Sisters of the Quilt Trilogy (16 page)

He’d never seen Hannah in her own world, but this was not how he’d always envisioned her. To him, she had seemed reserved. He’d assumed she would have a backward way about her when it came to men, even among her people.

The man, who looked to be about Paul’s age, pushed against her feet with his. “Ya did not.”

Hannah laughed. “Why, Matthew Esh, how would you know? Were you there?”

“Ya know I weren’t. But I’ve knowed ya since before ya could walk. I know ya like nobody else, Hannah Lapp. If anyone could tell when you’re lyin’, it’d be me. So tell the truth. It ain’t true, is it?”

Paul’s breath shortened. Who was this Matthew fellow who claimed to know his Hannah unlike anyone else?

Hannah bit her bottom lip and tilted her head. “If you’re so sure I’m lying, then you don’t need me to tell you anything.”

Matthew chuckled, plunking his feet onto the floor. “This round of the game ain’t over, but I better be headin’ out. The driver said he’d be leaving his party at twelve, and I’m to meet ’im out the main entrance at quarter after.” He rose. “Tell Mary that when she’s settled at home and up to havin’ company, I’ll pay her a visit.”

Hannah stood. “I’ll tell her. It was nice of you to go out of your way to come here.”

Matthew straightened his hat. Paul darted quietly down the hallway and around a corner where he couldn’t be seen by the two leaving the waiting room. From his hiding place, Paul watched Hannah and Matthew stroll to the elevator, where she bid him goodbye. As she turned to come back down the hallway, Paul stepped out from the corner and called her name.

She wheeled around so fast she almost lost her balance. Her face flushed. Her movements froze. Guilt and embarrassment seemed to flood her entire being. “Paul.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper, but there was no smile, no sign that he was welcome.

He glanced down each hallway. They needed someplace where they could talk in private. “Let’s go back to that waiting room you just came from.”

Without any show of emotion, Hannah moved back to the quiet space. Paul followed. Something hung between them, but he had no idea what it was. They stood in the small room, staring at each other. The unspoken friction whispered words of disbelief in his heart. They’d been so close, so sure of things just a month ago.

Paul cleared his throat. “Are Luke and Mary going to be all right?”

She lowered her head and fidgeted with her apron. “Luke’s been released. It looks like he’ll completely recover. Mary will be released tomorrow. The doctors suggested she stay a few days to a week longer, but she and her parents signed an AMA form.”

“AMA?” Paul asked.

“Against Medical Advice. Her parents insist she’s well enough to go home.” Hannah shrugged. “I’m not sure she is, but they didn’t ask me. She’s got a long way to go—if she
ever
gets her full strength and agility back.”

Hannah sounded as though she’d learned a lot during her stay here. Her speech patterns were even smoother, more scholarly than before. She’d always hungered to learn, and he’d shared books with her for years—books that had to stay at Gram’s.

“What happened?”

Hannah wiped her palms down the front of her pinafore. “They were riding in a buggy when a car hit them. They both came close to dying. Mary can’t talk very well. She has too many injuries to even try walking just yet.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Hannah cleared her throat. “They are mending.”

“I’m glad.”

Paul studied her, but she never looked at him. He knew the rigid upbringing that took place under Zeb Lapp. She fell into guilt far too effortlessly. The side effect was that she thought everything that went wrong was a direct result of her not handling something right. She probably considered herself at fault for Luke and Mary’s accident, even though she had nothing to do with it. Her tendency toward guilt bothered him greatly. But he was confident that, given time and freedom, she’d overcome this trait.

Then again, perhaps what he was seeing written on her face had nothing to do with her oversensitivity to her self-accusing nature. Maybe it had more to do with Matthew. As much as he hated to ask her, they had to clear the air. He stared at the floor while shifting from one foot to the other. He shoved his hands into his pockets. “So, who is Matthew Esh?”

When Hannah didn’t answer, he lifted his gaze. She stared at a blank television screen in the corner of the room. “He is the man you just saw leave.”

“Yes, but …” Never in all their years as friends had he seen such a look in her eyes. It was an odd mixture of things, maybe embarrassment and … and … something else.

Father, help me. Help us. Please
.

Her hands fluttered to her head, feeling for wisps of misplaced hair and making sure her
Kapp
was in place. “You sent no letter.”

It was a statement that seemed to hold no irritation or worry. Was that supposed to explain who Matthew was?

“I did, but …” He stepped closer to her. She didn’t look up at him. “I don’t understand why, but it never arrived at Gram’s. Before I could send another one, Gram decided we needed to think about our relationship for a while before she’d let us pass letters through her.”

She lifted her gaze. To his surprise, anger blazed in her eyes. “So, now that you’ve had time to think about our relationship, what have you decided?”

“Hannah.” Paul touched her arm. “What is going on with you?”

Her eyes clouded with tears. She gasped for air and backed away from him. As she lifted a hand to wipe a tear off her face, something on her palm caught Paul’s attention.

He grasped her hand and turned it palm side up, seeing long, raised areas of pink tissue. “You have scars. What happened to you?”

Her face and lips grew pale. She eased into the closest chair.

She took a deep breath and straightened her back. With her shoulders squared with resolve, she gazed up into his eyes, her eyes brimming with tears. “Let me go.” The hoarse whisper in her voice made Hannah sound old and tired.

Physical pain shot through him. “You’re not making any sense, Hannah.”

She grabbed some tissues out of a box on a coffee table. “Trust me. You don’t want to wait … for the likes of me.”

For the
likes
of her? Another inkling of suspicion concerning her faithfulness to him rose within his heart. “What are you talking about?”

“I … I …” Tears choked her, and she could say no more.

Paul sat beside her, determined to figure her out. “Hannah, close your eyes and take a deep breath.” He gave her a moment to do so. “Now, let one thing come forward in your mind. Don’t try to tie it all in. Just stick to one issue, and with your eyes closed, tell me.”

She swiped a Kleenex over her cheeks and nodded, as if he’d given her a task she could manage. “The bankbook is missing.” She opened her eyes, absent-mindedly tracing the scars on her right palm with her left forefinger. “I’m not sure what happened to it. I … I …” She turned ashen again.

He placed his hand on her back. “It’s okay. The bank doesn’t even use those kinds of books anymore. They haven’t for decades. I got that one from a friend who works there and had a few books still stashed in his desk.”

“It must’ve been in my pocket when
Daed
burned my clothes.”

Paul removed his hand. “Burned them? Gram said you’d been sick. Were you so sick that they thought your clothes needed burning?”

Hannah’s eyes carried uncertainty. She fled to the other side of the room and stared at the beige wall.

He understood a little more now. To Hannah, losing the gift was probably unforgivable. Still, her reaction seemed too much for just a lost bankbook. He sighed. Perhaps getting to the bottom of all that was on her mind wasn’t possible with the time constraints they had to deal with.

She sniffled.

Walking up behind her, he grabbed some tissues and passed them over her shoulder. He longed to share consoling words with her, but one thing stood in his way. “Do you care for someone else?”

She turned to face him, indignation burning in her eyes. “No!” She sidestepped him and walked across the room, sobbing into the tissue. “Never!”

Her reaction worked the doubts and fears right out of him. He walked to the corner of the small room and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Then nothing else can stand in our way. I promise you that, Hannah.”

She turned to face him. “You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me.”

A look of terror came over her. Clearly she was fighting to gain control of her emotions. Coughing and gasping, she whispered, “The … the day … you left …”

Her face was white, humiliation carved in her features. Seeing her like this cut him to the core. All he wanted was to remove whatever was bothering her. But how?

He touched her
Kapp
and ran a finger along one of the ties. He did his best to smile. “Hannah Lapp, we can do this. But you have to trust me.”

She studied him through teary eyes. “Oh, Paul.” She lowered her forehead onto his chest. “The day you left … a car … with a man … he … it … knocked me …”

The power of her words hit him so hard he couldn’t move. He heard her fighting for air. “You were sideswiped by a car?” He felt her head nod. He took her by the shoulders and put some space between them. “Did your father contact the police?”

She shook her head. “I … I asked him to.”

Just then a nurse came into the waiting area. “Hannah, Mary’s mother called. She was unable to sleep and is on her way back here. She said you can take the shuttle back to the hotel and get some sleep.”

“Okay. Thank you.” She sighed as the nurse left the room. “She’ll be here within ten minutes.”

He wasn’t concerned with Mary’s mother arriving. He wondered if the anxiety of that incident was what had made her so sick that her father had thought it best to burn her clothes. Rage at the idiot driver and anger that no one had stood up for Hannah made him understand a little better Hannah’s wild emotions. She’d been traumatized that day. Obviously, that’s where the scars on her hands had come from. He wrapped his arms around her, resigned that there was nothing he could do about the incident now.

Her body was stiff, yet he could feel her tremble.

“We need to look ahead, not behind.” He kissed the top of her head through her
Kapp
. “I’ll love you forever, Hannah.”

A moment later he felt her take a deep breath. She wrapped her arms around him. Her embrace filled him with renewed commitment.

The frailty of her feminine frame became clear in that moment. She wasn’t just a stalwart, stoic, good-natured worker. She was also a girl, overwhelmed by the odds against them.

She embraced him tighter. “It’s been dreadful since the moment you left.”

If Hannah, his queen of understatements, used the word
dreadful
, he knew things had been horrendous. He held her, not sure he’d ever know the full extent of what had gone wrong since he’d left. For now, it was enough to know that in eight months, he’d be finished with school and living within a mile of her. As soon as possible they’d get married, and no one would ever keep them apart again.

When her tears finally began to subside, Paul led Hannah to a chair and sat beside her.

He glanced at the clock. Their conversation, with all its patchwork exchanges, had taken over an hour. And he still felt she was keeping something from him, though he couldn’t imagine what or why. Still, with their time running out, and since there was little chance they’d be able to communicate again in the near future, he had to bring their time to a close on a positive note.

“Hannah.”

She looked up at him.

He opened her hand and kissed her scarred palm. “Conversations make a relationship strong. Unfortunately, they won’t be a part of our relationship for a while. But we can clear away whatever weeds grow during this time if we hang tough and faithful”—he winked—“until May.”

She offered a slight grin. “Don’t you dare start that winking business with me, Paul Waddell.”

He chuckled. He’d winked at her years ago and made her so angry she wouldn’t speak to him for weeks. There was a scripture in the Old Testament about it, but he figured her real problem was that winks went hand in hand with flirting, and it seemed to unnerve her to think of him winking so easily at girls.

He squeezed her hand. “Eight months, Hannah. No problem for us, right?”

Hannah drew a ragged breath. “
Ya
. I’ll be busy helping Mary with her physical therapy for that long at least.” She finally gave him a little smile. “And Mary and I have plans to make a quilt I’ve been designing in my mind. I’m going to call it a ‘Past and Future’ quilt, and it’s going to have a diamond-in-the-square design.”

Paul brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers, glad to see a spark of pleasure in her eyes. “And in the meantime, I’ll be busy working toward our future together.”

For a brief moment she closed her eyes and leaned her cheek against his fingers. Then she stood. “I’ve got to get out front before Mary’s mother arrives. After Mary is released, I’ll be living at her grandmother’s house for a while, helping Mary get her strength and agility back.”

“At Mary’s grandmother’s? Why?”

“Her parents’ house is narrow, with two large flights of steps and two single steps. She’ll be in a wheelchair, so that won’t do. Her grandmother’s house has two stories, but everything we need is on one very wide level. Mary’s mother has her other children to tend to. And her grandmother can’t lift Mary, so she’ll move in with Becky for a while, giving Mary and me a house to ourselves.” Hannah smiled. “Besides, Mary wanted me to stay by her side, and she could ask for the moon right now, and her parents would find a way to get it for her.”

Hannah stared at him. The look in her eyes said she loved him. “It was so good to see you.”

Paul rose, wishing they had more time. “You must never forget how much I love you.” He’d expected her to nod and turn to leave, but she put her hands on his waist and drew him close.

A nurse peeked into the room. “Mary’s mother just stepped off the elevator.” She sang the words like a friendly warning.