Jo Brown - An Amish Reunion

Shelby chirped and tugged at his hair, interrupting Hannah’s bleak thoughts. A kind depended on her. For that reason—and to protect a hive of what she hoped were healthy honeybees—she would work with Daniel. She wouldn’t trust him. She’d learned her lesson.

Hearing a soft chime from the timer on the kitchen stove, Hannah gathered the wet towel and washcloth. She tossed them in the tub and ignored Daniel’s surprise when she left them there.

“Do you have something in the oven?” he asked.

“No. My great-grandmother sets the timer every afternoon before going to rest in her room. About fifteen minutes after it chimes, she’ll come out. I try to have a cup of tea ready for her.

“I should get going then.”

“But the bees—”

He pointed toward the window where water ran down the glass. “Let’s put that off until the rain stops. We can go tomorrow morning.”

“That makes sense.” At least one thing had today. Everything else, from Daniel’s appearance at her door to the idea her daed might have been there moments before, had been bizarre and painful. Why hadn’t Daed knocked on the door?

A fresh wave of grief struck her as hard as the rain battered the window. Had Daed thought she wouldn’t want to see him? Or did he think Grossmammi Ella would refuse to let him in? Hannah would have talked with him on the porch. She wouldn’t have been able to hug him while he was under the bann, but she would have welcomed him home and asked him why he’d left her behind. Why hadn’t he come home? And, when he did, why did he leave Shelby without letting Hannah know he was there?

“If you need anything before I come back,” Daniel said, “let me know.”

She frowned. “How? I can’t leave a toddler and my great-grandmother here alone.”

“My brother has a phone in the barn. I’ll give you the number.”

“Danki.” She regretted snapping at him. She couldn’t let dismay with her daed color her conversations with others. Maybe Daniel was right. Leaving the past in the past was a gut idea. “Our Englisch neighbors let me use their phone when it’s necessary. We should be okay. There are plenty of diapers and clothing in the bag for tonight.”

“Gut.” He left the bathroom.

Suddenly there seemed to be enough oxygen to take a breath, and Hannah sucked in a quick one. She needed to get herself on an even keel if Daniel was visiting for the next few days. How long would it take to learn how to take care of Shelby? Not that long, she was sure.

Her certainty wavered when Daniel paused in the living room and held out Shelby to her. Smiling and cooing at the kind, Hannah took her.

The room erupted into chaos when the toddler shrieked at the top of her lungs and reached out toward him, her body stiff with the indignity of being handed off to Hannah.

“Go!” Hannah ordered.

“Are you sure?” Daniel asked.

“Ja.” Stretching out his leaving would just upset everyone more.

Shelby’s crying became heartbreaking as Daniel slipped out and closed the door behind him. She squirmed so hard, Hannah put her down.

Teetering as if the floor rocked beneath her, Shelby rushed to the door. She stretched her hand toward the knob, but couldn’t reach it. Leaning her face against the door, she sobbed.

Hannah was tempted to join her in tears. The sight of the distraught kind shattered her heart. When she took a step forward, wanting to comfort Shelby, the toddler’s crying rose in pitch like a fire siren. Hannah jumped back, unsure what to do. She silenced the longing to call after Daniel and ask him to calm the kind. As soon as he left once more, Shelby might react like this all over again.

Hating to leave the little girl by the door, Hannah edged toward the kitchen. She kept her eyes on Shelby while setting the kettle on the stove to heat. The kind didn’t move an inch while Hannah took out the tea and a cup for her great-grandmother. Nor when Hannah set a handful of cookies on a plate and poured a small amount of milk into a glass.

The first thing to put on her list of what she’d need for the kind: plastic cups. Maybe she could find some with tops so Shelby could drink without spilling. Or was Hannah getting ahead of herself? She didn’t know if the little girl could drink from a cup.

The door to the downstairs bedroom opened. Her great-grandmother, Ella Lambright, leaned one hand on the door frame. She’d left her cane in the bedroom. Her steps were as unsteady as Shelby’s. Unlike the kind, her face was lined from many summers of working in her garden. She wore a black dress, stockings and shoes as she had every day since her husband died two years before Hannah’s parents had wed.

Hannah rushed to assist her great-grandmother to the kitchen table. The old woman took a single step, then paused as another wail came from beside the front door.

“Who is that?” Grossmammi Ella said in her wispy voice. The strings on her kapp struck Hannah’s cheek as she turned her head to look at the sobbing toddler. The elderly woman’s white hair was as thin and crisp as the organdy of her kapp. She actually was Hannah’s daed’s grossmammi.

“Her name is Shelby.”

“That isn’t a plain name.” Her snowy brows dropped into a scowl. “And she isn’t wearing plain clothes. What is an Englisch kind doing here?”

“Sit, and I’ll explain.”

“Who was that I saw driving away? What did he want here?”

“One thing at a time.” Hannah had grown accustomed to Grossmammi Ella’s impatience. In many ways, her great-grandmother’s mind had regressed to the level of a toddler’s. Impatient, jumping from one subject to another and with no apparent connection of one thought to the next, focused on her own needs. “That’s what a wise woman told me.”

“Foolish woman, if you ask me,” Grossmammi Ella muttered.

Hannah assisted her great-grandmother to sit. Now wasn’t the time to mention the wise woman had been Grossmammi Ella. Saying that might start an argument because the old woman could be quarrelsome when she felt frustrated, which was often lately.

Hoping she wouldn’t make matters worse, Hannah went to Shelby. She knelt, but didn’t reach out to the toddler. “Shelby?” she whispered.

The little girl turned toward her, her earth-brown eyes like Hannah’s. Heated trails of tears curved along her full cheeks, and her nose was as red as the skin around her eyes. Averting her face, the kind began to suck her thumb while she clung to the door.

Hannah waited, not saying anything. When Shelby’s eyes grew heavy, the toddler slid to sit and lean her face against the door. The poor little girl was exhausted. Hannah wondered when the kind had last slept.

When Shelby’s breathing grew slow, Hannah slipped her arms around the toddler. Shelby stiffened, but didn’t waken as Hannah placed her on the sofa. Getting a small quilt, Hannah draped it over the little girl.

Straightening, Hannah went to sit beside her great-grandmother. Patting Grossmammi Ella’s fragile arm, she began to explain what had happened while the old woman was resting. The story sounded unbelievable, but its proof slept on the sofa.

When her great-grandmother asked what Hannah intended to do now, Hannah said, “I don’t know.”

And she didn’t. She hoped God would send her ideas of how to deal with the arrival of an unknown sister, because she had none.

* * *

Reuben Lapp’s place wasn’t on Daniel’s way home to the farm where he’d lived his whole life, but he turned his buggy left where he usually turned right and followed the road toward where the sun was setting through the bank of clouds clinging to the hills. It was growing chilly, a reminder winter hadn’t left. At least, the rain hadn’t turned to sleet or snow.