Sisters of the Quilt Trilogy (94 page)

“No.”

“When is the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

“About two years ago.”

“Good. You won’t need to get another. Do you take baby aspirin or ibuprofen regularly?”

“Baby aspirin?” He laughed. “If you have something to say, Hannah, don’t beat around the bush.”

She suppressed a smile. “I take it the answer is no?”

“Yes … I mean, correct. The answer is no.”

Closing her eyes, she shook her head quickly, as if he were driving her nuts. He laughed.

She slowly peeled the towel off his gash. “Your blood clots fast. For cuts like this, that’s generally good, except I have to open the wound back up to clean it out, and it’ll start bleeding again. I’m really sorry.”

“You sure you’re sorry?” he teased.

Willing herself to be painfully honest, she realized humility didn’t come easily for her. “Sometimes the words just don’t cover it,” she whispered, refusing to look him in the eye.

“It’s behind us, Hannah. Forgiveness has happened. And now we move forward.”

Feeling her mouth go dry and her heart palpitate, she looked up. In that brief moment a piece of her soul seemed to become his. Shifting her focus, she pulled prepackaged items out of her medical bag. “I’ve been horrid and mean. Is forgiving that effortless for you?” She laid the items in her lap.

Paul held out his arm to her. “Forgiving you is easy. You weren’t culpable. Forgiving myself takes a good bit more faith, daily.”

She pulled a pair of scissors out of her bag and slid the opened shears up the sleeve of his shirt and then around his bicep, removing the fabric completely. Desperate to turn the subject elsewhere, she thought of a topic. “I … I can’t believe how much better Sarah is.” Hannah reached into her bag and grabbed a bottle of cleanser. She poured the povidone-iodine solution into the bowl of water and stirred it with her finger.

“Hey,” Jacob complained, “can’t I get up now?”

“Yes, but stand slowly.” She watched to see if he wavered any. He appeared steady. “Are you feeling the least bit sick to your stomach?”

“No, just hungry.”

Hannah dried her wet finger on a piece of gauze. “Becky, why don’t you see that he eats and drinks a small portion … slowly of course. And just as a precaution, he should take it easy for twenty-four hours. I’ll check the range of motion in his shoulder later, and then we’ll discuss getting x-rays.”

Becky squeezed Hannah’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Glad to do what I can.” Hannah ripped open a package holding a sterilized bulb syringe, filled it with the disinfectant solution, and began cleaning Paul’s gash.

He tilted his head, looking at the cleaned-out, slightly bleeding gash. “Can I ask how things went with Mary?”

Hannah filled the syringe again and squeezed its contents onto the gash. “Beautifully. If ever a bad decision turned out well, it’s happened for Mary. I just wish Owl’s Perch had a better situation for the medical issues that come up.”

“The Plain community is in need around here. I agree.”

“Every specific group requires targeted medical help they trust-moms of newborns and preschoolers, teens, elderly, athletes, cancer patients. The list is endless and includes the Amish, which is a subgroup all its own, in my opinion.”

“And where your heart lands in spite of not wanting it to?”

She cleared her throat, uncomfortable with just how easily he saw some things. “Yes.” She paused, trying to find some piece of emotional ground between betraying Martin and being near Paul. “This situation with Luke and Mary will be expensive, but fixing the actual issue is so simple. Time and time again issues that can take someone’s life have a relatively simple answer, as long as the patient is informed and willing.”

“That’s probably why you were drawn to becoming a nurse.”

She refused to look at him, but she couldn’t stop the smile crossing her lips. “I used to drive you crazy wanting to study your science books each summer.”

“It was fun for both of us. Do you still have that anatomy book Luke’s doctor gave you?”

She glanced up from his shoulder. “I’m never without it.” She pointed to her medical bag. “It’s in there.”

“The desire to be a nurse was always deep inside you, wasn’t it?”

“It sure looks that way.”

“Tell me about the expenses you mentioned.”

After laying the syringe to the side of the bowl, she dipped a wad of gauze into the solution and cleaned the area surrounding the wound. “She’ll have to check into the hospital before she goes into labor and have a C-section, but she’s in no danger.” She pulled a fresh piece of gauze out of its package and dried his skin. Showing him the container of butterfly bandages, she pulled out several. “These will probably do the trick, but stitches would do a better job of preventing scarring.” After laying the strips in her lap, she opened the tube of antibiotic cream and applied it.

“A scar makes no difference to me.” He stretched out his fingers several times. “Without insurance, the hospital and surgery will be really expensive for Luke to cover.”

She nodded as she wiped the cream off her fingers. “Still, after what they could have been facing, it’s a small price to pay. Mary gave her word she’d tell him everything before midnight tonight.” Hannah removed the backing from one side of the Band-Aid. “Is your hand asleep?”

“Barely.” He flexed his hand, opening and closing it.

She squeezed together the skin at the top of the gash and placed one thin-stripped bandage over it. “If there’s any redness or swelling, you need to be seen. If the tingling in your hand or arm continues for even a few hours, you need to be seen. If—”

Paul held up his hand. “I got it, Hannah.”

A quick glimpse into his eyes revealed a straightforward openness that startled her. Undemanding. Honest. And steady as the ticking of time. In spite of years of convincing herself otherwise, those things did define him.

How she wished they didn’t.

She looked away, gathering items into her medical bag. Being next to the man she’d once loved and intended to marry had every nerve in her body on edge. In his ways she saw why she’d carried feelings for him so long. The force of guilt over Martin ran through her, screaming warnings.

“You’re cold,” Paul said.

The evening air didn’t match the warmth of the kitchen she’d been in most of the day. She shrugged, and while she removed the backing to another butterfly bandage, Paul went to where Jacob had been lying and grabbed a fleece throw blanket. He folded it in a triangle, like a shawl, and placed it over Hannah’s shoulders, his warm hands resting there longer than necessary.

“Hannah,” Lissa called from across the yard. Sarah was beside her, holding her hand, standing rigid and staring at the ground.

Paul took a seat.

Hannah swallowed, reeling her emotions back in. “Yes?” She ignored the bit of trembling in her fingers and placed another butterfly bandage next to the first one, squeezing the skin together as a stitch would.

“Can I comed over there?”

Hannah glanced up. Her sister stood firm, as if an invisible line lay in front of her and she didn’t dare step over it without permission, but her eyes were on the palm of one hand as if she was confused by it. The young woman either still had a long way to go to find freedom, or she’d always have odd ways about her—or both. “Sure.”

Sarah released Lissa’s hand, and the little girl sprinted to Paul. “Did you cut yourself?”

“A little,” Paul answered.

“On what?”

“A nail sticking out of a board.”

“Maybe you need some cookies. I cut my leg a few weeks ago.” She sat on the ground and rolled up her pant leg. “See?”

Hannah continued putting on the bandages, eager to be done.

“Wow, that’s quite a battle scar.”

Sarah joined them, and Paul smiled a silent welcome.

Lissa beamed. “I broke my uncle’s glass shelves, and he didn’t even care. He said I was tougher than nails about the stitches too. On the way back from the hospital, he bought me some cookies ’cause Hannah weren’t home to bake them. She was here. He tooked really good care of me.”

A wrinkle creased Paul’s brows as he looked up at Hannah, but whatever was on his mind, he didn’t voice it.

Hannah smoothed Lissa’s hair back from her face. “I think someone is missing her uncle about now.”

Lissa nodded, the truth of Hannah’s words reflected in her eyes. “We goin’ home soon?”

“Tomorrow. First thing.”

Lissa stood and pulled a broken, lint-covered cookie out of her pocket. “You need a cookie?”

Paul chuckled. “Thank you.”

She dusted off her hands. “You’re welcome. Can I play on the tire swing, Hannah?”

Spotting Mary near the same area, Hannah nodded. “Yes.” She dumped the bowl of solution onto the grass and placed all the old gauze and wrappers in it.

Paul leaned back in his chair. “Martin is her uncle?”

“Yes, but he’s raising … we’re raising both her and Kevin.”

Silently Paul stared at the disfigured cookie.

Sarah took the bowl, her eyes darting from Hannah to Paul. She looked addled.

“I … I …” She ducked her head. “Never mind.”

Paul rose and slid the cookie into his pocket. “She’s leaving tomorrow, Sarah. If this is important to you, ask.”

The tautness across Sarah’s face made her appear unbalanced. “I … know … but it’d help me …” Sarah stopped talking midsentence and stared off into the distance.

“Sarah.” Paul spoke firmly.

She slowly pulled her eyes from the distance and looked at him.

He focused on her as if willing her to hear him. “Find your thought and express it. Don’t let fear steal your ability to live in the here and now.”

Sarah’s blank face slowly seemed to gain a more normal look, and she nodded. “If we could walk to where Rachel is buried …”

Hannah froze. She had a right to several things, all of which her sister was intruding upon. Privacy. An undisturbed burial place for Rachel. And her past left alone. Sarah hadn’t even known Hannah was pregnant until after the baby had been buried. Why did she need to see the grave?

Hannah rubbed her forehead. “It’s not marked at all. It’ll look like any other ground under a beech tree in the field.”

Sarah stared at one palm while rubbing invisible smudges off. “Paul wouldn’t even try going without your permission, and he didn’t think I should ask one of the few who know.”

His loyalty was disconcerting. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Okay, I’ll take you.”

Sarah’s eyes grew large. “I … I want Paul to go.”

Of course she did. Pulling Paul into Hannah’s life seemed to be Sarah’s gift. Glad to be going back to Ohio first thing in the morning, Hannah gave a nod.

Wearing the small blanket draped like a shawl, Hannah walked in silence as Paul and Sarah talked about putting the past to rest. Paul’s words to Sarah wrapped around Hannah’s heart, and she recalled the various conversations she’d had with Paul since her first trip back to Owl’s Perch three weeks ago. In spite of her resolve to ignore his rock-steady and gentle ways, they fought for attention.

Dusk settled over the fields, and the birds had grown quiet. As they topped the ridge, golden-bronze leaves of the beech that hovered over Rachel’s grave came into sight. Hannah swallowed, no longer hearing the words that passed between Paul and Sarah.

But she could hear Paul’s voice, see him in yesteryear as clearly as she could turn and see him now.

He’d stood in front of her during one of their rare times together, turned her hand palm up, and kissed it.
“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’d winked—
“until May.”
He’d squeezed her hand lovingly.
“Eight months, Hannah. No problem for us, right?”

No problem
.

Had they been given one small break in any area, it wouldn’t have been a problem, not for them. Unwilling for Paul to catch a glimpse of what was happening inside her, she kept her gaze steady on the ground as the three of them continued walking. Her heart suddenly felt too large for her chest as an epiphany hit. Paul had believed in them.

In her.

And he’d waited.

No longer able to resist, she lifted her eyes—tattered shirt, injured arm, blond hair, broad shoulders, and none too weary for the day’s work he’d just performed. His energetic steps defied the gentleness with which he spoke to Sarah.

How long had he waited?

It didn’t matter. He had Dorcas. And Hannah loved Martin. When she thought of how rare it was to find a quality man, it seemed pretty incredible that she’d managed to find two. Maybe good men weren’t as scarce as she’d thought.

Paul’s eyes moved to hers and lingered. A hint of a smile crossed his lips. She knew that smile, the one that wasn’t born so much from the joy of easy living as from the small pleasures life brought his way.

Edged with a fresh sense of betrayal of Martin, she turned her head without smiling. Scanning the fields, she remembered the whispers she’d heard the day Rachel was buried, calling Hannah’s name and whispering,
“Kumm raus”
—to come out.

In the midst of heartbreak, the voice had beckoned and hopelessness gave way. The next day she set out to find a woman she wasn’t sure existed. Even today she remained unsure if the vaguely familiar voice had been her inner self begging for freedom, or her imagination, or God’s own whispers, or something else. But at the time, it’d kept her from being swallowed in brokenness and had helped her find the courage to leave.

Sarah grabbed her arm, shaking all over. “Look.”

Less than fifteen feet ahead of them there appeared to be a grave marker, a headstone.

Sarah tightened her grip and dug her heels into the ground, stopping both of them. “I … I changed my mind. I want to go home.”

Paul placed his hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “We can’t believe our emotions over sound reason. Your emotions are terrified. Reason says there is nothing to fear.”

Sarah tugged on Hannah’s arm. “Let’s go home. I don’t like it. Maybe some ghost from the past—”