Finding Hope

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  “No, it’s all right. I’m . . . painfully aware that my mother’s conversion wasn’t genuine.” She paused. If it had been, Hannah couldn’t imagine Jodi being willing to make even those small sacrifices Julia had talked about. “What she didn’t understand was what her life would be like within the Amish community.” She tried to smile, but her lips didn’t want to cooperate. “She insists that Amishwomen are slaves to the men, their only purpose to work nonstop and bear and raise children.”

  “We do work hard.”

  Hannah heard how wholeheartedly Julia included herself in that we.

  Her own forehead wrinkled as she thought about it. “Part of the trouble is that Mom was never very domestic. She didn’t cook, cleaned as little as possible, had no interest in gardening, never mind sewing, quilting, canning. Daad said he thought they both knew they’d made a mistake fairly quickly, but then she got pregnant.” Hannah could only shrug.

  “I don’t think Amos was the bishop—what was it, twenty-five years ago? I’ll have to ask Luke who was.”

  “Somehow, I don’t see my mother slipping past Amos Troyer’s net,” Hannah said ruefully. She couldn’t help thinking that her mother and Samuel both would have been better off if the then bishop had declined to baptize Jodi Hinsch.

  Except, of course, they wouldn’t have had a daughter together.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Gideon rarely allowed himself to cut his workday short. He lost enough time when he and the kinder were on their own, or when they needed him to attend school functions or to stay close when they were sick. Today, he had inspected the raspberries, his devastating experience with rust on his mind, determined that they were healthy, and detoured to look at the blueberry bushes. As he’d told Hannah, they were not large yet, but were fruiting prolifically.

  He stood at the edge of the pond, enjoying the silence and the cooler air. A rabbit bounded through the long grass; a vivid red cardinal tipped its head and studied him from a branch of a redbud, past blooming season. Staying still, he noticed a long-necked cormorant on a twisting branch that must have blown into the pond. The cormorant watched the surface of the water with an intent eye, ready to fish for supper. The wildlife was abundant here, on the fringes of Gideon’s land. He could almost always hear the rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker working in the woods. Today he saw a small flock of yellow warblers and a wild turkey strutting away from the water. He liked this band of native woods, slanting up toward a ridge too steep for farming or building. Occasionally, Gideon hunted here. If he’d had a gun, he might have brought down the wild turkey.

  Except, Hannah had not yet asked him to kill a chicken, so she might still not know how to pluck the feathers. A smile twitched at Gideon’s mouth. If she had her way, he’d end up with a flock of geriatric chickens.

  Ja, if she weren’t planning to leave soon.

  Pushing the disturbing reminder away, he thought he’d bring Zeb up here to fish Sunday. They hadn’t done that in a long while. Zeb could clean their catch, and even Gideon knew how to fry a bluegill or bullhead catfish. The thought made his mouth water.

  That was when he decided not to start another job. Dinner couldn’t be more than an hour away, and the worry about how the day had gone at school for the kinder had lurked at the edges of his thoughts all day.

  He replaced tools in the barn and came out to see Hannah stretching to pluck wooden clothespins from the line and drop them into a cloth sack. So graceful did she look, it was as if she’d paused in the middle of a dance, the ballet he’d seen in pictures, her arms held high. A basket filled with folded sheets and clothes sat at her feet. He saw her pause and tip her chin up as she watched something in the maple tree above her. Then he heard a low laugh, followed by a flick of movement among the leaves.

  She spotted him a moment later and smiled. “A squirrel had his eye on me. They’re so cute.”

  “They are.” That smile, so beautiful, so happy, made his heart swell until it didn’t beat quite right. He had to clear his throat. “Have you been up to the pond? I was just there, checking on the blueberry bushes I planted, and I saw half a dozen different birds. A cormorant seemed to be planning on fish for supper.”

  She chuckled, but her eyes shied from his. “I’ll walk up there tomorrow. Rebekah would enjoy that, certain sure. Oh. You know Julia Bowman was here this afternoon?”

  “Ja, her and Miriam, you said.”

  “Miriam had to work at the fabric store, so it was just Julia. She asked me to pass on a message from Luke.”

  Gideon listened in silence, something easing in him at hearing what Luke said. He was friend enough to want Gideon to know about the rumors as soon as possible.

  He nodded acknowledgment. “Where are Zeb and Rebekah?”

  “I’m teaching Rebekah how to sew a seam. She’s practicing on some scraps of fabric. She’s excited, because I’m making her a new dress, and she wants to help. I think she’s plenty old enough.”

  “That’s good of you.”

  “No, it’s fun.” Hannah wrinkled her nose. “I think. I haven’t actually done that much sewing myself, and if I can make a pair of pants for Zeb, she can probably do as well.”

  A smile spread on his face. “Just don’t look closely at the seams?”

  “Something like that.” Her laugh was a happy ripple. “A while back, I thought about insisting on harnessing Clover myself, but then I imagined what would happen if I didn’t hook something up right, and halfway to Daad’s the buggy and horse parted ways.” She pursed her lips. “Then I thought, what if the pieces of Zeb’s pants part ways when he’s running with his friends? And just . . . fall off?”

  They shared a laugh.

  He waited while she grabbed the last few clothespins, and lifted the full basket before she could.

  “Clothes dry so fast at this time of year,” she commented, “but what do you do in the winter?”

  “They dry on the line if the sun is out, even if it’s cold. Or we set up racks in the house, usually near the wood stove in the living room. They fold up for storage. You may have seen them in the cellar.”

  “Oh! I wondered what those were.”

  “You didn’t say where Zeb is.”

  “I think in his room.” She looked a little less happy. “He did his chores and then thought Rebekah would play with him. I think he’s bored.”

  “I can find more work for him.”

  “I’m sure he’d be happy, if he’s working with you.” There was a tiny emphasis on the if.

  Gideon wasn’t so prideful that he resented a nudge like this. Hannah was right, and he liked that she cared enough about his kinder to see what he sometimes didn’t. He should have taken Zeb along to check for rust on the raspberries and to see how well the new blueberry bushes were doing. Gideon had a library of books about farming techniques and the particular crops that he had grown or might try someday. He’d find pictures of the pests and diseases that could threaten his crops and even livelihood. Watching for rust on the raspberry leaves was something Zeb could take over.

  “I thought I’d take him fishing Sunday,” he said.

  Hannah’s smile warmed at his suggestion. “He’d love that. He seems . . . quieter than usual.”

  They had reached the back door. He stopped with a hand on the knob. “Did it go better at school today?”

  “I think so.” She sounded less certain than he liked. “Rebekah was cheerful. She said Zillah played with her at recess. Zeb . . . I’m not sure. He wasn’t mad, but he didn’t have much to say.”

  Gideon nodded. “I’ll talk to him.”

  Once he opened the back door, Rebekah squealed and came running as if she hadn’t seen him just this morning. He picked her up and swung her high, then said, “I’ve probably made you dirty.”

  “Hannah doesn’t mind. Does she?”

  “Hannah doesn’t mind at all.” Sh
e smiled at his daughter in that gentle way she had. “Kinder should play and get dirty.”

  Rebekah’s face lit. “And I’m going to have a new dress! Did Hannah tell you, Daadi?”

  “She did. The way you’re growing, you may need more than one.”

  “Ja,” Hannah agreed, “but having her dress an inch or two shorter than it should be isn’t as obvious as Zeb when his ankles and wrists are bared. I think he must be having a growing spurt. If he’s going to be tall like your daad, he has a lot of growing to do.”

  “I can be tall, too,” Rebekah protested.

  Hannah smiled at her. “I’m tall for a woman, but look how much shorter I am than your daad.”

  He grinned and pretended to rest his chin on the top of her head, but almost immediately regretted letting himself get so close to Hannah that their bodies brushed. Self-conscious and . . . uncomfortable, he stepped back. But Rebekah giggled, seeing nothing wrong with his foolishness.

  “How tall was your mamm?” Hannah asked. Her cheeks were pinker than usual, but nothing a kind would notice. “We can get our height from either parent, just as we do the color of our eyes or hair.”

  Standing behind her, Gideon frowned, not sure he liked her talking about Leah. But he saw his daughter’s eyebrows scrunch together, as if she was trying to remember.

  “I think Mammi was tall,” she said, but uncertainly.

  Of course she wouldn’t remember. How could she? She’d been only three when her mother died. Even Zeb might be forgetting his mamm’s face. Gideon held Leah in his heart more than he envisioned her face, yet that would be hard for the kinder as their scant memories faded. When he moved them from New York, there’d been little he could bring along to help them hold on to memories. The Amish didn’t take photographs; they didn’t collect pretty statues or paintings or anything fancy for the kitchen. If Leah had been a quilter, the kinder could have wrapped themselves at night in quilts lovingly stitched by their mother. She did sew, but they’d long since outgrown those clothes even before the family moved.

  He was conscious that Hannah had turned and was watching him with what he thought was warm encouragement. She expected him to talk about his wife, make her live for his kinder by his words.

  That was something he hadn’t done well, he realized. Closemouthed by habit, he found it easy to avoid painful topics. He couldn’t escape the realization that, for all his fears, Hannah was good for him. The ache he usually ignored flared like a coal finding new fuel.

  Yet somehow he managed to tease his daughter. “You think your mamm was tall because you were so short. She wasn’t as tall as Hannah.” He held a hand sideways on his chest. “The top of her head came to about here. Do you remember how short your grossmammi was?” His hand lowered to waist level.

  Rebekah giggled again. “Oh, Daadi! She wasn’t that short.”

  He smiled. “No, but short. Zeb has always been tall for his age, but you have, too. You’re taller than Beth and Adah, aren’t you? Girls usually stop growing sooner than boys do, though, or so my mamm said.”

  “And you never know,” Hannah agreed. “I’m about the same height as my mamm, even though my daad isn’t tall for a man.”

  Rebekah frowned again. “Who is your mammi?” Her face cleared. “Lilian.”

  “No, my daad was married to my mother long before he knew Lilian. My mother is an Englischer, so you’ve never met her.”

  “That’s why you wore pants.”

  “Ja.” She bent, and kissed his daughter’s cheek. “Now, why don’t you put your sewing away, and we’ll start dinner. I think your daad must be hungry, ain’t so?”

  She nodded. “Daadi could have a cookie, couldn’t he?”

  “I could,” he said, relaxed enough now to be amused, “but I think I can find them myself.” And, truth be told, Hannah had fed him so well at noon, his belly was content to wait awhile longer for another meal.

  While she and Rebekah took dishes and ingredients from cupboards and the refrigerator, he scrubbed his hands and then brought the ledger he used for tracking expenses and income to the table, along with a pile of receipts he hadn’t yet entered. Usually he did this work in his office, but today he wanted to be at the center of activity. He opened the ledger, but watched Hannah and his daughter. Especially Hannah.

  After Hannah had such a strange childhood raised by an irresponsible woman, how had she become so instinctively kind and giving? Samuel had said she was twenty-seven years old. Why hadn’t she married? Did she care more about her career as a cook—no, a chef, that was what she’d called her job—than she did about having a family?

  If that were so, why had she so willingly set it aside for the sake of the grandparents and father she hadn’t even known? And how was it that she knew just what to say to Rebekah and Zeb, and to him, and how to touch them when that’s what they needed?

  No, he didn’t understand this woman, but he wished he did. Most of all, he couldn’t understand why she intended to leave the kinder and him.

  * * *

  * * *

  Sunday, Hannah again attended church with her grandmother, and planned to make a midafternoon meal for them afterward.

  In the car, Helen said, “I told Jodi she’s welcome to have dinner with us, but not when we expect you. I won’t play any part in another ambush.”

  “It wasn’t quite that.”

  “It was, and I should have known better.” She compressed her lips, not saying anything else until they turned in to the parking lot behind the handsome old church. Huge sycamores grew around it, casting welcome shade. Helen said softly, “I wish so much we’d been able to have another child. I think I loved her too much.”

  Hannah braked to wait for another car to maneuver into a slot. “I don’t believe it’s possible to love too much.”

  Her grandmother shook her head. “It’s not healthy when you pin all your hopes on one person. The weight of those hopes—”

  She didn’t finish. Hannah parked, set the emergency brake, and turned off the engine. She groped for the right thing to say. How was she supposed to know anything about how a family should function? I do know what I experienced—and what I missed, she thought. She was learning more about family from Gideon and his kinder than she could have imagined.

  Into the silence, she said, “Parents can ruin a child. Physical abuse is passed down from generation to generation, people say. But I don’t believe you ever let Mom down. You and Granddad are too loving and kind. She was fun and loving, in her way. She held jobs she hated so she could support us. She never hurt me physically, or looked the other way if anyone else hurt me. She never abandoned me.”

  Helen had gone still in the act of releasing her seat belt, the very hope she’d talked about in her eyes. “You’re remembering what your mother did right. Have you forgiven her?”

  Hannah gave her head a small shake. “I wish I could, but the lies she told were so huge, so unnecessary, and they hurt so many people. I can’t get past that.”

  “Then?”

  “I’d like you to remember that two children born to the same parents, raised very much the same, turn out quite different. I always thought Mom couldn’t see consequences. I didn’t know that word when I was a little girl, but even then, when I saw her turn off the alarm clock and go back to sleep, I’d think, ‘If you’re late to work again, Eddie will fire you, and then what will we do?’ But Mom was always blithe—another word I didn’t know—sure people would give her a break because she was pretty and charming and bubbly.”

  No wonder, Hannah thought, that she’d never wished she possessed those qualities. In fact, she’d spent her life trying not to be like her mother. Or was it that she’d wanted desperately to measure up to the members of her Amish family, who’d provided her with a solid foundation?

  After a moment, she continued haltingly, “I think she always believes that what
ever she does will be forgiven and forgotten. That the next job or the next man will be perfect. No matter how it ends, she puts it behind her and is just as certain the next time. It’s as if anything she does wrong doesn’t count. As if . . . so much of the past doesn’t even exist.” As a child who was scared something terrible would happen, Hannah had never understand Jodi’s ability to do that. She finished, “No matter what, Mom doesn’t learn from mistakes. I don’t think you taught her any of that.”

  “I always wondered—” Helen didn’t finish her speculation.

  “Did you ever take her for counseling?”

  Her smile was pained. “We tried, but not until she was a teenager, and I swear she charmed the counselors. That”—she rolled her eyes—“and she didn’t show up for appointments if I didn’t drag her there.”

  Hannah squeezed her grandmother’s hand. “I often think of her as changeable, like one of those days that goes from sunny to breezy to rainy and back to sunny, but really she hasn’t changed at all.”

  “No.” Helen sighed and reached for Hannah, managing a hug. “Finding you has been such a blessing.”

  “I think the blessings have all been on my part,” Hannah whispered.

  They both had to dab at their eyes with tissues she had put in the glove compartment.

  A minute later they made their way to the wide front steps of the brick church. Somehow, it was no surprise at all when Hannah saw a slim woman with shining blond hair mounting those steps ahead of them, her hand on the arm of a handsome man with salt-and-pepper hair.

  Of course Jodi would decide to attend church, demonstrating how pious she was to her latest escort, and where else but here?

  * * *

  * * *

  Gideon had to walk the kinder to school Monday morning, after Enoch ran out of his house and said, “Mammi doesn’t feel good. She made breakfast, so Daadi doesn’t know, but she’s lying down. She said I should ask you—”