“Is Bernice their youngest?” asked Gideon, now curious.
“No, two older girls are married, my mother said, but I think there may be three or four younger.”
Gideon felt a stab of familiar pain for both Leah and the unborn boppli he’d lost. No one else had known she was pregnant, and he’d never wanted to tell anyone afterward.
“Mathias and Lois, I don’t know well,” Luke said. “I can ask my mother or father about them.”
After giving that a moment of thought, Gideon shook his head. “I think I must leave this in Amos’s hands.”
“Ja,” Luke agreed, although he looked regretful.
Gideon wondered how much, after so many years out in the world, the other man had struggled to humble himself before the Lord and the bishop. Yet he seemed to have succeeded. Gideon hadn’t had any such struggle . . . until the aftermath of Leah’s death. He’d found some peace here in Tompkin’s Mill, in part because he respected Amos Troyer and the two ministers, too.
He sighed and said, “Denke for your honesty. These are not troubles I expected to have after moving.”
“These aren’t troubles you should have had, here or in any other Amish settlement!”
“There is gossip anywhere.”
“But not usually so mean-spirited.”
That was blunt, indeed, and also true.
“I may leave early, once Rebekah has eaten and helped clear the tables. Zeb won’t like it, but—”
“Your place isn’t so far. We’d be glad to bring him home later, if he wouldn’t mind.”
“You plan to stay?”
Luke smiled. “Abby will be happy to play with her friends when she’s done eating, and Julia put Nathan down for a nap just before she sat down. His schedule is never convenient.”
Gideon grinned. “Except that Julia has a chance to eat in peace.”
“Oh, she’d have had that, anyway. I’d be holding him.”
Despite his wry tone, Luke’s happiness was apparent. And why not? He had what Gideon had wanted and once had: a loving wife, a family, and satisfying work.
A minute later, he spoke to Zeb, who was next up to bat, and then Rebekah, who wanted to play with her friends, too. It was no surprise when Hannah said, “Mose and I have room for her. I’d be glad to watch over her after you go.” Her smile for Rebekah was reassuring, her eyes anxious when her gaze met Gideon’s.
“I’m fine. Just not wanting to stand around talking.”
“Okay.” She touched his arm, so lightly he barely felt her fingertips rest on him for an instant, yet his skin might as well have been bare.
He thanked her, too, then walked down the lane to reclaim his gelding and buggy, glad to escape the bustle and endless talk, even as he wished for the impossible.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hannah took her keys from the ignition and unfastened her seat belt, but then just sat there in front of the Mill Café, where her mother had suggested they meet for lunch. The fact that this was where Jodi had met Samuel disturbed Hannah. Did her mother even remember?
Pushing back the dread, Hannah made herself get out of her car and walk into the café. Not a buggy was parked here; if any Amish were having lunch in town today, they would more likely have gone to the Country Days Café or the bakery, both Amish owned. Or possibly the Sonic Drive-In; the sight of horses and buggies in those outside spots had struck her as incongruous.
The cool air inside took her by surprise, so accustomed had she become to the heat. The hostess approached her, but Hannah saw Jodi in a booth at the far corner and said, “My mother is already here.”
Walking toward the booth, she saw double for a disconcerting instant. She must have been a young adult, out on her own, pleased to see her mother. The illusion was maintained because, from this distance, Jodi could have been in her thirties or even younger, her smile as carefree as ever, her delight intoxicating. In the here and now, Hannah would have liked to be almost anywhere else.
Well, she’d been a coward long enough. She’d make herself listen, and then judge for herself . . . but she prayed her mother didn’t tell more lies or embellish the ones she’d already told.
She nodded as she slid into the booth. A menu lay on the table in front of her. Hannah reached for a glass of ice water.
“Hello, Mom.”
Her mother flashed her brightest smile. “I’ve missed you so much! I can hardly believe we have the chance to talk at last, just the two of us.”
“Let’s order first, shall we?” Hannah picked up the menu, scanning it with little interest. When she was a kid, this would have been a treat. Now, well, she’d attended culinary school, worked in a restaurant that prided itself on innovation, and had more recently immersed herself in learning and expanding on a cuisine that was subtly different from the solid American fare you’d find at most places like this, probably anywhere in the country. Truthfully, she wasn’t very hungry, but the act of ordering and eating would provide a diversion, and maybe have a civilizing effect.
Mother and daughter, having lunch, catching each other up on their lives.
So, she imagined herself saying, I’m getting to know Daad—you know, the father you always claimed was dead? He’s super nice. We’re having such a good time.
An older waitress with bags under her eyes appeared. “What can I get for you girls?”
Jodi laughed happily at being called a girl.
Once they’d both ordered, they looked at each other across the table.
“Sweetie, I don’t understand what’s been happening at all. You’ve gotten so cold!”
Jodi’s teenager mannerisms and voice, all high drama and urgent exclamations, really grated today. In her own teenage years, Hannah had hardly noticed. Mom was just Mom. In the past six weeks or so, Hannah had become a hundred times more critical. More so than she liked.
Her Lord expected her to forgive.
But first, just once, she’d like some real honesty.
“Two months ago, I learned that you’d been lying to me for as long as I could remember,” she said quietly. “From little lies, like convincing me I’d never been in an Amish buggy, to the huge ones: claiming my father and grandparents were dead. It was just us.”
“It was!”
“Yes, it was, because you made sure of it.” When the waitress brought their drinks, Hannah bit down on everything else she wanted to say.
Then, resolved to stay calm, she continued. “You ran, and you keep running, whenever any authority might have had reason to look into my history. Or maybe it was your history you worried about—after all, you could have been arrested for kidnapping, couldn’t you?”
Jodi’s mouth rounded in horror. “That’s ridiculous! You’re my daughter. I was entitled—”
“No, you weren’t. You can’t possibly be that naive. You know that it’s illegal to take a child without the permission of the other parent.”
“He was hurting you!” Spite transformed Jodi’s usually breathy voice. “Samuel, and all those awful women he made sure were there to watch me when he couldn’t. If I did a single thing they didn’t like—”
“Daadi never hurt me.” If Hannah knew anything about the early years of her life, this was the most important. “I loved him. Those ‘other’ women were my aunts, my grandmother.”
“I could never do anything right. They hardly trusted me to change your diaper.”
Hannah couldn’t imagine her mother wanting to change a diaper, but she didn’t say anything.
Jodi’s face flushed with anger Hannah hadn’t seen in a long time.
“They’d cluck their tongues and snatch you out of my arms. Take the pins out of your diaper and put them back in their way.” Her voice kept rising. “If I warmed a bottle, one of them would grab it to check the temperature before I was allowed to sit down with you. They were scandali
zed if I let you run around in shorts and a T-shirt. Nothing I cooked was ever good enough. They stuffed their faces, and insisted Samuel had to eat ridiculous amounts of food or he wouldn’t be able to work hard. He was my husband, but I had zero say in how we lived. I was supposed to give up all my friends, and learn to harness and drive a horse. Cars are evil!” She clapped a hand to her chest. “Gasp! If any of those witches saw me get in one, she’d report to Samuel. You were my daughter, and I couldn’t take you with me when I went to town.”
Hannah realized she was finally hearing honesty. In a romantic haze, Jodi had married an Amishman without understanding that his faith, his life and culture, didn’t allow her to flit from one interest to another the way she always had. She’d somehow believed that marriage wasn’t any different than the jobs any teenager or young adult took, the college classes she could quit if they bored her. Fun for a while, but one day she’d seen that this might be forever.
Hannah could imagine her mother, first squirming, then panicking. Feeling trapped. Of course she wanted to run away, but she had a child now. Hannah knew Mom had loved her. She never doubted that. Jodi wouldn’t have considered leaving her. Seeing that Samuel and his family could give her little girl what she couldn’t would have demanded selflessness of which she was incapable.
If she’d even hinted to her parents that she wanted a divorce, she’d have seen their disapproval. The concept would have been unthinkable to the husband she hadn’t understood at all.
Suddenly, Hannah felt pity for her mother, despite the many lies.
“They were stealing you,” her mother said bitterly. “Teaching you to be just like them. If I’d waited any longer, you’d have fought me. Don’t you see? You were my child. I had to get you away before your world shrank to the size of theirs.” There it was again, the disgust. “I was saving you! And what thanks do I get? You act like I did something wrong.”
Their lunches came. Hannah was able to thank the waitress despite the tension between her and her mother. She felt how tangled that space between them was, like wild blackberry bushes, thick old canes bristling with razor-sharp thorns, the more supple, new canes as painfully cutting.
Once she and her mother were alone, Hannah tried to ignore the ache in her chest and the softening of her feelings. “You did do something wrong, Mom. How can you not see that? Grandma and Granddad loved me, too. So did my Amish grossmammi, Aenti Sarah. And Daadi, most of all.”
“Don’t use that language with me! Do you have any idea how much I despise it?”
“But they are Amish, and that’s their language. It’s my language, as much as English.”
“That’s ridiculous!” her mother exclaimed. “You’re twenty-seven years old. Nobody even remembers the stuff that happens before they’re five! You can’t tell me you understand them talking to you.”
“At first I didn’t. But, you know, Daad especially speaks perfectly fine English. I suppose you wouldn’t have married him if he hadn’t.”
“I wish he hadn’t. If he’d jabbered at me in that stupid language, I’d never have thought it would be fun to take a ride in that . . . that buggy. His accent was different, exciting. He was older than the boys I’d dated.”
Hannah liked Gideon’s accent, too, except that now she hardly noticed when they were speaking English or Deitsh or a mishmash of both. She just liked Gideon.
“Well, here’s news, Mom. I must have spoken Deitsh fluently when you took me away.” Kidnapped me. “Because I’ve soaked it up like a sponge. I didn’t have to learn it. I absorbed it. Whether you like it or not, I’m half-Amish.”
A different kind of horror appeared on her mother’s face. “You’re not thinking of joining them. Please tell me you aren’t.”
Hannah opened her mouth to say, Of course I’m not, but that isn’t the point. What came out was, “I feel at home here. We never had a home, did we? Maybe . . . maybe if you’d settled down, and I’d been able to stay in the same school district, make lifelong friends, feel like I belonged anywhere, I’d be a different person now. But I could never trust that tomorrow night, I’d sleep in the same bed. I quit unpacking. Did you know that? I had to be sure there’d be time to pack up the kitchen stuff, so my clothes stayed in that scroungy old suitcase.” She knew she was hurting her mother. Guilt battled with her need to be honest, too, if only this once. She hesitated. “There’s something else, too. I can’t tell you how much I love the faith I see among the Amish. You remember I was always a churchgoer.”
“Oh, church. I never understood.”
“But you grew up attending with your parents.”
“And I was bored every minute,” Jodi said sharply. “Although that was nothing compared to those awful Amish services! Three hours, and I only understood one in three words! Just try it and you’ll see.”
“I have, and I felt closer to God than I ever have before.”
Her mother stared at her in horror.
“The Amish who have chosen to be baptized believe so much more deeply. Their faith may shake, but it’s unbreakable. It shapes them, defines them. I’m drawn to that, Mom. I would love to have some certainty in my life. Sometime, somewhere.”
Sometime? In Gideon and his kinder, hadn’t she found what she’d always sought? Gideon would never let down anyone he loved. Or anyone whom he had the power to help, for that matter. He tried to keep some distance from her, but often failed. And he was always, always, trustworthy. She’d seen how gentle he was with Zeb and Rebekah, how he listened to them. How he listened to her, and changed his intentions because of what she said. He’d even, on occasion, let her see the softness he hid because it made him too vulnerable.
Could she possibly have fallen in love with Gideon Lantz? Or was she making the same mistake her mother had, all those years ago?
Since he very likely didn’t feel the same, her yearning would come to nothing.
Mom shook her head. “I can’t believe this. Everything I did for your sake, and it was all for nothing.”
Forgiveness came to her in that moment, a powerful wave of emotion. It was time, she knew, in part because her mother had been honest. Hannah was able to see clearly that what she’d told Helen was probably true. The young Jodi Hinsch might simply not have been capable of changing, maturing. Perhaps she had done the best she could.
Peace flooded through Hannah, washing away every negative emotion. The feeling was astonishing. Tears stung her eyes. How easy this was.
Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
God had seen that she was ready. Perhaps what she’d felt earlier wasn’t pity at all; it was acceptance. Much of her childhood had been frightening, but without its challenges, she wouldn’t be the woman she was now. The one who didn’t want a life hampered by anger.
I can forgive her, she thought. I do.
On a deep breath of relief, she reached across the table and took her mother’s hand in hers. “I love you, but I’m not like you, Mom.”
Jodi snatched her hand back. “I suppose you think you’re like him.”
“He makes up half of me. In the five years we lived with him, he did influence who I am. How could it be otherwise?” she asked gently.
Grabbing her purse, Jodi slid out of the booth. “If you join the Amish, I’ll never see you again.”
Was that grief? Or a threat to cut her off?
“That’s not true,” Hannah said gently. “You’ll always be my mother. You’ll make a wonderful grandmother, you know.”
Jodi’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know if I can.”
Hannah hurriedly stood, too, and embraced her mother. Jodi stayed stiff in her arms, but didn’t wrench herself away immediately, either. “I love you,” Hannah whispered.
Jodi clutched her daughter for one convulsive hug, then
tugged free and fled. Hannah had one last glimpse of her mother’s face, wet with tears, before she hurried toward the exit and rushed out to her car.
Close to tears herself, Hannah looked down at her untouched sandwich, then felt a fragile moment of humor. Naturally, it hadn’t even occurred to her mother to leave money for the check.
But her heart felt light when she dropped bills on the table, and when she, too, walked out.
“Thank you,” she whispered to a God she believed heard her.
* * *
* * *
Monday, Zeb came home from school sullen, even angry. When Gideon tried to find out why, his son refused to talk about it. In stubborn silence, he ate two of Hannah’s cookies, drank a glass of milk, and stalked out to do his chores.
Gideon blew out a breath and sat down across from Rebekah, who was nibbling daintily on her second cookie. “Do you know what’s wrong?”
She looked worried. “I saw some of the older kinder talking to him. Teacher was busy with Timothy, ’cause he backed up trying to catch a ball and ran into the wall. He was bleeding and crying.”
“Was he all right?”
“Ja, just a bump. Some of the boys were laughing at him.”
“That was unkind.”
She nodded firmly. “I told them they wouldn’t like it if someone laughed at them because they got hurt.”
“Good. I hope they understood.” He held Rebekah’s gaze. “Now tell me about Zeb.”
“I don’t know,” she said hesitantly. “On the way home, I asked what the big kids said. He wouldn’t tell me, and he won’t tell you, either, because he thinks you’ll lie.”
Gideon hoped she didn’t notice how rigidly he held himself. “Why would he believe I’d lie to him?”
She ducked her head and mumbled something.
“Rebekah?”
“I don’t know.”
Finding Hope Page 24
