The Bishop's Daughter (15 page)

Jimmy just sat there, too numb to move, too confused to respond.
If I’m not the baby Dad came to pick up that day, then who am I, and where did he get me?

L
eona reclined on an old quilt by the pond near their home. With Cinnamon lying contently by her side, she stared at the sky, noting the pale blue graduating to a deeper color. She relished the peace and quiet after her private picnic lunch.

A cool breeze tickled her nose, and she breathed in the fresh scent of the wildflowers growing nearby. She reached over and patted Cinnamon’s head. The Irish setter responded with a grunt and rolled onto her back. “You want your belly rubbed, don’t ya, girl?”

Cinnamon’s head lulled to one side as Leona massaged the animal’s soft stomach. While she continued the rhythmic motion, she thought about Abner Lapp’s visit to the schoolhouse yesterday afternoon and wondered when Papa would visit with Emanuel. She hoped things would go well and that he’d be able to convince Emanuel that school was a good place to be. She knew the boy would be forced to attend, regardless of whether he wanted to or not, but it would be easier on both teacher and student if Emanuel wanted to be there.

She moved her hands up to Cinnamon’s ears, stroking them both at the same time. “Teaching is all I have left, and I want to be the best teacher I can be.” She closed her eyes, enjoying the gentle warmth of the sun’s healing rays. For the last couple of days, the weather had been mild and not the least bit muggy. She wished every day of summer could be this way.

An approaching buggy crunched against the hard-packed dirt and halted Leona’s thoughts. She opened her eyes and saw Naomi Hoffmeir and her youngest daughter, Millie, climb down from their buggy. “What brings you two out here today?” she asked as they neared the quilt where she sat.

“We were on our way home from a dental appointment and
decided to stop at the pond to see if there were many mosquitoes,” Naomi explained. “Our family hopes to have a picnic supper later this evening. That is, if there aren’t too many nasty bugs here to bite us.”

Leona shook her head. “I haven’t seen any mosquitoes at all.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Leona smiled at Millie. “I’m looking forward to having you in my class when school starts up in August,” she said in their Pennsylvania Dutch language, knowing Millie wouldn’t learn English well until she started the first grade.

Millie nodded and gave her soon-to-be teacher a shy grin. Then she flopped down beside Cinnamon. When the dog licked the child’s hand, Millie giggled and patted the animal’s head.

“How much longer do you think you’ll teach?” Naomi asked, taking a seat on the edge of the quilt.

“For a long time, I hope,” Leona replied.

“Maybe you’ll be Kevin’s teacher when he starts school in two years.”

“I should be.”

“He’s content to stay with his grandma Hoffmeir while Caleb and I are at the store every day, but I’m sure he will enjoy going to school once he’s old enough.” Naomi smoothed her long green dress over her knees and wrapped her hands around them. “Abner Lapp’s mamm came into the store the other day, and she said something about Abner having been over to your house to see you a few times.”

Leona nodded.

“So, if Abner’s courting you, maybe you won’t be teaching as long as you think.”

Leona sat up straight, her back rigid. “I don’t know where you got the idea that Abner and I are courting, but it’s not true. He dropped by the house a couple of times to see how I was doing after my nose got broke, and then he came once to talk about his brother.”

“Guess I was wrong then.” Naomi plucked a blade of grass from a patch growing nearby and twirled it around her fingers.

Leona glanced at her dog. The critter nuzzled Millie’s hand, and the young girl seemed to be eating it up.

“Looks like my Millie has made herself a new friend,” Naomi commented.

Leona stroked the dog’s floppy red paw. “Jah, and the feeling seems to be mutual.”

Naomi smiled. “Dogs make
wunderbaar
pets, but they can’t take the place of a loving, caring husband.”

“That may be true for some,” Leona said with a shrug.

Jim’s alarm clock blared in his ear. He rolled over with a groan, wishing he could sleep a few more minutes. The hangover headache he’d had most of yesterday had finally abated, but he’d stayed up until late last night trying to call Jimmy. “That kid must have shut off his cell phone,” he mumbled into his pillow.

Just then, the telephone on the table beside his bed rang, and Jim quickly reached for it. “Scott residence. Jim here.”

“Hi, Dad, it’s me.”

“Jimmy! Where are you? Why haven’t you been answering your phone? Did you get the messages I left?” Jim sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“Slow down, Dad. I can only answer one question at a time.”

“Well, you can start by telling me where you are.”

“I’m in Bel Air, Maryland, and I just checked out of my hotel.”

“You—you drove all the way to Maryland by yourself ?”

“I’m not a little kid, Dad, and I told you I was coming here in the note I left on the kitchen counter. You did get my note, didn’t you?”

Jim stretched one arm over his head and yawned. “Yeah, I got it, and I was pretty upset when I discovered you were gone.”

“Sorry about that, but you were passed out on the floor in the living room when I left, so—”

“Don’t remind me,” Jim said with a groan. He still couldn’t get over the fact that his son had left him there. And it wasn’t like Jimmy to take off on a trip by himself—not to mention that he’d left in the middle of a big paint job, which had affected Jim’s entire paint crew.

“I went to see Carl Stevens yesterday,” Jimmy said.

“You—you did?”

“Yeah, only it wasn’t the Carl Stevens you had dealings with. It was his son, Carl Jr., who took over his dad’s practice five years ago.”

Jim breathed a sigh of relief. If Jimmy had only met the lawyer’s son, then maybe he was still in the clear. It wasn’t likely that the son would know anything about what had gone on in his dad’s office twenty years ago. Still, there might have been some records kept on the prospective adoption. “Wh–what’d the lawyer say?”

“He looked your name up in his database and discovered that the birth mother of the baby you’d gone there to adopt had changed her mind and decided to keep the child.” There was a brief pause. “Is that true, Dad? Did you leave Carl Stevens’s office without a baby?”

Jim stood and ambled across the room. He pulled back the curtain and stared out the window. It was a sunny day, but inside his room, a dark cloud was hanging over his head.

“Dad, did you hear what I said?”

Jim leaned against the window casing and closed his eyes. “Yeah, I heard your question.”

“So what’s the answer?”

“I—uh—no, I didn’t leave there with a baby.” Jim’s eyes snapped open as the truth hit him full in the face. He was caught in his own web of deceit, and there didn’t seem to be a way out, short of telling Jimmy what had really happened that day. But could he risk losing his son forever by revealing the truth?

“If you didn’t leave the lawyer’s office with a baby, then how could you have shown up with me at the hotel where Mom was waiting?”

Jim glanced around the room as a feeling of panic threatened to overtake him. He needed a drink—needed something to give him courage and calm his nerves. His gaze came to rest on the bottle of herbal tablets he’d bought at the health food store yesterday. They’d helped him get to sleep last night, but it had taken almost an hour for them to take effect. He didn’t have that kind of time now. He needed something that would work fast.

“Dad, are you still there?”

“I’m here. Just thinking is all.”

“Thinking about what—the next lie you’re going to tell me?” Jimmy’s tone was sarcastic, and Jim knew he’d better think fast and come up with something good if he was going to keep Jimmy from knowing the truth. But what could he say—that he’d gone to some other lawyer’s office and adopted another baby? He swallowed around the lump lodged
in his throat. “The—the truth is—we did get another baby—”

“The same day?” Jimmy’s voice had raised a notch, and Jim could tell his son was feeling as much frustration as he was. “How about the truth, Dad? Think you could handle that?”

“Well, I—”

“The truth is always better than a lie.”

“This truth might not be.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you sitting down, Jimmy?”

“Yeah, I’m in my truck.”

“Good, because what I’m about to tell you is gonna be a real shock.” Jim stumbled back to the bed on shaky legs and flopped down. “I—I hardly know where to begin.”

“Why not start at the beginning?”

“Yeah, okay. I guess it’s time you knew the truth about your real family.”

“You mean my birth parents—the ones you adopted me from?”

“No. There was no adoption.”

“Huh? I don’t get it. If there was no adoption, then how—”

“Stay with me, Jimmy.” Jim drew in a deep breath, hoping it would give him added courage. “The day I went to pick up our adopted son at the lawyer’s office in Bel Air, I was told that the birth mother had changed her mind and decided to keep her one-year-old boy. Needless to say, I was pretty upset and didn’t know what I was going to tell your mother when I got back to the hotel.”

“So if you didn’t get the baby you’d gone there to adopt, then how did I—”

“I’m getting to that.” Jim shifted on the bed as he tried to form his next words. “When I drove out of Maryland, I was in a state of panic, and by the time I got back to Pennsylvania, I could barely function. I drove up and down some backcountry roads for a while. There were a lot of Amish farms there, and when I spotted a sign advertising homemade root beer, I pulled into the driveway.” He paused and swiped his tongue across his chapped lips. “A young Amish woman came out of the house holding a baby, whom she said had recently turned one.” Another pause. “That baby was you, Jimmy. You were born in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Your real family is Amish.”

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania? Amish?
Jimmy sat there several seconds, allowing his dad’s words to sink in. His brain felt numb, like he might be dreaming. He couldn’t be Amish. He’d grown up in Puyallup, Washington, and his parents were Jim and Linda Scott. But then, he’d recently learned that he was adopted, so they weren’t really his parents.

“After I asked the young woman for some cold root beer, she left you on the picnic table and went back inside to get it,” his dad continued. “I expected her to return right away, but she didn’t. Then you started getting restless, and I picked you up because I was afraid you might fall off the table. And then I ran to the car and drove off.”

“Dad, have you been drinking this morning?”

“No, of course not. I haven’t had a drop to drink since the night before last.”

“Then why are you making up this crazy story? Do you really expect me to believe that you kidnapped some Amish baby and that the kid you took was me?”

“Yeah, that’s right. I did it without thinking. But then as I drove away, everything started to make sense.”

“How could kidnapping a child make any sense?” Jimmy didn’t actually believe his dad’s wild story, but if he was going to make him admit he was lying, then he needed to ask the right questions.