CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ten years ago when Enoch was in rumspringa, he was reckless. He smoked, got his driver’s license and a car. I heard rumors that he had gone to the wild parties that some of the young Amish threw. These were parties that no parent, Englisch or Amish, would want their child to be at. He was testing the absolute boundaries of his rumspringa, and I prayed for him every day.

By this time my Kip at been gone for ten years, and I’d spent the last few years living at Edy’s Greenhouse with my brother Ira and his twins. After my sister-in-law passed, they needed a woman to keep house for them while my brother ran his business. I was the widowed older sister. It made sense for me to give up my little home in the village and fulfill the family obligation. However, I had never had any children of my own, and even though I grew up in a family of many children, I didn’t know how to raise a child who was determined to be disobedient at every turn.

That’s the way Enoch behaved the moment he got out of school when he was fourteen and started rumspringa. He was defiant and sullen and made no attempt to help his father with the greenhouse. Edith was the one who was the perfect twin. She took interest in the greenhouse and learned all she could about plants. Enoch squandered away his time.

Enoch still lived at home when he started to dress like an Englischer. He cut his hair and bought expensive tennis shoes. I never knew where he got the money for those shoes. Instead of plants, he was interested in cars and motorcycles, and I found magazines about both in the barn, where he spent most of his time when he was home, which wasn’t often.

Ira would not do anything about the boy. He believed that Enoch was acting in such a way because he’d lost his mother when he was young. I felt sympathy for Enoch’s loss, but I didn’t believe that was his only reason for acting up. I did believe it was his excuse. I tried to speak to him many times and asked him to behave for his father’s sake, but my words fell on deaf ears. I was his aenti not his maam, so, as he told me many times, I really didn’t have any authority over him.

Then a motorcycle went missing. An expensive motorcycle was taken from an Englisch neighbor’s garage. The police came to the greenhouse to see if any of us knew about it. I was the only one home at the time. They said that the neighbor suspected Enoch had taken the motorcycle and they were looking for him. The neighbor told them that Enoch made no secret of how much he wanted that motorcycle. They only had a few questions to ask Enoch about it.

Despite everything that Enoch had done since beginning rumspringa years before, I told the police that I didn’t believe he would steal. It would go against his very nature as an Amish man.

Even so, they asked me where they could find my nephew, insisting they only wanted to speak to him about the motorcycle, and I told them. That was my worst mistake.

I never said he took it. Those words never came out of my mouth. But that small fact didn’t matter to the arresting deputy at the time, who was Marshall Jackson—Deputy Jackson, who was now Sheriff Jackson, a man who hated the Amish, and wanted to blame my culture for everything that went wrong in Holmes County.

When he came to the greenhouse asking after Enoch, I had been intimidated by his size and his hostile demeanor. And as soon as he learned Enoch’s whereabouts, he tracked him down. I don’t think he even spoke to Enoch before he arrested him and charged him with the crime. Enoch sat for weeks in jail, and there was nothing anyone from our district could do to free him. I even went to the sheriff’s department myself to explain that I didn’t think my nephew had done anything wrong. I was ignored at every turn.

After days of trying, I finally found the only person who would listen to me: Deputy Aiden. He believed me, and he promised he would do all he could to get Enoch out.

In the end, he did by continuing to follow leads until he found the missing motorcycle over fifty miles away. It had been stolen by an Englischer from another county.

It took some doing on Deputy Aiden’s part, but Enoch was eventually released from jail. Unfortunately, the damage was done. Enoch blamed me and the rest of the Amish community for his arrest, and he left the village.

After Enoch left, life at the greenhouse was fractured. My brother made it no secret that he partially blamed me for Enoch’s leaving. When I heard that my oldest sister was ill in Michigan and needed twenty-four-hour care, it only made sense to go to her. Edith was old enough at that point to help her father and to keep house for him and work in the greenhouse. She had recently married Moses Hochstetler, who would live at the greenhouse as well. I wasn’t needed or wanted any longer. I knew that I had to start over and as the saying goes, “Begin a journey by first deciding on a destination.” That’s what I did.

I was lucky in some ways that Edith never blamed me for her brother’s leaving as her father had. That would have truly crushed me. However, now she was telling me to leave the greenhouse before Enoch returned, and I had to wonder if she had held me responsible all these years. If that were true, I wasn’t sure I could recover from it. I was wondering if I had made a terrible mistake coming back to Ohio.

“Is that what you want me to do?” I asked.

“Ya,” she said. “It’s for the best, Aenti. I know that Enoch would like to see you eventually.”

“Has he said that?”

“Nee, not in so many words, but I don’t think now is a gut time with what has happened. And if you could ask members of the community to stay away too, that would be helpful.”

I frowned. “The community will want to gather around you during this difficult time. That is the Amish way.” I couldn’t understand that part of her request. I knew why she didn’t want me there, but why not the rest of the district? Whether someone dies, is hurt, or is just upset, we all come out to show that person compassion and love. Edith knew this. To ask district members to stay away could lead to a misunderstanding, and I wasn’t sure how her request would be received by the community. More assumptions would be made.

“Enoch is not ready to see them, and I would prefer not to be overwhelmed by visitors. It took me months to convince Enoch to come stay with me. Too many people might drive him away.” She looked at me with tears in her eyes. “After what has happened with Zeke, I so much want my brother to stay and rejoin our family, rejoin our faith. We can’t rush it if we’re going to have any hope of success. I need him to come back. I’m not sure I can do this alone any longer.”

She had a point. Even with the best intentions, the community’s enthusiasm for his return might scare Enoch off. People would have many questions about where he had been and what he had been doing over the last ten years. I had those questions too. I’d never expected to see my nephew again and wanted to know how Enoch was. There would be questions too about why he didn’t come back when his father died. The community would be caring, but some, like Ruth Yoder, would want answers. I could see now why Edith would like to ease Enoch back into our culture.

“All right.” I nodded. “I will do as you ask on both counts.”

“Danki, Aenti. I know that you must have many questions for Enoch, but please try to hold them back.” Tears came to her eyes. “I have missed him so much, especially now that our parents are gone. I’m hoping he will work with me at the greenhouse.”

“Would you turn the greenhouse over to him?”

A strange look passed over her face. “I would have to do that if he rejoined the church, wouldn’t I? That’s the Amish way—the man in the family inherits the property. If I had married before Enoch returned, it wouldn’t have been an issue because the business would have gone to my husband. He would have missed his opportunity to reclaim the greenhouse.”

I wondered if she realized that she’d just given her brother a motive to murder Zeke. He was in the village when Zeke died. More specifically, he was at the greenhouse. That was opportunity.

Edith shook her head. “I don’t think ownership of the business will really be an issue. I doubt that Enoch will want the greenhouse or anything to do with our way of life. I have asked my brother so many times to come back into the fold of the church, but he has no interest in it.”

“Does the bishop know that Enoch is back?” I asked. I assumed that Ruth had told her husband, the bishop, the moment she got home from the quilting circle yesterday, but I wanted to know whether Edith knew the word was out that Enoch had returned.

“Nee, I don’t know for sure, but I think Ruth Yoder would have mentioned it if she had known, don’t you?”

Ruth knew Enoch was back, but she had likely been so kerfuffled by the murder and then by my goats, she’d forgotten to question Edith about it. I knew she would soon. Ruth wasn’t going to let something like the return of the district’s most famous prodigal son go by unnoticed.

“Please go, Aenti. Enoch will be here any moment.”

I started to open my mouth to argue but stopped myself. For a very long time, I’d wanted to make things right with Enoch but had no way to reach him. Now was my chance—if not today, soon, because I owed my nephew the apology that had been weighing on my heart these last ten years.

Maybe if I could clear Edith’s name and find out who’d murdered Zeke, then I would be able to right the wrong I’d done the family. More importantly, I would help Edith. I was the best person to do this. The man who’d run away from the greenhouse was Amish. Deputy Aiden would have a very difficult time finding a faceless Amish man in Holmes County, but I could go places he couldn’t, with very little notice. No one would suspect a sweet, older lady like me was poking her nose in where it didn’t belong, which was exactly what I intended to do.