Her Brother's Keeper Read online

  Jacob got close to her ear and spoke softly. “I guess you wouldn’t . . . Mary.”

  Then he grinned and turned toward the stairs. Once he was out of sight, Charlotte let out the breath she was holding. He knows.

  Hannah was glad to see Mary in time for breakfast. She missed more breakfasts than she made it in time for. She’d decided that it just wasn’t in Mary’s nature to be an early riser. They obviously didn’t start their days as early in Texas. Maybe her cousin’s motivation to get up early today had something to do with teaching her how to bake bread. Hannah had never seen a person eat as much bread as Mary, except for maybe Jacob. She noticed that her mother hadn’t eaten much these past few days.

  After Daed and Jacob left and the dishes were washed, Mary sat down and helped herself to another piece of buttered bread, and Mamm sat down and lathered up her hands with her goat-milk lotion.

  Hannah tossed the dish towel over her shoulder and leaned against the counter. “Mamm, are you all right? You aren’t eating much.”

  Her mother massaged the lotion up her arms almost to her elbows. “Ya, ya. I’m fine. I’ve just been a little sick to my stomach the past few days. If it’s not better soon, I’ll visit the doctor.”

  Hannah’s mother rarely went to the doctor. She’d even used a midwife to deliver both Hannah and Jacob, right here in the house. Thinking back, she couldn’t think of a time when her mother had ever been sick with more than a cold that she’d say was just allergies.

  “You were at the doctor recently. Was everything okay then?”

  Mamm nodded. “Ya, ya. I had to have some tests run.” She smiled as she winked at Hannah. “I’m getting old, and that’s what happens when you get old.”

  “Nee, you’re not old, Mamm.” Hannah studied her mother’s face. It was ashen, and for the first time, Hannah noticed the dark circles under her eyes.

  “Well, you don’t look well.” Hannah sat down at the kitchen table.

  Mary stood and pressed her hand against Mamm’s forehead. “No fever,” she said with bread still in her mouth.

  “Nee, I don’t feel feverish, and I don’t really feel all that bad. I’m just a bit sick to my stomach, especially in the mornings.” She lifted herself from the chair. “Hannah, can you feed the goats for me and take care of the milking? I think I need to lie down for a while.”

  “Ya, of course. Do you need anything?”

  “Nee, dear. But danki. I just need to rest and get over this bug.”

  Hannah waited until she heard her mother’s bedroom door shut, then wide-eyed, she looked at Mary. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Her cousin nodded. “Yep. Pregnant.” Then she got up and slathered butter on yet another piece of bread. Hannah noticed that despite her bandages, Mary was doing better with the use of her hands, not so stiff. Mamm’s miracle concoction.

  “Well, you’re the one eating like you are pregnant,” Hannah said before she giggled.

  Mary smiled with a mouthful. “Well, I assure you, I’m not. But it sure seems like your mom is.”

  Hannah sat down across from Mary. “Can that happen? I mean, at her age?”

  “How old is she?”

  Hannah tipped her head back, squeezed one eye shut, and counted by fives on her fingers. “Forty-seven. That’s kind of old to be getting pregnant.”

  “But very possible,” Mary added.

  “I wonder if she’s having her, you know, monthlies anymore.”

  “Ask her,” Mary said.

  “Ach, I don’t know if I should.” Hannah grinned. “Exactly how much bread do you plan to eat?”

  Mary laughed, and when she did, she spit bread out of her mouth, some of the moist pieces sticking to Hannah’s black apron. Hannah looked down at herself as her jaw dropped. “You spit on me.”

  Mary then quickly slammed a hand to her mouth as her eyes grew rounder beneath raised eyebrows. “Oops.”

  Hannah laughed out loud. It was something she hadn’t done much of before Mary arrived. She was really going to miss her cousin when she went back to Texas. But she instantly got quiet when she heard something. “Listen,” she said.

  They both didn’t move for a few seconds.

  “Aw, it sounds like she’s throwing up.” Mary stood up. “Maybe one of us should go check on her. Why don’t you get the stuff out to make bread, and I’ll go see if your mom needs anything.”

  Hannah nodded. “Okay.”

  Charlotte gently knocked on Lena’s bedroom door, but when no one answered, she eased the door open.

  She walked past the four-poster bed that Amos had made. Charlotte recalled the first time she’d seen the bed, how ornate it was. Amos was clearly a great carpenter, she was just surprised since the Amish pride themselves on simplicity, and the bed was anything but plain. She tapped on the closed door to the bathroom.

  “Lena, are you okay?”

  “Ya. I’m okay, Mary. Danki for checking.”

  Charlotte stood there quietly for a few moments while Lena threw up again. When she seemed to be gasping for air, Charlotte opened the door. Lena’s prayer covering was on the floor beside her, and most of her hair had fallen from the bun on top of her head. She was sweating a lot, trembling, and her face was flushed. Charlotte found a washrag, wet it with cold water, and immediately dabbed at Lena’s forehead, then her cheeks.

  “You are going to bed.” Charlotte spoke with authority, knowing Lena would argue.

  “Nee, nee. I think it’s all over. I’m fine.” She eased the wet rag from Charlotte’s hand. “But you are sweet to come see about me.”

  “Lena, have you had your period recently? Are you still having them regularly?” Charlotte didn’t know much about menopause, but she didn’t think it made you sick to your stomach like this. But maybe Lena did just have a bug.

  “I-I don’t usually talk about such things.” Lena pulled her eyes from Charlotte’s.

  “Sorry. But I was just wondering if you might be pregnant. If there’s even that possibility, you need to get to a doctor pretty soon. You do know that having a baby at your age presents some risks, right?”

  Lena nodded. “Ya, I know. And, since you asked, ya . . . I am still having my monthlies.”

  Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. Then you’re not pregnant.”

  Lena sighed. “I just haven’t had one in the past three months.”

  Fourteen

  Danki for doing this, Hannah.” Charlotte smiled, wishing there was a need to perfect the dialect, but she wouldn’t need it soon.

  Hannah rolled the dough over and over before she kneaded it for the second time. “I’m happy to show you how to make bread, but it wonders me how you couldn’t know this.”

  Charlotte kept her eyes on the soon-to-be bread, not wanting to miss a step. “Since I wasn’t raised Amish, I really didn’t learn how to cook.”

  She hated the lies more than ever, but the worst part was, she wanted to believe them. She’d been trying to help out more with cleaning and cooking. She knew how to clean, even though she wasn’t a big fan, but the cooking continued to be a challenge. Despite what she’d learned about Ethan, she’d be leaving this place knowing that she wouldn’t be alone ever again. She’d never been so grateful to have something pushed upon her as she was about her newfound knowledge of the Lord. She was terrified, though, that her new family would toss her out on the street once they found out who she really was. But Ryan had assured her repeatedly that it wasn’t their way to be unforgiving.

  “This has to rise for a while,” Hannah said as she nodded to the mound of dough. “Let’s sit.”

  Once they were both at the kitchen table, Hannah pushed back several strands of hair that had fallen from beneath her prayer covering, which left a floury residue on her cheek. “What are you doing?”

  “A crossword puzzle. I had this on the plane to keep me entertained when I didn’t feel like reading. But I’m stuck on one.”

  “What is it?”

 
“A type of soup.” Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Soup is soup. I don’t think the clue is referring to a kind of soup, though—like chicken, potato, or whatever. It starts with a P and ends with an E.”

  “Puree,” Hannah said, smiling.

  Charlotte wrote in the letters. “Yep. That’s it. What about this one?” She pointed to another clue she was stuck on, and together they spent the next thirty minutes finishing the crossword puzzle. Maybe it would be easiest to first tell Hannah the truth about her identity, then let her break it to the rest of the family.

  Hannah pointed to one of the words in the crossword puzzle, one Charlotte had filled in earlier. “What does that mean?”

  Charlotte glanced at the sister-in-law she would have had under different circumstances and said, “Infidelity.”

  Hannah twirled the string on her prayer covering. “Um . . . what does that mean?”

  Charlotte disagreed with the Amish choice to only educate their children through the eighth grade. Hannah’s limited vocabulary was a prime example. “It means cheating, adultery.”

  Hannah scowled, still twirling the string. “That’s one thing I never had to worry about with Ethan. He said his father cheated on his mother and that he could never do anything like that.”

  Charlotte thought about what Isaac had told her. Prior to finding the picture, Charlotte couldn’t have imagined her brother ever cheating either. Her stomach churned with a burning desire to tell Hannah the truth about Ethan, but she wasn’t sure if it would help Hannah to move on or destroy her.

  “After Ethan died, I didn’t think I would ever find someone else.” Hannah sat back down, elbows on the table as she cupped her cheeks in her hands. “But maybe someday.”

  “You know, I think your mom might be pregnant.” Charlotte wiggled her toes underneath the table. Her feet had never been so dirty, but she loved the freedom of running around barefoot. Soon, it would be too cold, even during the day. “She hasn’t had a period in three months.”

  “Ach. I’m not sure how she’ll feel about that even though a child is always a gift from God.”

  “She probably needs to find out for sure, one way or the other.” Charlotte tapped the pencil against the table. “And I should probably start thinking about going back to Texas.” The thought instantly depressed her.

  Hannah reached over and touched Charlotte’s hand. “I’m really going to miss you.”

  As had become the norm, Charlotte started to tear up. “I’ve enjoyed my time here.”

  Hannah sat taller as she placed both palms flat on the table, smiling. “There’s no rule that says you can’t stay.”

  Oh, if you only knew. Charlotte thought about Ryan. He’d be the only one who might miss her. Working from home doing editing had been great in the beginning, but she’d slowly become her own best friend. “Oh, can you give me the number for the driver you hire sometimes? A friend—an English friend—will be in Harrisburg, and I’m going to meet him for supper since he’ll be so close.”

  Hannah smiled. “Ya, of course. He?”

  “Yes, it’s a man I’ve known for a long time. His name is—” Charlotte stopped herself. Ethan might have mentioned Ryan at some point. “John. He’s just a good friend,” she said. When this was all over, she was going to spend every extra moment asking God to forgive her lies.

  She excused herself, worried that she would start to cry. Again.

  Hannah kneaded the bread one more time, then put two loaves in the oven. It had been baking for about ten minutes when Mary returned. “It needed one more round of kneading, and I just put both pans in the oven.”

  “I saw from my bedroom window your mother leaving. She was in a car.”

  Hannah took off the oven mitts and set them on the counter. “Ya, she’s going to the doctor in Lancaster. I offered to go with her, but she said she’d rather I tend to the goats.”

  She heard a buggy coming, then watched as Isaac turned into the driveway. He stopped near the fence surrounding the yard, tethered his horse, and headed to the barn. A few minutes later he walked out carrying a wooden rocker, which explained the small trailer he was pulling behind the buggy.

  “Isaac is here picking up some rocking chairs Daed made,” Hannah said as she watched him carting the chair as if it weighed no more than a pound or two. “You go visit with him. I’ll keep an eye on the bread.” She walked to the counter where two more loaves of dough were rising. “He’s having a lot of trouble with his parents. Maybe you can help him know what to do.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Mary walked to the window, watching Isaac.

  Hannah wasn’t sure it was her place to tell Mary since Isaac had obviously chosen not to, but she did anyway since things sounded so bad at his house.

  “That sounds like it might be a medication problem, especially if he’s normal some of the time, then seems off at other times. Maybe some of his medicines don’t play well together.”

  “Maybe go tell him that. Hopefully, he won’t be upset that I told you.”

  Mary folded her hands across her chest and grinned. “You are the one he chose to confide in, so I think you should go talk to him.”

  Hannah shook her head. “Nee, I . . .”

  Mary huffed. “Go talk to him, Hannah. I’ll keep an eye on the bread.”

  Hannah blushed. “Ya, okay.”

  Charlotte watched Hannah and Isaac from the window in the kitchen, wishing she would be around to see how things panned out for the two of them, but in her heart, she knew they’d end up together. Such news would have infuriated her five weeks ago, but now it just warmed her heart.

  She picked up one of the Amish newspapers and started scanning it. It read like a series of letters from various Amish communities in different states, updating about marriages, births, deaths, and other stuff that Charlotte didn’t find very interesting. She could faintly hear her phone ringing upstairs. Normally, she left the ringer off, but she’d been waiting for a call from Ryan to firm up their dinner plans and had meant to put the phone in her apron pocket. She bolted up the stairs, but by the time she got to her bedroom, the phone wasn’t ringing so she called him back.

  He was already in town and had done the legwork of finding a place to eat, so they set a time. Charlotte was wondering what she would wear, but when she glanced at the rack on her wall, she chuckled. Her choices were blue, maroon, or pine green with her lovely black apron. Shoes—the usual black loafers. But after they hung up, she rummaged through the bottom of her suitcase until she found her bag of makeup that she hadn’t taken out the entire time she’d been there. At least she could put some makeup on in the car on the way to the restaurant. And if she curled her hair before she stuffed it underneath her prayer covering, she could let the waves fall freely.

  As she sorted things out, she became more and more excited to see Ryan again. She couldn’t help but be optimistic that something more than friendship was blooming.

  Hannah told Isaac what Mary said. “She knows so many things from her time in the Englisch world, so maybe it is your daed’s medications that are causing him problems. I hope you don’t mind me telling her.”

  “Nee, I don’t mind. I thought about mentioning it to her, but she always seems to have so much on her mind. I finally talked to my aenti, the one who visited from up near Pittsburgh, and she has been spending more time with us, so that helps us some. Mamm thinks we are making too much of things.”

  “I hope your father is feeling better soon.” Hannah walked alongside Isaac to his buggy as he carried the last rocker. “Please tell her I said hello and to let me know if there is anything she needs.”

  Isaac nodded as he strapped the rocking chair onto the small flatbed trailer.

  “Mary is talking about leaving. I’m sure you’ll miss her.” Hannah wasn’t sure why she kept testing the waters, but she needed to be certain that she wasn’t interfering in a possible relationship between them, even though they’d both said they were only friends. And Hannah was pretty sure s
he and Isaac had shared a special moment on Saturday.

  “Mary is a gut person.” Isaac positioned the rocker, checked the strap, then turned to Hannah. “She has a gut heart.”

  Hannah avoided his eyes. “Ya, she does.”

  She jumped when Isaac gently cupped her chin. “But she’s not the one I’ve been interested in, Hannah. But I wasn’t sure if you were ready to date again. I wasn’t sure if I was ready. But Mary is actually the one who talked to me about this.” He lowered his hand. “If I can get things figured out with mei parents, would you be interested in spending more time together?”

  For the first time in a few days, Ethan’s face flashed in her mind’s eye, and the familiar grief bubbled, but only for a few moments. Ethan would want her to be happy. She nodded, but then they both heard a scream and immediately started running toward the back of the house.

  Mary was barefoot, didn’t have her kapp on, and was dangling from a rope that was hanging out her window. Even though they rushed, they didn’t get to her before she slid down and landed on her rear end.

  “Fire!” She was breathless as she pointed. “Fire. There’s a fire. I smell smoke.”

  Isaac took off around the corner. Hannah looked at Mary’s hands, blood seeping through the white bandages. Rope burn must have reopened her wounds. “Mary, did you remember to take the bread from the oven?”

  “Oh no.” Mary flinched as Hannah took a handkerchief from her pocket and double-wrapped Mary’s right hand—the one bleeding through the gauze. “The smoke is probably the burning bread. Come on.” Hannah helped Mary to her feet, and they both scurried around to the front of the house. Everything must have been okay since the hose was still outside, but she could see smoke billowing from all the kitchen windows. Isaac walked out carrying what was left of the bread—two crispy, smoldering blobs.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Mary.

  “Not really.” She cringed as she lifted her bloody hands, then raised an eyebrow, before turning to Hannah. “I hope your mom has plenty of that goat goop because at this rate, I’m going to need a steady supply.”