Forever Amish (24 page)

CHAPTER 31

As I swept shards of glass and debris from the kitchen floor, I couldn't shake the feeling I'd been violated. The image of a stranger's grubby hands pilfering through my personal belongings and trashing what he considered of no value filled me with revulsion. Was this a one-man crime? I'd heard of teenagers taking over temporarily vacant houses to party while the owners were out of town, but I saw no evidence of cigarette butts or booze.

I heard an automobile coast up and park behind the Mustang. I figured maybe it was the patrolman or that Ralph had returned. Ignoring Ginger's whining from the laundry room, I set the broom aside and went to the kitchen door. It occurred to me that Pops and I rarely used the front door, just like the Amish. Well, why should that surprise me? My father was Amish. That topsy-turvy reality still made me feel as if I'd just stepped off a merry-go-round.

I opened the door and saw Donald exiting his sleek black Audi S8 sedan. He wore a white Polo shirt and tan khakis. He strutted over to the back step, putting me at eye level with him. All the better for him to glare at me, but I was determined not to look away.

“My mother's having a hissy fit since I told her the wedding's off,” Donald said, eyeing the pile of debris on the dustpan in my hand. “Her blood pressure's sky-high. If she has a stroke, I'll hold you responsible.”

“Excuse me? You want me to fill your mother in that you've been sleeping with who knows how many women? Give me a break.” I brought the dustpan to the plastic garbage receptacle under the sink; bits of broken glass and the handle of my favorite china teacup fell in, filling it.

“She won't believe you.”

“I don't doubt that. You had me fooled.” I set the dustpan on the floor, then tugged the plastic bag from the garbage container and tied the ends. I lugged it to the back door, and Donald took it to the large garbage can sitting outside. He stuffed the bag in, then replaced the cover. Judging from his smooth hands and manicured nails—the opposite of Armin's—he hadn't taken the garbage out in many years, if ever. But I wasn't being fair. I knew he'd been pampered; his parents had a live-in housekeeper and someone came to his apartment twice a week to clean.

“Thanks.” I looked into his symmetrical face and recalled why I'd found him so appealing. He was what most unmarried women sought in a husband—wealthy, gregarious, a go-getter. But my attraction to him had dissipated like the melting gray snow back in Lancaster County.

He stepped into the room and scanned the kitchen with a look of disdain. “This place was a dump before this happened. I should have made a U-turn the first night I came to pick you up for a date.” He scrubbed his hands with liquid soap next to the sink and dried them on a paper towel, which he dropped on the counter.

At least the perpetrator hadn't unplugged the refrigerator, but the door hadn't been closed all the way, allowing warm air inside. I'd better face the fact: anything perishable was rotten. I opened the refrigerator door and a wave of rancid air wafted out. A carton of eggs, the milk, and a container of leftover chili were tipped on their sides, their contents dribbling to the bottom of the fridge. Thinking about someone taking the time to destroy our food filled me with disgust. I recalled Esther's saving scraps for their hogs. Nothing wasted.

“Yuck.” Donald recoiled, revulsion distorting his features. “That old fridge should be hauled off to the junkyard. It's a breeding ground for bacteria, probably teeming with salmonella.”

I shoved my hands into rubber gloves. Pops and I couldn't afford a new refrigerator.

I stretched another plastic liner into the garbage bin and scooted the rectangular container over to the refrigerator. Trying not to inhale, I removed everything—either threw the food away or set it on the counter. Then I brought out a bucket, squirted in Mr. Clean, and filled it with hot water—the way I thought Rhoda would. The sharp odor of scouring solvent filled the room.

Donald lingered close by. “While I was here the evening you took off, I demanded to know the real reason why your mother wasn't coming to our wedding.”

“I told you she left when I was a baby. I haven't seen or heard from her since.”

“When I kept prodding, old Honest Ed let the truth slip, that he never married her.”

Feeling the veins in my neck bulge, I swung around to face him.

He smirked. “You know what that makes you?”

“Don't say it.” I wanted to cover my ears, but my hands were encased in gloves.

“You're illegitimate.” He aimed his index finger into my chest. “You, Miss High-and-Mighty, have been acting like a perfect little princess, as if you're too good to marry into my family.” His words skewered into me.

“That wasn't my intention.” I felt an ache under my breastbone and moisture accumulating on my forehead.

“My family has a reputation to preserve.” Donald poked my shoulder with his index finger. “Thank God our engagement wasn't announced in the paper,” he said.

Hoping he'd vamoose, I turned to the sink, poured in an opened pint of half-and-half, and watched the putrid liquid slither down the pipe.

“It looks like your past is catching up with you,” he said, goading me. Why didn't he leave?

“I did not knowingly deceive you, Donald.” I noticed a couple bottles of beer Pops kept on hand for guests; they were tipped on their sides in the refrigerator but unopened. A teenager would've swigged one down. No, an adult had done this. A revolting thought.

“Why exactly were you here a few days ago?” I glanced over my shoulder and saw Donald's face—white and rigid—an ugly mask of anger, an expression I'd rarely witnessed before.

He edged closer. “Are you accusing me?”

“No, but I thought you might have seen something, like fresh tire tracks.”

“Did you tell the police I'd been here?”

“Yes.” I sniffed a cube of butter and decided I'd better discard it.

“You have your nerve,” he said. I pivoted toward him. His eyes bulged as he grabbed hold of my upper arms, clamping them, hurting me. The butter jettisoned from my hand and skidded across the floor.

Fury rose up inside me. I tried to wriggle out of his grasp, but he lifted me off the ground. I was paralyzed, couldn't catch my breath. I should knee him or scream, Pops would tell me. But I felt helpless, like a snared rabbit. And who would hear my cry?

“Let me go!” I managed.

Finally, Donald loosened his grasp. Off balance, I stumbled backward, whacking my spine against the counter and landing on my rump.

“Leave this minute,” I got out, afraid his anger would escalate.

Ginger barked from the laundry room. I heard her nails digging under the door, trying to work her way into the kitchen.

Donald turned toward the laundry room. “Shut up, you miserable mutt.” Spittle flew from his mouth; he swiped his hand across it. I was horrified at the brutality that lay hidden behind his typically composed surface of charm.

“Don't speak to her that way,” I said from the floor. “She's expecting a litter.”

“Another one of your secrets?”

“I've never lied to you, Donald.” A dull ache permeated my lower back and shoulders. I unfolded my legs, got to my knees, and hoisted myself to my feet. Then I passed him on wobbly legs and opened the door to the laundry room.

Ginger propelled herself into the kitchen—her short legs scrambling—and nipped Donald's ankle. I'd never seen one of my dogs bite a person before.

“Why you little—” Donald's leg swung out to kick her but missed, his foot hitting a cupboard door, cracking the wood.

“Don't you dare!” I said.

“Are you threatening me? I suppose you're going to call the police and attempt to have me arrested.” Balancing on one leg, he bent his other and pulled down his argyle sock to examine his ankle. No evidence of broken skin or blood, for which I was thankful. “I should report your vicious dog.” He hopped on one leg. “Have her put to sleep.”

I didn't believe he was in pain. I, on the other hand, felt as though I'd been slammed against a wall. If only Pops were here.

Donald seemed to regain his usual I'm-cool-and-in-control deportment. He put his weight back on his supposedly hurt ankle. “Sorry I lost it, Sally. The strain—”

“You'd better go.” I gathered up Ginger, held her to my chest. Both our hearts were beating triple time. I prayed she wouldn't go into early labor.

His lip lifted in a sneer. “You should have heard your father the other day.” Donald snorted. “Good old Honest Ed isn't so happy-go-lucky when you're not around.”

I wouldn't admit I'd seen Pops lose his temper a few times. On the car lot last year, on a rainy day after an ornery customer had haggled for an hour then walked away hurling insults, Pops had thrown a hubcap so hard it hydroplaned halfway across the lot. But I didn't believe for an instant he'd ruin our home.

“He's trailer trash,” Donald said. “That's what he is.”

Barbed missiles skated at the end of my tongue, but I feared he would retaliate. And I recalled the Amish minister last week speaking about turning the other cheek. I longed to be back in Lancaster County among the gentle Plain people.

“I'm done wasting my breath on you.” His face blotched, he moved to the open door.

Much as I wanted him out of the house, I said, “Wait a second.” I closeted Ginger in the laundry room and unzipped my purse. I fished to the bottom until I found my engagement ring. “Here, take this.”

His hand snatched it away like a frog's tongue snagging a gnat and jammed it in his hip pocket, then he jogged out the door. A moment later, his tires spun out of the driveway.

 

CHAPTER 32

That evening, after spending hours scouring and mopping the kitchen, I remade my bed with clean sheets and started an Amish novel I'd brought home from the store. I had a fitful night's sleep, even with the bed lamp on and the pepper spray in the nightstand drawer. I'd located the small vial and my locket—flattened and its chain broken—under my bed's dust ruffle, along with a ritzy Montblanc fountain pen that looked like the one Donald owned.

Around 2:00 a.m., Ginger's cool nose touched my fingertips, rousing me from slumber. My first thought was that she was ready to whelp her litter. My legs tangled in the sheets, I freed myself and sat straight up in bed. “What's wrong, girl?”

She gazed into my face. Normally, when ready to give birth, my mama dogs were restless, nested, and panted, just for starters. But Ginger showed no signs of impending delivery.

“You okay?” I asked.

She stared back at me with soulful eyes. Ginger normally announced the arrival of strangers, but her ears were pricked and her breathing calm. I wished Mr. Big were still alive. Well, I wished a lot of things.

Ginger glanced around the room. It occurred to me: her keen nostrils could detect the odor of the person who'd pillaged our house. Dogs' sense of smell was far superior to people's. Was that one reason why she'd bitten Donald?

A sickening thought flooded me. The intruder—Donald?—had returned. I leaped to my feet and locked the bedroom door, then made sure the windows were closed securely. Not that a man couldn't break down my puny door or punch a rock through the glass. Whoever had vandalized the house must've known there was nothing of value. I felt a fresh round of anxiety invade me as I envisioned Donald marauding through my bureau drawers.

“Something wrong?” I asked Ginger. She yawned, padded over to her bed—a blanket-lined basket—and flopped on her side, her ribs expanded.

After stubbing my big toe, I climbed into bed and pulled the covers around my chin. To ease myself back to sleep, I pretended I was in the Zooks' upstairs bedroom. Reuben was in the living room reading the Bible: “Do not be anxious about anything … present your requests to God.”

The next morning as I emerged from the groggy sheaths of slumber, I forgot where I was. Pretty lame, since I'd slept in this bedroom my whole life. My ears strained for the sounds of cows leaving the milk house, Rhoda's jovial voice in the kitchen, songbirds volleying up and down the octaves. And my nostrils strained for the fragrance of cooking bacon and dark coffee. Instead, I heard the steady stream of cars motoring by on the highway out front. On a Sunday morning, were all these people going to church?

I wished I were spending the day with the Zooks. Rhoda had explained that the congregation met for a service every other Sunday. Today would be a restful time of visiting friends and entertaining neighbors and relatives. I wondered how many would gather at the Zooks' home. How would Armin spend his day?

I peeked at the clock and realized it was already nine o'clock. I'd slept eight hours, but I didn't feel restored. My neck, back, and arms were stiff and bruised from Donald's rough treatment. He could have easily thrown me to the floor. I supposed I should've been grateful he hadn't suppressed his anger; I might have been sucked back in and married an abusive man.

Ginger stretched to her feet and nosed the bedroom door. “Time to go out?” I asked. “You must be hungry.” I left her in the enclosed yard for a few minutes, then put her in the laundry room and erected a low portable partition. I gave her fresh water and spooned canned dog food I ordinarily saved for special occasions into her dish.

The kitchen looked clean, better than it had in ages, but I didn't want to be here. I drank black coffee and gobbled dry cereal. Who but a deranged sicko would smash eggs and allow milk to spoil, and break the house apart with such violence? I'd heard most burglaries took under ten minutes. Intruders entered the home, found pillowcases to carry the loot, and took off. But as far as I could tell, nothing was missing. I figured Donald was the perpetrator, but I doubted I could prove it. If I pressed charges he'd probably hire a hotshot attorney and report Ginger.

I'd heard the Amish turned the other cheek and never retaliated. I mulled over the biblical principle and decided to abide by their practices even if I weren't one of them. There was no point in holding on to anger; nothing good came from seeking revenge.

Wandering into the living room, my shoulders slumped as I saw the disarray still awaiting me. If Rhoda were here, she'd have already straightened the house and scrubbed every inch of it. I decided my best approach was to tidy up, then vacuum. I brought out the old stand-up Hoover, plugged it in, and flipped on the switch to make sure it worked. The whirring rattled my eardrums like pebbles in a soda can. After staying in the Zooks' quiet house, I'd forgotten how much the noise grated on my ears. I'd spent a lifetime ignoring the obvious, sidestepping to make others happy. I turned off the vacuum.

I noticed my framed photo from high school graduation on the floor, its glass cracked. I stared at the image and hardly recognized myself. My hair had turned darker since high school, and I wondered if I'd fabricated my smile even back then. Had I ever been happy? My vision blurred in and out of sharpness, until I set the photo aside.

A mishmash of papers and envelopes lay on the floor on the worn shag carpet around Pops's small desk. I knelt down to retrieve them. It was going to be a long day, I told myself, so I sat on the swivel chair and took the time to straighten the envelopes and papers according to size.

The largest letter was from a local bank on Route 7, which I figured was a sales pitch to buy CDs. But the words
Payment Due!
in bold red ink grabbed my attention. Some stupid advertising ploy. Using my thumbnail, I ripped open the envelope and slid out a letter, which in essence said Pops was two months behind on his mortgage payments. Huh? Pops had informed me he'd paid off the house in full several years ago.

“You won't believe this,” I said to Ginger. Since it was Sunday, I couldn't call the bank to straighten them out. My fingers shuffled through more envelopes addressed to Mr. Edward Bingham, and I found several more from the bank. They contained payment stubs and return envelopes.

“Would Pops take out a mortgage without informing me?” Scrolling back in my memory, I recalled a couple years ago when sales at the car lot had been paltry as the economy plunged. His business had been scraping by; he'd barely accumulated enough cash to purchase inventory and make quarterly tax payments and property taxes.

I rifled through the remaining envelopes, tore open anything from the bank, and was relieved to see no mention of Honest Ed's Used Cars. But the address of this house certainly was. My father had borrowed money, using our home as collateral, without telling me.

This calamity was in part my fault. Besides working part-time on the car lot, I should have taken a second job. And not spent so much money entering and traveling to dog shows. I would have quit if I'd known he was short on funds. My breathing grew shallow and my throat tightened. The room seemed to shrink, smothering me. My heart sped up, hammering against my breastbone.

As I chucked superfluous mail into a wicker wastebasket, Lizzie's words zigzagged through my mind like guppies in a fish tank. She'd promised to ask around about my mother. Apparently Amish work frolics, be they get-togethers for quilting or to clean a house in preparation for a church service or wedding, served as a venue for gossip—not that Lizzie used that word. “Ya know how women enjoy chatting,” Lizzie had said. I hoped she'd keep an eye on Armin, too, but I hadn't asked her to.

Then a zany thought entered my mind: a note from my mother could be hiding among this pile of papers. I shuffled through the letters again, then overturned the basket, its contents spilling onto the carpet. On my hands and knees, I pawed through the papers. Most were postcards offering discounts on pizzas or dry-cleaning, and an invitation to attend a local church. The last thing I wanted. If God would allow the very foundation of my life to crumble, why would I want anything to do with him?

What prayers had God ever answered? As a child, I'd begged the Lord to bring my mother home. Last month, I'd pleaded with him to save Mr. Big's life, and now this: more proof that Pops was a liar and God didn't care about me.

I searched every scrap, hoping to find evidence of Mom, but nothing. Then I got to my feet and strode toward Pops's bedroom. I'd have a look around in his private world, which I should have done years ago but hadn't out of respect.

I rounded the corner to see the bed unmade and several of the bureau drawers half open. Nothing new about that; Pops wasn't a meticulous housekeeper. I often picked up his dirty laundry on washday, part of my contribution to living here. His room had not been vandalized like the rest of the house. Which made sense. Donald wouldn't have demeaned himself by entering Pops's bedroom.

If I were Pops, where would I hide my most treasured possessions—like letters from Mom? Most likely in the large safe at the car lot. But I'd looked through that metal cubicle for work in the past, and had seen only business-related documents. If in this house, where? I tried to think like a thief on a mission. I dug through every drawer, plunging my fingers between socks and T-shirts. I checked behind the framed prints adorning the wall, between the mattress and springs. Nothing.

I moved to his closet and pulled the string hanging from the lightbulb, illuminating the small space. Pops didn't own many clothes or shoes, mostly casual stuff. Three out-of-style jackets, the fabric shiny from years of use, a couple pairs of slacks, a few narrow ties, and a half-dozen collared shirts.

I lifted my chin and saw two wooden cigar boxes and a cardboard carton on the shelf. I stood on tiptoes and used a hanger to jiggle them down. They fell to the floor with a thud and a thunk. I stooped, undid a metal latch, and found one was filled with old baseball cards, and the other with a coin collection: Indian Head nickels, a few silver dollars, and a bundle of two-dollar bills. I doubted any of it was worth much beyond its original value. In my rankled state, I scorned my father's meager possessions. If the coins or cards had any monetary value, surely he would have sold them instead of taking out a mortgage on the house. The hairs on the nape of my neck lifted as a surge of antagonism swashed through my veins.

The remaining carton—slightly larger than a shoebox—crouched on the shelf out of my reach. I fetched a stool and climbed up. The box was light. Then I felt something shift inside. I admonished myself to expect nothing. The Rolling Stones' song “You Can't Always Get What You Want”—a refrain Pops sang back in the days when he was healthy—looped through my mind. I was living proof of Mick Jagger's statement.

Like an archaeologist lifting the lid off an ancient sarcophagus, I held my breath, opened the carton, and saw a stack of papers: a title for a '48 Ford that might've been Pops's first vehicle for all I knew, a letter from Grandma Leah begging him to come home—I wondered where she'd sent it, but there was no envelope—and two yellowing legal-size pieces of paper. The first was a birth certificate. Mine! Both my parents' names were cited: Mother: Mavis Miller. Father: Edward Bingham.

I reached for the next paper, praying it was their marriage license in spite of what Pops had told me. But it was a mimeographed copy of the purchase agreement for this house—not the title—of no value. I dropped it back into the box.

I felt like a dunce for feeling devastated by what I already knew was true. I was illegitimate, just like Donald said.

My face contorted like melting wax. I bent at the waist and allowed my tears to flood into my open palms. Sobs heaved out, their grotesque sounds echoing off the walls as I wallowed in despair. Pops had always told me to keep a stiff upper lip, but I couldn't anymore. I hobbled to the living room, then collapsed onto the couch.

 

The doorbell ding-donged. I looked out the kitchen window to make sure Donald's car was nowhere in sight. Then I opened the door to find Ralph and his pleasantly plump wife, Sheila, with her overpermed hair.

“I never should have let you spend the night here,” Ralph said. Sheila bobbed her small head. They were dressed as if on their way to church. She handed me a Starbucks cup covered with a plastic lid.

“Thanks.” My hands wrapped around the warm paper cup. “Just what I needed.”

“You must have been up until midnight cleaning this kitchen.” Ralph eyed the cracked door Donald had kicked in and grimaced. “I'm glad your father wasn't here to see it yesterday.”

“Me too.” Pops had maintained the house's interior, done all the painting, and built the bookshelves on either side of the small fireplace. His and my books still lay in disarray on the floor among my dog-show trophies.

“You need help?” Ralph's wife asked me.