The Outcast (9 page)

The hospital releases Leah the day after her mother arrived in Tennessee. If Tobias suspects that something has been used to accelerate his wife’s recovery, he keeps it to himself, for he is just happy to have her home. Leah is not so grateful. In the hospital, it had been easy to distance herself from the fact that her sister was truly gone. Tobias had even planned it that way. He had waited until his wife’s mind was softened by medication to whisper into her ear that Rachel had not only left their home, but Copper Creek as well.

Now, unmitigated by sleep aids, the reality of Leah’s
twin’s departure comes rushing in, and with it, a pain of separation so pronounced it is as if Rachel and Leah were Siamese twins severed without their consent.

Why’d she leave without saying good-bye?
Leah wonders, walking through Rachel’s room and seeing remnants of hers still there—a baby bootie, a box of nursing pads, a sheaf of bobby pins. Comforting herself with the fact that perhaps Rachel
had
come to the hospital to say good-bye but Leah had been too addled to respond, she turns to exit the room and jumps when she sees her mother standing in the doorway.

“Did you know Judah’s left too?” Helen asks.

“No. When?”

“Two mornings ago. He hired a driver and no one knows where
he’s gone.”

“You think he’s with Rachel?”

Helen folds her arms. “It’s possible, but I don’t think she’d do that.”

“Why not?”

“It makes sense. It’s what
the community expects of her. And of him. Rachel often refuses to do things when they’re expected of her.”

Leah picks up the baby bootie Rachel left behind. Slipping two fingers into the delicate yellow and white sock, she sighs. “
Jah
, she does.” After a moment, she adds, “How do you think we can find her?”

“The drivers.” Helen says this without hesitation, letting Leah know that she has thought this through already. “We
just need to find out who drove Rachel that day, maybe even who drove Judah, too.”

“Gerald Martin?”

Helen shakes her head. “No, I already asked. It wasn’t him. He said he’d been asked not to help Rachel.”

“What?” Leah drops the baby bootie to the dresser and whirls around, incensed. “Who would do that to a young mother?”

Seconds pass. Helen stares at her daughter with blue eyes conveying a message Leah cannot decode. “Your husband,” she finally says. “Your husband paid Gerald Martin not to drive Rachel around.”

When Tobias climbs into bed beside his wife, eager to make up for the conjugal separation her hospital stay had required, he finds Leah’s body as rigid as a board and her waterfall of hair—a reservoir formulated for his pleasure alone—still twisted into its bun. My son does not understand this, but lately there have been a lot of things about Leah and her family that he has not understood. Trying to remain patient, he puts an arm around Leah’s frail shoulders and attempts to turn her body toward his. She remains planted on her side.

Tobias gives up and flips onto his back. “What’s wrong?” he says, failing to keep the irritation from his voice. “Are you in pain?”

Leah shakes her head but does not say a word. Tobias sighs and glares up at the ceiling, thinking she is just being emotional again. But if he could see how her eyes glitter in the moonlight flickering through the window, he would know the emotion she is feeling is not sorrow, but the first stirrings of anger. Not anger toward her husband, exactly, but anger toward the irreparable situation in which she has placed herself. For the first time Leah allows herself to imagine what her life would be like if she had never responded to my son’s urgent request for a wife to mother his children, if she had stayed in that yellow house on Hilltop Road where her and her sister’s lives revolved completely around each other.

There is no question that Rachel would have married one of the boys vying for her attention and left Leah alone, in the same way that Leah, shockingly enough for everyone in the Muddy Pond Community, had left her. But at least Leah could have gone and stayed with Rachel and her new husband, who would’ve never forced his sister-in-law out into the street. At least Leah’s and Rachel’s days could have been lived together, even if at night Rachel went off to her marriage bed. Now, Rachel is gone—taking her child and irrepressible spirit with her. Even if Helen somehow makes contact with Rachel through her driver, Leah knows that Tobias won’t allow her to visit Rachel again. He might not even allow them to
speak
ever again. This, more than anything, is the reason Leah remains on her side, facing the window rather
than her husband. A year and a half ago, if she could have known that by choosing Tobias she would be choosing to abandon her twin, she would have never done it. She would’ve rather lived out her days in spinsterhood than marry a man who would sever the bond between two people so intertwined it was hard not to see them as one, for with Rachel’s departure, Leah understands that it is easier to leave than to be left behind.

This realization crashes over Leah like a wave. With it comes an undertow of tears. At first they trickle down her face without effort or sound, but as their intensity increases, Leah’s body begins to convulse with sobs, and she loses both her rigid back and her resolve.

Tobias, sensing her will’s breakdown, reaches over and turns his wife to face him. Her small body is as malleable as a child’s, and Leah curls up against his warm chest not because she wants her husband’s comfort, but because she cannot stand to be alone on such a cold and lonely night. Unaware of any of these emotions—because he will not ask and does not want the answer—Tobias kisses the brine of his wife’s tear-streaked face, and then her mouth. With every gesture of affection, the decibel of Leah’s wails increases until Tobias stops and grips her by the shoulders.

“Stop it! Just stop, Leah!” he barks, his lips curled back as he shakes her. “She’s gone! Rachel’s gone! You
must
get used to this!”

Leah nods and turns to bury her head in the pillow.

Hitting the headboard behind him with the flat of his
hand, Tobias rolls onto his side and looks toward their bedroom door. Leah flips onto her side and faces the wall.

Hours pass with Leah biting her sobs into the feather pillow, but Tobias has hardened his heart against her unrelenting emotions and forces himself not to hear.

Rachel

Ida Mae has not been her talkative, bossy self since Russell Speck was here a couple of days ago, and the more I ponder our conversation, the less I understand it. Although Ida Mae’s personality is a rare one, I still cannot imagine that she would marry the man who killed her spouse. I know from one glimpse into her murky brown eyes that Ida Mae must’ve loved deeply for them to reflect such loss. But is that loss over the husband who was killed or over the second marriage that ended just as devastatingly as the first?

I’ve been asking myself these questions for the past two days, but they have gotten me nowhere. I have to admit, though, it’s been a relief to have something to occupy my mind besides my own life’s uncertainty. Perhaps this is why
Englischers
spend so much time tapping on their cell phones or reading glossy tabloids. They want to watch someone else’s drama unfold; they want to watch someone else’s life crash and burn, as it takes away the heat of their own.

I have just switched off the oven where I’m baking potatoes wrapped in layers of foil (Ida Mae set the temperature beforehand), when she comes in the kitchen and hands me her cell phone.

I am so startled, I ask,
“Was ist das?”

Ida Mae answers, “Your
mudder
.”

I feel the color drain from my face. My hands shake as I take the cell phone and look at the black numbers on the gray screen.

Leaning over, Ida Mae taps the bottom of the phone. “It’s ready,” she says. “Just talk.”

“Is it Leah?” I ask into the receiver, the words barely audible even to me.

My
mamm
hollers, as if her voice must carry across the miles. “No, it’s not Leah! She’s out of the hospital and everything!”

I move backward until my spine rests against the oven. I had thought she was calling to tell me of my sister’s passing. I was almost certain of it; I could feel Leah’s death reverberating throughout my body as if my mind had already received the news. The only time my
mamm
has ever used the barn phone is for emergencies or to cancel an appointment with a reflexology customer, so why is she calling from it now?

“Then who is it?” I ask and swallow. “Is it
Dawdy
?” Although my father is physically fine, his mental capacity has diminished since the afternoon he was kicked by a horse and his brain bled, causing his thoughts to now
revolve around the only subject that has ever brought him joy: horse auctions.

“No, it’s not
Dawdy
!”
Mamm
shouts. “We’re worried
about
you
. You just ran off without
telling Leah good-bye.”

“It wasn’t like I had a choice,” I say, my tone annoyed. “Tobias forced me to go.”

There is a muffled sound. My
mamm
’s voice is lower as she says, “I thought as much. He seemed pretty upset when we
saw him at the hospital.”

“What do you mean? . . . You saw him? Are you here in Tennessee?”

I can tell my
mamm
nods, because there is a long pause before she says, “Yes.
Dawdy
and I got down here
Mittwoch
afternoon. Tobias called and told us to come. He even hired a driver.”

“How generous of him.”

My mother clucks her tongue, whether in agreement or chastisement I cannot tell. After a moment, she says, “Are you and Eli safe there with that
Englischer
weibsmensch
?”

“Ida Mae’s not English or Plain. But yes, we’re safe. She’s been very kind to us.”

“Can
Dawdy
and I come see you tomorrow? I’d try bringing Leah, too, but I don’t think Tobias would
allow it.”

“Don’t even ask him,” I warn. “You’ll only make it harder for her.” After giving
Mamm
the address, I explain, “If you have any trouble finding it, just tell Gerald it’s the Amish store in Blackbrier.”

“I’m not hiring Gerald to drive us,”
Mamm
says. “He’s got no backbone.”

“Who else, then?”

“Your
Englischer
friend, you think she’d come get us?”

“Yes. She’ll come. But—” I glance around the kitchen and the blue room to make sure Ida Mae’s out of earshot—“well,
Mamm
, she
is
a little different.”

“And our
familye
’s not?” she says.

I have to smile as I hang up. She’s got a point there.