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Suddenly there seemed to be enough oxygen to take a breath, and Hannah sucked in a quick one. She needed to get herself on an even keel if Daniel was visiting for the next few days. How long would it take to learn how to take care of Shelby? Not that long, she was sure.
Her certainty wavered when Daniel paused in the living room and held out Shelby to her. Smiling and cooing at the kind, Hannah took her.
The room erupted into chaos when the toddler shrieked at the top of her lungs and reached out toward him, her body stiff with the indignity of being handed off to Hannah.
“Go!” Hannah ordered.
“Are you sure?” Daniel asked.
“Ja.” Stretching out his leaving would just upset everyone more.
Shelby’s crying became heartbreaking as Daniel slipped out and closed the door behind him. She squirmed so hard, Hannah put her down.
Teetering as if the floor rocked beneath her, Shelby rushed to the door. She stretched her hand toward the knob, but couldn’t reach it. Leaning her face against the door, she sobbed.
Hannah was tempted to join her in tears. The sight of the distraught kind shattered her heart. When she took a step forward, wanting to comfort Shelby, the toddler’s crying rose in pitch like a fire siren. Hannah jumped back, unsure what to do. She silenced the longing to call after Daniel and ask him to calm the kind. As soon as he left once more, Shelby might react like this all over again.
Hating to leave the little girl by the door, Hannah edged toward the kitchen. She kept her eyes on Shelby while setting the kettle on the stove to heat. The kind didn’t move an inch while Hannah took out the tea and a cup for her great-grandmother. Nor when Hannah set a handful of cookies on a plate and poured a small amount of milk into a glass.
The first thing to put on her list of what she’d need for the kind: plastic cups. Maybe she could find some with tops so Shelby could drink without spilling. Or was Hannah getting ahead of herself? She didn’t know if the little girl could drink from a cup.
The door to the downstairs bedroom opened. Her great-grandmother, Ella Lambright, leaned one hand on the door frame. She’d left her cane in the bedroom. Her steps were as unsteady as Shelby’s. Unlike the kind, her face was lined from many summers of working in her garden. She wore a black dress, stockings and shoes as she had every day since her husband died two years before Hannah’s parents had wed.
Hannah rushed to assist her great-grandmother to the kitchen table. The old woman took a single step, then paused as another wail came from beside the front door.
“Who is that?” Grossmammi Ella said in her wispy voice. The strings on her kapp struck Hannah’s cheek as she turned her head to look at the sobbing toddler. The elderly woman’s white hair was as thin and crisp as the organdy of her kapp. She actually was Hannah’s daed’s grossmammi.
“Her name is Shelby.”
“That isn’t a plain name.” Her snowy brows dropped into a scowl. “And she isn’t wearing plain clothes. What is an Englisch kind doing here?”
“Sit, and I’ll explain.”
“Who was that I saw driving away? What did he want here?”
“One thing at a time.” Hannah had grown accustomed to Grossmammi Ella’s impatience. In many ways, her great-grandmother’s mind had regressed to the level of a toddler’s. Impatient, jumping from one subject to another and with no apparent connection of one thought to the next, focused on her own needs. “That’s what a wise woman told me.”
“Foolish woman, if you ask me,” Grossmammi Ella muttered.
Hannah assisted her great-grandmother to sit. Now wasn’t the time to mention the wise woman had been Grossmammi Ella. Saying that might start an argument because the old woman could be quarrelsome when she felt frustrated, which was often lately.
Hoping she wouldn’t make matters worse, Hannah went to Shelby. She knelt, but didn’t reach out to the toddler. “Shelby?” she whispered.
The little girl turned toward her, her earth-brown eyes like Hannah’s. Heated trails of tears curved along her full cheeks, and her nose was as red as the skin around her eyes. Averting her face, the kind began to suck her thumb while she clung to the door.
Hannah waited, not saying anything. When Shelby’s eyes grew heavy, the toddler slid to sit and lean her face against the door. The poor little girl was exhausted. Hannah wondered when the kind had last slept.
When Shelby’s breathing grew slow, Hannah slipped her arms around the toddler. Shelby stiffened, but didn’t waken as Hannah placed her on the sofa. Getting a small quilt, Hannah draped it over the little girl.
Straightening, Hannah went to sit beside her great-grandmother. Patting Grossmammi Ella’s fragile arm, she began to explain what had happened while the old woman was resting. The story sounded unbelievable, but its proof slept on the sofa.
When her great-grandmother asked what Hannah intended to do now, Hannah said, “I don’t know.”
And she didn’t. She hoped God would send her ideas of how to deal with the arrival of an unknown sister, because she had none.
* * *
Reuben Lapp’s place wasn’t on Daniel’s way home to the farm where he’d lived his whole life, but he turned his buggy left where he usually turned right and followed the road toward where the sun was setting through the bank of clouds clinging to the hills. It was growing chilly, a reminder winter hadn’t left. At least, the rain hadn’t turned to sleet or snow.
He’d promised Hannah that he’d help her find out where her daed was. Hannah had been willing—albeit reluctantly—for him to speak with Reuben and get the bishop’s advice.
Why didn’t she want to use every method possible to find her daed? Daniel was sure she was as curious as he was about why Shelby had been left on the porch. Yet, she’d hesitated when he mentioned locating her daed.
Why?
You could have asked her. His conscience refused to let him ignore the obvious, but he had to admit that Hannah had her hands full when he left. As he closed the Lambrights’ door, he’d heard Shelby begin to cry in earnest. He’d almost gone back in, stopping himself because he wanted to get the search for her daed started as soon as possible.
Propane lamps were lit in the bishop’s large white house when Daniel arrived. He drove past the house and toward the whitewashed barns beyond it. Odors of overturned earth came from the fields. Reuben must be readying them for planting, using what time he had between storms.
Stopping the buggy, Daniel jumped out and walked to the biggest barn where the animals were stabled on the floor above the milking parlor. Through the uneven floorboards, he could hear the cows mooing. The bishop’s buggy team nickered as he walked past. Several mules looked over the stall doors, their brown eyes curious if he’d brought treats. He patted each one’s neck, knowing they’d had a long day in the fields spreading fertilizer.
He didn’t slow as he went down the well-worn steps to the lower floor. The cows stood in stanchions, and the rhythm of the milking machine run by a diesel generator in the small, attached lean-to matched his footsteps.
Reuben, a tall man who was muscular despite his years, stood up from between a pair of black-and-white cows. He held a milk can in each hand. The bishop’s thick gray beard was woven with a piece of hay, but Daniel didn’t mention it as he greeted the older man.
“You’re here late,” Reuben said in his deep voice.
“I’d like to get your advice.”
The bishop nodded. “I need to put this milk in the dairy tank.” He motioned for Daniel to follow him through a doorway.
“Let me take one.”
“Danki, but they’re balanced like this.” He hefted the milk cans with the strength of a man half his age.
Reuben had been chosen by the lot to be their bishop before Daniel was born. His districts were fortunate to have his gentle, but stern wisdom as well as his dedication to his responsibilities as their bishop. It wasn’t an easy life for a man with a family to support, because those selected by the lot to serve weren’t paid.
When Reuben went to the stainless steel tank where the milk was kept cold by the diesel engine, Daniel opened the top and checked that the filter was in place. He stepped back so Reuben could pour the milk in. As soon as both cans were empty, Reuben lifted out the filter and closed the top. He set the filter in a deep soapstone sink to clean later.
Wiping his hands on a ragged towel, Reuben said, “I hear you’ve got a new job. Fixing the Hunter’s Mill Creek Bridge.”
“Word gets around fast.” He chuckled.
“The Amish grapevine is efficient.”
Daniel had to smile. For people who didn’t use telephones and computers at home, news still managed to spread through the district. He wondered how long it would take for his neighbors to learn about Shelby. News of a kind being left on the Lambrights’ front porch was sure to be repeated with the speed of lightning.
“I went out to the bridge today,” Daniel said. “No work can be done until some bees are removed.”
“Bees?” The bishop leaned against the stainless steel tank. “Doesn’t Hannah Lambright keep bees? The bridge is close to her house, ain’t so? Maybe she’ll be willing to help.”
“I’ve already spoken with her. She’ll take care of the bees if I help her with a few things.”
“Sounds like an excellent solution.” Reuben folded his arms over the ends of his gray beard. He shifted and plucked out the piece of hay. Tossing it aside, he went on, “But from your face, Daniel, and the fact you want to talk with me, I’d guess there’s more to the story.”
“A lot.” In terse detail, Daniel outlined how he’d found the kind after she escaped from the basket. He told the bishop about the note from Hannah’s daed. “Hannah will take care of Shelby, of course, until her daed can be found.”
“Hannah already carries a heavy load of responsibilities with her great-grandmother. Some days, the old woman seems to lose her way, and Hannah must keep a very close watch on her.”
“I offered to help with Shelby.”
The bishop nodded. “A gut neighbor helps when the load becomes onerous.”
“And I also told Hannah I’d come to ask you about whether we should contact the police to get help in finding her daed. If you’re all right with her talking to the police, she agreed that she will.”
Reuben didn’t say anything for several minutes, and Daniel knew the bishop was pondering the problem and its ramifications. It was too big and important a decision to make without considering everything that could happen as a result.
Daniel wished his thoughts could focus on finding Hannah’s missing daed. Instead, his mind kept returning to the woman herself. Not just her beauty, though he’d been beguiled by it. No, he couldn’t keep from thinking how gentle and solicitous she was of the kind and her great-grandmother.
Some had whispered years ago Hannah was too self-centered, like her daed who hadn’t spared a thought for his daughter when he jumped the fence and joined the Englisch world. Daniel had never seen signs of Hannah being selfish when they were walking out. In fact, it’d been the opposite, because he found she cared too much about him. He hadn’t wanted her to get serious about him.
Getting married then, he’d believed, would have made a jumble of his plans to open a construction business. That spring, he’d hoped to submit the paperwork within a few weeks, and he thought being distracted by pretty Hannah might be a problem. In retrospect, it’d been the worst decision he could have made.
He hadn’t wanted to hurt Hannah. He’d thought she’d turn her attention to someone who could love her as she deserved to be loved. But he’d miscalculated. Instead of flirting with other young men, she’d stopped attending gatherings, sending word she needed to take care of her great-grandmother. At the time, he’d considered it an excuse, but now wondered if she’d been honest.
But whether she’d been or not, he knew one thing for sure. He’d hurt her, and he’d never forgiven himself. Nor had he asked for her forgiveness as he should have. Days had passed becoming weeks, then months and years, and his opportunity had passed.
“I thought we’d seen the last of Isaac Lambright,” Reuben said quietly as if he were talking to himself.
“That’s Hannah’s daed?”
The bishop nodded. “Isaac was the last one I guessed would go into the Englisch world. He was a gut man, a devout man who prized his neighbors and his plain life. But when his wife sickened, he changed. He began drinking away his pain. After Saloma died, he refused to attend the funeral and he left within days.”
“Without Hannah.” He didn’t make it a question. “But Isaac has come to Paradise Springs and left another daughter behind.”
“So it would seem.” The bishop sighed. “I see no choice in the matter. The Englisch authorities must be notified. Abandoning a kind is not only an abomination, but a crime. Has the kind said anything to help?”
“Shelby makes sounds she seems to think are words, because she looks at you as if you should know what she’s saying. It’s babbling.”
He nodded. “That was a foolish question. A kind without Down syndrome uses only a few words at her age. An old grossdawdi at my age forgets such things.” His grin came and went swiftly. “But that doesn’t change anything as far as going to the police.” Again he paused, weighing his next words. “Waiting until tomorrow to contact them shouldn’t be a problem. I’d like to take tonight to pray for God’s guidance.”
“Hannah may be hesitant about talking to the cops because she doesn’t want to get her daed into trouble.”
Reuben put his hand on Daniel’s arm. “We must assume Isaac is already in trouble. I can’t imagine any other reason for a daed to leave another one of his daughters as he has.” He sighed. “We’d hoped when Isaac was put under the bann that he’d see the errors of his ways. He told me after Saloma’s death he’d never come back, not even for Hannah. Now he’s done the same thing with another daughter.”
“If Shelby is his daughter and not someone’s idea of a cruel prank.”
“And that, Daniel, is why I’ll be talking with the police tomorrow morning. They’ll know be the best way to find out what’s true and what isn’t.”
“What will happen if Shelby isn’t Hannah’s sister?”
The bishop clasped Daniel’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Let’s not seek. The future is in God’s hands, so let’s let Him lead us where we need to go.”
Daniel nodded, bowing his head when the bishop asked him to join him in prayer. He wished a small part of his heart didn’t rebel at the idea of handing over the problem to God. That part longed to do something now. Something he—Daniel himself—could do to make a difference and help Hannah.
After all, he owed her that much.
Didn’t he?
Chapter Three (#ubb987acd-c01b-502e-ad4e-2b00bb913e0d)
As the sun rose the next morning, Hannah wondered how she was going to survive the coming day...and the ones to follow. During the night, which had stretched interminably, Shelby had been inconsolable. Her cries from the room across the upstairs hall from Hannah’s had kept Grossmammi Ella awake, too, on the first floor. Hannah had spent the night trying to get them—and herself—back to sleep. She’d managed the latter an hour before dawn.
Then she’d been awoken what seemed seconds later by the sound of her neighbors working in the field between her house and theirs. The Jones family were Englischers, which meant Barry Jones used rumbling tractors and other mechanized equipment in his fields. Usually Hannah was up long before he started work, but not after a night of walking the floor with an anguished toddler and calming her great-grandmother who was outraged at the suggestion her beloved grandson had left another kind on her doorstep.
Hannah dressed and brushed her hair into place. She reached for a bandana to cover it, then picked up her kapp. Daniel had said he was going to talk to Reuben Lapp before he came back this morning. It was possible the bishop might visit to discuss Shelby’s situation. She hoped he would have some sage advice to offer her.
Lots of sage advice...or any sort of advice. She could use every tidbit to raise a toddler who screamed at the sight of her.
“Keeping my eyes open instead of falling asleep on my feet is the smartest thing I can do,” she murmured as she slipped down the stairs.
Passing her great-grandmother’s bedroom door, she was relieved it was closed. Grossmammi Ella had been soothed about Shelby’s arrival because Hannah assured her great-grandmother the kind wouldn’t be with them long. She let Grossmammi Ella believe that Hannah’s daed would return straightaway to collect Shelby.
The situation wasn’t made easier because the elderly woman’s hearing was failing as fast as her memory. The toddler’s cries could slice through concrete, so the noise must be extra jarring for Grossmammi Ella who missed many quieter sounds. No wonder her nerves were on edge.
Hannah whispered an almost silent prayer of gratitude that Grossmammi Ella and the kind were still asleep. She doubted the peace would last long, and she needed to figure out what she absolutely had to do that day. She guessed most of her day would be focused on her abruptly expanded family. For the first time in a week, it wasn’t raining, so Daniel would want her to check the hive.
She sighed. That would be difficult because she couldn’t leave either her great-grandmother or the toddler alone. Though the covered bridge was down the road only a couple hundred feet, going would mean taking Grossmammi Ella and Shelby with her unless someone was at the house to keep an eye on them. She’d ask Daniel to do that while she went to figure out what she’d need to move the bees.
Maybe Daniel would have answers about her daed when he returned. His brother Amos ran the grocery store, and he may have heard something. It was even possible Daed had stopped at the store at the Stoltzfus Family Shops. No, that was unlikely. Why would he go where someone might recognize him?
Oh, Daed, why didn’t you knock on our door? I would have listened to you, and perhaps Shelby wouldn’t be distressed with me if she’d seen you and me together.
There weren’t answers, which is why, during the night while she walked the floor with Shelby, trying to get the little girl to go to sleep, Hannah had known Daniel’s suggestion to get Reuben’s advice about contacting the police was gut. The police had ways of obtaining information no plain person did. She had to concentrate on what was best for Shelby.
With a sigh as she put ground kaffi into the pot on the propane stove, she reminded herself, until she learned how to take care of the toddler and removed the bees from the covered bridge, Daniel would be part of her life. That should last only a few days; then he’d be gone again. Gut, because she didn’t want to let herself or her great-grandmother or Shelby become dependent upon him. She’d do as she promised Daniel, and then she’d go on with her life without him.
As she had before.
A cup of fresh kaffi did little to wake Hannah. She was halfway through her second one when she heard faint cries upstairs. Putting the cup on the counter, she hurried to the toddler’s room.
Shelby was standing in the crib Hannah had wrestled down from the attic last night. Grossmammi Ella kept everything, and Hannah was glad the old crib was still in the house. Shelby’s diaper was half-off, and big tears washed down her face. The sight of the forlorn kind made Hannah want to weep, too. Again she had to fight her exasperation with her daed. Being angry wouldn’t help her or Shelby.
“Hush, little one,” she crooned as she gathered the kind into her arms, hoping Shelby would throw her tiny arms around Hannah’s neck.
Instead the toddler stiffened and screeched out her fury. Hannah longed to tell her everything would be okay, but she wouldn’t lie to her little sister, though she doubted the toddler understood her. So far, it seemed Shelby comprehended simple words and phrases in Englisch. Nothing more, and Hannah hadn’t been able to decipher her babblings.
Daed probably wouldn’t have spoken to her in Deitsch, and it was unlikely Shelby’s mamm knew the language. Or would she? Who was Shelby’s mamm?
