Page 49 of A Gathering of Secrets

“Mrs. Miller, I need to know what happened between Emma and Daniel Gingerich. I promise I’ll do my best to keep it confidential.”

“My sweet Emma is in heaven now. She is with God. She’s at peace, and I’ll be with her one day. That’s all that matters now. And that’s all I’ve got to say about it.”

She shoves the bird feeder at me. “Take it and go. Just … go and don’t come back.”

I don’t move; I don’t reach for my wallet or take the feeder. “I spoke with Elam Schlabach.”

The Amish woman turns away, but not before I see the grief and shame in her eyes. “I won’t discuss this.”

I cross to her, set my hand on her arm. “He said Emma was innocent.”

She turns back to me, blinks. “Of course she was.”

“We both know that doesn’t make sense. She loved Elam. She was saving herself until they were married and yet she became pregnant.” I wait a beat. When she doesn’t respond, I add, “What did Daniel do to her?”

She glances toward the barn door—watching for her husband, I think—and in that instant I know she’s going to tell me something that’s going to change everything. I’ve lanced the boil that’s been festering inside her. For better or for worse, the poison is about to spill out.

“Emma wouldn’t want anyone to know,” she whispers. “She wouldn’t.”

“I’ll do my best to keep this just between us.” I’m not sure I’ll be able to uphold complete confidentiality, but I’ll try.

“Sam and I thought he was such a sweet boy,” she tells me. “Smart. From a good Amish family. Had a good work ethic on him. Daniel never gave us a reason to think otherwise.”

I wait, willing her to continue, ignoring that small part of me that doesn’t want to hear what’s coming.

Pressing her hand against her stomach, she walks to the workbench, sets both hands against it, and leans. “I saw them one afternoon. Together. In the milk house. They were … on the floor by the stanchions. He was … on top of her … you know how they do. Her dress was…” Shaking her head, she doesn’t finish. “She was down there in all that manure. Just lying there for all the world to see. Like that, you know. Muck all over her dress.”

I choose my next words carefully. “Was it consensual?”

She squeezes her eyes closed. “At first I didn’t know. I mean, Danny was a handsome young man. And Emma was nearly a grown woman. Both were of Rumspringa age. I thought…” She breaks off, puts her hand over her mouth as if to smother a cry.

“Did he coerce her?” Too late I try to remove the edge from my voice. “Force her?”

She straightens, seems to gather herself, pull her emotions together. “Emma came to me. Later that night. She said he’d … you know, done things to her. Things she didn’t want him to do. She said they were … of one flesh.”

“He raped her?” I ask.

Tears glitter in her eyes, and within their depths I see the truth she doesn’t want to face. She doesn’t let the tears fall. To do so would be to admit the unthinkable and she’s not that strong. I watch her face as the pain gives way to denial. Even before she speaks I know she’s going to shift back to the only lie that will save her from herself. From a life of self-loathing because neither she nor her husband had kept their daughter safe.

“I told her good girls don’t do those kinds of things,” she whispers. “I told her to pray harder. That she should have resisted him. Resisted herself. I told her God doesn’t let things like that happen to good girls. She must’ve done something to tempt him and for that she should seek forgiveness.”

Tension grips the back of my neck like a vise. I stare at her, a violent tide of disgust rising inside me.

This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered that mind-set among the Amish. It’s one of the reasons I have a love-hate relationship with the community to which I was born. The part of me that is fourteen years old and shattered inside wants to strike out at her. Wants to snarl and scream, Your daughter came to you and you blamed her? How in the name of God could you do that to a teenage girl who’d come to you for help?

Sweat gathers beneath my arms, at the back of my neck, between my breasts. I look at her, wondering how she can live with herself. I want to ask her: If you’d listened to your daughter, if you’d protected her, would she still be alive?

“Did it happen more than once?” I ask.

“I don’t know. She didn’t speak of it again, but I think maybe it did.” She shrugs. “It’s such a private thing. You know, the things that happen between men and women. I thought they were, you know, beaus.”

“Does your husband know what happened?”

“Enough so that he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“What does that mean?” I snap. “Did you tell him? Did Emma tell him? Did he see something, too?”

“I told him.”