Plain Truth Page 10

  "Yeah, but does anyone believe him?" Ellie shrugged. "That's where a defense attorney comes in--we convince the jury that the client may not have committed the crime."

  "And if he did?"

  "Then he still gets acquitted. That happens sometimes, too."

  Katie's mouth dropped open. "That would be lying."

  "No, that would be acting as a spin doctor. There are many, many different ways of looking at what's happened to bring someone to trial. It's only considered lying if the client doesn't tell the truth. Attorneys--well, we can say just about anything we want as an explanation."

  "So ... you would lie for me?"

  Ellie met her gaze. "Would I have to?"

  "Everything I've told you is the truth."

  Sitting up, Ellie crossed her legs. "Well, then. What haven't you told me?"

  A sparrow took off in flight, casting a shadow across Katie's face. "It's not our way to lie," she said stiffly. "It's why a Plain person can stand up for himself in front of the congregation. It's why defense attorneys don't have a place in our world."

  To her surprise, Ellie laughed. "Tell me about it. I have never in my life stuck out like such a sore thumb."

  Katie's gaze traveled from Ellie's running shoes to her sundress to the small, dangling earrings she wore. Even the way Ellie sat--as if the grass was too scratchy to let the backs of her legs rest upon it--was slightly uncomfortable. Unlike the hordes of people who streamed into Lancaster County to get a glimpse of the Amish, Ellie had never asked for this. She had done Aunt Leda a favor, and it had mushroomed into an obligation.

  Katie knew how she had felt, from her visits to Jacob. Putting on the costume of a wordly teenager had never made her one. Ellie might think she espoused individuality, but being yourself in a culture where other Englischers were busy being themselves was a far cry from being yourself in a culture where the people were all intent on being the same--but different from you.

  A world that was crowded with people could still be a very lonely place.

  "I can fix that," Katie said aloud. With a big grin she reached into the lake, scooped up some water, and tossed it onto Ellie.

  Sputtering, Ellie jumped up. "What did you do that for?"

  "Wasser," Katie said, splashing her again.

  Ellie shielded herself with her hands. "What's a what?"

  "No, wasser. It's Dietsch for water."

  After a moment, Ellie understood. She took this small gift and let it settle inside her. "Wasser," she repeated. Then she pointed to the field. "Tobacco?"

  "Duvach."

  Katie beamed when Ellie tried the word. "Gut! Die Koo," she said, gesturing at a grazing Holstein.

  "Die Koo."

  Katie held out her hand. "Wie but du heit. It's nice to meet you."

  Ellie slowly extended her own hand. She looked deeply into Katie's eyes for the first time since she'd arrived at the district court yesterday. The lightness of the afternoon, of the Dietsch lesson, fell away until all the two women knew was the pressure of their palms against each other, the heady hum of the crickets, and the understanding that they were starting over. "Ich bin die Katie Fisher," Katie said quietly.

  "Ich bin die Ellie Hathaway," Ellie answered. "Wie bist du heit."

  "I'm going to get the popcorn before the movie starts," Jacob said, standing. When Katie began to rummage through her pockets for the money her Mam always sent along, Jacob shook his head. "My treat. Hey, Adam, keep an eye on her."

  Katie slouched in her seat, annoyed that her brother would think of her as a child. "I'm seventeen. Does he think I'm going to wander away?"

  Beside her, Adam smiled. "He's probably more worried that someone's gonna steal his pretty little sister."

  Katie blushed to the roots of her hair. "I doubt it," she said. She was unused to compliments that referred to her beauty, rather than a job well done. And she was uncomfortable being alone with Adam, who had been invited by Jacob to join them.

  Katie did not wear a watch, and she wondered how long it would be until the film began. This would be her fourth movie, ever. It was supposed to be a love story --such a funny concept, for a two-hour movie. Love wasn't supposed to be about a moment where you looked into a boy's eyes and felt the world spin from beneath your feet; when you saw in his soul all the things that were missing in yours. Love came slow and surefooted and was made of equal measures of comfort and respect. A Plain girl wouldn't fall in love, she'd sort of glance down and realize she was mired in it. A Plain girl knew she loved someone when she looked out ten years from now and saw that same boy standing beside her, his hand on the small of her back.

  She was dragged from her thoughts by the sound of Adam's voice. "So," he said politely, "do you live in Lancaster?"

  "In Paradise. Well, on the edge of it."

  Adam's eyes lit up. "On the edge of Paradise," he said, smiling. "Almost sounds like you're in for a nasty fall."

  Katie bit her lower lip. She didn't understand Adam's jokes. Trying to change the conversation, she asked him if his degree was in English, like Jacob's diploma.

  "Actually, no," Adam said. Was he blushing? "I work in paranormal science."

  "Para--"

  "Ghosts. I study ghosts."

  If he'd taken off all his clothes at that moment, it couldn't have shocked Katie more. "You study them?"

  "I watch them. I write about them." He shook his head. "You don't have to say it. I'm sure you don't believe in ghosts, like most of the free world. When I tell people what my doctorate is in, they think it's from some TV correspondence course, with a minor in air-conditioning repair. But I came by it honestly. I started out as a physics major, theorizing about energy. Just think about it --energy can't be destroyed, only converted into something different. So when a person dies, where does that energy go?"

  Katie blinked at him. "I don't know."

  "Exactly. It has to go somewhere. And that residue energy, every now and then, shows up as a ghost."

  She had to look into her lap, or else she was liable to confess to this man she hardly knew something she'd admitted to nobody. "Ah," Adam said softly. "Now you think I'm crazy."

  "I don't," Katie said immediately. "I really don't."

  "It makes sense, if you think about it," he said defensively. "The emotional energy that comes from a tragedy impresses itself onto a scene --a rock, a house, a tree --just as if it's leaving a memory. At the atomic level, all those things are moving, so they can store energy. And when living people see ghosts, they're seeing the residue of energy that's still trapped." He shrugged. "There's my thesis, in a nutshell."

  Suddenly Jacob reappeared, carrying a bucket of popcorn. He set it on Katie's lap. "You telling her about your pseudo-academic pursuits?"

  "Hey." Adam grinned. "Your sister is a believer."

  "My sister is naive," Jacob corrected.

  "That's the other thing," Adam said, ignoring him and turning to Katie. "You don't bother trying to convince the disbelievers, because they'll never understand. On the other hand, if a person's ever had a paranormal experience --well, they practically go out of their way to find someone like me, who wants to listen." He looked into her eyes. "We all have things that come back to haunt us. Some of us just see them more clearly than others."

  In the middle of the night, Ellie awakened to a low moan. Pushing away the folds of sleep, she sat up and turned toward Katie, who was tossing softly beneath her covers. Ellie padded across the floor and touched the girl's forehead.

  "Es dut weh," Katie murmured. She suddenly threw back her covers, revealing two spreading, circular stains on the front of her white nightgown. "It hurts," she cried, running her hands over the damp spots on her gown and the bedding. "There's something wrong with me!"

  Ellie had friends--more and more of them, lately--who had gone through childbirth. They had joked about the day that their milk came in, turning them into torpedo-breasted comic book characters. "There's nothing wrong. This is perfectly natural, after having a baby.
"

  "I didn't have a baby!" Katie shrieked. "Neh!" She shoved Ellie away, sending her sprawling on the hard floor. "Ich hab ken Kind kaht ... mein hatz ist fol!"

  "I can't understand you," Ellie snapped.

  "Mein hatz ist fol!"

  It was clear to her that Katie wasn't even really awake yet, just terrified. Deciding not to deal with this on her own, she started out the bedroom door, only to run into Sarah.

  It was a shock to see Katie's mother in her bedclothes, her cornsilk hair hanging past her hips. "What is it?" she asked, kneeling at her daughter's bedside. Katie's hands were clamped over her breasts; Sarah gently drew them down and unbuttoned the nightgown.

  Ellie winced. Katie was swollen, so rock-hard that a thin blue map of veins stood out, with tiny rivers of milk leaking from her nipples. At Sarah's urging, Katie passively followed her to the bathroom. Ellie watched as Sarah matter-of-factly massaged her daughter's painful breasts, coaxing a stream of milk into the sink.

  "This is proof," Ellie said flatly, finally. "Katie, look at your body. You did have a baby. This is the milk, for that baby."

  "Neh, lus mich gay," Katie cried, now sobbing on the toilet seat.

  Ellie set her jaw and crouched down in front of her. "You live on a dairy farm, for God's sake. You know what's happening to you right now. You ... had ... a baby."

  Katie shook her head. "Mein hatz ist fol."

  Ellie turned to Sarah. "What is she saying?"

  The older woman stroked her daughter's hair. "That there's no milk; and that there was no baby. Katie says this is happening," Sarah translated, "because her heart's too full."

  SIX

  Elite

  Let me just make this perfectly clear: I can't sew. Give me a needle and thread and a pair of trousers to be hemmed, and I am more likely than not to stitch the fabric to my own thumb. I throw out socks that get holes in the heels. I'd rather diet than let a seam out, and that's really saying something.

  This is all a way of prefacing that when Sarah invited me to the quilting session she was holding in the living room, I wasn't suitably excited. Things had been strained between us since the previous night. This morning she had wordlessly handed Katie a long strip of white muslin to bind herself. An invitation to quilt was a concession of sorts, a welcome into her world that had previously not been extended. It was also a plea to just let last night pass for what it was.

  "You don't have to sew," Katie told me, pulling me by the wrist into the other room. "You can just watch us."

  There were four women plus the Fishers: Levi's mother, Anna Esch; Samuel's mother, Martha Stoltzfus; and two cousins of Sarah's, Rachel and Louise Lapp. These women were younger, and brought along their smallest children--one an infant still swaddled, the other a toddler who sat on the floor at Rachel's feet and played with scraps of fabric.

  The quilt was spread across the table with spools of white thread scattered over its top. The women looked up as I entered the room. "This is Ellie Hathaway," Katie announced.

  "Sie schelt an shook mit uns wohne," Sarah added.

  Out of deference to me, Anna responded in English. "How long will she be staying?"

  "As long as it takes for Katie's case to come to trial," I said. As I sat down, Louise Lapp's little girl tottered to a standing position and lunged for the bright buttons on my blouse. To keep her from falling, I caught her up in my arms and swung her onto my lap, running my fingers up her belly to make her smile, reveling in the sweet, damp weight of a child. Her sticky hands grasped my wrists, and her head tipped back to reveal the whitest, softest crease in her neck. Too late, I realized that I was being overly friendly with the child of a woman who most likely did not trust me with her daughter's care. I looked up, prepared to apologize, and found all the women now regarding me with considerable esteem.

  Well, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. As the women bent to their stitches, I played with the little girl. "Do you care to sew?" Sarah asked politely, and I laughed.

  "Believe me, you'd rather I didn't."

  Anna's eyes sparkled. "Tell her about the time you stitched Martha's quilt to your apron, Rachel."

  "Why bother?" Rachel huffed. "You do a wonderful gut job telling the story yourself."

  Katie idly threaded a needle and bowed her head over a square of white batting, making small, even stitches without the benefit of a ruler or a machine. "That's amazing," I said, honestly impressed. "They're so tiny, they almost seem to disappear."

  "No better than anyone else's," Katie said, her cheeks reddening at the praise.

  The sewing continued quietly for a few moments, women gracefully dipping toward and lifting from the quilt like gazelles coming to drink from a pool of water. "So, Ellie," Rachel asked. "You are from Philadelphia?"

  "Yes. Most recently."

  Martha snipped off the end of a piece of thread with her teeth. "I was there, once. Went in by train. Whole lot of people hurrying around to go nowhere fast, if you ask me."

  I laughed. "That's pretty much right."

  Suddenly a spool of thread tumbled from the table and landed square on the head of the infant, sleeping in a small basket. He flailed and began to cry, loud, unstoppable sobs. Katie, who was closest, reached out to quiet him.

  "Don't you touch him."

  Rachel's words fell like a stone into the room, stilling the hands of the women so that their palms floated over the quilt like those of healers. Rachel secured her needle by weaving it through the fabric and then lifted her son against her chest.

  "Rachel Lapp!" Martha scolded. "What is the matter with you?"

  She would not look at Sarah or Katie. "I just don't think I want Katie around little Joseph right now, is all. Much as I care for Katie, this here is my son."

  "And Katie's my daughter," Sarah said slowly.

  Martha rested her arm on Katie's chair. "She's very nearly my daughter, too."

  Rachel's chin lifted a notch. "If I'm not welcome here--"

  "You're welcome, Rachel," Sarah said quietly. "But you are not allowed to make my Katie feel unwelcome in her own house."

  I sat breathless on the edge of my chair, the hot damp weight of Louise's sleeping girl on my chest, waiting to see who was going to come out the winner. "You know what I think, Sarah Fisher," Rachel began, her eyes flashing, and before she could finish the rest of the sentence, she was interrupted by a loud ringing.

  The women, startled, began to look around them. With a sinking feeling I shifted the child to my left arm and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket with my free hand. The women watched, wide-eyed, as I punched a button and held the phone to my ear. "Hello?"

  "Good God, Ellie, I've been trying to reach you for days. Don't you keep this thing on?"

  I was ama2ed the battery was even working after so long. And sort of hoping it would just quit, so that I wouldn't have to speak to Stephen. The Amish women stared, their feud temporarily forgotten. "I have to take this call," I said apologetically, and set the sleeping child into her mother's arms.

  "A telephone?" Louise gasped, just as I left the room. "In the house?"

  I did not hear Sarah's explanation. But by the time I was speaking to Stephen in the kitchen, I heard the wheels of the Lapp sisters' buggy crunching out of the driveway.

  "Stephen, this isn't the best time for me to talk."

  "Fine, we don't have to stay on long. I just need to know something, Ellie. There's a ridiculous rumor running around town that you're acting as a public defender for some Amish kid. And that the judge has you living on a farm."

  I hesitated. Stephen would never have let himself get into a position like this. "I wouldn't call myself a public defender," I said. "We just haven't negotiated a fee yet."

  "But the rest? Christ, where are you, anyway?"

  "Lancaster. Well, just outside Lancaster, in Paradise Township."

  I could picture the large blue vein in Stephen's forehead, swelling visibly right now. "So this is what you call taking a breather?"


  "It was completely unexpected, Stephen--a family obligation I needed to take care of."

  He laughed. "A family obligation? Would the Amish be second cousins, twice removed, or would I be confusing them with the Hare Krishnas on your mother's side of the family? Come on, Ellie. You can tell me the truth."

  "I am," I gritted out. "This isn't a ploy to get attention; it couldn't be anything farther from that. In a long and convoluted way, I'm defending a relative of mine. I'm on the farm because it's part of the bail agreement. That's all."

  There was a beat of silence. "I have to say, Ellie, it hurts that you felt like you had to keep this case a secret, instead of telling me what you were up to. I mean, if you were trying to build your reputation as a lawyer for sensational cases--and I do mean sensational in all definitions--I could have offered you advice, suggestions. Maybe even a leg up into my firm."

  "I don't want a leg up into your firm," I said. "I don't want sensational cases. And frankly, I can't believe that you've turned this whole thing into a personal affront against you." Glancing down, I noticed that my hand had curled itself into a fist. Finger by finger, I relaxed.

  "If this is the case I think it's going to be, you're going to need help. I could come out there as co-counsel; bring the firm on board."

  "Thanks, Stephen, but no. My client's parents barely approved one lawyer, much less a whole building full of them."

  "I could come out anyway, and let you bounce some ideas off. Or we could just sit on the porch swing and drink lemonade."

  For a moment, I was swayed. I could picture the freckles on the nape of Stephen's neck, and the angle at which he cocked his wrist when he was brushing his teeth. I could almost smell the scent of him, coming from the closets and the dressers and the bedclothes. There was something so easy about it, so familiar-- and the world I had moved myself into was foreign at every turn. Stopping at the end of the day to see something I recognized, someone I had loved, would put my business with Katie back into the place it was supposed to be: my work, rather than my life.

  I tightened my hand around the small phone and closed my eyes. "Maybe," I heard myself whisper, "we ought to just wait and see what happens."

  I found Sarah sitting alone in the living room, her head bowed over the quilt. "I'm sorry. For the phone."