Wow. Hannah wished she had more time to learn.
Paul parked his car in the lot behind his apartment and headed up the curved sidewalk. Exhaustion covered him, just like the gloomy, starless canopy overhead. He needed sleep. So far today he’d accomplished getting through his classes, working all afternoon at the tire store, and studying for hours at the library—all on about four hours of sleep. His bed was calling to him.
As he passed the student mailboxes, he had a fleeting thought of picking up his mail. I’ll do it tomorrow … or the next day.
He used to check his mailbox every day, eagerly anticipating a letter from Hannah. But since Gram had put her foot down on passing letters to him, there was no way he was going to hear from Hannah anytime soon. With that possibility gone, he felt no reason to check except to occasionally keep up with bills. Since he’d always intercepted the mail, his roommates never went to the mailbox.
He placed his key into the apartment lock and slipped inside. After pulling off his shoes, he shoved them against the wall. Using the only light on in the place, a dim one in the hallway, he made his way to his and Marcus’s room. He dropped his heavy book bag in a corner and sprawled across his twin bed. He would get ready for bed in a few minutes. Right now he had no energy for anything but to lie there.
Paul dozed in and out but never really fell asleep. He eased his feet to the side of the bed and rubbed his face. Perhaps if he changed out of his street clothes, he’d sleep better. As he stood, his keys fell to the floor. In one slow swoop, he picked them up and tossed them onto the nightstand. The small, gold mailbox key on the chain reflected the hallway light. The desire to check his mailbox returned. Ignoring it, he shook his head and made his way into the bathroom.
He brushed his teeth and peeled down to his boxers. Then he crept back to his bed and pulled down the covers. As he slid between the sheets, the nagging desire to look in his mailbox persisted. Finally giving in to the craving, Paul pulled on a pair of jeans, grasped the key, and headed outside.
His bare feet tingled as he crossed the cold concrete sidewalk. Under the glow of a streetlamp, he opened his box and pulled out a few items. A green flier advertising a sale on tires made him snort. Beneath that, he noticed a couple of bills, a coupon ad, and a note-sized envelope. He tucked the miscellaneous items under his arm and turned the envelope address side up.
His heart lurched. The return address belonged to his grandmother, but the handwriting was Hannah’s. He tore it open while dashing back to his apartment. In spite of the solitude of the campus this late at night, the privacy of his bedroom was the only place to read Hannah’s letters.
After flipping on the reading lamp, he sat on the side of the bed.
Paul,
My brother Luke and my dear friend Mary have been in an accident. I’m staying at Hershey Medical Center. If you get this letter in time and wish to speak with me, do come. Mary’s room is on the second floor.
Hannah
If he wished to speak to her? Of course he wanted to speak to her. He wanted it so badly he had to squelch his feelings of joy in light of her reason for being at Hershey. He said a prayer for Luke and Mary, and then he checked out the postmark on the letter. Hannah had mailed it five days ago. It had probably been in his mailbox for two or three days. In spite of hoping Luke and Mary were well on their way to being released, he also hoped they were still at HMC.
He skimmed the brief note again. Excited as he was at the prospect of seeing Hannah, the coolness of her note gave him pause. She was not one to indulge in giddy romantic nonsense, so her letters never contained words of endearment or had a flirtatious tone. But this one made him flinch. They were engaged, for Pete’s sake, yet she mentioned nothing about missing him or wanting to see him. It was more like an invitation offered out of protocol, because she was now in the vicinity, rather than an opportunity she hoped he didn’t miss.
Reading the message again, he decided he was being self-centered. She’d managed to mail him a note. What more should he expect in such a traumatic situation?
Scurrying around like a maniac, Paul wrote Marcus a brief note and headed out the door.
The thirty-minute ride to Hershey was not a pleasant one. His thoughts and desires pulled him in ten different directions for every minute he drove. He wished he didn’t have to be separated from Hannah like this, but he had to get his bachelor’s degree under his belt. Frustration with Gram hounded him. But what if she was right? His family wouldn’t have as many qualms about Hannah as hers would about him, but they’d have plenty of reservations.
His thoughts zipped in every direction, but when he pulled into the parking lot of the hospital, he knew one thing for sure: he had no answers, only desire.
While jogging across the lot and through the main entrance, he formed a plan. He’d check each waiting room on the second floor and hopefully catch a glimpse of Hannah without being spotted by any of her family. That would be far preferable to asking at a nurses’ station about Luke Lapp or Mary Yoder. The fewer people who knew of his visit, the safer his and Hannah’s secret connection would be.
When the elevator doors opened at the second floor and he stepped into the hallway, Paul realized he was on the ICU floor. It must have been a bad accident. Striding down the long corridor, he checked the first waiting room. She wasn’t there. After searching the last wing of the unit, he gave up and went to the nurses’ station.
“Excuse me.”
A plump, dark-haired nurse looked up from the papers on the desk in front of her. “Visiting hours are over, sir.”
“I’m looking for Luke Lapp.”
“He was removed from ICU four days ago. I heard he was released from the hospital two days later.”
Paul rubbed his forehead, chastising himself for not checking his mailbox sooner.
A half smile graced her lips. “I take it that wasn’t the answer you were looking for.”
Paul tried to hide his mounting disappointment. “Is Mary Yoder still here?”
A buzzer went off, and the nurse jumped to her feet and hustled down the hallway. Without slowing, she turned toward Paul. “She’s been released from ICU. If she’s still a patient here, she’ll be on the fifth floor. But their visiting hours are over too.”
“Thank you,” he called after her.
The woman waved as she disappeared inside a cubicle.
Paul strode to the elevators, clinging to a draining hope that Hannah might still be at the hospital.
Just as he’d done on the second floor, he walked the corridors, looking and listening for any sign of Hannah. When he heard a man’s voice with a distinctly Amish way of turning a phrase, he slowed his pace. He peered into the waiting area from an angle that wouldn’t catch the attention of whoever was in the room.
Excitement pumped through his veins. There she was, his beautiful Hannah, sitting and talking to an Amish man. She laughed in that friendly, shy way of hers. Leaning her head toward him, she spoke softly. “I wouldn’t confess this to a relative, and you’d better not either. But as a friend, I’m telling you, I did.”
Friend? This guy wasn’t a relative?
In an instant, insecurity took over. Jealousy reared up. His Hannah was sitting directly beside some young man, talking nonchalantly and chuckling. Paul’s view only gave him a profile of Hannah and her friend. Their legs were stretched out side by side, their feet propped in a chair across from them.
He’d never seen Hannah in her own world, but this was not how he’d always envisioned her. To him, she had seemed reserved. He’d assumed she would have a backward way about her when it came to men, even among her people.
The man, who looked to be about Paul’s age, pushed against her feet with his. “Ya did not.”
Hannah laughed. “Why, Matthew Esh, how would you know? Were you there?”
“Ya know I weren’t. But I’ve knowed ya since before ya could walk. I know ya like nobody else, Hannah Lapp. If anyone could tell when you’re lyin’, it’d b
e me. So tell the truth. It ain’t true, is it?”
Paul’s breath shortened. Who was this Matthew fellow who claimed to know his Hannah unlike anyone else?
Hannah bit her bottom lip and tilted her head. “If you’re so sure I’m lying, then you don’t need me to tell you anything.”
Matthew chuckled, plunking his feet onto the floor. “This round of the game ain’t over, but I better be headin’ out. The driver said he’d be leaving his party at twelve, and I’m to meet ’im out the main entrance at quarter after.” He rose. “Tell Mary that when she’s settled at home and up to havin’ company, I’ll pay her a visit.”
Hannah stood. “I’ll tell her. It was nice of you to go out of your way to come here.”
Matthew straightened his hat. Paul darted quietly down the hallway and around a corner where he couldn’t be seen by the two leaving the waiting room. From his hiding place, Paul watched Hannah and Matthew stroll to the elevator, where she bid him goodbye. As she turned to come back down the hallway, Paul stepped out from the corner and called her name.
She wheeled around so fast she almost lost her balance. Her face flushed. Her movements froze. Guilt and embarrassment seemed to flood her entire being. “Paul.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper, but there was no smile, no sign that he was welcome.
He glanced down each hallway. They needed someplace where they could talk in private. “Let’s go back to that waiting room you just came from.”
Without any show of emotion, Hannah moved back to the quiet space. Paul followed. Something hung between them, but he had no idea what it was. They stood in the small room, staring at each other. The unspoken friction whispered words of disbelief in his heart. They’d been so close, so sure of things just a month ago.
Paul cleared his throat. “Are Luke and Mary going to be all right?”
She lowered her head and fidgeted with her apron. “Luke’s been released. It looks like he’ll completely recover. Mary will be released tomorrow. The doctors suggested she stay a few days to a week longer, but she and her parents signed an AMA form.”
“AMA?” Paul asked.
“Against Medical Advice. Her parents insist she’s well enough to go home.” Hannah shrugged. “I’m not sure she is, but they didn’t ask me. She’s got a long way to go—if she ever gets her full strength and agility back.”
Hannah sounded as though she’d learned a lot during her stay here. Her speech patterns were even smoother, more scholarly than before. She’d always hungered to learn, and he’d shared books with her for years—books that had to stay at Gram’s.
“What happened?”
Hannah wiped her palms down the front of her pinafore. “They were riding in a buggy when a car hit them. They both came close to dying. Mary can’t talk very well. She has too many injuries to even try walking just yet.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Hannah cleared her throat. “They are mending.”
“I’m glad.”
Paul studied her, but she never looked at him. He knew the rigid upbringing that took place under Zeb Lapp. She fell into guilt far too effortlessly. The side effect was that she thought everything that went wrong was a direct result of her not handling something right. She probably considered herself at fault for Luke and Mary’s accident, even though she had nothing to do with it. Her tendency toward guilt bothered him greatly. But he was confident that, given time and freedom, she’d overcome this trait.
Then again, perhaps what he was seeing written on her face had nothing to do with her oversensitivity to her self-accusing nature. Maybe it had more to do with Matthew. As much as he hated to ask her, they had to clear the air. He stared at the floor while shifting from one foot to the other. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “So, who is Matthew Esh?”
When Hannah didn’t answer, he lifted his gaze. She stared at a blank television screen in the corner of the room. “He is the man you just saw leave.”
“Yes, but …” Never in all their years as friends had he seen such a look in her eyes. It was an odd mixture of things, maybe embarrassment and … and … something else.
Father, help me. Help us. Please.
Her hands fluttered to her head, feeling for wisps of misplaced hair and making sure her Kapp was in place. “You sent no letter.”
It was a statement that seemed to hold no irritation or worry. Was that supposed to explain who Matthew was?
“I did, but …” He stepped closer to her. She didn’t look up at him. “I don’t understand why, but it never arrived at Gram’s. Before I could send another one, Gram decided we needed to think about our relationship for a while before she’d let us pass letters through her.”
She lifted her gaze. To his surprise, anger blazed in her eyes. “So, now that you’ve had time to think about our relationship, what have you decided?”
“Hannah.” Paul touched her arm. “What is going on with you?”
Her eyes clouded with tears. She gasped for air and backed away from him. As she lifted a hand to wipe a tear off her face, something on her palm caught Paul’s attention.
He grasped her hand and turned it palm side up, seeing long, raised areas of pink tissue. “You have scars. What happened to you?”
Her face and lips grew pale. She eased into the closest chair.
She took a deep breath and straightened her back. With her shoulders squared with resolve, she gazed up into his eyes, her eyes brimming with tears. “Let me go.” The hoarse whisper in her voice made Hannah sound old and tired.
Physical pain shot through him. “You’re not making any sense, Hannah.”
She grabbed some tissues out of a box on a coffee table. “Trust me. You don’t want to wait … for the likes of me.”
For the likes of her? Another inkling of suspicion concerning her faithfulness to him rose within his heart. “What are you talking about?”
“I … I …” Tears choked her, and she could say no more.
Paul sat beside her, determined to figure her out. “Hannah, close your eyes and take a deep breath.” He gave her a moment to do so. “Now, let one thing come forward in your mind. Don’t try to tie it all in. Just stick to one issue, and with your eyes closed, tell me.”
She swiped a Kleenex over her cheeks and nodded, as if he’d given her a task she could manage. “The bankbook is missing.” She opened her eyes, absent-mindedly tracing the scars on her right palm with her left forefinger. “I’m not sure what happened to it. I … I …” She turned ashen again.
He placed his hand on her back. “It’s okay. The bank doesn’t even use those kinds of books anymore. They haven’t for decades. I got that one from a friend who works there and had a few books still stashed in his desk.”
“It must’ve been in my pocket when Daed burned my clothes.”
Paul removed his hand. “Burned them? Gram said you’d been sick. Were you so sick that they thought your clothes needed burning?”
Hannah’s eyes carried uncertainty. She fled to the other side of the room and stared at the beige wall.
He understood a little more now. To Hannah, losing the gift was probably unforgivable. Still, her reaction seemed too much for just a lost bankbook. He sighed. Perhaps getting to the bottom of all that was on her mind wasn’t possible with the time constraints they had to deal with.
She sniffled.
Walking up behind her, he grabbed some tissues and passed them over her shoulder. He longed to share consoling words with her, but one thing stood in his way. “Do you care for someone else?”
She turned to face him, indignation burning in her eyes. “No!” She sidestepped him and walked across the room, sobbing into the tissue. “Never!”
Her reaction worked the doubts and fears right out of him. He walked to the corner of the small room and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Then nothing else can stand in our way. I promise you that, Hannah.”
She turned to face him. “You don’t understand.”
“Then tell me.”
Her face was white, humiliation carved in her features. Seeing her like this cut him to the core. All he wanted was to remove whatever was bothering her. But how?
He touched her Kapp and ran a finger along one of the ties. He did his best to smile. “Hannah Lapp, we can do this. But you have to trust me.”
She studied him through teary eyes. “Oh, Paul.” She lowered her forehead onto his chest. “The day you left … a car … with a man … he … it … knocked me …”
The power of her words hit him so hard he couldn’t move. He heard her fighting for air. “You were sideswiped by a car?” He felt her head nod. He took her by the shoulders and put some space between them. “Did your father contact the police?”
She shook her head. “I … I asked him to.”
Just then a nurse came into the waiting area. “Hannah, Mary’s mother called. She was unable to sleep and is on her way back here. She said you can take the shuttle back to the hotel and get some sleep.”
“Okay. Thank you.” She sighed as the nurse left the room. “She’ll be here within ten minutes.”
He wasn’t concerned with Mary’s mother arriving. He wondered if the anxiety of that incident was what had made her so sick that her father had thought it best to burn her clothes. Rage at the idiot driver and anger that no one had stood up for Hannah made him understand a little better Hannah’s wild emotions. She’d been traumatized that day. Obviously, that’s where the scars on her hands had come from. He wrapped his arms around her, resigned that there was nothing he could do about the incident now.
Her body was stiff, yet he could feel her tremble.
“We need to look ahead, not behind.” He kissed the top of her head through her Kapp. “I’ll love you forever, Hannah.”
Sisters of the Quilt Trilogy Page 13