Piece by Piece

by Laura Bradford

  “ ‘Are now Mom and Dad to their sweet son, Ryan,’ ” she read aloud.

  Flipping the brochure over, she searched for a date and, when she found none, she resorted to guessing how old Ryan might be today. Two? Three? Maybe four or even older? Then, was he happy? Were Tim and Sheila good parents? Had they brought another baby home by now, making Ryan a big brother?

  And what about the unwed mother? Did Sheila and Tim send her reports on Ryan’s progress? Did they have plans to tell their son about his birth mother one day or would they keep the details of his birth from him?

  Slowly, she opened the brochure Martha had quietly handed to her across the counter on her way out of Dr. Braden’s office and willed herself to breathe, to focus. Knowledge was power; it was a favorite expression of Jeff’s and one he used quite often around the house with the kids, and at work with Tom and the rest of the team. Ava, of course, was too young to understand the meaning behind the words, but Maggie—and sometimes even Spencer—seemed to grasp its gist most days.

  A soft tap at the front door pulled her attention off the list of the top five most frequently asked questions and fixed it, instead, on the snippet of cowboy hat she could see above the simple cloth panel blocking everything else from view. Quickly, she closed the brochure, slid it underneath the empty breakfast basket she’d yet to set back out on the porch, and stood, her frustration over the interruption powering her not-so-quiet sigh.

  As she neared the door, the cowboy hat swiveled around to reveal the top of a forehead and the uppermost creases of anticipation.

  “Hey,” she said, cracking the door open to the full-body view of her host’s brother. “What’s up?”

  Hooking his thumb over his shoulder at the now-familiar black pickup truck parked in front of her porch rather than the barn, his mouth inched upward in a smile. “I’d like to take you somewhere if you have a little time?”

  She looked from Caleb to the truck and back again. “I don’t think so. I really should just stay here.”

  “Did you eat breakfast?”

  “Not really. I-I wasn’t hungry.”

  “Lunch?”

  She thought about the apple she’d tried to eat, but after the first two bites she’d shoved it in the refrigerator on reflex. Not wanting to lie, she followed her shrug of indifference with a whispered “some.”

  “Come with us,” he said, taking a step backward. “We won’t keep you out for long. I promise.”

  “Us?”

  This time, when he pointed toward the truck and she actually gave it more than a cursory glance, she saw the same basic view she’d had of Caleb from the table. But instead of the top edge of a cowboy hat above a curtain panel, she saw the top edge of a small, white kapp above the passenger side windowsill.

  “I passed Elijah out on the road this morning and he told me Lydia was feeling low. Since the boys are at school, anyway, I offered to take Nettie out for a treat so Lydia could have a little time to herself.”

  “Is she okay?” Dani asked, abandoning her limited view of the little girl in favor of the main house and, finally, Caleb again.

  “Lydia? She”—he closed his palm over his mouth only to let it slip slowly down his chin to his side—“has her good days and her bad days. Today, for whatever reason, is the latter. But hopefully, with a little time to breathe or cry or do whatever she needs to do, she’ll swing back the other way sooner rather than later.”

  The sound of a steady knock against glass led their eyes back to the truck and the happy little face now peeking out at them.

  “At first, when I told Nettie I was going to take her out for a little while, she wasn’t all that excited at the news. When she sees that Lydia is struggling, she wants to be with her, doing everything she can think of to make things better. But at times like this, Lydia just needs a break, much to Nettie’s despair.”

  “She looks pretty happy now,” Dani mused as she returned the little girl’s wave.

  “That’s because she wants you to come with us.”

  Dani drew back. “Me? Why? I haven’t spoken two words to her since I showed up in her driveway five weeks ago.”

  “Apparently that first encounter was enough for her to know what Lydia and I knew twenty-seven years ago.”

  “And that is . . .”

  “That you’re a nice person, plain and simple.”

  Releasing her hand from the edge of the door, she waved at his words as if they were a swarm of pesky bugs. “Really, I’m fine here. I’ve got something I need to look into and . . .” She readied the door for closing. “Thank you. I appreciate the invite and everything but—”

  “Come on, Dani; do this for Lydia. It’ll only take thirty minutes—an hour, tops. I promise.”

  Again, she let her gaze drift toward the truck and the little girl whose smile seemed a little less certain, a little less all-encompassing, than it had just moments earlier when Dani had been returning her sweet wave.

  “Caleb, I can’t. I really need to—”

  “Consider this your version of what she’s done for you.” He swept his hand toward the house and the fields. “You know, by letting you stay here and making sure you’re not bothered.”

  Caleb was right.

  She owed Lydia.

  Squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the door the rest of the way and stepped onto the porch. “An hour, tops.”

  * * *

  She’d barely stepped more than three feet from the pickup truck when Nettie’s small hand, warm and soft, found its way inside her own. “Do you like ice cream, Mamm’s friend?”

  Slipping her gaze left toward Caleb and then forward toward the powder-blue and white awning on the roadside ice-cream stand, she managed a quick nod.

  “I do, too, Mamm’s friend!”

  Caleb skirted the hood of the truck and quickly scooped the little girl off her feet, her answering squeal piercing the still afternoon air. “Mamm’s friend has a name, you know.”

  “She does?” Nettie peered at Dani across her uncle’s shoulder, her brownish-blond eyebrows rising. “What is it?”

  “You could ask her and find out,” he said, reaching for Nettie’s belly and giving it a giggle-inducing tickle.

  When the tickling was over, Nettie poked her head across Caleb’s shoulder a second time. “What is your name, Mamm’s friend?”

  “Dani.”

  Tapping her index finger to her chin, the little girl considered Dani’s answer as she wiggled her way back onto the ground. The second her feet hit the pavement, she hop-skipped her way back to Dani’s side. “My name is Nettie.”

  She felt the faintest twitch of a smile. “I know your name, sweetie.”

  “But I did not know yours . . .” Nettie scrunched up her face. “Mamm said I am not to knock on your door when you are inside, and I am not to run outside and talk to you when you sit in the chair behind the house where Grossdawdy and Grossmudder lived until they went to be with God.”

  Then, dropping her cornflower-blue eyes to the ground, she released a dramatic sigh. “Do you not like us, Mamm’s friend?”

  “No . . . It’s nothing like that,” Dani said, squatting down to Nettie’s eye level. “It’s just that, well, I need to be alone right now. To think.”

  “Mamm goes into her room sometimes. When I go like this”—Nettie tilted her head to indicate her ear—“at her door, I hear Mamm and she is crying.”

  Caleb doubled back to squat down beside Dani. “Big people get sad sometimes, too, kiddo.”

  “Yah.” Nettie tightened her grasp on Dani’s hand and swung their arms together, stopping after a few seconds, her voice so quiet Dani and Caleb nearly bumped heads when they leaned closer. “Mamm did not want God to take Rose. Mamm wants Rose to still be here. I do, too. She made big smiles when I was silly. But she did not make any smiles when Mamm runned with her to the barn. She did not even open her eyes. I wish she did so Mamm would not cry. I wish I made her smile that day.”

  Releasing Nett
ie’s hand from her own, she pulled the child close. “What happened to your baby sister wasn’t your fault, sweetie. She just . . .” Dani cast about for just the right words and, when she couldn’t find them, used her eyes to send Caleb a silent plea for help—a plea he answered after a hard swallow of his own.

  “Remember the litter of kittens we found in the barn last fall?” Caleb asked. At Nettie’s slow nod, he continued, his gaze meeting Dani’s briefly over the top of his niece’s kapped head. “Do you remember how many there were at first?”

  Nettie turned so her body was still up close to Dani’s, but her eyes, her focus, were on her uncle. “Six.”

  “That’s right. There were six. But do you remember what we found the next day when we went out to the barn to check on them after the boys got home from school?”

  With a quick nod, she looked back at Dani. “We founded only five.”

  “That’s right. One did not live through the night. Do you remember what your dat told you about the kitten that did not live?”

  Nettie looked from Dani to Caleb and finally at the ground, her little head nodding her assent. “Dat said God wanted to keep that kitten.”

  “That’s right, kiddo. And that’s the same thing Dat told you about Rose, right?”

  “Why didn’t God want me?” Nettie asked. “Did I do something bad?”

  Dani’s answering gasp drew the eyes of both Nettie and Caleb. “No, of course not,” she said in a raspy burst. “He . . . he does want you, sweetie. Just not yet. Not now.”

  “Dani is right, kiddo. God wants you here, with all of us.” He tapped the tip of her nose and then followed it with a kiss on her forehead. “Now, how about we get us some ice cream?”

  And just like that, the little girl’s sadness was swept to the side by the promise of ice cream, and for that Dani was glad. Standing upright, she took a moment to steady her breath, and then fell into step beside Caleb while Nettie ran ahead to the ordering window.

  “You okay?” he asked, glancing over at her, his hazel eyes dulled by worry. “Because I didn’t see that coming when I asked you to come along. I figured she’d just be her usual happy self.”

  “She’s worried about Lydia,” Dani said, swallowing.

  “And I know that—or, at least, I thought I did. But yeah . . . I didn’t see that coming.”

  Nettie came running back, her cheeks pink with excitement. “I want the yellow kind!” She reached for Dani’s hand again and tugged. “Come on; you will like the yellow kind, too! It is very, very yummy!”

  Yellow kind? she mouthed back at Caleb while quickening her pace in time with Nettie’s.

  Caleb’s laugh rumbled to life from deep inside his chest. “Oh, I could have fun with this . . .”

  “Please don’t.”

  Lurching forward, he scooped his niece back off the ground, tickled the spot just below her neck with the top of his cowboy hat, and then carried her the rest of the way to the window. “How about we let Dani choose what sounds best to her tummy, okay?”

  “But what will her tummy like?”

  “That’s a good question,” Dani mumbled as she stopped in view of the flavor board, waiting for her stomach to roil at the very thought of food.

  When Nettie’s order for yellow ice cream was placed, translated to the Amish teen behind the counter as vanilla with butterscotch sauce by Caleb, he motioned Dani close. “So? Is anything calling out to you?”

  She scanned the flavors, shrugging as she did. “Nothing is jumping out, but nothing is telling me no necessarily, either.”

  “That’s progress if nothing else, yes?” His eyes flitted down toward her stomach before returning to the flavor board and then Dani, herself. “I could pick out something for both of us if you’d like. Something that’s not yellow . . .”

  She waited for her stomach to protest the very notion of food, but, when the protest didn’t come, she found herself nodding. “Sure, why not?”

  “My sentiments, exactly.” He set Nettie on the ground and smiled down at her. “Show Dani where your favorite table is and I’ll bring the ice cream as soon as it’s ready, okay?”

  “Yah.” Nettie’s hand slipped into Dani’s a third time, the subsequent tug taking them away from the counter and toward a slew of picnic tables on the far side of the parking lot. “I hope Upside-Down Ducky is here,” Nettie said, bouncing along on the toes of her black slip-on shoes. “He’s funny.”

  They wound around one table, then another, and still one more before Nettie retrieved her hand to leverage herself onto the attached bench and then to pat the empty spot on her right side. “You can sit here! Next to me!”

  Dani glanced back at the ice-cream stand, saw Caleb reaching through the window, and turned back to the little girl. “Maybe we should let your uncle sit there since it was his treat to bring you here.”

  “He sits there,” Nettie said, pointing at the spot opposite her own. “So he can see me.”

  “He can still see you if he sits next to you.”

  “He wants to see me there.”

  Dani let the tiny finger guide her attention toward a man-made pond with a fountain in the middle, a few lazy ducks floating around the edges, and a glass-fronted metal box filled with pellets atop a pole. “I telled him I am almost big like Mark, but he says I cannot go to the water if he is not looking.”

  “He’s right, you know.” She swung her leg across the bench and slowly lowered herself next to Nettie. “Even big girls like me can lose their footing sometimes.”

  “I’ve told her that very same thing, haven’t I, kiddo?” Caleb sidled up to the table, a dark blue tray in one hand, a stack of napkins in the other. “That’s why there’s no looking for Upside-Down Ducky without me, right?”

  Nettie shifted up and onto her knees to peek over the edge of the tray, her answering squeal of delight spawning an excited clap. “Look at all that yellow! There is lots and lots!”

  “Tell me about it. I ask for butterscotch—I get a single pump’s worth. Nettie asks for butterscotch and, well”—winking at Dani, he lowered the tray onto the table and brandished his hand toward the kid-sized cup in the center—“they completely hook her up.”

  Pulling a face, he took a spot on the opposing bench and threw his hands up in mock confusion. “I don’t get it. I really don’t.”

  Nettie’s giggle lasted about as long as it took for her to reach onto the tray for her ice cream. “Did you say please?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you say thank you?” Nettie asked, digging her spoon into the sauce.

  “I did that, too.” His eyes crackled with amusement as he tried to maintain his confusion for Dani. “See? I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Do you, Dani?”

  “You don’t look like that,” she said, nudging her head toward Nettie.

  Like an actor playing a multi-faceted part, Caleb drew back, covered his mouth and then his chest with his hand, and, finally, collapsed his head onto the table, narrowly missing the tray and its remaining contents. “I’m . . . crushed—crushed, I tell you.”

  The giggling was back. “I see you peeking at us,” Nettie said, pointing at the part of her uncle she could see between his arm and his cowboy hat. “Your great big eye is looking at me!”

  Caleb straightened up, his love for his niece evident in the smile that reached far beyond his mouth. “You caught me, kiddo.” He slanted a look at Dani. “I can’t get away with anything when this one is around . . .”

  Nettie set her spoon on the table, licked a trail of melting ice cream off her wrist, and then pointed her recovered spoon at the one treat void of butterscotch sauce. “What kind did you get, Dani?”

  “I figured we’d start her off easy this first time.” Caleb transferred the single-scoop cup from the tray to Dani’s spot. “Basic vanilla. No sauce, no toppings, no fanfare.”

  Her stomach’s answering gurgle was short and quick, but there was no denying its existence based on the way Nettie’s eyes widened ju
st before yet another fit of giggles.

  “Looks like I made a good call, eh?” Grabbing one of the two remaining spoons on the tray, he handed it—along with a napkin—to Dani. “There’s a chance I’m biased about this place on account of the fact I’ve been coming here since I was Nettie’s age, but this is some of the best ice cream around.”

  Dani looked from the ice cream to the spoon and back again, waiting for the warning bells her stomach tended to throw up as a matter of course these days, but they never came. Instead, all she heard was an encore of its earlier gurgle.

  “It’s something,” Caleb said, modulating his voice to a level intended just for Dani. “And something is better than nothing right now.”

  He was right and she knew it. Somehow, someway, she needed to start eating again. For the baby . . . For—

  “It’s Upside-Down Ducky! Look!” Nettie set her spoon beside her remaining ice cream and climbed down off the bench, her blue eyes ricocheting between the pond and her uncle. “Can I go say hello?”

  “You haven’t finished your ice cream yet, kiddo.”

  “I just want to say hello,” Nettie said, turning to look at a small brown and green duck floating in their direction. “I will not be long.”

  He opened his mouth in what, to Dani, looked to be a protest, but, in the end, he took a bite of his own ice cream, nodding as he did.

  Nettie started to run toward the water but slowed to a walk at her uncle’s stern direction. When she reached the water’s edge, the child crouched down and began to move her hand in a part wave/part beckoning gesture that, to Dani’s surprise, seemed to attract the duck in question.

  “He looks like he’s actually listening,” she mumbled in awe while simultaneously scooping up a little ice cream and depositing it into her mouth.

  “Because he is.” Caleb, too, took a bite of ice cream, his eyes never leaving his niece or the duck actively floating into the little girl’s reach. “I can’t explain it, especially with how busy this place normally is at this time of year, but he remembers her every bit as much as she remembers him.”