Unable to dismiss the recollections, she couldn’t take another step. Deciding this was a really bad idea and she needed to leave before she was noticed, she reached for Lissa’s hand. “Come on, Lis—”
Lissa dodged Hannah’s grasp. “Hey,” she hollered in Paul’s direction.
Paul looked up.
He stood straight and pulled the rawhide work gloves off his hands before wiping his brow. The early October air had a nip, and Hannah and Lissa had on thick cardigan sweaters, but Paul appeared to have beads of sweat on his face.
Lissa came to a halt right in front of him. “You need some help?”
“Well, good morning, Lissa.” Paul lifted his eyes to Hannah, looking quizzical.
She drew a shallow breath, unable to get a deep one. “I … we … need to talk.”
“Sure. We never had a chance to discuss Sarah’s progress or some of the suggestions I have that might help her.”
Hannah knew professional distancing when she heard it. “This isn’t about Sarah. I was hoping to cover some things that …” She lowered her eyes to Lissa. “Look right through those trees.” Kneeling, Hannah pointed at the bridge. “Do you see it?”
Lissa nodded.
“You can gather some pebbles and drop them into the water, but you can’t go down to the water’s edge, okay?”
Lissa turned and squeezed her neck, almost knocking her over with her enthusiasm, and took off running into the wooded area.
Hannah’s splayed hand against the ground kept her from losing her balance altogether. Paul offered his hand, and she took it.
After helping her stand, he motioned toward the house. “Give me just a minute, and I’ll get us a couple of chairs from the backyard.”
Hannah stood where she could see Lissa, who was singing joyously to the creek and trees. A minute later Paul put two resin chairs near her. A sense of dishonor covered her, and she was too antsy to sit.
It was time to say her piece and leave. That sounded matter-of-fact enough, but her head spun, and her insides trembled. Worse, she could feel the edge of tears sting her eyes, which really angered her, but she had to get this over with. “It was never my intention to deceive you, Paul. Never. But it did turn out that way. Much of what I’m going to say you’ve pieced together already, but I need to say it anyway, okay?”
Standing just a few feet from her, he stared across the huge pasture behind Gram’s place to the dirt road. “I understand. I’m sure it will help both of us.”
Lissa’s voice rang through the air, singing. Feeling the weight of the two worlds in which she lived, the one that had reason to sing and the one that continued to cause sadness, Hannah sat.
She tried to swallow but couldn’t. “The day you asked me to marry you, while walking home on the dirt road, a man about your age pulled up beside me, stopped his car, and asked for directions. It didn’t take long to realize I needed to get out of there, but when I tried to run …” She closed her eyes, trying desperately not to relive those few minutes. “That’s when I got the scars on the palms of my hands, the ones you noticed the next time we saw each other a couple of months later. Remember?”
“Yes.” His gentle voice was barely audible.
“Afterward … he tried to run over me with his car, but somehow I avoided it and ran home.” Hannah stared at the ground, remembering how arriving home had only added to her trouble. “I wanted to call you, wanted you to make sense of it and say we still had a future …” Tears eased down her cheeks. “Even though they didn’t know about you, Mamm and Daed said that no one would ever want to marry me if word of the attack got out and that I shouldn’t tell anyone—not even my own siblings.” She raised her eyes, seeing the grief etched on Paul’s face. “And that’s when I made the choice to hide the rape. I couldn’t even say the word until …” She let the sentence drop. “The weeks that followed were all but unbearable. You didn’t write. I wasn’t allowed to return to Gram’s. And I wondered if you’d really asked me to marry you. Now I know I was dealing with shock, then posttraumatic shock, and depression.”
As he moved his gaze to hers, she saw his eyes were rimmed with tears as well.
He set the empty chair directly across from her and took a seat. “I know we talked of this before, but I did write. I promise. The letter never arrived at Gram’s, and then she began feeling that it was wrong to allow us to communicate through her mailbox when your Daed didn’t know about me. There I was at school, longing to be in Owl’s Perch with you … as if some part of me knew you needed me, but I made myself stay focused on our future.”
Understanding that she wasn’t the only one with a list of what should have been done, she began to see the person she’d once believed him to be. One who hadn’t lied or stolen or even abandoned her, one who’d made a mistake and paid dearly for it. “I held on to one hope. It was the only thing that got me through everything else—that you wouldn’t find out and I wouldn’t lose you. But then, in late November, I learned I was pregnant.”
“Hannah,” Lissa called from the edge of the wood, “can I get a leaf and drop it into the water?”
A faint laugh escaped Hannah. “Yes, Lissa, you can.”
He intertwined his fingers, propped his forearms on his knees, leaned in, and whispered, “November?”
She nodded. “Between a lack of knowledge, denial, the depression, and then Mary nearly dying in that buggy accident, I just didn’t really put it all together. It wasn’t until after our last day to catch a visit that I learned I was pregnant.”
Paul straightened his interlocked fingers, staring at them. “The day before Thanksgiving.”
“Yes. We hadn’t seen each other in so long. My parents didn’t know why I wanted to go to Gram’s, but they knew I wanted it bad enough to do whatever it took to get here. They insisted I take a home pregnancy test. I took it and immediately left to come here. I spent that day with you, so sure I wouldn’t be pregnant, so convinced God wouldn’t let that happen because it’d ruin everything. You were right. I was naive. I caused a lot of the rumors you heard, but I never meant to flirt with anyone.”
Paul’s fingertips came within inches of hers before he pulled them back. “I know you were innocent, Hannah. My jealousy and confusion didn’t last but a few days. How could my fiancée, who wouldn’t even kiss me until months after we’d been engaged, be anything but innocent?”
“I wasn’t guiltless. I was selfish, wanting to hide the truth of being pregnant, and it may have cost Rachel her life. The night you came to Mary’s to talk to me? I didn’t know it then, but later I realized I was already in labor.”
Paul’s intense gaze tightened. “I thought my running out on you might have caused you to go into premature labor.”
Hannah’s breath caught. What had she done to him? “No, I’d taken something for pain and was in bed when you arrived at Mammi Annie’s. Remember?”
He nodded.
She ran her fingers through the side of her hair, pushing some fallen wisps back into place. For the first time she wondered what he thought of her Englischer look. He was the only one who hadn’t shown any disapproval. “I met with the church leaders the next morning. I needed them to believe me about the rape, or I wouldn’t be allowed to live with anyone within the community. They doubted me, and the bishop insisted I stay a night alone so I could rethink my story. I gave birth that night.” Hannah paused and willed herself to finish. “Matthew built a coffin, and we buried her. Daed wouldn’t let me come home. Mary’s parents said I couldn’t stay with them any longer. I … I didn’t think anyone would take me.” She closed her eyes, taking a moment to gather fresh strength. “When I called the bank, I learned that all the money had been removed from our account. I … I thought you’d taken it.”
“If we just could have talked …”
She shifted. “At that time everything was beyond talking about for me. I couldn’t voice to anyone what had happened. Besides, when I did manage to call your apartment, a girl answered, so
with all those events combined, I convinced myself all hopes of us were gone, and I boarded the train.”
The anguish expressed on his face said more than words. “I roomed with three other guys, who always had girls around, but I never received any message that you’d called. And I never had anything to do with those girls. The night you stayed in Harrisburg with Naomi and Matthew, I came looking for you, even borrowed a friend’s cell and had people stationed to receive a call from you here, at my parents’, and at my apartment.”
Her gaze fixed on Paul, and she was unable to break it. The night before boarding the train she’d called his apartment. A girl answered, promising to give him the message. He never called her back. Nine months after leaving, she’d tried again to reach him by calling here to Gram’s home. The same young woman had answered the phone, probably someone from his family or friends. Possibly Dorcas.
Hannah wouldn’t point fingers or lay blame. Still, she was getting an uneasy feeling that Paul had never received either message. She forced a smile. Whoever she spoke to may have lied, but Hannah was the one who went into hiding. She was the one who didn’t push harder to reach him, only calling twice in nine months and then never calling again.
She inhaled deeply, sensing her burden becoming lighter in spite of the truth she was learning. “The thing is, even if we’d talked before I left, I needed to go. Luke questioned me about leaving, saying I hadn’t given you much of a chance to adjust to the shocking news. But, Paul,”—she tilted her head, making sure he was looking right at her—“I needed out of Owl’s Perch, and even if we’d connected before I boarded that train and you still thought you wanted me, I’d have felt like a charity case, not a cherished fiancée or wife. Can you understand that?”
He nodded. “I knew you needed time. I never wanted to take that from you, but I wanted you to know I believed you and I hadn’t taken the money and I was there if you needed me.”
But Hannah knew if she’d stayed or even returned soon, she’d have made a mess of his life. His parents and community would not have accepted her, not with the reputation she carried—the scarlet letter she still wore in the eyes of most. And she would never have been able to make herself believe he actually loved her. At that time her self-esteem was gone, her spirit grievously wounded.
She rose. “The good news is that because I left, I met my aunt, a woman I’ll always be better for having known. She helped me find myself and a career. She placed seeds in me, assuring me that even a woman has the right to chase her own dream. She modeled forgiveness and hope. I don’t regret that time.”
Paul straightened his back, clearly relaxing a bit. “I … I always thought you’d return healed and successful.”
She scoffed. “Instead, I returned outspoken and difficult.”
A whispery laugh eased the rest of the concern lines across his forehead. “Well, I’d braced myself for that too.”
They shared a laugh, which brought an odd sense of wholeness to her. As if she hadn’t fully moved on until she found peace with others whose lives were ripped apart too.
“Hannah.” Lissa sang her name.
“Yes?”
“Can I throw a stick in the water?”
“Yes, and you have about five minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
Being at Gram’s with Paul and Lissa caused a sense of wonder at life to dance around her, asking to be let inside.
Hannah drew a deep breath, able to finish with more strength than she’d begun with. “At the end I thought I was losing my mind, but with each little town the train stopped at and then left behind, hope began to stir. I seemed to leave behind more of that overwhelming powerlessness, and I could finally breathe again.”
“You wrote me the nevertheless’ letter.”
She nodded. “I wanted to lift some of your burden the way leaving freed me, but then …” She resented that he seemed to have moved on and found someone else within no time of walking out on her. She swallowed hard. “But later on, I began to harbor resentment, blaming you for things that weren’t your fault. I’m sorry.”
He put one hand on her shoulder, waiting for her to look at him. “You’re forgiven.”
She shifted her body weight, wishing she’d covered everything and could just go. “In spite of how I’ve acted, I’m content and not given to bouts of anger. But one of the reasons I came by today is because I refuse to hide things again.”
Paul shook his head. “I … I don’t understand.”
“Within weeks of landing in Ohio, I changed my last name to Lawson.”
Lines creased his brow. “That’s not your married name?”
She shook her head. “I … I’m not married.”
He pointed at her left hand. “But you’re engaged?”
With her right hand, Hannah wrapped her fingers around the ring on her left hand, feeling the stones—a diamond and ruby—in her honorary mother’s gift. “He’s asked, but …”
He stood, turning his back to her.
Hannah blinked, feeling a bit startled. “I haven’t said yes, but I love him. We have Kevin and Lissa, and we make a good family.”
Paul turned, his eyes mirroring things she’d never be privy to. “She’s a sweet girl.”
“Yeah, she and Kevin seem to be unusually great children.” Hannah drew a cleansing breath. It was over. She’d done what she came to do, and now it was time to leave and pick back up with her life. “Lissa, it’s time to go.”
On the bridge, through the wooded area, Lissa crossed her arms. “Aw, not now.”
“Lissa Ann Palmer.”
The little girl hurried off the bridge. “I’m coming.” She left the edge of the wood, wiping her dirty hands down her sweater. “Don’t nobody start talking about taking my desserts away.”
Paul glanced at Hannah. “Hannah,” he chided teasingly.
She shrugged. “I need leverage. And you know how she responds to food.”
Paul agreed and slid his hands into his pockets. “I’m glad Sarah called you home. Wouldn’t prevent one outburst you’ve had to finally get to this point.”
Lissa sang while she ran right past them and toward the car.
Paul walked beside Hannah. “How are things with Mary?”
“I talked to her last night. I think she’ll be fine, but there are some steps that need to be taken to be certain.”
“I’m sure she’s better off just having you to talk to.”
Hannah leaned against her car, somewhat taken aback at the corner they’d turned. Paul was much the same as he’d been since she’d arrived, but the resentment she’d let simmer for so long was gone, leaving calmness in its place. “I’m thankful to have her in my life again too, but friendship won’t be enough for what’s going on with her.” She paused, trying to gauge how much to share. “Paul, I may need your help.”
“Sure. Anytime. What do you need from me?”
Suddenly feeling vulnerable again, Hannah opened her car door. “I … I’ll let you know later … by phone … or I may get Dr. Lehman to contact you.”
The Saturday afternoon sun extended across Paul’s stove as he stared at the boiling water in the pot. The bubbles, big and small, worked their way to the top and burst, releasing steam. He’d forgotten why he put the water on to heat. Macaroni and cheese, maybe? He wasn’t hungry anyway. Confusion covered his thoughts like a pounding headache as his heart thumped like mad.
Hannah wasn’t married. Or engaged.
By the time she’d returned three weeks ago, he was relieved to realize he was no longer absolutely in love with her. But since then … well, he’d come to know her again. She was different, quicker to share her feelings, even her most negative ones. She was harder. Yet, everything that had attracted him to her in the first place—her strength, determination, intelligence—and even her newfound and unshakable confidence drew him.
Until this morning when she said she wasn’t married, he’d refused to acknowledge the slightest attraction he still had f
or her, let alone admit to the growing magnetic pull that seemed powerful enough to drag him to her door. But he’d kept even his most private thoughts in check, honoring the vows he’d thought she’d taken.
Of course, she did say she loved Martin. And Paul was supposed to be committed to seeing only Dorcas, although they hadn’t talked about that—exactly.
Hannah knew the truth now about his coming back for her and not taking the money and not having any other girls.
He turned off the stove. No wonder she’d stocked up so many negative emotions against him. They could work through those things now, couldn’t they? A vision of Lissa popped into his head. Hannah’s new family meant life and joy to her. Any attempt to win her back would be treason to the life she’d built.
Still, his desire packed a hurricane force. She’d finally returned, and she wasn’t married. If she loved the guy so much, why hadn’t she said yes to his proposal?
Was she here to simply give them both closure? Maybe that’s all they needed and his other emotions were a reaction to the full realization that she was home, unmarried, and now knew things he’d waited years to tell her. Emotions were a tricky thing. Dead on target some of the time and bold-faced liars at other times.
The way she dressed, who she’d become was no longer Plain, not that he had a clue what that did or didn’t mean to him. She was here and not married; that’s really all he knew. And that desire burned through him like lava, seemingly destroying all other hopes for his future in its path.
The quiet jingle of his phone interrupted his thoughts, and he picked up the receiver. “Paul Waddell.”
“Paul, this is Dr. Jeff Lehman. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Sure. What can I do for you?”
“It seems I need a place to see Mary Lapp. Hannah Lawson recommended that I give you a call since the Better Path may have the facilities I need to give an examination.”
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