by Trisha Telep
“I would have gone back to New Philadelphia to stay with friends until I could move in.”
Because she could not bear not to connect with Susie, Hannah tapped the child’s pert little nose. “Sugarcreek to New Philadelphia is a long trek. Ohio is not as civilized as where you came from. Some places are more like wide rutty paths than roads. Besides, you seem to have everything you own in your buggy.”
“I cannot say I did not hope to stay,” he admitted, his sheepish grin warming a heart she would prefer to keep frozen.
“It is good for a change,” she said, “to fulfill a man’s hope.”
The words hung between them, and she stood so fast, she knocked over her chair. “I will accept your offer and leave you with the dishes,” she said, bending to kiss Susie’s cheek. “Bye Susie-Q. Goodbye, Caleb. The leftovers are yours.”
“Goodnight,” he said, rising and extending his hand. “Neighbor.”
Hannah stared at his big clumsy hand for so long, Caleb wanted to reclaim it, until she finally slipped her hand into his, and then reclaimed it as fast. Only once before had he felt shock at first touch – with Naomi, the woman he loved . . . until he did something unforgivable, and now she was dead.
But life was for the living, he must remember. For Susie, if not for him.
After a quick bath, Susie’s head cleared the neck of her white cotton nightgown. “She smells like a just-for-pretty garden, Datt.”
Caleb did not need to ask who. Half an hour later and Hannah remained on his mind as well, gentle and frightened, sad and sweet, gardening in the snow and tucking her dead child into the earth for a good sleep. “You like her then?” he asked, caring more than he should about his daughter’s answer.
He pulled Susie’s hair from the neck of her gown as she swiped it from her face “No.”
Always a “no” since her mother died.
He knelt beside her at the side of her new bed while she blessed Mommy in heaven – and the “flower lady”, Hannah, too. Then he kissed his daughter’s nose, her ears, her elbows, and by the time he kissed her toes, he’d reduced her to giggles of the finest kind.
He cleared his throat when she kissed his lips. Then she huffed and rubbed her chin. “Your beard, it tickles. I always itch myself there.”
His eyes twinkled as he tucked her in. “You will marry a man whose beard tickles.”
“The boys I like don’t have beards.”
“That will change, and so will you, but you will stay cuddling size for a while, please.”
“Yes, Datt. Datt?”
“Yes, Susiekins?”
“The flower lady’s goodnight kiss made me feel as nice as purring kittens – a shivery, all-over kind of heart-soft and easy-sleeping nice.”
“Ach, she makes me feel that way, too.” God help him.
His perceptive daughter sighed and snuggled beneath the quilt Hannah had probably made. Even Hannah’s name slipped heart-soft and sweet off the tongue.
Smoothing the quilt’s fabric, Susie closed her eyes and sighed. Caleb dared hope for a good night’s sleep for them both.
Before going to bed, he went outside to sit on the porch and enjoy a pipe. Maybe the ghosts of Dovecrest Farm would rest now that Hannah had moved on. He glanced at the stately cedars across the road marking the entrance to the grabhoff, and wondered how he could help Hannah get on with her life.
One day in her company and such thoughts should have him running for the hills. So why did the notion not frighten him?
Caleb walked around his house until, from out back, he could see Hannah’s cottage, halfway down to the Hollow, one window bright with the light from a kerosene lamp.
“’Night, Hannah Peachy,” he said. “Dream happy.”
Four
Hannah liked the newborn hope of early morning, the way the air crackled with possibilities, her heart beating apace, as she made her weekday trek down Juniper Hill.
She liked the smell of chalk dust and her students’ freckled faces. Teaching gave her life purpose; well, her students did. They were not hers to love, so they were not hers to lose or fail.
In the one-room schoolhouse, she lit the pot-bellied stove and passed letter-practice slates for grades one, two and three. Multiplication tables went to grades four and five. Grade six got geography books, seven, history, and eight, The Martyr’s Mirror for High German lessons.
The children’s running feet erased thoughts of her neighbor, thoughts she was pleased and loath to shed.
After the children hung hats, bonnets, frock coats and capes on the double row of pegs around the room, they stood for prayer. They’d barely started when a rare sound brought all heads up.
A knock on the schoolhouse door?
The children tittered as she called, “Come in?”
Caleb felt foolish. Late for school, like the old days. He’d barely slept when Susie came screaming into his room. It took more than an hour to calm her. Then, as he predicted, she wanted to play when he wanted to sleep. A fear of her dreams kept her going; dreams she would not share. She slept around four, as did he, and they overslept. Good thing no cows, heavy with milk, suffered for his laziness.
Hat in hand, Susie by the other, he entered, prepared to face a ham-fisted, sour-faced spinster. But the woman who occupied a good many of his thoughts smiled a true welcome. “She did not sleep well, after all, did she? Neither you, I think.”
Caleb sighed. “Neither me.”
“First grade?”
“Yah, first day of first grade . . . with everything going on.”
“Shame on you!”
“Want to rap my knuckles?”
“Later,” Hannah promised, sending a shot of anticipation through him.
“Susie, you may take this empty seat up front.”
To Caleb’s surprise, Susie sat, so he grabbed his hat and turned to go.
Susie started screaming.
Caleb turned back to Hannah. “Ear-blistering, like I said.”
Susie quieted.
Hannah smiled like a friend who shared such things. He might like having her for a friend. He enjoyed sharing his thoughts with her – except for the as-yet-unspoken-of guilt and sorrow they also shared.
At the same time, a friendship with a woman, any woman, unnerved him. “I will take her home,” he said, when he realized the class watched him as he watched their teacher.
“You most certainly will not. Not one more day of school will Susie miss.” Hannah pointed toward the back of the room. “Take that empty seat in the last row, Caleb, where Susie can see you.”
And like a ten-year-old, Caleb squeezed his six-foot-two frame behind a desk built for nurslings, because Hannah was suddenly all teacher, pushy and in charge. And despite his foolish offer, he did not want to get his knuckles rapped.
Going back to childhood, he was. Good place for such nonsense, with twenty or so children, half white-kapped, the others hatless, watching.
Susie, three rows up, regarded him, too. In her, he saw the anxiety of new beginnings. To put them both at ease, he winked and, when he did, she let out the breath he did not know she held. She stood to come to him.
“No,” Hannah said stopping her mid-stride. “You will return to your seat and stay there. Your datt will stay too.”
But his stubborn daughter hesitated.
“If you do not do as I say, Susie, I will make your Datt leave until school is over. It would not bother any of us to hear you scream all day, though it might hurt your throat some.”
Wide-eyed, his daughter regarded her teacher and returned to her seat, almost docile, though she sneaked a peek at him. “Datt?” she called in a whisper, as if no one else could hear. “Her flowers have thorns in them this morning.”
Caleb covered his mouth and wiped away his smile.
At recess, the boys played corner ball, him too. Suze watched his every move, the only one who did not laugh when Junior Elam Yoder bounced a ball off his head, though Hannah laughed harder than anyone.
At noon, Hannah offered to share her lunch with him and, when she saw the mess he’d made of slicing last night’s bread and ham for Susie’s lunch, she shared with Susie too.
“What?” Caleb asked. “It is still tasty.” He ate a mangled clump of both and rubbed his middle. “Goot.” He did not know, then, whose eyes twinkled more, Susie’s or Teacher’s, but it brought out Hannah’s dimples. He fell into a little bit of trouble then, because of how much he liked seeing Hannah happy. She weakened his vow to avoid the kind of kinship that could cause pain.
Hannah Peachy’s smile was that dangerous.
“Where is her mother?” Hannah asked, suddenly beside him, while Susie washed her hands at the pump.
His scowl made her step back. “I am sorry,” she said. “I did not mean to pry.”
“I will tell you, maybe, another time. But her mother is gone. Right now, it is Suze I am worried about.”
“Gone,” Hannah whispered. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means, I need to protect her,” Caleb said.
“From what?”
“Everything.”
Five
During his second week of first grade, second time around, Caleb wanted to attend the livestock auction in Mount Hope come Monday, rather than attend school.
Interrupting his reverie, Hannah placed a picture to paint on the desk before him. “We need to talk about Susie’s dependence on you,” she whispered.
Ignoring the skittering inside him that this woman’s nearness caused, Caleb glanced at the picture then up at her, one speaking brow raised. “I forgot my paints.”
A twinkle lit Hannah’s eyes. “For today, you may use mine. Come for supper tonight,” she said, more and less of an invitation than he wanted. “So Susie can get to know me better. Maybe when she sleeps, we can talk.”
“When she sleeps, I will sleep,” he said, to diffuse his anticipation. But he nodded, ignoring the skip of his heart at her smile.
What harm could it do to have Hannah’s company for another meal?
That night, she made pretzel soup and schnitz un knepp, and Susie became more relaxed in her presence.
“Do you like it, Susie?” Hannah asked, as Susie gathered bits of ham and apple in her plate with her last bite of dumpling.
She nodded. “Datt’s bratwurst catches fire and from noodles he makes mush.”
With a belly laugh, Caleb pulled Susie’s kapp string. “Don’t tell my secrets, Susiekins.”
His daughter patted his face. “I like Teacher’s cookin’ Datt, but I love you more.”
Caleb regarded Hannah. “She intended no slight.”
“I understand. She does not really know me. I loved my grossdaudy more than anybody,” she told his daughter.
“Is your grossdaudy here?” Susie asked. “Can I say hello to him?”
“No, liebchen. He has gone to walk with God.”
“Did he drown in a pond like Mommy? Do you see his blue face coming for you in the night? Are you afraid, though you loved him, that he will pull you into that water with him then beneath the dirt in the grabhoff?”
Caleb took his daughter’s revelation like a knife to the chest.
“Oh. Oh, no, sweetheart,” Hannah said. “He was old and ready to go.”
“Mommy was ready. She told me so when she came to say goodbye.”
Caleb blanched and grasped his daughter’s arms. “You did not tell me that. What did Mommy say?”
Susie swallowed hard. “That she would . . .” His daughter’s words trailed to nothing. Tears filled her eyes.
“Easy, Caleb,” Hannah said, covering his hand on Susie’s arm, her touch getting through to him.
He relaxed his grip and brought his daughter close. “What did Mommy say, Susiekins?”
“That she would watch over me from heaven.”
Hannah jumped when Caleb stood, knocking his chair to the floor. He pushed Susie into Hannah’s arms, ignoring his daughter’s sobs, and made for the door. “I have to—” His voice broke. “I need to . . . walk.”
Hannah thought he should have said “run”. Panic, she read in him. Horror. Fury.
Before she had a chance to respond, he was gone.
Hannah understood. She did not even mind that Susie’s weeping got louder.
“It is all right, Susie. Your datt just needs . . . a minute. He will be back.” But Susie did not calm. Her screams escalated instead, as did Hannah’s worry for her and her father. She wanted to go outside and look for Caleb, but Susie’s wailing would only make him feel guiltier. He needed time to absorb what he had just learned.
His wife drowned but said goodbye first?
Lord, what must he be feeling?
Hannah rocked and held Susie tight while promising the child that she would see nothing but bunnies and kittens in her sleep, until her crying stopped and she slept. By then, an hour had passed and Hannah worried about Caleb. She placed Susie on her bed and left the bedroom door open, and then she went out to her small yard.
In the moonlight, she could see Caleb clearly – no coat or hat – about twenty yards distant, standing beside the fish pond, just staring at the water.
Could he imagine his wife floating lifelessly there?
Did he believe himself as responsible for the death of another, as Hannah believed herself responsible for so many? “It is not your fault,” she said when she reached him, mostly because that is what other people told her, though she did not believe it, and neither would he. Still, she had to try.
“Where is Susie?” he asked.
“Asleep on my bed.”
“What?” he shouted, turning on her. “She will be scared to death when she wakes.”
“No, no, she will be fine. She already knows my room. Earlier she examined it from—”
He bumped her shoulder as he passed, unaware of her losing her balance and barely regaining it. “Caleb, come back. It will do you good to talk.”
“My daughter needs me.”
“You cannot hide behind her small skirts forever,” Hannah said, regretting it instantly.
Caleb stopped but did not turn to look at her. “If that is what you think is going on here,” he said, his words clipped, “then you would be no kind of mother.”
He must have heard her gasp, because he turned to see her step back, as if he had struck her a physical blow. “Hannah, I did not mean—”
“You did mean.” She took some satisfaction now in passing him by, going inside, and letting the door shut in his face.
No matter the wound, Hannah gathered Susie in her arms and held her close, taking comfort in her heartbeat, if only for a moment. When Caleb entered the room, she placed Susie in his arms. “You are right, she will be safer now. Even your mothering instincts must be better than mine.”
Caleb set Susie back on the bed and covered her with the bright quilt.
In the hazy light from the kerosene lamp, the quilt’s “sunshine” squares seemed sunnier somehow with Susie’s beautiful head of cinnamon curls peeking from beneath them.
Caleb took her hand and tugged. “Come,” he said, but she did not move. His touch felt so good, she knew it must be wrong.
“Hannah,” he begged. “Forgive me. Please. I am so sorry.”
Her legs began to move, finally, but all she could feel was the touch of his hand warming her. Despite his earlier display of temper, he stopped and placed her shawl around her shoulders.
On her small porch, she sat on the new swing Old Abe Hershberger had made for her.
The wind whistling up the valley sounded like a cautioning wail as Caleb sat beside her and took her hand in his. She looked into the void of the past and she saw . . . winter.
When the silence stretched, she turned to Caleb. “For Susie’s sake, if not for your own,” she said, “tell me what happened to her mother.”
Six
“I do not know what happened to Naomi,” Caleb said. “One day she was sick, the next she was dead.”
/> Relief surged through Hannah. “Dead from her illness, then.”
Caleb shook his head, leaned forward, elbows on knees, and covered his face with his hands. “I wish to God I knew what happened that night.”
Despite his muffled voice, Hannah caught both prayer and irreverence in his words, and her icy heart began to thaw. “Tell me what you do know, from the beginning,” she said. “Share your burden, lighten it. No one will treat it more gently than I.”
Caleb sighed but remained silent and, when Hannah prepared to give up and check on Susie, he sat back and cleared his throat. For a few silent minutes, he ran his thumb over her blunt, broken fingernails, and Hannah wished she had not defied the laws of nature to dig in the winter earth. How prideful to care about jagged fingernails at such a time.
“Naomi had been unhappy for a long while,” Caleb finally said. “Since before our marriage, worse after it, but worse still after Susie turned a year old, because there were no more babies. Not that I kept from—” He cleared his throat. “I mean, there should . . . could have been. I . . . loved her, you know?”
“I understand,” Hannah said. “You did not keep from her.”
He nodded. “Yes, no, I did not . . . keep from her.”
“How sad your wife must have been, if she chose to leave a man who loved her so much he could tell a stranger so.”
Caleb faced her. “Funny, I met you yesterday, but I do not think of you as a stranger.”
She squeezed his hand. “Danke,” she said. “Thank you.”
“A year ago, we thought she was carrying, maybe six months gone, but she was in pain, and she grew too big too fast.”
“Cancer,” Hannah whispered and saw the surprise in his eyes, wishing the moon was not so bright, because she could also see the tears he tried to blink away. “My mother,” she explained.
She read his sympathy. “Naomi died the night of the day we found out,” he said. “My fault.”
