Found (20 page)

Authors: Shelley Shepard Gray

BOOK: Found

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In the grand scheme of things, she didn't matter to him at all.

Peter Keim pulled another cardboard box off a shelf, looked at his mother, and groaned. “Mamm, every time I turn around, I'm finding another box of yours. Why do you have so much stuff?” And more to the point, how come he hadn't seen any of it before?

It was like his mother had hidden a secret life up in the rafters of their home, and it had all gathered dust and begun to slowly rot. When a spider crept out from under the box's top flap, he grimaced. “We should throw this all out.”

From the other side of the attic, his mother looked at the four boxes, two trunks, and six or seven large wicker baskets that were filled to overflowing. She looked a bit surprised to see everything, but even in the dim light of the attic, Peter noticed a faint gleam of anticipation too. “Oh, Peter, settle down. It's not so much stuff. Not really so much for a woman's whole life. I am fairly old, you know.”

Peter sighed. His mother had been talking like that for months now, which was exasperating, since she was only sixty-two and enjoying exceptionally good health. As far as the family was concerned, the matriarch of their family had decades to go before she went around and proclaimed she was old.

“Well, all this cleaning is making me feel old.” Opening up one of the five green plastic garbage bags he'd brought up to the attic, he crouched down next to one of the trunks. “This women's work is wearing me out.”

As he knew she would, his daughter Elsie found fault with that. “Father, you mustn't talk like that. Cleaning is most definitely not women's work. Besides, you know Mamm with her asthma can't be up here in all this dust.”

He did love how prim and proper his daughter was. “I'm just teasing, Elsie. I don't mind helping with the attic. Besides, it's a whole lot warmer up here in the attic than outside in the fields.”

She rubbed her arms. “I'm tired of winter and it's only January.”

“Patience, Elsie,” his mother cautioned. “Everything comes in its own time. Even spring.”

Getting back on track, Peter brushed aside yet another traveling insect and pushed the box he'd just taken down a little more toward the center of the attic. “I can't wait to see what you have in here. This doesn't look like it's been touched since you moved in.”

Before his eyes, his mother stiffened. “I had forgotten that box was in here.”

“Then it's time we found out all your secrets,” Elsie teased from her chair near the window. “
Mommi,
you know what's going to have to happen, don't you? You're going to have to tell us all the stories that go with the items in the box.”

For some reason, his mother looked even more perturbed. “I doubt you'd be interested, Elsie. There's nothing out of the ordinary inside. Nothing that you haven't heard about at least a dozen times. You know, dear, perhaps you should go downstairs with your father. I'll finish up here on my own.”

“I'm not going to let you be up here by yourself, Mamm,” he said. “Stop worrying so much.”

“And I'm not going to leave you either,
Mommi
. There might be something inside that you've forgotten about. .Â .Â . A deep, dark secret .Â .Â .”

His mom laughed. “I think not. My life isn't filled with secrets. That's not what the Lord intended.”

Peter felt his smile falter as his mother's pious remarks floated over him. For all his life, both of his parents had set themselves up as pillars of the community. And as models for their six children to follow.

But their markers were so high, their children never felt they could meet their parents' high standards. It was one of the reasons his brothers Jacob and Aden moved to Indiana, and his little sister Sara had moved all the way to New York.

Even though he was the middle child, not the eldest son, he was the one who'd elected to live with them. But, of course, that made the most sense. He was used to keeping the peaceâa quality that was definitely needed in his parents' company.

But even he was finding it difficult to hear their criticisms day after day.

Well, at least that was the reason he gave for his own private behavior.

Pushing his dark thoughts away, he pulled open the flaps of the box and pulled an armful of the contents out. On top was an embroidered sampler.

“What does it say, Daed?” Elsie asked, reminding him that with her eye disease, it was getting harder and harder for her to see most anything.

“It says, âStart and End the Day with Prayer.' ”

Elsie smiled. “That sounds like
Mommi
.”

Indeed it did. Lovina Keim was the epitome of a dutiful Amish wife. She'd borne six children, had organized charity events for the community, kept a bountiful garden, quilted well, and even had a lovely voice.

She was a handsome woman, with dark brown eyes that her children and grandchildren had all inherited. She was a hard worker and never asked anyone to do anything she wasn't prepared to do herself.

However, she was also critical and judgmental. It was next to impossible to live up to such high standards.

Elsie moved closer, kneeling next to him. “What else is inside?”

Peter looked at his mother, who seemed frozen, her eyes fastened on the box.

Slowly, he pulled out a heavily embroidered linen tablecloth, a pair of crystal candlesticks. They were very fine. And while some Amish women did buy some pretty tableware every now and then, these items were a bit extravagant. “Mother, where did these come from?” He held up one of the heavy crystal candlesticks.

That seemed to set her back to motion. Busily smoothing out the rough fabric of a quilt, his mother glanced away. “I'm not sure where those came from. I've forgotten.”

Peter had never known his mother to forget a thing. “Come on, now. You must have an idea.”

“I do not. If I knew, I would tell you, Peter.” Standing up, his mother shook her head. “I'm getting tired. I no longer care to look in these boxes.” Her voice turning pinched, she continued, “Elsie, please walk with me back to my rooms?”

Obediently, Elsie moved to stand up, but Peter held her back with a hand on her arm. “
Nee
, stay, Elsie. Now that we've started digging in here, I'd like to see what else is inside.” Something was propelling him forward. Maybe it was his mother's unfamiliar hesitancy.

Perhaps it was his own selfish wantsâa part of him enjoyed seeing her discomfort. It gave her a taste of what he'd felt much of his life. With purposeful motions, he pulled out another sampler of a Psalm, the stitching uneven and childlike. A cloth doll. An old packet of flower seeds.

And then a framed photograph, wrapped in plastic bubble wrap. The Amish didn't accept photographs, believing that copying their image was a graven sin. “Mamm, what in the world?”

“Peter, don't unwrap that.”

His mother's voice was like steel, but Peter ignored the command. He was forty-two years old, not fourteen. And now he was curious.

“Who is this, Mother?” he asked as pulled the plastic away, finding himself staring at a photograph of a beautiful young woman. Her hair was dark and smooth, her eyes the same brown, coffee-with-cream color that looked back at him in the mirror.

A vague thread of apprehension coursed through him.

“Who is it?” Elsie asked.

“It's a woman, a woman of about your age,” he said patiently, ignoring the tension reverberating from his mother. “She's mighty pretty, with brown, wide-set eyes and hair. Why, she could be your twin, Elsie.”

Elsie gazed at the photograph, but the three of them knew it was only for show. Her eyesight had gotten much worse over the last two years. “She is pretty,” she allowed. “Though we all know I already have a twin. I'm glad this girl isn't one, too. I have no need for one more!”

“Since she's an Englisher, she couldn't be your twin. Ain't so, Mamm?” He chuckled, raising his eyes to share a smile with his mother. Then stilled.

His mother looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle. Her face was pale, twin splotches of color decorated her cheeks. And her eyesÂ .Â .Â .

They were the exact ones in the photograph.

Suddenly, he knew. “Mother, this is you, isn't it? This is you in a cap and gown. At your high school graduation.”

His mom averted her eyes.

Elsie gasped. “
Mommi?
What were you doing, dressed up like an
Englischer
?”

Though his mother said nothing, Peter realized he didn't need an explanation. The item in his hands was clear enough. Slowly, he got to his feet, his knees creaking with the effort. “Your grandmother wasn't dressed up as an
Englischer
, Elsie,” he said quietly. “For some reason, she wasn't Amish here. She was English.”

Bitterness coursed through him as he thought of the many, many times she'd belittled all of them because they weren't perfect enough. Weren't devout enough. Didn't obey the
Ordnung
to the letter.

In a flash, he recalled the stories she'd spun about growing up in a perfect Amish home in the fifties. The way her criticisms had driven his siblings Jacob and Aden and Sara away.

The way her perfection had made his other brother, Sam, try too hard, had made his youngest sister, Lorene, feel terrible about herself.

The way her iron will had even pulled apart his God-given, easy-going nature, even causing him to do things he shouldn't.

And she'd done all of this on top of a heap of lies.

He thought of all the times she'd even been critical of his sweet wife, Marie. The way she'd criticized meals and housekeeping and sewing.

Appalled, he stared at his mother. Really looked at her, as if for the very first time. “Talk to me, Mamm. Were you raised English?”

“Jah.”

“Were you ever going to tell us the truth?”

For a few seconds, time seemed to stand still. The dust particles in the air froze. Then Lovina Keim's face turned colder. “
Nee
.” Slowly, she walked to the narrow, steep steps and began descending.

Still holding the photograph in his hands, Peter let her walk down by herself.

“Daed, what does this mean?” Elsie asked.

It meant everything.

“I don't know,” he whispered. But, of course, he could withhold the truth as well as his mother. “Let's go downstairs, too, Elsie.”

Slipping the photograph under his arm, he helped guide Elsie down the stairs.

When she was in her room, and he was sure the rest of the house was silent, he strode to his bedroom, opened up the door to his bedside table, and pushed aside the neat stack of books.

Behind the well-worn hardbacks, he found what he was looking for.

And though it wouldn't solve his problems, it would help him not care. Even if it was just for a little while.

Credits

Cover design by Mary McAdam Keane

Cover photography Â© by Mark Owen/Arcangel (man); Stephanie Frey/Arcangel (woman)

This book is a work of fiction. The
characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author's imagination and
are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons,
living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

FOUND
.
Copyright Â© 2012 by Shelley Shepard Gray. All rights reserved under
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FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-208975-5

EPub Edition Â© SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN:
9780062089748

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