Finding Mercy (11 page)

“Gabe, wait! Who is it?”

“It’s my sister,” he whispered. “It’s Sarah. Out behind the barn. She parked at your farm and walked in over the field, has something she wants you to give to Hannah. She says please, she knows you’re not to take things from her hand, but she needs you.”

“You come too,” Ella insisted, and picked up her skirts to break into a run. “Why can’t she just send the gift in with you? Is Nate with her?” she asked, out of breath already.

“No. Alone. He’s away somewhere. The thing is, I think she’s sick.”

Ella peeked around the side of the barn. Sarah, indeed, her hair shoulder-length, her clothing worldly, of course. She wore a long denim skirt with a big blouse—a big blouse, because she was pregnant! And
ya,
she looked like she was in bad pain.

11

WHOO-EE, RAY-LYNN THOUGHT. She was stuffed with delicious homemade food, always her problem at Amish events. She just had to get up and walk around a little. The chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and especially Ella’s delicious lavender-laced breads and muffins, had made her feel she’d just eaten a Thanksgiving meal! And she was going to ask Ella’s father if the restaurant could start serving his honey there. She and Jack had admired his beehives up on the hill, and there was nothing like including another local product on the menu.

Just after the cake was cut—three layers but not tiered, of course, since that would be too worldly—Ray-Lynn excused herself and stepped out on the front porch. At once she noticed two things. First, this was evidently the hangout for the dating-age Amish young men. They seemed more interested in two courting buggies they’d brought around in front than in the girls inside the house who were oohing and aahing over the bride and groom. And secondly, two police cruisers were parked side by side down the road a ways with Jack and his new deputy having a parlay.

Even from this vantage point, she could see that Jack was upset with the new heartthrob of his office staff. He was gesturing, pointing. Deputy Hayes nodded, got in and drove away.

Jack saw her coming across the lawn toward him. “You having a good time?” he called to her.

“Eating myself silly,” she yelled back, and kept walking closer until she got to the log rail fence along the grassy berm of the road. “It’s great to see Hannah and Seth so happy. They deserve it.”

“You like weddings, maybe we can plan one of our own,” he said, coming closer.

“A small, private one, except for a big reception shindig at the restaurant?”

“You been thinking about it, too, honey? Like they say on the soap operas, we’ve got to talk.”

“What in the world would you know about soap operas?”

“My mother used to watch
As The World Turns
and
One Life To Live.
If I was home sick from school with a cold or strep throat, I’d see them with her.” They clasped hands across the corner of the fence, and he leaned in for a quick kiss. “She’d baby me, fix me my favorite foods. Memories…” His voice sounded rough as it trailed off.

“Which I wish I had more of around here, but we’re making new ones. I should have brought you some food but I just came out for a breath of fresh air, which you always are,” she told him.

The big man actually wiped a tear from under his left eye. Would wonders never cease? she thought. Just when she thought she knew Jack Freeman, new layers peeled away, just like with an onion. “Meanwhile,” he went on, “how’re things going in there, other than the food? You met the Lantzes’ Pennsylvania cousin yet?”

“No, but he’s a good-looking guy. And, I swear, having gone through a lot with Hannah mooning over Seth and Sarah longing for Nate—not to mention my own
slight
attraction to the town sheriff—I recognize the warning signs. He and Ella can’t take their eyes off each other. But what was the problem out here with the guy with the new shiny star?”

“He thought since there was a big gathering here, he’d just park on the road to make sure everything went smooth when all the buggies started to leave. I tried to tell him that’s not how the Amish operate. Police protection, like weather vanes, show a lack of trust in God’s ways—too prideful. He’s curious as can be about the Amish, but his tendency is to stamp in with both feet, and that’s not gonna get him anywhere except in the doghouse with them—and me.”

“I’d better get back inside. Love you,” she said, and leaned over the fence to give him a peck, which he turned into another real kiss.

“Love you, too, honey,” he said. “Since I got Superman on patrol, I’m going back to the office to catch up on some darn deskwork. Hey, one more thing. Talk about this area getting more diverse, despite the big Amish population. You hear that Chinese couple from New York are gonna open that fancy spa retreat out on Sweetgum?”

“You mean the parents of our favorite speeder and wrecker of cars, Sam Lee? His mother Connie’s been in the restaurant, but I haven’t seen Mr. Lee.”

“Well, I met him—Chang Lee—today and could hardly keep a straight face. The guy must be pretty new to this country. When he heard he was going to visit the Midwest, he got all decked out in a cowboy outfit—I mean, jeans, checkered shirt, fringed leather vest and Western boots, no less!”

“Oh, right. The wild Midwest! No ten-gallon hat?” she asked as they shared a laugh.

“It was probably in their fancy little car. I think they’re gonna be a hoot around here. Well, gotta get going. Enjoy, now.”

After kisses from Jack and even so much as a brief mention of their own wedding, she sure would.

* * *

Ella was aghast. Not only because Sarah had dared to set foot here today and had a wrapped wedding gift she’d put on the ground, but because she looked as bad as Ella usually did after a panic attack. Could it be her friend suffered from that, too?

“Sarah,” she cried, running to her. “You’re pregnant!”

“Yes—but not why I’m—here,” she gasped out. Her face was contorted with pain, and she panted between words. “Nate’s away at a convention—in Washington, D.C. I wanted to bring this gift—just get it to Hannah, but…but this huge pain…I think the baby’s trying to turn over and got twisted and it hurts. I—ah,” she moaned and fell onto all fours in the grass.

Gabe stood on one foot, then the other, his fists pressed to his mouth.
Bann
or not on her friend, Ella knelt in the grass beside her and put her hands on her shoulders. “Gabe,” Ella said, trying to support Sarah as she gasped and writhed, “go get your mother and tell her why, but don’t tell anyone else yet. Go!”

The boy turned and ran. Sarah sat on her haunches and tried to knead her belly. Ella could see it moving. “Can you help me turn the baby?” Sarah cried. “I can’t lose her, Ella. Six months along, not enough yet. I’ve been fine. I don’t know what’s wrong. I walked, didn’t run over here, and felt just fine. Oh, it hurts. You know my mother lost two before she had the four of us, twisted birth cord and then…”

Ella had never heard that, but why would she? Here she’d blamed Sarah, scolded her for going to the world and wedding Nate, but now, with their child at risk, Ella wanted nothing more than to help her, no matter that Sarah was under the dreaded
meidung.
Ella moved one hand from her friend’s shoulder to put it over her belly.

Yes, the baby was moving inside her—struggling. Ella pictured it drowning in the sea of water in there. “But which way to push?” she asked. “I don’t want to hurt it.”

“Her—a girl,” Sarah said. “I had a—a sonogram. Why—the moment I set foot here at the bishop’s property—this pain? It’s like a curse.”

Sarah went to all fours again, this time with both hands digging into the grass as if she’d rip it out by its roots.

“Don’t talk that way,” Ella cried. “For some reason it—she—just started to turn now. There are no curses here.”

But were there? Her near-drowning. Her panic attacks—and harassment by someone who must hate her. She tried to hold one of Sarah’s hands but her friend gripped back so hard Ella feared her bones would break. “It’s going to be all right,” Ella told her, wincing.

“Ella, I just wanted to be near everyone, everything, today,” Sarah gritted out with tears dripping off her chin and nose. “I know I can’t—can’t be a part of things.”

“You are always part of my life no matter what!” Ella heard herself say. “Hannah’s too, even when we’re apart. Do you have a cell phone on you? I can call Nate for you, the emergency squad. Don’t be afraid!”

“Cell phone’s in my car, over at your house.”

“It’s closer than the phone shanty on the road. I’ll run over there, get it and make those calls. Is the car locked?”

“No, but don’t leave me. And Gabe—he’s growing so fast, still in love with your sister—ahhh!”

Running footsteps. Anna Kauffman, Sarah’s mother.

“Mrs. Kauffman,” Ella blurted out, looking up at the older woman’s shocked face, “Sarah’s six months pregnant, and she’s having pain, like the baby’s turning over inside and hurting her.”

“My dearest girl,” Anna Kauffman cried, and fell to her knees on the other side of Sarah. “That happened to me too.”

“
Mamm,
I can’t lose this baby. Nate’s away. I just wanted to bring a gift for Hannah. I—”

“Mrs. Kauffman,” Ella interrupted, “I’m going to run to our house for Sarah’s cell phone where she left her car. Is Nate’s number on it, Sarah?”

“You call the emergency people first,
ya,
” Mrs. Kauffman said.

“Yes, he’s on quick dial,” Sarah ground out. “Just turn it on, find his name on top of a list. You’ll see.”

“Ray-Lynn taught me to use one. I’ll have help here soon,” Ella cried as she pried her hand from Sarah’s and got to her feet. “But can Gabe go get my mother, get more help? Should Sarah be in a bed?”

“Oh, no, in the bishop’s house, I can’t,” Sarah insisted.

“We want to help. We will help,” Ella told her, “and that baby will be fine!” She squeezed her friend’s shoulder, lifted the hem of her skirt and ran behind the barn to start across the field.

* * *

Standing in the doorway of the crowded living room, Alex had never seen such cornball joking as went on after the cake was cut and eaten. Someone gave Seth a bull’s ring to put through his nose; Hannah was given a rolling pin to keep him in line, on and on… But where had Ella gone? Surely, the fact she was unwed—a
maidal,
as they called it—hadn’t gotten to her. Earlier she’d seemed to revel in her friend’s and her brother’s happy day.

He wondered if
maidal
also meant virgin. He’d picked up some gossip today that Seth had been wed before and his little girl was conceived before he was married, so premarital sex wasn’t unheard-of around here. But, Alex supposed, many unwed Amish girls would be virgins, especially because they married so young. Ella was no longer young by their standards so was she a virgin?

“How do you like the Home Valley so far?” a voice in the doorway behind him—an English voice—asked. Alex turned and saw Ray-Lynn Logan, the woman who had showed up to help the night Sam Lee had his car accident. Alex had been told she was the sheriff’s significant other, one he was partners with in the Dutch Farm Table Restaurant in town.

“Oh,
ya, ser gut,
”
he told her. “The Lantzes are kind and the people very nice.”

“Has your hurt ankle kept you from helping out?”

“For a few days. It was just twisted, not sprained.
Grossmamm
Ruth’s cures fixed me up. I helped Ella weed lavender, but I’m about ready to work in the fields now.”

“Your accent’s really different from the others, even from some other Pennsylvania Dutch we’ve had visit family here.”

Alex was getting annoyed. He’d thought he was doing a good job of imitating Amish English at least. Or could the sheriff have said something to this woman—pillow talk—and she was just testing him? He knew that Ella and, he’d heard, Hannah too, put great stock in Ray-Lynn’s friendship. Maybe he was just overly sensitive after having gone through so many grueling interrogations over the economic espionage he was accusing Marv Boynton and SkyBound of committing.

“Oh, I know,” she said, before he could think up an answer. “I’ll bet, like Hannah, you’ve lived in the world for a while. She said her patterns of speech changed a lot the few years she was away too.”

“You got me there,” he said, trying to take the ambiguous way out.

“Or are you an Amish convert?” she asked with a little laugh. “There are those who have joined the Amish faith from the outside world, but they’re few and far between. The Amish don’t evangelize like other Christians, and obviously a person would give up a lot of life’s luxuries to join them.”

“But get something good in the bargain,” he countered, surprised he’d said that. He’d love to keep her questions in check. Maybe the best defense was a good offense. “Your speech isn’t like anyone else’s around here,” he said. “So, where are you from?”

He almost wished he hadn’t asked as she told him about growing up in rural Georgia, about loving the big city of Atlanta. Not only did that make him a bit homesick for New York, but he didn’t need any reminders of being shot at in Atlanta. He’d never figured out how his enemies—a hit man and whoever hired him—had found him there. And if they found him here…

He ended up walking Ray-Lynn, still talking, outside to her car. She said she needed to get back to the restaurant, and he just went along because Ella wasn’t in here and he wanted to look for her.

“Easy to find your ride in this sea of buggies,” he told Ray-Lynn as they headed for the only motor vehicle in sight. “So what’s going on back behind the barn?” he asked, when they saw a group of women there, all looking in the same direction.

“Sometimes they decorate bridal buggies just like the English would do cars,” she told him. “So maybe…”

But Hannah herself, with several of her female side sitters, rushed past, their faces worried. “Ding-dang, what in the world?” Ray-Lynn said, and skirted around her van where Alex had opened the door for her.

Ray-Lynn sprinted for the back of the barn; Alex did too. Could Ella have been hurt? He scanned the kneeling, praying Amish women surrounding a non-Amish girl on the ground. Who was she and what had happened? And with all these women here, even the bride—where was Ella?

* * *

As Ella emerged from the field, she was out of breath and had a stitch in her left side. Fields full of knee-high crops made for slow going. She could feel dirt inside her shoes as well as caking them, but nothing mattered except getting help fast for Sarah.

Sarah had left her car—really, it was a van—almost blocking the barn doors, so she obviously had not intended to stay for long. She’d just wanted to get the gift to Hannah, then, no doubt, get back to her worldly life. Yet she was still Amish at heart: the van was black, and she hadn’t locked it. Even when she had valuable things inside—Ella could see the back was filled with stretched canvases—she knew to trust the area. And yet, lately, things had changed.