Free Hannah's Joy by Marta Perry

her hair.
    “I guess.” She sounded as if there was more, but she didn’t go on.
    He bent, picking up a plastic horse and sending it galloping toward Jamie’s tractor. Jamie giggled and grabbed for it. Rachel used to say, when her kids were this age, that toddlers thought everything they touched belonged to them.
    “I thought it would make my aunt happy.” Hannah’s voice was so soft that she might have been talking to herself. “I didn’t realize . . .”
    “W-what?” He tried to keep his voice as low as hers, his gaze on Jamie.
    Hannah sighed, putting her hand to her cheek again as if to comfort herself. “She thought that meant I would stay, join the church, be what she thinks is best for me.”
    The words set up an echo in his mind. A lot of people seemed to think they knew what was best for someone else.
    “D-don’t you w-w-want to?”
    Hannah had seemed happy here, and Jamie was thriving. What was in the outside world that made staying here seem impossible?
    If he could speak like most folks, he could say all that to her. But he couldn’t. He’d have to trust she understood what he was thinking.
    He buried his fingers in the sand and then popped them up, making Jamie laugh. He immediately tried to bury his own little hand, and William helped him.
    “It’s so hard.” Hannah almost sounded as if she were talking to herself. “Travis . . . I owe him so much. I have to bring Jamie up the way he would want. He gave his life for his country.”
    Did she think that the Anabaptist belief in nonviolence was a betrayal of her husband?
    She moved slightly, drawing his gaze. “You understand, don’t you? I have to bring Jamie up to admire and respect his father’s memory.”
    “J-ja.” He did understand. She thought the only way she could be true to her husband’s memory was to turn away from her own heritage.
    “So I’ll have to go sometime.” She straightened her slim shoulders, as if preparing to carry a burden. “I’ll have to.”
    “S-sometime,” he said. “I h-hope not t-t-too soon. I w-wanted to s-say yes.”
    Her smile dispelled the clouds. “You’re going to let me help you?”
    “J-ja. Afternoons okay?”
    She nodded, looking as if he’d given her a present, instead of the other way around. “Let’s start tomorrow. Say Tuesday and Thursday around two. Will that work?”
    “J-ja. Unless I h-h-have to h-help my brother.”
    He didn’t want to tell Isaac he couldn’t help on the farm because he was working on his stammer. In fact, it would be better if Isaac didn’t know anything about the lessons. He didn’t want to be answering a lot of questions about them.
    She glanced at him, and he noticed that a strand of brown hair had pulled loose from her bun to curl against her cheek. It made him want to touch it.
    “Is Isaac why you want to do this?” she asked quietly.
    He shrugged. That was his usual response when he didn’t want to talk about something. But maybe that was unfair to Hannah, who was going out of her way to help him when she had troubles enough of her own.
    “E-everyone t-tells me what I sh-should be d-doing. S-seems like a grown-up sh-should figure that out h-h-himself.”
    She stared at him for a long moment, as if his words had struck something in her. “Yes,” she said finally. “A grown-up should.”

C HAPTER F IVE
    T he disagreement with Aunt Paula the previous day seemed to have shaken her aunt nearly as much as it had Hannah. All morning they’d been carefully polite to each other, so much so that Naomi had given them a curious look now and then.
    Coming back downstairs after settling Jamie for his nap, Hannah clutched the notebook in which she’d designed a simple outline for her first session with William. He’d be arriving soon, but there was one thing yet to be settled.
    Aunt Paula glanced at the notebook. “You’re ready to start, ja?” She sounded more nearly herself than she had all morning. “This is a gut thing you’re doing,