The Amish Seamstress (50 page)

T
WENTY
-S
EVEN

I
raised the head of the bed, bringing Frannie to a near sitting position and then pulled the hospital-bed table across her midsection. Zed positioned his laptop on the table so she could see the screen and then called out to the others, “Gather around.”

They did, crowding the bed on both sides, Mel and Mat in front of Ada, and Will behind her holding Abe. Christy stood beside Ella. I stayed up by Frannie's head with a perfect view of everyone and the screen.

“Everybody ready?” Zed called out, and then he turned down all of the lamps.

Standing there in the dark, watching the glow of the computer, I felt a thrill of anticipation. Zed had made the movie we were about to watch. My Zed.

He leaned in to hit the button that would start it going, and then he stepped back, making room for the rest of us to see. Instantly, the black screen came to life with a beautiful photograph of a wooden bench and then the title,
Carving a Legacy
. As music swelled and the picture faded to an image of a small Swiss village, I realized I was holding my breath and had to let it out.

The movie focused on Abraham Sommers, their ancestor who had been a wood-carver back in the 1800s and lived in Switzerland. It was all about his journey to faith, as well as his appreciation of place. Nowhere were those things depicted more beautifully than in the three boxes he'd carved that had been passed down through generations in the family. Zed had film footage of all three boxes—the one of the family bakery in Frutigen, Switzerland, that was now in Ada's possession; the one of the estate Amielbach in Switzerland that had inspired Lexie to search for her birth family and belonged to her; and the one of the Home Place in Indiana that was given to Ella by Frannie. Zed told the story of the family by describing the significance of each box.

As the film played, Ada commented that the bakery, which she had seen on her trip to Europe, still looked much the same as in the carving.

“I hope I can visit Amielbach someday,” Marta said, in a voice so wistful that I had a feeling she might just make that happen eventually.

“Shhh.” Zed was clearly annoyed.

“Oh, that would thrill me so, to think of you going to Switzerland and spending time with Giselle,” said Frannie.

The sisters, who stood beside each other, locked eyes and smiled.

Zed crossed his arms. “Don't you people know you're not supposed to talk while you're watching a film?”

Klara said, “I can't imagine traveling all the way to Switzerland. It's so far from home.”

Zed threw up his hands.

Lexie smiled and Ella shook her head, seemingly in disapproval at her brother's antics, but no one else responded. At least the kids were being quiet, even little Abe.

Next the film focused on still shots of landscapes in Switzerland. Then a current photo of Amielbach faded onto the screen as a voice told how Abraham had wandered away from the flock.

“In the end,” the voice-over said, “Abraham confessed his sins and reconciled to God, continuing the faith of his childhood. That legacy of reconciliation has been passed on through the generations of his descendants, along with the beautiful carved wooden boxes. It lives on in his family today.”

Klara sniffled. Surprised, I looked around the bed. Lexie wiped away a tear. Then Marta. Ada pulled a Kleenex from her pocket and blew her nose.

I glanced down at Frannie, afraid she may have faded out again, and though she wasn't crying like the others, she was alert and glued to the screen.

The last image was of the hands of the carver, or at least the actor who was representing him, putting his tools away in an old wooden desk. I smiled as I watched it, thinking it looked similar to my
mamm
's old desk.

Music came up as the image of the man's hands faded away. Then the screen went black and the credits rolled.

Lexie, James, and Giselle both burst into applause, startling me. As the lone
Englischers
in a room filled with Plain folk, their reaction wasn't exactly something we were used to. Applause could lead to pride, so it wasn't often doled out. But then Marta joined in as well, saying, “That was lovely, Zed. Just lovely.”

He gave her a modest smile and then moved to Frannie's side. He took her hand. “What did you think,
Mammi
? Did you like it?”

She closed her eyes, and for a moment I thought she had fallen asleep. But then, with her eyes still closed, she said, ever so softly, “Thank you, Zed. You have brought us full circle.”

I could feel myself choking up, so I moved away from them and looked around at everyone else. It was interesting to listen to the various conversations that had begun to rise up in the wake of the movie. Ella and Lexie were talking about their beautiful wooden boxes and how much they treasured them. Giselle was asking Zed technical questions about the making of the movie. Alice and Will and Ada were talking about the desk that had been used in the final scene. Apparently, they had one much like it in their home too. I wasn't surprised, as I had a feeling it was a fairly common design, at least back in the 1800s when
Mamm
's had been built.

“Oh, yeah.
That
desk,” Will was saying to his grandmother with a laugh. Then, turning to Ada, he explained, “I thought I was the only one who had discovered it had a secret compartment in it. When I was on
rumspringa
, I kept my driver's license and my one set of
Englisch
clothes hidden in there.”

The three of them laughed. It was hard to even picture the fine and upstanding Will Gundy sneaking around on
rumpsringa
.

“
Ya
,” Alice said, “then your dad found it and was none too happy with you.”

“What happened?” asked Ada, her eyes sparkling as she clearly enjoyed hearing about this side of her husband.

“He wrote me a note and stuck it in the pants pocket. I didn't find it until I was out with friends, and of course it made me feel terrible. The whole night I was dying inside that he'd found out and was upset with me.”

Will and Alice shared a smile, remembering.

I thought again of the similar desk in my home, which had been passed down through my mother's family. Then I gasped.

“Izzy?” Ada asked. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head. I caught Zed's eye and waved him over.

“What is it?” he asked, coming closer.

Turning to Will, I said, “Repeat what you were just saying about the desk.”

He looked a little confused, but he did as I asked. “We were just commenting that the desk you used in that final scene is similar to one we have at home.”

Zed said that style was fairly common.

“But there's something unique about Will's desk,” I prodded.

Zed's eyebrows raised as he looked over at him.

“Oh,” Will said. “It has a secret compartment behind the lower left drawer.”

Zed didn't seem to catch on, so finally I spelled it out for him.

“A secret compartment. In a desk.
Mamm
's desk is that same style. What if hers has one too? What if the missing pages of the chapbook are hidden in there? It's been in the family for years, you know.”

“Which desk? The one in the living room?”

I nodded.

“It wouldn't matter, Iz,” he replied. “That desk can't be more than a hundred years old, and it's certainly not from as far back as Abigail's time.”

I understood what he was saying, but something inside of me wouldn't let it go. “It's worth a try, don't you think? Even if it didn't exist back then,
who's to say that one of Abigail's descendants didn't use it, years later, to hide the rest of the chapbook?”

“Why would they bother? Abigail would've been dead by then—”

I reached for the hem of his sleeve and held on. “I don't know. Why did they cut the rest of the pages from the chapbook?”

He looked at me for a long moment. “Because they wanted to hide the truth about her story?”

“Exactly. We don't know why yet. We only know that they did. What if there's a secret compartment in our desk too—and the missing pages from the chapbook are in there?”

“We need to look at your desk,” I told my
mamm
as Zed and I burst in through the door. The house was strangely quiet, and I realized that everyone else was already in bed, save for her. She was in the living room working on
Daed'
s bills.

“Whatever for?”

He went to take a look as I explained. “We just found out it might have a hidden compartment in it. If it does, we're thinking maybe the rest of the chapbook is inside.”

She and I followed Zed into the living room, where he was on his knees in front of the desk.

“That's impossible,”
Mamm
said. “It was built long after those chapbooks were printed. The desk dates back to after the Civil War.”

Zed pulled out each drawer in turn but found nothing. He looked at me, disappointed, but I stepped forward and reminded him what Will had told us.

“You pull out the drawer, and once you think it's all the way out, you pull some more. It has a fake back panel, but then there's room behind that for a little extra space.”

“I did that already,” he said, but at my urging he tried again, starting on the right side as I tried the drawers on the left. He was right. There were no false backs to any of them.

“Let's pull them all the way out,” I suggested, tugging and wiggling the top left drawer until it was completely loose. I set it on the floor and studied it carefully, but there were no hidden surprises anywhere.

I was about to return my attention to the desk and pull out the next drawer down when Zed got the one on his side loose and placed it on the floor next to mine. With a gasp I realized that my drawer was a good six inches shorter than his was.

Our eyes met, and we shared a wide grin.

Heart pounding, I turned toward the desk, still on my knees, and peered inside the dark cavity where the drawer had been. I asked
Mamm
for a flashlight, but before she could respond, Zed had turned on the one on his phone and was shining it into the opening.

The funny thing was, it didn't look as if anything was back there. But when we compared the opening on my side with the one on his, it was clear: The back panel of mine was about six inches closer than his was. He reached inside and pressed his fingers against the wood, moving them along the top, back, and sides, but nothing happened.

“There's room here for a hidden space, so there must be some kind of latch somewhere,” he said.

“Maybe you get to it from beneath,” I offered, gesturing toward the lower drawer. It was bigger and heavier than the top one, so he helped me jiggle it loose and set it on the floor.

Once that cavity was empty and open, we bent down lower and he shone his light inside it, aiming the beam toward the top at the back. Solid wood divided the top drawer from the bottom, so we weren't able to see our hiding place from this new angle—and there was nothing unusual inside here at all. Just to be sure, however, we removed the lower drawer from the right side and compared the lengths. They were equal. Without a doubt a hiding place was in this desk, and it was located behind the top left drawer.

The question was how to get into it.

Zed reached his hand into each cavity in turn, feeling around for some sort of latch or hidden release. When that didn't work, I suggested we move the desk away from the wall to look at the other side. We did so quickly, and as he returned to his inspection of the cavities and the front of the desk, I studied the back, wondering if the hiding place could be accessed by the removal of a small panel.

At first my idea did not look promising, but when I carefully compared
the back panel on the left with the one on the right, I noticed one small difference between them…a tiny square slot at the bottom outer corner.

I looked to
Mamm
, who was now holding the flashlight I had asked for. She handed it to me, and I crouched down on the floor and used the light to try to see inside the little slot. It was just too small.

“You need some tools,”
Mamm
said, and as she turned to go, I realized she was finally getting on board with our theory as well.

A few moments later she returned with the small household toolbox and handed me a screwdriver. Gripping the round handle, I carefully slid the flat tip into the slot as far as it would go. Nothing happened, so I gave it an extra push—hoping I wouldn't hurt the antique wood—and much to my surprise I could hear the gentle
ping
of what sounded like a release from somewhere inside.

“That's it!” Zed cried, his head popping up like a groundhog from its hole.

I got to my feet and my mother and I went to the other side. Kneeling, I shone my light into the space behind the top left drawer and saw that the wood panel at the back had indeed come open.