An Amish Reunion

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.”