by Amy Clipston
“Anytime.”
Now why did he say that?
CHAPTER 6
The guard previously planted at the Stutzmans’s door had moved to sit at a picnic table in the front yard. Thaddeus stifled a groan. If anyone had struck fear into his heart as a boy, it was Zechariah.
With his fierce frown and critical brown eyes, the man knew how to send a gaggle of kids racing away when discovered fishing in his pond without an invitation. He no longer cut such an imposing figure. The Parkinson’s disease had ravaged his ability to walk, to talk, and sometimes, to think, but he was still Zechariah.
By the same token, Thaddeus wasn’t a child anymore. He had his own child now. One glimpse of her before submitting to his punishment was all he wanted. It would be a memory to cherish while he served his time. He didn’t deserve it, but Hannah had a kind, generous heart. From the look on Phillip’s face at the Purple Martin earlier, Thaddeus needed to start mending fences now, not two or three or four months from now.
Long days and nights of the bann would give Phillip more time to capture that generous heart and make it his own.
Thaddeus won that heart first and then threw it away like trash. What kind of man bailed on a woman he claimed to love? A boy who needed to grow up.
Two years in Nappanee away from family and friends had made him grow up fast. He learned independence. He learned to take responsibility for himself. He learned what the word lonely meant. He’d run away from responsibility only to find that he couldn’t live without it. Sitting in the service on Sunday mornings watching women across the aisle cuddle babies in their arms had served as an endless reminder of what he’d left behind. The scent of baby on the young woman who served his sandwich after the service was like a memory he couldn’t quite place.
Every letter from Mattie reminded him he need only repent and ask for forgiveness and his old life would be his.
He had banked on that knowledge the entire 530 miles from Nappanee to Jamesport.
Right up until he saw Phillip and Hannah sitting on those stools side by side. Sure, there’d been a stool between them—lip service to the Gmay elders who would disapprove of them openly courting. But it didn’t fool Thaddeus.
He slid from the buggy and stood firm, feet planted just outside Laura’s vast array of lantana, vinca, pansies, yellow belles, and marigolds in pinks, purples, reds, whites, and yellows. They were bright against a brilliant sun that hovered near the horizon of the April sky. The great-grandkids must’ve helped. There was no way the seventy-something great-grandmother with her painful arthritis knelt to plant all these flowers.
Or maybe Hannah planted them. Maybe she found time between working at the restaurant and caring for Evie. The image of her ginger hair shining in the sun, her nose wrinkled in concentration as she dug in the fresh dirt hovered in his mind’s eye. She loved to garden with her mother. She’d never tired of listening to him talk about the gardens he would someday design and plant for Englishers who didn’t have the time or inclination to do it themselves. She’d shared the dream with him before he ruined everything.
Now he had to fix it. Thaddeus took a step forward. “Is she here?”
Zechariah grasped his walker with both gnarled hands. He wore a black jacket even in the warm spring weather. He had to be closing in on eighty. “If you mean Hannah, jah, she’s here.” His jasper eyes bore holes in Thaddeus’s forehead. “What do you want with her, suh? You know you shouldn’t be here.”
“I just want to talk for a minute or two.” He wrangled his emotions until he had them under control. “To see my dochder before I go to the bishop.”
“Your dochder?” Zechariah snorted. His voice had grown hoarse and his words slurred in the past few years. But his disdain was obvious. “Hannah had a long day at the restaurant. She’s tired and Evie has the sniffles. She’ll go to bed soon.”
“She is my dochder.”
“And you committed a Fehla. You can’t come in the house. You need to go see the bishop. See about making a confession.”
“I know and I will, but you said I could come back here tonight.”
“One, you can’t come in my house. Two, I don’t believe I said that.” Zechariah leaned back on the bench. His left arm jerked, then his right. “I believe I said you can’t see Evelyn without Hannah’s permission. That little girl doesn’t know you from a hole in the ground. You might scare her.”
“I wouldn’t scare her.”
As if to refute his statement, an unhappy wail floated through the screen door. The door opened, and Hannah trudged out. She held a tearful little girl in a pale-blue dress on her hip.
Evie. She had dark, curly hair that had escaped two fat braids hanging to her shoulders. Her skin was fair, except for her cheeks red with exertion. The girl had a healthy set of lungs.
Hannah took two steps. She froze. “Thaddeus.”
“I told you I would come.” He struggled to keep his voice even. “She looks like me.”
“Gott’s will, I reckon. His design.” Both hands on his walker, Zechariah stood. His shoulders were hunched, his knees bowed in. He shuffled toward the ramp that led to the porch. He nodded at Hannah. “If you need me or Laura, call out.”
Hannah scurried down the steps. “Let me help you to the door.”
“I’m fine.”
He teetered off-balance with every step.
Hannah shifted the wriggling girl to her other hip. She put one hand on Zechariah’s shoulder. “We can’t have you falling again.”
Thaddeus held out his arms. “I can hold Evie for you if you need to walk him to the door.”
“Nee.”
Hannah and Zechariah spoke in unison with equal ferocity.
The slow but steady parade eased up the ramp to the porch and to the door. Hannah opened it and waited while Zechariah entered. She disappeared inside and called for Laura. Then she reappeared and trudged back down the ramp.
“He’s worse.”
“Much. He’ll need a wheelchair soon.”
“It must be a lot for Laura. She’s no spring chicken either.”
“In sickness and in health.” Hannah’s tone sharpened to a fine, fatal point. She eased onto the picnic table bench and settled Evie on her lap. “But those words mean nothing to you.”
“I’m not a monster.” The words escaped before Thaddeus could stop them. “She’s my dochder.”
“What does that make me?” Hannah cleared her throat and ducked her head. “Never mind. You might as well sit.”
“Since you asked so nicely.” He sat. She edged away to the far corner of the pine bench. “How old is she now?”
Hannah’s scowl burned the skin from his cheeks. “She’s twenty-one months. Her birthday is July nineteenth.”
Evie wiggled around on her mother’s lap until she faced Thaddeus. Tears streaked her face, and she needed her nose wiped. She smiled a wide smile that featured two lower front teeth and two on the top. His heart did a drum roll. Now she looked like Hannah.
Sweet. Mischievous. Pretty.
“What are you crying about, little one?”
Thaddeus reached to wipe away her tears. Evie drew back. Her lower lip protruded. She stuck her thumb in her mouth and hid her face in Hannah’s chest. He withdrew his hand.
“She’s shy around strangers.” Hannah’s tone held no recrimination, but her words sliced through skin and muscle as surely as if she’d stabbed him in the heart with a pitchfork. “She’s mostly here at the dawdy haus with Laura, although sometimes she plays at the big house with Ruby’s grandchildren. We’ve been living here since she was born. I help Mammi and she helps me.”
“And she doesn’t judge.”
“Nee, she doesn’t. Neither does Zechariah. They saved me.” Her expression somber, Hannah stroked Evie’s dark curls. “It was hard for Mudder and Daed. They say they forgive me, but they have a hard time forgetting. They don’t want me to be the wrong example for my schweschders. I understand that, but it’s hard.”
A child
should have her parents’ unconditional love. The rejection must hurt terribly. It was all Thaddeus’s fault. He swallowed against the lump in his throat. Finding a new beginning seemed almost impossible—if it weren’t for the little girl between them.
“Does she walk?”
“Since she was a year old.”
He cleared his throat. “Does she talk yet?”
“She babbles a lot. Hund and kitzn and millich and kuche.”
Dog, cat, milk, and cookie. “She knows what she likes.” Babies had such a sweet, small world. “Not mudder?”
“Nee.” Hannah’s cheeks went pink. “I reckon it’s because I work so much.”
“She knows you’re her mudder.”
“Jah, but she likes Mammi better.”
“I doubt that.”
“Why are you trying to make me feel better?”
“If I hadn’t left, you’d be at home with her.”
“You’re right.” Anger rippled across her face. Unshed tears shone in her eyes. “You ran away.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You said that before.” Her gaze dropped to Evie. The child’s breathing sounded congested, and her thumb popped out. She couldn’t suck on it and breathe at the same time. Poor thing. Hannah rubbed her back. “It doesn’t help any more now than it did then. You weren’t sorry enough to stay.”
“I want to explain.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s hard for me to understand myself.” Putting the boiling mess of emotion into words escaped him. Fear. Love. Shame. Disappointment in himself. The knowledge that he’d disappointed his parents, his grandparents, his friends. Weakness. Self-loathing. “I thought you would be better off without me.”
“So you ran away and left me to face it alone? You don’t get to make that into some kind of lofty course of action.”
“I’m not. It was a low, shameful thing to do. I knew it then and I know it now.” He shifted on the hard, wooden seat and stared out at the dusk. “I was immature and unworthy of someone like you. There’s no excuse. Nothing I can say will make it right. I understand that, but I want to try to make it up to you. I’ve missed you every single day.”
He’d run away from Hannah, but she’d been the first thought in his head when he awoke in the morning and the last when he nodded off to sleep at night. Some nights she visited him in his dreams and he woke up racked with a longing that could not be assuaged.
He dared a quick side glance. Hannah stared straight ahead. Tears trickled down her face. She swiped at them with her free hand. “What are you doing here? Why come back now?”
“Remember when we used to talk about saving our money to open our own nursery?” He stared out at Laura’s brilliant array of flowers, the product of being lovingly planted, weeded, watered, and nurtured. “I still want to do that. I was hoping you would too.”
“That was a long time ago. We were kinner dreaming big dreams. Now I have a bopli to think of and you spent the last two years working in a factory.”
“I thought working in the factory would be an easy way to earn money to start my own business, but I hated it. Putting together RVs and being inside all day was the worst kind of work.” He grasped for words to explain the tedium that dulled his mind during those days. How he’d had to force himself from bed each morning to face yet another day of mindless work. “I realized how much I like working with sun and earth. I came back to find work at a nursery or greenhouse, get some experience, and work my way up, Gott willing.”
“So it’s about you being happy?”
“It’s about doing something pleasing to Gott while being with family—my family—and being content with it.” Thaddeus studied his dirty work boots. “None of it has meaning, no matter what you’re doing, if you’re not doing it for the right reasons. I didn’t know that before. I know it now.”
“Some of us don’t have choices.” Her voice broke. “Don’t you think I long to be outside, grubbing in the dirt, singing songs to my bopli, and planting daffodils with the sun on my back and the breeze on my face? Do you think I like waiting tables all day? We do what we have to do.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s my fault. I was stupid and idiotic, but I never stopped loving you.” The desire to hold Evie mingled with a fierce need to wrap his arms around Hannah. He’d hurt her so much. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise. I saved all my money from the RV factory. Aenti Bertie refused to take a cent from me. We can have our dream.”
“What are you saying exactly?”
“I’m saying I came back here to ask you to marry me.”
Marry me.
The world tipped on its side. Hannah’s stomach twisted. To hear him talk about dreams that had turned to ashes two years ago ripped open wounds that had only just begun to heal.
For two years he’d been the last thing she thought about before she went to bed and the first image in her head when she awoke. In her dreams he plucked pink and red roses and arranged them in vases on their kitchen table. His hands were callused and warm, his face tanned from working in the sun. He was always smiling, always laughing. Those dreams left tears on her face every time she opened her eyes to face another day alone.
She stood and jolted toward the path that led to the house and safety. “Please go.”
Thaddeus stood and grabbed her arm. “Please forgive me. I’ll make my confession. I’ll do my time. Then marry me.”
“Don’t touch me.” The strength of his grip and the warmth of his fingers on her skin threatened her defenses. She swallowed against hot tears and tightened her grip on Evie. “You show up here out of the blue . . . You expect too much.” Evie started to wriggle in her arms. “Hush, hush, sweet, bopli. You’re okay. You’re fine. You’re just tired like your mudder.”
“I know. I know it’s a lot to ask.” His hand dropped. “But I know you. You have a forgiving heart. And you told me that night when . . . when we did what we did . . . that you loved me.” His startling blue eyes implored her to forgive him. “It wasn’t just what we did. You never would have given yourself to me if you didn’t love me. You’re not that kind of person. You give all of yourself because you give all your love.”
“And knowing that, you walked away.” Either he was right, or he thought she was a better person than she really was. Which was it? “You threw away my love and the gift I gave you.”
He hung his head. “I had to grow up. To become a better man. To be deserving of you.”
“How could I ever trust you again? I work hard every day to forgive you, but trust is a different matter. Besides, there’s . . .” She stopped. What was Phillip to her? She couldn’t think. Not while standing so close to Thaddeus. Her gaze went to his lips. Those full, soft lips. His firm jaw and the way his hair curled around his ears. The size of his mammoth hands with long sensitive fingers. Hands that turned soft with a touch.
Stop it, stop it, stop it.
“A lot has happened since you left. We didn’t sit around waiting for you to return if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I know. Mattie wrote to me about it.” His hand lifted as if to touch her again. She edged away. His hand dropped. “That’s why I came back. Before it’s too late. I don’t expect you to give me an answer now, but I’m asking you to wait. Wait until after the bann ends before you make your choice. Don’t rush into anything because you feel alone or because you think Evie will be better off.”
How dare he ask. He had no right. The searing pain in her heart dissipated, replaced by furious, molten anger. “Don’t you dare say you expect me to wait while you are under the bann. You don’t deserve that.”
He deserved her anger. He deserved the bann.
“I know I don’t . . . I’m only hoping and praying you’ll find it in your heart to consider the possibility that I might have changed. That I might be worth waiting for. That the part of me you fell in love with is still in here.” He touched his chest. “The part that needed to grow up has.”
She hadn’t waited for him, but neither had she moved forward. Phillip had tried. He’d tried hard. He had a sunny disposition. He was good with Evie. He loved Evie. Did he love Hannah? Even after two years, she couldn’t be sure. Did she love him?
Thanks to Thaddeus, she couldn’t trust her feelings for any man.
Thaddeus leaned in so close she could see the tiny scar on the bridge of his nose, the one he got when he and his brother Simon butted heads while playing basketball. For a second it seemed like he was going to kiss her. Surely he didn’t think she would allow such a thing. Instead, his lips brushed against Evie’s forehead. He touched the baby’s cheek. “Danki for letting me see her.”
Evie giggled. Her chubby hands flailed and reached for Thaddeus. “Daadi, Daadi.”
Thaddeus smiled. His smile once eclipsed the entire world. That smile had led her down the path to sin and despair.
“I’m your daed, bopli. Zechariah is daadi.”
Nee, nee. Don’t let that smile lead you astray. Not again. “She thinks all men are daadi.”
He nodded, but the smile lingered. “She looks like me, but she has her mudder’s heart.”
What did that mean? “We’ll see about that.”
“I hope so with all my heart.”
He turned and walked to his buggy, hopped in, and drove away.
Evie tried to pull away from Hannah. She waved. “Bye-bye. Bye-bye, daadi.”
How could a baby know?
CHAPTER 7
Porch swings served as well as rocking chairs. Providing the lullaby, two blue jays conversed in the oak tree clothed in green buds in the front yard. Hannah gave the swing a push with one foot. Maybe the motion would put Evie to sleep. She sat next to Hannah, drinking milk from a sippy cup. Wide awake.
A breeze rustled the tree branches. The cool evening air caressed Hannah’s still warm cheeks. Darkness had settled over the yard, but the birds still chatted in the distance as if trying to settle a long-standing dispute. They were probably gossiping over the heated exchanged they just witnessed between Hannah and Thaddeus. The man thought he could simply return, offer a nonsensical excuse, beg forgiveness, and oh, by the way, will you marry me?