by Amy Lillard
She reached up and pulled on one of the bobby pins holding her hair. She adjusted it, then pushed it back into place. The bob she had put in her hair was starting to itch. She’d wound it up tight to keep it from falling out. Her hair was so much shorter now that she didn’t want any stray strands to distract the people around her. She wanted to blend in as much as possible. She wanted no one to notice her, but of course everyone did. She was the talk of the district. Hannah Gingerich had returned home.
Her mother sat next to her and on the other side of Mamm sat Anna, Jim’s wife. On Hannah’s left was Tillie, and then Gracie. Five Gingerich women all in a row. As was tradition, the men were on the other side of the room: her father, her brothers, and Aaron, of course.
In the far back, in the section of padded chairs, her grandmother watched and listened. She sat among the other infirm: some elderly, some injured, and one hugely pregnant woman that Hannah didn’t know. She thought back to her own pregnancy and decided the woman had to be having twins. Either that, or the baby was going to weigh twenty pounds when he was born. Poor soul, she thought to herself.
Once again her gaze drifted to Aaron. A fit of awareness seared through her. It had been easy to forget how handsome he was, how sweet he was, how strong and kind and loving, when she didn’t have to see him, or maybe she had just convinced herself it was easy. She never let her thoughts stray to him or the time they had spent together.
But that wasn’t exactly true either. She had. One time. That was when she had found out that he was seeing Lizzie Yoder. From that moment forward she pushed him from her thoughts and never let him return. Now that she was back in Pontotoc, it seemed he was all she could think about. Every day, he came out to the house to work with her father’s new horse. And every day she fought the urges to run away as well as the ones that enticed her to move as close to him as possible. Just like she told Tillie and Gracie, what was done was done. There was no going back. And she had hurt him bad enough to know that forgiveness would be given, but it would not be absolute.
The congregation stood and sang. Then everyone turned and knelt at their benches to say the last prayer.
Lord, please let this all be settled soon.
She felt like a traitor, an impostor, and somehow like she was home all at the same time. Being back in Pontotoc was as confusing to her as it was to those around her. But if she had someplace else to go she wouldn’t have come here.
Lord, please let the estate be settled soon and allow me and Brandon to begin again.
Everyone around her started to shift and shuffle, and she knew that prayer was over. She rose to her feet, realizing how selfish her prayer had been. It was all about her, her needs, what she wanted, with not much thought to anyone else. True, Brandon would benefit from her prayers, but he hadn’t crept into her thoughts just then. How long had it been that way? When had she stopped thinking of others and started thinking only of herself? She couldn’t remember.
She turned, and from across the room Aaron’s gaze snagged hers. They held that way for what seemed like full minutes but could only have been a couple of seconds. Then Laura Kate captured his attention, and the moment was gone.
Thankfully, most of the afternoon was taken up in setting the benches up for the afternoon meal and getting everyone fed, then in the cleanup afterward. She didn’t have an opportunity to see or talk to Aaron in all that time. But if she was being honest with herself, she had a feeling he was avoiding her as acutely as she was avoiding him. The thought made her sad.
She shook her head at herself. It didn’t matter if he was avoiding her. It shouldn’t matter. And it shouldn’t make her sad.
“Hannah? Are you coming?” Tillie stood next to the buggy as Gracie hitched up the horse.
Hannah shook her head at herself. She had stopped in the middle of the yard, halfway from the house to the buggy, a handful of napkins in one hand and the other empty. Just standing there like a statue in the park. She had no aim, no direction. She wasn’t thinking about the parallels to her life. It was too much for her to take in.
“I’m coming.” She set her feet into motion without another look and ran headlong into something . . . Someone . . .
Strong hands came up and clasped her arms to steady her. She breathed in the familiar scent. Part man, part laundry detergent, part nostalgia.
She planted her feet firmly on the ground. “Aaron,” she breathed.
His touch burned through the sleeves of her dress, warming her skin underneath. His fingers wrapped around her arms was like stepping back in time, to the one time when he held her close, so close.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.” He released her, and Hannah gave a small shudder, suddenly cold.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“You look like you have a lot on your mind today.”
It was perhaps the biggest understatement she’d ever heard anyone utter. “A little bit,” she said.
Those cool blue-gray eyes studied her. There was a time when she thought he could see straight through her heart, that he knew every thought, every wish, every feeling she had. If that were true, she was definitely in trouble. For he would know that she wanted to lean in, to simply melt into him and not have to worry about everything that was going on in her life. Not this life, here with the Amish, but her real life. Mitch, the estate, the debt.
Aaron took a step back. “Girls, say hello to Hannah.”
Laura Kate stepped forward. She looked so much like her father it was uncanny. She was just smaller and in girl form, her beautiful eyes framed by silver-rimmed glasses. She smiled prettily at Hannah—a smile she had seen a thousand times before on Aaron’s face. “Hi, Hannah.”
“Hi, Laura Kate. Essie.” She nodded toward the younger daughter.
“She remembered my name.” Essie tugged on her father’s hand. Like her sister, Essie was another miniature Aaron. Each girl had just a slight difference from their father’s features, but it was so obvious who they took after. Laura Kate wore glasses, and Essie had a small gap between her two front teeth and a smattering of freckles across her pert little nose. They were adorable, sweet and innocent, and Hannah was slammed with the thought that if she had stayed in Pontotoc, those little girls might be her own.
She shook the thought away. You made the choices you made.
A moment stretched between Hannah and Aaron, a moment of what to do next. She got the feeling that he might want to stay and talk for a while, but they both knew it would lead nowhere. Still, she was reluctant to set her feet into motion.
“Andy is off—” He waved a hand in the direction of a group of young men. Hannah had no trouble picking out Andy. Like his sisters, he was the spitting image of their father.
“Hannah,” Tillie called. “We’re waiting.”
Hannah turned back to Aaron. “I should go.” But her feet still refused to move.
“You should come by and have dinner with us,” Laura Kate said.
Hannah shifted her attention to Aaron’s oldest daughter. “That would be nice. Thank you.” She said the words out of kindness. There would be no dinner at Aaron’s house. They might be able to pull off a friendship of sorts, but she had a feeling that dinner at Aaron’s would be a little too intimate for either one of them to be comfortable with the idea.
“Jah,” Essie added. “Before we up and move to Ohio.”
Hannah turned her attention back to Aaron. “You’re moving?”
He shifted uncomfortably in place. “There is talk of Ohio, jah.”
Which didn’t actually answer her question, now did it? “I see.” But she didn’t. What was in Ohio?
“But there’s not been a decision made yet,” he continued.
“That’s what you keep saying.” Laura Kate frowned.
Anyone could see that his daughters were not enthusiastic about moving. Why was Aaron so bent on going to Ohio?
“I didn’t know you had family in Ohio
,” Hannah said. Okay, she was blatantly fishing for answers, but she had a feeling Aaron wouldn’t volunteer the information himself.
“I don’t.”
“There’s a man there who wants him to train horses,” Essie supplied.
“Girls,” he started, without taking his eyes from Hannah, “why don’t you go get in the buggy?”
“But—” Essie started.
“In the buggy. Now,” he said.
Laura Kate took her sister’s arm. “Come on,” she muttered.
Heads bowed, the two girls headed for their buggy, parked nearby. Hannah’s heart went out to them. They felt as strongly about moving from Pontotoc as Brandon did about moving to it. Change was hard, and it seemed like they were all facing a change of one kind or another.
“I’m sorry about that,” Aaron said.
Hannah smiled. “It’s okay. I guess they aren’t excited about the move.”
Aaron stared out over the pasture as if the answers he needed were somehow written in the sky there. “They aren’t. But I think it’s time.”
“Time?” She was confused.
Aaron nodded. “Jah, time to move on. Time to stop living in the past.”
* * *
The words rattled around inside her head all the way home. Was he talking about them? Or his marriage and life with Lizzie Yoder?
She mentally shook her head. There was no them. Anything between Hannah and Aaron had ended when she found out he was dating Lizzie. Or maybe even before, on that fateful night long ago. The night before she left.
No, he had to be talking about his life with Lizzie. Had he loved her that much?
Hannah shook her head again. She was putting Englisch values on Amish actions. Of course Aaron loved his wife, but love wasn’t always the driving factor behind Amish marriage.
She was just wishful-thinking. Every girl wanted to believe that they were the one their first love couldn’t get over. But Aaron had gotten over her. He had moved on, married another, had children.
Yet he hadn’t done anything that she hadn’t done.
She exhaled, allowing the tension and thoughts to escape her. No sense in dwelling on the past. Wasn’t that what Aaron had just said?
“What’s wrong?” Tillie asked from the back seat.
Gracie kept her eyes on the road, and Hannah had a feeling it had less to do with driving and more to do with allowing her the privacy of her thoughts. Tillie wasn’t so understanding in that matter.
“Nothing.” Everything, she thought.
Tillie scooted closer. “No one sighs like that when nothing’s wrong.”
Hannah thought about it a moment. What was the best answer? “Not ‘wrong,’ really. Just, you know . . .”
As far as answers went, it was probably the worst. But Tillie and Gracie both nodded. Hannah wondered if they really understood, or if they were just being supportive. They were both younger than her, but just by a few years. Gracie was quickly approaching her twenty-fifth birthday, and Tillie hadn’t quite reached her twentieth. Neither one had lived as much life as Hannah. Strange to think of it that way. Neither one was married; neither one had children.
Neither one had run off and joined the Englisch.
“Was it hard?” Tillie finally asked.
Hannah turned in her seat to better look at her sister. Normally Tillie’s eyes were alight with a mischievous sparkle, her lips curved into a perpetual smile, but somehow a shadow crossed over her features, and she looked more serious than Hannah had ever seen.
“Was what hard?”
“Leaving.” The one word was spoken so quietly that at first Hannah wasn’t sure if she had actually heard it or if it had somehow just popped into her thoughts.
“You mean leaving the Amish?” Hannah asked.
“Tillie, no,” Gracie said. Her blue eyes were trained on the road ahead, as though if she looked away something terrible would happen.
“I’m just asking,” Tillie said. The shadows on her face deepened.
“What’s going on here?” Hannah asked.
“Nothing,” Tillie said. “I just asked a question. Was it hard leaving?”
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Hannah said. Until that moment she hadn’t categorized it that way. She’d never really thought about it that deeply. It was just something she had done. But leaving the Amish had been heartbreaking, exciting, life altering, and so very, very, difficult.
“Did you ever want to come back?” Tillie asked. “I mean, before now?”
“Tillie.” This time Gracie turned and pinned her cousin with a stern look.
“I’m just asking,” Tillie said, though the words were close to a screech.
Hannah looked from her cousin to her sister and back again. Something more was going on here. Something more than this conversation that was happening right then. “I thought about it. Why?”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Lots of reasons, I guess.” But that wasn’t exactly the truth. If she hadn’t gotten the letter from her brother, if Aaron hadn’t been dating Lizzie Yoder, or maybe if some other things had been different, she would’ve returned long before now.
“Because you fell in love with Michael?” Tillie asked.
“Mitch,” Gracie and Hannah corrected at the same time.
“Right,” Tillie said with a nod. “Because of him?”
“Something like that.” Her thoughts drifted back to those days when their love had been new. Or maybe it had just been shiny and different. Whatever it was, she had allowed Mitch to convince her to stay. She had believed in all his plans and dreams. She had allowed him to convince her that their life together would be better than anything she could have anywhere else. And for a time, she supposed it had been. But that time had ended all too soon.
“I wish I would meet someone like him,” Tillie said.
“Bite your tongue,” Hannah said. “Someone like Mitch is the last thing you need.”
“Why? He was handsome and wealthy and sophisticated.”
And a liar and a cheat and a terrible father. But Hannah said none of those things.
“Sometimes the things in shiny packages are just ordinary things dressed up to look special,” Hannah said.
“What?” Tillie asked.
“I think she means you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” Gracie said.
Tillie’s forehead crinkled into a confused frown. “What do pigs have to do with this?”
Hannah and Gracie shared a look, then burst out laughing.
Tillie’s frown deepened. “I don’t see what’s so funny.” She sat back with a pout and crossed her arms over herself.
Hannah recovered first, reining in her mirth as she checked on her sister. “Wait,” she said. “You’re not thinking of leaving, are you?”
Tillie shrugged and mumbled something incoherent.
“Tell the truth, please,” Gracie ordered from the driver’s seat.
“Wait wait wait wait wait,” Hannah said. “Gracie, pull over.” They were almost home. And this was definitely a conversation that needed to be completed before they pulled into the driveway.
“Do Mamm and Dat know about this?”
“I haven’t done anything,” Tillie said, her defenses rising.
“I never said you did,” Hannah returned. “But . . .”
Gracie pulled over to the side of the road and, still keeping ahold of the horse’s reins, turned to face Tillie.
“Why are you ganging up on me?” Tillie moaned.
“No one’s ganging up on you,” Gracie said. “But I told you my opinion. Leaving would be a huge mistake.”
“I never said I was leaving.”
“Then what did you say?” Hannah asked.
“I just wanted to know.”
“Are you having doubts?” Hannah asked. She knew all about those. They were the worst. They had crept into her thoughts time and time again. She had assuaged them by standing in the hardware store watching th
e news cross the television screen, going to the library and soaking up everything she could about the Englisch world, those bright, colorful magazines that her father had hated so much. But curiosity could turn into more.
“Just don’t do anything rash, okay?” Hannah asked. “If you have any questions, come to me. I promise I’ll tell you the truth. Deal?”
Tillie’s expression brightened just a smidge, not enough to call happy but definitely out of the frustrated range where it had been. “Deal,” she said.
Gracie shook her head. “You should tell her she needs to stay.” She turned around, snapped the reins again, and started the horse in motion.
Hannah would love to tell Tillie not to leave, but she knew firsthand that was a choice everyone had to make for themselves.
* * *
“Are you mad?” Essie asked as they drove home.
“I’m not mad,” Aaron said, but even to his own ears his voice was quick and clipped.
“You sound mad,” Essie continued.
“I’m not mad,” he said again.
“Isn’t it a sin to lie?” Essie asked.
Aaron turned in the buggy and shot his daughter a reprimanding glance. “Sit down, and I’m not mad.”
“You sound mad to me,” Laura Kate said.
Aaron released a deep sigh. He did sound mad. He was mad. But not at them. Or maybe not just at them. He was mad at himself a little too. How had he allowed himself to get distracted by Hannah Gingerich once again?
Face it. She’s been distracting you your entire life.
Essie stood once again and leaned over the seat. She was in the back, while Laura Kate took the special place of honor next to him. Andy had leaned his head against the back wall of the carriage and appeared to be asleep. Or maybe he was simply ignoring them. Aaron did his best to rotate the kids’ places, making sure everyone got the chance to sit up front. Sometimes he forgot whose turn it was. But they never did.
“Sit down, Essie.”
She plopped back in the seat once again. Of all the children, she was undeniably the feistiest. Full of energy, always into everything, but a constant joy all the same.