Hidden Truths (54 page)

Papa looked at Mama.

Mama looked back. Her hands clamped around Papa's forearm.
They talked without saying a word, and Amy watched with longing. The connection
between her parents filled the room, like a living, breathing, wonderful thing.

Finally, Papa turned his head. The silvery color of his eyes
darkened to a rain-cloud gray. He wrapped his arm around Mama as if she were
the only thing keeping him from drowning. "Your mother and I talked about
it. We didn't make this decision lightly, but we think it's time to tell
you."

"Tell us what?" Nattie asked.

Papa swallowed. "It's not easy for me to say this."

Heaviness settled in the pit of Amy's stomach. She wasn't
ready to hear more bad news. The thought of Rika being gone soon was enough to
keep her up at night.

"What I have to say will confuse you terribly,"
Papa said, "and you might not love me anymore, but please..." He
lifted his hand, palm up, like a beggar pleading for a coin.

Amy shook her head.
Not love him anymore?
"That
will never happen."

"Papa, please." Nattie's fingernails scratched
along Amy's chaps, searching for some hold. "You're scaring me."

"I never wanted that. I never wanted you to be afraid
or disappointed or confused —"

"Luke," Mama interrupted. She slid even closer to
him on the arm of his chair. "I think you should just tell them. There's
no way to prepare them for this."

Papa bent forward. His breathing came in quick gasps, and he
looked as if he was about to be sick.

Mama laid a hand on his neck as if protecting his
vulnerability.

The tension in the room made Amy's stomach roil.

"There's something about me that I kept hidden from most
of the world for a long, long time." Papa pressed three fingers to his
mouth as if he wanted to hold back the words.

He kept something hidden?
It couldn't be something
big, could it? After all, Papa was the most honest, most honorable man Amy
knew.

"My full name, for one thing," Papa said, circling
around the truth like a hawk around a field mouse, getting closer and closer
until, finally, he added, "I wasn't born Luke Hamilton."

Nattie's fingers clamped around Amy's arm. "You're an
outlaw?" Nattie whispered.

His mouth twitched and then curved up as if he wished it
were that easy. "No." He lowered his lashes and studied the diamond
pattern of the Brussels carpet. "My mother named me Lucinda."

"Lucinda?" The name echoed through Amy's head.
"But that's... that's a girl's name."

"Yes, it is," Papa said slowly, as if every word
hurt. "I was born a girl."

Why was he talking like that? Amy squinted at him.
"This isn't funny, Papa."

"I'm not joking."

"This doesn't make sense," Nattie said.
"People can't switch bodies."

"True." Papa dragged up his gaze and met Amy's
eyes, then Nattie's. "But we can choose what to do with our bodies. Some
women choose to live as men."

Amy's thoughts were galloping in a thousand directions at
once. "You mean like Frankie?"

"I mean like me," Papa said.

"I don't understand." Nattie's voice shook.

"Oh, sweetie. I wish there was an easier way to say
this." Papa rubbed his red-rimmed eyes, then looked up. "I'm not a
man. I'm a woman."

"No!" Nattie shouted. "You're lying!"

Amy jumped up and shook her head until it pounded. No, this
wasn't true. It couldn't be. Her gaze slid over her papa, looking for
something, anything... But all she saw was the man she loved and admired.
"Impossible!"

Her gaze darted to Mama. Amy pressed her hands together and
silently begged Mama to deny it.

But Mama nodded, her lips forming a thin white line.

The sick feeling in the pit of Amy's stomach spiraled out of
control.

Mama turned her head to press a kiss to Papa's temple and
entwined their fingers.

For the first time, Amy noticed that Papa's hands didn't
dwarf Mama's. Not the way Josh's hands looked next to Hannah's. For a man,
Papa's hands were slender, their backs not dotted with hair.

Her own hands flew to her mouth. "No. No. This can't be
true."

Nattie cried and shouted, and Mama said something, but the
buzzing in Amy's ears drowned out their voices. Her world spun on its axis,
refusing to right itself. She couldn't listen right now. She couldn't stay.

She jerked free from Nattie's viselike grip on her forearm
and fled.

R
IKA
CURSED HER injured shoulder. It condemned her to sit at the table with the
pastor. At least Phin got to bustle around, lifting a pot of water onto the
hook above the fire, while she faced Reverend Rhodes's stare alone.

She hooked her fingers in her crocheted shawl and lowered
her gaze under the pretense of re-adjusting the sling. The smell of leather and
grass still clung to the fabric, bringing a mental image of Amy. Rika's cheeks
heated at the thought of Amy dressing her.

"...on Monday," the pastor said, making Rika's
head jerk up. "What do you think? I have a beautiful sermon about the
sanctity of marriage."

Phin and Rika exchanged a glance. Was he as insecure about
getting married as she was?

Shouts from outside shattered the uneasy silence in the
cabin.

Rika strained her ears. What was going on?

"Amy!" Luke shouted over the din of the other
voices.

She'd never heard him shout. Unlike her own father, he
seemed like a calm and gentle man. Something was wrong. Something with Amy.

With an apologetic glance at the pastor, Rika hastened to
the door, almost colliding with Phin and the coffee pot in his hands. She
veered to the side and opened the door.

Amy hurried past the cabin, her strides as long and fast as
she could make them without outright running. She disappeared into the stable,
not glancing at Rika.

"Please, Amy!" Luke flew down the veranda steps.
"Amy, wait!"

Nora caught up with him at the bottom of the stairs. She
rubbed her hands up and down his arms.

Rika stuck her head out the door and strained to hear what
they were saying.

"We need to give her some time," Nora said, her
voice gentle, as if she were talking to a scared child or an injured animal.
"She's just confused. Her whole world has been turned upside down."

Amy! What happened?
Rika's heart slammed against her
ribs. She stepped out of the cabin.

"Hendrika?" Phin called.

She glanced back.

Phin gestured at the pastor and the Bible on the table.

If she wanted to start her new life as a married woman soon,
she needed to stay and have coffee with the pastor.
This is what you came
here for. It's what you wanted. Close the door and sit back down.

But she didn't move. She sucked in a breath, closed her
eyes, and made a decision. Making sure Amy was all right was more important
than securing her future as Phin's bride. "I'm sorry," she said.
"But something's wrong with Amy."

"Marriage needs to be taken seriously, Ms.
Bruggeman," the pastor said. "You can't walk away when we were
discussing —"

"Excuse us," Phin said. Three quick steps brought
him next to Rika.

Luke stormed toward them, his dark lashes clumped together
by... Rika stared. Were those tears?

"What's wrong with Amy?" Phin asked his boss.
"Half an hour ago, she was fine."

"Something I said really unsettled Amy. I need to talk
to her, to explain..." Luke waved his hands as if to shoo them out of the
way.

Nattie stepped onto the veranda, paused, and then walked
over to them. Her gray eyes looked like coals in her pale face, the red rims
like a ring of embers. When her father tried to make eye contact, her gaze
veered to the side.

Phin hurried over and gripped her elbow. "You all
right?"

"I'm fine," Nattie said with trembling lips.

"What on God's green earth happened?" Rika asked.
Amy had fled to the stable, and even the usually calm Nattie looked as if she'd
been through hell.

No one answered her.

Something boiled over inside of Rika. She was fed up with
the lies bubbling beneath the surface. The Hamiltons hid their own secrets —
and now one of those secrets had hurt Amy. But how could Rika shout at them and
demand to know what had driven Amy away when she, too, was lying?

The barn door banged open.

Ruby pranced into the yard, led by a grim-faced Amy.

"No!" Her father took a step, then stopped as if
coming closer would scare her away. "Amy, please, stay and talk to
me."

"Let her go if she wants," Phin said. "She'll
stew a little and then be back. That's what she always does."

"This isn't like the other times," Luke answered,
his gaze fixed on Amy. His voice vibrated with tension. "I can't explain,
but it just isn't."

Amy grabbed the reins and prepared to swing onto Ruby's bare
back.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Rika flew across the yard.
She reached out to grab the bridle. Pain shot through her arm, and she cried
out as it fell back into the sling.

"Rika!" Knees bent to jump on her horse, Amy
stopped. "What are you doing?" She dropped the reins to cradle Rika's
arm.

"Stopping you from running away again," Rika said.
She grasped the bridle with her left hand.

Instead of looking at her, Amy squinted over her shoulder to
where her parents stood. The vacant expression in her eyes reminded Rika of the
soldiers in the field hospital. Those young men looked dazed, numb, as if they
were still on the battlefield, with mortar shells exploding all around them.
"Get out of the way," Amy said, her voice flat.

Rika tightened her grasp on the bridle. "If you go,
take me with you." In her shell-shocked condition, Amy shouldn't be alone.

"You can't ride with your shoulder."

"I'll manage." Rika raised her chin.

When Amy stared at her, the haze finally lifted from her
eyes. She sighed. "It's not fair to stop a panicked horse from
running," she whispered.

Rika let go of the bridle and rubbed Amy's hand until she
relaxed her fingers around the strand of mane in her grasp. "Why are you
scared?" Rika lowered her voice too. "What happened?"

"Amy." Luke inched closer, hands at his sides, no
hasty moves. "Please come back inside. I know I'm the last person you want
to see right now, but please, at least stay and talk to your mother."

"Is she even my mother?"

Luke flinched as if Amy had slapped him. "Lash out at
me all you want. The Lord knows I deserve it. But don't hurt your mother."

The bit of mane fell from Amy's grasp. Her shoulders
hunched. "I'm sorry, Mama."

"Come inside," Nora said.

Amy handed Phin the reins and slouched back to the house.

When Rika returned to the cabin, the pastor still sat at the
table, white-knuckling his Bible. "Monday," he said firmly. "I
hope once you are married, you'll start keeping better company."

A
MY
COULDN'T THINK when she sat still. Not that pacing through the parlor helped.

"For land's sake, sit!" Nattie said.

The sharp tone stopped Amy's pacing. Nattie had never talked
to her like this.

"I'm already feeling sick to my stomach, and your
pacing doesn't help."

Strangely, it made the tight band of steel around Amy's
chest loosen. Compared to the tumult inside of her, Nattie seemed almost calm.
For a moment, she had thought Nattie was unaffected or had even known Papa's
secret.
Papa.
The word left a bitter taste on her tongue.
He's not
your papa. She. Lord.
She pressed her fingertips to her temples. Nothing
made sense anymore.

"It's really true?" Nattie asked, her voice
trembling. "Are you really...?"

"A woman," Luke said. "Yes."

Nattie swung her head back and forth. "I don't believe
it."

"Please," Luke said, "don't make me show
you." The lines of despair in the pale face made Amy's protective
instincts flare.

How strange. She'd never needed to protect Papa.
Luke.
Lucinda. Not Papa.
Her brain was stuck on that one thought. "It's all
a lie," she said. "My whole life and Nattie's... all one big lie. How
could you do that to us? How could you trick Mama into believing —"

"Wait a minute, Amy." Mama thrust out her hand.
"I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner, but Luke never tricked me into
anything."

"You knew?" Amy asked and then shook her head at
herself. Of course Mama knew. She had shared her life and her bed with Luke for
decades. The air whooshed out of her lungs. "D-does that mean..." She
glanced at Mama, then at Luke, who again dropped her gaze to the Brussels
carpet. "You share your bed with... a woman?"

Mama fanned her fingers over Luke's shoulder. "I share
my bed, my body, and my life with the person I love. Her gender doesn't
matter."

"Doesn't matter?" Nattie shot up from the divan.
"How can you say that? Of course it matters! Suddenly everything is so...
so..." Tears sprang into her eyes.

Amy wrapped her in her arms and rocked her as she had when
Nattie had been a little girl. She didn't know if it helped Nattie, but it had
an unexpectedly soothing effect on her. She looked at Mama, who stood next to
Papa... Luke, as she always did, chin up, emerald fire in her eyes.

"Luke's gender didn't matter when she led our wagon
train to Oregon," Nora said, her voice velvet-lined steel. "Her
gender didn't matter when you, Nattie, broke your nose and were crying for Luke
to hold you. And it didn't matter when —"

"It mattered when you lied to us," Amy shouted.
"You lied to us every day of our lives."

Luke's head jerked up. "No." She took a step
toward them, then stopped and held out her hands. "Please don't believe
that. I wasn't pretending. It's not an act. I showed you my true self all
along. I just let you believe that this true self is male."