Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery) (6 page)

“It was Elizabeth’s.”

She tried to process his words, to make them fit with the familiar bracelet and charm in his hand, but it was hard to do amid the sudden roar in her ears. “But I don’t understand . . . I . . .”

“She and Sadie were good friends. They must have bought bracelets together. On Rumspringa.”

“Where did you find this?”

“It was in her chest. At the foot of my bed.”

“So you knew about it before today?”

He nodded but said nothing.

“And that’s why you reacted the way you did when you saw my drawing? Because you recognized it as being the half that went with Sadie’s bracelet?”

Again, he nodded. Only this time, he followed the barely perceptible motion with background. “Elizabeth was a good woman. She was a fine wife for the short time we had together. But there was a sadness I did not understand. I often wondered if she wished she had made a different choice for her life. One day, just after we were married, I found her crying and I asked if she wished she had gone with her old friend Sadie.”

“What did she say?”

“She did not answer. She just bowed her head and cried more.” Benjamin looked down at the bracelet as if it were toxic. “I did not know what to think. I did not know if I was right. I did not want to start a life with someone who did not want that life, too. But then we went to the Lehmans’ home about three weeks later to receive our wedding gift.”

“Receive your wedding gift?” she echoed.

“Yah. We do not receive gifts at our wedding. They are presented to us in the weeks that follow, as we visit the friends who celebrated our day with us.”

It was her turn to nod. “Okay, I think I understand.”

“Sadie’s mamm and dat were so happy for us. So happy for Elizabeth. Waneta—that is Sadie’s mamm—said she was excited to see the children we would have, that it would be like watching Sadie’s children grow.”

“How did Elizabeth react?”

“She did not speak on the buggy ride home that night. And that is when I knew her sadness was not because she wanted to run off with Sadie, it was because she missed her.” He rocked back on his feet and stared up at the flickering shadow on the ceiling. “The next day I bought her a notebook and pen. I told her to write to Sadie as if she was still in Heavenly. I told her to talk about our wedding and our new home and our plans for the farm.”

“And?”

“She did as I said. Sometimes I would see her sitting on the front porch, writing. At lunch, while I ate, she would sit and write at the table. And at night, when I read, she would write in that chair.” He lowered his chin and pointed at the wooden chair behind Claire.

“Did it help with the sadness?”

“I am not sure. I lost her three days later.”

She felt the lump of emotion working its way up her throat and did her best to try to swallow it back down. What she wouldn’t give to turn back the hands of time and make things different for Ben . . .

“Did you ever read what she had written in those three days leading up to her death?”

A long, low sigh filled the air between them. “No. I put her book in the chest after she was buried. I did not see it again until I took out the bracelet this afternoon.”

“And you still didn’t read it?”

“I did not.”

She looked from Ben to the bracelet and back again, the hurt and anguish on her friend’s face making it difficult to breathe, let alone speak. But still, she tried, her hand finding his in the dark and squeezing them gently. “Maybe it’s time you did.”

Chapter 5

S
itting there, looking out over the moonlit fields that comprised the Amish side of Heavenly, Claire marveled at the absolute serenity. So much of her existence in New York City had been about hurrying and waiting.

First, she’d hurry through her day in anticipation of an evening with her then husband, Peter, only to wait at the table, alone, as their meals grew cold. Next, she’d hurry through the week in the hope the weekend would be different. But it never was. Instead, she spent her Saturdays and Sundays waiting for him to return from whatever golfing or dining engagement he had with yet another important client.

Five years of her life had slipped through her fingers playing that hurry-and-wait game.

Now, though, things were different—as different as New York City was from Heavenly, Pennsylvania, in fact. Here, there was no more hurrying unless she happened to linger over coffee and breakfast with her aunt’s guests a little too long. And as for waiting, that was gone, too, unless she counted silly stuff—like the wait for brownies to be done baking or customers to arrive.

“Claire, dear? Don’t you think you should come inside now? It’s awfully cold out here to be sitting on that porch swing.”

She turned her head toward the hushed voice, the woman’s features difficult to make out in the narrow swath of light streaming onto the porch from the partially opened front door. “I’ll be in soon, Aunt Diane.”

“Is everything okay? You seemed mighty quiet when you got home this evening.”

“I’m fine. Just a little tired is all.”

“Which is why it makes more sense for you to come inside and get some sleep, rather than continue to sit out here by yourself in the cold . . .”

She heard the sigh as it slipped past her lips and hoped her aunt didn’t take it as rude. She loved Diane more than words could ever describe, but sometimes she needed a little space to ponder, even if she wasn’t sure what, exactly, she was pondering. “I’ll be in soon. I promise. I’m just enjoying the last guest-free night for a little while longer.”

“Okay. I’m heading up to bed now, so just make sure to lock up, will you?”

“You’ve got it. Good night, Aunt Diane.”

“Good night, Claire. Sleep well.”

She lowered the side of her cheek back onto her outstretched arm and focused again on the dark fields in the distance, the swing moving ever so slightly with the push of her right foot. Forty-eight hours earlier, the same landscape had been bathed in a fiery glow. Twenty-four hours earlier, it had been peppered with a pulsating mixture of red and white emergency lights atop police cruisers. And now, it was dark again, with all the Amish likely fast asleep.

All except, perhaps, Waneta Lehman and her husband, Zebediah . . .

For years, Sadie’s parents had surely lain in bed wondering about their daughter’s whereabouts.

But tonight, they wondered no more.

She traced the tip of her finger along the top edge of the swing and tried to imagine what it would be like to get such awful news. To realize that all your years of hope had been for naught . . .

The familiar
clip-clop
of an approaching horse broke through her reverie and forced her thoughts back to the porch. Rotating her body to the right, she brought her left foot down to the floor and leaned forward, the darkness that enveloped the inn’s driveway making it difficult to see much of anything.

When the sound stopped, she stood and made her way over to the porch railing. “Hello? Who’s there?” she called.

“It is me. Benjamin.” And then he was there, standing at the foot of the steps, peering up at her with a troubled expression. “Can we talk?”

She took a step back and waved him onto the porch. “Of course. Please. Come up. Sit with me.”

Retracing her steps back to the swing, she lowered herself onto the evenly spaced wooden slats and patted the vacant spot to her left. “If you hurry, you can take advantage of any leftover heat from my leg.”

The soft light peeking around the parlor curtain was enough to illuminate the pained expression in the Amish man’s face as he shook his head and remained standing. “I will not keep you. It is late and you must sleep.”

“Aunt Diane said pretty much the same thing not more than ten minutes ago. But I’m not tired.”

“Why?” he asked.

It was such a simple question yet she knew it merited anything but a simple answer. Still, she tried. At least in regard to the part that involved him, anyway . . . “I guess I’ve been worried about you. About the pain that will invariably be stirred up again when you finally read Elizabeth’s journal for the first time.”

“I have read it.”

She drew back, surprised. “Already?”

He gave a slight nod. “I took care of my chores after you left. I even stopped by Mamm and Dat’s house to thank Ruth for our dinner. When I was done, I went upstairs to bed. But when I walked into my room, all I could see was Elizabeth’s chest.”

“So you took out her journal and read it?” she prompted.

Again he nodded, his gaze slipping past hers and settling somewhere in the distance. “I did.”

“And?”

“I am confused.”

Something about the raw uncertainty in his normally confident voice caught her by surprise. “Oh? How so?”

He reached into the part of his waistband she couldn’t see around his coat and pulled out a simple black spiral-bound notebook. “I would like you to read Elizabeth’s words. Maybe you can understand what I cannot.”

Surprised, she reached for the book only to drop her hand back to her lap, empty. “I don’t know, Benjamin. I’m not sure I should read something so private. I never even knew your wife.”

“Please. I would not ask if I did not need your help.”

She looked from the book to her friend and back again, her heart thumping slowly but deliberately inside her chest. “If you’re sure . . .”

“I am sure.” He deposited the book onto Claire’s lap and then gestured toward the inn. “You will need light to read her words.”

“Do you want to come inside? Or would you rather I turn on the porch light?”

Ben stepped toward the porch railing and exhaled into his fist. “I would like to be here if that is okay?”

“Then I’ll be right back.” She laid the book beside her on the swing and then rose to her feet, the necessary light switch no more than three feet away. “Ready? It’ll be bright.”

At his nod, she flipped the switch and returned to the book, the absence of a title or any outward markings exactly what she’d expect from a married Amish woman. Slowly, she opened the cover and stared down at the uneven writing, the hastily scrawled sentences filling the first page from top to bottom.

“Are you absolutely sure you want me to read this?” she whispered, glancing up.

“Yah.”

She held the page into the light now streaming down from the exterior wall of the house and began to read, the words of Benjamin’s deceased wife filling the air between them.

For too long I have kept this secret for fear of what would happen to me. I did not want to live in a small room. I did not want to drink only water and eat only bread. I did not want to hurt Mamm and Dat. I did not want to cry each night.

I did not tell, yet I still cry each night.

Not because I am afraid.

Because I am sad.

Because I did not do the right thing.

Your mamm is so happy for me and Benjamin. She smiles like I am good. Like I am kind. But I am not good. I am not kind.

I am a very bad person.

You know that more than anyone.

I am sorry, Sadie.

Claire reread the last sentence and looked up at Benjamin when she reached the end. “I . . . I don’t understand.”

“Go on,” he said, pointing at the book. “There is more.”

Turning the page, she did as she was told, Elizabeth’s penmanship becoming more and more difficult to read.

Benjamin asked me if I had made a mistake in marrying him. At first, I did not understand his question. I am happy to be his wife.

But I do not smile as a wife should, he says.

I have tears I should not have, he says.

I want to tell him why I do not smile. I want to tell him why I cry at times. But if I do, he will not look at me with love anymore. He will look at me as if I am bad.

Something roiled in the pit of her stomach. Ever since the very first moment she’d learned of Elizabeth’s existence as both Benjamin’s late wife and Jakob’s once romantic interest, she’d had an image in her mind. That woman had been beautiful, sweet, and good at everything she did.

Yet now, in a matter of two pages, her image was changing. Rapidly.

Elizabeth may still have been beautiful.

Elizabeth may have been good at everything she did.

But now, the sweet factor was definitely in question . . .

“There is more, Claire. Much, much more.”

This time, she turned the page without stopping to look up at Benjamin, the wooden quality of his tone telling her more than any glance ever could. She felt a sudden chill race down her spine and shivered in response, but if Benjamin noticed, he said nothing.

I have tried to forget, just like Leroy and Miriam and Michael.

But I cannot.

I see your skin and it is like a new snowfall.