Piece by Piece

by Laura Bradford

  “I liked getting splashed,” Mark said.

  “It is to rain for many hours,” Lydia said, glancing up at the sky and then back at her four children. “But now it is time to go inside and have lunch before the afternoon work is to be done.”

  Luke looked up at his father. “Can I still help you and Uncle Caleb fix the fence?”

  “Yah.”

  “Me, too?” David asked. “I want to help, too!”

  “Yah. There is much work to be done.”

  “Can I feed the calf this time?” Mark looked from Elijah to Lydia and back. “I will not let him pull the bottle from my hand again.”

  Elijah looked down at his youngest son. “You must hold it strong, Mark.”

  “Yah. I will.”

  “Then you may try again.” Bending down, Elijah tapped Nettie on the nose. “And what will you help Mamm with, wee one?”

  “We can’t hang clothes in the rain . . .”

  “ No. ”

  “We can’t plant flowers in the rain . . .”

  “Not really, no.”

  “I could . . . I know!” Nettie rocked back on her heels. “I could sweep!”

  “That would be good.”

  “And . . .” She looked up at Lydia, clasped her little hands under her chin, and rose up on the tips of her muddy feet. “I could help punch the dough.”

  “Dough for what?”

  “For Mamm’s bread!”

  “I like bread,” Elijah said, his tone playfully serious.

  “And I could shake the butter, like this!” Nettie said, her earnest demonstration kicking off another series of giggles from her brothers.

  Elijah’s eyebrow lifted in mock seriousness. “Cinnamon butter?”

  “Yah!”

  “That is a very good thing for you to do with Mamm.” Elijah straightened to his full height and herded his children onto the porch. “Let us go inside and eat. All that jumping has made me hungry.”

  Shifting forward so her forehead rested against the window’s edge, Dani watched Lydia and her family head inside, their cohesiveness stirring an ache-filled smile to her lips. Oh how she longed for a chance to jump across puddles in the rain with Jeff and Maggie and Spencer and Ava the way Lydia and her crew had just done . . . Yet standing there, looking out at the now-deserted puddle that had been the center of so much fun for the Amish family, she knew it was something she, herself, would have walked right by, her thoughts, her focus, on getting lunch on the table or checking off another item on her list. And if Maggie, Spencer, and Ava had been unable to resist the pull, she’d have shooed them away from such a messy activity. After all, dirtying clothes meant having to get dressed and maybe even bathed again, something that didn’t work when there was a schedule to uphold.

  But Lydia didn’t have to worry about that. There were no soccer or baseball games to rush off to. No scouts or music lessons to squeeze into her day. Just school, chores, and jumping puddles.

  Dani’s view of the puddle grew blurry as her thoughts rewound through the weeks leading up to the accident. For Maggie, there had been Favorite Character Day at school, a flurry of birthday parties to attend for various classmates, and a recital. For Spencer, there were swim lessons, playdates, and a smattering of party invites, too.

  Had it been busy? Sure. When wasn’t it? But there had been smiles and—

  She shook herself back to the present and stared out at the puddle. Maggie and Spencer and Ava laughed. In fact, Ava was known around the neighborhood and the kids’ school as Little Miss Smiley.

  But when had Dani’s kids laughed the way Lydia’s just had? When did they just get to lose themselves in being kids without her urging them onward to the next thing, the next place, the next have-to?

  They didn’t . . .

  “Because I didn’t let them,” she whispered against the screen. Then, through clenched teeth, she said it again, each successive word more anger filled than the one before. “I. Didn’t. Let. Them.”

  It wasn’t that Lydia didn’t have to fill her kids’ every moment. She chose not to. She chose, instead, to leave the gaps open for exploration, for conversation, for bonding, and, yes, for laughter.

  Drawing her hand to her abdomen, Dani imagined the puddle-jumping scene as it had been. Only this time, instead of the Schlabach six, it was the Parker five—soon to be six.

  Movement just beyond the puddle lifted her misty gaze to the now-familiar man lumbering on foot toward the main house. As seemed to be the norm, Caleb was dressed in a long-sleeved flannel shirt, blue jeans, and work boots. In his left hand was a decent-sized toolbox, and in his right was what appeared to be keys to his truck. The same cowboy hat he’d worn the previous day was perched forward on his head, the generous brim helping to keep the now-driving rain off his face.

  As he came up on the puddle, he stopped, surveyed the myriad of muddy footprints covering the surrounding area, and, cracking a grin, continued on toward the front porch. Midway to the steps, he stopped and turned his sights in her direction. Slowly, deliberately, he cocked his head just enough to afford himself an uninhibited view of the grossdawdy house before narrowing his attention on the very window from which she was peeking back at him. Like a finger on the receiving end of an unexpected electrical charge, Dani jumped back so hard and so fast she was powerless to stop the edge of the shade from smacking back into place against the glass.

  Her breath held, she prayed for him to keep walking, to go up the steps into Lydia’s house, to bypass his obvious need to try to fix something that could never be fixed, never be talked through, never truly understood. She remained, frozen in place, listening for anything resembling footfalls outside her window, a knock on her front door, a—

  Sure enough, the distinct sound of approaching footfalls on the other side of the window wafted around the closed shade, stopped, and then retreated into silence once again. Closing her eyes, she made a silent count to twenty and then, when the next sound she heard was the creak of Lydia’s screen door opening and closing, she reclaimed her spot at the window, her gaze falling on the cream-colored business card tucked into a minuscule gap between the screen and the wall. Printed across the front, in an attractive black font:

  Finely Crafted Birdhouses

  Elijah Schlabach

  Blue Ball, PA

  Underneath the preprinted lines, in rain-soaked ink, were Caleb’s name and phone number. Beneath that, but still handwritten, was a four-word sentence that looked as if it had been added in haste:

  I’m a good listener.

  Chapter 13

  The next few days passed in a blur of should-haves and could-haves, each fresh new round of recriminations sparked by a moment spied between Lydia and one or more of her children. It didn’t matter where Dani was—in the house, on the front porch, on the back patio, sitting under the tree, or getting ready for a dinnertime walk as she was at that moment—examples of Lydia’s prowess as a mother were everywhere.

  They were there in Luke’s careful watch over his brothers and sister . . .

  They were there in David’s genuine affection and consideration for all God’s creatures, from the animals on the farm he conversed with daily to the butterflies that flew around his mother’s flowers . . .

  They were there in Mark’s ability to be content doing whatever his older brothers wanted or needed him to do . . .

  They were there in Nettie’s sweet laugh and curious questions as she helped Lydia hang clothes or sweep the porch . . .

  They were there when the little girl cuddled in Lydia’s lap while they ate cookies together on the front porch . . .

  And they were there in the abundance of joy-filled sounds that seemed to pepper the air from sunup to sundown, every day.

  Looking back, Maggie had been a lot like Luke, always looking out for Spencer and Ava. With Spencer, that concern had taken the form of making sure he had all of the right gear for whatever practice or game they were running off to. With Ava, it was making sure her food w
as cut if Dani’s attention was needed elsewhere, or holding the three-year-old’s hand as they navigated their way up the bleachers at the soccer field or baseball diamond.

  And Spencer . . . How many times had he crouched down in a parking lot or a field to inspect a bug she’d invariably say didn’t matter? Too many. Now she’d never know if his fascination with every creepy-crawly he found was because of his age or if, like David, he felt an internal pull toward God’s various creatures.

  Ava’s smile had been ever present like Nettie’s. People commented about it all the time. But how often had Dani really just sat back and soaked it up the way Lydia did? Not often enough, that’s for sure.

  Yet there she’d been, always thinking of herself as this superstar mom—someone who threw intricately themed birthday parties, showered her kids with the kinds of opportunities and experiences she’d missed as a latchkey kid, and could go from leading a troop of twenty girls to helping her husband woo a potential client over dinner and drinks at a five-star restaurant with barely a blink of her eye.

  What a lie she’d been living.

  What a lie she, herself, had been . . .

  Stepping onto the front porch, Dani quietly made her way past the main house where Lydia and her family were sitting down together for the evening meal. She knew it was Lydia’s hope that one day soon Dani would join them inside rather than eat alone from a basket an hour or so later. But she simply wasn’t ready. Not yet. If ever.

  On the one hand she knew it was probably time to return home. She knew from the once-daily, now more like once-weekly, post-accident texts from Emily that her houseplants were doing fine, her mail was piling up, and the Liberty Street barbecue she and Jeff had started shortly before Maggie was born was scheduled for the first weekend in June with Libby and Dale Rothman at the helm.

  Knowing Emily, the chatty nature of the weekly messages was designed to be upbeat and friendly. It wasn’t in the woman’s nature to be anything else. But sometimes—no, most times—upbeat and friendly only served to deepen Dani’s pain.

  It wasn’t that she wanted Emily to tell her the plants were dead, or that Dani was no longer on anyone’s radars, or that something she and Jeff had put so much time into each year really never mattered to anyone, anyway. Because she didn’t want that, either. But in Emily’s attempt to be lighthearted came the painful realization that life was moving on without Dani and without the five people who meant most to her in the entire world.

  Blinking hard against a new spate of tears, Dani slipped past her car and headed toward the road, the day’s fading sun taking with it the daytime sounds of Amish country—the clip-clop of a passing buggy, the snap of a clothesline, the call of a father to his son from the back of a mule-pulled tractor, the staccato tap of a hammer against wood, and even the clang of a bucket as it filled an animal’s trough. Soon, the stark quiet of the supper hour would segue into a quick flurry of last-minute chores inside the barn before the busyness of the day gave way to quiet conversations on porches and in sitting rooms up and down the street.

  Two sheep, one large and one medium sized, eyed her curiously as she strode by, the peace and tranquility of her surroundings negated by the voice inside her head that never stopped, never took a breath.

  Go home . . .

  Stay here . . .

  Find a local obstetrician . . .

  Make an appointment with Dr. May back home . . .

  Each thought, each worry, rushed in like a crashing wave, receded, and then, before she could pick up her head long enough to catch her breath, knocked her down again.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” she said, her teeth gritted. “I’m drowning.”

  “Then get out of the water, Danielle. ”

  She stopped dead.

  “You need a break.”

  “Mom?” she whispered, looking left and right, ahead and behind.

  “You can brave the waves better when you’re rested, Danielle. Trust me.”

  Swallowing against the growing knot in the base of her throat, she willed herself to focus, to see the sheep to her left, the lowering sun to her right, her car and the main house at her back, the road in front. Mom was gone. The voice, the words, were a memory just as they’d been back in New York when she hadn’t eaten so much as a nibble of food in those first few days following the accident.

  She’d needed to eat then. And while she knew she still wasn’t eating enough now, especially with a baby on the way, at least she was trying. A nibble here, a nibble there . . .

  The timing of that memory, of Mom’s voice, made sense.

  But this one?

  She was landlocked in Amish country with the closest beach a good hour and a half away . . .

  Still, she was tired. Not sleepy tired, necessarily, but definitely brain tired. There were simply too many things to remember, to grieve, to work through, to beat herself up over, to—

  “Trust me.”

  Again, she swung her gaze onto the sheep only to find the larger of the two staring back at her. “You’re not hearing that, right?” The sheep blinked at her. “Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

  Abandoning her view of her wooly but silent audience, Dani stepped out onto the road, the warmth of the western sun on her face making the decision as to which direction to go an easy one. She took a moment to pull in a deep breath and to let it go, her senses slowly but surely beginning to take over.

  Step by step she made her way past a farm with a windmill. . . a farm with a barn that looked as if it had been recently built . . . a narrow, winding creek that appeared on her left, disappeared from view beneath her, and then meandered out to her right . . . Up ahead, a charcoal-gray buggy emerged from a dirt lane and turned in the opposite direction, the horse’s purposeful cadence leaving her to wonder, briefly, where the occupants were going.

  At the end of the road where it teed with another, she went right, the still-lowering sun diffusing the sky in varying shades of yellow, orange, and red. A brown and white dog with a red collar and big pink tongue fell in step beside her as she rounded a bend in the road and then disappeared, enthusiastically, at the sound of a woman’s voice in the distance.

  She slowed outside a white single-story building set back about ten yards from the road. Even from where she stood, Dani could just make out a series of construction paper flowers arranged across the glass portion of the front door. Above that, in large block letters and also cut from construction paper, was a single word: Welcome. To the right of the building, she spied a simple swing set with two swings suspended by chains from a metal pole. Silent now, she could almost hear the sounds of Amish children at recess, some swinging, others playing tag, and still others running around the bases of their non-regulation-sized baseball diamond.

  For a few, fleeting moments, she considered walking up to the front window and peering inside, curious as to whether the happy, whimsical nature of the front door carried into the interior, but she didn’t. Instead, she continued down the road, the gentle spring breeze and welcomed exercise working wonders on the dull throb in her head and the persistent stiffness in her joints.

  Just beyond a second, slightly longer bend in the road, a fenced enclosure surrounded by farm fields drew her gaze toward a series of headstones protruding from the grass in neat rows. Unlike its more elaborate and showy English counterparts, the clearly Amish cemetery held no flowerpots, no American flags, no long dead miniature Christmas trees. The budding branches of a single tree planted just outside the enclosure stretched across the gravesites and provided a protective canopy of sorts. The grass itself looked sparse but tended, and the graves themselves ranged from weathered to new. A small grassless mound near the back fence, as well as a freshly shoveled pile of dirt on the eastern side of the cemetery, pointed to two recent additions.

  Part of her wanted to turn and run from the pain she felt bubbling back to life inside her heart. But another part of her wanted to answer the inexplicable pull to slip inside the gate an
d feel whatever she wanted to feel in a place where others had felt some of the same things.

  Step by step, hand twist by hand twist, the longing for connection won and quietly deposited her just inside the open gate, steps away from someone’s beloved. She inched forward toward the back row, her mind’s eye quietly cataloging the information noted on the first gravestone she found.

  Eli Esch

  September 7, 1951

  October 2012

  “Sixty-one.” A bird, sitting atop a nearby branch, flew off, clearly startled by her voice. “Were you a father? A husband? A grandfather? Were your parents still alive when you were buried?”

  She paused as if waiting for someone to provide those answers—for someone to step forward and give voice to the kind of man Eli Esch had been in life. But there was nothing. Just a curved stone marking what had once been someone’s loved one.

  Wiping her hands against the sides of her jeans, Dani moved on to the next name, the next lost soul.

  Mary Weaver

  January 18, 1987

  November 4, 2002

  “Nineteen eighty-seven to two thousand and two . . .” Dani whispered as her mental calculator spewed out the unthinkable answer. “Fifteen? How—”

  Her gaze leapt ahead to the next several stones, her shoulders sagging in momentary relief when the names and date of death they reflected didn’t match. She glanced back at the name and the young girl’s age and then scanned the farms bordering the property. Somewhere, in one of those homes, or perhaps as far as a few roads over, a mother ached for her daughter, the hopes and dreams she’d had for her offspring gone. Did she wake up crying each morning? Did she sit on the front porch, staring out at nothing while her insides turned to stone? Did she, too, wish she’d died with her child, or, at the very least, instead of her child?

  Summoning up the courage to keep walking, Dani took in the name etched into each gravestone she passed, the bulk of the deceased having lived a full life. A few, like Mary Weaver, never made it through childhood, their age and the unfairness that was their death calling to Dani, again and again. Twice, she came across children—one boy, one girl—who never made it to ten. The girl, Fannie King, slipping away at six, and the boy, Daniel Miller, a newly turned eight-year-old.