Chapter 9
A Moment’s Vulnerability.
The last plate had barely been dried when Hannah reached automatically for the coffee pot still warming near the back of the stove.
“Would you like more kaffe?” she asked quietly without looking at Daniel.
“Jah, denke.”
The kitchen had grown still after Miriam and Lydia disappeared down the hallway. Outside, crickets hummed softly in the warm spring night while shadows flickered against the windows from the lantern hanging above the table.
Hannah poured two cups before carrying one toward him.
“Denke.” Daniel accepted the mug carefully, his fingers brushing hers for only the briefest moment.
His hands were calloused and warm, bringing her comfort in a way she didn’t quite understand.
She sat across from him at the table, wrapping both hands around her cup as silence settled between them once more. “You miss your farm, don’t you?”
The question escaped before Hannah could reconsider asking it.
Daniel looked down into his coffee for a long moment. “Jah,” he admitted finally. “More than I realized at first.”
Something in his voice made her chest tighten unexpectedly. It was the kind of loss she understood, something you would carry with you for the rest of your life.
Hannah lowered her gaze slightly. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it earlier. About heritage.”
Daniel shook his head gently. “You weren’t wrong.”
For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Daniel leaned back slightly in his chair, his expression thoughtful in the lantern light.
“When my daed got sick, I kept thinking I could fix everything if I just worked harder.” He gave a faint, humorless smile. “Turns out banks don’t care how hard a mann works once debts start piling up.”
Hannah listened quietly.
“The foreclosure happened fast after the funeral. Faster than I expected.” Daniel rubbed a hand slowly across the back of his neck. “Suddenly every corner of that farm felt heavy with memories I didn’t know what to do with.”
Hannah understood that feeling more than she wanted to.
“I thought leaving might make it easier,” he continued quietly. “My uncle offered me work, and I convinced myself it was temporary.”
“But you stayed six years?” Hannah asked quietly, not wanting to intrude on his pain.
Daniel nodded once. “At first it felt easier not coming back.” His gaze drifted briefly toward the dark kitchen window. “Then after a while… I wasn’t sure there was anything left here for me anymore. I knew I didn’t have a home…”
Suddenly Hannah realized she understood him far more than she wanted to. Loss had changed both of them.
Just differently.
While Daniel had left searching for somewhere he belonged, Hannah had stayed behind and buried herself inside responsibility until there had been no space left for anything else.
“What changed your mind?” she asked softly.
Daniel looked back toward her then.
For a moment his gaze held hers so steadily Hannah forgot to breathe properly.
“I got tired of feeling like I was drifting through someone else’s life. Tired of running from my memories…”
The words settled heavily between them. Hannah tightened her hands around the warm coffee cup. Because she knew exactly what that felt like too. Trying to ignore the memories because they hurt too much. The pain could intrude on your day like a thunderstorm in the middle of harvest time.
“The strange thing is,” Daniel continued quietly, “coming back here scared me more than leaving ever did.”
Hannah frowned slightly. “Why?”
A faint smile touched the corner of his mouth. “Because I don’t want to leave again.”
The honesty in his answer made her sigh quietly with understanding. Perhaps that is where she had gained her strength when she had lost her parents, knowing that she still had her home. She smiled at him then, a quiet comforting smile.
“Well, you’re welcome to the dawdi haus for as long as you like, until you find that home you’re looking for.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Hannah realized she would miss him if he left.