A Home for Hannah

by Amy Lillard

  She nodded. She stopped when their toes were almost touching, soaking in his presence. He was the same as she remembered, the very same. And yet he was so different. His hair was still the same mass of soft, dark curls that stuck out from underneath the brim of his straw hat. His eyes were still the same smoky blue; his smile with one dimple, its crooked slant, and the chipped tooth he had gotten at their first singing were all the same. And yet he was bigger, stronger. He seemed capable and able. He had grown into a man.

  “I figured as much.” She felt as if she had to say something, but the important words wouldn’t come. It had been years since she had talked to him. Years and years and years. There was so much to say, and yet nothing. How could she tell him that her leaving wasn’t his fault? That age-old “It’s not you, it’s me.” But in this case, it was true. Hannah hadn’t been satisfied with Amish living. She’d known—just known—that there was more out there. More to life than Pontotoc, Mississippi. More to life than the simple existence her family pounded out each day. She had to go see about it. She had to see if she could find a little bit of that more for herself. She just hated that she’d had to leave Aaron behind in the process.

  “Aaron, I—” She stopped, and he shook his head.

  “How have you been?”

  She searched his face, studying his expression, looked deep into his eyes for any underlying meaning to his words, but there was none. At least none that he was letting her see. Did he truly just want to know how she’d been all these years? She had heard word from time to time about how he was doing, and she could only imagine that her mother had spoken to him about her and the things she was doing. She didn’t write her mother often, a fact she wasn’t proud of, but she had written often enough to spread news of the changes in her life, the opportunities she now had, all the good stuff. But none of the bad. None of the hardships she had faced in a marriage that should’ve been a fairy tale.

  But that’s over now.

  “I’ve been fine.” It might’ve been the biggest lie she had ever told. But she had been fine years ago when she and Mitch had first gotten married, when Brandon was a baby, and the new hadn’t worn off the Englisch world. She had been fine, once upon a time. But lately “fine” was the farthest from the truth for her. She hadn’t been fine. She hadn’t been happy. Not in a long, long time.

  “You?” she asked.

  She could see the memories, both painful and happy, cross his features. It was like watching clouds in a time-lapse video moving across the earth, dragging the shadows behind. “Good. Good,” he said.

  Hannah nodded, then shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. The motion pushed her chest forward, and Aaron’s eyes darkened. She hadn’t meant to be provocative. She hastily pulled her hands up and tucked them across her. “How is your mother?”

  Aaron gave a one-armed shrug. “You know she’s not right anymore.”

  Hannah nodded. “Mamm told me.” It was almost the truth. The letter had actually come from her sister Leah, talking about how Aaron’s mother, Linda, was starting to change. Something had happened inside her brain, and she no longer remembered things she needed to remember. She needed constant care, Leah had explained, and had moved in with Aaron’s sister Amanda so Amanda could look after her.

  Aaron nodded. “It’s just a matter of time.”

  Hannah wanted to ask if they had taken her to the doctor. Had they gone to a specialist? Had they gone to Memphis, or even Jackson, to find some sort of diagnosis? But she knew that would never happen. Oh, they would go to doctors. It wasn’t like they were backward or anything. But elements of the mind could only be chalked up to God’s will.

  “I’m sorry to hear that. And I’m sorry about Lizzie, too.”

  Aaron nodded. “And your husband, as well.”

  Tears stung at the back of her eyes. Strange tears that had nothing to do with the loss of her husband and everything to do with the man before her. Mistakes piled upon her one by one until she felt as weighed down as if she were Atlas carrying the world.

  “Hannah, I’m sorry.”

  She dashed her tears away with the back of one hand. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Aaron. You were never anything but good to me.” With that she turned on one heel and marched back toward the house.

  Finding out that her husband had been unfaithful had been hard. Learning that he had died in an unexpected explosion had been terrible. So why was returning to Pontotoc and facing Aaron again one of the toughest things she had ever done?

  Because leaving him had been torture.

  * * *

  Aaron started after her, but held himself in check. Instead he watched her walk away, his mind scrambling to merge the Hannah before him with the Hannah he had known once long ago. They looked the same. Well, almost. She still had the same incredible hazel eyes. But her hair was shorter and bleached out in chunks like the Englisch women tended to do. She wore Englisch clothes, jeans and a T-shirt with flip-flops on her feet. The Hannah he had known had hair down to her waist, deep chestnut–colored hair like the rich, dark parts of cedar wood. She dutifully wore her prayer kapp, her simple fracks pinned down the front, and she was always barefoot.

  Jah, her eyes were the same color. Her cheekbones, her nose, and a small dimple in her chin, all the same. But when he had known her, her eyes held a spark for life. It was that spark that drew him to her. It was mischievous, playful, and genuine all at the same time. Now her eyes seemed flat, as if the Englisch world had squashed all the spirit out of her.

  The screen door slammed behind her, and still Aaron remained rooted to the spot. He wasn’t going to chase after her. He would have long ago. If she had only asked, he would’ve gone after her. If she had only asked him before she left if he thought she should go, he would’ve told her no. He would’ve done anything to keep her by his side. They had shared one incredible night, a night he had thought would bind them together forever, but when he went to her house the next day, she was gone.

  As much as he hated to admit it, then and now, her disappearance just proved that she didn’t love him the way he loved her. She didn’t care about him, didn’t value his opinion or his feelings. He had lived with that bitterness for months, finally reconciling it all with God as part of his journey of life. God’s will was a mysterious thing. And it seemed as if He hadn’t intended Hannah for Aaron. Then Lizzie had appeared. Sweet Lizzie Yoder had promised to be a dutiful wife. She promised to work the land side by side with him, bear him children, and grow old with him. And yet she hadn’t had the opportunity to grow old at all.

  He stared at the door another moment, then roused himself from his thoughts. “Abner,” he called toward the workshop, “I’ll be back tomorrow to look at that horse again.”

  Chapter Four

  Brandon stared at the blank, dark screen of his cell phone in disbelief. He wasn’t sure why it was so hard to comprehend that his phone was dead. After all, he was in the middle of absolute nowhere. He knew he was lucky enough to have had service at all as far out as they were. And there were no electrical outlets to plug it into and recharge it.

  He hit the top button just in case it had just gone to sleep, but of course nothing happened. Figured.

  This was just perfect. This whole trip had just been perfect. Now every bit of entertainment he had was gone. Not that he had been able to do much out here. There were no Wi-Fi connections. He’d figured that out last night. But at least he had been able to listen to his music and play a couple of the games that didn’t require Internet service. Now he couldn’t even text his buddies back home.

  He slipped his phone into his pocket when he would’ve rather pitched it across the room in frustration. Maybe he could find some electricity somewhere, but until then it would do no good to break it.

  Just then his mom came through the door. She looked . . . flustered. It was the only word he could think of—like a bird with ruffled feathers. He watched as she did her best to pull herself back together. She was so i
ntent on her task she hadn’t even noticed that he was there.

  He shouldn’t have felt a bit of satisfaction in the fact that she seemed almost as frustrated as he was. But he did. At least this move hadn’t been easy for her either. He still had trouble believing she had grown up here. Not the mom he knew.

  “What up?” he said.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin, slapping one hand over her heart, her eyes wide. “Brandon,” she gasped. “I didn’t see you there.”

  Obviously.

  “I’m here.” He stood as he waited for her response.

  She pushed herself off the door, visibly pulling herself together more quickly now. “I can see that now.”

  “My phone’s dead.”

  He could almost see the mixed emotions sail across her face. She was such a typical mom. Finally she nodded. “It was bound to happen.”

  “I guess.” He didn’t have to say the words for her to know that he was not happy about it. And he really didn’t feel like pretending otherwise. Why should he? He’d done everything he was supposed to do his entire life. Well, almost. Not counting his hair and the lip ring and his choice of music, but that was beside the point. He was a teenager. Wasn’t that what he was supposed to do?

  “Brandon, please.” Mom held up both hands as if to ward off this brewing argument. Something in the pose made his anger wilt just a bit. He wanted to be mad. He wanted to raise his fist and rail against the system until something happened, but they were so far out, who would hear?

  “Whatever.” He propped his hands on his hips as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Inside, however, he wanted to run to her, fling his arms around her, and hold on and never let go. How had their life come to this? It wasn’t a question he let himself ask often. One minute they were fine, living in Nashville, and the next thing he knew his dad was dying off the coast of Florida. From there it just went downhill. And there was nothing he could do about it.

  “Brandon, please,” she asked again.

  Anger bubbled up inside him once again. That feeling of helplessness. That was what did it. That was the one he couldn’t take. There had to be something else they could do, something else. He refused to be helpless. Wasn’t this America?

  Suddenly he wanted to run. Run and run and run and run like that dumb guy in that dumb movie where he ran clear across the United States. Brandon could do that. He could just take off running and not stop until all of this was over. But when would it be over? Would it ever be over?

  “Fine,” he sneered. “Whatever.”

  He charged toward her, intent on the door.

  She pushed herself away as he stormed through it and out onto the porch. He pulled the door closed behind him with so much force, it rattled the windows on either side. He didn’t care. He didn’t care if he broke every window in the house. His dad was dead, and he was stuck in the worst place he could ever imagine. Stuck without communication to the outside world. Life was perfect.

  Without a glance back, he started across the yard, toward the fields on the back side of the property. With any luck, he would get lost, or mauled by a bear. Did they have bears in Mississippi? He had no idea. But he didn’t care. Mauled by a great animal or held hostage without a cell phone. What was the difference?

  * * *

  Hannah watched through the window as Brandon stormed across the yard. He ducked under the large oak tree and disappeared over the small rise between the house and the back fields.

  How many times had she taken an identical path when she’d had too much of her conservative Amish upbringing? How many times had she escaped that exact way? Like when her father had found those Englisch magazines stuck between the mattress and box spring in her bed. Well, the finding them wasn’t the bad part, but when he threw them away, her heart broke in two.

  There was something else out there. She just knew it. She had known it her entire life, but that hadn’t meant she was going to look for it. She had just needed to know what it was. Some people might be able to go through their entire lives not knowing what they were missing and not missing it at all. She had had to know.

  But Dat had thrown those colorful, glossy magazines into the trash barrel and burned them with the other, unimportant things the family had decided not to keep. He had taken them and everything else from the Englisch she had squirreled away. He had taken, taken, and taken, until she had no other choice but to go see for herself.

  Brandon disappeared over the ridge as she watched, and she resisted the urge to run after him. She’d had enough rejection for one afternoon. She didn’t think she could handle much more.

  What did you expect?

  She’d been hopeful, that was all.

  Hopeful about a lot of things.

  The rattle of Aaron’s carriage grew louder, then faded away until it disappeared altogether.

  He was gone.

  She eased out onto the porch, just in case, then admonished herself for her unnecessary caution. She just needed a little more time before she faced him again. But time was something she didn’t have a lot of. Who knew how long the bishop would allow them to stay? She knew her mother would lead their cause, but her father was a different matter altogether. It was the relationship that pained her the most.

  There had been a time when the others teased her about growing up to be a farmer herself. She’d spent so much time with her father, shadowing him as much as the sun did. Even more than Jim had. She had helped him plow, harvest, plant, build sheds, saw wood—anything and everything that he would teach her. She had been ready to learn. That had always been the problem. Her mind was inquisitive, always seeking, searching out new things to learn. But when she felt she had learned what she could of their little corner of the world, she had turned to the Englisch. And that was when the trouble began.

  How she wished she could go back to those carefree days of tagging along behind her dat, the summer sun beating down on the back of her neck not covered by her bonnet. Barefoot and dirty, happy and satisfied. What she wouldn’t give to go back. What she wouldn’t give to wipe out the last fifteen or so years and change her own fate. Not listen to others talk about how to get out of Pontotoc, how to hitchhike. What to say, what to do, what to wear, all those little details that had been sticking to her mind like beggar lice to the edge of her skirt.

  What she wouldn’t give.

  She stepped down the porch steps and across the rocky, graveled drive. Funny how she’d been gone so many years and yet most everything seemed the same. There might be a different dog lying in the shade under the big oak tree, but there had always been a dog there. The barn might have a new roof, there might be a crack in one of the workshop windows, but those changes were nothing. The overall scheme of things, the big picture, was all just as it had been before. Except for her and Dat.

  She pulled off her shoes and hooked them on the fingers of one hand as she picked her way across the drive. Back in the day she could’ve run across the gravel and not thought twice about it. But that was a long time and many pedicures ago. Now her feet were soft, the skin tender. The going was slow, so much so that she almost stopped and put her shoes back on. She didn’t need to let herself have time to chicken out. This was one aspect of her life where she needed to be brave. And she hadn’t been brave in a long, long time. But if she was ever going to make up any of the relationship she had lost with her father, now was the time. There wasn’t a moment to waste.

  The sound of the saw grew louder as she neared the workshop. It was a noise straight from her childhood, as vivid as the memories she carried of people and places. That one sound had been a part of her entire existence. Now that she heard it again, after all these years, with everything changing so rapidly, with the future shaking like an earthquake beneath her feet, her stomach pitched and her hands trembled with a longing for days past. Days that could never be hers again.

  The inside of the work shed was dark as she stepped through the doorway. She didn’t know why they called it a shed. It was
as big as the hay barn, with small rectangle-shaped windows between the top of the walls and the roof that provided light year ’round and air in the humid summer months.

  The work continued as she entered, neither her father nor her brothers noticing her arrival. And the smell!

  It was as familiar to her as her mother’s scent, as Brandon when he was small. Clean and sharp, the smell of cut wood was as dear to her as it was poignant.

  She took a couple more hesitant steps into the shed, the wood shavings and sawdust biting into the soles of her feet. There was a time when she wouldn’t have noticed the small discomfort; now it filled her with another wave of longing so strong it brought tears to her eyes.

  The sound of the saw stopped as she blinked back useless tears.

  “Hannah,” her brother David said. “What are you doing?”

  She should have come bearing water or lemonade, but she had no excuse as to why she had made her way into their domain. None, other than the desire to reconnect with her father. With the past. Water wouldn’t help with that, and her father and brothers always had their full coolers at hand. Especially in these hot summer months.

  “I-I just thought I would come out and . . . visit.” Not exactly convincing, but what was she supposed to say? That she had to try one more time to see if her father would talk to her? Maybe if she approached him in front of others he would cave and speak to her. Maybe even look at her. She had hurt him, she knew, but now more than ever she wanted to make amends. “How is the shed coming?”

  She looked to Dat. He inspected the last cut of wood without lifting his eyes even once.

  So much for that.

  “This is a playhouse for one of the Englisch day cares in town,” Jim answered.

  Hannah nodded, and did her best to hide her disappointment. She would have to see if she could get her father alone. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel the need to pretend she didn’t exist. Maybe then he could relax a bit and allow the healing to begin.

  Maybe.

  Tears stung at the back of her throat and rose into her eyes, her vision swimming. “Good luck.”