Sisters of the Quilt Trilogy (74 page)

Book Three

H
annah’s car faded into the distance of the paved horizon. The cold concrete chilling Martin’s bare feet and the lukewarm cup of coffee in his hand confirmed that this was no way to begin a Saturday morning. Watching the place where Hannah’s vehicle had disappeared, Kevin and Lissa slowly stopped waving. For the first time since Hannah had landed in Ohio—two and a half years ago and not yet eighteen—she was on her way back to her Pennsylvania home and the Old Order Amish family she’d left behind. Maybe he should have insisted on going with her.

Lissa tugged at the hem of his T-shirt. “She packed a lot of stuff.”

His niece’s big brown eyes reflected fears she didn’t know how to voice at five years old. Martin tried to catch Kevin’s eye to see how he was doing, but he stared at the ground. Hannah really hadn’t packed very much, but this had to feel like a replay of when their mother ran off months ago. When Faye had packed a lot of things into her car, she dropped Kevin and Lissa off with Hannah while Martin was at work, and never returned.

Martin suppressed a sigh, tossed the brown liquid from his cup onto the green grass, and held out his hand to Lissa. “She’ll be back, guys.”

Lissa slid her hand into his. “Promise?”

“Yes. Absolutely.” Martin gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Her sister called to say that a good friend of Hannah’s had an accident and is in the hospital. She’ll probably be back in time for her classes on Monday. Wednesday at the latest.”

Kevin shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I didn’t know she had a sister.”

Martin shrugged, unwilling to say too much about Hannah’s past. “She hasn’t been to see her family or friends in Pennsylvania for years.” With the coffee cup dangling from his fingers, he put his hand on Kevin’s shoulder. “Now they need her for a bit.” He headed for the house, leading the children.

Earlier this morning, while Hannah called possible hospitals her friend might have been taken to, Martin found an Ohio-Pennsylvania map. Once she knew the name and address of the hospital, they studied the map together while he highlighted the route she’d need to take. He didn’t know which caused her the most nervousness: her injured friend, having to see her family again, or driving in unfamiliar territory, but right now he wished he’d pushed a little harder to go with her.

He thought about the gifts he and Hannah had exchanged last night. He’d given her an honorary mother’s ring and had slid it onto the ring finger of her left hand. She hadn’t agreed yet to marry him, saying his proposal a few weeks back had been brazen and romance-free, which it had. But when he took her to Hawaii over Christmas, he’d find the most romantic way possible to propose.

A smile he couldn’t stop seemed to spread across the morning.

Martin opened the front door. “How about some Cracklin’ Pops cereal and cartoons?”

The muscles across Hannah’s shoulders ached. With the toll roads and service plazas of the Ohio and Pennsylvania Turnpikes behind her, she pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and found a space for her car.

Her frazzled nerves complained, but she was here now—whatever
here
held in store. Trying desperately to remember who she’d become over the last couple of years, not who she’d once been, she stopped at the information desk and waited for the woman to end her phone conversation.

Her sister Sarah had managed to get hold of her phone number and had called last night to tell her about Matthew being hurt in a fire. Hannah promised to come—a pledge she now regretted. In some ways it’d been a lifetime since she’d last faced her Amish community, yet the quaking of her insides said it’d been only yesterday.

The gray-haired woman hung up the phone. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, I need the room numbers for Matthew and David Esh.”

The woman typed on the keyboard and studied the screen. She frowned and typed in more info. “We have a Matthew Esh, but there’s not a David Esh listed.” She jotted down the room number on a small piece of paper. “It’s possible he’s already been released or perhaps was taken to a different hospital.”

“Maybe so. I’ll ask Matthew.” Hannah took the paper from her. “Thank you.”

She went to the elevator, trying to mentally prepare to face Matthew’s visitors—people she knew, people she was related to, those who’d accused her of wrongdoing before they washed their hands of her. Nonetheless, she’d come home.

Here. Not home
. She corrected herself and felt a morsel of comfort in the thought. These people didn’t own her and had no power to control her, not anymore. She stepped off the elevator and headed toward Matthew’s room. Odd, but the place appeared empty of any Amish. She gave a sideways glance into the waiting room as she passed it. There were no Plain folk in there either.

Stopping outside the room, Hannah said a silent prayer.

Ready or not, she pressed the palms of her hands against the door and eased it open.

A man lay in the bed, but she couldn’t see his face for the bandages across his eyes. He turned his head toward the door.

“Hello?” His voice echoed through the room.

“Matthew?”

His forehead wrinkled above the bandages, and he clenched his jaw. “Just go home … or wherever it is you’re livin’ these days. I got no more use for you.”

She froze. If this is what awaited her from Matthew, one of her few friends, what would the community be like? But maybe the man wasn’t Matthew. His body was larger, shoulders thicker and rounded with muscle. His voice was raspy and deeper than she remembered. And Matthew would have visitors, wouldn’t he?

“Matthew?”

He shifted in the bed, angling his head.

“It … it’s Hannah.”

Only the soft buzzing sound of electronics could be heard as she waited for his response. Wondering a thousand things—whether the eye damage was permanent, why he didn’t have a marriage beard, and where everyone was—she moved closer to the bed.

Finally he reached his hand toward her. “Hannah Lapp, at last back from the unknown world.”

Ignoring his unsettling tone, she put her fingers around his outstretched hand and squeezed. “How are you?”

The stiltedness of their words said that a lot more than two and a half years had passed between them.

He shrugged and then winced, reminding her of the pain he must be in. “I’ve lost David … and every part of my business. How do ya expect me to be?”

David is dead?

The news twisted her insides, making her fight to respond. “I’m so sorry, Matthew.”

He eased his hand away from hers. “I’m grateful you came all this way, but I’m too tired to talk right now.”

“Sure. I understand. Where is everyone?”

The door swooshed open, and a nurse walked in. “I’m sorry, miss. He’s not to have visitors.” She held up a laminated, printed sign that said No Visitors Allowed. “It’d slipped off his door.”

That explained why he didn’t have friends or relatives here, but he didn’t appear to be in bad enough shape for a doctor to give that order. Hannah studied the nurse, but she just shook her head without saying more. The only reason he wouldn’t be
allowed
to have visitors was because he’d requested that of the staff. And clearly he didn’t want to make an exception for her.

“Okay.” She slid her hand into his once more, wishing she could at least know more about the condition of his eyes. But he seemed in no mood for questions. “I’ll come back when you’re feeling better.”

“There’s no sense in that. I’m goin’ home tomorrow. But … David’s funeral is Monday.” His voice cracked, and he took a ragged breath. “If you’re still here, we could meet up afterward while
Mamm
and everyone is distracted with the gatherin’ at the house.”

The words Matthew didn’t say weighed heavily. He didn’t want her going into the community to see anyone. He wanted to meet her alone, in secret.

Unable to respond, she grappled with the space separating them. She’d expected distance from her
Daed
and Mamm, the church leaders, and even Gram, but she hadn’t for one second thought Matthew would sidestep her. He’d understood, even disobeyed the bishop to help her. Built the coffin for her baby, dug the grave, and said the prayer. Taken her to the train station, bought her a ticket, and stayed with her until time for the train to depart the next day. Did he now regret that he’d stuck by her?

Unwilling to push for a specific plan, Hannah gave his hand a final squeeze before pulling away. “Sure. I … I’ll catch up with you then.”

Desperate to clear her mind, Hannah hurried out of the hospital and into her car. She pulled out of the hospital parking lot and drove—to where, she didn’t know. Old feelings of loneliness washed over her, but she kept driving, as if she could outrun the sting.

By the time her emotions began to settle, she had no idea where she was. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she pulled her car onto the shoulder of the road. Fields of yet-uncut hay seemed to go on forever as cars whizzed past. Unsure of the county or town she was in, she grabbed the map off the seat beside her and searched for her location. Nothing looked familiar. Realizing the stupid thing was upside down, she flipped it around.

At this moment all she wanted was to be at home with Martin, but the next few days had to be walked through first. She’d given Sarah her word. Even as that thought crossed her mind, she wondered if there was more to it. If maybe some deeply hidden part of her wanted to be here. Desperate to hear Martin’s voice, to feel like she did when with him, she took her cell phone out of her purse.

“Hey, sweetheart, where are you?”

A sense of belonging washed over her the moment she heard his voice. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

He laughed. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“Do you know the name of the road you’re on?”

“No. All I know is I want to be there, not here.” In spite of her effort to sound upbeat, she came across as pathetic and didn’t want to imagine what Martin must be thinking about now.

“Look at the directions I printed out, and tell me what point you got to before you became lost.”

“I turned left out of your driveway.”

His low chuckle was reassuring. “Very cute.”

Determined to show Martin she could handle this, she studied the map. “Yeah, you’ve told me that before, only then you could see me.” She angled the map sideways. “Wait. I got it. I know where I am.” She pressed her fingertip against the map and followed the line before realizing she was wrong. “Lost without you.”

“Metaphorically, I love the sound of that, but you should have let me take you there. You’ve never driven anywhere outside a twenty-five mile radius of Winding Creek.”

“You’re not helping.”

“It’s a little hard to help from here with no”—he mockingly cleared his throat—“POB to work from.”

She heard the familiar beeps of his laptop starting up. “POB … ah, engineering lingo.”

“Yep. Point of beginning. I’m logging onto Google maps right now and will try the satellite visual. Tell me about your surroundings.”

“Oh yeah, that’s a great plan. I’m surrounded by cow pastures and no houses. Found the right spot yet? There’s a Holstein watching me.”

“On Google maps, no. The right spot for you? Yes, it’s right here in Ohio with us.”

She heard the rustle of fabric. “Did you go back to bed after I left?”

“I ate breakfast and watched cartoons with Lissa and Kevin. But then Laura arrived, so I let the nanny do her job while I took a nice long nap, until you became a damsel in distress. The Mary Jane to my Peter Parker.”

“What? Damsel in distress,” she muttered. “So what does that make you when you don’t know the difference between a skillet and a pot?”

“A typical male who just happens to be …” He paused. “Come on, work with me here, phone girl. Who just happens to be …”

“Charming and intelligent.” She mimicked his clearing of the throat. “According to him.”

He laughed. A loud crash echoed through her cell. Lissa screamed, and Hannah’s breath caught.

A bang, as if his door had been shoved open and hit the wall, filtered through the receiver. “Uncle Martin, Laura said you better come see this. Lissa might need stitches.”