A Secret Identity (17 page)

He shook his head. “Too much speed, some wet leaves, and someone who ran the stop sign. I braked, skidded, and ended up with my motorcycle on my back.”

“Oh, Jake!”

He shrugged. “I survived.”

“Jake?” It was Esther, standing in the doorway, pretty as could be with her rosy cheeks and thick hair. I’d noticed that many Amish women had thinning hair, a combination of inbreeding and the constant pulling of the hair into such severe lines, I guessed. But Esther would never have that problem. Why didn’t Elam realize how lovely she was? I wondered.

“Jake, Cara already said she wouldn’t be here for dinner. How about you?”

“No. I’m going to the hospital now to see Mom so I can get back and still have time to study. I’ll pick at something when I get back. Don’t worry about me.”

Esther nodded. “There’ll be extra chicken potpie, I’m sure. And I made a lemon chiffon pie.”

After she went back into the house, Jake leaned toward me and whispered, “Lemon chiffon is Elam’s favorite.”

Forty-five minutes later Todd and I came to the intersection where Jake had lost his life as he’d known it. It was just an ordinary country intersection with open fields on two corners, a house and business on the third, and a thick stand of evergreens with new homes built among them on the fourth. Stop signs were in place to prevent drivers from coming off Beaver Dam Road onto the hills of Route 10 too quickly. But stop signs only achieved their purposes if people obeyed them.

“It’s a wonder he didn’t die,” Todd said. “It was a brutal accident.”

We turned onto Beaver Dam Road, and I looked for the house where Jake’s angel of mercy lived.

“Martin!” I said as I read the name on a mailbox. “That’s where Rose Martin lives!”

“Yep,” said Todd. “Personally I think he ought to meet her and thank her, but he’s a stubborn guy.”

The little valley through which Beaver Dam Road wound spread out around us, golden in the slanting light of evening. Shortly Todd turned onto the beautifully landscaped campus that was Tel Hai with its cottages, apartments, medical facilities, and rising over all, the white chapel spire pointing all residents heavenward.

My thoughts went heavenward too.
Dear Lord, let this meeting go well. Let Aunt Lizzie give me some concrete information. Let me find the answers!

As we drove to the parking lot, we were separated from the neighboring Amish farm only by a thin strand of electric fence. I could see the farmer standing on a piece of farm machinery as a six-horse team pulled it through a field. The beauty of the scene barely registered. I was caught in the drama of my quest and hope for impending answers.

“Oh, Todd, this is so great!” I said.

He misunderstood me and thought I meant the facility was great. “My father likes it here. He’s got his own little cottage on the other side of the campus, and he can get as involved in the activities offered or be as solitary as he chooses.” He paused and then continued in a flat tone. “And with him, it seems solitude wins every time.”

I was pulled from my thoughts of Aunt Lizzie by the barely concealed distress in his voice. I looked at him with interest. “Do I detect a bit of disapproval here?”

Todd squirmed and ran a hand through his hair, a move I was learning to know meant agitation. The curls on the left side of his head sproinged free. “I know I’m being ridiculous. He’s always been a man who keeps his own counsel, who ignores people and emotion. Why should I expect him to change at this stage of his life? I just keep hoping that he’ll get involved in the community activities, maybe even with people since he lives right in the middle of them.” He shrugged. “
Casus fortuitus non est supponenous
.”

I waited for a translation, and when none came, I said, “Has anyone ever told you that this Latin habit of yours is a bit frustrating—not to mention bizarre?”

He looked surprised at the acid in my voice. “A fortuitous event is not to be presumed,” he immediately translated.

“Thank you.” I unsnapped my seat belt. “It sounded better in Latin. Then I didn’t know it was in passive voice. We writers hate passive voice.”

“Passive,” Todd repeated. “That’s just the word for Dad. He’s a passive man. He’s content to let life slide by without even attempting to grab hold of the things it has to offer. Wouldn’t that bother you to watch?”

“Probably, because I’m about as compulsive as you. But what’s more important, that he be happy with his life or that you be happy with it?”

He looked at me with a thoughtful frown. “Can you separate one from the other when it’s family you’re dealing with?”

Since I didn’t know that answer any more than he did, I climbed out of the car. Time to find Aunt Lizzie. After asking a couple of people for directions, we finally ended up in the partial-care wing, third floor, talking with the woman in charge.

“You’re the guest who’s come to visit Elizabeth Yost, are you?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yes. Great-Aunt Lizzie.” I spoke like this relationship was definite, absolute, immutable. I felt rather than saw Todd’s unhappiness.

“Well,” the woman said, and immediately I knew I had a problem. I glanced at Todd and saw the same response on his face. Surely this wouldn’t be one of those so near-and-yet-so-far situations, would it?

“I don’t want to alarm you,” the woman continued, “but we had to send Elizabeth to the hospital about thirty minutes ago.”

“Oh, no!” My first thought was purely selfish. I’d lost my source, maybe forever! Hard on its coattails came more charitable thoughts of the woman herself. “What happened? Will she be all right?”

“She began having heart palpitations to the point that the nurses knew she needed more than we could do for her here. They were afraid of a full-blown heart episode—no small thing for a woman her age.”

“No small thing for anyone at any age,” I muttered.

The woman spread her hands in regret. “I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t travel too far.”

“That doesn’t matter,” I said.

“I know she was very excited about seeing you. She told everyone at dinner that she was having a special guest tonight.”

A sudden thought chilled me. “You don’t think I’m the reason she had the heart attack, do you?”

The woman looked at me strangely, but then she didn’t know why I was here. I looked at Todd, my face bleak. Maybe my coming was a bad kind of exciting, distressing to her, upsetting.

He smiled briefly at me, took my arm, and turned me toward an exit. “Thank you for your help,” he said to the woman. “Can you tell us which hospital Mrs. Yost is in?”

“Brandywine Hospital. It’s the closest, and they’ve got good emergency care there.”

Todd nodded his thanks and led me outside.

I leaned against the side of his car, feeling the heat of the metal through my slacks. I put a hand to my forehead and rubbed the ache behind my left eye.

“What if is my fault?” I whispered.

“Hey,” he said, leaning against the car beside me, crossing one ankle over the other. “It isn’t your fault.”

“You don’t know that.”

“True. But you don’t know that it is either.”

His voice was soft but firm, and I looked at him gratefully. “You’re right. I don’t.” I felt liberated, like a door had been thrown open and the gentle breeze of his logic had blown away my assumed guilt. “I don’t know for a fact that Aunt Lizzie’s health difficulties today are my fault, and until I do…‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’” I said, quoting Matthew 6:34.

He nodded. “Good girl. And we’ll call the hospital to see how she is after they’ve had time to assess things. Okay?”

I studied him, my arms folded across my chest.
Lord, I can’t believe this guy. He’s so nice! I could like him, I mean really like him, so easily it scares me
.

He stared back, his mouth quirked in a half smile. “Are you all right?”

I blinked. “Yes.” I stepped away from the car to face him and grabbed the first topic of conversation that occurred to me. “You know what? You need to run your hand through the other side of your hair.”

He looked as if he couldn’t quite believe what I was saying.

“Half of it’s all free and curly,” I explained. “The other half is still sprayed within an inch of its life.”

“What?” He grabbed the outside mirror in alarm and twisted it until he could see his reflection. “Oh no!” His hand went immediately to the springy curls, and he tried to plaster them back to the rigidity of the controlled ones.

“No, no,” I said, grabbing at his arm. “Free the other side.”

He stared at me. “You can’t be serious.”

“Go on,” I encouraged. “You can do it. Let those beautiful curls spring to life. You have to or you’ll look lopsided for the rest of the evening.”

“Isn’t it enough that you make me wear atrocious ties? Do you have to make me look like a leftover hippie too?”

I laughed. “Come on. Free those curls!”

With a groan he ran a hand through the restrained side of his hair. Immediately the curls sprang to exuberant life.

“Look at me,” I told him.

He did, his face lemon sour.

“You’ve got the most wonderful hair,” I said. “Why do you keep it a secret? You could have all the women in town lining up to run their fingers through it.”

“Yeah, just what I want,” he groused, but I could see a sparkle of pleasure peeking through his frown.

“Why do you dislike it? Do you think curls are for girls or something?”

“Well, they’re not very professional looking. Do you think a jury or judge is going to listen to a frizzy-haired bozo?”

You, guy, will never be a bozo!
For once I was prudent enough to keep my mouth shut.

“You just like it because you don’t have to live with it,” he continued, enjoying his grump. “You have wonderfully straight hair,” he said as he indicated my hair, which tonight hung down my back from a barrette at my nape.

“I might not live with your curls, but I have to look at them. And I like to look at the freed curls. Now, let’s go visit your father.”

That little sparkle of suppressed pleasure disappeared. Sighing, he opened my car door and walked around to his side.

“You know, Cara, how you talk about what family is? You think it’s bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh? Well, you’re about to meet bone of my bone. We’ve shared DNA, genes, and a house, but for as long as I can remember, at least since my mother died, we have not been what I think of as family. We’ve merely been related.”

He looked at me over the roof of the car and repeated in a voice both melancholy and hard, “We’ve merely been related.”

He got in the car and we drove across the campus and parked.

I don’t know what I expected in Dr. Milton Reasoner after Todd’s bleak comments broke my heart, but it wasn’t the handsome, white-haired gentleman who eventually answered the door when Todd rang his cottage’s bell.

“Well, Toddy.” It was a statement, like Dr. Reasoner was pronouncing the temperature: 78 degrees. Well, Toddy. No surprise, no pleasure, just acceptance.

“Hello, Dad.”

The two men stared at each other through the screen while I slowly turned gray from the passage of time. Finally I could stand the silence no longer and spoke.

“Hello, Dr. Reasoner. I’m Cara Bentley.” I wore my best smile and most scintillating manner.

Todd looked slightly pained, but he stepped belatedly into the breech. “Dad,” he said, “I’d like to introduce Cara Bentley. She’s a client.”

“I’m pleased to meet you.” Dr. Reasoner looked at me with a spark of interest in his eyes. At least I think there was a spark of interest. We were still standing on the porch talking to him through the screen so it was hard to tell.

Suddenly Dr. Reasoner came to himself. “Oh!” He reached for the door. “Please come in, Toddy. And bring your client.”

Did I imagine a slight pause before the word “client”?

Todd took the opened door from his father, and Dr. Reasoner turned into the house. As he walked away, I bumped Todd’s arm. He looked at me questioningly.

“Toddy?” I said softly but with as much malice as I could manage. After all, he’d introduced me as a mere client. He deserved to be tormented.

He glared at me. “If you ever tell anyone, so help me I’ll triple your billing.”

“Nasty, nasty, Toddy,” I said with a sly smile.

We walked into a living room furnished with a sofa, a leather recliner, and books. Books were everywhere—on shelves that lined three walls, in piles on the completely uncarpeted floor, on the sofa, on a coffee table, and on the end table by the recliner. They sat upright like in a library, soldiers at attention, or lay flat in high, haphazard stacks, children’s block towers awaiting the right vibration level to tumble wildly. Big books, fat books, slim books. Leather covers, hard covers, soft covers. And all looked read, handled, and appreciated.

I wanted to stop and read the titles, but with a firm hand on my back Todd hustled me toward a glass-enclosed back porch. On the way, I glimpsed a bedroom and a den, both rooms holding a minimum of furniture and a maximum of books. The porch was awash with more books piled helter skelter, several open and laid on their faces, spines to the ceiling. The one nearest me was
Alice Through the Looking Glass
by Lewis Carroll. A glass-topped table that I was certain was meant for summer dining was instead a repository for garishly colored paperbacks, mostly mysteries, espionage, and fantasy. I saw several Dick Francis titles, a smattering of Robert Ludlum and Helen MacInnes, as well as Stephen Lawhead’s entire Pendragon Cycle and Donita Paul’s dragon series. Face down on the table beside what was obviously his reading chair was the first of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, a leather bound copy of
Great Expectations
, and a much-read paperback whose title I couldn’t see from this angle.

“Oh, Dr. Reasoner,” I said breathily. “You are a man after my own heart.”

I heard a gurgling noise from Todd, half astonishment, half alarm. Dr. Reasoner looked at me, startled and uncertain.

“The books,” I said, sweeping my arm wide. “The books!”

Dr. Reasoner gave a nod, relaxing now that he knew exactly what I meant. “You love them too?”