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It was still dark when the cell phone alarm went off in Brad‘s ear. It felt like no time had passed at all from the previous night. Brad groaned and pulled his hands down over his face. For about five minutes he told himself that it wasn’t all that big a deal to get away from Sheila, But six minutes was all it took for him to think better of that, and to plant his feet on the floor.
He hated getting up early, and he‘d have to find some way to play it off with Sheila later, but one day was all that he was willing to spend on shopping and overpriced food. And he was reasonably certain that Sheila didn’t rise before the sun.
He stumbled to the bathroom and took a quick shower, shaved, and dressed. He felt half-alive, but by local standards it wasn’t even all that early. In the Englisch world, it might still be the night before, but at 5 a.m., Lancaster County was open for business.
When he was shaved and brushed and dressed and combed, Brad quietly locked his hotel room and padded down to Sheila’s door. He pushed a small note under it, then descended the metal stairs to the breezeway, and walked out to the truck. He slid in, cranked the engine, and escaped to the freedom of the open road.
He rolled down the windows on the truck and let the cool air of early fall come pouring in. The hotel was well outside of town and mostly surrounded by rolling fields. They were beautiful at that time of year, thick with corn, and even at that early hour, there were boys out in them, driving teams ahead of a harvester.
He turned his head to watch them as the fenceposts flashed past: they were sitting up on the rigs, holding the reins. From where he was, it almost looked as if they were sailing across endless green waves.
He shook his head, smiling. It was picturesque, he had to admit it. He was going to miss that part when he went home to his studio apartment in the city.
He pulled the truck into the parking lot of a little cafe on the outskirts of town. It was already crowded, even though the sun was just rising, and he was lucky to find a window booth. The prospect faced out onto one of those endless fields, brushed by the new gold of the dawning sun. A pretty waitress came over and smiled at him. “Good morning! What can I get for you?”
“Coffee,” he replied instantly, “black coffee. Ham and gravy biscuits, scrambled eggs with cheese, hash browns, and – let’s see – a side of bacon.”
“Coming up.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his smart phone. To his surprise, there was an instant message from Sheila. It read: Ha ha, Brad, very funny.
He grinned but declined to answer: because when he did, he was going to have to strike just the right balance of groveling apology, and firmness, and truly creative replies took time.
To his surprise, and delight, the waitress brought his order back in less than five minutes – platter after platter of good, solid farm food, trailing fragrant steam. He set to immediately, and almost closed his eyes in deep appreciation. This part of the country understood food.
He gave the plate his undivided attention for better than 15 minutes. That was another thing he was going to miss when he left: good, simple food, and plenty of it.
His phone buzzed, and he picked it up, thinking that Sheila must have thought of something else, but the message was from the lawyer, Hutchinson. The old shark wanted him to come in for a briefing before Jemima’s court cast – legalese for “coaching.” He took another bite of ham.
He was about the shut the phone completely off, but there was another notification on his call list. It was sandwiched in between the other two, and he almost missed it. But there, in black and white, was the number he’d almost forgotten.
The call had been from Jemima.
He coughed, and spilled coffee on himself, and cursed, and brushed it off with his napkin. He fumbled with the phone and pressed it to his ear.
Her voice was so soft that he could hardly make it out over the background noise in the diner, and he cupped his hand over the phone. He could just make out:
“...might not see you after, so I thought we might talk one more time. You can come to the same place as last time, in the garden. My parents are going to town so no one will see. I will be there today.”
There was a long pause, and then, even fainter than before, two unintelligible words, then a click. He cursed and played the message back again, and they were still unintelligible. He played it a third time, and this time he was able to hear them.
”Please come.”
He sat there, with his mouth open, not quite believing his own ears. Then he played the message back a fourth time. There it was—faint but real.
”Please come.”
He stared at the tabletop without really seeing it. His pulse was beating in his neck, his mouth was dry, and the brain was blank.
”Please come.”
He came to with a start, checked his watch. It was just coming up on 7 o’clock – midmorning, in these parts.
He slapped a $20 down on the table, took a quick sip of coffee, and left.
––––––––
It was a fairly short drive from town to the King farm. Brad took his usual route, parking next to the overgrown tract of land next door, and hiked over the bramble bushes to the fenceline. He gave the yard and the house a quick sweep. There was no one visible, and no sounds of hammering, so he jumped over.
He made his way through the undergrowth, and so almost walked right into Jemima. She was standing there in the deep undergrowth beyond the garden – well hidden from anyone who might be watching from the house.
The suddenness of her appearance took his breath. He pulled up short, mustered a lopsided smile, and tried not to look as goofy as he felt.
“Duchess!” he exclaimed—absurdly. She was standing there, bathed in golden morning light, like some flame-haired pre-Raphaelite vision, and framed by a curtain of golden fall leaves. He wanted to stare at her but forced himself to concentrate.
“I –um—I got your message,” he stammered. “I’m glad you called. I wanted to talk to you, too.”
He lifted his head and looked around. “Where can we talk?”
She smiled at him softly. “We can go to the house. My parents are gone. Come.”
To his amazement, she reached out and took his hand. Hers was soft and warm as a kitten’s, and almost as small.
He followed her across the lawn, past the garden, and up the porch. She led him to the porch swing and sat down on it. He sat down quickly beside her.
She released his hand, and put her own in her lap, and looked down at them without speaking for a long while.
In that long silence, his brain slowly woke up. He had to keep his head on straight. He had to remember Delores’ warnings; his job was riding on whether or not he could get this interview. He hated to do it, but he had to do it.
He reached down into his pocket, and gently pushed a spot on the phone screen. The recording app kicked in.
Jemima looked up at him with those soft green eyes, the one that tilted up at the edges, the ones that seemed bottomless.
“I wanted to thank you,” she said at last. “For everything. And to say I’m sorry for the bad things that happened to you. It’s hard to us to trust outsiders. So many of them have not been kind.”
Guilt twisted in his chest. He smiled a sickly smile. “It’s alright,” he assured her.
She added: “We won’t be seeing much of each other after next week, maybe.” She paused, as if waiting for him to refute it, but he forced himself not to answer. It wouldn’t be fair to her.
She bowed her head and went on: “So I will tell you what happened. Mr. Morton came out ahead of you that day, and he only told me that he wanted the clock. He was very impatient. But I never promised to sell it to him.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“After you left, I thought about what you had said. About the letter being valuable, maybe. But I didn’t see why that was so important. I didn’t see why everyone was so excited. So I sent it to you. And I thought that you would take it.”
She paused again, not looking up.
“But you didn’t take it. And I was very surprised. So I – went along, with what you said. Mostly because I – I wanted to know why you hadn’t taken the letter.”
Brad looked up at the ceiling and tightened his lips to a thin line.
“I still don’t know why you didn’t take it.”
Brad looked down at her, mustered a smile. “Call it hochmut, Duchess,” he said gently.
She nodded and went on. ”And when we went to the city, when we were watching the auction, and the price kept going up and up, I could see that you were thinking about the letter. And about giving it up. It must have been very hard, to give it up.”
Brad pulled back, crossed his legs, coughed. He knew that he needed to start asking her questions, to begin guiding the conversation in the direction he needed it to go, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“And after the auction was over. I think I know what you did, when we were there,” she murmured, “now. You were taking me away before the other reporters could come, and – and take pictures, and shoot videos, and ask more questions.”
She lifted her eyes to his face. “Isn’t that right?”
He tried to make his mouth move into a smile, but it wouldn’t obey. He looked down and didn’t answer.
“When the story came out, and all the people came here, it was very hard. I didn’t understand why they thought it was so important, to have more money than everybody else. As if I had done something wonderful, when I had only bought a clock.”
She picked at the fabric of her apron. “The elders had to go to the police, to ask them to block the roads, so many people came here. All because of the money. People I had never met, writing letters, and calling on the phone, and coming out to the house. Daed had to protect us, or they would have come inside our house.”
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that, Jemima,” he said quietly.
She tilted her head to one side and shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault. You only wrote a story. The rest was other people.”
She sighed, and straightened. “Then one day a man came out and asked for me. He threw some papers at me and ran away. The papers were about the lawsuit. And that was hard, too. Because I don’t have all the money anymore. I gave a lot of it away already. And I thought about it and prayed about it.
“We’re not supposed to sue, you know,” she told him. “And my Mamm was very upset, when I told her I was going to get a lawyer. But I believe that God told me to give the money to other people. And I can’t do that if I don’t have it anymore.”
She looked up at him with those doe eyes. “What do you think?” she asked.
Brad didn’t trust himself to reply. He coughed again, and looked away. “I think you’re right,” he said at last.
She nodded. “So I’m going to court. And that will be hard, too. But, I’m very grateful that you – came forward to tell the judge about what you heard. It was very nice.”
Brad looked off into the distance and shrugged awkwardly.
“I’m sorry that I said mean things about you, and that I thought them. Because you really have been very – kind,” she said firmly.
She looked up at him again. “I would offer you the money again, if I thought you would take it,” she sighed. “But because I know you will not, I’ll give you something else you want.
“I’ll give you what I just said. I know that you’re taping me somehow, Brad Williams. But I make you a gift of it.”
Then she leaned forward, put a hand to his chin, and kissed him. Then she rose and went inside the house, leaving him to stare after her.
