Chapter Thirty-One
Grace
It had only been a month since our parents had died and two weeks since Adam had crashed into our lives. Although we’d bounced back as best we could, I could feel the aching loss and knew we needed to keep busy if we were going to make out plan work. For the next few days, we all joined together and tried to come up with a plan that would keep everything running long enough to get the turbines up and working. It was a long shot, and one that had the potential to backfire in a big way, but considering the potential benefits, it seemed like a smart gamble. I tried to steer clear of Adam as best I could because every time I was anywhere near him, I wanted to pull him away from the rest so I could feel his warm naked body pressed against mine, but more than that, there were things I wanted to know about Adam.
It was a busy week as we all put our energy into the plan that Adam might be able to use to sell the community on turbine technology, and before I knew it, Wednesday had arrived. I was scheduled to leave early the next morning so that I could be back in Chicago after lunch, but I didn't want to leave without talking to Adam, so late that evening, when everyone else had long since gone to bed, I snuck down the stairs and lightly tapped on his door.
"Who is it?" he asked through the closed door.
"Who do you think it is, silly?" I whispered as I cracked the door open and slipped inside.
Adam was naked from the waist up, covered by a quilt as he frowned at something on his phone. I padded over to the bed and sat down on the edge.
"You know, you really shouldn't run around in silky, pink lingerie," he said without looking up but letting me know he hadn't missed a thing. "Don't you Amish girls usually wear long, cotton nightgowns that keep everything covered?"
"Ha ha, very funny, Wallace," I said rolling my eyes at his lame attempt at stereotyping. I pulled my feet up underneath me and sat cross-legged on the opposite end of the bed.
"What?" he said, putting his phone on the nightstand and giving me his undivided attention. "What's that look about?"
"Who are you?" I blurted out.
"Adam Wallace, turbine salesman and Chicago resident," he said holding my gaze.
"I know that. I mean, who are you? Where do you come from? Who are your parents?" I peppered him with the questions that had been ping ponging around my brain since I'd discovered him on the living room couch. "You don't talk about anything connected to your life, and I'm curious about who you are and where you come from."
"Eh, not much to tell," he shrugged as he looked away. "I'm an only child. Went to boarding schools most of my life and got a degree in engineering from MIT. My best friend, Bugsy, is in charge of the turbine operation in Chicago, and I'm the one charged with the task of selling the technology we developed. Well, we adapted it, really, we didn't invent it."
"Where are your parents?" I asked.
"Chicago."
"What do they do?"
"My father owns an energy company that does a lot of business overseas and my mother is...well, she's a housewife, I guess," he said.
"You don't seem very effusive about them," I observed. It wasn't that he wasn't effusive; it was that he obviously didn't want to even talk about them. "Are you close to them?"
"Look, why are you giving me the third-degree about my parents?" he said sounding irritated. "We're not as close as you and your family. Is that what you want to hear?"
"I don't want to hear anything," I said, shifting my position so that I could wrap my arms around my knees as I watched Adam's face. He looked like he wanted to say something, but then he shook his head and mumbled something I couldn't understand. "What is it, Adam?"
"Nothing, it's nothing," he said picking at an invisible thread in the quilt. "It's just..."
"Just what?"
"My family isn't like yours, Grace," he said without looking up. "We're just...different."
"You mean your family isn't Amish?" I laughed.
"No, not like that. I mean, we're not Amish," he said as he looked up at me and smiled halfheartedly. "We're just really different from your family, that's all."
"Are you—" I began, but was interrupted by a loud pounding on the front door. "What in the world?"
"GRACE! GRACE! OPEN UP!" a voice shouted as the pounding intensified.
"I'll take care of this," Adam said as he pulled on a t-shirt.
"No, you won't," I shot back. "It's my house and whoever it is looking for me."
"Grace, you're not dressed," he said calmly. "I've got it."
I quickly pulled the quilt off the bed and wrapped it around me so that my nightgown was hidden and followed Adam to the front door.
"What in the hell are you doing?" Adam shouted as he yanked the door open and revealed Gabe standing on the front porch holding a bouquet of flowers in one hand and an envelope in the other.
"Get out of the way, English!" Gabe growled as he looked at me and held out the flowers and the envelope. "Grace, please. Take this, it's all the money I made from last year's crops and it's enough to help keep the farm going for another year while the store..."
"While the store what?" I asked wondering what was going on. "While the store what?"
"I...I...I don't know," Gabe stammered as he shook the flowers sending a shower of petals into the night air.
"No, I know you're hiding something and I want to know what you know," I said sternly. There was something wrong about all of this.
"Speak up, Amish," Adam ordered.
"You. Zip it," I said turning and giving Adam an icy stare that told him I didn't need his help.
"Just trying to help," he muttered.
"Well, don't," I shot back before turning to Gabe and repeating myself, "What do you know, Gabe? What's going on that I don't know?"
"Grace, just stop whatever it is you're doing," Gabe pleaded. "Bishop Miller is out to get you."
"My uncle is not out to get me," I laughed. "He's mad at me for taking Adam in, but in a few days when he's healed up and on his way, all of this will blow over and be forgotten."
"Grace, I don't think you understand how angry he is," Gabe whispered. "He's going to destroy you."
"That's ridiculous, he's my uncle," I laughed. "Besides, we're Amish. We don't destroy people, we pray for them!"
Gabe dropped the flowers on the porch and stumbled backwards until he could drop into one of the benches that lined the front porch. He propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands as he shook his head. He looked like a man who was carrying a very heavy burden, and my heart felt heavy as I watched him wrestle with whatever demons he was fighting. I walked over and sunk down on my knees in front of him, dropped the quilt and took his hands in mine. He looked up and gasped as he looked me over.
"Grace, what are you wearing?"
"Oh, this? It's nightgown," I said looking down and then blushing as I realized how revealing the satin gown really was. Adam disappeared into the house as I talked to Gabe. "Talk to me, Gabe. Tell me what's going on with my uncle."
"Grace," Gabe looked up at me with tears in his eyes as the words came tumbling out. "He's shunning you and your family, and he's calling on the community to shun you all."
"Oh, he already threatened me with that on Sunday after services," I said waving a hand and breathing a sigh of relief. Adam reappeared with his gray hoodie and handed it to me. I stood up smiling gratefully as I slipped it on. Adam and I both chuckled as my hands got lost in the long sleeves while I tried to zip it up.
"No, that's not all," Gabe continued ignoring the moment of levity. "He said that he's going to make sure that the store goes bankrupt. He began spreading the word that anyone who shops at Miller's from now on will also be shunned."
"But people can't get groceries unless they come to the store," I said trying to figure out how my uncle thought he was going to shut the store down when we were the only one in town that carried all the products the Amish community used to feed and care for their families.
"He's having groceries trucked in from Indianapolis," Gabe said. "Everyone had to submit a grocery list of what they needed for the next two weeks. The truck will be arriving in the morning and the bishop is sending some of us out to deliver the orders."
"That's insane!" I shouted as I began pacing the porch. "He can't do that! This won't last. He can't ship in the orders every two weeks and hope that no one runs out of supplies in the meantime. They'll come back. They'll need flour and sugar and milk, and they'll come to Miller's to get it. They might have to defy his orders, but their families and their hunger will win out."
"Grace? That's not all," Gabe said looking up at me sadly. "He's talked with all of your suppliers and told them not to extend you credit or to make any deliveries if they want to be in the running for contracts when he opens a new store."
"He's opening a new grocery store?" I shouted. "How long has this been going on?"
"I don't know, but I know that he and your Dat had a big fight last winter after Sunday services," Gabe said. "No one knew what they were arguing about, but it was heated enough that Bishop Miller had threatened to prohibit your parents from attending Sunday services."
"Why didn't anyone tell me about this?" I cried as I yanked open the screen door and yelled, "Verity! Honor! Get up and get down here now!"
"Grace, don't you think this can wait until tomorrow morning?" Adam said quietly.
"I'm leaving for Chicago in the morning, so no, this can't wait!" I shouted at him, then turned and yelled, "Verity! Honor! Get up and get down here now! Don't make me come up there and get you!"
I was enraged that I'd been excluded from everything that had been happening in my family, and even more furious that my uncle was now threatening to ruin the family business simply because I'd defied his order to kick Adam out of the house.
"Grace?" Verity said as she descended the stairs rubbing her eyes. Honor wasn't far behind with Danny following in her wake. "What's going on?"
"I don't know, why don't you tell me!" I shouted as I held open the screen door and motioned them to join Gabe on the porch. "Gabe tells me that Dat and Uncle Amos had a fight after services last winter. Anyone care to tell me what that was about?"
"It was the usual argument they've been having for the last twenty years, Grace," Verity sighed. "Uncle Amos wanted to buy the store and Dat said no."
"Why is he doing this now?" I asked. "What will he gain from running us out of business? I don't understand."
"Your father was threatening to leave the ward," Gabe said quietly. "He and a few other men were tired of the punitive rules and the way your uncle enforced them. They wanted to form a corporation that would allow them to install solar panels, build wind turbines, and certify their farms as organic so they could sell the produce at a higher price, and Bishop Miller forbade them from doing any of it."
"Dat wanted to go organic?" I said confused by this revelation. I turned to Verity, "Did you know this?"
"Mamm had said something about how he was tired of using generators in the house and pesticides on the crops, but I didn't think anything of it, Grace," she said. "I thought it was just Dat blowing off steam."
"Well, we're not selling the store," I said suddenly realizing that if Dat had lived, he most likely would have agreed to Adam's turbine deal. "Gabe, go home and get some sleep."
"But I want to help," he protested weakly.
"You'll be useless without sleep," I said wanting him to leave so that I could talk with my siblings in private. "Go home."
Gabe held out the envelope containing the money he'd offered me. I shook my head and pointed toward his buggy repeating, “Go home." He stepped off the porch and walked away from the house. A few minutes later, he turned the buggy onto the main road and headed back toward town without looking back.