The Jodi Picoult Collection Read online

  “Jacob,” the detective repeated.

  “Ja, you know. Katie’s brother.”

  “Jacob. Of course.” She smiled at Levi and opened the driver’s door to the car, then revved the engine. To his surprise, she held out her hand to him. “Young man, you’ve been an unexpected delight.” They shook, and then Levi watched her drive off in the V8 Mustang, gradually picking up speed.

  * * *

  In the middle of the night, Katie felt a hand cover her nose and mouth. Thrashing at the pillows, forgetting where she was for a moment, she grabbed at the arm and bit at the fingers. She heard a muffled oath, and then the hand disappeared—only to be replaced by the soft, insistent pressure of a mouth against hers.

  In that instant the sleep surrounding her melted away and she was in Jacob’s apartment, on his couch, Adam’s body spread over hers like a quilt. He drew back, touching his forehead to Katie’s. “I can’t believe you bit me like that.”

  In the darkness, she smiled. “I can’t believe you scared me like that.” Katie rubbed her hand over his cheek, rough with a night’s beard. “I’m glad you decided to stay.”

  She could see his teeth flash. “Me too,” Adam said.

  He’d put off going to New Orleans for another week. And Katie had constructed an elaborate story about staying over at Mary Esch’s house, all the while planning to come to State College instead. Even her mother did not know this time that she was at Jacob’s.

  Adam’s finger traced a path from her throat to her collarbone. “I’ve wanted to do this all day. Do you realize your brother didn’t even go to the bathroom between four and nine tonight?”

  Katie giggled. “I’m sure he did.”

  “No. I know, because the last time I touched you, it was just after lunch.” He lay on his side, sharing her pillow, so close that his breath fell into her own mouth.

  She stretched forward, just enough to kiss him. It was new to her, being the leader. She still felt shy every time she kissed Adam, instead of letting him kiss her. But once, when she had done it, he’d raised her hand to his chest, and she felt the rapid tattoo of his heart. A strange thing, to think she had that power over him.

  He pinned her on her back and leaned over her, his hair falling to tangle with her own. She let her mind run like a river, let her arms reach and grab hold. She felt Adam’s hands moving over her shoulders, sloping down her sides.

  And then they were underneath her T-shirt. His palm burned like a brand on the skin of her breast. Her eyes flew open, and she began to shake her head. “Adam,” she whispered, tugging at his hair. “Adam! You can’t!”

  Now her heart was hammering, and her stomach flipped with fear. Plain boys didn’t do this, at least not the ones she’d known. She thought of Samuel Stoltzfus, with his serious eyes and his slow smile—Samuel, who had driven her home from the singing last Sunday and had blushed when he held her hand to help her out of the courting buggy.

  Adam spoke, a quiver against her own throat. “Please, Katie. If you just let me look at you, I’ll do whatever you want.”

  Too frightened to move, she hesitated, then yielded. Adam inched her T-shirt up, exposing her navel, her ribs, the pink beads of her nipples. “You see,” he whispered, “there’s nothing plain about you.”

  He tugged the fabric back down and gathered her into his arms. “You’re shaking.”

  Katie buried her face against his neck. “I . . . I’ve never done that before.”

  Adam kissed her callused hand. It made her feel cherished, as if she were a princess instead of a farm girl. Then he sat up, untangling himself from her arms.

  Katie frowned, thinking that she’d done something wrong; thinking that she hadn’t done enough. “Where are you going?”

  “I made you a promise. I said I’d do whatever you wanted, if you let me see you. I’m guessing that right now, you want me to go away.”

  She sat up, cross-legged, and reached for him. “That’s not what I want,” she said.

  * * *

  It had been a long, strenuous day for Samuel, working beside Aaron in the fields. The whole way home he’d watched Silver plodding along, and he’d been unaware of Levi’s chatter. He could not stop thinking about Katie, about what she might have done. What he wanted was a hot meal, a hotter shower, and the sweet oblivion that came with sleep.

  At his parents’ home, he unhitched his buggy and led the horse into the barn. There was another buggy in the yard; someone visiting with his mother, maybe. Gritting his teeth at the thought of being polite, Samuel lumbered heavily onto the front porch, where he stood for a moment gathering his thoughts before heading inside.

  He was staring at the main road, watching the cars cross with their bright headlights and throaty engines, when the front door opened behind him. His mother stood there, surrounded by the soft yellow light that spilled from inside the house. “Samuel! What are you doing out here?” She reached for his arm and dragged him into the kitchen, where Bishop Ephram and Lucas the deacon were sitting with steaming cups of coffee. “We’ve been waiting for you,” Samuel’s mother scolded. “Sometimes I think you come home via Philadelphia.”

  Samuel smiled, a slow unraveling. “Ja, you can’t keep Silver from the entrance ramps to those fancy highways.”

  He sat down, nodding at the two men, who couldn’t seem to look him in the eye. His mother excused herself, and a moment later Samuel heard her heavy footsteps treading up the stairs. Steepling his fingers in front of him, he tried to act calm, but inside his stomach was rolling like the tiller in the fields. He had heard of what it was like to be called to account for your sins, but never experienced it firsthand. From the looks of things, the bishop and the deacon didn’t like the prospect any more than Samuel himself.

  The bishop cleared his throat. “We know what it’s like to be a young man,” Ephram began. “There are certain temptations . . .” The voice trailed off, unraveling at the edges like one of Samuel’s mother’s balls of yarn.

  Samuel looked from Lucas to Ephram. He wondered what Katie had told them. He wondered if Katie had told them anything at all.

  Katie, for whom he would have laid down his life; for whom he would have gladly been shunned for six weeks’ time; with whom he’d wanted to spend the rest of his days, filling a house with children and serving God. Katie, who had had a baby.

  Samuel bowed his head. Any minute now, they’d ask him to come to church to make his things right, and if they asked him, he’d go, as was expected. You didn’t argue once the bishop laid a sin against you; it just wasn’t done. But suddenly Samuel realized that this awkward hesitation of Ephram’s was a gift. If Samuel spoke first, if Samuel spoke now—that sin might never be laid against him at all.

  “Lucas, Ephram,” he said, in a voice so steady that it could not be his own, “I want to marry Katie Fisher. I will tell you and the preachers and all our brothers and sisters this if you wish next Gemeesunndaag.”

  A broad smile split the white mass of Ephram’s beard. He turned to the deacon and nodded, satisfied.

  Samuel tightened his fingers on his knees, almost to the point of pain. “I want to marry Katie Fisher,” he repeated. “And I will. But you should know something else right now—I was not the father of her baby.”

  EIGHT

  Ellie

  My favorite place on the farm was the milk room. Thanks to the bulk refrigeration tank, it stayed cool, even at the hottest times of the day. It smelled like ice cream and winter, and the white walls and spotless floor made it a fine place to sit down and think. Once the inverter had charged the batteries of my laptop, I’d take my computer there to do my work.

  It was where Leda found me when she decided to grace me with a visit ten days after I’d become an official resident of the Fisher farm. As I sat typing with my head bowed, the first things that came into my range of vision were her Clark sandals—something I hadn’t seen in a while. The Amish women who didn’t wear boots wore the ugliest sneakers I’d ever seen in my life,