The Missing (2 page)

She moved closer to the window as she watched the earth come to life. The day sparkled in the sun. Bird-in-Hand was already abuzz with farmers and their mule teams working the green expanse of fields in all directions. Her Jakob would soon stir and she’d leave behind her reverie to go and kiss his wrinkled cheek as he awakened. Then they would dress and head downstairs to breakfast when their granddaughters called them to the table where Lettie had always laid out a big spread. This responsibility now fell to dutiful Grace, just twenty-one and resembling her mother more, here lately, in her diligence to cook and keep house.

“What will this day bring?” Adah whispered before turning from the window. “Can Grace locate Lettie with a single phone call?”

She walked silently to the larger room she shared with Jakob, who she saw from the doorway was still asleep. In that moment, she wondered if they’d made the right decision, giving Grace the address of the Kidron, Ohio, inn where she and Lettie had stayed so long ago. She moved quietly to her husband’s side and sat, waiting for his puffy eyes to flutter open.

We protected Lettie’s secret this long.
Adah trembled as she considered Grace’s determination to find her mother, and what she might possibly find instead.

Ach,
have I made a mistake?

That same Tuesday, after a breakfast of fried potatoes, scrambled eggs, and crackers in warm milk, Grace was surprised to hear Mandy mention Henry Stahl.

Mandy was sweeping the floor when she stopped abruptly and looked up from the pile of crumbs. “I really hate to say anything, but Priscilla Stahl ain’t too happy ’bout you breakin’ up with her brother.”

Grace’s stomach knotted up.
Isn’t for Prissy to say . . .

“
She
told you this?”

“Jah.” Mandy pushed the dirt into the dustpan.

“Prissy’s upset, is all,” Grace assured her sister. Breaking up with Henry after the Singing last Sunday night had been downright thorny but not rash.
Had Henry honestly told his sister
about it? So unlike him to share much of anything.
She thought of her older brother, Adam—Grace had told
him
already, too.

“Prissy says you
jilted
Henry.” Mandy emptied the dustpan into the trash beneath the sink.

“Not sure how she’d know such a thing.”

Mandy shrugged. “Well, she’s spoutin’ off to me—and Adam, no doubt—that you spurned his wonderful-
gut
gift.”

Grace couldn’t help it; she laughed. “What happened ’tween Henry and me has nothin’ to do with that chime clock—my birthday present.”

“Your engagement gift, don’t ya mean?”

Grace sighed. Surely Adam’s meddlesome fiancée would try to understand that Henry had been wrong for Grace—as Henry himself had certainly realized. Goodness, but when Grace had said they should part ways, he hadn’t even objected, speaking up for their love.

Maybe love’s too strong a word,
she thought just then. It had been his silence all around that wore thin over their months as a courting couple. Then Mamma’d left home and it had dawned on Grace that Dat and his aloof manner must surely be the reason. No, it was clear Grace could not marry someone like Henry.

To think Mamma’s been gone nearly a month already.
It seemed much longer since she had slipped away into the darkness.
How
does a daughter get past such a thing?

Dat never spoke about it anymore—not since he’d fallen so terribly ill there for several days. He kept so busy; perhaps that was how he managed to cope. Adam and Joe, and Mandy, too, also seemed to have pushed their sadness down deep, burying it somewhere in their shattered hearts.
Just as I have . . .

Mandy left to go to the sitting room and gathered up the throw rugs, carrying them outside to shake.

Meanwhile, Grace went to look beneath the lid of the cookie jar, where her mother kept a phone card for emergencies. But she found nothing at all.
Did Mamma take it with her?

She wondered if her grandmother might not have a spare one to loan and hurried through the sitting room and the center hall, where wooden shelves and pegs lined either side, to Mammi Adah’s own tidy kitchen. Seeing Mammi cutting Dawdi’s graying bangs at the far end of the room, she waited in the doorway, not saying a peep as the scissors snipped away.

Leaning on the doorjamb, Grace was painfully aware that all of her hopes were bound up in the telephone call she felt she must make. The need pulled her chest as taut as a rag rug.

Unconsciously she groaned, startling Mammi, who turned, her scissors slipping as she did so. “Ach, Mammi . . . I’m sorry,” Grace said, seeing the bungled bangs.

Dawdi harrumphed, a spew of complaints coming in
Deitsch
.

Mammi stifled a laugh when she saw the damage. “Aw, Jakob, it’ll just have to grow back,” she said, her hand over her mouth. “Ain’t so, Gracie?”

It was a good thing her grandfather couldn’t see Mammi’s wide smile, not as particular a man as he was.

“Did ya need something, dear?” asked Mammi Adah.

“Our phone card’s missin’. Could I borrow one from you, maybe? I’ll pay you back when I get my next paycheck.” She didn’t care to say she was going to call out to Ohio. Mammi Adah would surely gather that.

“I’ll have a look-see.” Mammi frowned as she once again appraised Dawdi’s botched hair. Then, quickly, she removed the towel she’d fastened around his neck with a wooden clothespin, her usual practice for the monthly haircut. “You might have to wear your hat low on your head for ’bout a month, love,” she said before making her way to the back steps. She wiggled her fingers for Grace to follow.

Once they reached the landing, Mammi Adah’s face turned solemn. “Have ya heard ’bout Willow’s injury?”

Grace had fed their favorite driving horse several carrots just last evening. “What happened between last night and now?”

“Well, since she’s older than I am in horse years, Willow’s sure to have more problems as she ages.” A gray shadow passed across Mammi’s face as she stopped beside the worktable in the sewing room. “There’s the possibility she is foundered—she injured her leg on the road this morning, according to your Dat.” Pausing, Mammi touched a pile of fabric, already cut into squares for a quilt. “She might need to be . . .”

“Might need to be what?” Grace asked.

Mammi sighed, her hand on her throat.

Tears sprang to Grace’s eyes. “No, no . . . I can’t imagine puttin’ her down.” She shook her head. “Oh, Mammi . . .”

Her grandmother reached for her hand. “Ach, this is never easy.”

Never is right!
She choked back her tears. “How was she injured?”

“Your father went over to see one of the ministers bright and early. Willow made a misstep on the road and stumbled on the way back. She’s hurt her front right leg.”

“Well, what ’bout some liniment? That’ll help, ain’t so?” The knot of worry increased in her as Mammi glanced out the window, toward the barn.

“You’ll have to ask your father ’bout that, dear.”

So had Dat already discussed this with Dawdi and Mammi?

“Oh, I’ll be talkin’ to Dat, for sure.”

“I know your father did everything he usually does. He was checking Willow’s hurt leg when Dawdi went out there after breakfast,” Mammi said softly. “We all know how dear that horse is to you.”

“To all of us . . . jah?”

In Mammi’s serious gray eyes, Grace saw the pain of the past weeks. Even before Mamma’s departure, Mammi Adah had seemed terribly vexed. Things had been tense between Dat and Mamma for much too long, something her grandparents could not take in stride.

Wanting to rush right out to the barn, Grace instead reached for the purple and green squares on the sewing table.
Makes
no sense to fret over what can’t be changed.
Moving the squares around, she laid out several while Mammi looked for a phone card in one of her sewing drawers. “Putting Willow out of her misery will only add to the sadness round here,” Grace said louder than she should have.

“That it would,” Mammi acknowledged as she handed her the card.

“
Denki
, Mammi.” Time now for Grace to get herself down the road and make a phone call to the faraway inn. Grace had no idea what significance the Ohio inn had for Mamma’s present absence, but there seemed to be some link to the past. The mere fact Mammi Adah had given her the address pointed to its importance.

She held the little card and hurried to the steps, where she heard her grandfather still grumbling below. “Dawdi’s mighty upset,” she called over her shoulder, hoping her grandmother might take the hint and come down to console him. Who could tell what news Grace might soon be bringing back to their ears?

With more than a little apprehension, she headed back down to Mammi’s kitchen. Dawdi was facing away from the door, his neck red with frustration. “Adah, bring a hand mirror here to me,” he said.

Feeling responsible for his bad haircut, Grace slipped outside. She glanced at the barn, ever so anxious to ask Dat what more could be done for Willow—though, knowing her father, surely the vet would be arriving soon. At this minute, her missing mother required her attention more than the once-sleek bay mare. Grace picked up her skirt and ran past the windbreak of trees to the road.

Best to make the call before another day passes
. . . .

chapter
two

A
s she strode up Beechdale Road, Grace was aware of the midmorning stillness, broken only by the occasional gust of wind or the lone bleating of a lamb beyond her father’s fence. She felt the sharp jabs of gravel and small stones against her bare feet under her long green dress. The stretch of road was the same one where she’d followed her mother, running and calling after her in the early-morning darkness.

A lone white kite floated high behind Preacher Smucker’s stone farmhouse in the distance, and a dozen or so red-breasted robins soared silently overhead. Shielding her face from yet another gust of wind, Grace recalled how serene the hour of her mother’s departure had been. Uncannily so.

She reached into her dress pocket and located the slip of paper Mammi Adah had given her yesterday . . . and her grandmother’s phone card. The mid-May breeze swished at her skirt hem and sent her
Kapp
strings flying over her shoulder as she looked at her grandmother’s writing:
The Kidron Inn.

Is this where you’ve gone, Mamma?
Only one way to know for sure, yet Grace felt dreadfully awkward at the thought of speaking to a stranger. Even with the anticipation of possibly hearing her mother’s voice, she was hesitant to place the call. She could not erase the sad truth that her mother had not responded to her pleas that bitter day.

Perhaps she didn’t hear me. . . .

Grace liked to give folk the benefit of the doubt. She expected Mamma hadn’t wanted her or anyone else to see her go. But did that mean Mamma wouldn’t hear her out now?

Even though Grace was eager to know something—
anything—
she didn’t want to bring further pain to her family. They had already suffered too much.

Am I making excuses?

She sped up as she spotted the wooden shanty ahead. Well hidden behind a clump of trees situated off to the far left, away from the road, it had been placed there by the People. According to Mammi Adah, the bishop himself had chosen the spot a while back, saying it was a bad idea to flaunt the modern connection to the outside world, especially before those English folk who drove past it daily.

A lump crowded her throat at the thought of making the long-distance call in such seclusion, with the fancy world at her fingertips. As it was, she rarely needed to use this phone other than to summon a driver.

I must do this!

She spied the well-trod narrow dirt path and ducked her head under the low-lying branches of an ancient cluster of trees as she reached for the rickety door. Wishing she’d rehearsed what to say, she stopped in her tracks when she heard a dog barking across the way . . . and someone sobbing.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw through the leaves Jessica Spangler, sitting cross-legged in the grass, her face bowed as she wept. The family’s golden Labrador came running, hovering near Jessica as if to comfort her.

What the world?

Grace quickly abandoned the phone booth and hastened up the road toward her longtime English neighbor. Forlorn Jessica remained there on the rolling front lawn—her family’s handsome redbrick house with its white shutters behind her—as Grace hurried to console her.

I’ll call the inn later, Lord willing. . . .

The coffee shop was humming with customers, but Heather Nelson felt unexpectedly relaxed camping out in the corner spot for Wi-Fi hookup again this morning. The same snug location as yesterday. In fact, she’d claimed the table this past Sunday, too—“the Lord’s Day,” as the Riehl family referred to it. She had waited until Andy and Marian had taken two gray buggies full of children off to something called Preaching service before she’d left to check out this comfortable nook. Here, where she could gaze out at the soothing blue sky.

Today found her too distracted to work on her thesis—terrifying thoughts of what was going wrong with her body lay just below the surface. Instead Heather felt drawn to a particularly interesting health-related chat room. She was intrigued by someone with the screen name Wannalive, who was openly sharing about opting to go the naturopathic route for treatment. Curious to know more, Heather joined in the conversation herself. At first it seemed weird chatting with strangers about something so personal, but after a full hour, she felt as if this newfound connection to other cancer patients was a way of soothing her wounds from her recent breakup. So what if Devon Powers had dumped her for someone new? His calling off their engagement said more about him than her—she would be better off without him. And the truth was, Heather believed she was beginning to get past the initial shock. At least she no longer woke up crying in the night.

And at least I never told him everything. . . .
Cynicism had begun to set in, and chatting with someone like Wannalive just might be a productive way to deal with her loneliness. She was smart enough not to offer any pertinent information to this guy. After all, you never really knew whom you were having a discussion with online. But weary as she was of her own thoughts, Heather could definitely see how someone could become addicted to chat rooms. It wasn’t that she believed this new friend really cared about her. Not really. But he was
there,
which was a far cry from her former fiancé. Or from the few friends she had back at the College of William and Mary.