Sisters of the Quilt Trilogy (80 page)

T
he sound of a car in the driveway made Sarah drop what she was doing and head for the back door. The plate clanging against the floor meant little to her.

“Sarah,” Mamm scolded above the noise of the wringer washer, “you can’t let go of everything because you had a new thought.”

She paused, turning to look at the twirling metal plate and scattered scrambled eggs. “Sorry.”

That was the right word. She was sure of it. It seemed to her that words carried enough weight to change anything, if she could just find the right ones. Without returning to help clean up the mess, she barreled out the back door.

Hannah opened the driver’s side door while fidgeting with a cord of some type. She placed a small silver thing in her dress pocket and then got out. “Hey, Sarah, how’s your morning going?”

Sarah got right in front of her sister. “You gotta take me to see your baby, then maybe we can all go to Ohio together. I know the babe’s a toddler now, but …”

“Sarah, I explained all of that yesterday when we were on the dock. Remember? The baby died. Didn’t others tell you this already?”

“It’s not true. The baby is alive. We just haven’t found where they took …”

“Her,” Hannah finished the sentence. “I had a girl who was born too premature to live. It’s fairly common with teen pregnancies.”

“No!” Sarah screamed the word. “No. No. No. No!”

“What’s going on?” Daed came out of the barn yelling. His eyes moved from Sarah to Hannah. “Hannah.” He gave a nod.

“Hi, Daed.”

Sarah wanted to scratch their eyes out. They behaved so orderly, so stoic, when there was no way that’s how they felt. Why couldn’t someone in this family say what they were feeling? Why did they hide so much, even Hannah’s own child? Well, clearly it was up to her to show the truth.

Hannah wiped the palms of her hands down her dress. “I came to talk …”

Daed nodded. “It’s much past time. We have a lot to talk about.”

“I spoke with Sarah yesterday, and she’d like some help.”

“So that’s what you want to talk about?” Daed paused, staring at his eldest daughter. “You lied to me coming and going. Then you’re gone for years only to come back to meddle in things that are none of yours. I think your visit has lasted long enough, don’t you?”

“Daed, I … I was seventeen, and by our own traditions it was my free time to find a mate.”

“The
rumschpringe
is to be used to find an Amish mate, and you know it!”

“I understand that’s every Amish parent’s hope, but those years are for young people to step outside of parental authority and find their own path. Did you not do much the same during your teen years?”

“You’re too much like Zabeth.”

“I found her and lived with her until she died. Did you know that?”

“I figured as much. And seeing you now, I can’t say it did anything positive to help guide you. From the time you were a little bitty thing, you were too much like her. I was blindsided by trusting you to be who you appeared to be, a dutiful girl who wouldn’t lie to me. I got no use for a liar.”

Ready to yank her own hair out, Sarah watched as Luke and Mary pulled into the driveway and drove the horse and buggy up to the far side of the carriage house. He barely glanced at Daed, and she bet he had no power to improve things between Hannah and Daed.

She couldn’t let Hannah leave.

Flames danced in her head.

Fire
.

The thought soothed her rumpled nerves, and Sarah took several steps backward without either Hannah or Daed noticing. She slipped off to the shed, found her stash of matches, and grabbed her push scooter.

With the matches in her pocket, Sarah rode the scooter, propelling it with her foot, as fast as she could to Katie Waddell’s.

The fires brought Hannah, and fire will keep her
.

Burned wood and ash crunched under Matthew’s feet, making him cringe at the memory of what’d taken place right here. Maybe Elle was right; maybe getting away from Owl’s Perch was a good idea, a better one than he wanted to admit. What had living Amish gained him so far?

Loneliness and ashes.

She’d said she loved him. He longed to believe that, needed it now more than ever. The half-burned beams were good for nothing but being knocked down. Over two years of hard work gone. It made him sick. The only thing that seemed to bring a trace of hope to life was Elle’s invitation to come to Baltimore. Everything else felt as empty and lifeless as this building.

“Matthew.” Kathryn’s voice called to him from the direction of his house.

How could he rebuild the place that killed his brother?

“Matthew?” Kathryn clapped her hands, drawing him from his thoughts. She stood at the edge of the burned-out place. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Did ya need somethin’?”

“Your mother asked me to have you come in. She’d like to apply the salve to your back while she’s up for a bit.”

Matthew lifted a charred buggy wheel. “Elle’s asked me to go to Baltimore and stay for a while.”

“A few days there while you’re healing isn’t such a bad idea, I guess. You can’t do much here until you heal more, and the newness of Baltimore might lift your spirits and give you a different perspective.”

Her voice had the first bit of edge to it he’d ever heard, and he looked up.

She held his gaze. “What?”

“You don’t like the idea.”

“I have concerns. You’ll answer to the bishop about this for sure.”

Matthew nodded. “He won’t learn of it until I’m gone.”

“I don’t know what you’ll tell your Mamm or Daed—or even your brother, for that matter—that will keep from adding fear and stress to them.”

He tossed the ruined wheel onto the ash-covered ground. “It’s my life, not theirs.”

“Your pain is talking, not Matthew.”

He kicked a half-burned leg of a workbench, causing it to fall. “The pain has been burned into me until we’re one.”

“For now. But it’s your choice whether the pain grows stronger than you or whether you grow stronger than it. And I happen to think making choices that hurt those we love will cause the ache inside a person to grow stronger and the true soul to grow weaker.”

She just didn’t get it. It wasn’t her brother that had died, or her back that burned and hurt constantly, or her business that had burned down, or her love that beckoned her away. “That sounds an awful lot like flowery words from someone who doesn’t know and can’t possibly understand.”

“I didn’t lose a business. That part’s true, but I did lose a brother.” Pain flickered across her face, and she paused. “Abram drowned, and”— she closed her eyes for a moment—“I go on.”

For the first time Matthew realized who Kathryn was—Elmer Glick’s daughter. When Matthew was about twelve years old, Elmer Glick had lost a son in a drowning. That son was Kathryn’s brother, which meant, according to rumors that had flooded in from Snow Shoe some eighty-five miles away, Kathryn had come close to drowning too.

Sick of pain and death, Matthew motioned toward the house. “I better go in and see Mamm.”

T
he fires brought her, and fire will keep her
.

The words tapped a rhythm inside Sarah’s brain. She left her scooter near the side of the road and climbed over the cattle gate at the back of Mrs. Waddell’s property. A Holstein bull grazed in the adjoining pasture, so she ran full speed across the field. If he saw her and had a mind to, he might come right through that fence that needed mending.

The fires brought her, and fire will keep her
.

She opened the gate that led to Mrs. Waddell’s yard and went straight to the barn. Looking around the place, she spotted a can of gasoline. Isn’t gas what people said caused the fire in the attic of Matthew’s shop?

She spread the liquid over some bales of hay, realizing how beautiful the powerful stuff was. Fascinated, she poured it across the dirt floor as she walked out of the barn. Covering her shoes and the ground with the golden fluid, she found beauty in the swirling little pools as rainbows of colors floated and shifted around. She set the nearly empty can beside her.

“Mrs. Waddell,” she called. “Mrs. Waddell.” When she didn’t come to the back door, Sarah called again.

Paul came out the back door.

“Fire brought her, and fire will keep her. Ya?” She pulled the box of kitchen matches out of her pocket.

He ran toward her. “Sarah, what are you doing?”

She put the head of a match to the side of the box. “I told you she’d come back, but she’s going to leave again if I don’t do something. We can’t let that happen.”

“Sarah, no.” Paul stopped. “Your shoes and the hem of your dress are soaked in gasoline. Don’t strike that match.”

“I want Hannah to stay and help me find her baby.”

“Sarah, give me the matches.” He stepped closer.

She ran the match down the side of the box, and a few sparks zipped around, but it didn’t light. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Okay, okay. Tell me what you want.”

“Hannah to stay.”

A girl came out the back door. “What’s going on?”

“Dorcas, you remember Sarah. She’s going to give me the matches and come inside so we can talk.”

Dorcas came closer. “Hi, Sarah. Wh-why don’t you come on inside? We’ll visit.”

Sarah lifted the box and match at her threateningly. “I want Hannah!”

Paul stepped forward, but Sarah knew what he was thinking. She held the match against the side of the box, ready to light it.

“Okay.” Paul stopped cold. “Dorcas, bring me the cordless and the phone number Hannah left for Gram.”

“A phone number?”

“I saw it lying on Gram’s table. I’m hoping it’s to her cell and that she has it with her.”

Dorcas ran inside.

“Sarah, move the match away from the box, and I’ll call.”

Sarah did as he asked, cradling the match in the palm of her hand while pulling out more matches. Dorcas brought him the phone and paper.

Paul took the items from her. “Dorcas, I want you to go inside. If she so much as causes a spark, the fumes will explode, and the gas can will ignite too.” He punched numbers on the phone, how many Sarah wasn’t sure. “I want you safe. Please.”

Dorcas nodded and went inside.

“Hannah, this is Paul. Sarah’s at Gram’s barn, and she’d like you to come here. It’d be best if you wasted no time, please.” Paul paused and then disconnected the call.

“What’d she say?”

“She said okay.”

“Nothing else?”

“No, but I’m sure she’ll be here shortly. May I have the matches now?”

Sarah shook her head. “Not yet.”

Hannah closed the phone, wondering how to handle this. All her hopes of what she might accomplish by staying calm and respectful with her Daed mocked her. Clearly, getting him to agree with her on anything would take more than politeness.

He gestured toward her phone. “Can’t go anywhere without being attached to that thing? The whole churchgoing world spends more money on fancy gadgets in a month than they offer to God in a year.”

“That can be true of some, I’m sure.” She slid her phone into her pocket, chafing at the constant negativity that flowed from her father. “Daed, that was Paul. Sarah’s at Mrs. Waddell’s.”

He startled, looking about the place. “Ruth!” He headed for the house. Luke and Mary came out of the carriage house.

Hannah heard the gas-powered wringer washer turn off.

“Ruth!” Her father yelled again.

Her mother ran outside and paused when she saw Hannah. A look of pleasure graced her face. “Good morning.”

“Hi, Mamm.”

Daed waved his hand through the air. “Isn’t Sarah inside? You’re keeping a watch on her, right?”

Terror filled Mamm’s eyes. “The last I saw her, she was with you. Has she gone missing?”

Daed opened his mouth, but Hannah interrupted him. “No, she’s at Gram’s with Paul. I need to go.”

“I’m going with you,” Daed said.

Mamm wiped her hands on her apron. “Should I come too?”

Daed headed for the car. “You stay here and watch the children.”

Her father climbed into the passenger’s seat and closed the door.

Hannah turned the key, starting the engine. “You didn’t want her to see whatever it is we’ll see, did you?”

He shook his head. “It’s too hard on her.”

She backed out of the driveway and headed for the paved road that led to Gram’s. “Harder on her than waiting at home?”

He stared out the window. “Your ways of questioning every decision a man makes is wrong.”

Resolved that she’d never really connect with her father, Hannah shifted gears. “And you’re right just because you have title of being head?”

“You’re talking women’s feminism stuff. It’s an abomination, and you know it!”

“More than you seeing me minutes after the rape and later deciding I’d lied?”

Her father crossed his arms over his chest and sulked. That worked just fine for her. She carried plenty of wrongs in what’d happened, but she wouldn’t bear his share simply because he held the position of head of the household.

She stepped on the accelerator, allowing her father to ride in silence. She pulled into Gram’s driveway and up to the house and stopped the car. Running across the yard and to the barn, Hannah wondered what her sister was up to.

Paul came into view but not Sarah.

Hannah slowed. “Where is she?”

He nodded in the direction of the barn.

With a gas can at Sarah’s feet and her skirt hem wet, it didn’t take Hannah long to put it all together. Having no idea what to say to her sister at this moment, she looked at Paul. Daed came up behind her, breathing hard from hurrying across the yard.

“Those are matches in her hands.” Paul spoke softly. “If I can get close enough, I’ll tackle her and take them, but at this distance she could cause a spark while I’m running toward her. It’s the fumes of gasoline that are explosive. If she lights a match—”

“No soft voices!” Sarah yelled. “I hate all the murmuring that goes on behind my back! It’s everywhere I go—even in the house.”

Paul turned his attention to Sarah. “Okay, we won’t whisper. Can we move in closer so we can talk without yelling?”

“A little.”

The three of them eased forward.

“Stop right there.”

Hannah took a few more steps. “Sarah, what’s all this about?”

“I want to know what you did with the baby.”

“I explained all that. Can’t you believe me?” Hannah inched forward. “The night after being accused of wrongdoing in front of Daed and the church leaders, I gave birth too early, and the baby died. I’m not lying.”

Daed removed his hat. “Are you saying it’s my fault you went into labor that night?”

Sarah’s pale face made her dark eyes stand out even more. “No! The baby isn’t dead! It isn’t!”

Paul took a few steps forward. “Sarah, everyone here knows what happened. What will it take for you to believe us?”

“You only know what she said, and so does Daed.”

Hannah stepped closer. “The baby died in my arms. She lived long enough for me to name her, fighting for a breath her lungs weren’t mature enough to take. I cried until I thought I’d go crazy. But then the tears had to stop, and I had to find what was left of me and move forward.”

Paul inched toward Sarah again. “What do you need from us, Sarah?”

Sarah pressed four matches against the striking surface. “Then it’s my fault!”

He stepped in front of Hannah. “Why is it your fault?”

She stepped to the side of Paul, removing him as her shield. “I’m not sure you want to go down that volatile path. Not now.”

“We need to diffuse this so we can get the matches.”

“I realize that, but …”

“Maybe she knows things we don’t. I think she should tell us why it’s her fault.”

“You’re opening Pandora’s box.” Hannah ground out the words.

Ignoring her comment, he moved forward again. Sarah raised the matches and box. “No closer.”

“Did you set E and L on fire?” Daed asked.

Sarah squared her shoulders. “I did.”

Her father moaned as he slumped.

Paul pointed to the gas can. “Did you use matches or gasoline?”

“ ‘The tongue is a fire, a world of evil … and sets on fire the course of life.’ It doesn’t need matches or gasoline.”

Somewhat taken aback that Paul had managed to target the issue, Hannah thought maybe his other question had more merit than she’d given him credit for. “Why is the death of … my baby your fault?”

“What’s her name?” Sarah asked.

“What?”

“The baby. You said you named her.”

Except for the letter she’d written to Paul while on the train to Ohio, Hannah had told no one her infant’s name, and she wasn’t sharing it now with Daed standing here. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Sarah screamed, like a child throwing a tantrum, as she joggled the matches against the strike plate.

Paul held out his hand, calming her. “Rachel.”

Sarah sank to the ground and began to rock back and forth. Paul knelt in front of her, and she held the box of matches out to him. Staring into his eyes without blinking, Sarah whispered, “Help me.”

Paul took the matches and put them on the ground behind him, and then he clasped Sarah’s hands in his and whispered something that made tears roll down her cheeks.

Hannah glanced to her Daed, who was walking off toward home.

Paul stood and helped Sarah up. He then walked her to the back door, where Dorcas stood watching Paul’s every move.

When Dorcas eyed Hannah, a thousand negative emotions roiled through Hannah, but she couldn’t voice her thoughts. Paul had once told her that Dorcas attended every family function and that she practically lived at his parents’ place half the time. She had positioned herself to be Paul’s girl before Hannah ever left Owl’s Perch. Hannah had no proof and yet no doubt that was what had happened. Still, she needed to keep this visit to its point and talk to Paul about Sarah, so she stepped forward and held out her hand. “Hannah Lawson.”

Dorcas looked to Paul before shaking her hand. “Dorcas Miller.”

Paul turned to Sarah, staring into her eyes. “I need to talk to Hannah, just while you get a shower and change clothes. Can you do that?”

Sarah nodded. “Okay.”

Paul motioned into the house. “Dorcas, Sarah needs a change of clothing. Can you find her something and stay with her while she showers? I’ll be right out here, well within earshot if you need me.”

“Sure.” Dorcas flashed a condescending look Hannah’s way before the two disappeared into the house.

Indignation at Dorcas growled, but Hannah ignored it. Suddenly the great outdoors didn’t seem large enough to hold the awkwardness between Paul and her.

He slid his hands into his pockets. “What happened today with Sarah has been brewing for a long, long time. I’m sorry it happened, but I think it’s good you were here, and I think we just witnessed the worst of it.”

The only comforting thought Hannah could find at the moment was gratefulness that Martin wasn’t here to see just how dysfunctional her family was. “Sarah needs to be checked into the mental health ward of a hospital. How do I go about doing that?”

“That would be a huge mistake, Hannah.”

“Could you do me a favor and not use my name like we’re friends?”