by Kelly Irvin
No contact meant no contact.
Now that she was forbidden from seeing him, the desire for a glimpse dogged her. Just a glimpse. Was it human nature or feelings that couldn’t be cast out by a simple bann? She could do this on her own. She could ignore the stares and whispers. She could raise Evie.
Yet her thoughts kept turning to Thaddeus and his proposal.
The life she wanted with him was now within her grasp. All she had to do was step out onto the high wire, balance herself, and take one step at a time until she found him in the middle.
She wouldn’t fall into his arms this time. She would hold out her hand and take his.
Forever and ever.
“Hannah! Hannah, wake up. I need you.”
Laura’s anxiety-stricken scream pierced the darkness. Hannah threw back the covers and flew down the hall to the bedroom Laura shared with Zechariah.
In the dark, she stubbed her toe on their half-open door, stumbled, and caught herself. She danced around on one foot. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“He fell.”
A terrible moan floated in the dark.
Zechariah.
Hannah’s eyes adjusted. Laura knelt on the floor next to Zechariah’s prone body. A lamp lay next to him, the glass globe shattered.
He writhed and moaned again. Laura pushed him back. “Lie still. You’re hurt, my love.”
She glanced up at Hannah. “Get the other lamp. I need some light to see him better. I think he hit his head on the side table.”
Hannah scurried across the room and fumbled with matches to light the second lamp. She knelt across from her great-grandmother. Laura and Zechariah both looked so different in the middle of the night. Neither wore their glasses. Laura’s silver hair hung loose and reached below her waist. Zechariah’s bald head was smooth and white from years under a hat.
He muttered something unintelligible and struggled to sit up. “My head. What happened to my head?”
Laura smoothed her hand over his head and examined his face. “There’s a big egg on his temple and a cut. He’s bleeding. I need to get my bag. Help me get him into bed.”
Laura grabbed one arm and Hannah the other. They attempted to hoist Zechariah from the hardwood floor. He groaned. “Ach, ach! Nee, ach!”
“Something’s wrong. Put him down.” Laura’s voice filled with fear. “Easy, gently.”
They eased him back to the floor. “Where does it hurt, my love?” Laura ran her hands down Zachariah’s arms and his legs. He shrieked in pain when she touched his left leg. “I think he’s broken his hip.”
Hannah jumped to her feet. “I’ll run to the phone shack and call 911.”
“I’ll get my bag. I need to stop the bleeding on his head.” Laura grabbed a quilt from the bed and laid it over Zechariah, gently tucking it around him. “You make the call and then run to the house and tell Martin and Ruby.”
The minutes passed in a strange, surreal mixture of fast forward and slow motion. Every breath hurt as Hannah inhaled the humid night air. Raindrops splashed her face, cooling her warm skin. Rocks and twigs bit into the soles of her bare feet. Mud squelched between her toes on the path to the phone shack, the sensations telling her this was really happening.
Squashing her panic, she reached for the calm necessary to punch in the numbers and say the English words, to answer the 911 operator’s questions.
How badly was Zechariah hurt? Would someone be mad that she hadn’t hidden her hair under a kapp? Should she help Laura dress before the ambulance arrived? Thoughts rushed through her mind as she ran to the main house.
Would Zechariah die and Laura become a widow once again?
Gott, no. I know it’s Your will and not ours, but please don’t let him die.
She pounded on Martin’s door. The seconds dragged and then he was there, nodding and on his way to tell Ruby.
Hannah sped back to the dawdy haus, raced up the stairs, and hurried down the hallway. In the bedroom, she knelt next to Laura and wrapped one arm around her great-grandmother.
Laura had twisted her hair in a bun and covered it with her kapp. She wore the same dress she’d worn the previous day. Her whispered prayers filled the air. Hannah leaned in and closed her eyes. Hours seemed to drag by. Gott, let them hurry. Please let them hurry.
“Martin is calling a driver to take us to the hospital behind the ambulance, and Ruby is getting dressed and getting the kinner up.”
“I’m going in the ambulance with him.”
“We’ll be right behind you.”
“His kinner were right. I should’ve moved him to the house.” Tears gleamed on Laura’s cheeks. Her entire body trembled. “This is all my fault.”
“Nee. You’ve taken care of him like no one else could.” Hannah wrapped her other arm around Laura and tightened her hug. “He’ll be fine. They’ll fix him up at the hospital and he’ll be home in no time.”
“Gott’s will be done.”
“Do you truly believe that? Even if it means going through losing a mann again?”
“I want him to live more than anything I’ve ever wanted.” Laura touched his forehead and adjusted the quilt. “But Gott’s will is Gott’s will, and in death, he’ll suffer no more. My wanting him to stay is selfish. In death, he receives the ultimate healing. I want that for him.”
“I’m so sorry”
“Don’t be. I could’ve avoided all this.” Laura wiped at her face with a nightgown sleeve. “But I would’ve missed all these evenings sitting in the swing with him. Or eating ice cream with him. Or taking him to Swan Lake.”
Sirens sounded in the distance. Finally. Laura eased from Hannah’s grasp and stood. “You should stay here with Evie. There’s nothing you can do at the hospital.”
“Nee.” Hannah stood too. “I’ll get dressed and get her ready. I’ll be right there with you.”
At the door she paused and looked back. Laura once again crouched by Zechariah, murmuring prayers. “Is it worth it?”
Laura looked up. Her face seemed ancient in the flickering lamplight. The lines and grooves ran deep. “Absolutely. Don’t ever let fear stand in the way of love. Take a chance. The years slip away, the chances for love and happiness with them. Don’t let that happen to you. Love is a home where your heart can live forever.”
Home. Hannah let her imagination have full rein.
Thaddeus. Dark, strong, stormy, a tornado in July.
He had been her home since the day of that first singing when he took her hand and helped her into his buggy.
CHAPTER 14
Chicken fried steak. Fried chicken. They were almost the same dish, but not quite.
Hannah hefted the tray of rejected food and trudged through the kitchen door. Burke followed, hot on her heels. Her shoulders ached, and her head pounded. This entire shift had been a disaster. She brought customers iced tea when they asked for Coke. She gave another customer two tens for change instead of two fives. She was too tired to concentrate.
Two days of sitting in the hospital, waiting for Zechariah to turn a corner, had taken their toll. The surgery to fix his broken hip had been difficult, but successful. A week had passed. The doctors said he wasn’t out of the woods yet, but they were “cautiously optimistic.” Doctors talked like that.
Laura hadn’t left his side, but she had instructed Ruby to prepare a place for them in the big house. Hannah had moved back home. Little Evie was now in the hands of her sister Jonelle. Both seemed happy with the arrangement.
She turned and nearly ran into Burke. “Oops. Sorry, boss.”
“That’s the third order you’ve mixed up tonight.” His expression a mixture of concern and well-deserved irritation, Burke took the plate of chicken fried steak from Hannah and set it on the kitchen counter. “You might as well go. You’re exhausted. This business with Zechariah has taken its toll on everyone. Go home.”
“He’s better.” She needed to work. She’d missed too many shifts already. “I’m fine, really I am.”
“You’re not fine. You’re worn out, and your heart is somewhere else.”
“I’m sorry. I truly am. Zechariah, the move, everything has piled up.” Hannah clasped the tray against her chest like a shield. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”
“You’re right. It won’t. Not tonight.” Burke held out his hand. “Give me your apron and your order pad. The supper crowd is light. I can fill in for you. You’ll get credit for the whole shift. Go home.”
Home wasn’t home. As much as her parents tried to pretend nothing had changed, everything had. Hannah was too old and too worn around the edges to live at home like her sisters.
Laura’s words whirled in her head. She wouldn’t be home until she found her heart. Watching Laura with Zechariah had told her everything she needed to know. Life was short. Chances at love were fleeting. It took guts to love. It might hurt, but not being with the person she loved hurt more.
“I have someplace else I need to go.”
A grin stole across Burke’s face. “You’ve decided then.”
“I have. I need to finish what I started. I had the right idea, I just took a bad shortcut.”
“Take him a meal. I have it on good authority that he likes my stuffed pork chops with mashed potatoes and gravy. Be sure to take a slice of banana cream pie too. Use the Styrofoam to-go boxes.”
“The thing is, I’m not supposed to go anywhere near him. I don’t want to mess this up again.”
“You’re just dropping off a meal at my house. Put the paper sack on the doorstep. If you want, put a note in it. Knock and run away. You don’t even have to speak. You’ll feel better and so will he. He’s been moping around the house like a poor old hound dog somebody kicked to the curb.”
She could do that. Show her feelings without taking another shortcut. Just like Laura brought her a gift on Christmas Eve during her bann. It was no more wrong than Phillip’s cradle that arrived at her doorstep that same evening. Phillip had chosen a new path and rightly so. Her feelings for Thaddeus told her so.
“Better go now before it gets too late.”
“Are you sure?”
“The look on your face tells me all I need to know.” Burke smiled. “You’re afraid, but you can’t stop yourself from wanting to go. It’s driving you crazy. You know you could be hurt again, but still, you want to go.”
“Why do we do things we know are bad for us?”
“You don’t know this is bad for you.”
“It was the first time.”
“Are you the same person you were two years ago?”
Hannah backed away from the swinging doors, making room for Nicole, who, looking harried, squeezed by with a bowl of creamed corn in her hand.
“Nee.”
“Then accept the possibility that Thaddeus used that time to grow up too.”
“If you two are done gossiping, we kind of have some hungry folks out there waiting to be fed.” Nicole ducked between Burke and Hannah as she headed back out the door. “The natives are restless, boss.”
“Right behind you,” Burke called after her, but his gaze remained on Hannah. “What he did was wrong, no doubt about it, but what he wants to do now is right.”
“How can I be sure?”
“You can’t.”
“That’s not very comforting.”
“It’s not meant to be. Life is a series of forks in the road.” Burke pulled a Styrofoam container from a stack under the stainless-steel counter. He moved to the stove where he began to heap food into it. “Don’t just stand there. Take one road or the other.”
“He’s been living in your house. Do you think he’s changed?”
“I didn’t know him before.” Burke slid the Styrofoam boxes into a paper bag. “But we’ve had some good conversations. Some good discussions. He’s repentant and working hard to be a better man. I know you pretty well. You’re smart. You’ll figure it out.”
“That’s what Laura says.”
“Laura is a wise woman.”
Fifteen minutes later, Hannah stood on the front porch of Burke’s small, A-frame, one-story house. The muscles in her legs shook. Her face felt damp despite the early May breeze. Curtains in an open window next to the door fluttered in that breeze. She raised her free hand to knock, then let it drop. Somewhere inside, a dog barked. Not a menacing snarl, but a joyful yippy welcome. Jazz wouldn’t serve as a guard dog.
Thaddeus’s woebegone face during his confession loomed in her mind’s eye. He had repented. Just as she had. He was forgiven, just as she was. The tremble in his voice still plucked at her heart strings. Every time she looked at Evie’s face, she saw Thaddeus.
The man she’d loved since she was sixteen. The man she never stopped loving even when he broke her heart. He’d come back to her and he deserved to be forgiven. With forgiveness came a new beginning. Old hurts were healed. New possibilities were born.
She set the bag in front of the door, knocked, whirled, and stumbled down the stairs.
“Don’t go.” Thaddeus’s words floated through the open window. “Stay.”
“I can’t.” She halted without turning. “We can’t talk.”
“We won’t look at each other.”
“I can’t talk to you.”
“Then just listen. I have so much to say to you.”
Memories of the bann in Laura’s house filled Hannah’s mind. Even with his job at the hardware store, Thaddeus would be starved for companionship. For conversation.
“I’ll turn off the porch light.”
His voice’s husky timbre sent a jolt through her. Slowly, she turned and trudged back up the steps. “I brought you supper. You need to eat it before it gets cold. I have to go.”
She was saying one thing but doing another. She didn’t want to go.
“Danki. Turn your back and I’ll grab it. Will you stay for a few minutes and keep me company while I eat it? We won’t talk . . . much.”
She did as he asked. The door creaked when it opened. A second later it thumped closed.
Rustling sounds emanated from the open window once again. “Stuffed pork chops. My favorite.”
She leaned against the door and stared at the starlit night. What are you doing, Hannah?
I’m standing at the fork in the road, trying to catch my breath.
“How’s Evie?”
“She got another tooth yesterday. She’s been in a foul mood, but now she’s better.”
“She’s moody like her mother.”
“I’m not moody.” Hannah slid down to sit, back against the door, on the porch floor. She wrapped her arms around her knees. “I was the easy one to get along with.”
Or Thaddeus could always coax her from her moods by tickling her until she shrieked with laughter. Or by bringing her flowers he picked from his mother’s front yard. Or by telling her one of his grandpa’s silly jokes.
“Do you remember when we snuck out of the house and went to Stockton Lake and I fell in the water and you laughed so hard you snorted?”
The first time he kissed her. “A person doesn’t forget something like that.”
Did he know how safe she felt in his arms, how happy she’d been, how certain she would be his wife and he would be her husband? Did he remember how they’d snuggled together, his clothes sopping wet and dripping all over her? They’d kissed and kissed until her face hurt and her bones melted and floated into the shimmering lake in front of them.
“I’ve never felt about anyone the way I feel about you.” He cleared his throat. “What we did, we did because we loved each other. Everyone thinks we committed a lustful act. And we did. But those feelings came from love. What we did was wrong, but not the feelings.”
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“I’m trying to say that I believe every part of us was in love. We loved. We love. There’s no separating any part of it. We should’ve waited. I should’ve been stronger. I never should have led you down that road. For that, I’m sorry. But I will n
ever be sorry for loving you.”
Blood beat like a drum in Hannah’s head. She couldn’t think. Swirling, vast emotion tugged her deeper and deeper until she had no breath.
“Hannah, are you there?”
“I dream about us all the time.” She dreamed they were husband and wife with flowers growing as far as the eye could see and children and the life she once thought they would have. “Then I wake up and I’m mad at you all over again.”
For what they’d lost.
Every time she was sure she’d forgiven him, she would overhear a snide comment at The Book Apothecary or catch a knowing look from a group of women at Sweet Notions, reminding her what they’d done and what he’d done. It was as if the wound was new again, the bandage needed changing, and she had to rip it off and start over.
“If you could find it in your heart to truly forgive me, we could start over again. At the beginning. When I finish the bann, we could go for a ride—”
“Can we just sit and be quiet?”
“We can do that.”
She leaned her head against the door and stared out at the dusk. A warm breeze—the precursor to a Missouri summer—washed over her. Leaves rustled in the trees. She inhaled and exhaled. It smelled like summer. Cardinals and blue jays argued over the best real estate in Burke’s two oak trees.
The fork in the road reared up to meet her.
“I love you.” She whispered the words. “I will always love you.”
“Gut. Because I will always love you.”
His words were filled with barely tethered emotion.
She closed her eyes and let a future full of endless possibilities envelop her.
“Will you marry me?”
Longing for his touch welled up in Hannah. The hugs and kisses would wait. The sheer enormity of her love—their love—would bind them together far beyond any physical touch. The time for hugs and kisses would come soon enough, sweeter for the wait. She drew her knees closer and tightened her arms around them. “Jah, I will.”
