Heritage of Lancaster County 02 The Confession (23 page)

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to the servants. For in such a short time, they'd become friends.

She thought of Rosie and Fulton, how they'd taken her under their collective wing, so to speak. And Mr. Williams-- she did believe the old gentleman was just beginning to warm up to her.

Everyone had been so kind. Everyone except the master of the house. He had acted like the devil himself, and she wasn't all that sure that he wasn't.

After her unpacking was done, she realized the potpourri sachets had been left behind in the corners of the bureau drawers. All of them, even her own lilac ones.

The thought of having abandoned her own handmade creations caused her to cry all over again. But in the sad- ness--the pitying of herself--came the surprising answer to Mr. Bennett's accusation.

What's your proof? he'd roared at her.

Suddenly, she knew . . . realized fully what she needed for evidence, as sure as she was Laura Bennett's daughter, she knew. Now... how would she go about getting it? Who did she know in Hickory Hollow with a telephone?

Lydia Miller, of course. For the first time in several hours, Katherine smiled. Smiled so hard that half a dimple popped out on one cheek; she spied it in the wide mirror over the dresser.

There was proof. The kind of proof Mr. Bennett could never dispute. The rotten-to-the-core man would drop his teeth. For sure and for certain.

Now... how to get her hands on the satin baby gown?

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The Lord is my light and my

whom shall I fear?

Psalms 27:1

219 ;alvation--

220

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Lydia Miller went about the living room, gathering up crumpled wrapping paper amidst toys and games--Christ-

mas presents to her young grandchildren. She was truly surprised when Edna summoned her from the kitchen wall phone. "I think it's long distance," her daughter-in-law said, covering the receiver. "Sounds like it might be Katherine."

"Katie Lapp?"

Edna nodded, and Lydia swept loose strands of hair into

her covering before taking the phone. "Hello?"

"Cousin Lydia... it's me, Katherine, calling all the way

from New York,"

"Well, Merry Christmas to you. How nice to hear your

voice."

There was a slight pause. "Lydia, uh, I was wondering

. . well, I need your help."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, really I am. But I wonder if you could drive

over to my mamma's house. I need you to talk to her. To-

day."

Lydia wondered what could be so important on a busy

Christmas afternoon. But as the sketchy details began to un-

fold, she felt the weight of responsibility begin to settle on

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her shoulders. Still, she wasn't at all unwilling to do Katherine's bidding. I'll see what I can do," she promised.

"Remember to ask Mamma gently. You'll do that, won't you, Cousin Lydia?"

"Of course I will." She sighed, wondering if she oughtn't to mention that Katie's mother and Ella Mae Zook had dropped by for a visit.

Stepping out in faith, hoping what she was about to say might help things, not hinder, Lydia told Katherine about the unexpected visit.

"Mamma... and the Wise Woman, really? They came to see you?"

"I know... I was surprised, too."

"Well, how's Mam doing?"

Lydia stared at the lights on the tree. "I'd say she must

be awful preoccupied. She's suffered a terrible loss." "True," came a tentative reply. There was an awkward pause.

"So... you want me to get your old baby dress from her, then?"

"That's right. Only please tell my mother you want to borrow it. See what she says about that."

"I won't lie, Katherine. You know better than to ask me to." She wondered if the world had begun to rub off on her cousin's daughter.

"It wouldn't be a lie," Katherine insisted. "She'll have it back.., in all good time."

Lydia sat down on the wooden stool near the wall while the caller continued. "Once you have it, I'll need you to mail it... by overnight mail, please. To me." And she gave the address of the motel.

"Aren't you staying at your natural mother's place?" "Not now. It's a very long story, and I hope to share it with you someday, but ... well, I'm paying for long distance."

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"I understand, but I hate to think of you being at a motel somewhere, especially on Christmas Day. Bless your heart. Why, Rebecca would be worried sick if she knew."

"Oh, but she mustn't! Please don't tell Mamma that part. I'm fine here, Cousin Lydia, really I am. But getting the baby dress will solve everything. So if you'll save the receipt for the mailing, I'll pay you back. Please... this is ever so important to me."

Lydia could hear the longing in the young woman's voice. I'll try, Katherine. But I'm telling you it may not be

easy. Word has it your mother's not well."

"Mamma isn't?"

"Well, she's not herself, to say the least."

"Ach, no!"

"It's been a real blow, losin' her daughter both to a bishop's decree and then to a fancy, worldly woman."

"Oh, but you're wrong. My natural mother is anything but worldly. She's a good, honest woman. And I think she's about to be hoodwinked, possibly out of a lot of money. Maybe even her entire fortune."

Alarmed, Lydia promised to do her best to get the baby gown mailed up to New York. Fast as she could.

Nothing about the visit to the Lapp home was easy. To start with, Samuel almost didn't let her in--"because

Rebecca's lyin' down just now," he apologized.

"Oh, I can come back later," she said.

At that, he seemed to open the door a bit wider even as he stood there making excuses for Rebecca who "ain't in any shape to be comin' downstairs for company."

Unconsciously, Lydia fixed her eyes on his tan suspenders, the sound of Katie's pleading over the phone echoing in her mind. The poor displaced girl was counting on her. And it was odd, but something inside her--a surprisingly powerful resolve--wouldn't let Lydia back off this first at-

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tempt at seeing Rebecca Lapp. Not without trying harder, at least.

"Maybe I could run up and see her. That way she wouldn't have to get dressed and all . . . unless she's sleeping."

Samuel shook his head. "No, no, she ain't asleep, but she's been through a horrible, awful time today." A long pause. " 'Tis our first Christmas without ... without the girl. You can imagine .... "

But, no, she couldn't imagine. Her children were all grown and gone, true, but to have one of them leave the community because of some age-old ridiculous shunning practice. No ... never.

She noticed the man's sunken eyes. One look at his forlorn countenance and Lydia could readily see the aftermath of grief. He, too, was suffering great loss.

"I'm so sorry.., wish Peter and I could've helped Katie out more." She'd struggled off and on with guilt, having opened her home to Samuel and Rebecca's runaway daughter.

"You did all ya could," Samuel replied, and with that, he motioned her inside, took her coat, and led her upstairs.

When Lydia first laid eyes on her cousin, she felt near like crying herself. Rebecca was all doubled up on the bed, as though she was experiencing tremendous pain. She lay on her side, clutching a rose-colored baby dress in both hands.

The part that evoked tears was seeing the Amish- woman's lips move as if she were talking to the little dress; yet not a sound escaped her lips. Only Samuel's hard, frightened breathing could be heard in the room.

Lydia searched her pocketbook for a tissue. What had gone wrong? she wondered. How had her cousin slipped from yesterday's semidetached behavior to this? Had the se-

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were shunning of her daughter pushed the woman over the

edge?

Lydia could easily see there'd be no approaching

Rebecca about giving up the beloved gown. Not today. Not with her clinging to it as if it were a lifeline to Katie, somehow.

Even if she went ahead and asked for it the way Katherine

had suggested--to borrow it for a while--even then she knew the plea would be refused or misunderstood. No, borrowing the only threadlike connection to Katie--a symbol that might well be preserving the confused woman's sanity--well, it was out of the question completely.

How long she stood there, Lydia didn't know exactly.

But when she turned to whisper to Samuel--that she'd best

be going--Rebecca stirred a bit.

Startled, she hurried to the distraught woman's bedside.

"Rebecca... it's your cousin Lydia. Is there something I can

do for you?"

Rebecca's eyes were empty, dazed, and she began to

moan--long, low-pitched groans, as if in travail.

The glassy-eyed look took Lydia by surprise--she was

that shook up. "You don't have to speak, Cousin, but maybe a nod of the head?" She hated to inquire this way, as if she were talking to someone other than her own blood kin. Someone completely unrelated. "Are you in pain?" She had to know.

It was then that Katie's mamma placed her hand on her

breast and tried to sit up.

"Are you in physical pain, Rebecca?" Her cousin stared back blankly. "Can you hear me?" she tried again.

Unexpectedly, there came a nod. "I must get up ...

must take care of Katie. Don't you hear my baby crying?"

So baffling was such a question, Lydia knew she couldn't

bring herself to follow through on Katherine's request. Per

226 haps someone else, someone closer to the Amish community, might be able to pry the baby dress away from the fingers of a brokenhearted mother.

Who would be willing to help Katie? Who in Hickory Hollow could Lydia turn to?

Mary couldn't stop thinking about her encounter with the bishop. How mellow and strangely subdued his voice had been. Honestly, she'd never heard him sound thataway. Not at Preachin', for sure not at barn raisin's or nowhere else, neither.

She wondered, had he softened his voice for her? To let her know that the same man who'd shunned Mary's dearest friend in all the world had another side to him? A kind and gentle aspect to his soul?

Pondering this, she helped her mother prepare fruit salad and leftover main dishes from the noon meal. She dared not discuss her thoughts with Mam or Mammi-Ruth, though she'd thought of nothing else since arriving home from the visit with John Beiler.

Oh, she hoped her sour cream chocolate cookies had absolutely melted in his mouth--his and the children's. One good way to a man's heart was through his stomach, her mamma had always said. Jokingly, of course. But she'd seen her mother's cooking work wonders with her Pop many a time.

She thought of the next scrumptious recipe she might offer to the bishop and his half-orphaned brood. Ach, she wouldn't be waitin' long, neither. Come next Sunday, she'd have another mouth-watering surprise for John Beiler.

And... she was gonna be listening; comparing, too, the sound of his "delivery voice" during the sermon, weighing

227 it against the almost romantic utterances of this most glorious Christmas Day.

She struggled to get past the haze in her mind. Fuzzy... woolly. Everything about Rebecca's thoughts felt that way-- like peering through gray cellophane paper.

Fighting off a precarious feeling that if she let herself re- lax-even while lying in her own becl--if she gave in to the pulling, the all-consuming murkiness, it might swallow her up. Might devour her entirely, and she'd never be right again.

Something in her consciousness told her there was someone standing in the room. Someone besides Samuel. But she couldn't begin to guess who.

Then, intruding on her attempts to think.., think . . . the crying returned. The insistent wail of a newborn baby. Her baby.

Frantic feelings pulled at her, deeper.., deeper into the wailing. Into a tunnel, the corridor long and narrow. The desperate wail of a helpless child--her heart-child who could not receive nourishment.

Crying echoed in her ears, reverberating through the white, sterile passageway. Rebecca closed her eyes, trying to block out the heart-wrenching sound. As she did, the tunnel gave way to people--two women. One, a teenage girl carrying a sleeping baby, the other, the girl's mother.

"I want you to have my baby," saicl the girl with rect hair. Eagerly, Rebecca's arms went out to receive the beautiful infant. Her arms felt the slight weight of the tiny one, and she offered a warm bottle. But the rosebud lips would not suck.

More crying...

What would she do if she coulcl never quiet the infant,

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never be the kind of mother her baby truly needed?

But when she opened her eyes, longing to see the darling bundle, oh, yearning to gaze on her child, she looked--and Katie was gone.

Sitting up in bed, Rebecca listened, listened with all her might, but heard nothing. She hobbled down the hallway to another bedroom. Ach, the house was still. Dead still.

Sighing, she sat on Katie's bed, holding the satin baby gown. When she'd kissed it, she laid it back in its hiding place.

It was then she realized the infant's crying had stopped.

: :.', :

Mary was caught off guard after supper when a big, beautiful car pulled up in the driveway. "Who's this?" she said to her mother.

They gawked out the window as a woman hurried to the back door. "Looks an awful lot like Rebecca's Mennonite cousin," whispered Rachel.

"Jab, I see whatcha mean."

When the knock came, Mary rushed to the door, welcoming their neighbor inside.

"Can't be staying long," Lydia said, keeping her coat on as Mary pulled up a chair. I'll get right to the point."

Mary listened carefully as the woman described a phone call. One from Katie. "She called this afternoon, Katie did, needing a baby dress that her mamma's kept around all these years, I suppose. It's made of satin.., pink, and has the name Katherine Mayfield embroidered on the back facing."

Completely in the dark as to what Lydia Miller wanted with either her or her mamma, Mary kept still and paid close attention.