Plain Truth Read Online Free PDF

nurse's face, but by now her vision was shaking as badly as her jellied arms and legs. The nurse, noticing, draped her with another blanket. Katie wished she had the words to thank her, wished she had the words to tell her that what she really needed was someone to hold her together before she broke apart right there on the table, but her thoughts were coming in the language with which she'd grown up.
    â€œYou're gonna be okay,” the nurse soothed.
    After one sidelong glance at her mother, Katie closed her eyes and blacked out, believing that this might be so.
    On the train platform, her mother pressed five twenty-dollar bills into her hand. “You remember what station you change at?” Katie nodded. “And if he isn't there to meet you, you call him.” Her mother touched Katie's cheek. “This time, it's okay to use the telephone if you have to.”
    It went without saying that using a telephone would be the least of her sins. For the first time since her brother Jacob had moved out, Katie —only twelve years old —was going to visit him. All the way in State College, where he was going to university .
    Her mother looked nervously around at the other passengers waiting to board, hoping to keep out of the sight of other Plain people, who might report back to Aaron that his wife and his daughter had lied to him .
    The long, sleek Amtrak ribboned into the station, and Katie hugged her mother tightly. “You could come with me,” she whispered fiercely .
    â€œYou don't need me. You're a big girl.”
    It wasn't what Katie meant, and they both knew it. If Sarah went with her daughter to State College, she'd be disobeying her husband, and that wasn't done. As it was, sending Katie as an envoy of her love was walking the very fine tightrope of insubordination. Plus, Katie hadn't been baptized yet in the church. By the rules of the Ord-nung, Sarah would not be able to ride in a car with her excommunicated son; would not be allowed to eat at the same table. “You go,” she said, smiling hard at her daughter. “You come back and tell me all about him.”
    On the train Katie sat by herself, closing her eyes against the curious looks and the people who pointed at her clothing and head covering. She folded her hands in her lap and thought of the last time she had seen Jacob, the sun bright as a halo on his copper hair, when he walked out of their house for good .
    As the train pulled into State College, Katie pressed her face to the window, searching the sea of English faces for her brother. She was used to folks who were not Plain, of course, but even on the most busy thoroughfares in East Paradise she would see at least one or two others dressed like her, speaking her language. The people waiting on the platform were dressed in a dizzying splash of colors. Some of the women were wearing tiny tops and shorts that left almost all of their bodies bare. With horror, she noticed one young man with a ring in his nose and one in his ear and a chain connecting the two .
    She did not see Jacob .
    When she stepped off the train, she pivoted in a slow circle, frightened of being swallowed up by so much movement. Suddenly she felt a tap on her shoulder. “Katie?”
    She turned to see her brother, and flushed with surprise. Of course she had overlooked him. She'd been expecting Jacob in his wide-brimmed straw hat, his black trousers with suspenders. This Jacob was cleanshaven, wearing a short-sleeved plaid shirt and khaki pants .
    Then she was in his arms, hugging him so tightly that she only now realized how lonely she had been at home without him. “Mam misses you,” Katie said breathlessly. “She says I have to tell her every last thing.”
    â€œI miss her too.” Jacob draped his arm around her shoulders and steered Katie through the crowd. “I think you've grown a foot.” He led his sister to a parking lot, to a small blue car. Katie stopped behind it