Lydia withdrew her arm and stood, her movements weary. “I should probably leave you to the privacy I promised you would have if you stayed.”
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” she said, lowering the phone to her lap, her words peppered with emotion-laden breaths. “Crazy for saying I saw her standing there next to a happy face of tulips?”
At the doorway to the kitchen, Lydia stopped, glanced over her shoulder at Dani, and then looked away. “No. It makes me think that perhaps I am not.”
Something about her wistful tone stirred a fresh round of tears to Dani’s eyes—tears she tried valiantly to blink away as Lydia disappeared from view altogether. Wiping a rebellious one from the top of her cheek, she slid off the bed and made her way toward the now-empty doorway. “Lydia?”
The woman paused her hand on the exterior door, her slight, narrow shoulders rising with what seemed like an intentional breath. “Yah?”
“Thank you. For . . . For letting me stay here tonight.”
“I hope it will be for many nights.” Opening the door, Lydia, once again, met Dani’s eye. “Soon, when Elijah is ready to eat, I will make up a supper plate for you and bring it over. I will set it outside on the porch and then knock so you know it is there.”
She waved her hand in protest. “No, really, you don’t need to do that. I’m not hungry.”
“I know. I still feel the same, sometimes. But I know that if I do not, there is worry to be had by others.”
“Others?”
“The people who love you.”
“Ahhhh . . . Yes . . . Those people . . .” Dani drew in a deep breath. “Yeah, I don’t have any of those left.”
“You have me.”
Chapter 8
It was sometime after three in the morning when, exhausted from crying, Dani finally drifted off into the kind of sleep where every dream felt real.
The walk along a sandy shoreline with Jeff, their fingers interlaced . . .
Sitting across the coffee shop table from Mom . . .
Tiptoeing around the kitchen with Maggie as they put the finishing touches on the secret dessert buffet they’d planned for the rest of the family . . .
Covering her mouth to keep from giving herself away during a game of hide-and-seek with Spencer . . .
Playing mermaids with Ava in the rec center swimming pool . . .
She could feel Jeff’s hand, hear Mom’s gentle laugh across her coffee mug, taste the white chocolate drizzle on Maggie’s brownies, see Spencer’s shadow as he crept by, and smell the suntan lotion on Ava’s wet skin. Yet as real and as vivid as those moments, those sensations, seemed, they all scattered and disappeared at the ill-fitting sound that had her rubbing her eyes and then struggling up onto her elbow, confused.
“What on earth?” she mumbled as the fog in her head cleared enough to reveal a stark white wall and the faintest hint of light making its way around the edge of a dark green shade.
White wall?
Dark green shade?
Where did the sand go? The coffee mugs? The plates mounded high with everyone’s favorite desserts? The bush she was kneeling behind? The ripple of the blue water—
And then she remembered.
She wasn’t at the beach.
She wasn’t in a café.
She was lying in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar house, in an unfamiliar town. And everything that had seemed so real just moments earlier was, in fact, not.
Squeezing her eyes closed against the familiar prick of tears, she willed herself to breathe. To count to ten in her head. To bite her lip. To steel herself for yet another day without Jeff . . . without Maggie . . . without Spencer . . . without Ava . . . without Mom.
“Why?” she rasped past the hard knot in her throat. “Why? What did I—”
Again she heard it: the same exact noise that had pulled her from her dreams in favor of her day-to-day nightmare. Only this time, she knew what it was.
It was Lydia’s rooster alerting her to the start of yet another day without her family—another day she’d prayed wouldn’t come yet clearly had. Sliding her legs off the edge of the bed, Dani sat up, rubbed her tear-dappled lashes, and then froze as another sound—this one more of a quiet thud, followed by footsteps on wood planks—took over for the now-silent rooster.
She waited for the silence to return and, when it did, she stood, crossed to the window, and pulled back the shade just enough to afford a view of the narrow porch that wrapped around the front of the house. With the help of the rising sun that streaked the sky in a yellowy pink, she spotted a basket that hadn’t been there the previous night. Attached to the woven handle was a piece of what looked to be blue yarn and a slip of paper.
Curious, she let the shade drift back into position against the window and then headed across the kitchen to the front door. A peek outside showed the slip of paper contained her name as well as a series of words she couldn’t make out from where she stood.
When the basket was inside and on the table, she bypassed the contents in favor of the note she was able to read with the light coming in from the kitchen window.
Danielle,
I did not know how many eggs you would eat, so I have sent two. The milk came straight from the barn this morning. The loaf of bread is one I was making when you arrived yesterday. The cinnamon butter is Elijah’s favorite. I hope you will enjoy it, too.
We will be leaving for church service at eight and will return before dusk. Since I am to bring sandwiches to share for the meal today, I will leave an extra behind for you. It is important to eat.
Your friend,
Lydia.
Slowly, she refolded the note and carried it back to the table. With a quick swipe of her hand, she parted the blue-and-white-checkered cloth that served as a makeshift lid of sorts and peered inside to find the eggs, the butter, the small bottle of fresh cow’s milk, and the most perfect loaf of bread she’d ever seen.
The thought of eggs—fried, scrambled, boiled, or otherwise—held no appeal. But the bread and a swallow or two of milk?
Maybe . . .
The quick smack of a door closing against its frame stole her attention from the basket and its contents and led her back to the window in time to see Luke and a slightly shorter boy emerge from the main house. Luke led the way down the stairs and across the driveway to the gunmetal-gray buggy being hitched to a chestnut-brown mare by a man in a simple black coat and brimmed hat.
A second smack brought her attention back to the porch steps in time to see Lydia descending them with Nettie and another boy Dani guessed to be about five, maybe six. Like his brothers, the little boy was dressed nearly identical to their father, while Nettie’s simple blue dress, white overlay, and white gauzy prayer kapp had her being Lydia’s miniature clone.
Together, the trio walked to the buggy, parting ways as they reached it—Lydia onto the front seat, and the three boys in back with their little sister. Seconds later, Elijah climbed onto the seat beside his wife, gave the reins a gentle swish, and the buggy lurched forward in the very direction in which Dani, herself, had come less than eighteen hours earlier.
She strained to hear the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves as her friend and the buggy disappeared from sight, but with the window closed, all she could really hear at that moment was the utter silence of the room save for the slow and unmistakable thud of her own heart. Here, in Amish country, so much was different. The homes were less elaborate, the furnishings were more simplistic, laundry dried on a clothesline, technology stayed outside the home, and horses did the transporting. But the people beneath all those differences? They weren’t really all that different. Dads were dads; moms were moms; families were families. And just as she’d corralled Maggie, Spencer, and Ava into the van for church on Sunday mornings, Lydia clearly did the same with her crew.
It was hard not to wonder about their drive now that they were out of sight. Were they talking to one another or still shaking off the fog of sleep? Were the
kids picking at one another in the back of the buggy or divvying up toys to make the drive go by faster? Were they—
Shaking her head, she backed away from the window only to reclaim her spot as her gaze fell on the sun-dappled rocking chair on the other side of the glass pane. Positioned in such a way so as to not be seen from the street, the chair afforded a view of the barn, the main house, a pair of cats lolling around in the driveway, and even the same dozen or so sheep munching on the same stretch of grass from the previous day.
Unlike the long kitchen table with its bench seating and the full-sized bed with its two pillows, there was something about the singular rocking chair and being outside that beckoned. A glance at the clock and then Lydia’s note made the decision easy. But first, Lydia’s basket needed to be unloaded and its contents put away where they wouldn’t spoil. A search of the cabinets yielded a bowl perfect for housing the pair of eggs in the refrigerator. The cinnamon butter, already in a bowl of its own, fit nicely alongside the eggs and the bottle of milk. And the bread, tucked inside its cloth covering, fit on the counter between the refrigerator and the sink.
Next, she returned to the bedroom, swapped out her pajamas for the jeans and long-sleeved paisley top, and then headed out to the front porch and its seating for one. Hiking her slipper-clad feet onto the rocking chair with her, she shrank against the wooden spools at her back and stared out over her friend’s grounds. The windmill she’d spied from the car the previous day slowly turned with the same soft breeze that swayed the now-empty clothesline. The scooter Luke had abandoned in the side yard just inches from her parked car was now secured alongside four others in a bike rack one might see at a schoolyard. The size of two of the scooter bikes suggested adult usage, while the ones on the other side of Luke’s were likely used by his younger brothers.
Sliding her gaze left, Dani took a moment to note the sheep and their obliviousness to her presence, and then moved on to the big red barn and the vaguely familiar tune that seemed to be coming from—
She dropped her feet back to the porch floor and rocketed up to a stand. Someone was in the barn . . . Someone who wasn’t Lydia or her husband or one of the—
The whistling she was pretty sure she heard ceased in favor of a quick ping of metal followed by a distinctive thud. Seconds later, a laugh . . .
A man’s laugh.
Slowly, quietly, she crept down the stairs and across the driveway toward the sound, any fear she’d felt at the onset bowing to anger at the intrusion on her friend’s property and her own privacy. When she reached the barn, she peeked around the partially open door and surveyed the part of the interior she could see from her vantage point.
A handful of stray cats wandering the rafters . . .
Two roaming chickens stopping, now and again, to peck at the coating of hay that covered the ground . . .
A large mule idly watching her from his stall along the left wall...
Five cows moving their jaws in near perfect unison inside pens toward the back . . .
A man in a navy-blue Henley, with sleeves pushed up to his elbows, holding something big and white in his—
“You better turn around and get out of this barn right now or I will call the police!”
As he whipped around, the man’s eyes skittered across the front end of the barn before landing square on Dani. “Whoa . . . Whoa . . . Slow down there, Sarge. It’s just me—Caleb.”
“I don’t care what your name is or—Wait . . . Did you say Caleb? As in Lydia’s brother?”
“You mean the one who showed you all the best places to hide on my dat’s farm when we were kids? Yep, that’s me.” He started toward her only to stop as his left leg buckled forward. “Oh. Right, how could I forget,” he said, shaking what she could now see was an oversized baby bottle as he turned his back to her and crouched down. “Someone doesn’t quite have the patience for polite greetings yet, do you, Little Guy?”
Then, glancing over his broad shoulder at her, Caleb swayed to the side just enough to afford Dani a view of a small black calf jockeying for the bottle in earnest. “Come meet the newest member of the barn. He’s persistent as all get-out when it comes to getting his bottle, but boy, is he ever cute.”
“I—”
“C’mon. How can you resist this face?” Caleb said, directing her attention toward the calf with his chin.
She drank in the narrow black face, the dewy eyes, the cute stick-out ears, and the gangly legs, and finally inched forward through the narrow opening. “I don’t want to scare him.”
“There’s a foolproof way to make sure that won’t happen any time soon—watch.” Angling the bottle slightly above nose level, Caleb waited for the calf to latch on and then flashed a warm, dimpled smile back at Dani. “I’m pretty sure a herd of African elephants running through the middle of the barn right now wouldn’t scare this little guy off his bottle.”
“What happened to his mother?” she asked. “Why isn’t she feeding him?”
“She is—or was—a heifer.”
She drew in a sharp breath that earned her barely more than a twitch of the calf’s ear in return. “Was?”
“A heifer is a female that’s never had a baby. But now that Molly has had this guy”—he made a face at the calf—“she’s officially a cow. But I’m guessing her never having a baby before factored into why she didn’t seem to know what to do with him, and why I’m playing mamma cow right now, instead of her.”
“Will she come around?” Dani asked, stopping just behind the pair. “You know, once she realizes he’s hers?”
Caleb’s smile faded ever so slightly with his answering shrug. “No. Molly wanted nothing to do with him. That’s why she’s with the other cows,” he said, motioning toward the back of the barn with his chin. “And why I’m standing here bottle-feeding him. Fortunately, though, this little guy doesn’t know any better, so it’s not like he’s going to be needing years of therapy as a result.”
She craned her head around Caleb and, again, took in the calf’s wide eyes and stick-out ears as he nursed hungrily from the bottle. “I’ve never seen a newborn calf before.”
“Which means you’ve never fed one, either . . .”
“ No. ”
“Would you like to?”
“No, I-I don’t need to,” she said, taking a step back.
“I didn’t ask if you needed to; I asked if you’d like to—two entirely different things. One is a chore, and one is something that makes you happy.” Tipping the bottle downward, he gently pulled it from the calf’s mouth and held it out to Dani. “Here. Give it a try.”
“No, really, I shouldn’t.”
“Actually, you should.” He cocked his head so he was looking directly at the calf. “Shouldn’t she, Little Guy?”
Sighing, she took the bottle from Caleb’s strong hand, crouched down beside him, and held her hand steady as the calf resumed eating. For a few moments, she lost herself in the sweet sucking sounds as the remaining milk disappeared. When there was nothing left, the calf gave a few persistent wide-eyed sucks and then pulled back to study Dani. “He’s so cute,” she whispered. “What’s his name?”
“He doesn’t have one yet.” Caleb took the empty bottle from her hand but stayed crouched beside her. “The kids all had ideas, but as of last night when they left the barn and I hunkered down over there”—he pointed at a folded quilt in the corner—“nothing had been agreed on quite yet. So I’ve been calling him all sorts of stuff since then. Though Little Guy seems to have become my go-to.”
She looked from Caleb to the calf and back again. “You stayed here overnight? In the barn?”
“Yep. Wanted to see if Molly would have a change of heart in those first few hours. Then, when that didn’t happen, I stayed around because I felt bad for the little guy, you know?”
She rose up to a stand, brushed a few pieces of straw from her jeans, and gave Caleb a once-over as he, too, stood—quickly cataloging his strong jawline, his tall stature, his jea
ns, and . . .
“I didn’t know you could wear clothes like that,” she said, leading his amber-flecked eyes down to his shirt. “I thought, even in the barn, you had to wear the black pants and suspenders and all of that.”
He carried the bottle over to a half wall and set it on top. “I would if I were Amish.”
“If you were Amish?” she echoed. “But you are.”
“I was being raised by Amish when Lydia and I met you, but unlike my sister, I chose not to be baptized. Which means I’m English just like you now.”
“Oh. Wow. I-I didn’t know.”
He reached for a broom only to pull his hand away and tuck it, nervously, into the front pocket of his jeans. “Lydia told me about what happened to your family. I’m really sorry. I can’t even imagine what you must be going through right now.”
She dropped her gaze to the barn floor and tried to find her voice. But there was nothing. Just a throat-clogging lump and the promise of tears if she even opened her mouth. Instead, she shook her head, once—fast—and drew in the deepest breath her lungs would allow.
“Lydia told me she’d invited you to stay, but I didn’t think you’d actually come.”
“I didn’t, either,” she murmured, forcing herself to look up. “But it was the only place I could think of to go.”
His answering nod was slow, thoughtful. “How long are you going to stick around?”
“I’ll probably head back later today or early tomorrow.”
Her words seemed to push him back a step. “But you just got here.”
When she didn’t respond, he walked over to one of the horse stalls, rooted around in his pocket, and pulled out a peppermint candy he promptly held in her direction. “Would you like to do the honors?”
“The honors?”
“Yeah, don’t you remember feeding a peppermint candy to my dat’s buggy horse when we were kids?”
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