Authors: Kelly Irvin
“You think?” Charisma muttered. “It’s the quiet. She can’t go to sleep in this quiet. Do you have a radio of some kind, anything I can play some music for her on? She loves music.”
Annie reveled in the silence at the end of a long day. Not silence, really. Birds called to each other. Crickets chirped. Toads sang. A medley of sounds that were drowned out by hustle and bustle during the day. “Wouldn’t noise keep her awake?”
“Are you kidding? She’s used to the radio. I play music to get her to sleep…in the car, you know.” Charisma flopped down in a rocker. Gracie squirmed and whined, still caught in her mother’s arms. “Sometimes, if we had the money for gas, I would drive around until she fell asleep. I’d put on some R&B, and she’d be out like a light.”
Annie had no idea what R&B was. “Let me take her.”
“You don’t ever listen to music?”
“We sing a lot. At school and at church. We have singings. Just no instruments.”
“Why can’t you have recorded music? It’s great for dancing. I love to dance.”
She sounded so wistful. Annie searched her brain for an answer, for a memory that told her why these things weren’t allowed. “We don’t dance. We don’t use instruments to make music. It’s against the Ordnung.”
“The what?”
“The rules.” Honestly, she didn’t know why. It just was. The Ordnung had been handed down for many generations. “It’s against the rules.”
“You sure have a lot of rules. I thought my mom had a lot of rules, but this is crazy. What harm could music do?”
Annie shrugged. She sometimes heard music in the stores and when they ate in restaurants. It was nice. But she didn’t miss it around the house. Gracie’s whines grew louder. “Give her to me. I’ll rock her.”
“She’s gonna cry and wake everyone up.”
“The cigarette smoke is bad for her. Let me try.” Not to mention bad for Charisma and the
bobbeli
she carried inside her. To Annie’s surprise, Gracie came to her without hesitation. “Come here, sweetie. It’s way past your bedtime.”
Way past everyone’s bedtime. Daylight and the prayer service would arrive before they knew it. At least there would be no chores. Of course,
there was the singing later. If she decided to go, that is, and she
hadn’t
decided to go. “If you want, you can lie down. I’ll bring her to you.”
“As if I could sleep.” Charisma dropped the cigarette on the porch and stubbed it out with her rubber flip-flop. At Annie’s look, she nudged it with her toe until it slid off the porch into the rose bushes. “Satisfied?”
“As long as you don’t light another.”
“What are you? The tobacco police?”
“I’ve heard people talk about how much they cost. How can you afford them?”
“I can’t. I’m hoarding my last pack, but I really needed one.”
Annie relaxed and began to rock Gracie. The child laid her head on Annie’s shoulder and stuck her thumb in her mouth. It felt so perfectly natural and Annie fought the sudden urge to cry. “You are a sweet baby.”
“You made a friend.” The words sounded grudging. Charisma wiped at her face with the back of her arm. “Coming here was a mistake. I should leave.”
“And go where?”
The words were out of Annie’s mouth before she could consider how they would sound. She didn’t want to make her guest feel worse. She didn’t understand how Charisma could consider leaving with no money, no place to go, no food. On her own was one thing, but to take an innocent child was another. Annie rubbed Gracie’s back. She felt the little girl’s body relax against hers. Her head lolled to one side. “Maybe you’re just homesick.”
“Homesick?” Charisma snorted.
The noise brought Gracie’s head up with a jerk. Annie patted her back. “Sleep, little one.” The girl’s head dropped again. “Tell me about where you’re from.”
“I ran away from home when I was fifteen. I ain’t been home in four years.”
Annie did the math. Not since before Gracie was born. “Where is that? Where did you grow up?”
“Shreveport. That’s in Louisiana.”
Annie might not have received much geography in her time at school, but she knew that much. “Is that where you met Logan?”
“No.”
Both women were quiet for a long minute. Annie began to think the conversation had ended before it really began.
“I met Logan in Baton Rouge the next year.”
“Is he Gracie’s father, then?” Annie stopped. It was none of her business and the last thing she wanted to do was embarrass her guest, but Gracie had Logan’s dark hair and blue eyes. She didn’t look a whole lot like her mama. “If he’s your husband, why don’t you and Gracie have his name?”
“You’re so naïve. People don’t always get married. I can’t believe you’re judging me.” Charisma’s voice rose, its tone shrill. “I don’t see any wedding rings on your brother and his baby momma.”
“Baby momma?” Annie felt a giggle burble up inside her. And shock that anyone would think Luke and Leah would have children outside the boundaries of marriage. “We don’t wear jewelry.”
“Even wedding rings?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know who’s taken?”
“Married women wear black kapps and the men grow beards.”
Charisma batted away a dragonfly that buzzed and hovered near her face. “So. Josiah is single then?”
A chill ran up Annie’s arm. Just what they needed. Another girl flirting with her brother. “He’s spoken for.”
“Don’t worry. Suspenders don’t do a thing for me.”
Reassuring if not a little insulting. Annie liked their clothes. It saved a lot of time not having to pick out outfits like the Englischers did with their matching this and matching that. Easier to sew too. “That’s good. We don’t marry outside our faith.”
“What about you? You like that David guy, don’t you? He’s a little puny, if you ask me, but if the pale and bald look does it for you, then that’s cool.”
That was one way of putting it. Annie chose not to tell her about the Hodgkin’s disease. David would prefer Charisma’s disdain to her pity. “David has nice brown hair and plenty of it. It’ll grow back and a summer working in the sun will take care of his complexion.” Not that it mattered to Annie what he looked like. Her feelings ran much deeper than looks. “It’s not his looks that count. Anyway, courting is private.”
If only they
were
courting. They were friends, she reminded herself. Friends.
“Courting?” Charisma scoffed so loudly Gracie jumped and whimpered. “I suppose you have beaus too.”
Annie stuck a finger to her lips. It was time to change the subject before it got any more unseemly. In any event, Charisma’s past was far more interesting than Annie’s life. “Why did you run away?”
“It’s not important.”
Charisma’s tone said differently. Annie tried to imagine what might have happened. To leave home and not go back for four years. To not see parents. If Mudder and Daed were still alive, she’d never leave them. “To be so far from family…that seems important.”
Charisma stretched out her long, skinny legs and leaned back in the rocker. Her eyes closed for a few minutes. Maybe she would be able to sleep after all. Annie resigned herself to not knowing why Charisma left home.
“I met Logan on the street in Baton Rouge. I was panhandling.” Charisma opened her eyes. “He walked right on by me like he didn’t hear me ask for money. I called him a nasty name. That’s the way I was then. I didn’t care what people thought. Anyway, about fifteen minutes later, here he came. He had one of those cup of soup things, you know, like you buy from vending machines.” She glanced toward Annie. “You know what a vending machine is, Amish girl?”
“I know. You put money in it and get food out of it.” Mark had been fascinated with them at the hospital where Josiah had been treated after his accident. “Candy bars too. And not very good coffee.”
“Exactly. He also brought me a candy bar, one of those ones that
have a bunch of peanuts in it because he said I needed protein.” Charisma smiled a little, her gaze distant. “He sat down on the curb next to me and handed me that hot cup of soup. He looked at me with those big blue eyes and he smiled and I don’t know…he made me feel safe. Nobody ever made me feel that way before.”
“Just like that?” Annie mulled it over. She’d loved David since she was twelve. A steady, certain, knowing kind of love that she couldn’t tell anyone about because they were too young. They couldn’t even see each other as anything more than friends until the singings when she turned sixteen. Charisma’s encounter with Logan couldn’t be the same thing, could it? “Because of soup and a candy bar with peanuts?”
“Because he bothered. With me. No one else had in a long time.”
“He showed you kindness.”
“I guess.”
“Then what?”
“Then he asked me if I wanted to go home with him, so I did.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.” Charisma shrugged. “Beggars can’t be choosers. He was nice and he was clean and he didn’t hit me or yell at me. He had an apartment where I could get out of the rain and sometimes he had money so we could buy food. He took care of me. That’s why I stayed with him even though…that’s why I have to stand by him.”
Even though what? Annie tried to read between the lines. “Why didn’t you get married?”
“Because…lots of reasons. After I realized I was…that Gracie was coming, he asked, but I couldn’t. Just because.” Charisma wiped at her runny nose like a small child. “But I still gotta stand by him.”
Annie understood that part. She wanted to stand by David too. He wouldn’t let her. She had to give up now or she would never have the chance to rock a baby of her own to sleep. If she did give up, that child wouldn’t be David’s. The thought sat like a stone in her stomach. She couldn’t imagine having a child with anyone else. “What about your parents? Do they know about Logan and Gracie?”
“No.”
Annie tried to fathom the wrenching anguish in that one syllable. “Don’t you want them to know they have a grandchild?”
Charisma shook her head and a half-sob slipped out. She slapped a hand to her mouth. After a second, she heaved a sigh. “I’d like for my mom to know, but not my dad. I don’t care if he ever gets to see his granddaughter. Not everybody has a family like yours, Amish girl.” She squirmed in her chair as if unhappy memories pressed upon her. “My dad is…I ran away because he beat me. One night he broke my arm and my nose. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Annie felt chilled to the bone on a hot, summer night. Her community believed in corporal punishment. The Bible said spare the rod, spoil the child. But not this. Not violence, especially directed at a little girl. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s okay. Anyway, I started living with Logan. One thing led to another and the next thing I know, I’m stuck in Kansas in an Amish house with no TV and no radio. And a dishwasher named Annie.”
She giggled, a half hysterical sound. After a moment Annie joined her, softly so as not to wake Gracie. “Why did you come to Kansas?”
“After Gracie was born, we were living with Logan’s dad and his brother, Sam. They got into it. Logan busted a bottle over Sam’s head. We had to leave.”
“But why Kansas?”
“My brother wrote me a letter. He says my mom and dad separated. I guess she couldn’t take his temper anymore either.” Charisma began to tap her flip-flopped foot on the porch as if she were about to take off running. “Anyway, she came up here to some town called Wakefield to live with her sister.”
“Wakefield. That’s not so far from here. You almost made it.”
“I don’t know if she’ll take me back.” Charisma’s voice cracked. “I’ve been gone four years. I’m coming back with two more mouths to feed and another on the way.”
“She’ll want to meet your beau and her grandchild, I’m sure of it.”
“I don’t know. Logan said it was worth a try, and we didn’t have no place else to go. No place at all.” Her bitter laugh fell around them like
broken glass. “So that’s how I ended up in the middle of nowheresville. No offense.”
“None taken.” Annie inhaled the sweet scent of roses that clung to the trellis on the other side of the porch railing. “I like it in the middle of nowheresville. I like it a lot.”
“I have to get Logan out of jail. I have to get to Wakefield to see my mom. Before the baby’s born.”
“When is that?”
“I haven’t exactly been to the doctor much—just the free family clinic in Baton Rouge, but I think it’s probably about a month or so.” Charisma shifted in her chair. “I should go on to Wakefield to see if my mom will take me back.”
So they had a month to get Logan out of jail. Annie tried to imagine what Leah would say about having guests for that long. Was it even possible to get a person out of jail who tried to rob a bakery? The Englischers’ court system was a mystery to her. “So we’ll get Logan out of jail, and you’ll go to Wakefield.”
Said aloud it sounded like a grandiose promise. Annie had no idea how they could make it come true.
God,
she breathed silently,
it’s up to You.
A
nnie stifled a yawn and rubbed her eyes. The sound of the deacon’s droning voice made her want to nod off. She had no idea how long the prayer service had been so far, but the state of her behind said too long. She immediately lifted a contrite prayer. It was a privilege to be able to worship. She never allowed herself to forget that. Their copy of the
Martyr’s Mirror
in the front room reminded her each day of the persecution her ancestors had suffered. She straightened and tried to focus. Next to her, Lillie wiggled on the hard wooden bench. Leah frowned and pinched the girl’s arm. Lillie’s face crumpled. Annie put an arm around her, ignoring Leah’s glare.