Marta Perry - Vanish in Plain Sight

“Ach, what am I thinking?” Rhoda hurried into the kitchen. “The egg casserole is done. Komm. Sit. It’s time to eat.”

For a moment Marisa thought the man would turn and walk out. Then he came slowly to the table and pulled out the chair at the end. Mary put a basket of rolls and bread on the table and slid into her seat. Rhoda, carrying a steaming casserole dish with a towel, hurried to her place.

Marisa was reaching for a muffin when she realized that Eli had bowed his head, the others following suit. No words were spoken. After a moment he looked up, as did his wife and daughter.

How had they known he was finished with what she assumed was a silent blessing? Telepathy?

“You will have some breakfast casserole?” Rhoda asked, but before Marisa could respond she had put a giant, steaming serving on Marisa’s plate.

“Thank you. That’s plenty,” she added when Rhoda seemed about to give her more. “It smells wonderful.”

“Chust eggs and cheese and sausage,” Rhoda said.

Plates clattered as everyone was served. They began to eat, not talking. Apparently if there was going to be any conversation around the table, it would be up to her to start it. And maybe the only thing to do was to plunge right in.

“Do you know why I’m here in Springville?”

Rhoda glanced at her husband, and then she nodded. “Ja, we have heard about the suitcase Link Morgan found in his uncle’s house. Barbara’s, it was.”

She was taken aback for a moment. She’d expected some garbled story would be going around, but clearly they knew exactly what had happened. Someone in the police department must have been talking. Or someone in the Morgan family.

“Barbara Angelo is my mother.” Or was my mother. The not-knowing seized her in its grip, shaking her.

“Ja. We heard that, too.” Rhoda studied her for a moment, her round blue eyes curious. “You look more like your father, but there is something of Barbara in your face, too.”

Marisa found it difficult to tell the age of the Amish woman. With her brown hair pulled straight back from a center part and the lack of makeup, Rhoda might be as old as Marisa’s mother would be now or maybe younger.

“You knew her, then.”

Some silent communication passed between Rhoda and her husband, and she looked down at her plate.

“We remember,” Eli said. “She came to visit the Zooks one summer.” His mouth clamped shut on the words, as if he’d said all he intended.

She needed to ask another question, but there was such a huge blank in her knowledge that she wasn’t sure where to begin. “Were they relatives of hers?”

“Ja,” Rhoda said. “Cousins. She came from Indiana, I think.”

Another silence. Clearly they weren’t going to offer anything she didn’t ask. A month ago she’d have said she wasn’t interested in how and why her mother came to Lancaster County, but now she realized that wouldn’t have been true.

“Had she been here before to visit?”

“We don’t know much about it,” Eli said before his wife could answer. “If you want to know, you should talk to them. Not us.”

A look at his stern, closed face was enough to convince her that he wouldn’t tell her anything else. With the beard reaching to his chest, Eli looked like an Old Testament prophet.

He also looked like the man she’d seen from her window. But what point could there be in his standing out there?

“I can see that you don’t want to be involved,” she said carefully. “I hoped maybe you’d be willing to tell me what you remembered about my mother. There’s so much I don’t understand.”

“Poor child,” Rhoda said, her voice soft. “Don’t you remember her at all?” She asked the question despite the wave of disapproval emanating from Eli’s end of the table.

“Not very much.” Her throat tightened. “I was only five when she left. I have little bits of memory—of her making cookies, sewing a rag doll for me. Singing a little song in a language I didn’t know. Pennsylvania Dutch, I guess.”

The woman nodded, eyes filled with sympathy. “Of course you want to know more.”

“Rhoda.” There was warning in Eli’s voice. “This is not our concern.”

His wife answered him in the dialect, her voice filled with urgency. He seemed to argue with her. Finally he shook his head, mouth set.

Rhoda looked back at her. “Eli feels we should not interfere. That you should talk to your mother’s kin. It is for them to tell Barbara’s story, not us.”

She saw her chance of learning anything fading away, if they were anything like the people she’d encountered in Indiana. “But I don’t even know how to find them. Or if they’ll talk to me.”

Another quick exchange of glances. Eli pushed his chair back.

“You should talk to Bishop Amos. He can help you, if he thinks it the right thing to do. Rhoda will tell you how to find him.” He rose, dropped his napkin on the table and walked out.

She glanced at Rhoda. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset him.”

“Ach, he is not upset. He chust isn’t sure what is right, and that makes him annoyed with himself.”

“Isn’t it right for me to know about my mother?”

Rhoda looked down at her plate. “You’ll talk to the bishop. He’ll know what’s best. I’ll write down for you how to find him.”

Door closed, it seemed. She didn’t pin much hope on this bishop, whoever he was, wanting to help someone like her.

She tried to marshal an argument that might sway the woman. “You understand what I feel. I know you do. If you know something about my mother, please tell me.”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

Because her husband had told her not to, Marisa supposed. She wanted to argue, but obviously that wouldn’t do any good. Maybe, if she approached Rhoda when they were alone, she’d have better luck.

Her cell phone rang, and she dived into her bag to find it. Maybe her father—

But it wasn’t Dad. It was the police chief, Adam Byler.

“Wonder if you might stop by my office some time this morning, Ms. Angelo? No hurry.”

“Why? Have you found out something?” It was all she could do to stay in her seat, and she realized that Rhoda and her daughter were both looking at her with slightly scandalized expressions. Surely they were used to guests with ever-present cell phones, weren’t they?

“No, not really.” Byler sounded evasive. “There’s just something I’d like to talk over with you, that’s all. Come by anytime.”

He rang off before she could ask him anything else, and she stared at the phone for a moment, her mind teeming with questions.

Despite his denial, she couldn’t stop a feeling of optimism. Maybe, just maybe, she was about to learn something.

LINK PARKED IN FRONT of Straus’s Hardware in Springville, got out and hesitated, glancing down the street in the direction of the tiny office that housed Spring Township’s police station. The village and the surrounding countryside that made up the township were served by the same small police force.

Forget it, he ordered himself. Pick up the hinges you need, go back to the house, get on with the work.

But forgetting wasn’t as easy as all that. Lying in the military hospital, day after day, he’d had no choice but to accept the fact that he’d survived when the others had died. He’d made his plans. He just hadn’t anticipated how hard it would be to carry them out.

First his family, so sure they could turn him back into the person he’d been before. Then there was the old house that had sheltered generations of Morgans, and even Springville itself, little changed since he’d trotted down Main Street at eight or nine with a dollar in his pocket, intent on spending it as soon as possible. All demanded he be the person he was before he left.