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  “I am sure that is right. We don’t quite know what to talk about anymore.”

  “At least he is with God instead,” Walker said. “That, at least, has to offer some comfort to your parents.”

  “I think so. Maybe one day it will . . .” Her voice drifted off, but not before Jacob noticed that there was a catch in her throat.

  Seeing her becoming distressed, especially over Perry, made him talk without thinking. “Perry wasn’t innocent, you know. It’s not like he was a saint or something.” The moment he said the words, he ached to take them back.

  But Deborah looked at him straight in the eye. “All of us are sinners. There’s no need to start throwing stones.”

  Her accusation made him feel defensive all over again. “There’s a big difference between making mistakes every once in a while and doing the things Perry did, Deborah . . .” he said honestly. Probably too honestly.

  She flinched, but held her ground. “That is true. But I also know that none of us knows what other people do in their own homes.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that I know for a fact that Perry was not the only person in the county to do things he didn’t want other people to know about.”

  Walker lifted his hands. “Boy, I didn’t mean to start a fight. I’m sorry I even brought him up.”

  “We’ve just been thinking about you,” Abby added, acting the peacemaker. “We’ve been concerned. A lot of people have. That’s all.”

  Abby saved the moment by linking her arm through Deborah’s. “You know, I’ve been thinking that it’s a real shame that none of us have gotten together much since . . . well, since so much has happened. We should.” Brightening, she added, “Anytime you want to talk, you ought to call one of us.”

  “I’ll do that. I’ll call you right up the next time I happen to be near our phone shanty.”

  There was more than a touch of sarcasm in Deborah’s voice, which Jacob found surprising. Deborah was usually forthright, saying what she meant. He was the one who seemed to always have a snide comment these days.

  But he didn’t want to dwell on that. Instead, he hoped to keep the tone light and was grateful to Abby for leading them away from their dark memories.

  “Abby, I heard that you’ve been thinking about being Plain. Have you already forgotten what it’s like to be Amish? We don’t have a lot of phones.”

  Abby bit her lip. “I know. I’m sorry, I was just trying to help—”

  “You did,” Deborah said quickly. “It is I who needs to apologize. I’m sorry. It really has been a hard couple of months. And since I’m an only child now, it’s even harder. I do appreciate your caring thoughts.”

  “Maybe we could come up with some time to get together?” Walker suggested.

  “Or we could get Deborah a cell phone,” Jacob said quickly.

  Deborah breathed in sharply. “Do you know how to get one?”

  Well, here was his moment of truth. “I, uh, actually do have one. And I could get you one, too.”

  She blinked quickly. “My parents would be so upset. I could never get a cell phone.”

  “Why not?” Abby asked. “Lydia said her parents have let her get away with quite a few things right now. She went to the movies with us the other day.”

  “The Planks are different . . .”

  Feeling his heart go out to her, imagining what life might be like in the Borntrager house, Jacob said, “What would it harm, Deb? You haven’t joined the church yet. I mean, I bet half of our friends are doing something their parents wouldn’t be thrilled about.”

  Obviously torn, she bit her lip.

  “Don’t tell them. Get a phone for yourself. If you had a cell, then you could call anyone you wanted.”

  Even in the dim light, Jacob could see that Deborah was intrigued by the idea.

  He knew why: Freedom was a wonderful feeling. Just getting out from under his father’s thumb for an hour had made him feel like he could breathe again.

  “Jacob, I couldn’t let you get me a cell phone.”

  “I’ll pick you up one,” Walker said. “There are some disposable cell phones at the Walmart in Paducah. Next time I’m there for school, I’ll pick up one. If you really want one, that is.”

  To Jacob’s pleasure, she looked his way for advice. He shrugged. “I don’t see what it could hurt, Deb. It’s just a phone. And if you are sitting alone in that house and I don’t happen to be standing in your yard . . .”

  She grinned. “Then I could call you all? Even if I only wanted to talk?”

  Walker chuckled. “That’s what they’re for, Deborah. Call us, or text us, and we’ll listen. Or shoot, we’ll come out and meet you somewhere.”

  “I’d meet you in a heartbeat,” Abby said. “I’m sure Lydia would come, too.”

  “I don’t think Lydia will be getting a cell phone. At least not from me,” Walker said, iron in his voice. “Her parents are letting me drive her around in my truck and go to the movies and such . . . but I’m afraid a cell phone would be crossing the line. I can’t risk her parents becoming upset with me. But I could make sure she knows if you call. I bet Frannie and Beth would come, too.”

  “And I’ll come up with a place for us to meet.” Jacob waggled his eyebrows. “Someplace out of the way.”

  “I would like that,” Deborah said. “I would like to know that I had a way to call you all. If I needed you, that is.”

  Jacob had to swallow back his burst of surprise. Since when was Deborah eager to start reaching out to them?

  “Deborah, I’ll bring you a cell phone next time I see you at work,” Walker said.

  “And you’ll show me how to use it, too?”

  “I’ll do that. I’ll program in everyone’s numbers. Then all you’ll have to do is call,” Jacob said.

  “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, okay.”

  “You’re going to be glad you have it, Deborah,” Abby proclaimed. “You never know when you’re going to need it for an emergency. That’s one part of being Plain I can’t seem to wrap my head around.”

  Next to him, Deborah was stumbling over her response. “I know I would be glad to have it if something bad happened. Not that, you know, I want anything to—” Her next words were cut off by the sound of another vehicle approaching.

  Since they were standing next to Walker’s truck, there wasn’t anywhere to hide. Jacob cursed their luck. Of course it wasn’t against the Ordnung for them to be out at night, or even to be hanging out with Englischers. But their actions would be noticed and commented on, and he could do without that.

  Luckily, the car turned into a driveway about a third of a mile ahead of them.

  The close call scared him. “We should go,” he said. “Sooner or later someone is going to see us all standing here. I’d rather not answer any more questions.”

  Walker crossed his arms over his chest. “I bet you’re right. We should probably call it a night. So, Jacob, Deborah? What do y’all want to do?” he asked. “Do either of you want a ride home?”

  Jacob looked at Deborah’s face and saw her fear. It wouldn’t do for either of them to be seen getting dropped off by a truck. “I think it would be better for me to walk her home,” he said.

  “All right,” Walker answered as he opened his driver’s side door. “Hey, be careful in the woods, though. There’s no telling what will pounce out at you.”

  Walker was kidding of course, but beside him, Deborah shivered. Reaching out, he rested his palm on the small of her back. “We’ll be careful, won’t we, Deborah?”

  Walker started up his truck, which sounded far too loud and telling in the quiet of the night. Jacob felt some relief when the truck pulled away and he and Deborah were alone again. “Ready to head back?”

  “Not really, but I think we had better go.
”

  He felt the same way. He wasn’t ready to go home to the hundred questions his father would have for him.

  He wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Deborah, either. Somehow they’d become closer tonight—close, like a couple. He’d felt that link between them, and he was sure Walker and Abby had sensed it, too. He ached to explore this new bend of their relationship. To coax her to tell him what she was really feeling.

  But when they started back home, Jacob leading the way and Deborah right on his heels, neither of them spoke.

  She seemed lost in thought, and he couldn’t seem to quell the guilt he felt. Guilt for how he used to treat her, and guilt for the way he’d recently lashed out at her. But mostly, Jacob couldn’t stem the feeling of despair that threatened to overtake him.

  Because one thing was certain . . . if Deborah ever discovered what had really happened between him and Perry, she would never forgive him.

  And he would never expect her to. Some things were unforgiveable.

  Chapter 8

  “Perry was never really a part of our group. Sometimes I felt bad about that. But then, of course, I remembered all the reasons he let me down.”

  FRANNIE EICHER

  Long after she’d said goodbye to Jacob and had crept back inside her house. Long after she’d pulled off her tennis shoes, wiped off stray pieces of grass and leaves that had stuck to the side and had laid them under the bench by the back door. Long after she’d stealthily climbed the stairs and had washed her face and brushed her teeth, Deborah lay in her bed and thought about what had just happened.

  In the span of a few hours, everything had changed.

  She’d lived most of her life being afraid to show too much emotion and afraid to get too close to other people. Growing up with Perry, who’d been a champion of using her weaknesses to his advantage, made her that way.

  For the last year, she’d begun to trust Jacob less, too. At first it was because he seemed to be such a follower of Perry’s. She couldn’t understand why the man she’d always idolized had decided to blindly accept Perry’s faults. Deborah had ached to shake Jacob. Even though it seemed a betrayal to her brother, she wanted to make him see that Perry’s ideas and actions were foolhardy and dangerous.

  Later, her faith in Jacob faded when she’d learned what he had become. Sometime between following Perry and his disappearance, Jacob had become angry and intense. Whereas he used to talk to her patiently, he came to hardly even look her way. He’d snapped at her and it seemed as if they’d never been friends.

  Now he seemed to have changed into yet another man in her eyes. The last few days in his company had been a revelation, to be sure. It was obvious that Jacob had been hiding under a raised guard as well. Maybe he was afraid of getting hurt?

  Deborah heard her mother walk up the stairs, pause, then open the door to Perry’s room. She seemed to do that more and more. In the middle of the night when she couldn’t sleep, her mother would open the closed door to Perry’s room and look at his things, crying softly.

  After an hour or so, her father would guide her out, and the door would stay shut for another twenty-four hours.

  As she heard the quiet echo of her mother’s tears, Deborah attempted to close her eyes. Tossing and turning in her bed, she tried to imagine a different life. What would it be like to live in a home where there was joy and laughter? Where people were honest with their emotions, and honest with her?

  Perhaps the only way to change her family was to change her own actions. The first step would be to help her mother, if she was brave enough.

  Was she?

  “You can do this,” she whispered to the empty room. “You can take your future in your hands and cast away your fears. If you are strong enough.”

  That was a vow worth making, she decided. Pulling on a robe and slippers, she opened up her door and walked into Perry’s room.

  With a start, her mother looked up from her perch on the end of Perry’s bed. After a hasty swipe to her eyes, she blinked owlishly. “Deborah, what are you doing up? Did I wake you?”

  “I was already awake.” There was no need to admit that she hadn’t gone to sleep yet. “I heard you in here. I thought maybe this time you wouldn’t have to be alone.”

  “This time?” Her mother ran a hand along the thick quilt that covered Perry’s bed. Almost like she was afraid to mess up the green-and-black log cabin design.

  Leaning against the doorframe, Deborah said, “I hear you in here almost every night, Mamm.”

  She clenched her hands in her lap. “I feel closer to him when I come in here. It’s silly, I know. It’s not like Perry invited me in here to chat when he was alive.”

  No, that hadn’t been his way. Perry would have met any person entering his room with a scowl. “Perry liked his privacy,” she said with a smile.

  To her surprise, her mother chuckled. “Indeed, he did. Why, I remember when he was four or five, he told me he no longer needed my help when he showered. He took a towel from my hands and closed the door right in my face.”

  “That sounds like Perry.” Entering the room, Deborah took a seat next to her mom. Never would she have imagined that sitting in his room would help, but it did. There, on the comfy quilt, so much of the anger that always seemed to permeate his spirit dissipated. “I was always surprised Lydia put up with him,” she said lightly.

  “He was different with her, though. He was quieter, kinder.”

  Deborah nodded. That was true. Perry had been different around Lydia. Far more patient and far less self-absorbed. Everyone had commented on how good she was for him. “Frannie wasn’t a good match.”

  Her mother smiled again. “Indeed, she was not.”

  But of course, by the time he courted Frannie, he’d already made the choice to take drugs.

  “I saw Jacob Schrock tonight,” Deborah blurted.

  “What? When?”

  “I snuck out,” she said bravely. Deciding to let her guard down a little further. “I saw him walking by our house, so I went outside and talked to him.”

  “What in the world was he doing in our yard?”

  “He was out walking. He said he was thinking about when he, Perry, and I used to walk to school together.”

  “And Perry always made you late,” her mother mused.

  “I didn’t think you realized that.”

  “I realized more than you knew,” she said cryptically. “So . . . what did you do tonight with Jacob?”

  “We walked to the schoolhouse.”

  “In the dark.”

  “Yeah. He had a flashlight,” Deborah explained. Although truthfully, that explained nothing. She knew that wasn’t what her mother was wondering about.

  Her mother must have thought the same thing. “And?”

  “And? And nothing.” She shrugged. “We just talked. I know I should have told you I was leaving, but I didn’t want to risk you or Daed telling me no.”

  Her mother glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “Jacob Schrock is a gut man. He always has been.”

  Deborah shrugged, “Lately, he’s seemed mad at me. Angry.”

  “We’re all dealing with our grief in our own way. Perhaps that was his?”

  “Maybe,” Deborah allowed. But that still didn’t feel quite right. “I wish he wouldn’t have taken his anger out on me. I could have used his friendship these last few months.”

  Perhaps it was Deborah’s allusion to how alone she’d felt, or perhaps her mother had just had enough—whatever the reason, her eyes were pained when she stood up. “I know you’re confused, Deborah. But I must admit that we’ve all probably done things we wished we hadn’t.”

  With her words still hanging between them, she wandered out, leaving Deborah sitting on Perry’s bed, wondering yet again when everything was going to start getting easier.

  Jacob w
as still trying to read by flashlight when his mother knocked on his door.

  “Jacob?” she whispered. “Jacob, are you awake?”

  “I’m awake.” Quickly, he tossed his book to one side and hurried to his door. “Mamm, is everything all right?”

  “I don’t know.” She slipped by him, closing his door behind them. “You had visitors this evening. I thought I should let you know.”

  The news caught him completely off guard. “Someone came by after I left? Who?”

  Warily glancing at his door, she said, “Detective Reynolds and Sheriff Kramer.”

  He wasn’t sure if he was more worried about the unusual nighttime visit, or that the sheriff and his detective friend had come to talk to him together. “I wonder what they wanted.”

  “They wouldn’t say. Your father was mighty upset about their visit, though. No matter how hard he tried, they wouldn’t talk to him.”

  Jacob could imagine that. His father liked to be in charge of things, whether they were at the store or in their home. He wouldn’t have liked the two men arriving after dark unannounced, and then staying closemouthed about what they wanted to talk to Jacob about.

  “What do they want me to do? Should I go by Sheriff Kramer’s office tomorrow?”

  His mother’s eyes widened. “No!”

  Jacob grew more concerned. What would be the harm in going to the sheriff’s office? “Mamm, are you worried about something?”

  “Not worried . . .” She ran a hand over her hair, which Jacob had just noticed was loose and down her back. “It’s just that your father wouldn’t want you to be seen there.” She cleared her throat. “At the sheriff’s office, I mean. People might talk, you know.”

  He knew they would. But that was beside the point. The last thing he wanted was to have to answer the sheriff’s questions in front of his parents. That would only make a difficult situation ten times worse. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Nothing. If those men want to speak to you, I’m sure they’ll stop by again.” Her smile wavered. “Or maybe they will have moved on and won’t need to speak to you after all.”