Keeping Secrets (24 page)

“So now you know, Sadie. He ain’t for you,” Dorothy concluded, carefully tilting the paper frosty container as she scraped out the last of the ice cream. “No, sir, he ain’t.”

Then she put down the empty cup and reached over and held both of Sadie’s hands as gently and softly as the touch of an angel.

“I know this ain’t your way, Sadie, but I’m prayin’ for you right here this minute. You need it, honeybun.”

And she prayed in a beautiful singsong voice, the most compassionate prayer Sadie had ever heard.

“Heavenly Father, I know you’re watching over my Sadie girl. You really need to get serious and show her the way. Right now her future is in the balance. Thank you for providing everything she needs to get through this difficult time. Continue to bless her with your strength and your wisdom. Amen.”

“Thank you,” Sadie whispered, her voice choked with emotion.

“Now don’t you go thinkin’ I prayed that to be seen and heard of men. I didn’t. God just needs to hear some serious prayin’ going on right now. That Mark don’t trust you right, and you so in love with him. You’re like a lovesick little puppy, so you are.”

The ride home was quiet, except for Dorothy’s occasional “rifting,” as she called it. She rubbed her ample stomach and complained of indigestion, saying she hadn’t taken her usual dose of Gas-X yet today, and here it was almost bedtime.

Sadie was numb to any kind of emotion. She answered when she was expected to do so, laughed when it was required of her.

When the orange Honda wheezed to a stop at the back porch of the Miller house, Sadie pushed a 20-dollar bill in Dorothy’s direction, which she declined furiously, saying that’s what was the matter with this world—no one did anything for anyone anymore unless they expected to be paid.

Sadie went inside to find her parents in their usual recliners. They looked up with concern when she came in.

“You’re home early? With a vehicle?” Mam asked, her eyes round with concern.

“Something came up. Mark had to leave early,” Sadie said, averting her eyes as she made her way up the stairs.

“Goodnight,” Mam said, quietly, then raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes in Dat’s direction.

Dat shook his head and resumed his reading.

Sadie woke with a groan, punching her pillow in frustration when she thought of the events of the night before.

Reuben worked on a jigsaw puzzle, humming the same tune under his breath the whole entire morning until Sadie thought she might lose her good sense and sound mind.

She wandered out to the barn, but Paris was at the far end of the pasture. Sadie didn’t feel like calling her, so she let her go. Besides, there was no use calling the horse if she couldn’t go riding.

Uncle Samuel’s came for supper, but Sadie was in no mood to visit with his loud and jovial family.

So she sat in her room instead. She wanted to answer Daniel King’s letter, but was too numb to think of anything to say. Picking up a book, she read halfheartedly, wishing the whole time that she had never met Mark Peight.

She was getting terribly hungry when Anna opened the door very quietly, slipped inside, and sat down on the beige-colored loveseat. Her eyes were large and round with concern. Sadie noticed a definite jutting of her collarbones and a thinness around her neck.

“What happened, Sadie?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“I need to talk about the vomiting.”

Sadie looked at Anna, really looked.

“Have you done it again?”

“No.”

Anna’s eyes were downcast, averted, and she was completely unable to raise them to meet Sadie’s gaze.

“You’re telling a
schnitza
.”

“I didn’t feel good.”

“Did you force yourself to throw up?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t have to force myself anymore. My stuff comes up real easy.”

“Anna!”

Sadie was horrified. All the thoughts of Mark and his sordid behavior flew from her mind, replaced by a concern much more immediate and serious.

Things like this only happened to English people with serious body issues. Not her own little sister! Where had it started? Were they all so concerned about their appearances, their weight, their figures, who was cute and who was not? Was it God punishing them for being too worldly?

All these thoughts crowded into Sadie’s mind like a rampage of fear and anxiety, until she remembered Dorothy’s prayer. It rose in its power and light, pushing back the onslaught of fear and panic.

Yes, God, please help us, bless us with wisdom and understanding for each other. For Mark, for Anna, for us all.

To get at the reason she hated her body, Anna would need compassion and understanding, but she would also need a firm hand. Should Mam be the one to deal with Anna?

So many problems, so many decisions.

It was only at work the following week that Sadie found a measure of peace. It came by way of Bertie Orthman, of all people, the aging gardener and veteran of a troubled life.

She was emptying a large dishpan of potato peelings into the compost bin beside the lily bed, when Bertie’s balding head protruded from the window, followed by his arm holding a steaming mug of tea. He was chortling with glee.

“Come here, Sadie girl. Lookee what I got. My old bones is starting to ache about this time of the year, and nothing helps like a hot cup of tea with milk and sugar. Join me?”

Sadie looked over her shoulder, wondering if Dorothy was expecting her.

Bertie saw and hissed, “Come on. That old bat don’t need to watch every move you make. She ain’t the boss. Richard Caldwell is, and a right good one he is, too. Can’t really put my finger on it, but he’s made the biggest change in his life I ever seen. His heart’s in the right place. It is. I ain’t much for talkin’ about the Lord, but he’s not the way he used to be. One of life’s mysteries. You don’t always understand the way things work, so you just take the good with the bad, sorta sift through it.”

He paused, waving his hand toward the door. “Come on.”

Sadie entered the garden shed, her eyes adjusting to the dim interior. It was as clean as Dorothy’s kitchen, every tool on its own hook, every insecticide and fertilizer in its own container labeled with blue tape. An electric hot plate took up one side of a small counter where a red teakettle bubbled merrily.

“This is so cute, Bertie!”

He beamed with Sadie’s praise as they each sipped a mug of thick, fragrant tea. When the subject turned to Dorothy, Bertie smiled and declared confidently that if Dorothy ever became a widow, he would marry her in no time flat.

“A heart of gold, that’s what she has. You know, people aren’t always the way they seem. She’s had a rough life. Her past is likely one of the most pitiful stories ever. She came through with flying colors, that girl did. Her dad was the town drunk, and she was beaten nearly every night. But she’s smart enough to know that you can’t blame other people for your past. You gotta make the best of it. She’s feisty, and so she came through, so she did.”

Is that how it was? Could people turn out all right, no matter how mistreated they were?

She wanted to tell Bertie everything about Mark, then decided against it. It wasn’t fair to Mark. He had confided solely in her, and she would not betray his trust.

But why did she care? Why? Especially after that abominable display of immaturity? It was all his foolish jealousy, his … his… She didn’t know what.

Her miserable train of thought was derailed by Bertie’s soothing voice.

“Yes, life ain’t all roses. But them blessings, the good stuff, is all you need to take with you. You can get all tangled up in the thorns if you want to. Wallow in ’em for a little while, and all you do is hurt yourself. Jes’ look at them two kids Dorothy took in. They don’t understand what happened with their mama. They don’t try and figger it out neither. They cried awhile, but they know that right now, Dorothy’s their mama. Ain’t it amazing, Sadie?”

Sadie nodded, smiling a smile that was less than genuine.

Bertie saw and nodded his head.

“You got troubles of your own, Sadie girl. That smile is playin’ with shadows, as Mum used to say. It’ll work out, it’ll work out. The Man Above works it out. All you gotta do is wait. It’ll be okay in the end.”

Sadie thanked him for the tea. Her spirits definitely lifted as she made her way up the flagstone path to the kitchen. Patience. She would wait on the Lord, who would renew her strength, as the Bible said.

T
HE FIRST SNOW OF
the season drove in hard, icy little pellets that made pinging noises against the windows to the north. The lowered sky was gray-white, the air filled with the whirling iciness.

Inside the Miller house, the wood stove in the living room cracked and popped, the good, dry oak logs burning cheerily, the flames dancing against the glass front. The braided rug in front of the stove was charred in places where a hot coal had fallen out as Dat was loading up the stove with logs. He always muttered under his breath and stomped on the burning coal when it fell. Mam said it was better to ruin a rug than her hardwood floor. Mam kept the wide floorboards polished and varnished to perfection. She mopped that floor with a dry mop and furniture polish and got down on her hands and knees to wash it gently with vinegar water. Mam even had rules about moving furniture across it: the furniture had to be put on a thick rug that slid smoothly across the floorboards, so there’d be no scratch marks left behind. That hardwood floor was the one thing in which she admitted having pride.

Sadie sat in the big, brown recliner, a cotton throw across her knees, a box of tissues on the propane light stand with a few crumpled ones strewn across it. She had just come home from work at the ranch, putting in a whole day of overtime by working on Saturday. Her head cold made the day drag on and on. Dorothy was nursing a sore hip, so there had been very little love lost between them: Sadie coughing, sneezing, and blowing her nose, Dorothy limping and complaining the whole day long.

The only bright spot of the day had been listening to Marcellus and Louis conversing in Spanish as they sat on the kitchen floor sorting through yard after yard of white Christmas lights. The children coiled them carefully in separate containers so that Bertie could hang them from the eaves, doors, and windows, and even drape them across shrubs and pines.

The children’s voices were always low with a wonderful lilt, a sort of singsong to their sentences that flowed and rippled in a sweet cadence. Sadie never tired of the sound.

Dorothy believed the children had lived in a mansion rather than an ordinary home. They had talked of gold faucets, sunken bathtubs, and servants. Cooking, cleaning, ironing, and laundry was all done by someone who was not their mother.

Richard Caldwell had spoken wisely, saying the jewels had to be shown to the police. Meanwhile, he had taken them to his personal safe-deposit box at the bank. First of all, he said, there was the danger of receiving stolen goods, and secondly, if the children did come from a wealthy home, there was a chance they may have been kidnapped for ransom.

All of these uncertainties had made Dat and Mam cautious and skeptical, stoic in their reluctance to becoming involved. It was not their way. The wealthy children were of the English, and what future could they possibly have among the Amish? What if they did agree to give them a home, and then the children grew to adulthood, found their biological parents, and became torn between two cultures?

Dat and Mam assured Sadie they would never leave them out in the cold. If no one else offered to take them, they would, but only temporarily. Sadie was distraught, her face pale, showing the strain of events on the ranch.

“But Dat, think about it. We’re supposed to be the Christians, full of charity, love, and all that good stuff. And here we are refusing them.

“You have a point, Sadie. You really do. We won’t leave them abandoned.”

Sadie lifted her tear-filled eyes. “I don’t think they were abandoned. I think… I still wonder if someone didn’t just… I don’t know. It’s just a big mystery, and it drives me crazy. They talk of a huge lawn, golf, servants, pools. Why would they appear at the ranch in dirty, pitiful clothes, with a small drawstring bag of jewels?”

Mam put a hand on Sadie’s shoulder. “Sadie, it’s good you’re concerned. But you must be careful. Listen to your father. He’s right. I still think the perfect arrangement is to let Dorothy have them. Dat said that’s all Jim talked about when he took him to the horse sale last week.”

Sadie nodded. As usual, she could place her trust in her parents’ decision. When they were side by side like that, when God had a hand in Dat’s and Mam stood beside him, you just had to reach out your own hand and place it in Mam’s. They were so rock-solid.

So the mystery of the children remained a large question mark. Dorothy said “them jewels in the pouch” would stay in the vault at the bank, and if she died, it all went back to Marcelona and Louise, as she called the children. The jewels sure weren’t hers, and she wanted no part of them. All she needed was that piece of paper that made her and Jim legal foster parents of those precious angels sent straight from God.