J. Wachowski - In Plain View

“After Thomas left, I missed him greatly. Once I was sixteen, we found a way to meet in the town. He took me to see things. The zoo, the mall, movie theaters. Have you ever been to the O’Hare International Airport?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen the great hall of lights that sing above the moving walkway?”

That would be the tunnel that connects the two wings of the United Airlines tunnel. There’s a light sculpture above, glowing paneled walls and a new wave music audio track.

“Yeah, I’ve been there.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Her voice breathed awe. “We spent the whole day at the airport once.”

“So that was a good day. When was that?”

“Right after he first went away. Before I finished school.”

Melton’s research figured Tom had left his Amish home about four years ago. “When did you finish school, Rachel?”

“When I was thirteen.”

“Thirteen? What about high school?”

“It’s not Ordnung, ” she said. Absolute is the only way to describe the tone that word invoked.

“You mentioned Ordnung before. Could you explain it?”

“Most do not attend high school because it’s not Ordnung, um, not according to the community’s rules.”

I kept my face blank. “Ah. Well, then the airport was a long time ago. What did you and Tom do more recently?”

“My father would not be happy that I see Thomas.” She ducked her chin. “Not so much time for trips to the airport these days. We stayed closer to home.”

“Your father didn’t know you saw Tom?”

“No.”

The change was so abrupt, I could almost feel her guilt swell between us, big and dark, swimming right beneath the surface. The small hairs on my arm prickled.

“It’s not forbidden yet,” she assured me. “I have not been baptized. The rumspringa, ” she confided.

“Sorry, I don’t know.”

“It’s the time between childhood and being baptized in the community. It is a time between-of adult choosing. I must choose.”

I looked at the girl sitting in front of me. Reporters have a voice that comes out when they ask the questions that mask a strong opinion. I could hear the voice when I asked her, “How long have you been an adult, Rachel?”

“Since my sixteenth birthday.”

“That long?” I said. “But then why were you surprised when I said you could make your own choice about being interviewed at age eighteen?”

It flustered her. “Well, I may choose to do things that please me, but I must think if they affect others. If others are affected, they ought to be considered. Yes?” She said it with such simple sincerity, we took a minute of silence before I could think of my next question.

“Makes sense to me. What sort of things did you and Tom do ‘closer to home’?”

Her eyes flashed up and away. “Oh, things…you know,” she lilted with an elaborate shrug.

’Til now, Rachel Jost had reminded me of my farm-raised grandma. Lots of straight talk, in short declarative sentences. We must be getting to the good stuff; Rachel suddenly sounded like a teenager. She glanced past the camera at Ainsley’s bright head, his eyes down, discreetly monitoring the recording.

“College, is that your stomach I hear again?” I called out. “How about you take a break for a minute and go get all of us some fries?”

The boy didn’t argue. He nodded, pulled out his ear piece, fiddled with the tripod lock-down and left.

“Now that we’re a little more private…what sort of ‘you know, things’?”

Give the girl credit. She didn’t dodge twice. “We have a custom called bundling. ”

“As in keeping warm in winter?”

She squirmed where she sat. “Between people.”

“I don’t think I know about that.” After a long silence, I added, “Would you tell me about it?”

“People…when they are of an age to marry, sometimes… It is good to marry. To have children.”

“Sure.”

“And when you think of marrying, it is very important to choose rightly. There is no divorce for us. We remain together until death.”

“You’d definitely want to choose the right guy.”

Rachel studied the hole her toe was making in a scruffy tuft of grass. “Sometimes, you must get to know him.”

“‘Get to know him’? In what way?”

She met my gaze with a look that was twenty percent guilt and a surprising eighty percent wit. Rachel Jost had a sense of humor.

“Ah. That way.”

Neither of us rushed to elaborate.

I tried again. “You and Tom have been spending time ‘getting to know one another’ to help you decide whether to marry?”

“Oh, Thomas wanted to marry me,” she admitted, face turned away.

“But you weren’t sure.”

Slowly, she brought herself to look at me. Her mouth was pressed tight, holding back words and tears. The effort had mottled her face into a raw blotch.

Oh shit. Teenagers are a danger to themselves and others. All that emoting from full-grown hearts without any adult-acquired immunity to suffering.

“Lots of people have trouble being sure,” I said, as if I knew.

“To marry Thomas,” she began, “and live with him in the world, I would have to accept Meidung -leave my community, leave my father forever. To marry and be Thomas’s-” She seemed to be struggling for the right word.

“Wife?” I suggested.

“Amish wife,” she answered firmly. “Then he would have to leave the world forever. How could that be right either?” She looked at me with a helpless expression. “There was a disagreement between us. Thomas thought that more would convince me.” The pain in Rachel’s voice put a kink in my neck.

“What kind of ‘more’? More time? More money?”

She looked confused for a moment. “No, no. Can you remember, Miss O’Hara, what it was like before, before you knew there was something else?”

Riddles inside of riddles, but I didn’t want to interrupt her flow. I shook my head.

Rachel sighed a little. “I don’t remember anymore, what it was like not wanting to be different, to be with Thomas. Oh, and kissing,” she whispered. “How much easier it would be, not to know. My father says true sin is not done in ignorance. We must have knowledge to sin. I understand now. That’s why Thomas was always between. He knew both worlds. It surrounded him.” Her voice was small as a child’s. “He was lost and he needed me. If my faith had been stronger, perhaps.”

“You could have saved him?”

“He asked me to marry him. And I refused him.”

The kid had eighteen years of experience, an eighth-grade education and some of the damndest questions of the human experience to digest. Twice her age and double her education, I hadn’t come up with anything better than Life Isn’t Fair. As a motto, it wasn’t much comfort. For me or Jenny.

The only remedy I know is to put the worst into words. “You think Tom killed himself because you wouldn’t marry him?”

She nodded, so tight lipped I was afraid she might implode. An ill-timed flashback to Jenny’s face this morning caught me in an empathy ambush. I could see it in Rachel’s eyes; she was disappearing down the well-hole. Sinking into crushing, septic darkness. Sometimes, if you throw the right distraction, a person will try to save themselves.

“People aren’t that easy to control, Rachel. There was more on Tom’s mind than just marrying you. That much I can say for sure.” Thanks to Curzon’s cousin, Tom had been embarrassed at work, reprimanded by his boss and fought with his more-than-a-friend Pat. Rachel was only part of what pushed Jost over the edge. “I’ve got one last question for you.” My voice went cool, enough emotional crap, back to business. “Who owns the binoculars? You, or your dad?”