her arms against the chill morning air. With trepidation she saw the sheriff turned his attention her way. He was intimidating, with his gun strapped to his hip and his badge glinting on the front of his leather jacket. Sheriff Nick Bradley was English, but he had family who had remained Plain. Members of Karen’s church believed him to be a fair and impartial officer of the law and friendly toward the Amish.
Stopping in front of her, he pushed his tan hat up with one finger. “Tell me exactly what happened here this morning, Miss Imhoff.”
He took notes as she answered his questions and then talked to each of the children separately. Karen barely listened to her siblings’ accounts. Her entire attention was focused on the man being cared for by the emergency personnel.
Her fingers itched to touch the Englischer’s face again. She wanted to reassure him, and herself, that he was going to be all right.
The sheriff followed Jacob to where he’d found the tire tracks, took pictures and placed yellow plastic markers at the site. When he finished, he approached Karen’s father. “Mr. Imhoff, the children can go on to school, but I may have more questions for them later.”
Papa nodded, but Karen could tell he wasn’t pleased. This was outsider business. Papa wanted nothing to do with it. The children, on the other hand, shared excited looks. They would have plenty to tell their friends when they finally got to school. Within a day everyone in the community would know what had taken place on the Imhoff farm this morning.
One of the ambulance crew returned Karen’s coat and then loaded their patient into the ambulance. As she slipped the wool jacket on, she felt the stranger’s warmth surround her. Lifting the collar to her face, she breathed in the spicy-woodsy scent that clung to the dark wool.
His fate was out of her hands now. As the emergency vehicle drove away, she realized she would never see her Englischer again.
Chapter Two
John wiped the last trace of shaving lather from his neck with one of the hospital’s coarse white towels. The face staring back at him remained as unfamiliar today as the new shoes on his feet.
How could a man forget what he looked like? How could he forget who he was, his own name?
Turning on the water, he rinsed the blue disposable blade. He knew how to use a razor but not where he’d purchased his last one or what brand he preferred. Things every man knew. It seemed only the personal parts of his memory were missing. It was the most frustrating part of his condition.
Traumatic amnesia his doctors called it. Those two words seemed woefully inadequate to describe the entity that had swallowed his life the way a black hole swallowed a star without letting a single ray of light escape.
He almost laughed at the absurdity of his thought. He could remember that weird trivial fact but not his own name. How ridiculous was that?
His doctors said his memory would return in time. They told him not to force it. Yet after eight days his past remained a blank slate. He was sick of hearing their reassurances.
“I’d like to put them in my shoes and see if they could take their own advice,” he muttered as he put away his razor. Chances were good they’d be doing the same thing he was. Relentlessly trying to make himself remember.
Looking up, he stretched his hand toward the likeness in the mirror and forced a smile to his stiff lips. “Hello, my name is…”
Nothing.
Nothing came to mind this morning just as nothing had come to mind for the past week. The only identity he had was the one the hospital had given him. John Doe.
Staring at the mirror, he said, “Hi, I’m Andy. Hello, I’m Bill. I’m Carl. I’m David. My name is Edward.”
If he did happen on the right name would he even know it? Rage and frustration ripped through him, bringing on a crushing headache that nearly took him to his knees.
“Who am I?” he shouted. His fingers ached where they gripped the porcelain lip of the sink.
His whole life was gone. He couldn’t pull a single relevant detail out of the darkness in his mind.
He touched the bandage on the side of his scalp. According to the local law enforcement, he had been beaten, dumped in a ditch and left with no wallet or identification. Every effort to identify him was under way, but with no success thus far. His fingerprints and DNA weren’t in the system. No one was looking for a man fitting his description. Even TV reports and newspaper articles had failed to bring in one solid lead.
Somewhere he must have a mother, a father, maybe even a wife, but the man in the mirror had no faces or names for anyone he’d known before waking up in the hospital.
“Too bad I wasn’t microchipped like—”
Like who? Like what? The thought slipped away before he could fully grasp it. His head began pounding again. The pain worsened each time he tried to concentrate.
Forced to leave the past alone, he buttoned the last button on the gray flannel shirt the hospital social worker had purchased for him. The shirt was new. The one he’d been wearing couldn’t be salvaged but the jeans were the ones he’d been found in. They fit well enough, although he’d lost some weight. Eating seemed so unimportant.
A knock sounded at the door to his room. He moved to sit on the edge of his bed and winced at the pain in his bruised ribs. Someone had planted a kick on two in his side after they’d split his skull. He said, “Come in.”
The door swung open, revealing a tall, blond man in a sheriff’s uniform. John had been expecting Nick Bradley, the officer in charge of his case.
Sheriff Bradley said, “Are you ready?”
“As ready as I can be. Thanks for giving me a lift.”
John was being discharged. After a week and a day of testing and probing he’d been declared fit. Physically, he was in good shape so the hospital had no reason to keep him.
Mentally? That was a different story. Leaving this room suddenly seemed more daunting than anything he could imagine. How did he start over when he had no point to start over from?
No, that wasn’t exactly true. He had one point of reference. His life started a week ago in a ditch outside the town of Hope Springs, Ohio. That was where he had to go.
“Are you sure this is what you want to do?” The sheriff clearly wasn’t in favor of John’s plan.
“I must have been in Hope Springs for a reason. Seeing the place might trigger something. Besides, it’s all I have.”
“I still think you’d be better off staying here in Millersburg, but I can see you aren’t going to change your mind.”
Reaching into his breast pocket, Sheriff Bradley withdrew a thick white envelope. He held it out. “My cousin Amber lives in Hope Springs. She’s a nurse-midwife there. She knows about your situation. She wanted me to give you this.”
“What is it?” John reached for the envelope.
“Her church took up a collection for you.”
John
