A Secret Identity

GAYLE ROPER

HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

EUGENE, OREGON

Some Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version
^®
, NIV
^®
. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. Some are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Cover by Dugan Design Group, Bloomington, Minnesota

Author photo on backcover by Ken Rada Photography

Published in association with the Books & Such Literary Agency, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370,
www.booksandsuch.biz
.

A SECRET IDENTITY
Copyright © 1998 by Gayle Roper
Published 2010 by Harvest House Publishers
Eugene, Oregon 97402
www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roper, Gayle G.

[Document]

A secret identity / Gayle Roper.

p. cm.

Originally published as: The document. Sisters, Or. : Palisades, 1998.

ISBN 978-0-7369-2587-7 (pbk.)

1. Amish—Fiction. 2. Adopted children—Fiction. 3. Manic-depressive persons—Fiction. 4. Penn-sylvania—Fiction. 5. Christian fiction. I. Title.

PS3568.O68D63 2010

813’.54—dc22

2009047460        

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 / DP-SK / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

With affection for
Bob and Linda
Rick and Eileen
Barb and Doug
Glenn and Pam
and all the other parents
involved with us in
the adventure of adoption
.

BIEMSDERFER FAMILY TREE

God sets the lonely in families
…
P
SALM
68:6

Contents

Biemsderfer Family Tree

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Epilogue

Discussion Questions

A Note to Readers

About the Author

Coming January 1, 2011 Book 3 in The Amish Farm Trilogy

And be sure to read the first book in The Amish Farm Trilogy

More fine Amish fiction from Harvest House Publishers…

AmishReader.com

Chapter 1

W
hen I look back on the three-month period that effectively and thoroughly changed the course of my life, I sometimes wonder which event had the greatest impact. Was it the finding of Pop’s papers? Perhaps it was the terrible and vengeful things that happened as a result of following to its logical conclusion what I found in those papers? Or was it meeting Todd?

Maybe the best answer is all of the above, though it could be argued that without Pop’s papers, without “The Document,” nothing of import would have happened.

I sat on my bed in the Horse and Buggy Motel in Bird-in-Hand, Pennsylvania, and stared out the dirty picture window at the real horse and buggy standing on the other side of the street. A woman wearing a white head covering and a light-blue dress that reached halfway to her ankles stood by the chestnut horse, stroking its neck as she talked to some tourists clustered around her. I could tell they were tourists by their shorts and T-shirts and hair. Even someone as ignorant of the subtleties of Lancaster County life as I was knew the purple-and-red hair of one of the grumpy-looking teenage girls wasn’t Amish.

My long-haired calico cat, Rainbow, sat beside me as straight as any well-trained poodle waiting for a treat, watching the scene out the window intently. Usually she had all the spine of a noodle, collapsing in a boneless pile wherever she was. Now she blinked thoughtfully as the tourists climbed into the buggy and the woman followed. In a moment the buggy rolled onto Route 340, the horse’s front legs prancing high like a trotter pulling a sulky around a racetrack.

Was the driver an Amish lady? Did Amish ladies give buggy rides to tourists? Somehow I doubted it since even I knew that as a people the Amishsically kept to themselves. As I watched the buggy disappear, I thought again about how little I knew about this most interesting and obvious subculture in Pennsylvania.

I reached out and stroked Rainbow on the white spot under her chin. “I guess I need to do some quick research and then some sightseeing if I’m going to be here for a while.”

Rainbow responded by yawning, marching across the bed, and curling up on the pillow. She had found today’s trip from our home in Silver Spring, Maryland, to be very tiring and unnerving in the extreme, and she’d spent the entire two-and-a-half-hour trip yelling for help. That’s exactly what her plaintive cries sounded like: “Elp! Elp!” in high soprano.

I left Rainbow to her dreams and walked to the motel office. Against one wall was a large rack of tourist brochures. I took one of everything. Several books on Amish life were displayed in a carousel, and I bought four. Hopefully the writers knew what they were talking about, and I’d get legitimate information, not touristy swill.

Back in the room I studied the brochures and found I could do everything from visiting an amusement park to enjoying outlet shopping, from touring a genuine Amish farm to eating seven sweets and seven sours, whatever they were. I could see a play at a Christian theater called Sight and Sound or hear a lecture at a reconstruction of the tabernacle of the Old Testament at the Mennonite Visitors Center. How in the world could I determine what was genuine and what was money-making fluff?

I gave the books I’d bought a more thorough once over and was encouraged by the academic letters after the authors’ names. I settled beside Rainbow and read for about an hour, and then I felt too antsy to stay in the room any longer. I left the brochures and books scattered across the bed and took myself for a blessedly silent drive.

I followed twisting, two-lane macadam roads wherever they led me, figuring I could always find my way back to 340 if I got lost. I rolled down the car windows and enjoyed the sweet, heady scent of wild honeysuckle, the clean aroma of newly mown grass, and the distinctive smell of a country staple: cow manure. I eyed the fields of alfalfa, tomatoes, and corn glowing golden in the slanting light of the evening sun. I found myself filled with expectancy and a warm sense of purpose, a somewhat surprising feeling considering the emotional jolt I’d recently received and the changes it had forced on me.

Maybe my inner glow was because I had chosen to make at least some of the changes myself instead of someone imposing them on me. I had resolved to come and search all on my own. Me, Miss Don’t-Rock-My-Boat. I’d come in spite of advice to the contrary from everyone, including the almost-family family lawyer and my brother, Ward. I squinted into the setting sun and felt almost happy for the first time in a long time.