The Amish Clockmaker by Mindy Starns Clark Page A

showed up at the last minute and tried to slip into his seat unnoticed, but Mamm made him wash his hands. He returned just as Daed sat and then led us all in a silent grace.
    After a hearty “amen,” my father asked me if I’d made any progress with the directories. I sighed and told him it had taken the rest of the afternoon, but at least I had a list of names to start with first thing in the morning. I spooned some beans onto my plate and passed the dish along.
    â€œI still can’t believe that land really doesn’t belong to us,” Amanda said, shaking her head from side to side.
    I cut a piece of ham with my knife. “I know. According to the lawyer, it was never ours to buy in the first place.”
    â€œWhat?” Noah asked, looking up from the decimated pile of mashed potatoes he’d been focused on. Judging by his incredulous expression, I realized no one had updated him since our visit with the lawyer.
    I looked at Daed again, but he was studying his plate, so I answered Noah’s question, giving him the details in a nutshell and explaining that our only option now was to hunt down Clayton as soon as possible and convince him to sign the lot over to us.
    â€œWhat happens if you can’t find him in time?” Noah asked, his eyes wide.
    I just shrugged and looked away, unable to say the truth aloud. If we couldn’t find him in time, we might as well say goodbye to our business for good.
    Later, before we left for the night, I brought Amanda up to my old childhood bedroom and showed her the strip of molding near the window seat where Clayton Raber’s height had been charted over the years as he was growing up here.
    Like me, she seemed most drawn to the last few markings at the top, where Clayton had carved into the wood with delicate and artistic lettering. She reached out and ran a finger over some of the initials, and after a moment I began to do the same. In a way, they were as familiar to me as the lines on my hand or the hills outside the window.
    I realized she had withdrawn her hand, and when I looked over at her, it was to see that she was watching me. With a gentle smile, she thanked me for showing this to her. Gazing into her eyes, I had a feeling my wife understood what I was wanting her to know, that this had been my introduction to Clayton Raber, to the man everyone else thought was a murderer. I didn’t understand it, but somehow I just knew that the person who had carved his initials here all those years ago could not have grown up to become the monster most folks thought he was.
    Later, back at home, I tried to sleep but couldn’t. My mind was racing. What if I wasn’t able to find Clayton? And even if I did, who was to say he would be receptive to what I had to tell him? The uncertainties gnawed at my stomach. I looked over at Amanda, whose chest rose and fell with her steady breathing. We were going to be parents soon. How would I ever be able to provide for the two of them if I couldn’t keep the shop open? The Amish community would be there to support us financially in a time of crisis, of course, but that was no solution for the long term. I still had to make a living.
    More than anything, I wished Grossdaadi were here. Would he have known what to do, how to handle this situation? Or would even he, with all his business intelligence and experience, have been as stumped as I was now?

S IX
    T he next morning, I sat down with a map of Lancaster County and the list of people I wanted to contact and began geographically organizing, from closest to farthest, the ones I’d decided to see in person. When I was finished, I added one more name at the top of the list, Ben Sauder, the neighbor down the street who always knew the goings-on of everyone around here.
    I headed out just before nine and was at his house in minutes. He and his wife lived just a few blocks away on a small homestead that had been in his family for a century. Their