The Brethren (12 page)
Authors: Beverly Lewis
144 for
these years, but Mom told me when I was home. It still feels like some weird soap opera “
“Wait a minute,” she stopped him. “You’re adopted and your parents never told you?”
“I know. If it didn’t hurt so much, it would almost be funny. My whole life seems like a cruel joke.”
She stepped back a bit and, finding the swing again, sat down. “Jah, how strange for you, hearing it now. How did they come to adopt you?”
He shrugged. “Apparently I showed up on someone’s doorstep one night and they took me to child services. I was traumatized, I guess didn’t speak for months. The authorities tried to figure out where I’d come from, but no one had reported a missing boy who matched my description and I couldn’t or wouldn’t tell them my name or where I was from. The Martins adopted me as soon as I became eligible.” He paused to breathe, to fill his aching lungs with air. He almost felt guilty, telling this innocent girl his unbelievable story. He looked over at her to gauge her reaction. She was staring at him wide-eyed.
“Does this shock you?” he asked.
“No. Go on, Ben. It’s all right; you can tell me.” She tilted her head, her eyes following his every move.
He knew her well enough to know he could trust her with the full story. “I don’t really remember much. My mother said I must have blocked it out. I have no idea when I was born or what my full name was. I don’t know anything about my biological parents or if they abandoned me or what. I seem to remember some man taking me away in the
145 night, but I’m not sure how much is real or my imagination playing tricks on me.”
Annie frowned. “It doesn’t sound like you were an infant. How old do you think you were? Does anyone know?”
“About four or five, I guess. As far as my actual birthday, I think they picked a month and day out of a hat and put that on my birth certificate.” He paused. “At least I think that’s what my parents said. I still don’t remember much … just glimpses into the past.”
He sat cross-legged in the grass, not far from the swing. “I have to level with you, Annie. I’m very drawn to this place … to your people, too. I often feel like a fifth wheel on the outside, in the English world, as you call it. Maybe this is why I never felt like I fit in anywhere. Because in some strange way, in the back of my mind, I knew I belonged somewhere else.”
She began to swing a little. “You think someone took you away? Or you got lost somehow? What did your parents tell you about that?”
“They don’t know much more than I do. But I do know one thing.”
She stopped swinging.
He reached into his pocket. “This.” He held up the smooth peach stone. “It was in my pocket the night I was found the only thing I had in my possession that I recognized as mine.”
“Oh, Ben!” Annie clasped her hand over her mouth.
He thought she might cry, she looked that distraught, but then just as quickly, amazement shone in her features.
146 “What is it?” he asked. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
She rose swiftly and came to him. “Oh, I believe I have!” She placed her hands on his face, tracing his eyebrows and then his cheekbones. “What were you wearing that night … when they found you, I mean? And how was your hair cut? Was it fancy-like?”
“I don’t know. My mom said there wasn’t anything unusual about how I was dressed, just that my clothes were large on me. Why do you ask?” He reached for her hands to keep them from probing his face any longer, baffled by her affectionate response.
“Ben.” She swallowed. “My little friend Isaac carried a peach stone in his pocket all the time. He disappeared when he was four years old.” Again she reached for his face. “It never occurred to me before but … you bole like Isaac.”
Ben shook his head. “Oh, Annie. That sounds crazy “
“You recognized Pennsylvania Dutch, remember? And I’ve never seen Zeke seek out anyone’s friendship the way he did with you. He avoids everyone. Here ” at this she led him back to the swing “sit down a bit.”
He complied, feeling both silly and intrigued.
“Look around you,” Annie said. “Listen to the sounds. Do you remember ever sitting here before?”
He smiled, feeling foolish. “Annie “
She put her hands on his shoulders. “Ben, close your eyes. Just listen for a moment.”
He did as she suggested, soaking up the pleasant song of birds and the rushing creek. And as he was silent, he did recall something: as a child, he had stood up on a swing. Here. He
147 had looked down at the creek as he did so, seeing the trestle of the bridge just beyond. Other times he had twisted the rope and spun quickly round and round, making his head dizzy, till the swing came to a jerking stop … a little girl laughing as he did.
When he opened his eyes and looked at Annie, there were tears spilling down her face.
“I remember you, Isaac,” she said softly. “Do you remember me?”
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Annie wanted to stand on the creek bank and spin around, arms wide with joy. She wanted to shout to tell all of Paradise that Isaac was found at last. But, noticing Ben’s reserve, she kept quiet, content to be near him, to savor this discovery alone. For now.
Heart still pounding, Annie was secretly thrilled she’d walked to Pequea Creek on foot, because when Ben offered to drive her back to Essie’s, she was free to accept and ride along.
Together they walked toward the bridge while she kept sneaking glances at him. “I can hardly believe I’m here again with Isaac Hochstetler after all these years.”
He looked at her intently. uHow can you be so sure, Annie? Maybe there’s some other explanation.”
“What other explanation?”
He shrugged.
She grabbed his sleeve, and he stopped to look at her. “I knew there was some reason why you always seemed so familiar. Don’t you feel it, too?”
Ben nodded. “Memories seem to be getting stronger than when I was here before.”
149 “Like what?”
“For instance, I remember filling my britches pockets with bugs, especially daddy longlegs.”
“Ach, you’re foolin’ me.”
He grinned. “Now, why would I do that?”
“You honestly put creepy crawlers in your pockets?”
“Someone once told me that pockets were meant for hiding insects and caterpillars and such.”
“Well, that’s interesting. Do you remember who? Zeke maybe?”
They continued walking through the bridge, and Annie noticed how dismal it suddenly became as they reached the middle section the light of the sky framed at both ends.
“I don’t know,” Ben said. “But I suppose if it’s true that I am Isaac, I guess in time all of it will come back. I sure hope so.”
“Me too,” she replied. “It must be true,” she said, repeating the facts that he was the same age as Isaac would now be, and that he had been found in Kentucky in the autumn of the year of Isaac’s disappearance, at about age four. “I daresay the smooth peach stone seals the whole thing.”
He handed the pit to her, but his manner seemed less sure. “I always wondered … because it seemed to have some connection to something I couldn’t remember… but I somehow blocked out the trauma of what happened.” He paused as if remembering something. “When I drove back here this time the strangest memories began to bombard me.”
Annie felt the peach pit in her hand, like a pebble from a creek, its jagged surface washed smooth with time. “Did you ever know that Zeke your brother collected these,
150 too? After you disappeared he did, that is.”
“His daughter Laura told me that.” Ben opened the car door for her. “To think that Zeke was so sure Isaac had been killed. And from what you told me that he’d done it himself. Will he even believe it if his younger brother shows up now, alive after all?”
“You’d think he’d be glad, but as troubled as Zeke is, I really don’t know.”
He closed the door and Annie settled into the front seat, the peach pit still in her hand. It felt peculiar sitting here in Ben’s passenger seat again, though she wouldn’t have traded this moment for anything. So much had happened since she’d last ridden in Ben’s car only a few weeks ago. Here was Isaac! In the flesh.
Ben. Her Ben was Isaac! But now she had a job to do to convince the People, beginning with her own father, that Isaac was indeed alive and well.
Once Ben was behind the steering wheel, she suggested that he not take her to Essie’s as planned. “I suppose we ought to talk to Daed first, him being a preacher and all.”
Ben turned toward her, looking hesitant again. “Well… okay. But first I’d like to see where Isaac or … I lived before the disappearance. Does the family still live around here?”
He wasn’t convinced yet, she realized. “Not long after you were kidnapped, they moved away to Honey Brook. Then, following that, I’m not sure where, but they ended up in Canada eventually.”
“Would you mind showing me the way to Isaac’s … I mean my childhood home?”
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“Wonderfulgood idea. It might trigger more memories.”
“Thanks, Annie,” he said, face grim.
He’s terribly nervous, she realized.
The pink light of late afternoon dazzled her senses, and just then she remembered her note to Esther. “Oh, I can’t be gone much longer,” she said. “I’m sorry, Ben, but I need to get back to help Essie.”
“I understand.”
“Maybe we should go and talk to Daed tomorrow instead. All right?”
“That might be a good idea. I need some time to process everything.”
She could see how drained he was. “But it shouldn’t take long to get to the house where you and Zeke lived with your parents, Daniel and Mary Hochstetler.” She didn’t mention the name Ichabod. “I know how to get there.”
“What do you know about them?” he asked. “How many children did they have?”
“Just you and Zeke that I knew of.” She’d never thought of this before. “They may have left the Amish life behind altogether, but I don’t know for sure.” She handed back the peach stone, wondering if she ought to tell him that his dear mother had passed away not so long ago. She didn’t know how much to share, especially since Ben wasn’t yet convinced that he was Isaac. But for her, there was no doubt.
Ben was amazed at how straightforward, even courageous, Annie was. She made her way right up to the back door, knocking hard and waiting till the owner of Daniel Hochstetler’s former house came and answered. The woman
152 who opened the door was middle-aged and clearly not Plain. Annie explained that her friend, Ben here, was visiting and wanted to see the house where he’d lived as a boy.
The woman looked curiously from Annie to Ben but invited them in anyway, saying they were welcome to look around as long as they didn’t mind the mess. The woman herself left, saying she was on her way to the grocery store. “My boys are home, though, so no need to lock up just let yourselves out when you’re done.” Ben had no idea where the man of the house was, or if there was one at all.
As he and Annie walked from room to cluttered room, they saw TVs flickering and blaring in nearly every one. Several teenaged boys sprawled on sofas in the living room and barely seemed to notice two strangers giving themselves a tour of their house.
Heading to the relative quiet of the second floor, he and Annie found four bedrooms. Standing in the smallest of the four, Ben had a sense of knowing this might have been his room. Annie seemed to detect his desire to be alone and
excused herself quietly, going out into the hall to wait for him.
He walked the length of the floor, staring at the walls. Then, turning, he looked out the only window, wondering if he’d ever stood there, noting the low windowsill, only a few inches off the floor.
Looking into the closet, he imagined the kind of Amish attire he must have worn as a little boy. Why doesn’t anything ring a bell? He looked at the bed, the way it was centered on the south wall.
A body sleeps best with the head of the bed facing north, someone had told him. When? Was that his first mother’s opinion?
153 He turned and studied the north wall. No, this couldn’t have been my room, he decided, going out to the hallway and finding Annie there, hands folded. “It seems only vaguely familiar.”
‘That’s all right could be the English furniture and such.” She smiled encouragingly. “Maybe if you walk around the barn a bit?”
“There’s a large pond, too.” He’d noticed it when driving up. “I wonder if they stock it with fish.”
Annie giggled at the notion.
They headed downstairs and out the back door, thanking no one, because the teenagers were now playing video games.
He and Annie strolled around, glancing in several of the outbuildings, seeing three big dogs running free. “Maybe this isn’t the place,” he said. “Is that possible?”
She shook her head. “This is the house.”
He stopped walking and reached for her hand. “Annie, I think I know how much you’d like me to be your long’lost friend. But what if I’m not? What if Isaac isn’t alive after all?”
She smiled. “You’re Isaac as sure as I’m Annie Zook, I know you are.”
“Well, let’s see what your father thinks,” he suggested. “I’ll go and see him first thing tomorrow.”
Annie burst out laughing. “You want to help with milkin’?”
He shook his head, “Ew … bad idea.”
She stopped and looked at him, wearing the cutest expression. Then she rattled off something in Pennsylvania Dutch. “Do you know what I just said?”