A Widow's Hope

by Vannetta Chapman

  Hannah didn’t need a lecture about family. Yes, she appreciated her parents and sisters and brothers-in-law, but they didn’t understand just how much of a burden Matthew’s disability could be. They hadn’t experienced an emergency run to the hospital because of a minor cold that had quickly morphed into pneumonia.

  “Back to the money...” she said.

  “Simon has some saved, which he has offered to Dat.” Sharon’s husband worked at the RV factory in Shipshewana two days a week. The rest of the time he farmed their land.

  “Carl does too.” Beth raised her foot and stared at her swollen ankle. “Dat told me he doesn’t want to take it unless he’s sure it will cover the balance. He doesn’t want to drain our savings for a place he might lose anyway.”

  And there it was—the real fear of losing their childhood home. It was common for Amish to up and move for a variety of reasons—a disagreement with the way the church district was being run, a rumor that land was more plentiful and less expensive in another state, even a vague restlessness to see somewhere different.

  But this wasn’t that.

  This was being forced from your home, and to Hannah that made it a much graver thing.

  “How much will you make?” Sharon asked.

  Hannah told them the hourly wage she’d asked for and how many hours she thought she could work. “Not a full forty,” she explained. “I told him that I still want to take Matthew to his appointments.”

  “We could do that for you.”

  “I know you could, Sharon. I know you both would, and danki for offering.” She smoothed her apron out over her lap, then ran her hand across it again before looking up to meet her sisters’ gazes. “This is something I’d like to continue to do, if I can.”

  Both sisters nodded as if they understood, and maybe they did.

  Sharon scrounged around in her purse for a receipt and a pen. On the back of the receipt she added up what Simon had saved, what Carl had pulled together and what Hannah would make in the next month minus any taxes she would have to pay.

  “You saw the letter.” Sharon chewed on the end of the pen. “How much did it say they owed?”

  When Hannah quoted the amount, Beth leaned closer to the paper. “We’re a little short.”

  “But we still have thirty days.”

  “Twenty-eight.” Hannah glanced over at her mother, who was sitting with the other women and watching the youngies play ball. “Twenty-eight days. Between now and then, we need to find a way to come up with the difference.”

  Chapter Six

  Hannah tried on all three of her dresses Monday morning. The gray one made her look like a grandmother. The green was a bit snug. Had she actually gained weight since moving home? She could thank her mother’s cooking for that. The dark blue was her oldest, but it was all that was left other than what she wore to Sunday services, and she wouldn’t dare wear that to Jacob’s workshop.

  Frustrated that she cared about how she looked, she donned the dark blue dress, a fresh apron and her kapp. One last shrug at her reflection in the window, and she walked down the hall to Matthew’s room. She didn’t enter, though. Instead she paused at the door. She heard her son moving around, and yet he hadn’t called out to her. That was a good sign. It meant he’d slept well.

  She turned the knob and walked into the room.

  The sky had barely begun to lighten outside, but she pulled up the shades and then sat on his bed. He smiled up at her, curling over on his side.

  “You look gut—pretty.”

  “Danki.”

  “Are you excited?”

  “About my job?”

  “Ya.” He reached out for her apron strings, ran them through his fingers. “I would be excited, if I was going to spend all day with Jacob. Why can’t I go? Please...”

  He drew out the last word, and Hannah almost laughed. It sounded so normal, so everyday, that she actually didn’t mind the whining.

  “We’ve been over this. I will be working with numbers all day—”

  “I can write my numbers.”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

  “And Jacob will be working.”

  “He will.”

  “On a playhouse?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Matthew considered that for a moment, and then he said what must have been on his mind all along. “I’d like to see some of his playhouses. They’re not all trains—I know that because he described a few. I’d like to see what the others look like.”

  “Would you now?”

  “Do you think that maybe...maybe we could?”

  Hannah hesitated. She didn’t want to encourage this infatuation that her son had for her boss. At the same time, as Sally had pointed out, it was natural for Matthew to look up to men in their community. “If they’re in the area, and he tells me where they are...well, I don’t see why we couldn’t drive by when we’re out on errands.”

  Matthew’s smile was all the answer she needed. How could such a small thing bring him such joy? How was it that he managed to accept his condition so easily without bitterness? He pushed himself into an upright position and raised his arms for Hannah’s father to pick him up.

  “I didn’t hear you come in,” Hannah said.

  “Because I’m as quiet as a cat and as quick as a panther.” Her father winked at her as he carried Matthew out of the room.

  “Have you ever seen a panther, Daddi?”

  Matthew had slept well, woke up with no signs of a cold or infection and was showing a real interest in the things going on around him. It was a good day for certain, so why was a part of Hannah still worried?

  She walked back into the room to fetch Matthew’s clothes for the day.

  “He’ll be fine.” Her father paused to kiss the top of her head, which made her feel like a small child again. It also made her feel loved and cared for. “And I appreciate your taking the job. I hope you know you don’t have to.”

  “I know, Dat, but I want to help.”

  “Your mamm and I appreciate that.”

  “It’s important—to be able to stay in this place, to raise Matthew surrounded by familiar things and people.”

  “Familiar to you, but not so much to Matt.” Her father glanced across the hall into the bathroom to be sure that Matthew was fine without him. With a nod to indicate that the boy was all right, he sat down beside her on the bed. “You know, Hannah, it could be that Gotte has other plans for us, that we’re not meant to stay in this house or even in this community.”

  “But you would want to...if you could. Right?”

  “Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turns out.”

  “Really, Dat? Your answer is a proverb?”

  His smile eased the anxiousness in her heart and reminded her of Matthew. The two were more alike than she had realized.

  “If you enjoy the job and if you can help Jacob, then you have my blessing. Listen to me closely though, Hannah. If you find it’s too much pressure, I want you to remember that your priority is your son, not how much money you can make.”

  “Ya, Dat, but it’s something I want to do.”

  He nodded as if he understood, and maybe he did.

  Hannah barely ate any breakfast, though she did help to clean up the kitchen. After going over the morning instructions one last time with her mother, the entire family shooed her out of the house.

  She hurried toward Dolly, who her father had already hitched to the buggy, turning back to call out, “I left Jacob’s phone number on the sheet.”

  “We have it, but we won’t need it.”

  “And I’m sorry I can’t go to the store for you.”

  “Stop worrying. Matt and I will take care of it.”

  “I’ll try. See you around
four thirty.”

  Her mother had actually packed her a lunch. She should have done that herself.

  Clucking to Dolly, she set off down the road.

  When was the last time that she’d gone somewhere without her son? When was the last time she’d been alone? She found herself enjoying the drive, smiling at the other drivers on the road—both Amish and Englisch—and noting how well the flower gardens had bloomed. Every home she passed had some spot of color brightening their lawn, or bordering their vegetable rows or in pots on the front porch. Goshen was a tourist destination, nearly as popular as Shipshewana, and the houses and businesses made every effort to present a clean, colorful picture.

  It took her less than twenty minutes to reach Jacob’s place, and she was embarrassed to find herself there a full thirty minutes early.

  “He’ll think I’m overeager.” She shook her head as she pulled down the lane. So what if she was? What did it matter? She was impatient to finally be of some help instead of a burden, and if she were honest, a little bit of her was looking forward to the quiet and challenge of a column of numbers.

  * * *

  Jacob was sitting on the front porch of the workshop when Hannah pulled down the lane. He shouldn’t have been surprised that she was early. She seemed like the kind of person that would be.

  By the time she set the brake on the buggy, he was standing there beside her. He took the reins and slipped them around the waist-high tie bar situated a few feet from the front of the shop.

  “I can’t believe that I’ve never been here.”

  She seemed a bit out of breath and flushed and beautiful. He shook the thought out of his mind and tried to pay attention to what she was saying.

  “Not even when we were kids?”

  “Maybe for church. I can’t remember.”

  “The place looked different then.”

  He pointed to the area where his parents’ home had been. “Micah and I cleared off the site after the fire and extended my mother’s garden to cover the old homestead. We thought it would be a nice way to remember them.”

  “It’s lovely, and I’m so very sorry about your parents.”

  “Every life is complete.” He said the words without thinking about them. It was what they believed, what they always said during such times. It was only during those terrible nights when he relived the destruction of the fire in his nightmares that he struggled with the concept. In the light of day, with Hannah smiling at him, it was easy enough to believe that Gotte had a plan and purpose for each of their lives and that sometimes that plan was beyond their understanding.

  “And you live over there?”

  He glanced back at the twenty-foot prefab. It looked rather pitiful and shabby in the morning light. He’d done nothing to spruce it up—no porch or rocking chairs or flowers. It wasn’t really a home, and he knew that. “Ya. It’s temporary.”

  “How long have you lived there?”

  “Six years.”

  Hannah looked directly at him for the first time since arriving, a look of surprise coloring her features. When he started laughing, she did too. He didn’t mind her seeing the humor in the situation, mainly because she was laughing with him instead of at him.

  Finally Hannah said, “I suppose it’s enough for a bachelor.”

  “It is. Let me show you the workshop.”

  He took her through the main room, explaining the various stages that each project went through from commission to design, cutting, assembling, sanding and finishing.

  “There’s a lot to it,” Hannah said.

  “Ya.” He was proud of his workshop. Every tool had a place. He cleaned each item after he used it and placed it on a peg on the wall. Sawdust was swept up each evening. Small projects were kept in large cubbies under one window that ran almost the entire length of the room. Bigger projects were lined up along the other wall. Design plans for playhouses were rolled and stored in smaller bins behind his worktable. A potbelly stove, rocking chair, hand-hooked rug made by his sister-in-law and small refrigerator adorned one corner.

  The room looked better than where he lived.

  “Bathroom’s back in that corner.”

  “Place smells nice—like a lumberyard.”

  “The office is over here.” He pointed to the room in the opposite corner.

  Hannah raised an eyebrow and motioned for him to lead the way.

  When they walked into the room, Jacob experienced a flash of panic. Who would want to work in this cramped little space all day? He’d made a feeble attempt to clean it up, but there was no hiding the fact that it had been neglected for years.

  “This was my father’s office. As you can see, I haven’t used it much.” He walked to the shelves and glanced at the items that had been there since the day his father had died. He hadn’t wanted to move a thing, hadn’t felt like he should. Fortunately, Hannah wouldn’t need shelves, as there was a large desk.

  Hannah stood there, frozen, letting her gaze drift from left to right and then back again. He waited for her to say something, but for once she seemed speechless.

  “These tubs are full of receipts, and as you can see, each is labeled with the year.”

  “Ya?”

  “I also put in the deposit slips each year, so you should be able to figure out what I earned versus what I spent. I tried to keep up with what people paid me by noting it on slips of paper, and you’ll find a few of those.”

  “Slips of paper...”

  “I’m afraid that after I figured my taxes each year, I probably tossed the worksheets, though I did keep a copy of the returns and they’re in the box, as well.”

  Hannah raised the lid off one of the tubs, stared inside for a moment and then quickly closed the lid. “Well. I see I have my work cut out for me.”

  “I cleared off the desk.”

  “Danki.”

  “And there’s a ledger, which I’ve never used.”

  “Obviously.”

  Jacob wondered if she would tell him that it was too big a job, that he was crazy to have been so lax with his record keeping, that he deserved whatever penalties the IRS threw at him. Instead she set her purse and lunch bag on the desk.

  “You can write down your hours on that pad, and I’ll pay you on Monday for the previous week’s work if that’s okay.”

  “That will be fine.” Hannah touched the desk chair, which looked as if it might fall over.

  How long had he had that thing? His dad had purchased it in some garage sale years and years ago.

  “I’ll go and look after Dolly.”

  “Oh, I can do that. I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t changed your mind first.”

  He gave her an odd look, shook his head and said, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  And then he turned and left, because if he stood looking at Hannah King one more minute, wearing her pretty blue dress with the morning light shining through on her freshly laundered kapp and lightly freckled face...he’d start daydreaming again, and that was the very last thing that he needed to do.

  * * *

  Once Jacob left the office, Hannah glanced over at the bins in horror.

  She stepped closer to the window and stared out at the fall day, watching as Jacob moved Dolly into the shade and fetched her a bucket of water. A man who cared properly for animals was a good man. Why hadn’t Jacob ever married? Why did he live in a tiny trailer on this large piece of land? Surely he could afford better.

  At least it looked as if business was booming.

  She was good at math, and she had helped her husband with his business records in Wisconsin, but she’d never seen a mess like this before.

  She stepped closer to one of the bins, opened the lid and peered inside. She pawed through the stack of paper—all sizes of paper, from a receipt from a cash register, to a bill that looked as
if it had been scribbled on across the back, to a Publishers Clearing House flyer.

  Looking closer, she sent up a silent thanks that at least she could read his handwriting.

  Jacob walked back into the room, and she slammed the lid shut again.

  “Problem?”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “I don’t know. You look as if you’ve seen a runaway buggy.”

  She tried to smile. “Nope. No buggies. Just lots of receipts.”

  Jacob’s smile vanished. “I know it’s a lot of work, Hannah, but at least I kept the receipts separated by year.”

  “Ya, I see that.”

  “Six years. Six bins. That helps. Right?”

  “I’m sure it will.”

  He stepped closer and reached out to put his hand on her arm.

  “Hannah, I need to tell you something.”

  She didn’t move, didn’t breathe.

  “I appreciate what you’re doing, more than you could know.”

  She tried to listen to his words, but her heart had taken off at a galloping pulse, and she was staring at his hand on her arm. His fingers against her skin stirred something inside of Hannah, something she didn’t realize she still possessed. Mixed with hope, and sprinkled with a dash of optimism—all things she hadn’t felt in quite some time.

  Jacob seemed to notice her discomfort. He dropped his hand to his side, then fiddled with the sleeve he’d rolled up to his elbows. “You’re a real godsend.”

  “I haven’t done anything yet.” She laughed nervously and moved around the desk, running her fingers across the wood.

  “I guess I’m headed out for the day. Just...make a list of any questions, and we’ll go over them this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Jacob—”

  He seemed to brace himself against what she was about to say.

  “I should thank you—for the job.”

  “Thank me?”

  “The way I asked, nein, demanded, you to give it to me—that wasn’t proper.”

  “You were right, though.”

  “I was?”

  “This place is a mess. Even I can see it.”