Chapter Twelve
It shouldn’t have surprised her to find Anki right where she’d left her, but it did.
“How did your meeting go?” Anki asked. “Will you be one of us soon?”
Willa let Frannie down to crawl around, smiling as she toddled from chair to chair on chubby, unsteady legs, and provided Anki with an abbreviated version of what she and the bishop had discussed. “It sounds like a major investment of time and work, but it’ll be worth it.”
“We can hope.”
What did that mean? Willa wondered. She noticed the novel beside Anki, right where she’d put it. “How did you enjoy the story?”
Anki picked up the book, glanced at its cover, at the back jacket, and put it down again. “I forgot it was there.”
That shouldn’t have surprised her, either, and yet ...
Without a radio or television to keep her occupied, how had the woman spent the past hour? Staring blankly into space, as usual. More than ever, Willa wanted to bring her to the clinic, give Emily a chance to see and hear for herself that things were not normal in the mind of Anki Hofman.
“What did Dan say about your hair?”
Another shrug, and then, “He said it will be easier to wash and quicker to dry.”
“He wasn’t angry, then?”
“I think he has tired of me. So much that he no longer cares enough to get angry.”
Something had to be done. Not tomorrow or next week, but now. And Willa knew that if she didn’t start things in motion, Anki would continue down this dangerous slope until something horrible happened.
“Let’s take a short drive, make the most of the sunshine while we can.”
She tidied the lap quilt and shrugged. “I would rather stay here.”
No doubt she meant it. Left to her own devices, only God knew how long Anki would sit there.
“Anki, get up. Get up right now.”
At least the woman had the good grace to look a bit shocked at her stern, maternal tone.
“I told you. I would rather—”
“If you don’t get up, right this minute, and come with me, I’ll have no choice but to ask Dan to help me get you into the truck.”
Anki rolled her eyes, and Willa knew the threat had fallen on deaf ears.
“Frannie,” she said, “tell Anki to get up so we can go bye-bye in the truck.”
The baby fast-crawled to the woman’s side, and leaning on the cushion beside her, said, “Up, Anki. Up! Bye-bye? Bye-bye!”
Just as she’d hoped, the child got through to her. Anki wasn’t happy about it, but she tossed aside the quilt and got to her feet.
Frannie clapped, and that, at least, inspired a tiny grin. Willa held out her hand. “C’mon, sweet girl. Let’s get Anki’s coat and cap, and we’ll all go bye-bye!”
Five minutes later, they sat in the clinic’s waiting room. Anki hadn’t said a word since leaving the house. She sat, sullen-faced and stiff-backed, staring at the rack of books above the toy box, where Frannie squealed as she tossed wooden cars, faceless dolls, and a small rocking horse over her shoulder. Willa didn’t dare leave the room, not even long enough to let Emily know they were there. Soon enough, she’d hear Frannie, and—
The door to the second exam room opened, and Emily led the way into the waiting area. “You’ll be just fine,” she said, one hand on her patient’s shoulder. “If you continue experiencing morning sickness, try keeping a package of saltines near your bed. Eat a few the minute you get up.”
“I will. Denke,” the woman said. When she turned to leave, she saw Willa and Anki, sitting side by side near the window wall. “Hello!” she said. “I hope neither of you are feeling poorly. . . .”
“Good to see you, Naomi.” Knowing how private the Amish could be, Willa didn’t mention the pregnancy.
“I am beside myself with joy,” the woman said. “I must go quickly and tell Benjamin the happy news.” One hand on her belly, she added, “Two more babies will arrive at spring’s end!”
Anki stiffened, and Willa could almost read her mind: Why have you blessed this woman with four children, Lord, but You haven’t seen fit to give me one?
“Congratulations,” Willa said. “Frannie will soon have another playmate . . . two more playmates!”
Naomi hurried into her cape and out the door as Emily sat across from Anki. “I hope Naomi is right,” she said, reaching across the space to pat the woman’s hands, “and neither of you are here because you’re ill.”
Willa wished she’d had a chance to give Emily a heads-up on Anki’s condition. The woman so rarely left the house that it wasn’t likely the doctor had noticed anything awry.
“Anki has been a bit down lately.” It wasn’t the truth. Anki had been feeling down for as long as she’d known her. “She barely eats. Doesn’t sleep well. Has no desire to do much of anything except . . .”
“Except sit and be left alone,” Anki snapped.
Willa chose to ignore the angry outburst. “I thought maybe you could give her a quick examination, rule out anything physical that might be causing her symptoms.”
Emily’s brows drew together slightly—not so much that Anki would notice—but the action told Willa that she’d picked up on the subtle hints.
“Let’s step into the exam room,” Emily said, standing.
“Willa brought me here. She might as well hear whatever you have to say.”
Willa noticed that Emily carefully avoided looking her way.
“I’m sure you don’t mind if your good friend hears the details of the examination,” Emily explained, “and you’re more than welcome to tell her everything once we’ve finished. But I’m bound by certain regulations that demand patient privacy.” She gently grasped Anki’s elbow and helped her to her feet. “I won’t keep you long. I promise.”
Anki followed, but not without cutting a sharp glare Willa’s way before stepping into the exam room. When the door closed, Willa said, “Oh, Frannie girl, I have a feeling we’re going to hear some serious complaining during the ride back home!”
Hopefully, Anki would cooperate when Emily asked her to remove her cap, just as she always did when examining the community’s women. Willa ran down the routine procedure: stethoscope, chest and back; pulse, neck and wrist; light into the throat and inner ears; tap to the knees to test reflexes. Would Anki protest when Emily suggested a blood draw? Willa hoped not; to make a proper assessment, the doctor needed every possible bit of information. With or without it, if Emily hadn’t figured out by the exam’s conclusion that Anki’s problems were psychological, the blunt, chin-length haircut would cinch it.
The door opened, and there stood Emily, clipboard in the crook of one arm, Anki holding the other. “I’ll send that blood sample off first thing in the morning, but as I said, I don’t expect to find anything wrong.”
It only took the quickest glance for Willa to read her friend’s face: There was a problem, all right, but it wasn’t physical. Fortunately, patient privacy protocols wouldn’t keep Emily from sharing details with her nursing assistant. Willa needed every possible bit of information, too, if she hoped to help Anki at home.
“I wish you’d change your mind and let me give you a prescription.”
Anki shook her head so hard that the cap shifted on her head. “I do not need pills, and I will not take them.”
“Will you come back in a few days? Talk with me about what’s bothering you?”
“You are a good woman, Emily, and I consider you a friend. But I will not waste your time or mine, talking about problems that do not exist.”
Oh, Anki, Willa thought. You’re making a mistake. A terrible mistake.
As predicted, the short drive between the clinic and the Hofmans’ house was anything but comfortable, and Dan was waiting for them out front.
“I was worried sick when I got home and no one was here!” he said.
Willa helped Anki hop out of the front seat. “Sorry, Dan. I should have left you a note.”
“Where were you?”
She lifted Frannie from the car seat, thankful that for the moment, she didn’t have to look into his angry face. “At the clinic.”
“She thought I was coming down with something.” Anki didn’t even bat an eye at the blatant lie. “Emily gave me a checkup. I am fine.”
Hearing that she wasn’t sick seemed to dissipate Dan’s panic somewhat. Willa hoped a good meal and conversation with Max would quell the last of his ire. He didn’t know it yet, but the first chance she got, Willa intended to tell him exactly what she suspected was wrong with his wife: major depressive disorder. Anki had demonstrated every symptom, from a lack of interest to weight loss, sleep disorders and fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and worst of all, thoughts of death and suicide.
He held the door as his wife went inside, and as Willa stepped up onto the porch, Dan said, “You have invited Max to supper again?”
“Yes. It seemed the right thing to do. He drove Frannie and me to the Fishers’ house, so I could talk to the bishop about baptism.”
“Ah, yes. So you were serious about that, then?”
“I was. More accurately, I am.”
He followed her into the parlor, where she stooped to remove the baby’s hat and jacket.
“Good. Maybe that will motivate the man to do the right thing.”
Willa carried Frannie into the kitchen and put the child onto the gleaming speckled linoleum. “The right thing?” She laid a chair on its side to keep the baby in the room.
“If you two were married, maybe he would stop looking like a long-lost lamb whenever you are around. It is enough to make a man lose his lunch, I tell you!”
He wasn’t smiling, but Willa recognized the teasing glint in his blue eyes. The expression wiped years from his rugged face. If she and Max were married, could she—as a friend—tell Dan that he ought to smile more?
“Anki tells me that you did your best, straightening up the mess she made with the kitchen shears.”
Willa groaned. “I only wish I could have prevented it altogether. That ... and then maybe the dreams that drove her to do it . . .” She looked around him. “Where has she gone?”
“Where else? Upstairs. To bed.”
And there it was again, the sad, defeated expression that so often darkened his face.
“Has she told you about the dreams?”
“No. She does not tell me anything. Hurts my heart, because once, we talked all the time, about everything. Now?” Shoulders slumped and head down, he exhaled a heavy sigh. “Now she stares. Silent. I thought it was because we have no children. But having Frannie around proved that is not the problem.”
Willa thought of the way Anki had reacted, seeing Naomi’s excitement over her latest pregnancy. If the Hofmans had been blessed with children, would they have been enough to divert Anki’s attention from her twin’s suicide? Or would she have slipped into that dark hole anyway and neglected them? God’s will, she thought ...
“If you get a chance to speak with Emily, I think she’ll recommend that Anki see someone who specializes in depressive disorders. Her sister’s suicide . . .” Willa filled a pot with water and placed it on the stove’s back burner. “It affected her far more than she’s willing to admit.”
“She is angry with Abigail, still. We all were, when she chose that Englisher over her life here. But when we got that news?” He sighed again. “She had hoped and prayed for a reunion, if not in this life, in the next. When Abigail took that from her . . .” He ended with a helpless shrug.
“Mind if I ask you a personal question?”
Thumbs hooked behind his suspenders, Dan said, “You can ask . . .”
“How did she tell you about her hair?”
“By taking off her cap.” He dropped heavily onto a kitchen chair and held his head in his hands. “I did not know how to react. Did not know what to say. So I said nothing.”
“And Anki? What did she say?”
“She asked if I was angry. I told her the truth: I did not understand. When she said nothing, I said ‘It is hair. It will grow back.’ I have since asked the Almighty’s forgiveness for that lie.”
That couldn’t have been easy for this big, always-in-charge man. Sharing his pain with Willa? She knew that couldn’t be easy, either. After all these months under his roof, she’d come to love him like a brother. If the Amish weren’t so opposed to displays of affection, she’d give him a much-needed hug, right now!
“Max will be here soon,” he said, rising slowly. “I will be in the shed.”
She carried the potato basket to the counter. “I’ll call when supper’s ready.”
“Five o’clock?”
Oh, how it hurt to see him suffering this way! Willa crossed the room and threw her arms around him. “Don’t worry, Dan. Anki will come around. She has to!”
He rested his chin on top of her head, absorbing her simple offer of comfort. A second passed, if that, before he held her at arm’s length.
“You have a good heart, Willa Reynolds,” he said, and hurried outside.
And although he couldn’t hear it, she said, “You do, too, Dan Hofman.”
“Dan?” Frannie echoed, hugging Willa’s legs. “Dan bye-bye?”
“He’ll be back soon, sweet girl.” She handed the child a cracker and got busy scrubbing vegetables. The roast had been marinating since before her visit to the Fishers. Sliding its pan from the fridge, she poured the milk down the drain. “What do you think, Frannie, m’girl? Just cabbage? Or onions, carrots, and potatoes?”
The chair blockade had captured the baby’s attention. Willa stood, hands on hips, watching Frannie squat and peer through the opening between the chair’s legs. A cracker distracted her long enough to allow Willa to place a second chair on its side in the opposite direction.
“No!” Frannie complained. “No, Mama!”
“Sorry, sweet girl, but you’d be miserable in the high chair while I make supper, and I can’t have you meandering hither and yon while I’m working.”
Now Frannie whimpered, and lay facedown on the floor. “No,” she wailed. “No . . .”
“What have we here?”
“Max!” Oh, but he looked handsome in his crisp white shirt and trim-fitting black trousers. “You’re early.”
“And a good thing,” he said, picking up the baby. “Looks like this girl needed rescuing!”
“Max,” Frannie said, laying her head on his shoulder. And patting his back, she added, “Aw, Max.”
He looked even more handsome as his face lit up in reaction to Frannie’s affectionate welcome. She deserved a father like him, Willa thought ... and bit her lip. You have to stop thinking such things. It isn’t fair to any of you!
Joining her at the sink, he said, “What can I do to help?”
“You’re kidding, right? You’re already helping! She’s a bit grumpy tonight. I overstayed my visit with the Fishers. And then . . .” Should she tell him about her talk with Dan? No, that was a discussion best saved for later.
“And then what?”
“And then we got home.” She looked up, saying without words that it had something to do with Anki, in the room above them.
Willa went back to scrubbing the vegetables as Max asked, “Where is Dan?”
“In the shed.”
“If you’ll help me get her into her coat, I’ll take Frannie outside . . .”
“He wasn’t in the best of moods when he left here.”
“Why?”
“Anki cut her hair, for one thing. We weren’t here when he got home, for another. And it scared him, I think.”
“Why were you gone?”
“Because . . .” she began in a near whisper.
When he moved closer to better hear her, Frannie flung one arm over his shoulders, the other over Willa’s. “Aw, hug,” she said. “Hug!”
They laughed, but stopped when Anki joined them. “The three of you make a happy little family.”
A crooked smile tilted his mouth. “We do?”
She answered with a sniff, then stepped up beside Willa and shoved her hands into the sudsy water. “I will wash the vegetables. You peel and chop them. Okay?”
The woman was, after all, the boss. Willa wondered if it felt good, issuing an order for a change, instead of succumbing to the instructions of others. “Sounds good to me. With both of us working, we’ll get this stuff in the pot in half the time!”
The woman replied with an indifferent shrug. “Where is Dan?”
“In the shed,” Willa repeated.
“Because I have disappointed him. Again.”
“No, Anki, he’s organizing. Remember those baby food jars he found last week? Well, he said something about sorting his nuts and bolts and screws, and somehow fastening them to the pegboard above his workbench. And you know how he gets when a job is unfinished.”
Willa didn’t know why the reminder would upset Anki, but clearly it had. If she keeps scrubbing the vegetables that way, she thought, I won’t need to peel them! Max must have noticed, too, because he raised his eyebrows and mouthed, “Uh-oh . . .”
“So what do you think? Is it all right if I take Frannie outside? I can push her on Dan’s swing.”
Willa pictured the square-shaped seat and back, flat arms, and thick rope that Dan had hung from the big oak out back soon after their arrival in Pleasant Valley. He’d retreated to his shed for hours then, too, and when he returned to the house after dusk, a sly grin had brightened his usually serious, dark-bearded face. Admitting it would have made him guilty of the sin of pride, but he’d been pleased with his work. Next morning, under the guise of testing the leather straps attached to hold Frannie securely in place, he’d put the little girl in his swing. Willa could count on one hand the number of times she’d heard him laugh out loud, and have fingers left over. As Frannie squealed happily during her first ride, he’d thrown back his head and roared. Maybe what he needed right now was a reminder of that day.
Moments after they stepped outside, Anki said, “You owe him the truth.”
“Uh . . . what?”
She rolled her eyes. “Max cares for you. He cares for Frannie, too. He deserves to know ... everything.”
Willa clamped her molars together, buying time to think, because she didn’t want to say anything that might upset Anki.
“The longer you wait, the harder it will be, because the more time that passes ... he will care even more. And then it will break his heart when he learns that—”
Willa was agitated to the point of trembling. She put down the paring knife and plunged her hands into the dishwater. “Anki. Please. Stop.”
“You must tell him. It is the right thing to do.”
Willa grasped Anki’s wrists. “He knows.” Most of it, anyway.
Shaking her head, Anki blinked. “Everything?”
Don’t make me tell a lie, Anki. Please don’t!
“He knows about the drugs?”
Willa turned her loose. “He does.”
“That you sold them and used them?”
“Yes.”
Grabbing the red-checkered towel beside the sink, Willa felt the sting of tears in her eyes. When arranging the job with the Hofmans, Alice had been pretty up front about Willa’s past. Thankfully, the social worker couldn’t tell them what she didn’t know. It wasn’t likely that Max would ever hear the rest of her ugly story. A good thing, because Anki was right. If he ever learned about all the unspeakable things she’d done to ensure a steady supply of drugs . . .
“I will never understand,” Anki was saying, “what God is thinking.”
“No one can know the mind of God.”
She continued as if Willa hadn’t said a word. “Naomi already has children, and now, He will give her twins?” She threw up her hands, then watched, mesmerized, as the suds floated slowly, silently to the small braided rug under her feet, where they dissolved, one miniscule, shimmering bubble at a time. “Even you have a child.” Shaking Willa’s shoulders, she cried, “Why. Not. Me!”
Willa had asked herself that same question, dozens, maybe even hundreds of times, and knew better than anyone how unworthy she was of a gift so precious. It would be easy to lash out, make Anki sorry for every stinging word. But the poor woman had spent months lost in her lonely thoughts, reliving her sister’s suicide, wishing for children . . . Willa couldn’t hold Anki responsible for the hurtful things she’d said.
“Everything all right in here?”
Max . . .
How much had he heard? And why hadn’t she heard Frannie?
“Mama!” Frannie said, arms extended.
Willa pulled her close. “Oh my goodness! Your fat little cheeks are cold!” She untied the knitted cap. “Did you have fun on Dan’s swing?”
“Max . . .”
Willa interpreted that to mean Dan might have built the swing, but today, at least, Max made it fun.
A worry frown etched his brow. “Need any help?”
“No, Anki and I have things well in hand.” She hung the baby’s jacket on its hook, and after tucking Frannie into the high chair, placed a cracker on the tray. “So Max, was Dan able to put all the nuts and bolts in their proper places?”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looked at the clock, out the window, into the parlor . . . everywhere but at her. His guilty look told her that he’d seen something out there in the shed—something that directly involved Dan—but he couldn’t discuss it in front of Anki.
Anki’s reedy voice broke into her thoughts. “I am tired.”
“Supper won’t be ready for a couple of hours,” Willa said, “so there’s plenty of time for a nap. Although if you sleep now, you might not be able to tonight.” Knowing Anki, she’d be up half the night anyway, pacing from window to window, going up and down the stairs, opening and closing cupboard doors and drawers, as if searching for some missing treasure.
“Yes, you make a good point. Is the book you gave me still in the parlor?”
“Last time I saw it, it was on the sofa cushion.” Where I put it before Frannie and I left for the Fishers’.
“I will go upstairs to read, then.” She lumbered toward the stairs, stopping to kiss Frannie’s forehead on the way. “Do you know how precious you are, little one?”
The baby’s brown eyes widened, and she looked from Willa to Max, as if silently asking for help in understanding Anki’s peculiar behavior.
“Once I have supper in the oven, I’ll bring you some tea.”
“If you like . . .”
No one spoke, not even Frannie, until the creaking floorboards overhead told them Anki was out of earshot.
“She is in a bad way today, isn’t she.” Max sounded every bit as concerned as he looked. “Dan is a mess, too. Maybe it would be best if I left, so that—”
“Oh, please stay!” Willa didn’t like the ring of desperation in her voice and tried to hide it by arranging potatoes and carrots around the roast. “Dan enjoys having you here.” Not as much as I do, but . . .
“Traffic was light coming back from Cumberland. I should have gone home, killed some time before bursting in here early. And uninvited.”
She added sliced onions to the pot. “I invited you, remember? So what if you were a little early.”
Max leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, folded both arms over his chest, and crossed one booted foot over the other. “Do you always serve supper at five?”
“As close to it as possible, because that’s when Dan likes to eat.”
“Ah . . . and this is Dan’s house, so . . .”
“Exactly.” She poured a cupful of water into the pan, and after turning up the flame beneath it, covered it. “If this was your house, what time would we eat?”
“Hmm . . .” Eyes narrowed, he gave the question some thought. “I suppose five is as good a time as any.”
“Not too early, not too late,” they said together.
They laughed together, too, and Frannie saw it as an invitation to join them.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the merriment ended when Max said, “I am sorry Anki was harsh with you earlier. She has no right to speak to you that way. No right at all.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. She has ... issues. So if she’s short-tempered from time to time, it’s easy to forgive.”
“Not everyone would be as forgiving.” Now he stood, feet shoulder width apart, filling the doorway. “You have a good heart, Willa.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you heard the things I didn’t say!”
“I suppose we are all entitled to a few choice words . . . in the privacy of our minds.”
“Ah, privacy. I’ve almost forgotten what it is!”
As if signaled by a stage director, Frannie hollered a jubilant, “Mama!”
He stuck a forefinger into his ear. “For one so small, she makes a big noise! If you need help, just have her call me.”
“I won’t, but I will.”
He opened the door and said, “Uh . . . what?”
Nervous laughter bubbled from her lips as he started down the back porch steps. “Go and tell Dan to relax. Anki is upstairs reading, so all is well in the Hofman kitchen.” His boots had just hit the flagstone walk when she said, “And Max?”
He stopped, facing her.
“Please don’t change your mind about joining us for supper.”
A tender smile twinkled in his eyes, and knowing what it meant, Willa’s heart thumped a little harder: He would stay, for no reason other than she’d asked him to.
It was reason enough to hope that someday, he’d stay with her . . . permanently.