Page 14 of Outsider

I stare at her a moment. She looks wiped out. Pale. Shivering again. Somehow diminished. Not just physically, but in ways that make me think less of her.

Realizing I have nothing left to say to her, I leave the room.

CHAPTER 4

I find Adam at the kitchen table, drinking coffee, still wearing his barn coat, the shoulders of which are wet with melted snow. Lizzie and Annie are at the sink—Annie standing on a wood crate in order to reach—washing dishes. Sammy is nowhere in sight, but I hear him talking from the mudroom.

“Datt! The snow is almost up to the windows!” the boy calls out.

“It’s just a drift from the wind.” Adam smiles at me as he responds to his son. “Bring in the rest of that wood from the shed, Sammy, and stack it in the corner by the stove.”

The boy appears at the doorway, hair sticking to a sweaty forehead despite the chill. His eyes flick from his datt to me and back. Little Mr. Social. “Maybe I should go to the barn and see if Suzy had her calf.”

“Not now, son. Just the wood. We’ll check on Suzy later.”

Grinning, the boy spins and runs back to the mudroom.

The door slams and Adam rises, takes off his coat, and hangs it on the chair back. “How is she?” he asks me.

“She needs a doctor.” I let my eyes slide to the two girls at the sink. “Do you have a minute?”

He motions toward the living room. I head that way, taking him past the stairs, to the window at the front of the room, out of earshot of the children. Outside, wind and snow batter the pine tree standing guard in the front yard. We watch the storm for a moment.

“How badly is she hurt?” he asks.

“She’s been shot. I don’t know how bad it is.”

His eyes widen. “An accident?”

“No. Adam, there are some things going on you need to be aware of.”

He nods, his gaze steady on mine. “All right.”

“You know Gina is a police officer.”

“Yes.”

“She’s involved in … a troubling situation. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it,” I tell him. “Since she’s here in your home with you and your children, I thought you should be aware. If you want me to find another place for her to stay until we can get things straightened out, I’ll do it.”

He stares at me a moment, his mind working over everything that’s been said. “She is badly hurt?”

I nod. “You’re under no obligation to get involved.”

“The Amish do not close their doors to anyone in need, Katie. It’s not our way. ‘The Lord sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed of illness.’”

I nod, trying not to feel too much, for him, for the community I left behind. “Psalm Forty-one.”

“You remember.”

“Of course I do.”

He’s still staring at me, gauging, trying to read between lines he isn’t quite sure how to interpret. “This woman,” he says. “Is she dangerous?”

“No,” I tell him. But even as I say the word I know the situation isn’t quite that straightforward.

“What are you going to do about her injury?” he asks.

I shake my head, hating that I’ve placed him in the middle of this. That I’ve let myself be drawn into a situation that could bring my own ethics into question. “I need to get her to the hospital.” I glance out the window and laugh. “The problem is I’m not sure I can make it all the way to Millersburg.”