Amish Triplets for Christmas Page 18

  “Of course not. It gives me another opportunity to see my betrothed!”

  Hannah managed to slip away before Doris could see that her words triggered a torrent of tears. She numbly marched along the meadow route home, crossing the stream without stopping to dip her feet. Although it was a muggy afternoon, she felt chilled to the bone. Ascending the incline behind the house, she decided to stop at her grandfather’s workshop to let him know she was home early, but that she intended to nap before preparing supper.

  She slowly pushed open the door so as not to startle him, but as her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized he wasn’t inside. The fragrance of the wood shavings filled her nostrils, reminding her of the evening she ducked inside the workshop with Sawyer and the children. She shut her eyes and recalled his hands moving over her ankle as he gingerly examined it for an injury. She shuddered and pushed the memory from her mind.

  Spotting the rocking chair her grandfather was working on for Miriam, she traced the smooth curve of the wood along the arm. On the floor beside it was a matching cradle. But something was missing. Something wasn’t—

  Scanning the room, she realized there were no toys on the shelves. The dollhouse was gone, as well. Did her grandfather take them to sell in Lancaster? It would have been unlikely, but she supposed it was possible.

  Inside the house, she found him sitting at the kitchen table, finishing the dinner she’d prepared for him.

  Before he could make a single demand of her, she put both hands on his shoulders and mouthed, “What have you done with the toys?”

  “I sold them to Sawyer Plank.”

  “All of them?” she questioned incredulously.

  “Including the dollhouse. His kinner are spoiled, are they not?”

  “I’m ill and I’m going to bed,” she responded and fled the room.

  She barely unlaced her shoes before collapsing into bed. She wondered why in the world Sawyer wanted all of those toys. Were they really for his children? She didn’t think he was the kind of father to lavish material goods on them, but what did she really know of his character? Until that morning, she actually thought he had intentions of asking her to marry him.

  What a fool I’ve been! She wept into her pillow. She thought she was more than a nanny to his children, and more than a trifling flirtation to him. How could she have been so wrong? She’d finally allowed herself to believe that it wasn’t too late and she might actually receive her heart’s deepest desire. She’d finally allowed herself to admit her heart’s deepest desire. Come to find out, she wasn’t anywhere close to having what she so desperately yearned for.

  “Is one weekend of bliss all I get?” she shouted in frustration. “It isn’t fair. It just isn’t fair!”

  She slept through the afternoon and evening. When she felt a hand on her shoulder the next day, she pushed her grandfather’s arm away. She didn’t care about teaching now. She didn’t care about watching the Plank children. She just wanted to sleep. Rather, she only wanted someone to rouse her from sleep to tell her this had all been a bad dream.

  “I will make your breakfast in an hour,” she said when her grandfather returned a second time. “I need more rest. I’m sick.”

  “I brought you eggs,” he said and set a plate on the nightstand before leaving the room.

  Hannah shifted to a sitting position. Her grandfather usually did kind things like that only when he felt guilty, but she was hungry enough not to care what had panged his conscience. She ate the eggs and half of the piece of burned toast and then got dressed.

  The clock said ten thirty; plenty of time to get to school and relieve Doris from the burden of teaching her class a second day. No matter how despondent she felt, she had a responsibility to her scholars, and once her class ended, she would regret missing any time with them.

  “I can feel the sun beating down on my skull right through my hair,” she said when she saw her grandfather on the porch. He was sanding the railings, but she didn’t question him about it. “I’m taking the shortcut to school. I feel better now—I think the eggs helped. Denki.”

  “I will see you tonight, Gott willing.” He continued scratching the wood smooth.

  Hannah grew so sweaty on her way that when she arrived at the stream, she removed her socks and shoes to maneuver through the deepest water instead of using the stepping-stones. She had reached the opposite embankment when a man’s voice called, “Hannah, wait!”

  * * *

  Hannah’s expression was even icier than the water he was slogging through, but neither stopped Sawyer from rushing to her side.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, bending to lace her shoes.

  “I was waiting for you. I had a hunch you might come here at some point.”

  “And if I hadn’t?”

  “Then I would have come back each day until you did,” Sawyer exclaimed. “Listen, Hannah, I need to talk to you. It seems you’re angry, and I can’t return to Ohio knowing you’re upset with me. Are you?”

  “Did you buy my groossdaadi’s toys for your kinner?” she asked, avoiding his question.

  “Er, jah,” Sawyer stammered. “I mean, neh.”

  “Which is it?” she asked, shooting him a penetrating look. “Jah or neh?”

  “I bought the toys,” he admitted loudly. “But not for my kinner.”

  “Then why?” she asked, standing akimbo. When he didn’t answer, she threw her hands in the air and began stamping through the grass.

  “Wait!” he called, hobbling barefoot after her, his shoes and socks bundled in his arms. “I bought them to resell in Ohio. They’ll garner a high price there, and I wanted you and your groossdaadi to have enough income to see you through the winter.”

  She whipped around and shrieked, “Your financial responsibility toward me ends when I stop caring for the kinner and you return to Ohio.”

  “You are as prideful as your groossdaadi, Hannah Lantz!” Sawyer hollered back as he tossed his footwear beside him. “I didn’t purchase the toys out of responsibility or obligation. I purchased them because I care about you.”

  “You care about me? You care about me?” Hannah sobbed. “Not like I care about you, Sawyer Plank. I thought... I actually thought—”

  “You thought what?”

  “I thought you might be the Lord’s intended for me.” She wept, falling to her knees and burying her head in her hands.

  “Oh, Hannah,” Sawyer murmured, crouching down beside her. “I wanted to marry you, too. I had it all planned. I offered your groossdaadi employment in my shop. I told him I have a daadi haus he can occupy. I pleaded with him, but still he refused.”

  “Why?” she asked, intensely scrutinizing his face. Her eyelashes were damp with tears as she asked again, “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Sawyer moaned. “He wouldn’t say.”

  “I mean why did you want to marry me?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “A direct one. Why won’t you give a direct reply?”

  “You already know why I want to marry you.” Sawyer sighed. “We truly care for each other, and the kinner are clearly as fond of you as you are of them. We’re responsible adults who are old enough to know what we want and who try to obey Gott. And we’re like-minded in the ways that matter most...especially in our beliefs about family and the Lord. You said these same things about Doris and John not two days ago!”

  “I’m not talking about Doris and John. I’m talking about you and me,” Hannah stated quietly, a note of resignation in her voice. “You mentioned caring for me. What you didn’t mention—what you’ve never mentioned—is love. You once told me you thought love was a frivolity, not a necessity. I thought perhaps you were referring to the kind of romance teenagers engage in, but now I’m not so sure. Tell me, Sawyer, is love a necessity
for marriage, or is it just a frivolity?”

  Sawyer’s head was swimming, and he felt as if he might keel over from the blistering heat. “What does it matter?” he asked with a sigh. “Your groossdaadi already irrevocably refused to allow it to happen.”

  “It matters,” she said, straightening her posture and rapidly blinking droplets from her eyes as she beheld his face, “because even if my groossdaadi had said jah, I wouldn’t marry a man who doesn’t love me with his whole heart, the way I love him. I wouldn’t marry a man who can’t even say the words!”

  “Hannah—” Sawyer began, but his voice was too raspy to be heard.

  “I will honor my commitment to care for the kinner for the rest of the week,” she said before walking away. “But you’ll forgive me if I don’t engage in idle small talk when you drop them off or pick them up.”

  She headed toward the school, and Sawyer stumbled back to the creek, where he dipped his hand to drink again and again, trying to fill what felt like an unquenchable thirst.

  * * *

  Hannah managed to make it through the afternoon without weeping in front of her class, but once home, she removed herself from the children’s presence to blot her eyes. She keened forward and backward on her bed, willing herself to stop crying. It was one of her last days with Sarah, Samuel and Simon. She didn’t want them to remember her as tearful and blotchy-faced.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Hannah?” Sarah asked. “Would you brush my hair? Doris Hooley wanted to do it because she said I look unkempt, but I told her I wanted you to do it.”

  “Of course. Sit here beside me. You’re getting old enough to brush the ends yourself now. Don’t you remember the secret trick I showed you?”

  “Jah, but Daed said we would be leaving soon, so I wanted to get in all the brushing with you I could,” Sarah sniffed.

  “Shh, shh,” Hannah said. “If you fuss, you’ll make me cry, too.”

  “If I write to you, will you write to me?”

  “Jah.”

  “Can I come to visit?” Sarah pleaded.

  Avoiding the question, Hannah corrected her, “May I come to visit?”

  “Of course you may!” Sarah giggled gleefully until Hannah did, too.

  But a few hours later, Hannah lay in the same spot, sobbing her heart out again. She hadn’t cried that hard since her groossmammi died, or her parents before that.

  She wondered if this was how Jacob Stolzfus felt when she told him she held only a sisterly affection for him. But this was different, wasn’t it? She’d made it clear to Jacob on several occasions she was interested only in a friendship with him. Sawyer, however, asked her grandfather for her hand. He led her to believe he felt about her as she felt about him, didn’t he?

  As she wept, lightning flickered and the curtains danced as the breeze picked up. She raced to shut her windows. As the skies let loose a deluge of rain, Hannah wept a spate of tears, until another day dawned, hot and dry.

  “You look miserable,” her grandfather said when he finished his breakfast. “You’re too old to be staying up half the night from a little lightning.”

  Hannah walked to the sink under the pretense of washing dishes.

  “And you’re too old to be making such unkind remarks!” she replied with her back turned, thrashing a dishcloth over the pots in the sink. “How dare you complain about what I look like? You have always tried to squelch every fragment of joy I’ve ever experienced. You are responsible for this frown I’m wearing, Groossdaadi. Because you have wanted me to wind up like you—a miserable, lonely, bitter old coot.”

  The combination of the scalding dishwater, her fiery temper and the broiling sun made her hotter than ever by the time she reached the stream. She removed her shoes to wade across, and as usual, the chilly current soothed both her mind and body.

  Lord, please forgive my wrath, she prayed before continuing on her way. Keep Groossdaadi safe this day. And if I should see Sawyer, please give me the grace to speak to him as I would want to be spoken to myself.

  * * *

  When Sawyer came down for breakfast, he found Phillip alone at the kitchen table, drinking from a mug.

  “Is that coffee or tea?” he asked.

  “Coffee, of course,” the teenager sneered, sounding more like Jonas than like himself. “My daed is the only one who started drinking tea.”

  Sawyer poured himself a cup of the strong, dark brew. “Jah, tea’s not for me, either. I wonder what other changes Doris will try to bring to this household.”

  “She can try to make as many changes as she wants,” Phillip spit, “but she’s not my wife and she’s not my mamm, so I’m not required to do a thing she says.”

  Catching the resentment in his cousin’s voice, Sawyer realized Phillip was only nine or ten when his mother died. Old enough to remember, but not necessarily old enough to comprehend.

  He carefully suggested, “You know, your daed will never forget your mamm or the love they shared together.”

  “I know that,” Phillip said with a snicker. “You don’t have to talk to me like I’m a bobbel.”

  But Sawyer needed to speak what was on his mind for his own benefit as much as for Phillip’s. “But your mamm’s no longer here, and whether your daed remarries or not, nothing will bring her back.”

  Phillip rose and poured his coffee in the sink, but he didn’t leave the room.

  “No one will ever replace your mamm, not in your eyes, nor in your daed’s. And I don’t think Doris intends to try. In fact, I think it would be wrong to expect her to—even though I know she cares deeply about you and your brother, not unlike a mother might. But Doris and your daed have a unique relationship, one that’s different from what your mamm and daed shared.”

  Phillip feigned a yawned, but he seemed significantly cheered.

  “One more thing—you’re right that you’re not required to do what Doris wants you to do. But since you care about your daed, you should remember that he suffered unimaginable grief when your mamm died. If he’s blessed enough to find a woman worthy of marrying again, you might consider honoring him by honoring that woman, too. And when you do, you shouldn’t feel a bit guilty about it, because that’s how your mamm would have wanted you to behave,” Sawyer suggested.

  After taking a swallow of coffee, he added, “Of course, that doesn’t mean you need to start drinking tea.”

  “Jah, jah,” Phillip agreed. “End of the lecture, Bishop Sawyer?”

  “End of lecture. Now you go on ahead. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

  Sawyer pressed his palms against his eyelids, trying to block out the image of Hannah’s pained face when he refused to say the words he knew she needed to hear. If only he’d had this conversation with Phillip earlier, he would have been more prepared to express himself to her. He knew his love for her to be true all along, he just didn’t give it voice. He agonized that he was so inarticulate, always stuttering and stammering!

  But what did it matter in the end? Her grandfather said he would never approve of their marriage. Hannah had to live with him for the rest of his life—it was better she should blame Sawyer for not loving her than to spend her daily life resenting her grandfather for forbidding their union. At least in time, Sawyer hoped she would forgive and forget him.

  A shudder racked his body as he said aloud, “Even though I will never, ever forget her.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “The sky looks ominous. Would you and the kinner like a ride home?” Doris asked at the end of the day.

  “Denki, but because of my absences, I need to catch up with my lessons,” Hannah answered. “I’ve heard thunder growling all day, but so far, the clouds haven’t erupted. If it begins to storm, we’ll stay here until it passes.”

  After an hour of playing ou
tdoors, the children traipsed into the classroom, sticky and panting from the heat.

  “Will we have time to stop at the stream on the way home?” Samuel asked.

  “I don’t see why not,” Hannah said. “As long as there’s no lightning. Why don’t you sit down and cool off for five minutes, and then I’ll be ready to go. I’ll even spoon the very last of my strawberry preserves from the jar for you to have on bread.”

  “Mmm,” Sarah hummed after they’d been served. “It tastes just like pink sunshine, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “Why aren’t you eating any, Hannah?” Simon noticed. “Are you terribly sick, too, like our daed?”

  “What?” Hannah’s ears perked up. “I just saw your daed drop you off this morning. What makes you think he’s ill?”

  “He told us on the way to school,” Samuel said, hanging his head.

  “Jah,” Sarah confirmed. “He said he was terribly lovesick. That’s what he said.”

  “Oh.” Hannah gulped. She suddenly remembered what Grace had written about Sawyer being slow to express his affection, and her eyes moistened. Was I too impatient with him, or did the kinner misunderstand something he told them? “Do you know what lovesick means?”

  “Jah, it means having a kind of sickness only grown-ups can get. Daed said it happens when you have love to give to a special grown-up but they don’t want it anymore,” Sarah answered.

  Samuel added, “Daed told us love is like having too much strawberry ice cream. If you don’t share it with someone else, if you keep it all inside, you get sick. You get lovesick.”

  “And since Daed has so much love inside, it’s making him extra terribly lovesick,” ended Simon.

  “I see,” Hannah said, crossing the room to the window so the children wouldn’t see the tears escaping her eyes.

  She blinked several times as she peered into the school yard, trying to clear her vision. Finally, she rubbed her eyes with her fingers and realized she wasn’t imagining it—the distant sky actually was tinged with green. But there was no thunder. In fact, she’d never heard such silence. Not a leaf was stirring.