Chapter Eight
Two days passed quickly, and by the end of them, Elias was upset.
He had wanted to see what he could do to convince Hannah to stay, selfishly so.
It wasn’t his place to make that decision for her.
It wasn’t anyone’s place to make that decision for her but her.
To want to influence it like this was awful of him.
However, they were heading back to town to regroup because they had one more day before their flight and wanted to check out one of the museums. He couldn’t fault them for that.
Since they weren’t bound by the Amish laws, they weren’t bound to stay as long as possible and interact with the Englischer town as little as possible.
It did make his heart hurt to see her leave.
Instead of focusing on that, he decided to go see John.
Hannah had paid a visit to see all of his animals before she left, which had struck him as odd.
Despite knowing she was studying to help animals, he hadn’t thought she would make a stop just to see them.
Was it possible she was trying to signal something, and he had missed it because he tended to let these idiosyncrasies go right over his head?
Or was he reading too much into it as a way to make his heart feel less heavy?
He knocked on the door to John’s haus. John answered, thankfully. He hadn’t been sure what he would have told Olivia if she had answered the door.
“Have you kumm to ask me about Hannah?” John asked.
Elias only nodded slowly. John laughed and invited him in. Elias walked in to hear Olivia humming from elsewhere in the haus, and it sounded almost as if she were preparing the guest room for a longer visit. But from whom?
“Did she happen to give you any indication of what her plans were for the rest of the summer?” Elias asked.
“She said she had to think about some things, which means I think she’s rethinking her plans,” John admitted.
“That said, I don’t know exactly what her plans were originally after this trip, nor do I know what she might be thinking of doing now that she knows we’re here and would happily take her in if she wanted to see how we do things around here a little longer than she was able to because of the time restraints on this trip. ”
“I see…” Elias didn’t know how to take that.
On the one hand, he was glad that there appeared to be a possibility she would return.
On the other hand, he was kind of sad that it still left room for her to return to London.
The other side of the world. He didn’t want her to be so far away, but he honestly didn’t know there was anything he could do about it.
There was only so much he could do about her not being here.
He didn’t want to tempt fate by trying to influence her one way or the other.
“You wanted her to stay, didn’t you?”
“What makes you say that, John?”
Elias couldn’t help it as his cheeks turned bright red.
John was right. He had hoped against all hope that she would decide to stay in the Amish community with them to give it a better chance.
To see if this was a life she could consider instead of just a passing-through chance to see her cousin.
This blush, however, made John laugh a little.
“Well, that’ll do it,” he said as he shook his head.
“Elias, I think it’s pretty clear that she wasn’t sure what she wanted, but I’m glad that you didn’t try to influence her unjustly.
Wouldn’t you rather she kumm back because she wants the life, rather than just feeling guilty that she may have given up everything to be with you when she didn’t even want this life to begin with? ”
John made a great point. Elias only nodded.
He would rather have known that she had come back to investigate the lifestyle more thoroughly and to give him a chance to earn her heart along the way. Most menner of the community would prefer that when it came to how an Englischer had come to stay in the community with them.
“Then, let her take some time away from the community. Sometimes, that’s all it takes.”
“I’m worried that it’ll take more than just that, and that she’s left too soon for me to be able to give her a better chance at seeing what kind of life she could have here,” Elias admitted. “She likes the animals, John. I have a farm. There was a chance there, and I blew it. I utterly blew it.”
John managed to only giggle a little at the unintentional pun in the complaint, considering that Elias had a few cows, which he appreciated. He hadn’t come here to make cow puns. He had come to see what he could do to keep Hannah in his life.
“Well, I did get the address where she’ll be staying if she decides to go back,” he said eventually. “If she wants, I can pass it on to you when she’s back on campus. She didn’t want it getting out and around to everyone else yet.”
Elias nodded.
“Well, that’s a hopeful piece of news that I can work with,” he said. “I think it might just be enough for me to think that there’s a chance she kumms back to give it to me herself.”
“And that’s perhaps more likely than her coming back to stay right now,” John said. “See? There’s always a stepping stone between what you want and the worst case.”
Elias laughed a little, if only because he had a habit of making it feel worse than it was.