“Peanut butter,” he said finally. “My mother used to make a peanut butter sheet cake. Even that I didn’t especially like.” He had a moment of amusement. “And cooked spinach. I don’t like that.”
He could see her absorbing what he said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
He’d no sooner finished his bowl of soup than she jumped up to refill it.
“Did you have a good weekend?” he asked, feeling obligated to fill the silence and curious, too. The members of the church district all had routines similar to his. When Hannah was here, she fit so well, and yet once she left in that car, how she spent her time was a mystery.
“Oh.” This smile was one of those meant to cover feelings she didn’t want to share. “Yes. My grandfather isn’t well enough to go out, but Grandma Helen and I went to church, of course, and then we cooked a meal together. It felt . . . good. As if we’d always done that on Sundays.”
“Was your mother with you?”
Hannah looked sharply at him. “Does it matter?”
He didn’t allow himself to take offense. “For you, it does.” This time, he wasn’t thinking of his kinder, but rather Hannah and the sorrow he saw beneath her cheerful surface.
She sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped on you. She’s . . . sort of a sensitive subject right now. You know?”
He did know. How could she help but be mixed up about the woman who’d raised her, who’d been her only family until a few weeks ago?
Head bowed over her plate so he couldn’t see her expression well, Hannah said in a low voice, “She was waiting for me in the parking lot Sunday morning when I went to get my grandmother. She thought we’d ask her to join us.”
Gideon did his own waiting.
There was torment in her eyes when she looked up. “I wasn’t very nice. I told her I’m still too mad to listen to her side of the story. She said I’m being cruel.”
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
“She left when I made it plain that she wasn’t welcome.” Her face twisted. “So there it was, Sunday, and Grandma and I went to church. All I could think was that God would be disappointed in me.”
“Because you didn’t invite her to go with you?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“I think our Lord expects you to forgive your mother, with your heart and mind. That’s not the same thing as asking her to be part of your life, as if she never did anything bad. Or feeling the same trust in her.”
Her lips curved into the most sorrowful smile he’d ever seen. “I’m not sure I’ve ever really trusted her. My own mother.” Then she shook her head, as if dismissing the gloomy subject, and asked about their Sunday. “Daad said he talked to you.”
“Ja, we arranged for him to shoe my horses.” Something he hadn’t managed last week. “Have you thought of attending one of our services?”
Her face brightened. “I think I might two weeks from now. Do I have to ask permission from anyone?”
He shook his head. “Samuel or I will mention to the bishop or one of the ministers that you might come, if we happen to see any of them. I’m sure you’ll be welcome.”
“The women and the men sit separately?”
“Ja,” he agreed.
“Does Rebekah have to sit by herself on the women’s side?”
“No, young kinder sit with parents. Now that she’s school age, Rebekah sometimes sits with a friend whose mamm doesn’t mind watching over her.”
“Oh. Do you think she’d be willing to sit with me? Lilian has her two girls already.”
“She will be excited,” he said gently, having heard her underlying anxiety.
“You have wonderful children, you know.”
“Denke.”
She rose and began clearing the table. The conversation was over. Gideon wasn’t sure whether his reluctance to push back his chair was a disappointment because he liked talking to this woman, or an overfull belly.
Disturbed that he even had to ask himself such a question, given the gulf that lay between them, he decided he shouldn’t indulge himself so much in the future. This was a good time to remind himself that the Lord cautioned his faithful not to allow themselves to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Hiring her to work for him was one thing; enjoying the time he spent alone with her too much was another. All he had to do was remember that she was Englisch, a word the pain of Leah’s death had turned into the lash of a whip.
Feeling all too well-fed as he strode to the back of his property where he’d left his team tied in the shade did not stop him from speculating about what Hannah would serve for supper tonight.
* * *
* * *
Just as Hannah got out of her car at her daad’s house late at six thirty or so, she was surprised to see another car coming up the driveway. She groped for her phone, but there’d been no missed calls, and that wasn’t her grandparents’ car, anyway.
Samuel had Englisch customers, she reminded herself, and maybe even friends. But she hadn’t gotten halfway to the front porch before the driver parked . . . and her mother stepped out of the passenger side. Hannah came to a dead stop.
A man behind the wheel of the car made no move to get out.
“Mom, what are you doing here?”
Her mother’s nostrils flared. “Maybe I just wanted to see my old home.”
Behind Hannah, the front door opened and closed, and booted footsteps on the porch boards told her who had come out. She had a suspicion everyone else in the family, except maybe for the two young boys, was lined up at windows to see the Englisch woman who had once been married to Samuel.
Grateful when he stopped beside her, she gave his big, calloused hand a squeeze that he returned.
He dipped his head politely, not taking his eyes from Hannah’s mother. “Jodi,” he said, his accent especially noticeable. “I didn’t expect you.”
“I suppose not, but how else could I talk to you?”
He would have asked almost any other visitor into the house, insisted Lilian had made plenty of food, that of course they were wilkom to stay for dinner.
His expression placid, he asked pleasantly, “What is it you wanted to say?”
“To let you know I’ve filed for divorce. Hannah—” her gaze darted to her daughter “—reminded me I should do that to make things right with you.”
That wasn’t quite what Hannah had said, not the way she remembered it, but she wasn’t about to step in between them.
Samuel said only, “I will sign the papers when they are ready.”
“I’ll bet your wife will be glad once they’re filed.”
“Lilian and I are married in God’s eyes,” he said, sounding unconcerned. “Glad I am to have Hannah back in my home.”
Jodi looked directly at her. “How do you like the Amish lifestyle? Not that different from convict labor for the women, is it?”
The muscles in Samuel’s jaw might have knotted, but otherwise his expression didn’t change. The back of his hand brushed Hannah’s.
“You chose to leave. Maybe that’s why. I don’t know.” For her daad’s sake, she struggled to moderate her tone. “But it’s rude to come to a family’s home to insult them.”
Jodi tossed her head. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“I’m having a wonderful time getting to know everyone. I love cooking and gardening. And I have yet to work any harder than I’ve been doing for years in restaurant kitchens.”
Her mother stared at her. “At least at the end of the shift, you can go home!”
“I work very long shifts.” And have no particular reason to be glad to be home.
Jodi gave an incredulous laugh. “You’re delusional, but you’re not going to listen to me, are you?”
“Not until I have a chance to make up my own mind.”
For what had to be thirty seconds, they all stood there without a word. It began to feel awkward, more than anything.
“I miss you.” Her mother’s voice cracked. “No matter what you think, I love you.” She whirled and started for the car.
To her back, Hannah said, “I love you, too, Mom, but what you did was wrong.”
Her mother went still between one step and another, but only for a moment. Then she hurried around the car and jumped in.
Samuel and Hannah didn’t move. She caught one glimpse of the male driver as he turned the car around. He looked to be in his fifties, dark hair mixed with gray, handsome. Probably ready to hold Jodi when she cried. It would never occur to her to cry in the shower where no one could hear.
She’s my mom.
The car receded, and turned onto the paved country road.
Samuel said calmly, “The others are probably waiting for us.” This time in the evening, he read aloud from the Bible to his family.
“I suspect they’re all dying to hear what my mother said,” Hannah suggested.
The skin beside his eyes crinkled when her daad smiled at her. “Ja, they will have questions, certain sure.”
Hannah was actually able to laugh as they walked toward the house.
Only then she had a thought. “I wonder if she came at this time of day so I’d be home.”
The creases on Samuel’s forehead deepened. “Does she know you have a job?”
“I don’t see how she could. But she could have come by earlier and seen that my car wasn’t here.”
He patted her on the back as they mounted the steps. “You worry too much, daughter. You know that our Lord reminds us that being anxious gains us nothing.”
Hannah laughed. “Yes, but how can we help it?”
Her daad smiled at her.
Chapter Ten
Gideon knew the minute he saw Hannah get out of her car Wednesday morning that someone or something had upset her. He had been waiting only until she arrived to go out and hitch up his four-horse team again to pull the disc harrow that would help break up and turn the soil in the back field he’d just plowed. Come afternoon, he hoped to change to the spring-tooth harrow that further broke down clods of soil and would also level the surface to prepare it for planting. Neither job was as grueling as plowing, but he and the horses would work hard today, for sure.
Now he walked toward her. He’d just sent the kinder upstairs to brush their hair and teeth and put on shoes and socks, so, unlike many mornings, they didn’t immediately burst out the kitchen door.
She produced a smile and said her usual “Gute mariye, Gideon.”
“Is it your grandfather?” he asked, his eyes lingering on her fine-boned features.
“What?”
Maybe not. He hesitated. “You look—” He couldn’t decide, now that he studied her closely. Grieving, he’d thought, but that might not be it. Her mood was certainly shadowed.
Not a man who often searched for undercurrents, he felt uneasy to discover that he had gotten so good at reading hers.
“Not my perkiest, huh?” she asked.
“Perky?”
“Cheerful. Bouncy.”
“Ah. No, you don’t look cheerful or bouncy.” He knew bouncy; if Zeb could jump instead of walk or even run, he did.
“I’m okay. Really.” Hannah gripped that handbag of hers tightly. “I didn’t sleep very well last night, that’s all. My mother came out to Daad’s house. It was . . . strange.”
He wanted to touch her, if only to lay a hand on her shoulder, but didn’t dare. “Why would she go to Samuel’s house, after leaving so many years ago?”
“Supposedly, to let him know she’s filing for divorce in court. But she also made a few jabs at me, and . . .” Hannah shrugged, not finishing.
Jabs. Which particular ones had the woman chosen? Auslanders liked to see and even talk to Amishmen and women as if they were animals to be petted at the county fair. Others, including some local Englischers, didn’t like the Amish. They had excuses for that dislike, complaining about the ruts worn by steel-rimmed buggy tires in paved roads, the manure dropped on streets in town, or what they labeled “unfriendliness.” But he’d also heard them call the Amish “weirdos” and worse. Some people seemed to think that, because the Amish held themselves apart, they must have frightening secrets. They sacrificed children at their church services, maybe. He also knew many moderns thought Amishmen repressed their women. That was the word he’d read. Wouldn’t let the women hold jobs and make money, kept them doing hard labor at home and raising kinder. Was that what Hannah’s mamm thought?
Those same people never seemed to notice that several businesses in town were owned and managed by Amishwomen, or that other Amishwomen ran successful businesses out of their homes or worked beside their husbands.
He settled for saying, “I’m sorry.”
She bobbed her head. “Denke. Oh.” Her smile spread. “Zeb! Rebekah. Gute marijye!”
Ja, here came his kinder, excited as they’d been every morning since Hannah first came to take care of them.
She hugged Rebekah and exclaimed, “Here you are, all ready for school, and I haven’t made your lunches yet.”
He’d noticed that she had taken to starting before she left the evening before, setting out cookies and whatever fruit she could find on a shelf in the pantry, but making sandwiches in the morning. Did she ever fumble around in the kitchen, forgetting what she was doing or skipping a step or creating a big mess? Gideon didn’t think so.
Zeb made a face. “Today’s Susan’s turn. I wish you were walking us to school.”
“But I’ll meet you at the foot of the driveway after school,” she reminded him.
“Ja, but—” Silenced by one look from his father, Zeb turned sulkily back to the house.
Quietly, Gideon said, “Lately, he doesn’t always think about what he says about other people, or having to do something he doesn’t want to do.”
“You mean, he’s being a brat?”
“Ja. Not so bad, but I don’t like it.”
“You want to make sure I put a stop to it, too.”
Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. “I can’t expect you to discipline my kinder.”
“That’s not discipline. It’s expecting them to be kind. I have no problem asking that from them.”
For all that she was Englisch, Hannah was nothing like the other women who’d worked for him. Back home, the women in his own family were plenty willing to correct his kinder, although his son and daughter were both so young and sad then, they’d seldom needed even a chiding word. But Hannah . . . though she’d been here such a short time, she acted almost as if she were their mother. Never impatient, that he’d seen. Never acting as if they were getting in her way. Instead, she seemed to like listening to them, encouraging them, teaching them.
Just as she listened to him, as if she wanted to understand him.
As he wanted to understand her.
He knew his nod was abrupt, but he had to cut off this conversation as well as what he’d been thinking. He left her standing there when he walked away.
She wasn’t Amish, and would never be. Why did he have such a hard time accepting that?
* * *
* * *
“Is the job still going well?” Helen asked that Sunday as she sliced the turkey breast they’d roasted and Hannah put a cookie sheet with sourdough biscuits in the small oven.
“I love it,” she assured her grandmother, even though this week hadn’t gone as well as the first one. Rebekah and Zeb hadn’t changed, but their father had. Hannah had no idea what she’d said or done, but there had to be something.
She’d have asked Gideon, except he hadn’t seemed annoyed at her, only distant, less willing to talk the latter part of the week. He was polite, the way she’d seen him be t
o a man from the sawmill delivering a load of wood chips for bedding. And, ja, that fellow was Amish, but from a different church district. Hannah had the impression they had never met before.
There was no reason whatsoever why Gideon’s subtle change in attitude toward her should sting, but it did. She told herself it was just as well Gideon had used a scythe to slice off any unrealistic dream that she belonged in his home, mothering his children.
What humiliated her was wondering whether he’d guessed that she was attracted to him, drawn by his tall, strong body and the intensity in his dark eyes as well as the way he softened for his children. No, more than that—there was the way he listened to her, noticed when she was distressed even when she thought she’d hidden her feelings.
Had she flirted, or touched him when she shouldn’t? If so . . . well, she wouldn’t apologize. Better take her cue from him and stay cool, pleasant, and distant.
So she told her grandparents all about Zeb and Rebekah, and talked about her sisters and brothers, too. She bragged about her garden, with tiny new shoots already appearing from the seeds she and the kinder had planted so recently.
Several times Robert chuckled, which made her happy even if laughing also made him choke and gasp.
“Once I’ve canned the rhubarb, I’ll bring you a few jars,” she said. “Gideon won’t mind.”
“That would be lovely.” Helen hugged her.
When it was time for her to leave, her grandfather stopped her with a knobby hand on her arm. It trembled, but his gaze was steady. “We . . . love . . . you . . . Hannah.” He fought for air between each word.
Eyes awash in tears, she bent to kiss his cheek and whispered, “I love you, too.”
As she waited for the elevator at the end of the hall, she railed against having found him when he had so little time left. Why not a year ago? Better yet, a decade ago?
All right, she conceded in anguish, why not even a month sooner?
This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it. The verse came to her, as if in the softest of whispers. Hannah drew a deep, cleansing breath.
Finding Hope Page 11