Where Shadows Meet(62)

Sarah bit her lip. “It’s in Naomi’s room. It’s a child’s quilt. I thought she would enjoy it.”

“You gave your child a quilt that had been on her dead relatives?” Angie’s voice resounded with horror.

“It was laundered, of course.”

A practical response, but Hannah shuddered. They were taught to put others first and avoid conflict, but Hannah could tell Sarah didn’t like her snooping by the way she kept biting her lip and clutching her hands together.

“Which room is Naomi’s?” Hannah moved toward the door.

Sarah stepped out of the way. “Just across the hall. Please don’t wake her.”

Hannah reached the other door in five steps and peered inside. She caught her breath at the sight of the quilt on a rack at the end of the bed. The hall light shone on it. Her memory hadn’t done it justice. It almost seemed as though the red hummingbirds in the pattern stitching hovered over the black background. It seemed three-dimensional.

Seeing the quilt was like catching a glimpse of her mother. She found herself on her knees by the quilt rack. Pulling the quilt to her face, she inhaled, but there was nothing left of her mother’s essence, only the scent of fresh air from hanging on the line. When she got up, she realized her cheeks were wet.

So were Sarah’s. The two women appraised each other. In Sarah’s eyes, Hannah saw her own helpless yearning for a time that would never come again. A regret for years lost and never regained. A knowledge that there was nothing either of them could do about it.

Sarah averted her eyes and went to the rack. She lifted the quilt, folded it with steady precision, and placed it in Hannah’s hands. “This should be yours.”

Hannah’s upbringing caused her to open her mouth to give it back, but she realized Sarah was right. It did belong with her. She was the only child left of Patricia and Abe Schwartz. Even Luca’s children weren’t their grandchildren.

“Thank you,” she whispered. She resisted the urge to bury her face in the quilt again. “What about Mamm’s keepsake box?”

Fear returned to Sarah’s eyes. “What does it look like?”

“A box about so big.” She measured a space with her hands about a foot wide. “It’s inlaid wood with a hummingbird design. Her grandfather made it. Have you seen it? It was always in the blanket chest.”

“Where did you see it last?”

Hannah could see that the ping-pong of questions was designed to avoid a direct reply to the pointed query. “You have to have seen it, Sarah. I know it was here.”

Sarah dropped her gaze. “Yes,” she answered. “It’s in our bedroom.” She turned and left the room.

Hannah exchanged a quick glance with Angie, then followed Sarah. She dropped the quilt off in her bedroom, laying it reverently on the bed, then went downstairs, where she found Sarah in the master bedroom rooting through a shelf in the back of the closet. This was the first time since returning to Parke County that Hannah had been in her parents’ bedroom. The same bed with a plain headboard was shoved against the far wall.

“Here it is.” Sarah emerged from the closet with her kapp askew. She held the box out toward Hannah.

Hannah reached for it, her fingers grazing Sarah’s. The contact made her glance in her friend’s face. Sarah looked ashen. Hannah didn’t understand what could be so upsetting about the box. “Thanks,” she said.

“I must get ready for bed.” Sarah bolted for the door.

Hannah carried the keepsake box back upstairs to her room. She couldn’t think here with the reminders of her parents all around. Angie was already working on her lists again. She barely looked up when Hannah sat on the bed and raised the lid to the box. A faint melody tinkled out.

Angie tipped her head to one side and listened. “What’s that song?”

“‘Land der Berge, Land am Strome.’ It means ‘land of the mountains, land on the river.’ It’s the Swiss national anthem.”

“It’s beautiful. So is the box.”

Hannah stroked the patina of the lid. “It’s from Switzerland. My grandfather made it for her when she was a child.”

The contents were from another life. Hannah had always loved going through it and having her mother explain everything. There were theater tickets to Hair and tickets to a Beatles concert.

Angie picked up the Beatles tickets and stared at them, then glanced at Hannah. “What gives?”

“She was a hippie until she met my father.”

“Wow, talk about culture shock. Free love and all that, and then going into the Amish culture.”

“I think she relished it. And she’d lived on a commune for three years with no electricity or running water. The structure helped give her meaning, she said.”

“Did everyone realize where she’d come from?”

Hannah shook her head. “I don’t think so. She was so eager to fit in, to please Datt.”

“Didn’t she ever miss her old life?”

“If she did, she never said so.” Hannah sifted through the contents. Letters that she’d never been allowed to read, a tennis bracelet, a Seiko watch, several earrings, and a class ring. She frowned. “I don’t see her ring in here.”

“What ring?”

“Her mother’s engagement ring. She told me it was worth a fortune. She had it tucked away here and never got to wear it. She slipped it on sometimes when we were alone, just to connect with her mother, I think. But she never let me wear it. She didn’t want me to yearn for things that had no lasting value.”