A Hope for Hannah (12 page)

Kathy could easily be awake already, with the strange country and all. If Hannah were to come into her own kitchen to find her mother already up, the coffee pot on, or some such thing, it would be just too much to bear.

The kitchen was dark, though, as she stumbled around in her attempts to light the kerosene lamp. The flame flickered, casting its shadows on the rough log walls. Somehow everything seemed less lonesome this morning with her mother and father in the house. Hannah sighed deeply and let the delicious feeling soak in.

Such feelings were childish, she told herself.
I am no longer a little girl. I am a woman now. Yes, a woman.
She thought of Jake asleep back in the bedroom and was reminded of how it felt when he would snuggle up and put his arms around her. Oh, how it made her feel! Yes, she was grown now.

“Good morning,” her mother said behind her.

When Hannah jumped, Kathy laughed. “I’m sorry. I just couldn’t sleep any longer. It must be the higher altitude or the time change or something.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Hannah said. “I think you’d be up anyway. Do you want some coffee? I was just thinking of heating the water.”

“That would be great,” Kathy said, yawning and wrapping her housecoat tighter around herself. “It’s chilly up here too.”

“Yes, I know. I think winter’s coming early,” Hannah said with wariness in her voice. The season had lost much of its friendliness. Indiana winters might also seem like a threat, but with a factory job for Jake and its steady income, snow would be more like a friend again.

“You sound sad,” Kathy said. “Did you and Jake talk about moving last night?”

“No,” Hannah said without further explanation.

“It’s just as well. Maybe God wants you here.”

“Maybe,” Hannah allowed, not really wanting to discuss the subject. “What do you want to do today?”

“I don’t know,” Kathy said. “Maybe we could see your mountains up close. Can we go for a walk? I see your dirt road goes farther back.”

“That’s where Mr. Brunson lives,” Hannah said. “We could walk up to his place, and I could introduce you.” Since he was coming for supper, an early introduction would be just the thing. A walk and a meeting of Mr. Brunson could be managed at the same time. “That’s what we’ll do,” Hannah decided.

“What is that?”

“Go for a walk up the road, see the mountains, and then you can meet Mr. Brunson before he comes for supper.”

“That sounds fine,” Kathy said.

Hannah started the fire in the stove as her mother moved on to another subject. “Sam and Annie are expecting too. But they also found a growth when she went to the doctor the first time.”

“Oh no!” Hannah exclaimed.

“It wasn’t breast cancer. Benign, they said. Still—” Kathy said and turned her face toward Hannah in the flickering light, “quite a scare for a young couple.”

“Will she be okay, then?” Hannah asked, thinking how awful it would be to face something like that while carrying your first baby.

“Doctors performed the surgery a few days later. The family’s trying to keep it secret now that it’s not cancerous. But that kind of news just gets out anyway.”

Kathy got up to look for the coffee can and found it in the second cabinet she checked. Hannah wondered why she hadn’t simply asked, but then that was her mother. She was always so efficient, even in a strange kitchen.

“So where is this Mr. Brunson from?” Kathy asked.

“I don’t know,” Hannah confessed. “He was living there when we bought the place.”

“Never has family visiting?”

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“Isn’t that strange?”

“I don’t know. He’s an
Englisher.”
Hannah gave her most logical explanation. “That’s one reason I invited him for supper.”

“Once that water’s hot, I’d like to see the outside with the sun coming up,” Kathy said.

“The mountains block the view sometimes,” Hannah said. “It depends how cloudy it is.”

“Is it cloudy this morning?”

Hannah glanced out the kitchen window. “No, I don’t think so. We can step out and look.”

“That kettle will take a while anyway,” Kathy said. “Let’s see what the sunrise is like.”

They stepped outside with their coats on and looked toward the Cabinet Mountains. The air was brisk but not cold enough to spoil their enjoyment of the early morning. The first rays of sunlight reached for the sky over the tops of the mountains. A line of clouds that hadn’t been visible from the kitchen window hung low on the horizon.

“Let’s get our coffee and come back,” Kathy said, her voice excited. “I’ve never seen the sun rise over the mountains before.”

Hannah followed Kathy back inside and placed another stick of wood on the fire to hurry things along. With the extra heat, the kettle soon whistled merrily.

“Sounds of home,” Kathy said as they waited.

They measured coffee into the filter and let the steaming water run through and drip into their cups. Hannah gave her mother the sugar and spoon first and waited until she was done to stir her own.

Back outside, the colors of the sunrise slowly grew. Hannah had watched sunrises in Montana before, but this one seemed to work extra hard to put on its best display. With the low clouds as the backdrop, the red, yellow, and orange streaks reached upward. Greens and blues soon appeared, each vying for dominance and producing new shades of brilliance every few seconds.

Kathy reached out her arm for Hannah and pulled her close as they stood shoulder to shoulder. Never in her growing up years had Hannah felt this close to her mother. Was it because she was becoming more like her now that she was with child? Had they found a new common ground they could share?

“I’m so glad you’re my mother,” Hannah whispered as the colors of the sunrise deepened even further above them.

Kathy just pulled her tighter and said nothing.

“For putting up with me,” Hannah’s voice caught.

“You were always a joy.” Kathy’s voice came softly. “You’re a good daughter, and you have a good husband.”

Hannah didn’t trust her voice at the moment. There was no sense in bawling like a little girl even though she felt like one.

They stood there for long moments until the colors began to fade above them and the sunlight grew stronger.

“We’d better go inside before you catch a cold,” Kathy finally said.

Ever the mother,
Hannah thought. She wanted very much to tell her mother how she wanted her to stay here forever and never leave again, but that was silly. Such moments could be cherished, but they could not last forever. Life moves on.

In the kitchen again, the two women made the pancakes and placed them in the oven so they’d stay warm until the men got up. When eight o’clock came around with no signs or noises from the bedroom, they made eggs for themselves and ate together.

Hannah smiled at her mom’s boldness. “The men can eat when they get around to it, I suppose.”

“It’s
our
morning,” Kathy said.

When her dad got up around nine, he found a seat in the living room and began a sleepy morning tease.

“Why am I so neglected in my daughter’s house? No one cares one bit if an old man starves. I’ll soon be nothing but skin and bone.”

Hannah smiled as her mom played along.

“You have to fix your own breakfast today. We already ate ours.”

“Ha. That’s what I thought,” Roy said in mock bitterness. “Women become useless in Montana, it seems.”

“That’s an awful thing to say,” Kathy said, teasing him back. “You’re talking to your daughter, you know.”

“I was talking about
you,”
Roy said.

“That’s even worse,” Kathy retorted.

Jake then emerged from the bedroom, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“No food services this morning,” Roy announced in his direction. “We men are on our own. It’s make do or starve.”

Jake was up to the humor. “When we hunger, they too hunger sooner or later,” he said in warning.

“That’s a man,” Roy said, chuckling. “You tell ’em!”

“Oh, all right,” Kathy said, rolling her eyes but smiling. “The pancakes are made. Now we’ll fix your eggs. The rest you have to do yourself. Hannah and I have eaten already.”

“They don’t like us. Just like that, we’re cast aside,” Roy said with a straight face, “after all these years.”

Jake had to grin as he followed Roy into the kitchen. With the eggs ready in minutes, Kathy and Hannah left the rest of the breakfast items on the table and the men alone to put things together for themselves. The two women retreated to the living room.

“They don’t love us no more,” Roy said, his voice mournful as he piled pancakes on his plate. “At least the syrup is still sweet. But hey, maybe that too gets bitter in Montana.”

“Watch yourself!” Kathy hollered from the living room. “I heard that.”

All her life Hannah had enjoyed listening to her parents gently tease each other. It only made her all the more glad they were here now—and all the more wishful that it could be permanent. If she and Jake moved back to Indiana, they would have more times—lots more times—like this. She glanced at her mother who read her daughter’s look unmistakably. “We must cherish the time God gives us,” Kathy said. “It goes by soon enough.”

The men finished breakfast and Kathy told them about the plan to walk to Mr. Brunson’s and then on up the mountain a ways.

“Well, Jake,” Roy said, “they not only make us eat by ourselves, now we have to walk up the mountain too.”

“Well, it
is
a nice walk,” Jake said.

“Jake, don’t you know we men are supposed to stick together?” Roy looked hard at him. Jake only grinned and got his coat from the closet, apparently as ready as the women to get out of the house.

Fourteen

Hannah and Kathy led the way as they walked toward the mountains and Mr. Brunson’s house. Jake and Roy seemed to be deep into some discussion. From the snatches of conversation Hannah heard over her shoulder, it sounded like they were talking about Mr. Howard’s furniture-making offer. Her father sounded enthusiastic, which Hannah wasn’t sure she liked.

Kathy kept gushing over the sight of the mountains, all the more so the closer they got.

“I know I’ve seen them before,” her mother said. “Maybe it’s the view from here.”

“It’s even better farther up,” Hannah said. “I’ve been there once with Jake after we purchased the cabin. I would imagine you can see them even better behind Mr. Brunson’s cabin. I’ve never been that far.”

A thirty-minute walk up the slight grade brought them in sight of the man’s cabin, two stories high and made of little more than boards nailed upright with mismatched tin on the roof. Some of the edges even stood higher than the others.

Behind the cabin and farther up the slight slope was the barn, its structure in even worse shape than the house.

“For all its looks, the house is well-insulated,” Jake said because obviously something needed to be said in Mr. Brunson’s favor.

“And clean,” Hannah added, remembering her brief look inside the house.

“He’s a real nice gentleman,” Jake said as he led the party up to the front door and knocked. Mr. Brunson, clean shaven as usual and with a smile on his face, opened the door almost at once.

“Well, what have we here?” he asked, obviously pleased to see them.

“Hannah’s parents,” Jake said. “Roy and Kathy Miller, this is Mr. Brunson.”

“Glad to meet you,” Mr. Brunson said, extending his hand.

Roy stepped right up and shook Mr. Brunson’s hand readily, but Kathy stepped forward a little more cautiously, smiling and politely nodding her greeting.

“The women have us out walking,” Roy said in a teasing voice. “They just won’t let a man on vacation take it easy!”

“Now, that’s not true,” Kathy retorted. “You slept real late. You can’t spend your whole vacation in bed.”

“And they wouldn’t feed us either,” Roy continued. “Why, they turned us right out on our own.”

“Sounds like you have some tough women there,” Mr. Brunson said.

Jake laughed. “He likes to stretch things a little.”

“Well, you want to come on inside?” Mr. Brunson said as he held the door open.

“Oh, we were just out walking,” Kathy told him quickly. “Thanks anyway. Hannah says you’re coming for supper tonight.”

“She was kind enough to invite me,” Mr. Brunson said. “I hope I’m not a bother.”

“Certainly not,” Kathy assured him. “We’re just guests too.”

“I’ll look forward to it, then. Sure you folks don’t want to come in? Don’t have much, but it works for me.”

“I’m sure it does,” Kathy said. “We have a walk ahead of us, though. We’ll be anxious to see you again this evening for supper.”

“If your cooking tastes as good as your daughter’s, supper will really be something,” Mr. Brunson told her.

“We train them that way,” Roy said with a chuckle. “That is—until they quit like this morning.”

“Don’t pay attention to him,” Kathy said. “Does he look underfed to you?”

“Not in the least,” Mr. Brunson assured her with a straight face.

“We’d like to walk farther up if that’s okay with you,” Jake said. “You have a good view of the mountains up there.”