“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?”
“What?” She blinked back into herself.
“Do you or your father own a pair of long-range binoculars?”
“No. No,” she said quickly. “I think maybe Mrs. Peachy owns a pair. Her grandson gave them to her for watching birds on the feeder. The bad leg keeps her inside most days.”
“Ah, right. Does your dad have people helping him with the farm, since Tom left?”
“Of course. Always.”
That didn’t narrow down who might have been watching when I took the photo of Tom coming down from the tree. Nothing like real life to keep the story messy. “How could I get your dad to talk to me, Rachel?”
“Heaven only knows,” she answered quietly. “I don’t. I must go now.”
Those last minutes of an interview are often awkward. The camera seems to re-materialize. Everyone becomes self-conscious. Most people fumble their farewells. Some shake my hand and ask me to call; some duck and cover. Rachel ran.
With a quick goodbye, she picked up her clunky boots and walked away. She wouldn’t accept a ride, even halfway. Someone was meeting her in the Walmart parking lot, she knew a short cut, needed to walk. In other words, leave me alone.
I didn’t push.
She picked her way across the traffic, carrying the clothes of her other life under her arm. The sun was low and sinking fast. I wondered if she’d make it home before dark.
Ainsley wandered out across the parking lot. “She gone?”
“Yeah.” I sat down and made some notes for later.
Photos: iso Rachel boots? (Juxta. Firehouse boots.)
Need school house.
Airport pick-ups? (Stock/news library might carry.)
Ainsley checked the images before breaking down the tripod.
“How’d that last bit look? Enough light?” I asked. “Did she stay in frame?”
“Of course I kept her in frame,” he snorted indignantly.
“What about after you left?”
“After I left?” Ainsley repeated. Slowly. “I turned the camera off when I left.”
“You what?” I felt a sick sort of lurch, the kind you get on a downhill.
“I thought you wanted privacy.”
“From you, you bonehead! Not the camera. Never, never from the camera.”
I sank down onto the picnic bench and tried to give myself the pep talk. It’s not brain surgery. It’s only television. Unfortunately, the you are fucked voice was too loud for me to hear anything reassuring.