The Search (22 page)

She walked to the cottage and stood outside of it. A small bead of sweat trickled down her back. What had she gotten herself into? And was it too late to get out of it?

She heard a noise, like a very loud woodpecker, coming from inside the house. Slowly, she went up to the porch. The noise was definitely coming from inside. It sounded like a team of woodpeckers. She was just about to push the door when it flew open. There stood Billy with a hammer in his hand and nails in his mouth.

He took the nails out of his mouth and grinned. “Saw you standing out front with a dazed look on your face.”

Behind him came Bertha, with a broom in her hands. Past the two of them were a few other men whom Lainey had seen at church. Through the front room, Lainey could see some women scrubbing the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” Lainey asked.

“Billy’s fixing loose cupboards in the kitchen. Them two men are working on the chimbley. I’m cleaning with them ladies.” She spread her big arm out. “It’s called a working bee. More are coming tomorrow.” She took in Lainey’s stunned look. “It’s what we do.”

Lainey clapped her hands to her cheeks. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I told you we’d help,” Bertha said, starting to sweep the cobwebs out of the ceiling corners.

“But . . . I didn’t really expect it. It’s just so touching. So . . .”

Billy shrugged. “Amish,” he said. As if that explained everything.

Lainey nodded as tears started to well in her eyes.

“It certainly gives a person something to compensate about,” Bertha added. She gave up a rare smile.

“It does, Bertha,” Lainey said, talking through her tears. “It definitely gives a person something to compensate about.” That clinched it for her. Any lingering doubts she had just vanished. She wasn’t alone. She would tell Caleb Zook this very weekend that she wanted to be baptized as soon as possible.

Bess watched the clouds float across a sky so bright a blue it shimmered, and her thoughts turned to home. But it wasn’t Berlin, Ohio, that she was thinking of. She was thinking of Rose Hill Farm. She felt as unsettled as a yanked-up weed.

This summer, she had grown to love her grandmother. She began to notice how hard Mammi worked and how old she was getting. She wanted to be there with her, helping her grow roses and make jam and tea and rose water and soap. It troubled her to think of Mammi alone on that big farm.

She was worried about her father too. She had thought if she left him be, he would work himself through this sulky mood. But two weeks had passed and he was still moving through each day in slow motion, as if weighed down by something. By contrast, Sallie was moving like a runaway train with their wedding plans.

Tonight, as they finished up another silent dinner, she spoke up. “I got a letter from Lainey today.”

Her father didn’t respond, didn’t even look at her. Bess decided to give him most of the details anyway.

“She said Simon is nearly dead. The hospital, according to Mammi, is ejecting him by week’s end.” Bess hoped her father would react, reminded of his mother’s way of mangling English words.

The ghost of a smile flickered across Jonah’s face, but he didn’t make a comment. He moved his fork around on his pie plate.

“I’m not sure I should be telling you this, but I’m not sure I shouldn’t, either. Lainey is getting baptized this fall. She’s becoming Amish.”

Jonah stilled, but he kept his eyes downcast. “She is, is she?”

Bess nodded. “All summer long I’ve been teaching her how to do things without electricity. And I was teaching her Deitsch.”

Jonah took that information in silently. He avoided Bess’s eyes.

She bit her lip. “Dad, won’t you please tell me why we left Stoney Ridge so suddenly?”

Jonah’s face set in warning lines. Bess could see the shutters coming down.

He eased back in his chair. “Things are . . . complicated, Bess.”

“Maybe if you told me about it, I could help you uncomplicate things.”

Jonah gave her a slight smile. “Things happened long ago that you wouldn’t understand.”

She felt offended. Nothing irked Bess more than when someone inferred she was a child. Usually, that someone was Billy Lapp. “Try me.”

“Oh Bess . . . some things are best put away.” He dropped his chin to his chest as if he was fighting something inside himself. He was quiet for a long while and Bess let him be. She knew not to push him. He was like Mammi that way. He let his fork drop on his plate. “Your blood test came back as a perfect match for Simon.”

She
knew
it! She just knew this had something to do with that blood test. Her father was so protective of her. She looked into his kind, dark eyes and reached out for his hand. She took a deep breath. “Then we need to go back to Stoney Ridge. As soon as possible. I want to give my bone marrow to Simon.”

Jonah looked at her, horrified. His voice nearly broke on the words. “Why? Why would you do that? It’s a painful procedure. And for a man who . . . a man like him.” He raked a hand through his hair, as if he was struggling with how to grapple with this. “Maybe it’s just consequences for the life he’s led. I’m not at all sure we should interfere. Maybe it’s Simon’s time to pass. Maybe it’s . . . God’s will.”

Bess’s gaze shifted out the window. “I asked Lainey what she remembered about Simon. She said he slept till noon, then took a nap. He could lie as smooth as new cream. And that was on his good days. When he got to drinking spirits, she said he was like another person. So mean he could make angels weep. Once he made her kneel on uncooked rice until she had cuts in her knees.” She turned back to Jonah. “I asked Mammi what made him so mean and she said he was just born that way.”

She got up out of her seat and went to put the dishes in the sink. “Lainey bought Simon’s old house with her cooking school money. She’s taking him in. To die.” She filled up the sink with hot water and added dish soap. She swirled the water with her hand to make it sudsy. “I guess if Lainey can do that, after how he treated her, if she can forgive him . . . well, if my bone marrow could give him a chance to live and maybe to love God through it . . . then I should at least offer it to him.” She wiped her hands on a rag and turned to her father. “I
need
to do this, Dad.”

Jonah rubbed his face with his hands for the longest time. Finally, he stood, walked over to her, and put his arms around her. Bess burrowed her face into his shoulder.

“We’ll leave in the morning,” he finally said in a husky voice.

Jonah looked out the window as the bus drove over the bridge into West Virginia. Bess had drifted off to sleep and was starting to lean her head against his shoulder. He felt such tenderness toward her. She was hardly the same girl he sent off in a bus to visit his mother. He had always thought of Bess as excitable as a hen walking on hot coals, never able to keep still, always jumping up with some further excitement. Yet gentle too. He had worried that others might take advantage of Bess’s gentle ways. A part of him felt his mother had taken advantage of her, deciding she was a last-ditch cure for Simon. He felt a hardness toward his mother that plagued him.

But it was starting to dawn on Jonah that he didn’t need to worry about Bess the way he used to. Next to him was a calm, assured young woman who knew her mind. She had grown up, slower than she wanted, faster than he realized.

Bess jolted awake and looked at him as if she hadn’t been asleep at all but had been thinking. “Don’t you wonder how two people from one family—like Mammi and Simon—could begin their lives at the same point and somehow take turns that would lead them to such very different lives? I mean, are we born who we are, or does life make us that way?”

That is an eternal question,
Jonah thought, as he watched Bess drift back to sleep.
Take you and Lainey. You started in the same point, took a turn, and then seem to be ending up leading very similar lives.

They arrived at Stoney Ridge not long after dawn. Bess wanted to see Lainey first thing, hoping she’d already be at the bakery. Jonah said to go ahead without him. He had an errand of his own. He walked Bess to Main Street, saw the lights on in The Sweet Tooth, and then told her he would meet her later at Rose Hill Farm.

She didn’t ask him any questions, but she did put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Everything is going to turn out fine, Dad.”

When did they switch roles? he wondered as he walked the road that led to Caleb Zook’s farmhouse, Beacon Hollow. When did Bess become the parent and he become the child?

Jonah found Caleb in the dairy barn, just as he had expected. The cows had been milked and Caleb was stacking the emptied-out milk cans into the sink to be washed. Jonah stood for a while, watching him work. Caleb had been Jonah’s closest childhood friend. They did everything together—hunt and fish, swim, skip school. They stood together as witnesses for each others’ weddings. And Caleb was by his side to help him when Rebecca died. When Jonah moved to Ohio, they lost touch.
No,
he corrected himself.
I lost touch. With everything and everyone from Stoney Ridge.

Caleb rinsed out the last bucket and hung it upside down on a wall hook to dry. That was when he noticed Jonah. “Well, well. Skin me for a polecat.” Caleb looked pleased. He picked up a rag and dried his hands as he walked over to Jonah. “Heard you had returned to Ohio.”

“I did,” Jonah said. “Now I’m back.” He shook Caleb’s hand. “Would you have time for a talk?”

“For you, Jonah, I have all the time in the world.” Caleb led Jonah down to two lawn chairs that sat under the willow tree, along the creek that ran parallel to the road.

Jonah watched the water make its way around rocks. Caleb didn’t press him, and Jonah expected that. Caleb always had a way of knowing how to work with others. When Jonah heard Caleb had become a minister, then a bishop, he knew the Lord had chosen well for the district.

A mother sheep bleated for her lambs, and the two hurried to find her. The sun was just starting to rise as Jonah took a deep breath. “Caleb, I learned something that has turned my world upside down.”

Caleb leaned back in his chair. “Well, my friend, let’s see if we can make things right side up again.”

Jonah spilled out the entire story, leaving nothing out. Caleb didn’t say a word. He just sat there, letting Jonah work through his tangled thoughts and feelings.

“This summer,” Jonah said, “it’s like I’ve woken up after a long sleep.” There’d been joy this summer, in seeing his mother and Bess grow so close, and in meeting Lainey, he told Caleb. But there was pain too, as he was reminded of Rebecca and the life they should have had together. And now, there was fear. He hadn’t been able to tell Bess the whole truth, about Simon being her father. What if he did tell her and she told Simon? If Simon did get well, would he take Bess away from him?

“Lainey was only ten years old and she was trying to give her sister a better life. She was keeping a promise to her mother. I understand that.” Jonah looked up at the sky. “But my mother! She knew, yet she didn’t tell me the truth.” He wiped his eyes with his palms. “How do I forgive her for that, Caleb? How do I forgive my mother for coaxing Bess here this summer to be a bone marrow donor for Simon?”