Chapter 9
“We made these apple and cherry turnovers without any lard,” Hannah said, pulling out a tray for Annie to look over. The golden brown semicircle desserts looked nearly perfect. “They are kosher.”
That’s one definition of kosher, Annie thought.
“I’ll take six of each,” Annie said. “Thanks for the card.”
“Oh,” Hannah said. “You got it already?”
Hannah was pale and freckled and blushed easily.
“Yes,” Annie said, digging in her purse for cash. “Are you about due a break? We can have a coffee. How’s that sound?”
Hannah warmed. “Sounds lovely.” She gave Annie back her change and handed her the box of turnovers.
Annie walked over to the corner table, where it was at least semiprivate. Hannah followed her with a coffee tray and some gingerbread muffins.
“I hear Sheila won a design competition,” Hannah said. “How exciting to go on a cruise!”
“Yes,” Annie said, keeping the murder to herself. She didn’t want to freak Hannah out. She’d been in therapy—after much cajoling. The Mennonites preferred to keep to themselves, even with their health issues. But Hannah had been so affected by the murders that she had become uncommunicative. Her family tried to work through the church, but nobody was able to help her. So she went outside the Old Order Mennonite system and found another Mennonite who was a qualified psychotherapist.
“We’re all very proud of her,” Annie said.
“How are your boys?” Hannah asked. She stirred three packs of sugar into her coffee.
“Good, but very excited about Hanukkah,” Annie said, and then took a sip of her black coffee. “So, how are you, Hannah? Are things getting better for you?”
She looked away briefly, but nodded positive. “I guess,” she said. “Every once in a while, I still dream about the murders.”
“I do, too. In fact, I dream about every murder case I’ve been involved in. I think that’s a normal kind of processing,” Annie said, taking one of the muffins. “These smell delicious. Gingerbread?”
“Yes. I’m so glad to see you. I’m leaving in a few weeks.”
Annie’s mouth almost dropped open—it probably would have if the muffin wasn’t so good. She chewed hurriedly. “What?”
Hannah laughed. “I’m going on something similar to an Amish Rumspringa. I’ll be gone for a year.”
Annie had no idea that the Mennonites practiced something so similar. “Your parents are going to let you do that?” She felt her eyes widen and her pulse race. What were they thinking?
The young woman beamed. “Yes. I’m going with a group of women my age. There will be a chaperone, of a sort,” she said, and quieted. “I hope that by going away I’ll be able to forget.... It’s sort of unusual for the women of my family, but my parents thought it would be good for me to get away.”
Annie’s heart sank. Loss was never easy, but for young people it cut deeper. She didn’t think Hannah would ever quite get over the murder of her two best friends. Annie had never gotten over several things in her life—but she’d learned to live with them. Stay busy. Don’t look too hard at it. She still hurt when she thought about Cookie Crandall, her friend who had disappeared a few years back.
“Where will you be going?” Annie asked, upbeat. Stay focused on the exciting parts.
“New York City,” Hannah said with a wide grin.
Annie gulped her coffee. Talk about throwing lambs to the wolves. She didn’t think this was a good idea at all. But it wasn’t her business, Annie reminded herself. She was Hannah’s friend, not her mother. But she supposed she’d always feel protective over Hannah. After-all, they had almost lost Hannah to the same man who killed her friends.
“I’ve gotten an internship with a Mennonite magazine. I’ll be writing mostly for their Web site, but I was promised a couple of articles in print,” she said. Her eyes took on a spark that Annie hadn’t seen in her in a long time. Maybe this was a good thing.
“I had no idea you wanted to write,” Annie said.
“I write mostly poetry. But my teachers all thought I had promise as a journalist. Of course, it won’t matter if I’m the best journalist in the world. Soon after my internship, I’m expected home to marry and settle in.”
“What if you don’t want to?”
“It’s a risk we all take when we leave. Some return and some don’t. But what does your faith mean if it’s never tested?”
“Ah, that’s true, I suppose,” Annie said. Once again, Annie was struck by the simplicity and the profundity of Hannah’s faith. When Annie had been in the hospital, Hannah came in and prayed for her. Normally, Annie would scoff. She was a secular Jew and jaded when it came to spiritual issues. But she could not scoff at Hannah and her faith. It seemed pure.
She suddenly was thinking of her Jewishness and how she’d never thought deeply about it until moving to Cumberland Creek, where hers was the only Jewish family. She had been thinking about making the trek on Saturdays to the Charlottesville Synagogue to give her boys more of a sense of their heritage.
Annie tapped her fingers on the Formica table and reached for her coffee. “What about this marriage business? Anybody you’re interested in?”
“It’s already planned. I’ll be marrying John Bowman,” Hannah said, and looked away.
“How can it already be planned when you are off to New York?”
“My family and his family are certain I’ll be back and that I’ll make him a good wife.”
“Wow. That’s different. How do you feel about this?”
She shrugged. “What do my feelings have to do with it? My family knows what’s best for me, right? We believe that love comes after marriage.”
Love comes after marriage? Annie felt like she had stepped back to the 1600s. Surely not!
“Haven’t your feelings for your husband deepened over the years?” Hannah asked.
“Well, yes. But I fell madly in love with Mike when we met and then we made a life together. Of course our feelings deepened,” Annie said, thinking that sounded a lot more romantic than it actually was. Sometimes it was easy in marriages. Sometimes not. Sometimes you had to work to keep it together. Adam Bryant’s face flashed in her mind’s eye. Thank the universe she had not impulsively acted on her attraction to him.
“But look, if this is the way you do things and are happy with it, who am I to say?” Annie said, and smiled. “I have to get going. If I don’t see you before you leave, be careful. Take my number and call me if you need me. I mean, if there’s a phone around. . . .”
Hannah laughed again. “Don’t worry, Annie. I’ll be fine. I’ll write to you.”
But as Annie walked out of the bakery, she could not shrug the protective feeling that had come over her. Hannah in New York City? Annie was uncertain that Hannah was ready for this. What were her parents thinking?