The Search (6 page)

She stepped off the porch onto the walkway and nearly tripped on a fallen-over For Sale sign. She tried to set it upright, then made her way through the weeds, back to the road that led to the Riehls’ farmhouse.

Lainey smiled when she saw the old hand-painted sign hanging on Rose Hill Farm’s mailbox: “Roses for Sale. No Sunday Sales.” She’d forgotten all about that sign. It had always seemed odd to folks that a woman like Bertha Riehl—as tough as old boots—grew delicate roses to sell. Samuel Riehl was the tenderhearted one, most folks presumed. But Lainey knew better. Bertha Riehl might be tough on the outside, but she was as soft as a marshmallow on the inside.

She walked slowly past the leafed-out cherry trees that lined the long drive, mesmerized by the sight of endless rosebushes in full bloom. Those roses were the most glorious sight she had ever seen in her life. She felt sure that the path to the Pearly Gates of Heaven couldn’t be any more inviting than the one leading up to Rose Hill Farm.

Lainey saw Bertha first. She was shaking out a wet dishrag to dry on the kitchen porch railing. Lainey stopped at the bottom of the porch steps and looked up at the big woman, wearing a shapeless plum-colored dress with a black apron stretched around her vast girth. “I’ve never seen such beauty, this side of heaven. It’s like . . . God is showing off a little.” She looked out toward the barn. “You’ve added so many roses. Doesn’t your husband object to your converting his pastures to roses?”

“Samuel passed three years ago come October the tenth,” Bertha said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I couldn’t keep up the farm, but I could do one thing.”

Lainey smiled. “Grow roses.”

“That’s right. And now I’m selling jam made from my mother’s rugosas over there.” She pointed to shrubs of pink, multiflowered roses.

“I remember those rugosas,” Lainey said. “I remember your jam.”

Bertha nodded. “I keep adding more and more stock. Filling the pastures with roses. I got a hired boy who has a knack for grafting roses, so he started grafting those rugosas onto heartier root stock.” She nodded in the direction of a small greenhouse next to the barn. “Folks come from all over to buy my rosebushes and now they’re after my jam and tea.”

Lainey nodded. “Mrs. Stroot is hoping I’ll talk you into selling some at The Sweet Tooth. She wants me to find out what you’d say to a barter arrangement.”

“Such as?” Bertha lifted an eyebrow. She was interested, Lainey could see.

“Maybe you could have your pick of things from the bakery—like a credit—in exchange for letting her sell the jam and tea.”

Bertha sized that up for a long moment. “Tell Dottie Stroot I’ll think it over.”

Lainey felt pleased. She had expected a flat-out no.

Bertha eyed the pink bakery box in Lainey’s hands. “What’s in there?”

“Gooseberry pie. Your favorite, if I remember right.”

“You do.” Bertha turned to go back to the house and Lainey took that as an invitation to follow.

Lainey was surprised to see the same young girl standing in the kitchen who had come with Bertha into the bakery the other day. Today she was steeping teabags in a blue speckled pitcher. “You’re Bess, aren’t you?” she asked. “Have you been working for Bertha for a long time?”

“Just this week, but it seems like forever and a day,” Bess said. She held up a hand covered with Band-Aids. “She’s wearing me to a frazzle.”

Bertha looked unimpressed. “The poor child hardly knows a tea rose from a China rose.”

Bess hooted. “But you’re giving me a crash course on all things roses.” She took out some glasses, filled them with ice, and set them on the counter, next to the pitcher. “Help yourself to the sugar. I like sweet tea, myself.” She pointed to the sugar bowl.

“Too much sugar will make your teeth fall out like a picket fence,” Bertha said. “I never have it, myself.”

“Except for every day,” Bess muttered.

“Mebbe just a little on Sundays,” Bertha said, spooning heaps of sugar into her glass.

Lainey noticed Bess rolling her eyes and had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. When she first met Bess at the bakery, she thought she had seemed frightened of Bertha. Today, though, she was clearly at ease, gently teasing and joking with her. Lainey could tell Bertha enjoyed Bess’s company too, though she would probably never say so. Bess was like a filly, all legs and arms. Watching Bess reminded Lainey of herself at that age, when she had grown several inches in one year and became awkward and clumsy, as if she couldn’t get used to the new dimensions of her body.

Bess was pouring Bertha a second glass of iced tea when the kitchen door opened and in walked a very good-looking young man, straw hat in hand. He looked curiously at Lainey, then his gaze turned to Bertha. “Am I late?”

“Right on time,” Bertha answered. “The very pineapple of punctuation.” And with that, the glass slipped out of Bess’s hand, shattered on the floor, and spilled tea everywhere.

Billy knelt down and began to carefully pick up broken glass. Lainey and Bess grabbed dishtowels to mop up the tea.

“Being barefooted, I ought not to help,” Bertha said, sprawled in her chair, the picture of ease. “But I don’t mind having a floor mopped clean, now that Bess’s cat has moved in.”

Lainey hadn’t seen any sign of a cat, just a big dog sleeping in the corner and a rooster standing guard just outside the kitchen door.

As soon as the broken glass was picked up and the tea wiped clean, they sat down to dinner. The chicken was delicious, but Lainey had little appetite for it. Too nervous. She needed to have a talk with Bertha. How could she bring up anything private with Bess and Billy here? Bess, Lainey noticed, never gave up another word once Billy arrived. Lainey caught her studying Billy, aware of his every word and movement. Lainey fought back a smile. She was glad she wasn’t fifteen anymore. Billy and Bertha seemed to be completely unaware of Lainey’s anxiety or Bess’s discomfort. They ate everything but the pattern on the plate.

Billy concentrated on his food until the subject of grafting roses was brought up, then he didn’t stop talking. “Some rose varieties put on a lot of top growth and few roots, which makes them liable to be weak-wooded and short-lived,” he said to Lainey with professorial patience, as if she had asked. “But we can graft that rose onto a better taproot so that it puts down a good deal of roots. Doing that makes a rose plant liable to be long-lived, grow better and bigger blooms, and be more resistant to stresses and strains, like a hard freeze.”

“Where’d you learn how to graft roses, Billy?” Lainey asked when he finally stopped talking long enough to fill his mouth with roast chicken.

He shrugged and looked over at Bertha. “She told me if I could figure out how to graft, I could have a job. So I went to the library and read up on it and gave it a whirl.” He spooned the rest of the pickled peaches onto his plate and looked around the table to see if there was anything left to polish off.

“Gave it a whirl?” Lainey asked in disbelief. “Why, I’ve heard people go to college to learn how to graft plants!”

“His mother was a Zook,” Bertha said, as if that explained everything.

Billy looked embarrassed but pleased. “Roses aren’t difficult to graft because they’re compatible with nearly all other roses.”

When Bertha served the gooseberry pie, silence fell over the table. Lainey started to worry that something was wrong until Billy looked up and said, “This is the best pie I’ve ever had. Better even than yours, Bertha, if you’ll pardon me for saying so.”

“Pardon accepted,” Bertha said, helping herself to a second slice. “You’re right. This pie is unparalyzed.”

Bess’s spoon froze, midair. She looked at Bertha, confused. Lainey swallowed a smile. Only Billy took it in stride, as if accustomed to Bertha’s way of twisting English words around.

“I taught Lainey how to make a flaky pastry shell when she could barely reach over the counter,” Bertha said.

Now it was Billy’s turn to be surprised. He looked at Lainey, curious.

“It’s true,” Lainey said. “I used to live nearby. Bertha would let me come visit and help her in the kitchen. She taught me how to bake. Once she could get that black iron range fired up, she could do some serious cooking.”

“Still can,” Bertha said between bites.

They wolfed down the pie so quickly that Lainey knew it was good. Just as Billy had his eye on another helping, a horse nickered from the barn. Lainey looked out the window. A horse and buggy had turned into the drive, and Bertha’s horse knew company was coming. Lainey had forgotten how horses always seemed to know things that people didn’t.

Billy jumped up from the table. “That’ll be my cousin, Maggie. She was coming by to get me for a youth gathering at the Smuckers’ this afternoon.”

“Good,” Bertha said. “It will give Bess a chance to meet some other young folk.”

Billy froze. A look of mild panic lit his eyes. He spoke hesitantly. “She seems awful young for a gathering—”

“I’m nearly sixteen!” Bess said indignantly.

Billy looked unconvinced.

Bertha waved that concern away. “Die Yunge kenne aa alt waerre.”
The young may grow old too.

That only confused Billy.

“Besides, your Maggie Zook is only twelve or thirteen and she’s welcome,” Bertha said.

“But . . . it’s Maggie! You know Maggie. She’s thirteen going on thirty. Besides, she’s the bishop’s daughter. Who’s going to tell her she can’t go?”

As Bess saw Billy’s hesitation, her face clouded over. Bravely, she lifted her chin. “Actually, I had plans of my own this afternoon.”

“Like what?” Bertha asked.

Bess looked around the kitchen until her eyes rested on a jar of homemade jam. “You were going to show me how to make rose petal jam.”

“Can’t,” Bertha said. “It’s Sunday.”

Billy still looked uncomfortable. He scratched the top of his head. “She really shouldn’t . . .”

“Sure she should,” Bertha said, clamping her granite jaw. “Besides, Lainey and I got us some visiting to do.” She shot him a deeply dangerous look.

Defeated, Billy slumped to the wall, plucked his hat from the peg, and held the door open for Bess. She grabbed her bonnet and brushed past him, head held high.

Lainey went to the window to watch them drive off in Maggie’s buggy. When they were out of sight, she turned to Bertha, who was still seated at the table, halfway through a third slab of pie.

Lainey sat back down at the table. “There’s something I’d like to tell you.”

Bertha picked up the blue speckled pitcher and refilled their glasses. Then she added three teaspoons of sugar into her glass and stirred. “What’s that?”

“I’ve never thanked you for helping me like you did, years ago. You always made me feel welcome in your home, and you took an interest in me and helped me and my mother out. It’s thanks to you that I’m a Christian today.”

Bertha picked a loose thread from her apron front.

Lainey could have been talking about the weather. She tried again. “Bess is a lovely companion for you.”

“She’s a nervous little thing. Jumpy as a dog with fleas. But time will fix that.”

Then quiet fell again. How could Lainey shift this conversation in the right direction without making Bertha suspicious? A stray thought fluttered through her mind, something she hadn’t noticed before. She cocked her head. “When Bess left just now, she called you Mammi.”

“So she did.” Bertha took a sip from her glass.

“Isn’t that the Deitsch word for grandmother? I . . . thought she was your hired girl.”

Bertha snorted. “Not hired. Doubt I’d hire her—she oozes away like a barn cat when there are chores to be done.” She looked straight at Lainey. “But she is my girl. My only grandchild.”

Lainey was confused. “I thought Jonah and Rebecca and their daughter were in Ohio.”

Bertha smoothed her skirt and pulled in her lips. “Rebecca died in that buggy accident, long ago.”

“Oh no,” Lainey said. That news was a shock to her. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t . . . I thought she had survived it.” She stood and went to the window, then turned to Bertha, confused. “So Jonah remarried?”

Bertha shook her head. “Not yet. Far as I know.”

“Are you . . . ?” Lainey’s voice cracked and she had to start over. “You can’t mean that Bess is Jonah’s daughter? That girl with the blond hair?”

Bertha nodded. “Bald as an egg until she was two years old.”

Understanding flooded through Lainey and she felt her face grow warm as blood rushed to her head. She sat down in the chair to steady herself. “I never knew her name,” she said in a faraway voice. “I knew Rebecca had her baby, but I never knew the baby’s name. It was the same week my mother died . . .” The words got stuck in her throat and she couldn’t continue.

Bertha leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “Jonah and Rebecca’s baby was named Bess, so that’s what he called this little girl.” She took a deep breath. “That’s what he called the little baby girl you switched on us, Lainey. Fifteen years ago.”

Lainey felt as if her heart was pounding so loudly that Bertha must be able to hear it. She looked down at her lap and saw that her hands were trembling. It was such a hot day, but she was suddenly cold. For a brief second, the room started to spin and she thought she might faint. “How long . . . ?” Her voice drizzled off.

“How long have I known?” Bertha leaned forward, cool as custard, to take a sip of iced tea. “From the moment I arrived at the hospital, after the accident.” She smoothed out the oilcloth on the table. “Think I wouldn’t know my own grandbaby? And Mrs. Hertz told me—told the whole town—about your baby sister’s passing and you getting shipped off to a foster home. Wasn’t beyond my apprehension to put two and two together.”

Lainey chanced a look at Bertha. “Samuel knew too?”

For the first time, Bertha seemed mildly distressed. She slipped off her spectacles and polished them. Then she blew her nose, loud. “That rain we had last night was hard on my sciences.”

Lainey frowned. “Your what?”

“My sciences.” She gave her nose a honk.

“I think you mean your sinuses.”

Bertha huffed a small laugh. “That’s what I said.” She stuffed her handkerchief in her apron pocket.