Piece by Piece

by Laura Bradford

  Tipping forward, she rested her forehead against Nettie’s. “Now tell me some things about Rose that made you happy inside.”

  “The way she kicked and kicked her feet when I would make her smile!”

  “That’s a good one. Anything else?”

  “When I would hold her on my lap, she would open her eyes real big at me!”

  “Anything else?”

  “When she sleeped, she’d do this”—Nettie closed her eyes and puckered her lips—“lots of times. Sometimes I would sit on the floor next to her cradle and try to make the same face. See?” Again, she puckered and released her lips. “It was very cute.”

  “It makes you happy inside to remember those things about her, doesn’t it?” she asked, sitting back.

  “Yah!”

  “Then that’s what you do when you miss her, sweetie . . . You remember those moments, those things about her that made you feel happy inside. Because then she’ll still be with you right here”—she moved the tip of her finger from the little girl’s forehead to her chest—“and right here. Always.”

  Rocketing up onto her knees, Nettie wrapped her arms around Dani, her earlier tears replaced by the kind of smile that reached far beyond just the confines of her small mouth. “Can you help me name Rose’s kitty before you go?”

  “Before I go?” she echoed. “I’m not going anywhere. Not until your uncle gets back, anyway.”

  Nettie clapped a hand over her mouth in a failed attempt to hide a giggle. When she nodded at something beyond Dani’s shoulder, Dani turned to find Caleb standing to the left of the stable’s main aisle. “I didn’t hear your truck.” She scooted Nettie off her lap and then pushed herself up off the ground, her gaze flitting between the driveway and the man looking everywhere but back at Dani. “Caleb? Is something wrong?”

  “Nope. Truck’s in the same place it usually is.”

  “Did something come up at your parents’ place?”

  “Nope. All good.”

  She bent her wrist up to indicate her wristwatch. “You were gone for almost a half hour.”

  “Was it that long?” he asked. “Wow. Sorry. I got a call from a coworker just as I was pulling up to my parents’ farm and”—he slid his palm down his face—“I don’t know, I . . . I guess I lost track of time.”

  Crossing to the stall at Dani’s back, he reached down, scooped his niece off the ground, and swept his hand in the direction of Sunshine and her babies. “So, how are the wee ones doing today?”

  “Dani named one!” Nettie declared, her tone one of triumph. “That one,” she added, pointing down at the gray-and-black-striped mound rising and falling with each slumbered breath. “The one with stripes!”

  “Did she name it Sleepy?” he asked.

  “No . . .”

  “Did she name it Kitten?”

  Nettie’s nose scrunched tight. “No . . .”

  “Cat?”

  “No . . .”

  “Then, if she didn’t use any of those names, what is its name?” he asked, peeking back at Dani with a ready grin and a wink. “Because those are pretty solid names if you ask me.”

  “She named it Button!”

  “Button, eh?” He took in the kitten for a moment, slanting his head from left to right as he did. “Button . . . I like it.”

  “Sunshine likes it, too!”

  Caleb’s laughter echoed around the large barn. “Well, if Sunshine likes it, that’s good enough for me!” He planted a kiss on Nettie’s cheek and then looked back down at the cat and her kittens again. “And Rose’s kitten? Does it have a name yet?”

  Nettie shook her head.

  “Can I name it then?”

  Nettie looked from Caleb to Dani and, finally, back to the nameless mound of white and black fur. “What do you want to name that kitten?”

  “Always.”

  Dani’s quiet gasp stole Nettie’s attention from the task at hand, but only for as long as it took Caleb to continue, his gaze focused on the cat. “Because, like Dani just said, that’s how long Rose will be with us in our hearts.”

  Chapter 20

  She waited until she was sure the tiny white kapp and the head it was covering were out of hearing range and then whirled around, hands on hips. “You had no right,” Dani hissed. “No right at all.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t play dumb. You were in that barn long before Nettie or I knew you were there. Which means you were listening to our conversation—our private conversation.”

  His cheeks flamed crimson. “Dani, I didn’t—”

  She shot up her hand. “Please. Save it. I’m not an idiot.” Propelled by her growing anger, she took a few steps toward the sheep pen, stopped, and then stalked back to Caleb. “I was talking to Nettie, not you.”

  “I know that. And I’m sorry.” Craning his head to her left, he found and held a smile for as long as it took to placate his curious niece, and then lowered his voice to a level only Dani could hear. “I didn’t set out to listen; I really didn’t. I just got out of my truck, looked for you guys outside, and then stuck my head in the barn to see if you were still inside. I was just about to call out when I heard Nettie crying. When I walked all the way in, you were rocking her in your lap and talking her through what was clearly a difficult moment. I didn’t want to ruin it by taking a chance she’d hear me leaving or something.”

  “I see. So you just stood there and listened, instead?” she said, her voice rising.

  “Yes, I just stood there. But I didn’t listen. I heard. Big difference if you think about it.” He abandoned eye contact just long enough to check on his niece again. “But if it upset you, I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention. I was just so grateful you were able to connect with Nettie like that—to give her something so good, so true, to hang on to.”

  Again, he looked toward the sheep pen and the little girl happily talking away to the partially blind and deaf sheep on the other side. “You forget sometimes that kids that age feel grief, too. I mean, yeah, you know they’re thrown in the moment, but then you see them doing stuff like that”—he nudged his chin forward—“and you think they’re doing okay. So you turn your attention elsewhere . . . But clearly, Nettie isn’t okay.”

  “I wouldn’t say she’s not okay.” Her anger decreasing, Dani began to walk, Caleb’s footsteps quickly falling in line with her own. “I’d say it creeps up on her sometimes, and she doesn’t want to upset Lydia by talking about it, or asking about it, or—in today’s case—crying about it. Even at just four years old, she’s empathetic enough not to want to upset her mother any further.”

  He slowed their pace in an obvious effort to buy them more time to talk. “I ask Nettie, every time I see her, how she’s doing and if there’s anything she wants to talk about, but I don’t like to get too specific as to what I’m asking about in the event my questions put the pain there.”

  “The pain is already there,” Dani said. “In this case, it just bubbled up to a point where she couldn’t keep it inside anymore.”

  “I’m glad you were there when it happened.”

  Shrugging, she toed at a random pebble, watched it roll back and forward, back and forward . . . “I won’t always be.”

  “Why?” he asked, shifting his weight across his boot-clad feet. “You’re not thinking about leaving, are you?”

  “Lydia invited me for a few days, Caleb. I’ve been here almost six weeks now.”

  “Lydia doesn’t care.”

  “Says you.”

  “Says the fact she’s not pushing you toward your car.” He looked again at Nettie, his feet remaining planted in place. “I like what you said to her today. About memories keeping Rose close. It’s like you gave her a little bit of control over a situation where she had none.”

  “If that makes her feel as if she has some control, I’m glad.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you saying you don’t believe what you just told her in the barn?”

  “I t
hink it made her feel better. In that singular moment. That’s the beauty of being a child. They’re easily distractible, easy to influence.”

  “Influence?”

  “Into viewing something in a way they wouldn’t have otherwise. And in that moment, that’s what she needed from me so she could find her way out of a hole that had gotten far too big for someone so small.”

  “Moments can add up, Dani. If you let them.”

  She stared at him, her mouth running dry. “What are you talking about?”

  “At the ice-cream place,” he said by way of explanation. “Your smile. When you were telling me that story about your son and the stray cat. Your whole face lit up. It’s why I said what I said about—”

  The sound of a car door closing somewhere just beyond the sheep pen stole their collective attention and sent it skittering toward the road in time to see a silver minivan drive off in the direction of town. Seconds later, Elijah and Lydia came into view, sending Nettie in a run to greet them.

  The joy in the little girl’s squeals as she spread her arms wide for her parents was unmistakable. So, too, was the love Elijah had for his daughter as he crouched down to collect her sweet hug. But Lydia, Dani noticed, lagged behind, her milky skin nearly ashen, her gait one of . . . dread?

  “Oh no,” Caleb said beneath his breath.

  “What?”

  “I don’t think it went well.”

  Confused, she looked from Caleb to Lydia and back again. “You don’t think what went well?”

  “The doctor’s appointment.” Caleb cupped his mouth for a second, maybe two, and then let his hand drift back down to his side. “Lydia was hoping that what he said when Rose was born wasn’t set in stone. But that look on her face right now”—he shook his head—“says otherwise.”

  Again, she let her eyes drift toward the Amish couple and their daughter, Elijah’s smile present but muted while Lydia’s struggled to appear at all. “What did he say?”

  Caleb started to speak, stopped, and then stepped forward, tipping his cowboy hat forward on his brow. “I think I should probably let Lydia fill you in on that. Besides, I think it’s safe to say—looking at her—that she could probably use a friend right about now.”

  “What about Nettie?” she asked as the child wrapped her arms around her mother’s legs. “She’s had enough sadness for one day.”

  “Agreed. That’s why I’m going to see what I can do about rustling up some outdoor chores the two of us can help Elijah with before the boys get home from school. That’ll give you and Lydia a little privacy.”

  Nettie held on for what seemed like forever and then, after a slew of uncertain glances up at her mamm, stepped back, her smile wilting.

  “I don’t know, Caleb. Your sister might just want some time alone . . .” she mumbled.

  And just like that, Lydia swung her attention off the barn, the ground, the sky—basically everything and anything she could find to throw Nettie off the scent—and fixed it, instead, on Dani, her answering sag of relief impossible to miss.

  “No,” Caleb said, swallowing. “She needs a friend, Dani—she needs you.” Powered by an audible inhale, he strode over to Elijah and Nettie, said something to both of them she was too far away to hear, squeezed his sister’s shoulder, and then, with a pointed nod in Dani’s direction, disappeared into the barn.

  Dani, in turn, pulled in her own deep breath, steadied the sudden tremble in her hands, and inched her way toward the woman now inching her way toward Dani. Even from their rapidly decreasing proximity to each other, it was easy to see Lydia was troubled. It was there in her weighted gait. It was there in the absence of her warm smile. It was there in the repeated wiping of her slender hands down the sides of her dress. It was there in the dodging of eye contact.

  “Good afternoon, Danielle,” Lydia said, the upbeat note to her voice forced at best. “It is good to see you outside enjoying the sunshine.”

  Dani tilted her chin toward the sky, the answering warmth on her face doing little to chase the pervasive chill from her being. “Nettie introduced me to the new kittens in the barn.”

  Lydia’s fingers whitened against the soft pink of her lips. “Oh, Danielle. I am sorry she was a bother. I have told the children you are to have your time alone.”

  “No . . . Please . . .” She decreased the gap between them to a single arm’s length and rested what she hoped was a reassuring hand atop her friend’s. “Nettie did not seek me out. I-I . . . sought her out.”

  It wasn’t the truth, exactly, but it was clear, even without verbal confirmation, that something was weighing heavily on Lydia’s heart. Hearing that Nettie had frightened Caleb by disappearing out to the sheep’s pen without his knowledge was an added weight she didn’t need.

  “That is good to hear,” Lydia said, sagging.

  It was on the tip of Dani’s tongue to say something about the sweet names the children had come up with for the newborn kittens, but when Lydia’s sag became a wobble she lurched forward with a steadying arm, instead. “Whoa there . . . Let’s get you inside where you can sit. Then, when you are settled, I will go out to the barn and get Elijah.”

  “Please do not get Elijah,” Lydia said, waving at Dani’s words. “I have taken enough of his time from his chores.”

  Slowly, Dani guided her friend toward the main house, the woman clearly fighting back tears with each and every step. “I’m sure Elijah’s chores can wait. And if they can’t, Caleb is here. He’ll do them.”

  “There is nothing for Elijah to do or say that he has not already done or said. The doctor’s words are God’s will. I must learn to accept them.”

  “Are . . . Are you okay?” she asked, on the heels of a hard swallow. “Are you sick?”

  “No, I am not sick in the way that you mean.” At the base of the porch steps, Lydia glanced up at the sky and then over her shoulder toward the road. “The boys will return from school soon. Perhaps they will stop in the barn to see the calf before they come into the house. That will give me time to be Mamm again.”

  “To be Mamm?” she echoed.

  “Yah. One who listens when they speak. One who does not wipe tears she does not want them”—Lydia’s voice faltered with a stifled sob—“to see.”

  Tightening her hold on Lydia’s waist, Dani changed direction toward the grossdawdy house. “Why don’t we sit inside here for a little while, instead?”

  “I do not want to be a bother.”

  “A bother? After everything you’ve done for me since I came? Please.” She led the way inside and over to the first of the two tableside benches in the kitchen. With Lydia settled, Dani crossed to the cabinet for a glass, filled it with ice water, and carried it back to the table. “Here. Drink this.”

  Lydia took one sip, then another, her gaze meeting and then abandoning Dani’s in favor of the window and a view Dani doubted she saw.

  Lowering herself onto the bench opposite Lydia’s, Dani leaned forward against the edge of the table, her breath shallow. “Lydia, I-I’m so sorry about your baby. I . . . I didn’t know.”

  Lydia’s answering nod was labored. “Caleb told you?”

  “I saw the grave the other night when I was out walking. Caleb simply confirmed what I feared.”

  “I am sorry I did not send a Christmas letter this year.” Lydia pulled the glass against her chest and closed her eyes for just a moment, her voice shaking along with her hand. “I could not quiet my heart enough to write one.”

  She reached across the table for Lydia’s free hand. “Oh, Lydia . . .”

  “I miss her so much it is hard to breathe.”

  “I know.”

  “I want to think it didn’t happen, that it is all just a bad dream. But it isn’t—it’s . . . real.”

  “I know that, too.”

  “I know that it was God’s will and I must accept that but—”

  “Rose was your daughter, Lydia. Your baby. There is no accepting a loss like that.”

  Lydi
a’s eyes widened. “But I must. You must. It is God’s will for me—for you—to be here.”

  “I get why you’re still here. That’s clear,” she murmured, retrieving her hand. “You are a wonderful mother. Luke, and David, and Mark, and Nettie, and any others you and Elijah have in the future need you. But—”

  Lydia peered down into her cup, her shoulders, her lips, her very being, sagging. “There will be no others.”

  “I’m not saying now, Lydia. I just mean later, when you’re ready.” She traced her finger along a knot in the table’s surface, her throat growing tight. “I’ve seen you with them these past few weeks. You are everything I should have been and wasn’t. ”

  Curiosity lifted Lydia’s gaze to Dani’s. “I don’t understand. What have you not been?”

  “An incredible mother.”

  “I do not believe that, Danielle. You have written me so many beautiful Christmas letters over the years and—”

  Her answering laugh held no shred of humor. “Ahhhh, yes . . . My prowess with pen and paper . . . I looked to that as proof of my mothering ability, as well. But I was wrong. One only has to spend a day watching you to know that.”

  “Watching me?” Lydia echoed, her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

  She held up her hands. “And you don’t need to. Especially not today. Let’s just keep this about you and why you’re upset, okay?”

  Lydia looked as if she was about to protest but let it go. Instead, she traveled her gaze back to the window, her voice growing faint, almost far away. “I cannot bear Elijah any more children.”

  Gasping, Dani drew back so fast the bench wobbled beneath her. “What? Why? Are you sure?”

  “Yah. The doctor said it is so. There were complications with Rose’s birth.”

  “Did you want to have more children?” she asked.

  “Yah.”

  Again, she reached across the table for Lydia’s hand and held it tight. “Oh, Lydia. I’m so sorry.”

  “It is God’s will.”

  “You say that without any shred of anger . . .”

  “To anger is to question. It is not for me to question God’s wisdom.”

  She bit down on the answer she couldn’t give, not to Lydia, not now. Instead, she pulled in a breath, held it, and then released it, slowly. “Rose was your child, Lydia. You’re entitled to feel everything you want to feel right now—sadness and anger. It’s . . . normal.”