we’re both descendants of Emma,” I said. “What an honor.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Jane turned around and smiled.
Here we were, both descendants of Emma, a woman who had done everything she could to help another woman in need. “Wait,” I said. “Is Tommy related to Emma too?”
Jane shook her head. “Not that I know of. But remember Joseph Miller from the beginning of the story? The man who first traveled to Indiana with the other three men from Somerset County?”
I nodded. “Vaguely.”
“That’s Tommy’s story. So there are parallels as far as the early settlements here,” Jane explained. “From 1840 to 1850, the population of European descendants in Elkhart County increased from 935 to 12,690.”
Yes, but preceding that period, thousands of Native Americans had been forcibly removed, I reminded myself. Those two realities would always exist side by side.
As far as Tommy and I went, our roots went deep, but neither of us was Plain. However, our lives had certainly been shaped by the actions of our ancestors, creating patterns that lived on in each of our lives, much like the quilt we’d been working on at Plain Patterns.
My thoughts went from those patterns to Emma and Mathilde. “You know what would have made the story even sweeter?” I said. “If Emma had given Mathilde a quilt as a good-bye gift.”
“Jah,” Jane said. “I agree. But she couldn’t have. Amish women learned quilting from the English and Irish. Our ancestors didn’t start quilting, as far as I can tell, until around the late 1860s.”
“Really?”
“That’s right.” Jane’s eyes twinkled. “And, as you can imagine, I do have more stories from the past, ones that include quilting.”
“I wish I could be around to hear them,” I said. “Have you decided whom to give the hearth and home quilt at Plain Patterns to?”
“I have an idea.”
“I think you should give it to Miriam, once she’s back.”
“I hadn’t thought of her.” Jane smiled. “But I appreciate the idea.”
It wasn’t long until we were in the East Side neighborhood. I’d had a few texts from Pam, saying Miriam was still in the back room. Pam hadn’t told her we were on our way, but she had encouraged Miriam to stay, even saying she’d help her when she got off work.
When we reached the convenience store, Tommy turned into the parking lot. “I should go in,” I said. “Pam will recognize me.”
Tommy walked around to help me out of the Jeep, and then I led the way, limping along in my boot. Tommy and Jane followed.
Pam met me at the door. “She just left. The same guy I saw her with before came and got her.”
“Any idea where they went?” I asked.
“No, but they didn’t climb into a car or anything. They walked up the street.” She pointed toward the direction of the bungalow.
I thanked Pam for her kindness, and then Jane, Tommy, and I piled back into the Jeep and drove straight to the house. Although the porch light was off and the front of the house was dark, there was a light on in the back.
Carefully, I toddled up the steps, with Tommy holding on to my arm. He knocked, but no one answered. After a few more bouts of knocking, I tried the doorknob. It was locked.
“Let’s see if anyone’s around back,” I said. We walked around the side of the house, using the light of the flashlight app on Tommy’s phone. In the back was a deck. We made our way up the steps to a door. We knocked and, again, no one answered. I tried the door.
This time it opened.
There was Miriam, wearing her coat and sitting at a table, staring at us. She stood.
“Who’s there?” someone yelled from the basement.
“Please come with us,” I whispered.
Jane darted around me and wrapped Miriam up in her arms. “Child,” she cooed. “Come along.” With one arm still around her, Jane started toward the back door.
Miriam glanced back at the basement door as someone shouted, “Kenny! Is that you?”
“Hurry,” I hissed to Jane as she reached the door and a thundering of footsteps started up the stairs.
The man I’d seen on the street appeared.
Tommy stepped in front of me. I held my phone up above Tommy’s head and announced falsely, in hopes of gaining more time, “I’ve called the police. They’re on the way.”
The man stopped. “Where’s Kenny?”
“I have no idea,” Tommy said. “But I’m his cousin, and I’m guessing he’ll do you as dirty as he did me.”
“Tommy?” the guy asked.
“Yep.”
He frowned. “I’ve heard about you. I’m calling Kenny.”
“All right.” Tommy wrapped an arm around my waist. “Let me know what he says.”
As the man pulled out his phone and stepped into the dining room, Tommy swept me up and lifted me out the back door and down the steps. A phone in Tommy’s pocket was buzzing. With his free hand, he was clicking his Jeep’s key fob as he helped me hobble along the side of the house. By the time we reached the Jeep, Jane and Miriam had already climbed into the back seat, so Tommy practically shoved me in the front.
“Here comes Ivan!” Miriam yelled.
Sure enough, he was running out the front door, yelling.
“What’s he saying?” Jane asked.
“‘Wait.’ He’s saying ‘wait.’”
“Who is he?”
Miriam leaned her head against Jane’s shoulder. “My baby’s father.”
AS TOMMY DROVE out of the neighborhood, Miriam revealed that Ivan was close to thirty and had left the Amish over a decade ago. She believed he and Kenny knew each other from when they were teenagers and had been working together since Kenny returned to the area in September.
I did the math again and said, “But you knew Ivan before September, right?”
She nodded. “He spends time in Newbury Township. I’ve known him for a while.”
“What do you mean ‘spends time’?”
“Shows up at parties. Sells drugs.”
And preys on girls. Miriam had been seventeen when she got pregnant.
“How did you get to Ethel’s house the night you disappeared?” I asked.
“Kenny picked me up in his car that night, right after Tommy dropped me off, and drove me there. He knew I was miserable at Vernon’s and thought my aunt’s house would be a better place for me.”
I glanced at Tommy and then back at Miriam. “Did your mother know Kenny took you to Ethel’s?”
Miriam wrinkled her nose. “No, but Joshua told her I was in a safe place so she wouldn’t worry.”
“Why didn’t she tell Deputy Rogers? Or Vernon?”
Miriam leaned her head back against the seat. “This has been really hard for her, I know. Vernon blames her for my behavior, which isn’t her fault. And she didn’t know where I was, just that I was safe, so it wasn’t as if she had any particular inform
ation to give them. And I am eighteen.”
That made sense, from Arleta’s point of view, although certainly not from mine. Miriam might be eighteen, but she could have been in danger. “Who taught you how to drive?”
“Ivan,” Miriam answered. “Two years ago, when we still lived in Newbury Township.”
“Why did you come to Chicago? After you left Nappanee the second time?”
“Besides Ivan being the father of my baby?”
I waited for her to say more.
Finally, she said, “I figured out he’s not safe. He told me he’d stopped selling drugs, but he lied. He’s working with Kenny, which I’m pretty sure Deputy Rogers knows. But all of Rogers’s questions for me were about you, Tommy, not about Kenny.” She sighed. “I’m sorry I misled him. I tried not to lie, but there were a few times I agreed with Kenny when I shouldn’t have.”
“Apology accepted,” Tommy said, which I thought was awfully kind considering he’d spent time in jail because of what she’d gone along with.
“I did get the sense,” Miriam continued, “that Deputy Rogers doesn’t really want to get to the bottom of what Kenny and Ivan have been doing.”
I shot a glance at Tommy. Deputy Rogers’s grudge against Tommy, whatever it was for, seemed to have blinded him.
“We need to let the Elkhart County sheriff know what’s going on,” Tommy said.
“All right,” Miriam said wearily.
I sent a quick text to Joy, telling her I’d been discharged and was on my way home with Tommy, Jane, and Miriam, although it might take a while because of traffic. I’ll explain everything later. Please tell Mammi we’re all fine.
A few minutes later, Tommy pulled over at a diner, off the interstate. We were a ragtag group as we made our way through the front door.
“Are you doing all right?” Tommy asked me as I hobbled along.
I nodded. There was no need to mention that my ankle was throbbing because of all the activity. I’d take my meds once I had something to eat.
We got a table in the very back, away from any other patrons. Tommy dialed the sheriff. He explained what was going on and that Deputy Rogers had been working the case but now it had grown larger. Tommy put Miriam on the phone. She corroborated Tommy’s story, and then Tommy spoke with the sheriff again.
After Tommy ended the call, he said, “He’s going to call the Chicago Police Department, but he wants us to meet him at his office in Elkhart. Deputy Rogers will be there too. And hopefully Kenny, if Rogers can find him.” He focused on me. “It will be late.”
“That’s all right,” I said. “Let’s get this taken care of.”
ONCE WE WERE back on the road after eating, Miriam and Jane fell asleep in the back seat. I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be a good idea for Miriam to live at home through the rest of her pregnancy and then after the baby was born. I glanced over my shoulder. Miriam had her head against Jane’s shoulder. Maybe there was another option for her, at least until she could figure out where else she could go.
“I’m so sorry,” Tommy said quietly. “For everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“That I didn’t figure out what Kenny was up to. That you got dragged into this. That you were in that accident.”
“None of this is your fault,” I said. “I’m just relieved Miriam is okay.”
He nodded. “You know what else I regret?”
“You need to stop beating yourself up.”
“No, I need to say this.” He shot me a quick glance and then returned his eyes to the road. “I regret being so mean to you that last summer you were out here when I was still around, and I need to tell you why I did it.”
I sat forward, my curiosity getting the better of me.
“I did it because I still cared about you. I was young, true. And you were even younger, and not Amish, but I’m pretty sure I loved you.”
“Tommy.”
“I tried so hard to shift those feelings toward Sadie Yoder.” He sighed. “But it didn’t work. And then she rejected me anyway. Somewhere in there I decided to leave and live the Englisch life. And, jah, I was never wild like Kenny, but I wasn’t exactly innocent either.” His voice grew quieter. “Lame, huh?”
I reached for his hand. “No,” I said. “Not at all. Honest and transparent, yes, but not lame.”
We rode that way for a while, silently holding hands. God had answered my prayers as far as Miriam. She had challenges ahead of her, but she was safe. Dad, Joy, and Karlie were at Mammi’s house. That was an answer to a prayer I hadn’t even thought to pray. I’d survived a horrible accident. Ryan had given me the closure I needed.
Little by little, I could see God at work. And through that, my faith was growing.
But something niggled at the back of my mind.
“Tommy?” I said, breaking the silence.
“Mm?”
“Why does Deputy Rogers have a grudge against you?”
I needed to know what Tommy had done a decade ago that made Deputy Rogers so angry. Jah, a person could change immensely in ten years, but I needed to know if his actions were indicative of a larger character flaw.
Tommy sighed. “It’s a long story, but we’ve got the time.” He explained Deputy Rogers was known as being a no-nonsense officer to some—and a hard-nosed, unforgiving lawman to others.
He had a pattern of targeting young men in the community. He started tailing Tommy when he drove his Thunderbird. Then he started pulling him over. For not signaling. For having a broken taillight. Even for going too slow.
A few times, Tommy ditched him while driving, taking back roads Rogers wasn’t familiar with, which angered the deputy and caused him to target Tommy all the more. During that time, Kenny had been arrested for possession of drugs and had spent six months in jail. Deputy Rogers was convinced, perhaps by something Kenny said, that Tommy was selling drugs too, but he couldn’t pin anything on him.
“Eventually,” Tommy said, “I wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper about police harassment. After that, several other young men complained about him, including a couple of Hispanic men. That kind of negative press made Rogers all the more determined to arrest me for something big.”
He continued with the story, saying his Dat had been diagnosed with cancer in early October 2008. They all felt optimistic that he could beat it. Tommy was working swing shift at the RV plant, making good money. He was doing as much of the farming as he could before work and on Saturdays.
His parents decided to travel to a niece’s wedding in Michigan on the last weekend in October, thinking they might not have a chance to travel for a while, with the cancer treatments just getting started.
That Friday, Tommy was let go at work. The recession had just started, but the writing was on the wall. On his way back to the farm, Tommy noticed Deputy Rogers following him. When Tommy arrived, the shed was lit up like a pumpkin and probably a hundred Youngie were on the property. Kenny had decided to throw a party.
Tommy got out of his car and shouted at everyone to go home, that a police officer was right behind him. People took off running across the pasture to where they’d parked their cars. By the time Rogers got out of his vehicle, there were only a few stragglers left.
Rogers barged toward the shed door, ready to barrel in, but Tommy blocked his way, saying he needed a search warrant. They argued until Kenny came staggering around the side of the shed with a kerosene lantern in hand. He’d pulled hay bales up around the shed for people to sit on and he tripped over one.
“He managed to right himself,” Tommy said, “and I reached for the lantern. But he swung it out of my way and started taunting Rogers, who gave him a shove.
“Again, Kenny and the lantern started to fall.” Tommy paused for a moment, as if the memory pained him. “I grabbed him by the arm, but he shoved at me. He went down, the lantern broke, and one of the bales caught fire. I grabbed Kenny and dragged him away, but he kept trying to go back to put the fire out. I
held him down as I yelled, ‘Fire! Everybody out!’ and then begged Rogers to call for help. He just watched the fire spread, like he hoped it would all burn down. Finally he called it in. By the time the firefighters arrived, the shed was a complete loss.”
He stopped.
After a long pause, I asked, “What happened next?”
“Kenny and Rogers both blamed me. Said I’d knocked the lantern on the hay and started the fire. Kenny was wasted and only remembered parts of what happened, but Rogers out and out lied. My parents believed me but asked that I leave. They were afraid what might happen if I didn’t. So I left and Kenny followed later. We ended up in Arizona, where I went to community college and then university. I didn’t come back until Dat’s funeral in 2013. In the three days I was home, Rogers gave me two tickets.”
I winced. “Wow. Even after all that time he couldn’t let it go?”
Tommy shook his head. “I forgot to mention that I mailed a second letter to the editor as I left town the first time. It sparked an internal investigation and Rogers got demoted.”
“So why isn’t anyone suspicious of Rogers investigating you now?”
“Everyone retired. New sheriff. New supervisors. And he’s getting ready to retire in a few months himself, which is the reason I finally came back. But I should have just waited until it actually happened.”
“Someone needs to tell the new sheriff all of this.”
“Probably, but now I’m afraid if I say it, I’ll sound as if I’m making excuses.”
“I’ll say it, then,” I said, “when we meet with him—and Deputy Rogers.” I hesitated a minute and then asked, “Why did he take it all out on you? Instead of Kenny?”
“Because I wrote the letters. He’s far more concerned about his image than about the truth or justice or any of that. Kenny was a pain, but he never made Rogers look bad.”
Again, we rode in silence, but then, just as we reached the Elkhart County line, Tommy said, “Once I get these bogus charges dismissed, I’ll take Mason back to Las Vegas. But I’ve changed my mind about staying there. I’ve decided to return here instead.”
