by Amy Lillard
In fact, all of his kids were as different as three could be, yet they all favored him with dark hair and blue eyes. Essie’s hair was a mess of fuzzy curls, a gift from some way-back relative on Lizzie’s side of the family tree. Essie could chat the legs off a table, while Laura Kate spoke with confidence as she bossed her sister into compliance. Heaven help them all if she took a turn. Andy was growing more sullen every day. If asked, Aaron would have said that of all his kids, his daughters would need a mother most, but he was beginning to suspect that Andy was the one who needed the gentler touch. Aaron did the best he could, but he wasn’t able to be all the things his kids needed at all times. He was used to being busy and working hard. But the last year had worn him out.
The more tired he became, the more appealing the Ohio job was beginning to look.
“Breakfast is ready.” He barely got the words out before Andy pushed into the house, carrying the milk that Essie “got.”
Laura Kate set her morning gatherings on the table, then went to the basin to wash up, her sister not far behind.
“Use the soap, Essie,” he said without even turning to face them.
“Jah, Dat.” Her voice held just enough exasperation that he couldn’t help but smile.
Aaron dumped the ham on a plate and put it, along with a pan of biscuits, on the table.
After a few minutes of washing, drying, and silent prayer, they were all seated and the house was filled to quiet with the sounds of eating.
“Dat?”
“Jah, Essie?”
“Andy said we were movin’ to the North. That ain’t true, right? Me and Laura Kate, we told him that couldn’t be true.”
“Well now,” he said, all the while looking at his oldest. “I’ll tell you like I told Andy: when the decision is made, I’ll let you know. Until then, I’ll not be discussing it.”
“But, Dat—”
He lifted his hand to stop her protest. Remarkably, she fell silent. Or maybe not so remarkably. Essie never gave him much trouble. Even after Lizzie had passed. Laura Kate had become the mother, bossing her siblings to the point of annoyance. Andy had become withdrawn. Only Essie had kept her sunny disposition and sweet attitude.
Or as clear as he could remember. He hadn’t spent near as much time with them before Lizzie’s death as he had in the last year since.
“Now go on and eat,” he said. “Before you’re late to school.”
“Dat, it’s just across the road.” Essie bobbed in place as she chewed a bite of ham. He knew that under the table her legs were swinging furiously. The girl could not sit still.
“That’s another thing,” he said. “No coming home at lunch. Take your coolers like your brother.”
Laura Kate and Essie started to protest. But he couldn’t allow it. It was a bad habit, them running across to eat lunch at the house when they should be with their schoolmates. He had caved so many times after Lizzie’s death that it had become a bad habit in need of breaking. And today seemed like the perfect day to do that.
He shook his head. “I’m going over to the Abner Gingeriches’. And I won’t be home until well after dinnertime.”
Laura Kate gave a stern nod. “Jah, Dat. I’ll make sure Essie stays at school.”
There was no grumbling as the decision was made, but he could tell they weren’t happy. It was for the best, he told himself. He had coddled them long enough. “Make sure you stay there yourself.”
“Jah, Dat.”
After the kids left for school, Aaron hitched up his buggy and started toward the Gingerich place. He had known Abner all his life. There was even a time when he thought Abner would be his father-in-law, but God had different plans for them. Yet just because Hannah had jumped the fence to the Englisch, well, that didn’t mean he and Abner couldn’t be friends. He admired the man, looked up to him for both advice and direction. Aaron’s own father had passed, and his father-in-law had moved back to Ethridge, leaving him to lean on Abner.
But Abner couldn’t give him the answer to what was best for his family. He had only told Aaron to pray about the situation. Pray and listen for God’s answer. Maybe the future was in Ohio, or maybe it was here in Mississippi, married to someone like Gracie, Abner’s niece. Aaron had prayed. He had prayed that God’s will be carried out. He had prayed for the wisdom to know the direction to take his family. And he had prayed for answers to his many questions and peace in his heart. It was all a man could ask for.
But so far, there had been no answer, leaving him just as confused as he was before.
* * *
A strange car sat in the yard off to one side as Aaron pulled his buggy into the Gingeriches’ drive. The license plate on the back declared it to be a car from Tennessee, and he wondered if perhaps someone in Ethridge had hired a driver so they could come down and visit with the Gingeriches. It was nothing to see cars parked at the various houses. Drivers, tourists, even the occasional visitor from out of state. But something about the car sent his heart pounding in his chest.
He shook away the trepidation that crawled down his spine. It was nothing. Just a car. He was so wound up trying to make a decision about Ohio that his thoughts were all in a jumble. He had been praying so hard for God’s will that he was seeing signs where there were none. Signs that didn’t pertain to him at all.
He parked his buggy alongside the car and tied his horse to the fence. Abner, Jim, and David must’ve been watching for his arrival, for the sound of the saw stopped, then they all ambled out of the workshop. Seeing the three of them side by side, all dressed in matching blue shirts, their feet bare even on the wood shavings in the workshop, gave Aaron a sense of peace. The sight of them made him realize everything was going to be okay. It was as if the hand of God reached out to ease his anxiety.
“Hello,” Abner called, raising a hand in greeting.
Aaron waved in return, then met them halfway across the gravel drive.
“You come about that mare?” Abner asked.
Aaron nodded. “I had a little time this morning. Thought I would take a look at her.”
Jim and David shared a glance that had unrest rising in Aaron once again.
“You have a visitor?” He nodded toward the car in the drive.
“You could say that,” Jim said.
The three men looked so serious that for a moment Aaron worried that some sort of tragedy might have befallen the Gingeriches.
“No sense in beating around the bush,” David said. “Hannah came back last night.”
Chapter Three
Aaron could only blink as the words stumbled around inside his mind. Hannah was back. Hannah. His Hannah? No, not his. Not really. Though once upon a time he had thought of her just that way. Then she had decided that the Englisch world held more opportunities than their small Amish community, and she disappeared without even saying goodbye.
He cleared his throat, trying to get a handle on his mixed-up emotions. A hundred questions flitted through his thoughts, each one demanding to be asked first. What was she doing here? How long was she staying? Why had she come back now? Was she staying? They just kept coming.
“Hannah?” The one word was all he could say. Yet of anyone in the community, these three men knew what she had meant to him once upon a time. He could see it in their eyes: they didn’t know how he would react to the news she had returned. “She’s not . . .” he started, but was unable to finish the question. “I mean, how did she . . .” Again the words failed him. But the Gingerich men knew what he was trying to ask.
Jim shrugged. “We don’t know. She came back last night. Brought her son with her. Mamm talked to her more than anyone.”
“We just thought you should know,” David added.
“Danki.” At least that word he could manage. Hannah had a son.
Of all the days that he could’ve come out to look at the mare . . . He glanced toward the house, but didn’t let his gaze stray for long. He swung his attention back to the man before him and gave a resigne
d nod. “How about that mare?”
* * *
Hannah dried the last plate and handed it to her mother to put in the cupboard.
Mamm smiled and hummed a little under her breath.
She knew her mother was glad to have her back in Mississippi, if only for a time. But her father was another matter altogether. He wouldn’t speak to her or acknowledge her in any way. He wouldn’t even look at her. She had been thankful that he let her eat at the table with the rest of the family this morning, though he acted as if the chair were empty. It wasn’t like she was under the Bann. Not yet anyway. She had left during her rumspringa, before she had joined the church. But now that she had returned, she would be expected to kneel and ask forgiveness. She would be expected to repent her ways, join the church. Her father was just looking ahead. She could find no fault in him with that. It was simply the way he had been raised and what he had been taught his entire life. But how was she supposed to explain to the people she loved most in the world that she had wanted to know more about the world outside their little community? And because of that she had to leave? There was no easy answer. And though she felt as if she had handled things incorrectly, she couldn’t find another way that would spare her family such heartache. “Give him time, Hannah Mae,” Mamm said.
Startled out of her thoughts, Hannah swung her attention back to her mother, only then realizing she’d been staring out the window at the dusty driveway, at nothing.
She nodded, but not before the sound of a buggy pulling down their lane met her ears. She tried to judge how close it was by listening, but she wasn’t sure. Back in the day, she could guess when a buggy would arrive at the house within five seconds. But no more.
The driver pulled the buggy to a stop and nimbly hopped out. Hannah’s breath stilled in her lungs. It had been fifteen years or better, but she would’ve known him anywhere.
Aaron Zook.
Her heart gave a painful pound. Excitement? Trepidation? All that and more.
He waved, and Hannah instinctively raised her hand in return. But he wasn’t facing her direction. A few heartbeats later and her father and brothers came into view.
Hannah watched as they talked. Every move Aaron made was as familiar to her as her own. In fifteen years she hadn’t forgotten the way he ducked his head when he talked, the way he propped his hands on his slim hips, the way he moved with such smooth grace.
Oh, she had tried to forget. But like so many other things in her life, that task proved impossible as well.
Anger bubbled inside her. She hadn’t even been home a day and she was already facing ghosts from the past. Dealing with her father, dealing with Brandon—why did she have to deal with Aaron too?
“What’s he doing here?”
Her mother moved to stand beside her and looked out the window. “That’s Aaron Zook.”
“I know who he is.” Hannah took a deep breath to calm her anger. She held up one hand at her mother’s startled expression and tried again. “What is he doing here?”
Her mother shrugged and moved to wipe down the plain wooden table that sat in the middle of the kitchen. They used it as a workstation and snack spot, like Brandon with his pie the night before. “Your father bought a new mare. She seemed okay at the time, but she’s proving to be a little more cantankerous than he had originally thought.”
“And he needs Aaron?”
“Jah.” Her mother nodded. “That boy is good with horses.”
Aaron Zook was more than good with horses. He always had been. But he was also more than a boy. That was for sure.
“What’s on your mind, Hannah Mae?”
She continued to watch him through the kitchen window. He turned to look at the house just once. Hannah resisted the urge to step back so he couldn’t see her, but she knew he couldn’t make her out. “He got married,” she whispered.
What did you expect?
She had known when he started dating someone after she left. But she hadn’t heard that he’d gotten married. Yet his beard testified otherwise.
“He has three kids too,” Mamm continued.
Why did the thought of Aaron happily married with a sweet little family send pains shooting through her belly?
“She died.”
Hannah whirled around to face her mother. “What?” Somehow she had lost the thread of the conversation.
“Lizzie. His wife. She died.”
“He’s a widower?” It was the first question Hannah thought to ask, but not the only one that popped into her head. He had married Lizzie Yoder.
Shortly after Hannah had left Pontotoc, she thought she might return. But her brother, Jim, sent her a letter explaining how Aaron had taken up with Lizzie Yoder. The only reason Hannah had had to return to Mississippi was gone, and she hadn’t come back until now.
“You should go talk to him,” Mamm said.
Hannah took another step back, away from the window, as if to distance herself from the man who probably didn’t even know she was there. “Oh, no.” She couldn’t go talk to him. What would she say? That she was sorry for leaving? That she was sorry about his wife? That she was sorry she wasn’t staying?
Returning to Pontotoc permanently was completely out of the question. Too much water had passed under the bridge, as they said. Too much time had passed. Too many obstacles stood in her way. And she had Brandon to think about.
She glanced over to where he sat, phone in his nimble fingers as he texted with one of his friends. She was amazed he could get service out this far, but she knew he wouldn’t have it for long. Once the battery died, he wouldn’t have any place to charge it except the car. And when the phone went, she knew what little patience he had would be close behind. But until then, she would let him rest. Tomorrow they had to make plans.
“He’s a mighty good man,” Mamm said, giving a pointed nod in the direction of the driveway.
Hannah didn’t have to ask who she was talking about. She opened her mouth to respond, then shut it once again. What was there to say? Aaron was a mighty good man, but one thing was certain. He was not the man for her.
* * *
“Whoa, girl.” Aaron wrapped the lead around his hand once more and urged the mare forward. He could see why Abner had bought her. She was a beautiful creature, chestnut-colored with a white blaze on her face and a sooty-colored nose. Her mane and tail matched its dark color, but all four feet were stark white.
She snorted, her eyes wild, still but calming, slowly. With each second she seemed to trust him more. But they had a long way to go.
“It’s okay, girl.” He raised a hand to stroke her neck. But she pulled away, rearing up on her hind legs as if she could sense his thoughts of another. He wiped all traces of Hannah from his mind, but he knew that the thoughts wouldn’t stay gone for long. “Everything’s okay,” he continued.
And maybe if he told the horse and himself that enough times he would believe it. Why had Hannah come back?
He pushed the thought away. He couldn’t calm this mare with another woman on his mind. That was the thing about horses and women. He could only court one of them. And right now Star was the one deserving of his attention.
The horse seemed to sense the very moment when Aaron regained his mental footing. She tossed her head one last time, her inky mane flying in the wind as she settled all four feet back on the ground. She blew out one last snort, then ducked her head toward him.
He wrapped his hand in the lead once again, then gently tugged Star toward him. She came slowly but willingly, her big head bowed as she bumped into his shoulder.
“See,” he murmured softly to her.
She lifted her head, though her eyes had lost that wild gleam.
It was nothing but fear. He could almost feel it coming off her. He hadn’t asked, but he would suspect that she’d had many owners, maybe even two or three in the last year. Horses were sensitive animals. They were loyal and true. He could only imagine that being sold so many times could damage the horse’s
sense of duty, damage how they viewed the world. Kind of like his being rejected by the girl he had thought he would one day marry.
And just like that Hannah was in his thoughts again. She tended to crop up at the most inconvenient times. He did his best to keep thoughts of her at bay, especially when training. But Star seemed to trust him now, and didn’t mind him sharing his energy with another.
The chestnut lowered her head once more and bumped his shoulder with the spot between her ears. He laughed, realizing what she was after. He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out two sugar cubes.
“You deserve it for all you’ve been through.” He chuckled as she gently took the treat from his open palm. He didn’t give sugar cubes often. Just this first time. And as their training continued, the treats would consist of carrots and apples, but for now he wanted her to know how special she was to him and how special she would be treated at the Gingerich house.
* * *
More than anything, Hannah longed to shut herself in her room, or sit down next to Brandon and immerse herself in a digital world. Anything but face the issue straight on, which meant that was exactly what she needed to do.
She took a hesitant step toward the door. Then another. And another, until finally she was standing outside the horse pasture.
Aaron looked up as she approached. He stopped, gave a quick nod, then slipped the bridle over the horse’s neck. He stroked her affectionately as she bumped her forehead against his chest. He chuckled, gave her a couple of sugar cubes, and patted her rump to send her on her way. She trotted off, black mane rippling in the breeze.
“And here I thought you had a talent greater than merely bribery.”
He stopped, the smile suspended on his lips. “Hello, Hannah.”
“Hi, Aaron.” What else was there to say?
He simply stood there as she approached, neither moving toward her or away. She wasn’t sure if it was a good sign or not.
Wait . . . there were no good signs and bad. There were only the two of them and a past that was so far behind them it seemed as if it had happened to someone else.
“Your brothers told me you were here.”