“You could just as well marry and start a family in the Englisch world.”
“In theory, but I’m almost twenty-eight, and I don’t even date that often. For one thing, the hours a chef works are pretty limiting. And then there’s the fact that most men I meet either aren’t churchgoers at all, or it’s just a Sunday thing they do.”
“They don’t live their faith.”
“No. And I’m finding I want the depth of faith I see around me. I . . . believe I am finding it.”
Julia was frank that she’d never found the Ordnung restrictive in a way that affected her life. “I married Luke, though, and because he’d lived and worked out in the world for so long, he’s more . . . flexible, I guess is the right word, than most Amishmen would be. So that makes a difference. I will say that my mother-in-law and Miriam both have strong voices in their households, too.”
“This is probably none of my business, but did you know when you converted that you’d be marrying Luke?”
“No. I’d sometimes hoped, but he was doing his best to keep his distance by then. I understood that I could make such a big decision only because I wanted to worship the way the Amish I’d gotten to know did. Most of the things I had to give up weren’t important to me. I went to Bishop Troyer without any idea whether there would be a future with Luke and Abby. I was in a panic about where I’d live, how I’d get around when I knew next to nothing about horses.”
She reminded Hannah about the instructional classes she’d need to take before she could be baptized.
“That gives you time to work through any hesitations, or change your mind if you come to believe it’s the right thing to do. Amos will want to be certain sure”—Julia gave an impish smile at the typical Amish phrasing—“that you are seeking conversion for the right reasons.”
“Unlike the bishop who oversaw Mom’s baptism and married her and my father.”
“I can’t imagine. I take it you don’t think her conversion was genuine.”
Hannah smiled sadly. “I truly don’t know. She has a way of latching passionately onto new enthusiasms, sure they’ll last even though they never do. She didn’t bother going to church after we left. Still, from what she’s said, I think it was mostly the life that she grew to hate.”
“But with the Amish, you can’t separate the two.”
Hannah sighed. “She certainly didn’t understand how intertwined the Amish faith is with their lives. Plus, she missed the concept that the Ordnung spells out behavior that’s not allowed. Mom . . . doesn’t hear what she doesn’t want to know. She was outraged to find out she was supposed to quit spending hours hanging out with her Englisch friends. And the idea that, as a wife to a hardworking man, she’d be expected to work hard, too? No. The whole thing probably seemed really romantic. I can see the movie running in her head. I suspect she’d have left Daad a lot sooner if I hadn’t been born.”
“But she cared enough to take you with her,” Julia said gently.
For better or worse. But Hannah didn’t say that, only nodded and managed a smile.
She spent another hour with Julia, who talked frankly about restrictions, and expectations, too, none of which surprised Hannah after living with her Amish family and working for Gideon for two months.
“I’m sure there are domineering men among the faith, even in our church district—but that’s not limited to the Amish,” Julia remarked.
“Unfortunately.” Jodi had found quite a few abusive men along the way.
Finally, as Julia walked Hannah out to her buggy, this new friend said, “Your mother would be horrified, wouldn’t she?”
“Yes. We . . . already touched on the subject. But I can’t see having much of a relationship with her going forward, no matter what. I think she’s broken in some way. I feel sorry for her, and I have forgiven her.”
“Did you feel better once you had?”
“It was like I could breathe for the first time in a long while.” She smiled. “I hadn’t realized what a heavy burden my anger was.”
Julia clasped her hand and squeezed. “I remember the moment when I let mine go.”
Warmed anew by the friendship, Hannah said, “Forgiving her doesn’t wipe from my mind and heart what she did to her own parents and to Daad. Everything that’s happened since I found out I had family has shone a harsh light on Mom, forcing me to see her in a way I never let myself acknowledge. What I’ve learned is that I have to accept Mom for what she is. She’d be a fun grandmother if I ever have children, as long as she knows not to undercut the values I teach.”
“Your grandmother?”
“Oh, I know she’d be happy, since that would mean me staying here in Tompkin’s Mill. Samuel stayed close to her and Robert, you know.” She was quiet for a moment. “Reimagining your life isn’t easy.”
“No.” Julia hugged her, their cheeks pressed together. “If you choose to join us, you will be warmly welcomed, I know that.” A hint of mischief showed in her smile as she drew back. “I wouldn’t be the only member tripping over words in the Ausbund, or sticking my foot in my mouth in ordinary conversations.”
Hannah was laughing as she got into the buggy and picked up the reins.
Even as she watched nervously for traffic, she felt the comfort of knowing that, if she took this step, she wouldn’t be alone.
* * *
* * *
To the best of his recollection, Gideon had only been in a church three times in his life. Once for an Englisch neighbor’s wedding. Once for Brooke Stephenson’s funeral, and the last time for the funeral service held for the teenage boy killed in that same accident. It felt important that he express his sorrow for Brooke as well as Jerrod Smith. Gideon had stared a long time at a blown-up photograph of the boy.
Ach, and here he was for yet another funeral service, this one for Hannah’s grandfather. He saw three other horses and buggies when he arrived. He recognized all three horses: one Samuel’s, one belonging to Bishop Troyer, and the last, the black gelding, Luke Bowman’s. He was a little relieved to know the stares wouldn’t all be directed at him.
Hannah had come to work Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, just as always, but had been more subdued than usual. A few times he met her eyes and worried at what he saw there. He could tell Rebekah and Zeb felt apprehensive, too. Was she already pulling away from them, preparing to give her notice? He couldn’t decide. Wednesday afternoon, she reminded him that she wouldn’t be working tomorrow because of the funeral. When he said, “Ja, I have not forgotten,” she only nodded.
Now, when he entered the church, he found Luke, Julia, Amos, and Samuel sitting in the back pew, with room to spare. Gideon slid in beside Samuel, and they exchanged a few quiet words. Amos leaned forward to greet Gideon.
He assumed Hannah and her grandmother would already be here, right in front. Hannah’s mamm, too. Gideon was curious to set eyes on her, after all he’d heard.
Although he would never feel comfortable worshipping God in such fancy surroundings, he’d concede this was a handsome church, with a soaring ceiling and richly colored stained glass windows depicting Jesus, the disciples, and Mary and Joseph on a donkey. A shiny casket surrounded by flowers rested atop a stand in front, near a podium. Around them murmured conversations continued, and once he heard a phone ring.
At least it was silenced quickly.
The service wasn’t long. One elderly man who apparently had been a longtime friend of Robert Hinsch went up front to speak about him, praising him for his kindness, his generosity, for a life well lived.
None of the women spoke. Gideon guessed that Hannah’s grandmother was too overcome to be able to put words together.
Barely forty-five minutes later, everyone stood and waited while the minister and the three women started up the aisle. The one that had to be Hannah’s mother was sobbing uncontrollably, leaning heavily on a man Gideon didn�
��t recognize who had stepped out of a pew to offer her an arm. Instead of leaning on someone else, Hannah had a supportive arm around her grandmother, while the minister hovered behind them. As they came abreast of the last row, Hannah’s gaze flashed to Gideon first, then to Samuel, Luke, and Julia. She tried to smile and failed, yet something about her seemed different. Gideon tried to decide what that was. Perhaps it was only her strength showing, the strength her grandmother needed right now.
Then they were past, and others in the congregation crowded the aisle. Gideon glanced at Samuel, who hadn’t noticeably reacted to his former wife’s presence or big display of grief.
So worked up she was, Gideon couldn’t say how much she looked like her daughter.
At the foot of the stone steps outside, Hannah stood with her grandmother, who spoke quietly to people. Her eyes were red and swollen, but she kept her composure. Hannah stepped forward to hug her daad, then Julia. She and Amos talked longer than Gideon would have expected, even stepping aside from the others. She seemed grateful when they parted. At last, she came to Gideon, her lips trembling. He remained stiff when he would have liked to put his arms around her. He might have done it if the bishop weren’t been watching.
“I didn’t know you planned to come,” she said. “Any of you. Denke. It’s so good of you.” She blinked back tears. “Most of these people are strangers to me. I’m so grateful you came for my sake.”
“Of course I came.” He felt almost angry because she hadn’t thought anyone except maybe her father would care enough about her. She was easy to love; look at how his kinder had fallen for her. Gideon still didn’t entirely understand why she wasn’t married and raising a family.
Except that wasn’t altogether true. She had become used to standing alone because of her mamm, the woman who was still sobbing over by a car, collecting sympathy.
Not a kind thought, Gideon corrected himself . . . but, unfortunately, also true. Jodi Hinsch had chosen not to see her mother and father for twenty-three years, led them to believe she and their granddaughter were dead. Yet now she was crumpling instead of supporting her own mamm, who had just lost her husband.
Had guilt made her grief so extreme? Gideon would have liked to believe that, given the alternative, which was that she just liked attention.
“Will your mamm stay in Tompkin’s Mill?” he asked.
Hannah’s gaze followed his. “Probably as long as she’s involved with Todd Wright, the man with her. He’s a bank manager. Apparently they dated in high school. He’s recently divorced. And, of course, she may wait for the divorce to become final.”
The divorce from Hannah’s daad. He glanced at Samuel, who was watching his daughter with concern, showing no interest in the woman he had once married but not seen for over twenty years. Gideon wasn’t surprised; Samuel was well known for his unshakable faith and good nature. Although even his air of contentment and calm must have been strained by the disappearance of his wife and small daughter.
“My grossmammi is taking this very hard,” Hannah continued. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but could I take tomorrow off, too?”
“Ja, of course you can,” he returned readily, even as he hurriedly ran through his plans. In the early afternoon he had an appointment at the produce auction house. While he was in town, he’d go to the bank and stop at the hardware store for a replacement handle for his ax, too, but he should be home, no problem, before his kinder left school. Just to be certain, he’d hurry, best anyway because there was talk of a storm tomorrow. He didn’t mind getting splattered, but it was his experience that some Englischers didn’t drive sensibly when the road was wet and slick. “We’ll miss you,” he continued, “but it’s good your grossmammi has you. And that you had time with your grossdaadi.”
“Ja.” Hannah gave him another tremulous smile that made him want again to do more than stand here, as stiff as the statue of some Civil War general that stood in the park. That statue cared about nobody. “Denke,” she whispered, and turned to hurry toward her grossmammi, who had walked as though exhausted to one of the cars, accompanied by the pastor.
* * *
* * *
The following morning started with a bang. Her eyes almost swollen shut from weeping, Jodi was already at the small apartment when Hannah arrived.
Hannah toasted the friendship bread she’d brought and made coffee for all of them. Helen gave her a grateful smile when she accepted the delicate cup with coffee.
“I’ve hardly eaten a thing, but that bread smells really good. What is it?”
“It’s lemon poppy—”
“What if Daddy never forgave me?” Jodi wailed.
Setting her cup down on the coffee table with a small click, Helen looked at her oddly. “I don’t remember you ever asking for his forgiveness. Or mine, either. How could you, without first admitting that you did anything wrong?”
“I had to leave,” she whispered. “I had to. You wouldn’t have understood. But . . . but the death certificates . . . When I asked Kevin to make them, it was Samuel I was thinking about. He’d be able to remarry and have a new family. I knew it wasn’t fair.”
Was it remotely possible that was true? The very softness of her mother’s voice was more persuasive than her usual histrionics.
If anything, Helen’s back stiffened. “So, you didn’t think about your father and me, at all? It was fine for us to grieve for you and Hannah?”
Fresh tears welled in Jodi’s eyes. “I couldn’t let myself think about that! I knew eventually I’d be able to call you. And, well, you hadn’t seen us in years anyway.”
“So that made everything fine.” Helen shook her head and gazed down at her hands.
Hannah didn’t say a word.
Jodi jumped up, but the pain on her face looked real. “I never meant to hurt anyone. Can’t you believe that?”
Helen lifted her head at that. “Then tell me.” She sounded hard. Not like herself. “Why didn’t you take the time to get a divorce?”
“It would have taken forever! And . . . and I was losing Hannah. What if they’d hidden her? Even if they didn’t, I was terrified of letting Samuel have her even for weekends.”
Not weekends, Hannah thought. Unless the judge had been biased against the Amish, he or she should have given primary custody to Samuel, who owned a home and had a solid income and family members willing to care for his small daughter during the workday. Jodi hadn’t had even the prospect of a job or apartment, never mind the means to pay for day care. Perhaps she’d assumed her mother wouldn’t offer to help given her disapproval of her daughter’s behavior.
Mom might really have lost me, Hannah realized with sudden clarity. Jodi had made her choices out of what she called love, however misguided they’d been, however damaging to her daughter, however hurtful to her husband and parents. She would never understand the appalling selfishness of everything she’d done.
Hannah’s strongest feeling for her mother was deep pity. Did Mom understand that even if Hannah continued to include her in her life, in most meaningful ways she had now lost her daughter for good?
Jodi was looking desperately from her mother to Hannah and back. “Neither of you believe me. Oh! I never should have come back.”
“But you needed money,” Helen said.
“I could have found something. I just wanted—” Her face twisted, she spun away, and an instant later the apartment door slammed shut.
Hannah set down her own coffee to hold her grandmother, who had broken down in tears again.
* * *
* * *
“Didn’t you hear?” A large man whose belly strained against the striped fabric of his overalls had paused just outside the open double doors to the auction house to talk to an Amish farmer who looked only vaguely familiar to Gideon. “There’s been a tornado watch issued. A small one touched down in Oklahoma, and there’s a warning ou
t for Arkansas.”
Gideon slowed to eavesdrop, and felt some alarm he quickly dismissed. Tornadoes hadn’t been a problem in upstate New York. Even in the time he’d been here in Missouri, however, he learned that at this time of year, tornado watches came frequently. Last summer, there were several warnings specifically aimed at this corner of the state, but none had formed in this county.
Nonetheless, this was why he’d made certain that Rebekah, Zeb, and now Hannah knew the location of the shelter.
He overheard more talk about the tornado threat inside, and then at the hardware store. Nobody sounded especially concerned. Dark clouds had formed, and he expected rain and even hail, but these clouds didn’t form the specific “wall” others had told him to watch for. Nor was there any hint of rotation.
His business at the bank completed, he guided his gelding down an alley behind the bank and its drive-through, and out onto a cross street with parked cars and pickup trucks on each side. He saw a man just ahead jump into one of those massive pickup trucks and heard the engine rev, but Fergus continued placidly on. The light ahead turned green. They could turn and follow the same road all the way home.
The horse and buggy were abreast of the black truck when it pulled away from the curb right at Gideon. The front fender struck his buggy, the fiberglass side crunched inward, the right wheel buckled, and the gelding staggered and fell to his knees.
Shocked by how quickly the collision had happened, Gideon took an instant to be sure he was uninjured. Then he leaped out to go to his horse’s head.
Chapter Twenty-Five
When a news ticker appeared along the bottom of the television during one of Helen’s favorite daytime shows that afternoon, Hannah sat straight up, devoured the message, waited until it repeated, and then jumped to her feet.
Finding Hope Page 28
