by Marta Perry
Megan glanced around as the bell jingled and two shopkeepers came in, probably for lunch. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”
“Not right now,” Hannah said, regretting it. She’d like to get Megan settled and hear all about her family, but this wasn’t a good time. “Our lunch rush is just starting, and the other woman who works for my aunt is off today. I can’t leave Aunt Paula alone to deal with the counter and wait tables.”
“I’ll help you, then. I’ve waited tables plenty in my time.”
“I can’t ask you to help. You’re a guest.”
But Megan was already putting Jamie back into his pen and distracting him with the stuffed horse. “You’re not asking. I’m volunteering. It’ll be fun.” She reached out to clasp Hannah’s hand, her expression changing. “Just tell me quick. How are you, really?”
The tone of Megan’s voice, the knowledge behind it, touched something deep inside Hannah. Megan knew. Other people might express sympathy, might feel for her, but Megan actually knew what the past two years had been like.
A lump formed in her throat, and she struggled to speak around it. “All right,” she managed to say. “Better for seeing you, that’s certain.”
* * *
William took his time as he walked toward the bakery that Tuesday afternoon for his session with Hannah. He hadn’t seen her since they’d talked on Sunday, and it wondered him how much that incident with the gossip had bothered her.
As for him, well, it hadn’t really surprised him. Everyone knew who the blabbermauls were.
Barbara Beiler, for instance. She was a good woman, always first in line to offer help. But her tongue flapped at both ends, as his mamm used to say.
Well, so some people thought he was wrong to try to change himself. They would probably be quick enough to get a hearing aid if they needed it. Why shouldn’t he have help to talk? Unless it was the bishop telling him what he was doing was wrong, he didn’t figure he needed to listen.
It was amazing, but the sessions with Hannah were helping him already. He understood better now what was involved in stuttering, even understood some simple steps he could take to improve.
Putting those tools into practice, that was the hard part. It would take time, but he had that.
He found his steps quickening as he neared the bakery. In a few minutes he’d see Hannah. That shouldn’t have anything to do with his lessons, but there was no point in denying the truth. It was a lot more pleasant being taught by Hannah than by her aunt Paula, for instance. He grinned at the thought as he opened the bakery door.
Hannah wasn’t waiting as she had been, each time they’d had a session before. Paula, busy behind the counter, looked up at him. Pushing her glasses up her nose, she left a flour mark on the lens.
“Ach, William, I didn’t realize—” She turned, heading for the stairs. “Just let me call up to Hannah.”
“Ja, d-d-denke.”
She leaned into the stairwell. “Hannah? William is here for his lesson.”
For a moment there was no response, and then he heard the clatter of feet on the wooden treads as Hannah came hurrying down. She reached the bottom, cheeks flushed.
“William, I’m so sorry. My friend arrived for her visit a day early, and I was so excited that I forgot what day it was. It will just take me a few minutes to get ready.”
“Th-that’s okay.” Would she rather cancel today? If she had a visitor, maybe so. “If y-you w-want . . .”
Before he could get the words out, another woman came down the stairs behind Hannah. An Englisch woman.
He tried not to stare. She was very modern for a friend of Hannah’s, with her cropped pants, bright red toenails, and dangling earrings. Not that he hadn’t seen Englisch women dressed that way before, but . . .
Or was that the way Hannah had dressed, out in the world?
The woman sent him a curious glance before she turned to Hannah. “What’s up? You ran out of the room so fast I thought something was wrong.”
“No, not at all.” Hannah looked a bit flustered. “I just forgot that William was coming today.”
The woman looked at him, her eyebrows lifting. “William?”
“William Brand, Megan Townsend,” Hannah said. “William and I are working on his speech two afternoons a week, and we meet on Tuesdays.”
“I . . . I d-don’t h-have t-t-to—” Of course his stammer would get worse in front of this unknown woman.
“I’m sure William doesn’t mind skipping today,” Mrs. Townsend said. “After all, I just got here. We haven’t even had time to talk yet.”
“J-j-ja.” He managed to get that much out. “F-f-f-f . . .” He wanted to say fine. He felt the breath of the word moving across his lip, but he couldn’t manage to get it out.
Instead he nodded and headed for the door, eager to get away from the woman’s judgmental gaze.
“But I shouldn’t cancel . . .” Hannah was saying as he opened the door.
“You heard him.” The other woman’s voice carried clearly. “The boy doesn’t mind.”
He shut the door firmly and walked away, shoulders stiff. The boy. He’d thought that Hannah, at least, didn’t think of him that way.
Well, be fair. Hannah hadn’t said the hurtful words. She had always treated him like a friend. All the same, he wished he hadn’t come today.
It didn’t help his disposition to see his brother coming toward him down the sidewalk.
“William.” Isaac stopped, looking at him with a question in his gaze. “What are you doing here? I heard from Caleb that you were meeting with Paula’s niece this afternoon.”
“N-n-n-no.” He ought to be able to talk to his own brother without tripping over his tongue. “Sh-she i-is b-busy.” He wanted to keep on walking, but he couldn’t do that.
“That’s just as well, ja?” Isaac put a hand on his shoulder. “You don’t need some Englischer trying to teach you to talk different. Folks are used to you. They don’t mind.”
He minded, but he didn’t suppose Isaac would understand that. “It’s j-just t-t-today she’s b-busy. With c-company.”
It didn’t mean he was giving up. Or that Hannah was, either.
She would have gone ahead with their session in spite of her company, not that he would have agreed. Hannah had a guest. It was only right that she have the time to enjoy that. She hadn’t had anyone come to visit her since she got here.
“I see.” Isaac took his hand away, frowning. “Just remember, William. God made you the way you are for a reason. It’s not up to us to change that.” He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “Think about it, ja? You’ll see I’m right. This business isn’t for you.”
“I-I-I d-don’t—”
The rest of the words, the ones that would show Isaac how important the lessons were to him, wouldn’t come out. They got stuck, like they always did when something was important to him.
“Go on along to the shop.” Isaac turned away, speaking back over his shoulder. “I’ll see you at supper, ja?” He left without waiting for a response.
William strode toward the shop, fists clenching. I can make up my own mind about what’s right for me. That was what he wanted to say.
Too bad he couldn’t.
* * *
“You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” Megan walked next to Hannah as she pushed Jamie in his stroller toward the playground.
Hannah blinked. “No, of course not. Why should I be?”
“I interfered between you and your student.” Megan spread her hands wide. “You know me, always jumping before I think.”
“It’s all right.” True, Hannah wasn’t happy about it, but William had obviously intended to beg off anyway once he realized she had a guest.
“I think the boy understood . . .” Megan began.
“He’s a man.” Hannah’s temper flared. “William’s a grown man, only a year or two younger than we are. He’s hampered by his stammer. Helping him is . . . well, it’s the first chance I’ve had since I got married to use my training. It’s as important to me as it is to him.”
Hannah reached down to adjust Jamie’s hat, not sure she wanted to see Megan’s expression, a little embarrassed that she had responded so strongly to what was an innocent mistake on Megan’s part.
But Megan patted her hand where it gripped the stroller handle. “I’m sorry. I guess I wasn’t thinking of anything but how glad I am to see you. I didn’t realize how much teaching William meant to you. I don’t remember ever hearing you say that you were sorry not to have finished school.”
They’d reached the playground, and Hannah began pushing the stroller across the grass, Jamie squealing at the bumps. The minute he saw the sandbox he stood up, eager to get there.
“Just a minute, little boy,” she said, stopping to lift him out. She let him run the last few yards, watching him climb over the low wall.
“Look at him go,” Megan said, smiling. “I know how much mine have grown and changed since the last time we saw you, with Tommy in kindergarten already, but somehow I still pictured Jamie as that chubby little baby.”
“I know. It’s almost scary how fast he’s growing.” Hannah put Jamie’s sand pail and shovel into the sandbox, and he immediately began filling the pail with sand, spilling as much as he got in. She sat down next to Megan on the bench facing the sandbox.
“When you said I’d never regretted not finishing school,” Hannah said slowly, “I guess that was true at the time. When Travis and I got married, I left school willingly to go with him. I figured there’d be plenty of opportunities later to go back and get my degree.” She hesitated. “But it didn’t work out that way.”
“I know.” Megan’s voice was soft. “I’m sorry.”
Hannah shrugged. “Well, I’ve moved on, and I accept that I’ll probably never have that chance. But if I can help William, I’ll feel that maybe I haven’t wasted what I learned.”
“Maybe the opportunity will still come up for you to finish,” Megan said.
“Maybe.” But Hannah couldn’t envision how that would happen. “But Jamie and I have a good place here with my aunt. And she loves having us, so it’s working out.”
For the most part, it was working out, anyway.
“Pleasant Valley isn’t what I expected.” Megan smiled, shaking her head. “I don’t know what I did expect. But the clothes, the horses and buggies . . .” She nodded toward an Amish couple driving past in their buggy, two small children peering out the back. “I feel as if I’ve wandered onto a movie set.”
“They’re for real, I promise,” Hannah said. “They’re just ordinary people trying to live the way they think God wants them to.”
“Driving a horse and buggy?” Megan’s voice went up in disbelief. “But your aunt drives a car. You mentioned that.”
“Those are two different groups.” The thought of trying to explain Anabaptists in a few words was daunting. “The Amish are a fairly strict church. They try hard to live separate from the world, and they stay away from any technology that they think will intrude on family and community life, like cars and telephones and computers.”
“And your aunt?”
“Aunt Paula is a Plain Mennonite. They share a lot of beliefs with the Amish, but my aunt’s church allows things like electricity and telephones in the home.”
“What about that cap on your head? Did your aunt insist you wear it?”
She’d known Megan wouldn’t be able to keep quiet about that for long. “Prayer covering,” Hannah said. “Or kapp. My aunt wouldn’t insist on anything. But it’s . . .” She struggled, trying to find the words.
It had seemed natural, remembering her mother, being here where people took the kapp for granted. But Megan had brought a breath of that other world with her, and it wasn’t so easy to translate.
“Women in the Plain groups wear prayer coverings. My mother did. I did when I was young. It just seemed very natural to go back to that once I was living here.”
Megan shook her head. “Strange, that’s all I can say. I sure couldn’t live like this. Doesn’t it bother you, all these rules?”
“Not as much as I thought it would,” Hannah said, a little surprised to realize it was true. “After all, I lived this way until I was nine. To me, it’s more like coming home.”
“But it’s not . . . normal,” Megan protested.
Hannah had to laugh at her expression. “Lots of people wouldn’t think life on an army base was normal, either. Remember all the rules and regulations there? You can’t leave kids’ toys out in the yard, the grass has to be cut every week, no clothes out on the line after dark . . .”
“All right, all right.” Megan grinned, and any slight constraint that might have been between them was gone. “You might have a point there. Well, as long as you and Jamie are safe and happy.”
“We are.”
A shadow fell across her lap, and she looked up, startled. A man stood there, and she hadn’t heard him approach across the grass. Elderly, English, with white hair and a smile as he watched Jamie empty his bucket.
“He’s enjoying himself.”
“Yes, he loves the sandbox.” Hannah was beginning to get used to the casual friendliness of people here. “He’ll carry the sand home with him if I let him.”
“Paula wouldn’t want sand in the bakery, I guess.” He focused on her, holding out his hand. “I’m Phil Russo. And you’d be Hannah Conroy, I’m sure.”
“That’s right.” She stiffened a little, sensing something more than the usual easy greeting of people who knew who she was from seeing her at the bakery.
“I wanted to introduce myself. Our local veterans’ group just learned about you being the widow of a serviceman. Sorry to hear about your loss.”
She swallowed. “Thank you.”
He shook his head. “A sad thing. But you should be proud of him.”
“Yes. I am.”
Too many reminders were coming at her today—Megan’s visit, talking about the past, now this man. She’d told Megan she’d moved on, but that didn’t mean remembering wasn’t painful.
The man seemed a little disconcerted at her brief responses. “Well, I just wanted you to know that if we can be of help, you can call on us. Wouldn’t want you to feel you didn’t have support here.”
“That’s very kind of you. Thank you.” She glanced down, realizing that she was turning her wedding ring around and around on her finger.
“Anything you need,” he repeated. “We’re working on plans for our Veterans Day event right now, and we’d really like to have your participation, you and your little boy.”
She pressed her lips together for a moment. “I’m afraid I have my hands full, taking care of my son and helping my aunt with the bakery. I can’t take on anything else.”
“I see.” He obviously hadn’t expected to be turned down. “Well, you think about it and let me know. We’re in the phone book.” He nodded briefly and walked off the way he’d come.
Megan waited until he was out of earshot. “You were kind of eager to get rid of him, weren’t you? I’m sure he meant well.”
Hannah tried to take a deep breath and discovered that her chest felt too tight for that. She thought about her reaction to the young soldier getting off the bus days ago.
“He meant well,” she echoed Megan’s words. “But I . . . I’m not ready for the reminders.”
Megan didn’t say anything else, but Hannah could feel her gaze probing. Pushing. She was just another person who thought she knew what was best for Hannah.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Does your aunt like spaghetti?” Megan stirred the sauc
e she was making. “Maybe I should have asked that before I offered to cook supper.”
“It’s not traditional Pennsylvania Dutch food.” Hannah stepped over Jamie, who was pushing a car across the floor. “But yes, she likes it. Pizza, too. We’ve had that a couple of times since I’ve been here.”
“Remember when we used to order in pizza and have supper together? We’d sit and talk for hours at the kitchen table. What was the name of that little Italian place?”
“Luigi’s.” Hannah had no trouble supplying the name. Those had been happy times, with Travis and Jeff swapping stories or jeering at each other’s choice in football teams, while she and Megan talked . . . well, girl talk, she supposed. “I’ve missed that.”
“Me, too.” Megan dropped pasta into boiling water. “It’s kind of different, the base we’re on now. There are lots more social events. And charitable things, too. We’ve been preparing packages to send to those who’ve shipped out. And I’m chairing the blood drives now.”
Hannah nodded. She could picture those events, could see Megan flitting around, talking to everyone. “You always were comfortable in those mass gatherings. I could never think of anything to say to people.” And yet the work day she’d gone to here had been similar, and she’d felt at ease.
“It takes practice, that’s all,” Megan said.
“So you were always telling me. I’m sure you’ll do great, organizing the drive.”
“Telling people what to do.” Megan grinned. “My favorite thing.”
True enough. Megan was a born organizer, and she was always so friendly that nobody seemed to resent her orders.
Busy, busy. Megan always had to be busy, as if three small children and a house weren’t enough to keep her occupied. But Hannah knew what was behind that constant busyness. It was Megan’s way of dealing with the worry, especially when Jeff was deployed.
She watched Megan’s face bent over the steaming kettle. Jeff would ship out again in a few months. Hannah remembered, too well, the mixture of pride and fear that had to be dogging Megan.
If she said something, would it help? Maybe not. Megan had found her own way of coping.
