Christmas at Rose Hill Farm (17 page)

W
ith not a minute to spare, Billy had caught the last bus out of Lancaster to College Station for the day. After he left Rose Hill Farm, he felt himself drawn toward his old home, almost as if he couldn't help himself. He wanted to be alone, he didn't want anyone to know that he might stop in—he wasn't even sure if he was
going
to stop in—but he couldn't seem to keep his legs from taking him down that familiar road. The air was searing cold, but he stood for a long time at the base of the driveway and stared up at the farmhouse. It looked strangely empty. If it weren't for a thin tendril of gray smoke curling out of the central chimney, he might have thought it deserted.

The fields, he had noticed, weren't just silent in winter's rest. The dirt was gray, no longer brown. Years of no-till farming, with cash crops like tobacco and wheat and corn that depleted the soil, had taken a toll. The ground looked spent, exhausted. He left the road and approached through the woods, standing hidden in the trees, studying the place. It was a mess: piles of rusting tools and busted implements littered the barnyard, at least two corners of the front stoop needed jacking up and looked about to drop off the house, peeling paint from out
buildings, missing roof shingles, a sagging clothesline, a gate to the yard off its hinges. What had his brothers been doing all these years?

The Lapp farm had never looked pristine and cared for like other Amish homes, but
this
. . . this was pathetic. Worse than anything he remembered.

He stood there a moment, feeling lonesome, even shaky, as his mind reviewed the last week he had lived in his father's home. First came the wheat harvest, then came the discovery that his brothers were adding sawdust to their wheat sacks, which, it turned out, was his father's mastermind. Finally, the Bann for his father. And then Billy felt surrounded by an invisible, impenetrable fog. His brothers avoided him, his father didn't look him in the eye. Tension was mounting at home, silent but palpable. Something was coming.

———

September 1973.
A few days after Caleb Zook had placed his father under the Bann, a truck blew a tire as it rounded a sharp hairpin turn not far from the Lapp farm. Billy was in the phone shanty down by the road, listening to messages, when he heard the burst of the blowout and the flap-flap-flap of rubber shards hitting the road. He ran outside to see if he could help. The driver was already out of his cab and in the back of his truck, checking on cargo, worried the blowout had caused the contents to jostle. Inside the truck was antique furniture covered in thick pads and boxes of collectibles destined for auction in New York City. Billy's brothers drifted over to see if they could help. The driver had a spare tire and a jack, but no wrench to loosen bolts, so Billy was sent to the barn to get tools. Soon, the tire was changed and the driver was gratefully on his way.

Billy went back to the phone shanty to finish listening to
messages. He had ordered a courting buggy months ago from the local buggy maker. It was time to court Bess properly and he planned to use the money saved up from his Rose Hill Farm job to purchase it. His father, unlike other Amish fathers, didn't see any reason to buy courting buggies for his sons. There was a message on the answering machine that the buggy was ready for pickup. Later, Billy realized the timing could not have been worse.

That afternoon, he'd gone to town to withdraw his savings to pay for the buggy. As he walked out of the bank, he happened to see his old girlfriend, Betsy Mast. She had just come from a visit with her parents and was quite upset. She needed money and they refused to help her. She asked, with those big round eyes of hers, if she could borrow a little to tide her over. How could he refuse? He spared what he could, and Betsy threw her arms around him in gratitude. That was all there was to it—Billy had to hurry to get to the buggy maker before supper. Back at the farm, he hid the buggy behind the barn and covered it with old blankets. He was afraid his brothers would take it out on a joyride and he wanted to surprise Bess with it tomorrow.

When he walked into the farmhouse, he found his father and brothers at the kitchen table, waiting for him.

“What's happened?” Billy said, a feeling of dread rolling over him.

Ten seconds passed in cold silence.

“Sit down,” his father said.

Billy took his place at the table and tried to read his brothers' faces, but they were the very picture of innocence.

“The truck driver with the flat tire came back to the house this afternoon,” his father said. “He said a box was missing from his truck. Most of the items in the box weren't extremely valuable, but there was a rare cast-iron Santa Claus bank made
before the turn of the century that he said was worth thousands of dollars. He claimed he would lose his job if that collectible wasn't returned.”

“So he thinks one of us took it?” Billy said, incredulous. “We were trying to help him.”

Billy's father raised his chin at him directly. “Your brothers said you slipped up to the barn while they were changing the tire.”

So. This was it. This was how his brothers would exact revenge. Instead of feeling cowed, Billy felt a surge of power. He raised his own chin, aware of how similar his profile was to his father's. “I did not steal a box from that truck.” But he was pretty sure he knew who did.

His father opened his mouth as if he were going to say more, but instead, he rose stiffly and left the room.

In the middle of the night, Billy slipped out to the barn with a flashlight and searched through his brothers' hiding places in the hayloft, where his father never went. It didn't take much effort to locate the box. Obviously, Mose's handiwork. Mose was a liar and cheat, but he wasn't clever like Sam and Ben. Billy opened the box and there, on the top, cradled in old newspaper, was the rusty old cast-iron Santa Claus bank. Billy took it out and looked it over. It was rusty, dented, with peeling paint, and surprisingly heavy for a child's toy. Amazing to think it was worth thousands of dollars; to Billy it looked like junk. Carefully, he tucked it back in the newspaper nest and stashed the box in the back of his new buggy. Tomorrow, after work, he would head to town and ship the box to the truck driver. But this time, he would handle it quietly. He wasn't about to go to Caleb Zook about Mose's pilfering.

The next afternoon, Billy had just finished cutting spent canes in a rose field at Rose Hill Farm and was on his way to the greenhouse to put away some tools when he saw his father
and brothers standing beside his new buggy. All the tension in their grim expressions seemed focused on Billy as he approached them.

For a moment no one spoke, then his father leaned forward, knitting his fingers together. “Son, you lied to me.” He looked more sad than angry.

“What are you talking about?” Billy asked.

“The box from that truck. Your brothers found it in your buggy.”

“I know. I found it in the barn.” Billy looked at Mose first, then Sam and Ben, each one, though they kept their eyes fixed on their father. “I was going to send it to the truck driver this afternoon.”

“What about that iron Santa Claus bank?”

“What are you talking about?” Billy went to the back of the buggy and saw the box was open. He rooted around in the newspaper, but the Santa Claus bank was gone. “Where is it?”

“That's what we want to know,” Sam said. “What have you done with it?”

“It was there this morning and now it's gone.” Billy saw his brothers exchange a look. They were trying to frame him. But his father . . . did he believe Billy had taken it? “Do you honestly think I would have stolen it?”

“Out of the blue,” Ben said, “you've bought yourself a new buggy.”

“Out of the blue? I ordered it months ago! I worked hard for that buggy. I earned it from my work here at Rose Hill Farm!”

Sam turned to Billy with thinly veiled hostility. “Kind of curious timing, wouldn't you say?”

Billy wasn't interested in what Sam thought. He looked his father straight in the eye. Dry-throated, expressionless, he asked him flatly, “And you think I did it?”

His father frowned. “Even a saint is tempted by an open door.”

Billy looked at him in disbelief. Then his eyes skimmed over his conspiratorial brothers. “You're kidding, right? Pulling my leg?”

“It's hardly a laughing matter,” his father said. “The facts are the facts. That collectible's gone missing and you're suddenly tossing money around town.”

“Tossing money around town? What?”

“Sam said he saw you handing cash to your old girlfriend Betsy Mast,” Ben said.

“Betsy Mast was clinging to you for dear life,” Sam said, a bit too loudly.

She was grateful, that's all, Billy was about to say, when it occurred to him that Sam was projecting his voice for a reason. He whirled around and there was Bess, standing not ten feet away from them, overhearing the entire conversation. Eyes rounded in dismay, her face was a mixture of shock and disappointment.

“Oh Billy . . . ,” she admonished breathily. “Not Betsy Mast. Not again.”

“You've been caught red-handed, Billy boy,” Sam taunted, a malicious smile curling his lips. “Don't bother denying it.”

“Don't even bother denying it,” Mose echoed.

Billy's face felt hot enough to ignite. He took his time answering, the words came out low and reluctant, though his insides felt hot and shaky. “I'm not denying that Betsy saw me in town and asked me for a loan. I gave her some money. But that was all there was to it.” His eyes met Bess's, silently pleading with her to believe in him, but her gaze broke from his and she looked away.

Oh Bess, Bess,
not you, too.
They could all think whatever
they wanted, but she was his girl, his friend. She thought him capable of such a thing?

At that moment, Maggie Zook came out of the greenhouse, brushing dirt off her hands. She stood next to Bess and looked at Billy and his family, standing off to each other. “Hi there! What am I missing? What's going on?”

Billy looked at Maggie, at Bess, then turned back to look at his father. This was unbelievable! Were they all going to believe something based on his brothers' hearsay?

He thought about fighting them—but for what? He was tired of fighting. It seemed he'd been fighting his whole life. And a single questioning stare from his father, one from Bess, had undone him. “Nothing, Maggie,” Billy said, disgusted. “You haven't missed a thing.”

He'd had it. Everything he thought was important changed in that moment. Family, friends, church, and faith. He threw his clippers and gloves on the ground and walked down the driveway. He left it all behind in Stoney Ridge.

Billy found a job working at a commercial nursery over in east Lancaster, one of the nurseries that ordered Bertha's roses for special requests by customers. The owner had offered a job invitation to Billy once, and now he took him up on it. He rented a room out of a lady's house, and he waited. He waited for the collectible to turn up, for his father to see through his brothers' flimsy story and find him, to ask him to return home. He waited for Bess to come to him and apologize for not trusting him.

Give them time, he told himself. They'd all come around to see the truth.

Days went by, weeks, months. Time crept like a snail. The days limped by. November, then December. By the time Christmas arrived, Billy sat alone in his rented room in an old lady's
dingy house and faced the truth. No one was going to come. Not his father, not Bess.

Billy had been forgotten.

———

A pair of black crows jabbered above him, squawking at him, snapping Billy back from the past to the present. He took in a deep breath, and that was the end of the remembering for a while.

Part of him longed to go knock on the door and tell his father he was home. But what good would that do? Nothing would have changed; he'd slip right back in the same role—Der Ruschde.
The runt.

As he stood watching the farmhouse, he felt a wave of loneliness. It was a familiar feeling to him, like a sad old friend. A cold wind cut right through his jacket and he suddenly realized how late it was getting. Evening was drawing on, darkness was climbing the trees. When he looked up at the sky, it seemed impossible that his father and his brothers saw the same sun and stars he did. He felt too far away to share the same heavens.

He spun on the heels of his boots and walked back down the road.

The wind came up in the night and the old farmhouse creaked and groaned like an arthritic old man. Bess knew the chill would take its toll on her father's fragile back and the thought worried her. She wondered if the day was coming when he would need to move to a warmer climate, like Pinecraft, Florida. Summer all year long.

But what would that mean for Rose Hill Farm? Who would tend Mammi's roses?