Breaking Silence

I rise. “Can you show me?”

“Sure. I know exactly where it is.” She gets to her feet. “You think one of the workers came back to steal the money?”

“I think it’s worth checking.”

I feel the Amish women’s eyes burning into my back as Salome takes me to the mudroom. They don’t trust me; they want me to leave the children alone. I wish I could, but at the moment, these kids are my best source of information.

The mudroom is a large, drafty room with half a dozen windows and a plywood floor. A defunct potbellied stove squats in the corner, its door hanging open like a slack mouth. Behind it, an ancient hunting rifle with a glossy wood stock leans against the wall.

“It’s always cold in the mudroom,” Salome says with a shiver.

In the dim winter light creeping in from the windows, I see that her hair is very shiny. I’m so close, I can smell the clean scent of it, see the soft perfection of her skin. Lifting a lantern from the sill next to the door, she lights the wick. “It’s dark in the cellar. Watch your step.”

The door creaks when she opens it. The odors of damp earth and rotting wood fill my nostrils as we descend the steps. Cold and darkness embrace me like strong, icy hands. Holding the lantern in front of her, Salome leads me into the bowels of the house. The basement is divided into several rooms with low ceilings, which make me feel slightly claustrophobic.

“I heard the women talking,” she says as we enter the next room. “They said you used to be Amish. Is that true?”

I walk beside her, hoping I don’t trip over some unseen object. “A long time ago,” I reply.

I see curiosity in her eyes, the same kind of curiosity I felt when I was her age. The only difference is that hers is innocent; mine was not.

“Did you do something wrong?” she asks.

“I did a lot of things wrong.”

“Like what?”

I don’t have a canned answer ready for a question that’s so far-reaching, especially for an innocent. “It’s complicated,” I say, hedging.

She appears to struggle with her next question, but in the end curiosity wins. “I heard you disobeyed the Ordnung and that Bishop Troyer put you under the bann.”

“I wasn’t baptized,” I tell her. “I decided to leave.”

“What did you do?”

“I made a lot of mistakes.”

“Oh.” She considers that for a moment. “Bishop Troyer is mean sometimes.”

“He’s a good bishop.”

She bites her lip, thinking. “Didn’t you miss your mamm and datt? Your sisters and brothers?”

I still miss them, a whisper inside me replies, but I don’t give it voice. “I missed them a lot.”

“If you missed them, why didn’t you confess your sins and stay? How could you leave them?”

How could I, indeed? It’s a question I’ve asked myself a thousand times over the years. My answer is always the same: “I didn’t have a choice.”

Her eyes flick to mine. In their depths I see the burn of curiosity. I can tell she wants to ask me about my transition from Amish to English. But Salome is too well mannered to pry any more deeply than she already has.

“I think about what it would be like sometimes,” she says after a moment.

“The grass isn’t always greener on the other side of the fence.”

Tossing me a sideways look, she laughs. “That’s a funny way to put it.”

Because I don’t want to encourage her one way or another, I say nothing.

Our feet are silent on the damp earthen floor as she takes me to a wall of shelving filled with dusty canning jars. Each is meticulously labeled: PEARS, APPLES, BEETS, GREEN BEANS, SAUSAGE, RHUBARB. I watch as she moves aside a jar and pulls one from the back. Unscrewing the lid, she peeks inside. “Oh no!”

“What is it?”

Eyes wide and searching, she shoves the open mason jar at me so I can look inside. “Datt’s money. It’s gone. Someone took it!”

I mentally kick myself for having let her pick up the jar. “Set it down, Salome. I’m going to take the jar and have it processed for prints.” Even in the dim light, I can see recent smudges in the dust. Fingerprints, maybe. Damn. Damn. Damn.

She looks distressed as she places the jar back on the shelf. “Who would do such a thing? How did they get down here in the cellar without us seeing them?”

“I don’t know.” I think about that a moment. “Do you know how much money was in there?”

She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t even know it was here if I hadn’t seen Datt drop in some money when I was getting sausage for Mamm.”

“When’s the last time you saw it?”

She traps her lower lip with her teeth. “I don’t know. I never pay attention.”

I pull a pair of latex gloves from my coat pocket, slip them on. I don’t have an evidence bag with me, but I pick up the jar anyway, decide to carry it out to the Explorer to bag it.

Salome turns wide eyes on me. “Whoever stole the money,” she begins. “Did they kill my mamm and datt and Uncle Abel, too?”

I look down at her, shocked that her mind had already made the leap. She stares back at me, her expression as guileless as a child’s. The lantern casts pin lights in her eyes. “I don’t know, honey, but I’m going to find out.”

She blinks back tears, and for an instant her grief turns to anger. “I don’t understand why this had to happen. If someone needed money, Datt would have given it to them.”

“These kinds of crimes never make any sense,” I tell her. But even to me, the words sound like a practiced understatement. She deserves a better answer. Because there isn’t one, I sigh and motion toward the stairs. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Mose is sitting at the table when we return to the kitchen. Salome takes her place at the table and puts her face in her hands. As if knowing something has changed, the younger children stare at her, wondering about the tears. They look up to her, I realize. And in that moment, I vow to do everything in my power to keep them from being separated.

I remain standing. “If any of you remember anything about the men who worked for your datt, let me know, okay?”

The request elicits four blank stares. After a while, Mose perks up. “The Englischer had a white dog. I remember because it killed one of our chickens.”

“What kind of dog?”

“It was a mongrel. Small. With wiry hair.”

I make a mental note to canvass the area and ask about any day laborers with white dogs. “Did your datt keep records? Write things down?”

Three heads shake in unison. Samuel pipes up with a solution. “Do you want us to look for his papers?” When I look at him, he smiles. He’s anxious to help, the kind of child who likes to please. He stares at me with the most innocent blue eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s got a smudge of dirt on his cheek, freckles on his nose. His lashes are still wet from an earlier cry. Before realizing I’m going to touch him, I lean forward and run my fingers through his mussed hair. “Thank you, Samuel, but I’ll have one of my officers do it,” I say.

My heart turns over in my chest when he smiles. The emotions running through me are so powerful, I take a step back, closer to the door. “You guys did good,” I say after a moment. “Thanks for all your help.”

One of the Amish women approaches the table with a dishcloth in her hand, gives me a firm look, and then addresses the children. “Supper’s ready,” she says softly. “Go wash your hands.”

Knowing that’s my cue to leave—or escape, I’m not sure which—I turn and start for the door. I may not be