The Search (4 page)

She searched for something—anything—to pique Billy’s interest. “My dad got arrested for letting me skip school,” she blurted out. Then she clapped her hand against her mouth. Why in the world did she say
that
?

Billy spun around to look straight at her.

Oh my! but he was fine looking. Those dark brown eyes nearly undid her. She felt her cheeks grow warm. “Last September, Dad said I didn’t have to go to school anymore. Kids in the county right next to ours had stopped going the spring before and no one bothered them, so a few families in our district decided to quit too. But it didn’t work. The truant officer came knocking on the door and took Dad to the county jail.”

“What happened then?”

“He was fined and let go. And now I have to go until I’m sixteen. Ohio law.” Her dad wasn’t going to mess with the law anymore, he’d said more than once when she tried to convince him to let her stay home. “I can’t imagine stopping school at the eighth grade.” She couldn’t imagine it, but she sure would enjoy it. She had often thought she had about all the education she could absorb. Especially math.

A look came over Billy’s face, as if he thought she might be a very dense child. “What makes you think an education has to stop?”

That was a new thought for Bess. She gave his backside a sharp look. A book stuck out of his back pocket. She never thought it any fun to be bothering about books when you didn’t have to. “My teachers say you need a formal education to get ahead in the world.” Now, why did she say that? Why did her mouth not seem to be connected to her brain today?

Billy took his time answering. He pulled a few more rose blooms, snipped the petals, and tossed them in the basket. Then he lifted his chin and looked at her. “I guess it all depends on which world.”

They picked blossoms in silence for a long while. When the basket was full of rose petals, he picked it up and leaned it against his hip. “Have you followed the Wisconsin trial?”

“No.”

He shook his head as if she had just arrived from the moon. “
Wisconsin vs. Yoder
. It’s a big court case going on in Wisconsin right now. Might bring about changes for us.”

She hated to seem ignorant, but curiosity won out over pride. “What sort of changes?”

“It’s possible that we won’t have to attend public schools. That we could have our own schools right in our districts. Schools that would stop at eighth grade.”

Such a thought made Bess’s heart sing with gladness. She . . . would . . . be . . . done . . . with . . . algebra!

He handed her the basket to take into the barn. She broke into a skip on the way there, so thrilled by the news of
Wisconsin vs. Yoder
.

Billy and Bess picked rose petals for a few more hours. The sun had already begun to punish them when Billy said it was time to quit.

“I’ll be on my way,” Billy told Mammi as he handed her the last basket. He put his straw hat back on. “But I’ll be over tomorrow morning, first thing.”

He nodded goodbye and tipped his hat slightly in Bess’s direction, which made her knees feel weak. The boys in Berlin would never dream of tipping their hats to a girl.

Mammi watched him go and said to no one in particular, “He’s a good one, that boy.”

Bess wanted to ask Mammi more about Billy Lapp, but then she thought better of it. Mammi saved herself a lot of bother by not being the kind of person who answered nosy questions.

Mammi closed the sliding door of the barn to keep it cooler inside. “After lunch,” she said, “we got us an errand to do.”

A few hours later, Bess hurried to keep up behind Mammi as she breezed through the Veterans Hospital in Lebanon. On the bus ride there, Mammi told her they were going to pay a visit to her brother, Simon, who was seriously ailing. Bess had heard terrifying stories about Simon, bits and pieces of his life woven together from tales her cousins whispered to her at her grandfather’s funeral. She knew he was Mammi’s only brother, was the youngest in the family, had always been a black sheep, and—worst of all—that he had been shunned.

But Simon was nothing like Bess expected.

She had prepared herself for a hulking brute of a man, with eyes narrowed into slits and teeth sharpened into points and horns sprouted on his head. A monster.

Instead, before her was a tired, pale-skinned old man who looked as if he was weary of living and ready to die.

Bess and Mammi stood by Simon’s bedside in the ward, trying to determine if he was awake or asleep. Bess had a fleeting thought that he might have passed.

She looked at her grandmother and whispered, “Should I get a nurse?”

Mammi ignored her and leaned over him. “Wake up, Simon!” she boomed, and the room echoed.

Simon’s eyes flew open. “Oh Lordy. It’s the town do-gooder.” He glanced at the basket Mammi held in her hands. “Did you bring your jam?”

“I did,” Mammi said.

“Homemade bread?”

“It’s in there.” She put the basket on his bedside table. “You always did take better care of your belly than your soul.”

Simon squinted at Bess. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Bess,” Mammi answered. She eased her big self into a hard-backed plastic chair.

“Jonah—your nephew—he’s my father,” Bess filled in. She shifted her weight awkwardly from foot to foot while standing at the end of the bed. There wasn’t any other chair to sit in. “So I guess that makes you my great uncle.”

Simon’s eyes opened wide, full of mockery, as he looked Bess over. “Another holy howler.” He looked at her long and hard with cold blue eyes.

She’d never seen eyes so cold. There was a touch of meanness in his thin smile. Bess felt a bead of sweat run down the valley between her shoulder blades.

Mammi was watching her. “Bess, en rauher Glotz nemmt’n rauher Keidel.”
A rough log requires a rough wedge.
“Never forget that.”

How could Bess remember it when she couldn’t even understand it? Bess looked at her, confused, but Mammi had turned her attention back to her brother.

“Simon, you never did know beans from honey,” Mammi said. “If you could put two and two together, you’d figure out by now that Bess is a relation.”

“So?” Simon asked.

“So mebbe she’d be willing to get a blood test and see if she can help you out. Mebbe her bone marrow could be a match for you.”

Bess’s eyes went wide as quarters.

“If she’s willing, that is,” Mammi repeated, avoiding Bess’s eyes.

The ride home on the bus was a silent one.

Mammi had been told by the nurse that since Bess was underage, the hospital required a parent’s consent before her blood could be tested. Mammi hadn’t expected that, Bess could tell. But Bess was thoroughly relieved. It wasn’t easy to say no to Mammi, and yet she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to have her blood tested. The blood test was pretty simple, she knew that, but what if she were a match? Giving blood was one thing. Bone marrow was entirely different. She wasn’t even sure what that meant and didn’t want to ask. Her only experience with bone marrow was to cook up a pot of soup and simmer the bones for a good long while. Besides, even if Simon was her great uncle, he was not a nice man. He was downright mean-hearted. Maybe it all worked out just fine, Bess decided happily. Since she was only fifteen and her father was in Ohio—with no intention to come to Pennsylvania—there was no possible way she could have a blood test. Bess looked out the window and smiled. Things had a way of working out.

“Bess,” Mammi asked, one sparse eyebrow raised, “have you ever driven a car?”

Bess shook her head. “Just a tractor.”

Mammi gave up a rare smile. “Same thing. When we get back to Stoney Ridge, we got us another errand to do.”

Lainey O’Toole reread the letter she had written to her friends one more time before licking the envelope and sealing it shut. She had written and rewritten this letter during her break today until it sounded just right.

Dear Robin and Ally,

A moment of silence, please, for the passing of my Beetle. It sputtered to a stop in a little town called Stoney Ridge, but it didn’t die in vain. It took its final breath in front of a bakery called The Sweet Tooth just as the owner put out a help wanted sign. I kid you not! One thing led to another and . . . well, instead of hunting for a temporary job in upstate New York, circumstances dictate that I am going to spend the summer here. But do not worry! It is just a short-term turn of events.

Love you tons and miss you more,

Lainey

P.S. Did I ever mention that my mother and I had lived in Stoney Ridge until I turned ten?

Satisfied, Lainey dropped the envelope into the mailbox before she crossed the street to head to her little rented room.

When the bus dropped Bess and Mammi off in Stoney Ridge, Mammi told her to keep up as she made her way through the streets. Finally, her grandmother found what she was looking for. She made a beeline straight to the sheriff’s car, parked by the hardware store.

Mammi peered in the open window of the sheriff’s car and saw the keys dangling in the ignition. She turned to Bess. “Come on, big talker. Show me what you know.”

Bess’s jaw dropped open. “Mammi, you don’t mean . . .”

“I do.” Mammi got into the passenger seat. “Sheriff won’t mind a bit. We’re good friends. I’ve known that boy since he was in diapers.”

“Still . . .” Her father was forever warning her to avoid stepping into moral mud puddles, and here she was jumping headfirst into one of his mother’s own making!

Mammi reached over and pushed open the driver’s side door. Cautiously, Bess slipped in.

She glanced at her grandmother with a worried look. “Seems like there are rules . . .”

Mammi turned to give Bess one of her surprised looks. “Es is en schlechdi Ruhl as net zqwee Wege schafft.”
It’s a bad rule that doesn’t work both ways.
“Never forget that.” She looked straight ahead. “Let’s go.”

Bess sighed and prayed God would understand. She turned the ignition and the car roared to life. She opened her mouth to try once more to talk her grandmother out of this notion, but Mammi only pointed down the road. “That way.”