Plain Truth Read online

  The telephone began to ring again. "Good news," Stephen said before I'd even given a greeting. "The Big Guys are willing to see you today at six o'clock."

  That was the moment I knew I would be leaving.

  Stephen helped me load my things into the back of my car. "I completely understand," he said, although he didn't. "You want to take some time off before choosing your next big case."

  I wanted to take some time off before choosing whether I ever wanted to take another case, period, but that was beyond Stephen's realm of belief. You didn't go to law school and make Law Review and work in the trenches to land the trial of a lifetime, only to question your own career choice. But on another level, Stephen couldn't accept that I might be moving away for good. I knew this because I felt the same way. In our eight years together we had not married, but we hadn't separated, either.

  "You'll call me when you get there?" Stephen asked, but before I could answer, he kissed me. Our lips separated like a seam being ripped, and then I got into the car and drove away.

  I suppose other women in my position--by this I mean heartbroken, at odds, and recently given a large sum of money-- might have chosen a different destination. Grand Cayman, Paris, even a soul-searching hike through the Rockies. For me, there was never any question that if I wanted to lick my wounds, I would wind up in Paradise, Pennsylvania. As a child, I'd spent a week there every summer. My great-uncle had a farm there and progressively sold off lots and parcels of land until he died, at which point his son Frank moved into the big house, planted grass where the field corn had been, and opened a woodworking shop. Frank was my father's age, and had been married to Leda long before I was ever born.

  I couldn't begin to tell you what I did during those summers in Paradise, but what stayed with me all those years was the calm that pervaded their home, and the smooth efficiency with which things were accomplished. At first, I'd thought it was because Leda and Frank had never had children of their own. Later, I came to understand it was something in Leda herself, something tied to the fact that she had grown up Amish.

  You could not summer in Paradise and not come in contact with the Old Order Amish, who were such an intrinsic part of the Lancaster area. The Plain people, as they called themselves, clipped along in their buggies in the thick of automobile traffic; they stood in line at the grocery store in their old-fashioned clothing; they smiled shyly from behind their farm stands where we went to buy fresh vegetables. That was, in fact, how I learned about Leda's past. We were waiting to buy armfuls of sweet corn when Leda struck up a conversation--in Pennsylvania Dutch!--with the woman who was making the sale. I was eleven, and hearing Leda--as American as me--slip into the Germanic dialect was enough to astound me. But then Leda handed me a ten-dollar bill. "Give this to the lady, Ellie," she said, even though she was standing right there and could have done it herself.

  On the drive home, Leda explained that she had been Plain until she married Frank--who wasn't Plain. By the rules of her religion, she was put under the bann --restricted from certain social contact with people who were still Amish. She could talk to Amish friends and family, but couldn't eat at the same table with them. She could sit beside them on the bus, but not offer them a ride in her car. She could buy from them, but needed a third party--me--to transact the sale.

  Her parents, her sisters and brothers--they lived less than ten miles away.

  "Are you allowed to go see them?" I'd asked.

  "Yes, but I hardly ever do," Leda told me. "You'll understand one day, Ellie. I'm not keeping my distance because it's uncomfortable for me. I'm keeping my distance because it's uncomfortable for them."

  Leda was waiting when the train pulled into the Strasburg railroad station. As I stepped off, carrying my two bags, she held out her arms. "Ellie, Ellie," she sang. She smelled of oranges and Windex; her wide shoulder was the perfect place to rest my head. I was thirty-nine years old, but in Leda's embrace, I was eleven again.

  She led me toward the small parking lot. "You going to tell me what's the matter now?"

  "Nothing's the matter. I just wanted to visit you."

  Leda snorted. "The only time you come to visit is when you're about to have a nervous breakdown. Did something happen with Stephen?" When I didn't answer, she narrowed her eyes. "Or maybe nothing happened with Stephen--and that's the problem?"

  I sighed. "It's not Stephen. I finished a very trying case, and ... well, I needed to relax."

  "But you won the case. I saw it on the news."

  "Yeah, well, winning isn't everything."

  To my surprise, she didn't say anything in response. I fell asleep as soon as Leda pulled onto the highway, and woke with a start when she pulled into her driveway. "I'm sorry," I said, embarrassed. "I didn't mean to conk out like that."

  Leda smiled and patted my hand. "You spend as much time as you need to relaxing here."

  "Oh, it won't be for long." I took my bags from the backseat and hurried up the porch steps behind Leda.

  "Well, we're glad to have you, for two nights or two dozen." She cocked her head. "Phone's ringing," she said, pushing open the door and rushing in to pick up the receiver. "Hello?"

  I set down my suitcases and stretched to work out the kinks in my back. Leda's kitchen was neat as a pin, just like always, and looked exactly the way I had remembered: the stitched sampler on the wall, the cookie jar in the shape of a pig, the black and white squares of linoleum. Closing my eyes, it was easy to pretend I'd never left here, to believe that the most difficult choice I'd have to make that day was whether to curl up in an Adirondack chair out back or on the creaky swing on the screened porch. Across the kitchen, Leda was clearly surprised to hear the voice of whoever it was that had called. "Sarah, Sarah, sssh," she soothed. "Was ist letz? " I could only make out small snippets of unfamiliar words: an Kind ... er hat an Kind gfuna ... es Kind va dodt. Sinking down on a counter stool, I waited for Leda to finish the call.

  When she hung up, her hand remained on the receiver for a long moment. Then she turned to me, pale and shaken. "Ellie, I am so sorry, but I have to go somewhere."

  "Do you need me--"

  "You stay here," Leda insisted. "You're here to rest."

  I watched her pull away in her car. Whatever the problem was, Leda would fix it. She always did. Putting my feet up on a second stool, I smiled. I'd been in Paradise for fifteen minutes, and I felt better already.

  THREE

  "Neh!" Katie screamed, kicking out at the paramedic who was trying to load her into the ambulance. "Ich will net gay!"

  Lizzie watched the girl fight. The bottom of her dress, a rich green, was by now stained black with blood. In a tight, shocked semicircle stood the Fishers, Samuel, and Levi. The big blond man stepped forward, his jaw set. "Let her down," he said in clear English.

  The paramedic turned. "Buddy, I'm only trying to help her." He managed to haul Katie into the rear of the ambulance. "Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, you're welcome to ride along."

  Sarah Fisher sobbed, clutching at her husband's shirt and pleading with him in a language Lizzie could not understand. He shook his head, then turned and walked away, calling for the men to join him. Sarah gingerly climbed into the ambulance and held her daughter's hand, whispering until Katie calmed. The paramedics closed the double doors; the ambulance began to rumble down the long driveway, kicking up pebbles and clouds of dust.

  Lizzie knew she had to get to the hospital and speak to the doctors who would examine Katie, but she didn't move just yet. Instead she watched Samuel--who had not followed Aaron Fisher, but remained rooted to the spot, watching the ambulance disappear from his sight.

  The world was rushing by. Overhead, the line of fluorescent lights looked like the dashes in the middle of a paved road, running quick as they did when seen from the back of a buggy. The stretcher she was on came to an abrupt stop and a voice at her head called, "On my count--one, two, three!" Then Katie was being spirited through the air, floating down to a cold, shining table.

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