The Search (25 page)

Lainey came to herself with a start. While Jonah had his father’s warmth, he also had his father’s strict observance to rules. How had she not seen this before? Now she understood why Jonah left Stoney Ridge so abruptly after learning Simon was the real father of Bess. He was his father’s son.

A combined sigh of impatience and exasperation from Bertha jolted Lainey back to her present dilemma. “Bertha, that house is a disaster. It’s not safe! There’s no way anyone could live in it . . . for weeks! Maybe months! I don’t even take possession of it until the end of today.”

“We’ll help.”

Lainey didn’t know what to say. Her stomach twisted up in a firm knot. “I have to think about this, Bertha. You can’t just bully me into it.”

Bertha lifted her eyebrows as if she couldn’t imagine what Lainey was talking about. “Just don’t take too long. He’s getting ejected from the hospital next Friday,” she said at the door.

“What if Simon doesn’t agree? Have you thought of that?”

“You leave Simon to me,” she said. “He may be a tough caricature, but he’s still my baby brother.”

Lainey covered her face with her hands. When Bertha Riehl got her mind set on something, you’d just as well prepare to see it through.

Ira Gingrich handed Lainey the keys as soon as he received her cashier’s check. She left his office holding those keys so tightly that they made a red indentation in her palm. Ever since Bertha had paid her that visit to the bakery and told her she should take in Simon, she had been filled with doubts about buying this cottage. She had an inner debate with herself. If our possessions belong to the Lord, why is it so hard to share them with others in need? And Simon certainly needed
someone
.

But then she would go back to wondering why
she
needed to be the one to help him. She began to question if becoming Amish was such a wise thing, after all. If they believed so strongly in community, why would she be left on her own to take care of Simon? Maybe she had glamorized being Amish. Maybe it wasn’t any different than so many other Christian churches. Big intentions, little action. A mile wide and an inch deep.

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.