In Plain View (14 page)

She glanced at Ainsley and blushed.

“College, how about you get us some Cokes?”

“Sure. Do you drink Coke?” he asked her tentatively.

Rachel nodded without making eye contact. Her arms were wrapped tight around her middle in the teen-girl hunch that disguised the shelf of the bust, while otherwise fortifying the heart. I wondered if she’d called my house today hiding in the same bush where I’d first seen her.

Together, we watched Ainsley walk into the restaurant.

I started with the simplest question. “Why did you call, Rachel?”

“My father won’t tell me what happened.” She straightened and took a breath. “To Thomas.”

“You mean yesterday, after the fire truck took him down?”

“The fire truck that was on the other side of the field?” She wrinkled her nose in confusion.

“Yes.” I drew the word out, hoping to see comprehension. No such luck.

“Before that.” She blinked at me and looked away. “My father wouldn’t let us watch. He ordered everyone to stay away from the fence for the day. The younger children weren’t even allowed out of the house.”

“Oh.”

She waited for me to say it.

“You want me to tell you?”

She nodded, fast.

“It won’t be easy to hear.”

Her eyes were dark and wide and wiser than I’d have wagered. “If I wanted easy, Miss O’Hara, I would have stayed at home.”

True enough.

“He killed himself,” I told her softly, pretending to be completely absorbed by the coming and going of cars through the parking lot.

She didn’t move at all. I glanced over every five seconds or so, watching her face shift to whiter and whiter shades of pale. There was the sound of air moving, a whiney hiss. I couldn’t say if it was going in or out.

“You still with me, Rachel?”

“Ja,”
she whispered. “My fault.”

We’d never come to terms on metaphysics, but I tried anyway. “What happened to Tom was a terrible thing. But how could it be your fault?”

“So many wrongs. I don’t know how—” She spoke simply, her voice thin and high. “I am alone. Help me.”

“How?”

“My father and the bishop, they speak of love and forgiveness but do not offer it.” She started to squirm, looking at me, looking away, twisting where she sat. “It is not
gess.
But how can I obey? How can I be humble before those who break the laws?”

Talking to people for a living makes for curious dichotomies. I’ve interviewed a thousand people, most of whom are still a mystery to me, but every now and then, I’ll have a moment of perfect understanding with a total stranger.

“The world is unfair, Rachel. You find a way to live with it. That’s all you can do.”

“How?” She looked at me, really studied my face as if I was saying something new. Something she hadn’t heard before. Her face was almost unreal, it was so fresh, clear of makeup, earrings, hair doodads. She still had a hint of baby-fat double chin, a last trace of innocence.

“How do we live with unfairness?” I repeated, rejecting the accurate, inappropriate answers flashing across my mental big screen: alcohol—sex—drugs. “People are different. You kinda have to feel your way along. Fall down a few times. Try again.” I laughed at myself. My ineptness. “Sounds like learning to ride a bike, doesn’t it?”

“No,” was all she said, over and over. The teenager’s anthem.

Could you blame ’em?

Across the restaurant parking lot, Ainsley was jockeying with the door, holding it open as an older couple entered. Nice manners.

Wish I had been the one sent for drinks.

I felt as if something had locked me down, forcing me to search for words that might connect with Rachel. “I guess I survive unfairness by listening to other people’s stories. I bear witness. Then, I’m not alone.”

She didn’t say anything, but I caught the tiniest nod of recognition.

“Cokes all around!” Ainsley announced.

Rachel looked up at him as if he’d just beamed down onto the planet.

“Great timing, College.”

Rachel held her drink with two hands and ducked her head to sip. There was a furious sort of concentration on her face.

“Hungry?” Ainsley asked, exactly like they do at Irish wakes.

“No one but you, is my guess.”

He waggled his eyebrows and shoveled another handful of fries in his mouth.

“Get your camera box,” Rachel said. “I will tell you a story.”

“You want us to interview you on camera?”

“No way,” Ainsley whispered.

Rachel made a pinched-lip nod. The look on her face explained everything. Every teenager who’d ever lived had worn that expression,
I’ll get you yet, oh mighty parent.

“No,” I interjected. “Beside the fact that you’re a minor, your father will have a cow.”

“He has many cows,” she replied with a frown. “It cannot be worse between us. I am eighteen now, a month ago. Thomas told me I’m free to make all my own choices with this age. Is this true?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t believe him. It didn’t seem possible. To decide such important things, without others, without question.” She did an odd sideways duck of her face that turned into a sip of her drink. I’d seen her do it twice and suddenly realized it must be the way she hid her face behind the stiff brim of her bonnet. It wasn’t only shyness. She seemed ashamed. I wondered if the camera were a punishment she meant for herself, as well as her dad.

She straightened her spine and announced, “I am ready.”

Ainsley raised eyebrows-of-concern in my direction.

“Are you sure?” I asked her, soft and serious.

“Yes. Do not look so worried,” Rachel assured me. “I am not confirmed. It is not so bad. I will tell you what I know of Tom. In return, someday, you will tell me what you know. We have a bargain?”

“All right. Set us up,” I told Ainsley. “I’ll dig up a release form.”

The parking lot backed up to a field of autumn-tall weeds. There wasn’t much wind, and the road traffic was shielded by the building. With the right mic and a lot of luck, we might get something decent.

“Tell me about how Tom came to live with your family.” I moved across the picnic table from Rachel, putting Ainsley behind my right shoulder, forcing him to frame her tight.

“He…Thomas was the son of a man who worked on our farm many years, a good friend to my father. He married an Amish girl. The year I was born, there was an accident. A fire.” Rachel stared at me. “Terrible. Several died. My mother and Thomas’s mother both. His father left our community shortly after that and took little Tom with him. He wished to return to the place where he was raised. Along the way, there was an accident. Thomas never spoke of it to me. I do not even know what kind of accident. Such a little boy and he was orphaned.

“Thomas told me once he thought there had been a mistake; he should have passed on then, to be with his mother. Well, I often reminded him, the Lord does not make mistakes. His life was spared for a reason.” The words faded into her thoughts with a sigh. “It was a long time before the members of our community learned that his father died as well, and longer still before they were able to discover where the little boy had gone. Foster care.” She made it sound as dire as it probably was.

“How long?” I asked.

“Too long.” Rachel shook her head and sighed. “My father never remarried after my mother died. He asked to adopt the boy. Some said it was a blessing for us, as Father had no other children. Thomas would be raised Amish with the family he might have had. But when Thomas finally came to us, there were many difficulties,” Rachel summarized bluntly. “He was no longer Plain. But neither was he quite an
Englischer.
” It was clear by her tone, the meaning of the word was something closer to “outsider,” than a Merrie Olde import. “Everyone was
ferhoodled
…um, mixed-up crazy. Thomas had it worst. He was afraid. It is hard to live within the
Ordnung,
to be…
gelassen,
when there is so much fear inside.” Her frustration was clear. We didn’t just speak different languages; we spoke different life experiences.

“I don’t understand—
‘gelassen.’
”

“Peaceful? But more, to give over. To yield yourself to higher authority,” she tried to explain. “Yield to God and the community. It is a peaceful feeling.”

“He couldn’t yield?”

“Sometimes he was
grenklich
…um, sick?” she translated. “Upset.”

I didn’t mind that she was having a hard time sticking to English; it was a sign that she was talking from the heart, talking truth in the words that came first. I’d seen people who spoke six languages fluently revert to their native speech in the midst of a crisis when no one could understand a word they said.

“So Thomas felt sick when he had to follow the community rules?”

Rachel shook her head and pinched her mouth tight for a moment. “He wanted to follow. He wanted to be good. But maybe, I don’t think Thomas ever left that place—in between.” Her eyes and the tip of her nose began to glow pink with Technicolor teenage empathy. “Not Plain. Not English. Not ever.”

“Is that why he finally left the community?”

“I can’t say,” she mumbled.

“How did your father feel about Tom leaving? What did he say?”

“To me?” She sounded surprised. “Nothing, of course. I suppose Father had many feelings when Thomas left. He was angry, of course, but also…disappointed, ashamed. He had tried to do the right thing and somehow, it came out wrong.” She clammed up and swung her feet to skim the stubble of grass.

“Tell me more about Tom. What was he like?”

That brought out the smile. “Oh, he liked the animals. The dogs all slept in his room. Barn cat would come to him if he—” She flipped her fingers against her pants, and then again in the air for Ainsley’s benefit, as if she were fluttering hello. “He even made pets of mice.”

“Mice?” I returned her smile.

“Thomas could be very…still. Animals appreciate that. But he could move quick, too. Especially, when he was afraid. Then he moved—quick. Without thinking.” Her eyes drifted out of focus as a memory seemed to flash through her mind. Her words stalled.

“Tell me about a time he moved quick.”

“I…don’t remember,” she mumbled. A flush spread up her neck into her face.

“Okay. Tell me about a time he was with the animals.”

She thought a moment. “He was always in the barn when he was supposed to be working the field. He liked to be around the animals, pet them, curry the horses’ hair. Once, for my birthday, he braided Foxglove’s mane and put flowers in her hair. It was a Sunday. I took her to church that way.”

“Pretty.”

“We were punished for it,” she added, matter-of-factly. “Father thought it was prideful, showing off. It is hard for me to turn away from pretty things,” she admitted as if it were a terrible fault.

My empathy meter kicked into overdrive. I kept flashing back on my own heartfelt confessions: age seven, eight, nine.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I lied five times. I broke the glass on purpose…stole the bottle…started the fight.

“After Thomas left, I missed him greatly. Once I was sixteen, we found a way to meet in the town. He took me to see things. The zoo, the mall, movie theaters. Have you ever been to the O’Hare International Airport?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen the great hall of lights that sing above the moving walkway?”

That would be the tunnel that connects the two wings of the United Airlines tunnel. There’s a light sculpture above, glowing paneled walls and a new wave music audio track.

“Yeah, I’ve been there.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Her voice breathed awe. “We spent the whole day at the airport once.”

“So that was a good day. When was that?”

“Right after he first went away. Before I finished school.”

Melton’s research figured Tom had left his Amish home about four years ago. “When did you finish school, Rachel?”

“When I was thirteen.”

“Thirteen? What about high school?”

“It’s not
Ordnung,
” she said. Absolute is the only way to describe the tone that word invoked.

“You mentioned
Ordnung
before. Could you explain it?”

“Most do not attend high school because it’s not
Ordnung,
um, not according to the community’s rules.”

I kept my face blank. “Ah. Well, then the airport was a long time ago. What did you and Tom do more recently?”

“My father would not be happy that I see Thomas.” She ducked her chin. “Not so much time for trips to the airport these days. We stayed closer to home.”

“Your father didn’t know you saw Tom?”

“No.”

The change was so abrupt, I could almost feel her guilt swell between us, big and dark, swimming right beneath the surface. The small hairs on my arm prickled.

“It’s not forbidden yet,” she assured me. “I have not been baptized. The
rumspringa,
” she confided.

“Sorry, I don’t know.”

“It’s the time between childhood and being baptized in the community. It is a time between—of adult choosing. I must choose.”

I looked at the girl sitting in front of me. Reporters have a voice that comes out when they ask the questions that mask a strong opinion. I could hear the voice when I asked her, “How long have you been an adult, Rachel?”

“Since my sixteenth birthday.”

“That long?” I said. “But then why were you surprised when I said you could make your own choice about being interviewed at age eighteen?”

It flustered her. “Well, I may choose to do things that please me, but I must think if they affect others. If others are affected, they ought to be considered. Yes?” She said it with such simple sincerity, we took a minute of silence before I could think of my next question.

“Makes sense to me. What sort of things did you and Tom do ‘closer to home’?”

Her eyes flashed up and away. “Oh, things…you know,” she lilted with an elaborate shrug.

’Til now, Rachel Jost had reminded me of my farm-raised grandma. Lots of straight talk, in short declarative sentences. We must be getting to the good stuff; Rachel suddenly sounded like a teenager. She glanced past the camera at Ainsley’s bright head, his eyes down, discreetly monitoring the recording.