The Search (30 page)

At first, Boomer seemed to be in everyone’s way, all the time. Bess knew he was looking for Mammi, and it nearly broke her heart. She knew what he was thinking: almost everyone else in Stoney Ridge seemed to be in and out of Rose Hill Farm, doing errands of kindness, but there was no sign of his mistress.

Later that day, Boomer went missing. Bess called for him and put food and water out on the porch, hoping he would return. He seemed to have disappeared.

It was a muggy, rainy day when Bertha Riehl was buried, three days after she passed. Jonah and Bess stood by Bertha’s graveside and viewed her for the last time in the large, plain pine coffin.

Jonah stood looking down at his mother. Her face was relaxed and serene, but Bess was right—whatever it was that made her Bertha—her soul? her pneuma?—it was gone.
Our bodies are just a shell, a house, for our eternal souls.

How differently he would have done things if he’d known his mother was slated for death this summer. How much time he had wasted. He felt moved with a deep grief for the years lost between them. And yet, on its heels came a quiet joy. Coming back to Stoney Ridge last week had been no accident. He and his mother, in the end, they made their peace. Just in time.

He saw Billy lean close to Bess and whisper, “Are you okay?”

Bess nodded without looking up. She was calmer than Jonah would have thought possible, considering. His mother would be proud of her.

The lid of the coffin was nailed shut and lowered into the ground; the young men—Billy was one of them—picked up their shovels to heave dirt. When the first loud clump of dirt hit the coffin, Bess broke down with a loud sob. Jonah took a step toward her, but Billy had already handed his shovel to another boy and was at Bess’s side. He patted her on the back to comfort her, handed her his handkerchief, then as her weeping grew worse, he steered her by the shoulders to lead her to his buggy.

On the drive back to Rose Hill Farm, Billy couldn’t find any good words to ease Bess’s sorrow. Several times he almost had the right thing. But always he stopped. He couldn’t bear it any longer. He turned the buggy down a side road and pulled the horse to a full stop. “Go ahead, Bess,” he said as he put his arms around her. “Cry it all out. I’m here. No one’s here to see. Have a good cry.”

And so she clung to him and wept and wept until he thought that her body would never stop shaking with the sobs and the grief. He didn’t think a body could have so many tears to cry, but maybe girls were made with more tear ducts. It was good, though, to have her finally show some emotion. It worried him to see her tearless. It just didn’t seem like Bess.

“It’s not that I’m crying for Mammi, Billy,” she said between sobs. “I know she’s in a better place. And she’s with Daadi now. I’m crying for me. What will I do without her?”

Finally, the wave of sorrow subsided and Bess’s sobs turned to sniffles. When he thought she seemed all wrung out, with not another tear left to shed, he wiped her face with his sleeve and took her home.

As soon as the house had emptied out that evening, Jonah went outside to get some fresh air. He checked that Frieda had water and alfalfa hay, then lingered in the barn for a while. He swept the floor of rose petals and knocked down a few spiderwebs. He just didn’t want to go inside. Sallie would be waiting for him and he couldn’t face her. He couldn’t deny that she had been a wonderful help these last few days. She seemed to know how to get things done in a matter-of-fact, efficient way.

But all he could think about was how much he wanted to be with Lainey. To talk to her about his mother. About Bess. About Simon. About everything. She had participated in every part of the viewing and the funeral, was accepted by the community as nearly one of them—he noticed that folks weren’t switching to English anymore when she came in a room. And he would be forever grateful for the support she had provided to his Bess.

But Lainey continued to avoid him. He couldn’t blame her at all, but he didn’t think he could abide much more of it.

Jonah hung up the broom and slid the door open to find Sallie walking toward the barn in the dusk. “Shall we walk awhile?” she asked him.

They headed down the drive to the road without saying a word to each other. The strange thing, he realized, was not that he wasn’t talking. It was that Sallie wasn’t talking. In fact, now that he thought about it, she hadn’t said much at all lately. She was as silent as a Sunday afternoon. Then, with a start, he realized why.

She knew.

“Sallie,” he started.

She held up a hand to stop him from continuing. “Tomorrow, Mose and I and the boys, we’re heading back to Ohio. School starts soon for my boys and I don’t want any trouble with that terrible truant officer. And Mose is awfully worried about the business.”

Jonah knew that wasn’t true. Mose didn’t worry about a thing. Sallie was only being kind.

“Sallie,” he started again.

She held up another hand. “I’m sorry, Jonah. I just don’t think things are going to work out for us. I need a man who . . .”

Who wants to be married to you? Who wants to be a father to your boys? Or maybe,
Jonah thought, cheeks burning,
who isn’t in love with someone else?

“. . . who isn’t quite as complicated.”

Jonah stopped short. A laugh burst out of him, the first laugh in a very long time. It surprised him, that laugh. He felt as if a tremendous burden had lifted. “You’re right, Sallie. You deserve someone who isn’t as complicated as me.” He
was
complicated. He spent fifteen years grieving, then finally fell in love with someone new—a woman who wasn’t even Amish. Not yet, anyway.

Sallie smiled at him then, a genuine smile. All was well. As they headed back to Rose Hill Farm, she started to tell him about something cute one of her boys had said today. And she didn’t stop talking all the way up the drive. Jonah found that he didn’t mind a bit.

11

______

At Billy and Maggie’s urging, Bess went to the youth gathering on Saturday evening, a few days after Mammi had been buried. She wasn’t in much of a mood for socializing—though her spirits had risen temporarily after Sallie left for Ohio and she learned that the wedding was off for good. Her father had seemed anxious to have her go out tonight. He said it would do her good to get out of the house. She couldn’t deny that she always enjoyed watching Billy play volleyball. He was such a good athlete. He had been so kind and attentive to her this last week. It made the upheaval of the last week more bearable. She still struggled with the reality of Mammi’s passing, and she missed her dearly. She kept repeating to herself Lainey’s reminder: her grandmother’s life was complete. This was God’s time to call Mammi home.

Bess sat on a rock in the shade by herself, content to be left alone, half paying attention to the game until it came to an abrupt halt. Billy held the ball in his hands, as if frozen. His eyes were glued on a buggy that had just pulled into the yard. Bess’s gaze shifted from Billy to the buggy. A clump of girls had arrived and spilled out of the buggy, one by one. The last girl climbed out, scanned the yard, then flashed a dazzling smile when her eyes rested on Billy. It was an awful, heart-stopping moment for Bess as she recognized Betsy Mast, looking fresh and lovely in a pink dress.

Billy dropped the ball and made his way over to Betsy. His back was to Bess and she couldn’t imagine what he was saying to her, but she could see Betsy’s face clearly. Betsy’s eyes sparkled as she laughed and joked with him. Bess’s heart sank.

Everyone at the youth gathering learned about Betsy’s return in record time, though what they heard bore little relation to the facts. Maggie said that the English boy had refused to marry Betsy and dumped her back at her parents’ farm. Andy heard that Betsy tired of the English life and wanted to return to her Amish roots. Someone else said that Betsy heard Billy Lapp had made clear his feelings for Bess at her grandmother’s funeral—and hightailed it back to stake her claim on him.

Bess spent the rest of the evening doing her very best to appear at ease, but she kept one eye on Billy and Betsy. At first, she noticed that Betsy was her usual flirtatious self, tilting her head, looking up at Billy from the corner of her eyes, playfully striking him in mock punishment for something he said. As the sun went down, they stood off by themselves. Betsy became serious, speaking to him insistently while he seemed to protest innocence. They both looked at Bess, and she guessed they were talking about her.

Was that good? she wondered.
Probably not.

Betsy could see that Billy’s mind was on other things. They were in his buggy after the youth gathering, parked by the shoreline of Blue Lake Pond. Andy had offered to take Maggie and Bess home, and he was grateful for it. Billy needed time to talk to Betsy alone. His mind was darting in a hundred different directions, like a moth to a flame. Betsy shifted a little closer to him on the buggy seat as she tried to explain again why she had left suddenly and why she had returned.

“What about that English fellow?” he asked her. He’d asked her twice before, but she kept changing the subject, turning it around to accuse him of flirting with Bess.

“You’re not going to listen to rumors, are you?” She sidled a little closer to him. “He just gave me a ride to see a friend.” She put a hand on his forearm. “I needed to see the other side, Billy. Just to see, before bending at the knee. You understand, don’t you?”

She batted her long eyelashes at him, and he knew he couldn’t stay mad for long. She really was a beautiful girl. He saw her familiar features as if for the first time, and he was enchanted again by her sparkling green eyes, her dainty nose, and the determined set of her jaw. Her mouth, he realized, did not quite fit the rest of her face: those lips were too full. It was a mouth made for kissing, and the thought that he might never kiss it again filled him with despair.

Maybe he could understand why she left, after all. Everybody had doubts. Wasn’t it better to work that all through before getting baptized? That was what the ministers had told him before he was baptized. Better to not take the vow than to take it and break it. “So are you planning, then, to join the church this fall?”