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In the chaos of yesterday, Hannah hadn’t given the toddler’s mamm much thought. Where was she? Did she know her kind had been left alone on the front porch? Most important, Hannah thought as the little girl leaned her face against her shoulder, would Shelby’s mamm want her back?
All questions she couldn’t answer. What she could do was get Shelby cleaned and fed.
Hannah soon had the little girl, despite Shelby’s attempts to escape, in a fresh diaper and clothes. Another pair of pink overalls. She wondered if those were all Shelby wore. Her white shirt today had pink and blue turtles on it. Hannah needed to make clothes for the little girl, but the pressing matter was diapers. She had only about a half dozen on the dresser.
She came down the stairs with Shelby and saw Grossmammi Ella was awake and in the kitchen waiting for her breakfast. Exactly as she did every morning, but this day was different.
Putting Shelby in the high chair she’d found in the cellar, Hannah handed the toddler some crackers to keep her busy while she scrambled eggs for them. That seemed to quiet the kind who focused her attention on breaking crackers into the tiniest possible pieces.
Hannah gave her great-grandmother a kiss on her wizened cheek. “Gute mariye, Grossmammi Ella,” she said with a smile. “I hope you got some sleep.”
“Some.” She stared at the table.
“Let me get you some kaffi and toast while I make a gut breakfast for us.”
The old woman frowned at Shelby who was dropping minuscule pieces of cracker on the floor. “How long will that kind be here?”
“I told you last night. I’m not sure. I’m sorry she kept you awake.” She went to the stove and pulled a cast-iron frying pan from beneath the oven.
“She doesn’t belong here.”
“What?” Hannah turned, shocked. Grossmammi Ella had always been fond of kinder. Many church Sundays, her great-grandmother was the first to volunteer to hold a fussy boppli on her lap or watch over a little one so older siblings could join in a game after the service. “She may be my sister.”
“I don’t believe you! Your daed would never cast away his daughter like that.”
“He did me.” The words came out before she could halt them.
Her daed was a sore subject between her and Grossmammi Ella. The old woman believed Isaac Lambright would return someday and confess his sins before the congregation. Hannah wondered how her great-grandmother could continue to believe that after fifteen years. Hannah’s anger and grief at being left behind herself had been brought to the forefront by Shelby’s abandonment.
Dear Lord, show me the way to forgive my daed as You taught us. I can’t find a way in my heart to grant him forgiveness after what he’s done.
“Don’t forget what’s in God’s Ten Commandments. A kind should honor her daed and mamm.” Her great-grandmother’s scowl deepened.
“Ja.” She broke eggs into the frying pan and took out her frustration on them by stirring them hard. She did her best to keep the commandments, but her daed’s selfish actions made respecting him difficult.
I’ll try harder, Lord. Help me remember what’s important. She glanced over her shoulder as Shelby flung out her hands. A shower of cracker crumbs went everywhere, into the little girl’s hair, onto the floor, onto the table...onto Grossmammi Ella who abruptly smiled and handed the toddler another cracker. That delighted Shelby who babbled with excitement.
Hannah wanted to wrap her arms around them both and hold them close. The days to come wouldn’t be easy, but for her family, she’d try her hardest.
* * *
“Komm in, young man,” called a wavering voice when Daniel peeked around the front door of the Lambrights’ house after no one responded to his knock. “Don’t just stand there.” The voice took on a reproving tone. “Komm in.”
Daniel did, giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the interior after the bright early morning sunshine. Unbuttoning his coat, he didn’t take it off. He doubted he’d be staying long. He shifted his hold on the bag holding the shampoo and diapers he’d bought at his brother’s store.
A very old woman sat by the window. She was almost gaunt, and her white hair was so thin he could see her scalp through her kapp. Her bony fingers looked like talons as she clasped them on her black apron over her dress of the same color. But her eyes drilled through him as if he were a naughty boy standing in front of his teacher.
“I’m Ella Lambright,” she said, “but you can call me Grossmammi Ella. Who are you?”
“Daniel Stoltzfus.”
She eyed him up and down. “You have the look of Paul Stoltzfus about you.”
“He was my daed.”
“No wonder you look like him then. Why are you here? Are you courting our Hannah?”
Before he could reply, he heard a quick intake of breath beyond the old woman. Glancing toward the kitchen, he saw Hannah wiping her hands on a dish towel. Shelby was sitting in a high chair and eating what looked like toast covered with honey. The toddler would need another bath as soon as she was finished, because honey was smeared all over her face.
Hannah flipped the dish towel over the shoulder of her dark purple dress as her gaze locked with his. She didn’t move or look away. He found he couldn’t either when he saw the deep wells of sorrow in her emotive eyes. Had she believed he’d return with her daed this morning? No, she hadn’t believed that, but she’d hoped. How could he fault her for her faith that all would turn out well in the end? Now wasn’t the time to tell her he’d learned that, though God was a loving Father, He didn’t have time to take care of details. Daniel had decided years ago to handle those on his own.
“Gute mariye,” he said into the strained silence. Pulling out the shampoo bottle from among the packages of diapers, he added, “My sister-in-law uses this on her boppli because it’s gentle on little ones’ hair and doesn’t sting their eyes.”
“Danki.” Her hand trembled as she took the bag without letting her fingers brush his. Setting it on the counter by the sink, she said nothing when he came into the kitchen.
Shelby stretched out sticky fingers toward him. She began to chatter in nonsense sounds. She bounced on the hard high chair, excited to see him again. Honey dripped off her chin, and bits of bread were glued to her face and her hands.
He kissed the top of her head. “How are you doing, Shelby?”
Giggling, she offered him a tiny piece of toast. He ate it, pretending he was going to eat her fingers, as well. That made her laugh louder. He was astonished how deep and rich the sound was.
The toddler’s high spirits vanished when Hannah approached her with a washcloth to clean her hands and face. Shelby screwed up her face and opened her mouth to cry.
Daniel yanked the wet cloth from Hannah’s hand. When she protested, he said, “Let me do it. There’s no reason to upset her again.”
“All right.” Resignation filled Hannah’s voice.
As he cleaned honey and bread crumbs off the little girl’s hands, he stole a glance toward her older sister. He almost gasped aloud at the pain and despair on Hannah’s face. Every instinct told him to toss aside the cloth and pull Hannah into his arms and console her. When they were walking out together, he wouldn’t have hesitated, but everything was different since the night he decided he had to be single-minded in the pursuit of his dream of running a construction company.
“While you’re getting the stickiness off her, I’ll get my beekeeping equipment.” Her voice was muffled, and he guessed she was struggling to hold back the tears he’d seen in her eyes when she wasn’t aware he was looking in her direction.
Again he’d had the chance to say something comforting, but he couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t upset her. What a disaster he’d made of what had been a gut friendship! To be honest, he was surprised she even talked to him after he’d avoided her during the past three years.
The back door closed behind her, and Daniel focused his attention on Shelby who slapped the high chair tray, getting her fingers sticky again. Picking her up, he sat her on the edge of the table. He succeeded in getting most the honey off her, but some stuck in her hair.
“She’s a gut girl,” said Grossmammi Ella from her chair by the window.
“Ja, she is.” He grinned at Shelby. “And she’s washed.”
“Not that one! Our Hannah is a gut girl.”
Daniel wasn’t sure what the elderly woman was trying to convey to him. Did she want him to leave her great-granddaughter alone so he didn’t have a chance to hurt her again, or was Grossmammi Ella hoping he’d court Hannah? He thought about assuring her that he had no plans to do either. Nothing had changed for him. He was working toward his goal, and it required every bit of his attention.
The door opening allowed him to avoid answering the old woman. In astonishment, he saw Hannah was dressed as she’d been when she’d left. Didn’t beekeepers wear protective suits to keep from getting stung? She held a small metal container with a spout like an inverted funnel on one side and small bellows on the other. The odor of something burning came from it.
“Is that all you’re bringing?” he asked.
“The smoker is all I need.”
“What does it do?”
She looked at the container and squirted some smoke into the air between them. “It baffles the bees. The smoke masks the chemical signals bees use to communicate with each other. They can’t warn each other I’m near. Otherwise, they’d believe the hive is in danger, and they’d attack. It’s an easy way to get close to a hive without getting stung.”
“A gut idea. I’m not fond of bees.”
“They’ll leave you alone if you leave them alone.”
“But we aren’t going to leave them alone.” He reached to take Shelby’s tiny jacket off a nearby peg. It was bright red, and the front closed with a zipper and was decorated with yellow ducklings, something no plain kind would wear.
“What are you doing?” Hannah asked.
“Getting Shelby’s coat on her. I’ll let you help your great-grandmother.”
“What? I’m not taking a toddler or Grossmammi Ella near the bees.”
“They could stay by the road and—”
“Don’t be silly.” She pushed past him and strode toward the front door. “You stay here with them, and I’ll go to the bridge.” Turning, she smiled, and something pleasant—something he remembered from when they spent time together—rippled through him. “I don’t need you to point out where the bees are. I can find them.” She left.
Daniel went out onto the porch with Shelby in his arms, her coat half on. Behind him, he heard Grossmammi Ella asking where everyone was going. He saw her struggling to get to her feet. He didn’t hesitate as he rushed back into the house, not wanting the old woman to fall.
Making sure Hannah’s great-grandmother was seated again and the door closed, he stared out the window as Hannah stepped over the stone wall beside the guardrail. She hurried down the steep hill toward the creek.
He wasn’t worried about her falling in. The current was sluggish because the water behind the dam upstream beside the remnants of the old mill was still partially frozen. Daniel wanted to get as much work as possible done before the water rose when the ice melted. Once the failing joists were replaced, he could complete the interior work even if it rained. Discovering the hive had threatened to destroy his timetable.
He had to make this job a success. The bridge was one of the few in the area not washed away by Hurricane Agnes in 1972. The wear and tear on the bridge couldn’t be ignored any longer. The original arched supports and the floor joists needed to be strengthened. Most of the deck boards would have to be replaced. The walls were rotted. Work he knew how to do, and he’d been pleased when the highway supervisor, Jake Botti, asked him to take over the project. It was the first step toward his long-held dream of becoming a general contractor.
Suddenly Shelby began chattering in his ear and wiggling. He set her on the floor. Once he took off her coat, she waddled to a chair and began to try to pull herself onto it.
Daniel’s eyes shifted between the toddler and Hannah who was standing by the bridge and staring at the beam where he’d found the bees. She squirted smoke at the opening several times. She paused, then squeezed the bellows on the side of the smoker again. The wisps of smoke swirled around her, making her disappear; then she emerged from the gray cloud and retraced her steps to the house.
He opened the door before she could. “Did you see them?”
“Ja.” She left her smoker on the porch, then came into the house. Motioning with her head toward the kitchen, she walked past Shelby who was focused on climbing onto the chair.
Grossmammi Ella didn’t acknowledge any of them as she continued to gaze out the window. Unsure if she’d notice if Shelby fell, Daniel grabbed the toddler before he went into the kitchen.
“Would you like some tea while we talk?” Hannah asked as she opened the cupboard and reached in for two cups.
“Sounds gut. I’ll put Shelby in her high chair, if you’d like.”
She shook her head. “Let her play on the floor. Next to the sewing machine, there’s a small box of toys I found in the attic. Will you get them out for her?”
He complied, trying to curb his impatience. He wanted to ask about the bees again. If Hannah couldn’t move them, work would have to be delayed until an exterminator could come to the bridge. Having promised he’d get the project done in six weeks or less, losing precious time might make the difference between finishing on time or being late.
Hannah didn’t speak again after she’d placed two steaming cups on the table. Sitting, she waited for him to pull out the chair across from her. She took a sip from her cup, then said, “You’re right. It’s a hive of honeybees.”
“Can you move it?”
She nodded as she wrapped her hands around her cup. “I’ll have to move it twice.”
“Why?”
“If we lived farther away from the bridge, I could move your hive once. Because I keep my own hives so close to the bridge, if I move those new bees to a new hive behind the house, they’ll simply return to the bridge and rebuild their hive. I’ll keep them in the cellar in the dark for the next couple of weeks or so. Then, when I put the new hive outside, the bees will have lost their scent trails to the bridge. They’ll become accustomed to the new location and stay here.”
He watched her face as she continued speaking of relocating the bees as if they were as important to her as her great-grandmother. Her voice contained a sense of authority and undeniable knowledge about how to execute her plan. The uncertain girl he’d known three years ago had become a woman who was confident in her ability with bees.
When she smiled, an odd, but delightful tremor rushed through him again. He dampened it. They were in the here and now, not the past.
“Daniel, I’ll need you to do one more thing for me as part of our bargain.”
“What’s that?”
“The hive is going to need a new home. I don’t have any extra honey supers, and it will take at least a week or two for some to arrive from my supplier.”
“Honey supers?”
“The boxes stacked to make a hive.”
He wasn’t sure what she was talking about, but he said, “Show me what you need, and I’ll build it. Anything else?”
“No. I’ve got the rest of the materials I need.”
When Hannah went to the back door, he scooped up Shelby and followed. Somehow he was going to have to persuade these two stubborn Lambright women they could trust each other. He wasn’t sure how.
Daniel faltered as Hannah walked to two stacks of rectangular boxes set off the ground on short legs. She glanced back as if wondering why he’d stopped, but she halted, too, when her gaze settled on Shelby. Hannah explained what size the four stackable boxes she’d need for the new hive must be as well as describing the cross braces that supported the frames for the honeycomb.
“Sounds simple enough,” he said when she finished.
A raindrop struck his face, then another. He glanced up as rain pelted them. Together they rushed into the house. Shelby giggled as she bounced in his arms.
Hannah closed the door behind them. “It looks as if the sky is going to open up. You’re going to get wet.”
If you don’t head out now. He finished the rest of her sentence, which she hadn’t spoken. She couldn’t make it any clearer he was overstaying his welcome.
He’d take the hint, but not until he got the information he needed. “When will you be able to move the bees?”
“It can’t be a rainy day or a warm one. The rain can hurt the bees when I cut the comb out of the old hive, and, if it’s warm, they’ll be flying about looking for nectar. A lot of the bees could be lost that way.” She looked past him to where rain splattered on the window over the sink. “As soon as you have the supers built and the weather cooperates, I’ll move them. Looks like rain tomorrow, so I can do it the day after if everything’s ready.”
“Sounds gut.” He slapped his forehead. “No, day after tomorrow won’t work. You’ve got to take Shelby to Paradise Springs that day.”
“What?”
“On my way here, I stopped at the health clinic and made a doktor’s appointment for Shelby.”
“You did what?” Her brown eyes darkened with strong emotions. “Shelby is my responsibility, not yours.”
“Ja, but, when I told my mamm about finding Shelby, she insisted the kind be seen by the doktorfraa as soon as possible.” He grinned, hoping she’d push aside her anger. “I learned many years ago not to argue with my mamm when she speaks with that tone.”
