A Plain Disappearance (27 page)

“Fine, I’ll go.” Jason shot me one more parting glare as he followed Nottingham across the street to his squad car.

“That went well,” I said as Timothy and I walked back to his truck. It was only four o’clock, but already nearing dusk. I reminded myself that the winter solstice was over and the days grew longer with an upward march to summer.

Timothy just shook his head. “Do you think he did it?”

I frowned. “I don’t know, but I do think that we need to talk to Nathan and Caleb again.”

“Agreed. If Caleb is as awful as Jason says he is, I want to be there when you talk to him.”

I cocked my head. “What do you know about him?”

Timothy shrugged. “I saw him at church when I was Amish and also around town. He always seemed to have a lot of other Amish guys around him who followed his lead. There is too much of a gap in our ages for us to overlap in school much. He couldn’t have been more than eight when I finished eighth grade.”

“And Nathan?”

“I know him just as well. He was always in the gang of Amish guys with Caleb.”

At the truck, I placed a hand on Timothy’s arm. “The day we found Katie, Caleb and Nathan were at your farm.”

Timothy shrank back. “You never told me that before. Why were they there?”

“They were there with Nathan’s father.”

“Levi?”

“That’s right. Levi took some of Grandfather Zook’s woodworking projects on consignment to sell at the warehouse. The warehouse’s wagon was loaded with furniture made by craftsmen from all over the district, and Levi said something that I just remembered.”

Timothy leaned forward. “What?”

His closeness distracted me for a second. “He said, ‘They are in an awful fight over a girl.’”

“Katie?”

I nodded.

He opened the passenger door to the pickup for me. “I guess we need to find out how bad that fight became.”

I climbed inside. “And if Katie was a victim of being caught in the middle.”

I
wrapped my hand around the shoulder strap of my seat belt. “Becky went into work early this morning. She’s home by now.” I bit my lip, wondering if she was still mad at me for overreacting about her hair.

“Great. We need a break. Why don’t I go pick up Aaron and we can go get ice cream with him and Becky.”

I shivered. “We just spent a half hour standing outside, freezing to death. It’s too cold for ice cream.”

“It’s never too cold for ice cream,” Timothy assured me. “But we can go to Rita’s Coffee Haus in Mount Vernon, and you can have hot cocoa.”

“It sounds nice, but there’s something I need to tell you about your sister.”

He glanced at me. “I don’t like the sound of that. Is there something wrong with her community service or her probation?”

“No. She’s doing great in both. Her last report was excellent.”

“Then, what is it?”

I swallowed. “She cut her hair.”

His face fell. “Oh.”

“She’s not Amish anymore,” I said in Becky’s defense. “And there’s no reason she shouldn’t cut her hair.”

“She wouldn’t cut it if she thought she’d go back,” he said. “Have my parents seen her?”

“I don’t think so.”

“
Daed
is not going to be happy. I know he wants Becky to return home and be Amish.” He shot a glance at me. “He wants that for both of us.”

I pulled on my seat belt’s shoulder strap again, holding it away from my neck. “I know.”

“Since so much time has passed for me, he has accepted my decision as permanent. I left the Amish way nearly eight years ago. Becky isn’t so far removed from it that she couldn’t go back. By cutting her hair, though, she is telling the whole world her decision is final.”

The whole world, including Aaron,
I thought.

As if he could read my mind, Timothy asked, “Does Aaron know?”

“I don’t know. He might have seen her at Young’s today. I don’t know if he was working.”

“He wasn’t. He told me he had the day off.”

“That’s a relief. I would hate for him to learn about Becky’s haircut at work. He’s bound to have a reaction.”

Timothy wrung his hands on the steering wheel. “He needs to know. It’s a statement as much to him as it is to my father.”

“I know.”

Timothy sighed. “I told him something like this might happen. That my sister is young and doesn’t know what she wants out of her life.”

“Becky is in another place than Aaron is. He’s ready to marry. Clearly, she is not.” I let go of the shoulder strap and it snapped back into place against my heavy winter coat.

Timothy frowned. “She needs to be the one who tells him, and she needs to be clear. I won’t deliver the message. I don’t want to be trapped between my sister and my best friend.”

“I know she cares about him but maybe not as much as he cares about her.”

Timothy parked the truck in my driveway. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

I placed a hand on his arm. “Are you mad at her?”

He shifted the truck into park. “No. How could I be? I left too. More than anyone I know what a difficult transition this has been for Becky. You being here made it easier for her. I cringe to think where she might have ended up if you hadn’t come along last summer and saved her from Brock and Curt. The moment you took her in, I knew you weren’t like most
Englisch
girls. You weren’t like most girls period.” He laughed. “I fell in love with you the moment I saw you pinch your finger while trying to put your bed frame together when you first moved to Appleseed Creek. You were so cute trying to line up the bars and then insisting that you could do it yourself when I offered to help.”

“I eventually did put it together,” I said while thoughts ran through my head.
I fell in love with you.
There was no question there. There was no way my brain could twist that phrase into meaning less, into something it was not.

I love you too
, I wanted to say, but something held me back.

Timothy smiled and leaned over and kissed me, erasing all the thoughts racing through my head. He touched my face. “Okay if we do hot cocoa another night?”

“Of course.”

Timothy nodded. “Let’s go inside. I want to see my sister’s new hairdo.”

“Okay,” I said a little breathless.

I opened the front door and found Becky on the couch examining her appearance in a hand mirror. Her white-blonde hair fell straight and smooth to the shoulder and side-swept bangs crossed her forehead. In her jeans and teal, cable knit sweater, no one would ever know that she spent most of her life wearing plain dresses and a prayer cap. She dropped the mirror into her lap. “You’re home! I was wondering where you were. Did Tanisha leave?”

I removed my coat and hung it on the hall tree by the door. “She had to go back to Cleveland to spend some time with her family before returning to Italy.”

Timothy stepped through the door.

Automatically, Becky’s hand flew to her hair. “I didn’t know Timothy was coming over.”

He stepped out of winter boots. “Chloe warned me about your hair.”

Her eyes flitted in my direction. “You still don’t approve?”

I sat on the couch next to her. “Becky, if this is the right decision for you and it makes you happy, I don’t see anything wrong with it.”

She squinted at me. “Then, why were you all upset last night?”

“I’d had a long day.” I shot a look at Timothy. “And I was caught by surprise. I thought you would tell me before you cut your hair. I’m sorry I overreacted.”

Becky bumped my shoulder. “It’s okay. I’m sorry that I didn’t wait until you got home. I told Tanisha about it, she was so excited, and I guess I just got swept away in her enthusiasm.” She squeezed my hand. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I knew you were just concerned.”

“It’s okay. Trust me, I’ve been swept up in Tee’s enthusiasm more than once.”

Becky looked to her brother.

He frowned. “You need to tell Aaron.”

Becky made a face. “I’ll see him at work tomorrow.”

Timothy folded his arms. “He needs to know
before
he sees you.”

“Why’s that?”

“You know why.”

Becky’s lip quivered. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to hurt him.”

Her brother’s eyes softened. “Becky, he’s going to be hurt. There is no way around that, but he deserves the truth.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I need to stop putting the conversation off.”

“How about this?” I asked. “I’ll drive Becky to work early tomorrow and that will give her and Aaron time to talk. Ellie won’t mind.”

Timothy nodded. “Sounds like a good plan.”

Becky shuddered. “Okay.”

The next morning Becky
shifted side to side in the front seat of my car.

“Nervous?” I asked.

She nodded. “I thought about it last night, and I don’t know what I’m going to say to him.”

“Just be honest with him.”

She looked at me. “Have you ever dumped anyone?”

“First of all, you’re not dumping Aaron because the two of you never dated. Second of all, yes, I have broken up with someone. It’s not fun.”

“Why did you break up with him?”

“He talked really loud. His voice drove me crazy.” I joked, but I knew this situation was so much different. My ex-boyfriend and I didn’t care about each other as much as Aaron and Becky did.

Becky laughed, and I was happy to make her smile.

We entered Young’s through the employee entrance. Ellie was in the kitchen instructing her cooks how she wanted them to make her famous breakfast casserole. Apparently, one of the cooks had started experimenting and Ellie wasn’t having it. The argument ceased when Becky stepped into the kitchen after me. A collective gasp went up in the room.

Under her winter coat, Becky wore the same plain blue dress as the others did and the white apron with “Young’s Family Kitchen” stitched on the pocket. However, the prayer cap she typically wore to work was missing, and her white-blonde hair fell to the shoulder.

Ellie placed a metal spatula on the counter. “So you cut your hair.”

Becky pursed her lips and nodded.

Ellie gave a single nod. “Good. It’s better to pick a room than to stand in the middle of a doorway.”

Becky’s shoulders relaxed.

Ellie picked up the spatula again and waved it at her Amish cooks. “What are you all looking at? Back to work. Breakfast service starts in thirty minutes.” She handed the spatula to her head cook and placed her arm around Becky, leading her out of the kitchen. I followed them.

The main lights in the dining room were just coming on as waitresses and busboys set the tables for breakfast. They only set tables in one-third of the dining room because breakfast attracted the smallest crowd at Young’s.

Ellie watched her staff closely. “I thought I had you scheduled to come in at ten today. It’s not even eight yet.”

Becky swallowed. “You did, but I want to talk to Aaron.”

“Ah,” the older Amish woman said. “
Ya
, he is the opening host today. I think he is in the break room. He should be out here any moment.”

“Becky, let’s go talk to him back there,” I said.

Amish women continued to bustle through their breakfast preparations, ignoring us this time when we stepped into the stainless steel, professional grade kitchen. Off to the side of the kitchen a swinging door led into the staff break room. Becky stared at it.

“It’s better if you just get it over with,” I whispered.

She nodded and pushed her way through the door. I didn’t follow her, so she stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Aren’t you coming with me?”

“I—”

She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the room. We both froze. Aaron sat in his wheelchair. His mouth fell open. “Becky?”

“Aaron . . .”

“You cut your hair.” His tone was sharp.

“Yes.”

“You aren’t going back to the Amish way?” His voice was tight.

“No.” A large tear rolled down her cheek. “I can’t be Amish.”

He gripped the arms of his wheelchair. “If you want to be an
Englischer
, that’s fine. You can do that.” He drew in a harsh breath. “I can do it too.”

She licked her lips. “I can’t ask you to do that.”

“I want to. If that’s how we can be together.”

I shouldn’t be here for this conversation. It was too personal. I inched toward the door, but Becky held my arm in a vise-like grip. “You should leave if it’s your choice to leave,” she said to Aaron. “Not because it’s what I decided to do. You’re happy being Amish, and I am not. I’m not going to take you away from a life you love.”

“I love you more than how I live,” he told her.

She shook her head. “Please, Aaron, try to understand. You wouldn’t be happy. I want you to be happy for the rest of your life, even if it makes us both miserable for right now.”

He steadied his gaze on her. “Is it because of my chair?” His question hung in the air for a long, painful minute.

“No.” Becky said, her voice strangled. I felt a bruise forming on my arm as she squeezed it that much more tightly. “It’s
not
because of your chair. It’s because of who we are. We want different things. It would never work. You think being
Englisch
will be all right now, but what will happen when you are shunned?”

“You can do what you want and be Amish.” His voice was choked. “Look at Ellie.”

She took a step toward him, pulling me with her. “You may think you love me, but I’m nothing like what you need. You need a stable Amish girl like Sadie Hooley. Someone who is content in the Amish way. I was never content there. I’m not even content in the place I am now.”

“We can find the right place together.”

She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry.”

She finally let go of my arm, and blood rushed into my veins.

Realization dawned on his face. “Oh.” He released the brakes on his wheelchair. “I need to get to work.” He rolled across the floor, and I hopped out of the way. When he was gone, whispers could be heard through the open door leading to the kitchen.

Becky fell onto the couch. “They are talking about me.”

I rubbed my arm. “Let them talk.”