Shadows of Lancaster County (14 page)

When we arrived, Bobby sent us out into the yard to gather sticks for the fire. As we did that, he pulled out a Roman candle from his secret stash in the back of the truck and shot it off so that Lydia would know to come. Doug wanted to shoot some off too, just for fun, but Bobby lied and said he didn’t have any more. I knew he did, and I knew where he kept them in the truck, but I didn’t say anything because I felt sure the reason he didn’t want Doug playing with them was because they would make us too noticeable back here. One Roman candle could come and go without attracting too much attention. A whole bunch of Roman candles could light up the night sky and draw the neighbors—or maybe even the police.

While we waited for Lydia, Bobby directed us to the fire pit, which he and Lydia had constructed with a circle of rocks and some sand. The guys started our little bonfire while Haley and I chose the perfect sticks for roasting marshmallows. We spread a couple of blankets on the ground around the fire. At that point, Lydia joined us, out of breath from her dash across the field but happy to see the whole gang.

For the next hour we all simply sat around and talked and laughed and roasted marshmallows. Over the summer of hanging out with this group, I
had become used to seeing the two couples hang all over each other while Reed and I kept a platonic distance. That night, however, he seemed to sit a little closer, let his hand linger on my hand a while longer. I had long ago given up hope of his being interested in me, but it was still fun to see him flirt back for a change.

When Bobby and Lydia excused themselves, we knew they were going off to find a little privacy. At that point, I wasn’t sure how far they went when they were alone, but I hoped that their faith gave them the strength to resist going too far.

According to Haley, she and Doug were not having sex even though he wanted to. As I watched the two of them finish off one six-pack and start into another, I wondered how drunk she would have to be before her boundaries flew out the window.

Eventually, Reed reached for a beer too, though when he offered me one, I declined. At seventeen-almost-eighteen, I was pretty much a good girl. I was a virgin, didn’t drink, had only tried smoking once, rarely cursed. It wasn’t that I enjoyed being known as a Goody Two-shoes. It was just that I happened to take to heart the behavioral elements of my Christianity. When I accepted Christ at thirteen, I had accepted the whole package: to be like Him, to learn about Him, to worship Him, to love Him. As far as I was concerned, the kids I knew who went a little wild sometimes never really enjoyed it beyond the moment anyway, and sometimes, most times, later they were really sorry. Puking in the toilet, they were sorry. Trying to get the smell of smoke out of their hair before going home, they were sorry. Seeing the little line in the tiny window turn into a plus sign, they were really, really sorry. To me, it seemed easier—and smarter and certainly more Christlike—to just not go there in the first place. I didn’t freak out if my friends crossed the line, but I wasn’t going to cross it with them. Fortunately, except for Doug’s drinking, our whole group was pretty tame anyway.

As the tamest one of all, I usually wasn’t given a hard time by these guys because they knew my limits and seemed to respect them. But for some reason, that night Doug started teasing me, calling me a party pooper. Haley, who was supposed to be my best friend, soon joined him. To their
mind, it was all in good fun, but they were drunk and that made it obnoxious and a little too aggressive. I looked to Reed for help, but he just smiled and said, “I can’t see how one beer could hurt.”

Much to my amazement, I found myself pressured into a corner. I was very uncomfortable, but on the one night that Reed had finally shown some interest in me, I really didn’t want to blow it by looking like a prude—or worse, like a little kid. That was why I said what I said next. Later, if I could have taken it back, I would have—a thousand times over, I would have.

“Hey, guys,” I said in a desperate attempt to change the subject, “I know where Bobby keeps all those Roman candles. He was lying to you, Doug. He’s got a whole case in the back of his truck.”

The night took on a life of its own after that. Doug and Reed forgot all about teasing me and ran to get the fireworks instead. For the next fifteen or twenty minutes, they managed to shoot off half the box. Doug even threw a handful in the fire to see what would happen. Unfortunately, they still went off, only the shots came out horizontal rather than vertical. Laughing hysterically, we all jumped and ducked to avoid the orange fireballs as they shot past.

The whole time the guys were playing around, I kept expecting Bobby to come running out from the shadows and tell them to stop. He never did, though, and we later learned that was because he and Lydia were in the garage. He testified later that they could hear us laughing but they didn’t see the flashes of light because the door was firmly closed.

When Doug grew tired of shooting off Roman candles, he scooped Haley into his arms and began kissing her aggressively. She seemed to return his passion, and after about a minute, they whispered something to each other, joined hands, and just like Bobby and Lydia had done, they disappeared into the shadows.

That left me alone with Reed. We sat beside the dwindling fire and talked about the fact that the summer was almost over and how sad we were for it to end. He talked about his family back home, the rich parents who were more interested in their next vacation than they were in their own son. I talked about how eager I was to finish high school so I could get started with college.

“Yeah, it’s easy to forget you’re just seventeen,” he said, suddenly focusing in on me with those blue eyes. “Sometimes, Annalise, I just don’t know what to do about you…”

With one hand, he reached up and gently brushed the hair from my face. What happened next was the fulfillment of the dream that had hounded me the entire summer. Slowly, Reed leaned forward, and then he kissed me.

Heart racing, I kissed him back, placing a hand on his muscular shoulder. I loved him so much, in the way that only seventeen-year-old girls can love. I wanted the hearts and the flowers and the words and the promises. He was the man of my dreams, and he was kissing me.

Afterward, he touched his warm lips to my cheek and my forehead and then he simply pulled me close. We sat there like that, beside the fire, silently holding on to each other, not saying a word. I would have been happy to stay there forever, but after a while I realized that the gentle caresses his hands were making on my shoulders and back were gaining energy, were moving wider and lower and more to the front. I was trying to think how to calm his ardor without sounding like a child when he suddenly pulled away, chuckling softly.

“Like I said, it’s easy to forget how young you are sometimes. Sorry about that. I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I said, looking up at him, knowing that not only was he the most handsome, sweetest, greatest guy I had ever known—he had also found the wherewithal to act like a gentlemen in the face of his most desperate passions. “I’ve been dreaming all summer of your kiss.”

He chuckled again, shook his head, and then utterly destroyed the moment by scooting further away, reaching into his pocket, and pulling out a joint.

To say that I was surprised was an understatement.

“This’ll help us cool down,” he said, and then he lit it, took a deep drag, and held his breath as he passed it to me.

Maybe I was naive back then. Maybe it shouldn’t have been that big of a shock, but I didn’t do drugs, and I didn’t think he was the kind of guy who did either. Slowly, as he held out that joint, I realized that all the good
things I had thought about him weren’t true. He wasn’t the greatest guy in the world. He wasn’t the man of my dreams. Finally, I understood what Bobby had been hinting at all summer that Reed was a pothead.

This time I didn’t need a diversion to avoid being pressured. I just shook my head and told him no thanks. I tried to play it cool, but after a minute my eyes filled with tears. Heartbroken, I got up and ran to Bobby’s truck hoping Reed would follow me and apologize. Maybe he would say he was just kidding, it was a joke, it was a fake. But as the sweet, acrid smell of marijuana smoke reached my nostrils, I knew it was no joke. I turned around to look at Reed, who had simply laid down on his side, elbow bent, head propped on his hand, and continued to smoke as he stared at the fire.

At that point, my sadness turned to anger. I was mad at all of them, at Bobby and Lydia for going off and probably having sex in a dirty old garage, at Haley for betraying me and getting drunk and acting like a slut, at Doug for trying to pressure me into drinking, at Reed for showing his true colors. And, I was mad at myself for having been such a Pollyanna. Done with the lot of them, I climbed into the truck and slammed the door, deciding I would stay there until everybody was ready to go. Despite my rage, at some point I must have fallen asleep.

The next thing I knew, I was lying across the front seat, the door was open, and someone was tugging at my foot. I opened my eyes, surprised to see Reed standing there beside the truck, his hand pulling at my shoe. I sat up, and immediately I knew that a fair amount of time must have passed, because he was as high as a kite.

“Something’s wrong,” he said, his eyes heavy-lidded, his body leaning side to side.

“What?” I snapped, still angry.

“Something’s wrong. Over there.”

Blinking, he pointed, and in the direction of the Schumann’s home I could see an odd red glow. I got out of the truck and stood on the door-frame, getting higher to see better. From there, the “something wrong” was clear.

The Schumann’s house was on fire.

The next hour was a blur. As Reed stood there looking stoned, I began shouting for the others. Doug and Haley, still half drunk, clothes askew, came running from the shadows as Bobby and Lydia emerged from the garage. All four of them spotted the fire at the same moment, and then we all made a mad scramble to get to the farmhouse.

“The truck will be faster!” Bobby yelled, so we all jumped in the back and he took off driving along the edge of the cornfield, finally slamming his brakes to a stop in the Schumann’s backyard.

Like many Amish farmhouses, the Schumann’s place was a series of additions and expansions each joined at one corner, creating a stairstep effect. From what we could see, the part that was on fire was the furthest section out, the addition that had been built for Lydia’s grandparents when they were still alive, a sort of in-law suite known among the Amish as a
Dawdy Haus.
That was an incredible relief, because as far as I knew, currently no one was living in that part of the home.

Still, if we didn’t act quickly, the fire could spread to the rest of the house. We moved as fast as we could, Lydia leading us to the source of water and showing Bobby how to use the pump so it would flow through the hose. I called for help from the phone shanty out back and then ran around the house, trying every door until I found one that was open. I ran inside yelling, with Lydia and Reed right behind. Between the three of
us, we found Lydia’s seven-year-old brother, Caleb, and her six-year-old sister, Rebecca, and got them out the front door and onto the lawn safely. The children were both in their nightclothes, and they stood there shivering in the heat, watching wide-eyed as the
Dawdy Haus
was consumed with flame.

“Is this everyone?” I screamed to Lydia over the roar of the fire.

“No! I don’t see Ezra or my parents!”

Once he heard that, Reed ran back inside to search for them while Lydia herded the other two siblings around back to help throw buckets of water onto the fire. When fire trucks pealed in the distance, I ran toward the road to flag them down. Obviously, I wasn’t thinking clearly, because by that point the flame had grown so large that there’s no way they could have missed it.

Three trucks responded to the call, and soon the place was swarming with men and women in firefighting gear. We were told to move back and stay out of the way while they tried to do their job. It wasn’t until then that I realized Reed had never come back out of the house. Lydia was already frantic, insisting that her parents and little brother were still in there somewhere. I grew just as frantic. Joining in her cries for help, I begged them to save Reed and prayed furiously for his safety.