Sisters of the Quilt Trilogy

by Cindy Woodsmall

  Luke cut the heavy-duty strings, loosened the rawhide from the machine, and rose to assemble another collar.

  A shadow fell across his workbench, causing him to look up. “Daed, I didn’t hear you come in.”

  The man stood in the middle of the room, reminding Luke of a statue. “The fact that divorce is unheard of among the Amish does nothing for a man if his wife hates him.”

  Luke had no words of comfort, and now wasn’t the time to try to get his Daed to see his fault in all this, so he remained silent.

  His father walked to him and held out a piece of paper in his trembling hands. “I never meant to …” He shut his eyes. “I got a letter from a Dr. J. Lehman in Alliance, Ohio.” His eyes watered. “My sister died, and a doctor sent me a note about it. The doctor mentioned that a relative had delayed the funeral to give any of Zabeth’s other relatives time to come. If I had my guess, I’d say the relative he speaks of is Hannah. I don’t know how she learned of my sister or her whereabouts, but none of my relatives had anything to do with my sister.”

  Luke took the envelope. The doctor’s name was the only readable part. The return address looked as if drops of water had hit the ink and smudged it. He opened it, but there was no letter inside. “Daed?”

  He gave a fatigued nod before pointing to the paper. “I know that’s not much information to go on. I had shoved the letter in my pocket, and it went through the washer, but it seems the envelope fell out and wedged itself under the washer. Maybe you know someone who can help you figure out how to find her.”

  Luke shook his head. “Not unless I ask Paul. He’d know—or know how to find out.”

  His father pointed to the envelope. “If that’s the only person, then that’s who you should take the information to.” His eyes reflected hurt so deep that a physical pain shot through Luke. A sob broke from his Daed’s throat. “I’ve tried standing true to Sarah, like I shoulda done with Hannah. But her nervousness just gets worse, and she’s mumbling to herself and turns up in the oddest places. Yet she doesn’t seem to know why she’s at those places. She’s locked inside herself, and no one has been able to reach her.”

  Dismayed, Luke couldn’t respond, and he watched his father turn and leave the shop.

  Luke stared at the envelope, wondering what to do. Was it fair for his Daed to use Paul to find Hannah when he hadn’t spoken a nice word to or about the man in the two and a half years Hannah had been missing? Besides, Paul seemed to have moved on, with Dorcas. And clearly Hannah still didn’t want to be found. She hadn’t written in a long while, but last he heard from her, she was going to school and felt good about where she was.

  And although Mamm longed to see Hannah, she’d had her chances too, hadn’t she? Instead she chose to let Hannah grieve in solitude after her baby died. She never went to her.

  But Sarah—she hadn’t been the same since the day she’d learned of her sister’s plight. If there was a reason for Paul to help find Hannah, Sarah was it.

  Unsure what was the right thing to do, Luke tucked the paper into his leather apron and returned to the work at hand. Figuring this out would take awhile.

  Martin walked to the cottage. He thought Hannah might want to know how well the interview had gone with the potential nanny, Laura Scofield, a sixty-two-year-old woman with excellent credentials. More than that, he wanted a few minutes with Hannah. He tapped on the door. It was almost eleven o’clock, but she’d just pulled into the driveway a few minutes ago. The hour was the downside of taking night classes. The truth was he couldn’t wait for her to get her diploma and end this continual rivalry he felt with her schedule.

  She opened the door, looking gorgeous and tired. “Hey.” Stepping back, she invited him in.

  “I took all the laundry by the dry cleaners.” He held out the basket of washed and folded clothes.

  “Thanks. Care for a drink?” She set the basket on the table.

  He grabbed two bottles of water. “I interviewed Laura Scofield, the nanny I mentioned to you. I’d like you to meet her as soon as you can, and perhaps you should set up that appointment. I think Laura is a perfect choice, but I feel pretty strongly that because of your age, you need to establish yourself as her authority concerning the children so no issues ever crop up in that area.”

  “Ah, leave it to you to think about such things. I’ll call her tomorrow and schedule her visit.”

  He held up a bottle of water. “Want one?”

  “Yeah.” She stifled a yawn. “Kevin give you trouble going down for the night?”

  He opened her bottle of water and passed it to her. “Has a cat got a climbing gear?”

  “Taking care of two children is probably not how you’d like to spend your evenings.”

  Martin sneered. “Not hardly, but it’s growing on me. It’s not nearly as bad as I thought it’d be.”

  Hannah took a sip of water. “The Amish consider a baby the most precious gift on this planet. The People cherish them—just because they exist.”

  “Yet they don’t seem all that warm and inviting once people are adults. My mom told me Zabeth’s troubles were plenty. And you left at seventeen and changed your name. So what happens between infanthood and adulthood?”

  She motioned to the porch.

  “Sure.”

  They moved to the porch and sat on the steps. It seemed their best conversations took place outside, especially at the end of the day.

  She pulled her legs in and propped her chin on her knees. When nothing but the gentle hum of crickets filled the air, Martin wondered if she’d answer him or not. It was never a given that she’d answer his questions.

  She stretched her legs out and ran her hands down the row of buttons on the front of her dress. “I left because I refused to repent. I think the reasons for leaving are as varied as people themselves.”

  Wondering what she had needed to repent of, Martin asked, “Is Paul still the reason you’ve never gone back home?”

  “For a while I didn’t think I could stand seeing him with someone else.” She paused and seemed to shudder. “My father saw me the night I’d been attacked, witnessed the trauma, and yet later on he chose to believe I’d had a fight with Paul or something that night. I don’t really know how he twisted it in his mind, but he didn’t believe how I came up pregnant.”

  “What happened between you and the rest of your family?”

  She slowly explained each piece of the story until he understood things she and Zabeth had been silent about since he and Hannah met.

  He moved in closer and put his arm around her shoulders. “Do you still miss Paul?”

  She gazed at Martin, a smile crossing her lips. “I’ve found an unusual fish in the sea, a bit self-centered, but a remarkable man nonetheless.”

  He pulled her closer and kissed her cheek. “Well, this fish is pretty happy to be caught. But sometimes I get the feeling you’re still unsure about us.”

  “It’s not just a feeling. I am unsure, because I haven’t been ready to tell you everything.”

  “This is everything, right?”

  She shook her head. “I wish.” She paused. “Because of complications after I gave birth, I … I can’t have children.”

  In her voice he heard the depth of loss she felt for the children she’d never bear. “I’m sorry.”

  “I wasn’t sure when to tell you. It seems presumptuous to bring it up too soon and wrong to have waited this long.”

  He removed his arm from her shoulders and slid his hand over hers. “No guilt over the timing.”

  She watched as he kissed and caressed her fingers. “Don’t just rush in to make me feel better, Martin. You have dreams for your future, and maybe I don’t fit as well as you’d thought.”

  “And maybe you fit better. I should have told you this, but I didn’t want to scare you away. I don’t want children. Even after getting serious about life and God, I stopped seeing some women because I didn’t want children, and I realized they did.”

 
; “You’d put your hand on the Bible and confess that’s true?”

  “I’ve never told a girl something in order to sound nice or to soften the blow. Not that sweet a guy.”

  She pushed him back. “Yeah, but this is me. We’re different together, more bonded for reasons I don’t need to explain.”

  “True enough, although I didn’t realize you knew that.” He rose. “I know what I want, but I’ll give the younger member of this band time to think and process. Good night, Hannah.” He headed toward his house before stopping in midstride. “If we’d both known that being honest about who we really are would have helped rather than caused problems, we might have actually told the whole truth earlier on.”

  She shook her finger at him. “You’re making that phrase circle inside my head again.”

  “The one missing the accurate adjectives charming and intelligent?”

  “That’d be the one.”

  “So what is it?”

  “Shut up, Palmer.”

  He kept a straight face, knowing she’d just answered him. “You’re not going to tell me what it is?”

  “I did.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, I know, but something with charming and intelligent would be much more accurate.”

  “I’m fully aware of that.”

  He chuckled and went inside his house.

  Inside protective services’ small office, Paul clutched the phone against his ear as Luke shared that Zeb Lapp had information about Hannah’s whereabouts and was hopeful Paul could help locate her. The day had started like any other, with a miserable longing for Hannah. And now …

  “J. Lehman, Alliance, Ohio.” Paul repeated Luke’s words as he wrote them down. “Did your father say when he received the last letter from Hannah?”

  “The letter didn’t come from Hannah. It came from someone notifying him of his sister’s death.”

  “He has a sister?”

  “Did. And that was news to me too. She died in May.” Luke paused. “Daed gave me this info in August, over a month ago, but I wasn’t sure it was right to get you involved. Asking you to find Hannah isn’t about what Daed wants or even Mamm. I’d not have called you if this was for them. But Sarah …”

  “I’ve had a few encounters with her since Hannah left. She doesn’t seem to be coping very well. Is she doing better?”

  “Worse. From what Matthew and Mamm have told me, whatever you saw is nothing compared to what she’s like of late. I think if Sarah could just talk to Hannah one time, she might get better. If you can find a way for us to reach Hannah, a phone number or address where we could send a letter, it’d mean an awful lot to me.”

  Paul wasn’t going to tell Luke about his last encounter with Sarah, but there was no doubt she needed help. “Luke, I appreciate that you contacted me with this info. I’ll do what I can and let you know.”

  They said their goodbyes, and Paul hung up. He was done with waiting for Hannah to return on her own. If he’d ever thought she’d be gone for more than two years, he would have hired that private investigator before the trail became impossible to pick up.

  But this way, she’d been gone long enough to find peace and healing on her own terms. Now she needed a reminder of the worthy things she’d left behind and of the gaps her absence had caused. Her sister needed her. Paul loved her. It was time for her to come home. And now he had enough information to find her and nudge her to do just that—come home. He began an Internet search for any Lehman’s phone number in Alliance. It didn’t take long to learn there wasn’t a single Lehman listed. Paul widened his search to a twenty-mile, then fifty-mile radius of the place and jotted down all the possibilities.

  Starting at the top of the list, Paul began dialing.

  As the hours passed, he scratched through possibility after possibility. He’d skipped lunch, and his co-workers had left for the day. But all he could think about was hearing Hannah’s voice again. He was unsure what his hopes were beyond that. For her to come home immediately? For him to go to her first and them talk for a month solid until they knew each other again? Too many thoughts and emotions hounded him to discern any of them with clarity. Only one thing he knew for sure: he longed for Hannah to be in his arms. Things were different from when she’d left. The gossip and anger had dissipated. She’d lived on her own long enough that no one would expect or demand she line up with their desires or repent of things that weren’t her fault. It was all different, and he had information in hand to finally contact her and let her know.

  He dialed yet another Lehman number.

  “Lehman’s Birthing Clinic. Midwife Nancy Cantrell speaking.”

  “Hello, this is Paul Waddell, and I’m looking for a Hannah Lapp.”

  “Is she one of Dr. Lehman’s patients?”

  “I … I don’t think so. She’s a friend, and I’m trying to locate her.”

  “This is an Amish birthing center, sir. You must have the wrong number.”

  Amish? On the contrary, he must have the right number. “Is Dr. Lehman’s first initial J?”

  “Yes, Dr. Jeff Lehman.”

  This was too much of a coincidence. Hannah had to be connected to this doctor.

  “But there’s not a Hannah Lapp who works for him?” Paul suspected the woman was leery, more interested in getting off the phone with as little said as possible than in helping him. “Does he have any other offices?”

  She hesitated. “Yes. He has another clinic and a main office. But there are privacy laws concerning patients and workers.”

  Confidentiality laws. As a counselor, he dealt with them all the time. “I’d still like to have those numbers if you don’t mind.”

  With the note in hand, Paul connected to the Internet. In less than two minutes, he had the man’s main office address. This Dr. Lehman or someone on his staff might not be willing or able to tell him anything over the phone, so Paul’s best bet was face to face. He grabbed his suit jacket and headed out. There was no reason to leave tonight since he wouldn’t arrive until nearly midnight. But by lunchtime tomorrow, he intended to be in Ohio.

  Leaning over the drafting table in his office, Martin tried focusing on his work. His thoughts were everywhere but on the set of engineering plans in front of him. Mostly they were on the brown-eyed girl living on his property.

  But even with all their progress toward a lasting relationship, in Martin’s ears echoed the sounds of prison doors clanking shut. Even if Faye returned and succeeded at living clean and being a good mom, as if that were possible, he’d still never be fully free of the responsibility to keep things stable for Kevin and Lissa. At least Hannah had agreed with him about hiring Laura. She’d only work part-time, but it would free them from some of the schedule juggling and give them an occasional evening off. Even if Laura became a live-in nanny, he and Hannah would never have the kind of freedom and bonding time he’d always dreamed of having. He loved Kevin and Lissa, but he chafed at the nonstop patience and effort it took to raise them.

  He wondered what he’d be like in this situation without Hannah’s influence.

  His thoughts jumped to when he’d lost his mother. Zabeth had stepped forward and never once made him feel unwanted. On the contrary, she’d made him think he was the greatest thing to ever happen to her life. But was he? He’d been a bit hardheaded and rebellious at times.

  As he allowed his mind to drift, a memory surfaced that he hadn’t thought of in more than a decade. A few weeks after his mother’s death, he got off the school bus to see Zabeth in the driveway, talking to a man. Whatever was going on was intense, because they never even noticed him. Looking back now, he realized how young Zabeth had been—single and in her early thirties, only a few years older than he was now. Funny, she’d always seemed like someone’s mother.

  The man had put his arms around her. “Take a few months and get the boy past the worst, but you have a life of your own, Zabeth. A future with me.”

  “Can’t we find a way to blend our lives? Must it be a choi
ce?”

  “My ranch is in Wyoming, Zabeth. You’ve known that all along, said you’d move there come summer.”

  “I know, but—”

  Martin had dropped his book bag, causing Zabeth to notice him. He couldn’t really remember much more, other than being introduced and feeling that the man hated him. He never saw the man after that day. Obviously, Zabeth had made her choice, and she chose Martin. Fresh grief for Zebby rolled over him, and before he even realized it, he was praying that he’d become the type of guardian she had been. One who sacrificed without grumbling, loved without resentment, and gave freely, making the kids in his home feel like treasures. When he opened his eyes, he ached to hug Kevin and Lissa. It wouldn’t hurt anything if he checked them out of school a little early.

  If Hannah wasn’t too busy today, maybe he could pick up all three of them, and they could go for ice cream or something where they could talk and laugh, and he could let them know he truly did care. Whether he had planned it or not, these children were a part of his life, and he intended to make sure they knew they were a part of his heart.

  He picked up the phone and hit the speed dial. A rap on the doorframe interrupted him. Amy Clarke held up a blueprint tube containing a set of plans.

  He pushed the disconnect button. “What’s up?”

  She stepped inside and moved to the leather chair in front of his desk. He placed the receiver in its cradle. Amy was a couple of years older than Martin and rented space in the adjoining office for her landscape-architect business. This kept Martin from needing to hire and run a whole different department under his engineering firm. Even though she thrived on spontaneity, she maneuvered through the orderly business world with a cool savoir-faire.

  “A land plan was sent to McGaffy that I didn’t approve.” She thumped the tube against the palm of her hand. “And it shows more lots than the county will allow on that parcel.”

  “Send a corrected land plan back to McGaffy that the county will approve, and the developer can take it or leave it. I’m not willing to work the extra hours to get a variance with the county to make the developer happy.” He placed his hand on the receiver, ready for this conversation to be over. “I’m heading out for the weekend. If anything else comes up, it’ll need to wait until Monday.”