“All right. Set us up,” I told Ainsley. “I’ll dig up a release form.”
The parking lot backed up to a field of autumn-tall weeds. There wasn’t much wind, and the road traffic was shielded by the building. With the right mic and a lot of luck, we might get something decent.
“Tell me about how Tom came to live with your family.” I moved across the picnic table from Rachel, putting Ainsley behind my right shoulder, forcing him to frame her tight.
“He…Thomas was the son of a man who worked on our farm many years, a good friend to my father. He married an Amish girl. The year I was born, there was an accident. A fire.” Rachel stared at me. “Terrible. Several died. My mother and Thomas’s mother both. His father left our community shortly after that and took little Tom with him. He wished to return to the place where he was raised. Along the way, there was an accident. Thomas never spoke of it to me. I do not even know what kind of accident. Such a little boy and he was orphaned.
“Thomas told me once he thought there had been a mistake; he should have passed on then, to be with his mother. Well, I often reminded him, the Lord does not make mistakes. His life was spared for a reason.” The words faded into her thoughts with a sigh. “It was a long time before the members of our community learned that his father died as well, and longer still before they were able to discover where the little boy had gone. Foster care.” She made it sound as dire as it probably was.
“How long?” I asked.
“Too long.” Rachel shook her head and sighed. “My father never remarried after my mother died. He asked to adopt the boy. Some said it was a blessing for us, as Father had no other children. Thomas would be raised Amish with the family he might have had. But when Thomas finally came to us, there were many difficulties,” Rachel summarized bluntly. “He was no longer Plain. But neither was he quite an Englischer.” It was clear by her tone, the meaning of the word was something closer to “outsider,” than a Merrie Olde import. “Everyone was ferhoodled…um, mixed-up crazy. Thomas had it worst. He was afraid. It is hard to live within the Ordnung, to be… gelassen, when there is so much fear inside.” Her frustration was clear. We didn’t just speak different languages; we spoke different life experiences.
“I don’t understand-‘gelassen.’”
“Peaceful? But more, to give over. To yield yourself to higher authority,” she tried to explain. “Yield to God and the community. It is a peaceful feeling.”
“He couldn’t yield?”
“Sometimes he was grenklich…um, sick?” she translated. “Upset.”
I didn’t mind that she was having a hard time sticking to English; it was a sign that she was talking from the heart, talking truth in the words that came first. I’d seen people who spoke six languages fluently revert to their native speech in the midst of a crisis when no one could understand a word they said.
“So Thomas felt sick when he had to follow the community rules?”
Rachel shook her head and pinched her mouth tight for a moment. “He wanted to follow. He wanted to be good. But maybe, I don’t think Thomas ever left that place-in between.” Her eyes and the tip of her nose began to glow pink with Technicolor teenage empathy. “Not Plain. Not English. Not ever.”
“Is that why he finally left the community?”
“I can’t say,” she mumbled.
“How did your father feel about Tom leaving? What did he say?”
“To me?” She sounded surprised. “Nothing, of course. I suppose Father had many feelings when Thomas left. He was angry, of course, but also…disappointed, ashamed. He had tried to do the right thing and somehow, it came out wrong.” She clammed up and swung her feet to skim the stubble of grass.
“Tell me more about Tom. What was he like?”
That brought out the smile. “Oh, he liked the animals. The dogs all slept in his room. Barn cat would come to him if he-” She flipped her fingers against her pants, and then again in the air for Ainsley’s benefit, as if she were fluttering hello. “He even made pets of mice.”
“Mice?” I returned her smile.
“Thomas could be very…still. Animals appreciate that. But he could move quick, too. Especially, when he was afraid. Then he moved-quick. Without thinking.” Her eyes drifted out of focus as a memory seemed to flash through her mind. Her words stalled.
“Tell me about a time he moved quick.”
“I…don’t remember,” she mumbled. A flush spread up her neck into her face.
“Okay. Tell me about a time he was with the animals.”
She thought a moment. “He was always in the barn when he was supposed to be working the field. He liked to be around the animals, pet them, curry the horses’ hair. Once, for my birthday, he braided Foxglove’s mane and put flowers in her hair. It was a Sunday. I took her to church that way.”
“Pretty.”
“We were punished for it,” she added, matter-of-factly. “Father thought it was prideful, showing off. It is hard for me to turn away from pretty things,” she admitted as if it were a terrible fault.
My empathy meter kicked into overdrive. I kept flashing back on my own heartfelt confessions: age seven, eight, nine. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. I lied five times. I broke the glass on purpose…stole the bottle…started the fight.
“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?”