Brian's Choice (8 page)

“That's what I wanted to tell the officer!” A feeling of heavy gloom fell over Katie. She wanted to put her head down on the table and weep. “He wouldn't listen to me. Wouldn't even let me defend Brian.”

“Do you have any doubt that Levi will do just that?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then you doubt that
Gotte
will guide Brian's steps?”

“
Gotte
is faithful, yes, but the police may be an entirely different matter.”

“Most in our community would be happy to vouch for Brian—”

“Most. One or two always want to believe the worst.”

“There are some, and yes, I know who you mean—those who are extremely cautious and slow to accept anything different.” JoAnna tapped the spoon against the rim of the pot and set it down on the saucer to the side of the stove. “It's not only Brian they are suspicious of.”

“But he didn't do it.”

“I believe you.”

“How can you be smiling when this is so serious?”

“I was thinking of something
Mammi
used to say. ‘A dry fact doesn't stand much of a chance against a juicy rumor.'”

“If that's true, then he's sunk. Are there rumors about Brian? Rumors people are willing to believe?”

JoAnna shrugged and handed Katie a pot and some snap peas. “Best you stay busy while you worry.”

“What have you heard, JoAnna? Tell me. I'd rather hear it from you than from the girls in the kitchen at our next church meeting.”

“Only that Brian is very handsome, very good with the students, and that some of the older girls have a bit of a crush on him.”

“I suppose that's true, but he does nothing to encourage them.”

“And the day Stella disappeared? He was alone with her,
ya
?”

“He was.” Katie thought about that afternoon. Had it really been only two days since then? She snapped several peas before continuing. “I offered to stay, but he knew how tired I was and insisted I head home.”

Silence filled the room. The ticking of the clock and the children playing outside provided a distant reminder that life continued regardless of the pain Katie was personally enduring.

She said, “He didn't do anything to her. He couldn't have. If only people knew how kind he is, how dedicated he is to the students, and how…how proper!”

“I think you are dealing with two different things, dear Katie.”

Suddenly she had a childish desire to clap her hands over her ears, but instead she stared into the pot she was holding in her lap.

“The first is that you don't want anything bad, anything unfair, to happen to your friend.”

“
Ya
, that's true.”

“The second is that what you feel for Brian is not merely friendship. If you're honest, I think you'll admit that some time ago you fell in love with Brian Walker.”

FOURTEEN

Officer Bynum took an inordinate amount of time to return with the coffee. No doubt he hoped the moments alone in the stark room would push Brian toward a confession. Which proved he didn't truly understand what it meant to be Amish. If there was one thing Brian had learned in the last few years, it was how to wait.

Finally, Bynum walked into the room with two steaming Styrofoam cups and pushed one across the table to Brian.

“You moved here three years ago?”

“Two and a half.”

“Explain to me how you started in California and ended up in a small town in rural Oklahoma.”

“Is it relevant to Stella's disappearance?”

“It may be.”

Brian sipped the coffee and winced at the bitter taste. “I wandered for several months. I had a vague idea of making my way east. All I wanted was to get away. From my parents, from what I'd done, even from my job. None of it mattered anymore.”

“West to east doesn't necessarily go through Oklahoma.”

“True. I came east on I-40.”

“In your car?”

Brian shook his head. “At that point I didn't trust myself to ever sit
behind the wheel of a vehicle again. I walked and caught rides when I could.”

“Go on.”

“I took I-40 through Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Amarillo, and finally Oklahoma City. That's where…well, you could say that's where God grabbed hold of me.”

Bynum made a
continue
motion with his hand.

But Brian couldn't continue. He was suddenly back at the memorial, walking through the Gates of Time, staring at the rows of empty chairs.

“Have you been to the memorial in Oklahoma City?”

“For the Murrah Building? I have, in fact. A friend of mine died in that blast.”

Brian thought of offering his condolences, but it was plain Bynum was only interested in the case. And yet he had asked about the route that brought Brian to Cody's Creek. That route went directly through the grounds of the museum.

“I was a teenager when the bombing occurred. I remember watching it on the news and then later writing about it for a school assignment.” He stared down into his coffee. “Seeing the memorial in person was a completely different experience from studying it through Internet sources. I walked through the twin gates, and it was as if I were walking into a holy place. Do you believe that, Officer Bynum? That any place can be made holy, but that those places bathed with the blood of the innocent…well, it seems God bestows a special blessing on those spots.”

Bynum didn't answer. He just continued staring at Brian and waiting.

“Then I reached the field of empty chairs—”

“One hundred sixty-eight.”

“Yes, one for each victim. I suddenly understood how precious a
gift life is, and what a fool I'd been wasting mine and those of the people around me. I saw my past like a thing belonging to someone else. I felt…I fully felt the presence of God in a way I can't explain.”

Brian sat back and considered Officer Bynum. Was he a religious man? It didn't really matter. He himself had not been religious before he walked into the memorial, but he'd left a changed person. It suddenly occurred to Brian that he might be enduring this scrutiny so that he could share the grace he had received that day. The thought gave him the courage to press forward with his story.

“Maybe you don't believe in such a thing—a spiritual experience, an encounter with the Holy of holies. I didn't either, but it happened. I suddenly remembered scraps of a song my grandmother used to sing. “Amazing Grace.” What I felt, more than anything else, was God's love and forgiveness.”

“Convenient.”

“I stood staring at those chairs for…for I don't know how long. Finally, I moved on to the reflecting pool. I stayed there until darkness fell, amazed at how much had happened in a few hours, amazed that God could love a wretch like me.”

Bynum sat up straight and pierced Brian with a skeptical gaze. “You nearly kill a girl, joyride across the country, end up at a memorial, and then experience a conversion. Is that your story?”

Brian pushed the coffee away. He didn't want it. He didn't need it. He was nearly finished with his testimony and the interview. “I had in my mind to head northeast, maybe go to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania. I didn't have a particular reason, but I wasn't sure what else to do. Yes, I'd had a conversion, a holy experience, but what was I to do with it? How was I to live and honor what had happened? I headed northeast, and the route took me through Tulsa. From there I caught a ride with an old farmer headed east.”

Brian stared at his reflection in the long, one-way mirror. Had his
future turned on a happenchance ride from a stranger? Or was it one more way that God had directed his path? “The farmer's vehicle broke down in Cody's Creek. Imagine that, Officer Bynum. What are the odds that the truck I'm riding in would break down in one of the few places in Oklahoma with an Amish community?”

Bynum shrugged, but he was watching Brian closely, interested in the rest of the story.

“Suddenly I was tired. Tired of running, tired of the guilt and pain. I just wanted to be still, be in one place, and appreciate the life God had given me.” He waved his hand. “I found a few odd jobs and in the process met Levi Troyer. The rest is pretty straightforward.”

“Straightforward? You decide to give up everything—nearly all the conveniences of modern society—and become Amish, one of the most conservative sects in the country. How is that straightforward?”

Now Brian smiled. “Perhaps it was the horse and buggies. Remember, I didn't want to ever drive again.” Then he grew serious. “When I was sitting beside that reflection pond at the memorial site in Oklahoma City, I told God that if He gave me a new life I wouldn't waste it. I wouldn't squander it like I had the old one. A week later I was eating Dutch apple pie and drinking coffee with Levi. He took me in, taught me about a simple faith, a dedicated work ethic, the meaning of being a neighbor to one another. Why wouldn't I become Amish?”

Bynum sat back, studying Brian as if he didn't know what to say.

“I was confronted with a choice. I knew I couldn't go back to California, but I could continue wandering. Or I could accept the new life I was faced with. A life that honored God and allowed me to be a part of a community again.”

One minute, then two ticked by. Finally, Bynum reached forward and opened the folder. Brian glimpsed copied pages of a journal, and he recognized the handwriting.

“What about Stella? What about the fact that she had a major crush
on you, that she wrote about running away with you and the two of you marrying? What do you say about that? How does that figure into your choice?”

Brian was only mildly surprised. His policy regarding student infatuations had always been to ignore them. After a few weeks or months, they passed. Only this time, a young girl's fantasies could incriminate him.

“I had nothing to do with Stella's disappearance. She was a student in my class, and I did my best to teach her and guide her. I would never hurt her or anyone else, and if you don't believe that, then I suggest you get out of your office and start interviewing people from our community.” He stood, reached forward, and tapped the pages. “Or maybe you've already done that. Maybe you have nothing to go on but the pages of a young girl's diary. Either way, we're done here.”

Then Brian walked around the table and out of the police station.

FIFTEEN

The ride home in the buggy was quiet.

Levi chuckled once when they passed a tractor driven by John Yoder. The tractor pulled the bed of a Ford pickup truck filled with Amish teens. All waved at the bishop and Brian.

The sight would have been odd to Brian a few years ago, but now he understood that it was merely teens having fun on a Friday night. They were probably headed to town for ice cream. Even in an Amish community, teenagers needed places to congregate and ways to celebrate the end of a school week.

Levi pulled up in front of Brian's house. No words were needed. He slapped the schoolteacher on the back, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, and then he drove away.

Brian walked into his house, thinking that perhaps it was good news no one had found any trace of Stella. Maybe it meant she was okay after all. He walked into his kitchen, wondering what he would throw together for a late dinner, and was brought up short by a wonderful smell.

The oven in his gas stove was on and set to its lowest setting. When Brian opened the door, he found a chicken casserole, some baked vegetables, and a fresh peach pie. The Amish in Cody's Creek virtually
never locked their doors. It seemed that someone had taken advantage of that and left him a bit of encouragement.

He ate his fill and then stored the leftovers in the refrigerator. Within thirty minutes he was sound asleep in his bed.

Brian woke the next day as the morning sky lightened. A few minutes later he stumbled into the kitchen and set coffee to boiling on the stove. Staring into his nearly empty refrigerator, he realized he had neglected to grocery shop the week before. He was reaching for the leftover chicken casserole when he heard a knock on his front door.