A Secret Identity (26 page)

“Only a few minutes. Maybe it’ll get rid of those bruises under your eyes.”

“I think I need more than a few minutes for that.”

A honeybee hummed beside me and flew on; a mosquito buzzed next to my ear. A squirrel chattered at us from overhead.

I sighed with contentment. “Do you treat all your clients with such excellent care?”

Immediately his hands stilled. “No,” he said. “Only the special ones.” But just like that, in spite of his nice words, the magic mood was gone.

I sighed, this time at my stupidity. I should have kept my mouth shut. I sat up straight, feeling the weight of my hair fall over my shoulders and back. “I guess we’d better get going if we want to see Great-Aunt Lizzie.”

Todd glanced at his wrist and nodded. “My fortunately waterproof watch tells me you’re right.”

He gathered up his billfold and the contents he’d laid out to dry, and we walked down the quiet road back toward the house. We weren’t dripping too badly by now, but we were a sight, clothes wrinkled, my hair wild and all over the place, Todd’s curls in a riot of unruly brown all over his head.

I stopped walking abruptly. “The company! I can’t walk through the living room looking like this. They’ll stare and think terrible things about me.”

Todd eyed me. “I don’t know. I think you look kind of cute.”

I grinned. “Thanks, but I probably look like a reprobate to them. What am I going to do? I have to change. I can’t go visit Lizzie like this.”

When we reached the edge of the yard, I had an inspiration. “Come on.” I grabbed his hand and dragged him toward Jake’s door.

Jake’s expression was priceless when he saw us.

“We fell into the stream,” I explained.

“Obviously.”

“And I don’t want to walk through the living room in front of everyone.”

“I don’t blame you. It is, after all, Sunday and you both look very un-Sabbath-like.”

“So I thought you could get Esther for me.”

“And she?”

“Could get some clothes for me.”

In a minute Jake had Esther, who took one look at Todd and me and was torn between laughter at how bedraggled we looked and horror that we had participated in such activities on a Sunday. And I could only imagine the “activities” that crossed her mind. But she was sweet and helpful, and in a short time I had dry clothes in hand. I shut myself in Jake’s bathroom and changed. I pulled my hair back in a loose ponytail and wrapped it with a scrunchie I found in the bottom of the purse she’d also brought for me.

By the time I emerged from Jake’s bathroom, I looked quite presentable, but I couldn’t say the same for my date.

“Jake, have you got a shirt Todd can borrow?” I asked. The blue one he had on was a woven cotton, and the water had done a number on it.

The men eyed each other and decided that a large knit polo shirt would do as well on one as the other. As far as jeans, Todd would just have to dry out as he went. He went to Jake’s room to change, and I heard a cry of anguish.

“His hair, I bet,” I told Jake. “The curls. Wild.” I whirled my hand around my head.

“Makes him look less buttoned down,” Jake said.

“My feeling exactly. But,” and I grinned sympathetically as Todd strode into the room looking grumpy, “he doesn’t agree.”

Jake had given Todd a red shirt, and between the bright color and the unchecked curls, he looked better than ever. He turned as red as his shirt when I told him so, but he didn’t stop grinning from the farm to Tel Hai.

Chapter 12

I
was very nervous about meeting Aunt Lizzie. I kept replaying Amos’s words, feeling their heat and fury.

“I forbid you to see my mother. I absolutely forbid it.”

“Am I making a mistake?” I asked Todd as we drove past the peaceful Amish farms on Beaver Dam Road. “Should I have listened to Amos?”

“I think you’re doing the right thing.” He slowed for the turn into Tel Hai. “Mrs. Yost wants to see you. She invited you to come, and she has every right to select her own company.” He reached over and squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry.”

Father God, it’s not that I want to worry; it’s just that I do. Please calm my fears and help us to have a good visit!

Once again we made our way to the third-floor, partial-care area, but this time the attendant led us directly to Lizzie’s room.

“She’s been looking forward to your visit all day,” the attendant said with a smile. “I’m just glad someone is visiting her! It makes me angry that her family ignores her like they do. There’s a niece who visits her every so often, but she lives up in Camp Hill. That’s a pretty good trip, so she doesn’t come as often as Lizzie would like. But she comes more frequently than the son.”

That’s Alma, I thought. She comes but Amos and Jessica don’t.

“Lizzie is one of my favorite people,” the attendant said. “In fact, everyone here loves her. But then I’m sure you know how wonderful she is.”

I merely smiled, thinking an explanation would be much too complicated.

“Come in,” a tremulous voice called when we knocked.

We walked into a large room filled with furniture, personal treasures, books, and Aunt Lizzie. The overall effect was of too much for the confined space, but even so it seemed a pleasant place to live. As I glanced around, I realized that she’d had to weed her possessions to a bare minimum to fit them into this space. How did you do that when memories were attached to so many things? I could just imagine her saying, “I’ll keep this pretty piece of porcelain my husband gave me, but I’ll get rid of the one my parents gave me. I’ll keep this book I love, but I’ll give away that one that I also love.”

How hard it must be, that putting away of life.

A love seat and an easy chair sat at right angles near the door, ready for company. A bookcase hugged one wall, and she could have won a competition with Dr. Reasoner for getting the most books into a limited area. Her bed was against the back wall of the room, and a dresser faced it. Photos sat on the bookcase and the dresser, and what looked to me to be original watercolors hung on the walls. Several beautiful petit point pillows sat on the chairs and the bed, and I wondered if Lizzie had done them herself. A rug in fragile creams, roses, and greens was echoed in the window treatments, bedspread, and slipcovers.

Lizzie sat in a rocking chair beside the window. She’d been reading a Readers Digest condensed book. She put it down and rose slowly to her feet. “I read lots of these now,” she said, pointing to the book. “I don’t have enough time left to read the unabridged versions, you see. I’m eighty-seven, and there’s so much more to squeeze in!”

She walked across her room slightly unsteady, but her eyes were keenly alert as they looked Todd and me over.

“Now I know you must be Cara Bentley,” she said to me. “And Alma was right. You do have the look of Morgan about you. But who’s this?”

I introduced Todd.

“Your lawyer?” Aunt Lizzie said. “My, my. I don’t know many people who come to call with their lawyer in tow.”

Todd took the old woman’s proffered hand and shook it. “I’m here tonight as Cara’s special friend. And yours.” The smile he gave her would have stolen my breath, and it tickled me that Aunt Lizzie wasn’t entirely immune either as she preened at his attention.

“Ah,” she said as she indicated we should sit on the love seat. “I know all about special friends. That’s how Harlan used to describe himself until the day we married. After that he said he was a privileged friend, a very privileged friend.” And she sank into the easy chair and sighed. “I miss that man. I truly do.”

I studied Aunt Lizzie. If we were related, as I believed we were, she was Pop’s sister. I was seized by a feeling of disbelief. All my life or at least as far back as I could remember, our family had been the four of us, five when Marnie joined us. To think that there was a woman out there who would have expanded that circle was almost beyond comprehension.

But if I looked like Morgan, Aunt Lizzie did not look like Pop. She was petite to his huge, even considering the fact that she had undoubtedly shrunk with age. She had delicate features to his strong ones. And she was a reader to his doer. I was somewhat disappointed at the lack of family resemblance.

Then she put out her hand in a gesture that was so Pop that my heart stopped.

“Do that again,” I whispered.

“What?”

“That hand movement. Please.”

And she did it again, just the same. The hand was considerably smaller, the nails delicate and cared for as his never were, but the movement was all Pop.

“My mother used to make that gesture all the time,” Lizzie said.

“So did Pop,” I said. “And so does Ward.”

“Who is Ward, my dear?”

“My brother.” And I began talking about my family, telling her stories, making her laugh and, when I told of Pop’s death just a few months ago, making her cry.

When I finally ran out of steam, she said, “I have wondered for years if my brother was happy.” She looked at me through misty eyes. “It is a great joy to hear just how happy he was.”

“You believe Pop was your brother?”

“I have no doubts, my dear. No doubts. I know it. And now I will tell you my story.” She leaned back in her chair and stared at the middle distance, seeing her own mental pictures, her own scenes as she recounted her tale.

“My brother Josh and I had a happy home. Mom and Dad loved each other and us very much. We laughed a lot, but I always thought there was a touch of sorrow about Mom that I couldn’t understand. One time when I was about nineteen, old enough to be brave and young enough to be foolish, I asked her what made her sad, especially around the same date every November. She wouldn’t tell me. All I knew was what we all observed: the beginning of that month was always very difficult for her, but by Thanksgiving she was usually back to her normal self.”

I leaned forward. “Pop was born in the beginning of November.”

Lizzie nodded. “I eventually learned that, but not for many years. In fact I was 55 when I learned Mom’s story. My father was already several years gone, and she was dying. It was the beginning of November—”

“Sit down, Lizzie,” Madeleine said. “Stop fussing over me.”

Liz sat. “I’m only trying to help, Mom.”

Madeleine smiled the best she could for November, which is to say not very convincingly. “I know. But it drives me crazy.”

Liz nodded and watched her mother. The older woman lay on pillows, looking weak, fragile, brittle enough to break into pieces if touched. Her weight had dropped precipitously in recent days, and she was having trouble keeping anything down. She was dying rapidly with no possibility of reversal.

The thought of losing her mother made Liz want to weep. No, to wail. Her mother was her friend, her confidant, her sounding board. No matter what Liz’s problem or need, her mom had always been there. She had taught Liz to pray, to trust God, to believe in Jesus, to accept loss as part of life when Liz’s three-week-old daughter, Abigail, had died of crib death.

“Did we sin that God had to punish us so?” Liz had cried.

“No,” her mom replied, and she put her arms around her weeping daughter. As she hugged Liz fiercely, she paraphrased the words of Jesus: “This happened that God might be glorified.”

And because her mother said it, Liz believed it and survived with her faith intact.

“This is my last November,” Madeleine said in a voice that was stronger than it had been in recent weeks.

Liz made a disclaiming sound and a quick hand movement of denial.

“Yes, it is, Lizzie. But it’s all right. I don’t mind. Novembers have always been a time of deep pain for me. Enos tried his best to help me, and I loved him for trying. He’d hold me and love me and whisper soothingly in my ear. But he never understood how or why I felt such pain year after year even though he knew its cause. Always my heart breaking. Always a bit of me dying.”

Liz looked at her mother and dared to ask for the first time in many, many years the question she’d asked at nineteen: “What causes you such hurt, Mom? What tears you away from us at this time every year? What is it that breaks your heart?”

“It’s your brother, dear.”

“Josh?” Liz couldn’t have been more surprised. Josh was a wonderful person. In fact, he was the person she admired most in the world next to her mom. He set a standard of Christian living that was without peer, and his wonderful sense of humor prevented her or anyone from thinking him too holy, too pure for real folks to like.

“No, no, Liz. Not Josh. Lehman.”