Plain Truth Read online

  "I hate myself for that. I wonder if I deserve this, just because of what popped into my head. And now I've been imagining this baby, this gift that I didn't expect to have in the first place, getting taken away. If it happens, El, it's going to hurt so badly--but it's nothing compared to the way I'd feel if you were taken away. That ..." he said, his voice breaking, "that I wouldn't make it through."

  He brought my hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles. "We'll have more babies. They won't be this one, but they'll be ours. We can have ten of them, one for every room in our house." Coop raised his face. "Just tell me that you want to."

  I had once left Coop because I wanted to see if I could be the best, if I could make my own way in the world. But living for months with the Fishers made me see the value of intrinsically knowing there was someone to help me up if I stumbled.

  I had turned Coop down a second time because I was afraid that I'd only be saying yes out of responsibility, because of the baby. But there might not be a baby, now. There was only me, and Coop, and this terrible ache that only he could understand.

  How many times would I throw this away, before I realized it was what I had been looking for all along?

  "Twelve," I answered.

  "Twelve?"

  "Twelve babies. I'm planning on a very large house."

  Coop's eyes lit up. "A mansion," he promised, and kissed me. "God, I love you."

  "I love you too." As he climbed onto the bed with me, I started to laugh. "I'd love you more if you helped me into the bathroom."

  He grinned and looped his arms around me, carrying me down the hall. "Can you do this yourself?"

  "I've gotten very good at it after thirty-seven years."

  "You know that's not what I meant," he said gently.

  "I know." We stared at each other for a moment, until I had to turn away from the sorrow in his eyes. "I can handle it, Coop." I closed the door behind myself and hiked up my nightgown, steeling myself for the sight of another heavily soiled sanitary napkin. When I glanced down, I started to cry.

  With a crash, Coop burst into the bathroom, wild-eyed and frightened. "What? What is it?"

  The tears kept coming; unstoppable, overwhelming. "Make that thirteen babies," I said, a smile unraveling across my face. "I think this one might be staying."

  NINETEEN

  It wasn't until George Callahan had gone through a bottle pack of Zantac that he realized this case was literally eating him alive. His sure thing, it turned out, was not necessarily so sure. He wondered which juror was hanging up the others--the fellow with the Claddagh tattoo? The mother of four? He wondered if he had enough time to run to the pharmacy after lunch, or if he'd be called in for the verdict the minute he got on the highway. He wondered if Ellie Hathaway had lost three nights of sleep, too.

  "Well," Lizzie Munro said, pushing away her plate. "That's the first time I've ever packed away more than you have."

  George grimaced. "Turns out my stomach's more delicate than I thought."

  "Well, if you'd asked--which I might point out you didn't--I could have told you that people around here would have trouble convicting someone Amish."

  "Why?"

  Lizzie lifted one shoulder. "They're sort of like angels-in-residence. If you admit that one of them's a murderer, the whole world's going to hell in a handbasket."

  "They're not acquitting her so quickly, either." He blotted his mouth with a napkin. "Ledbetter said the jury had requested the transcripts of the two psychiatrists."

  "Now, that's interesting. If they're quibbling over state of mind, it almost implies that they think she did something wrong."

  George snorted. "I'm sure Ellie Hathaway would put a different spin on it."

  "Ellie Hathaway isn't spinning much of anything right now. Didn't you hear?"

  "Hear what?"

  "She's sick. Got taken into the hospital." Lizzie shrugged. "The news around the water cooler is that it had something to do with complications of pregnancy."

  "Pregnant? Ellie Hathaway's pregnant?" He shook his head. "God, she's about as nurturing as a black widow spider."

  "Yeah," Lizzie said. "There's a lot of that going around."

  Ellie had been promoted from reclining in the bedroom to reclining on the living room couch. She had been allowed to walk only once, when Coop had taken her to the obstetrician to be given a clean but guarded bill of health. Now Coop was back at his office with a suicidal client, having left Sarah in charge to watch over her like a hawk. But Sarah had gone out to get a chicken for dinner--making Ellie, for the first time, happy about her status as an invalid.

  Ellie closed her eyes, but she was certain that if she slept another hour she was going to go into a coma. She was trying to decide which argument to use on Coop to convince him that she should be allowed to be vertical--fetal circulation just slightly edging out bedsores--when Katie skulked by the doorway, trying not to be seen.

  "Oh, no you don't. Get back here," Ellie ordered.

  Katie slipped into the room. "Did you need something?"

  "Yeah. I need you to break me out of here."

  Katie's eyes widened. "But Dr. Cooper--"

  "--doesn't have a clue what it's like to be lying around for two entire days." Ellie reached for her hand, and tugged so that Katie was sitting down beside her. "I don't want to go climb Everest," she begged. "Just a little walk. Outside."

  Katie looked toward the kitchen.

  "Your mom's at the chicken coop. Please."

  She nodded quickly, then helped Ellie from the couch. "You sure you're okay?"

  "I'm fine. Really. You can call my doctor and ask her." Grinning, Ellie added, "Well, you could if you had a phone."

  Katie slid her arm around Ellie's waist and took tentative steps with her through the kitchen and out the back door. Ellie quickened the pace as they passed the small patch of the vegetable garden, stepping over the pumpkin vines spread like the arms of an octopus. At the pond, she sank onto the bench beneath the oak tree, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, feeling better than she had in days.

  "Can we go back now?" Katie asked miserably.

  "I just got here. You want me to rest before I hike all the way home, don't you?"

  She glanced toward the house. "I want to get you back before anyone notices you're gone."

  "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone you brought me out here if you don't."

  "Not a soul," Katie said.

  Ellie tipped back her head and closed her eyes, letting the sun wash over her face and throat. "Well, then, here we are. Partners in crime."

  "Partners in crime," Katie echoed softly.

  At the thin, sad note in her voice, Ellie blinked. "Oh, Katie. I didn't mean--"

  "Shhh." Katie held up her hand, rising slowly off the seat as she stared at the pond. A flock of wood ducks, hidden among the dry marsh grass at the edges, suddenly startled and took to flight, sending up a spray of mist that illuminated the surface of the water. The late sun prismed through, and for a moment Katie could see her sister spinning in the midst of it, a hologram ballerina unaware of her audience.

  This is what she would miss if she were put in jail. This home, this pond, this connection.

  Hannah turned, and in her arms was a small package. She turned again, and the package shifted ... so that a tiny pink arm slipped from the swaddling.

  The mist settled, the nasal holler of the ducks receding in the distance. Katie sat down beside Ellie, who suddenly looked much paler than she was before. "Please," Katie whispered. "Don't let them send me away."

  Out of deference to Aaron, Jacob parked his car a half mile from his father's farm. He'd known guys who'd bought cars during their Rumspringa, fellows who'd parked them behind tobacco sheds while their dads pretended not to notice. Jacob, though, he'd never had a car. Not until he'd left for good.

  Walking up the drive felt strange, too. He absently rubbed the scar on his chin that he'd gotten when he'd been roller-skating and had pitched over a rut in th