Chapter 30
The idea had come to her in the middle of the night. Hannah shot up from the bed, grabbed her journal from the nightstand, and hurried downstairs to light the lamp. As she sat on the sofa, she quickly penned all she could remember from her dream.
Christian drowsily clomped down the stairs to find Hannah staring intently at the notebook in front of her, a pencil perched between her teeth. Engrossed in her writing, she obviously hadn’t heard him descend the steps. Christian yawned noisily and stretched his arms wide.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” Hannah glanced up, noticing he still wore his white t-shirt and boxers, then quickly refocused her attention back on her notebook.
“No big deal.” He graced her lips with a brief kiss. “I’ll make us some coffee.”
“Ach, that sounds wunderbaar.”
Christian plodded to the kitchen and returned a short while later with two mugs of the steaming brew. He joined Hannah, opposite the couch where she sat, and pulled his Bible from the end table. “You must be writing some pretty important stuff. I’ve hardly seen your eyes move from that paper.”
“Ach, Christian. I had the most wunderbaar gut dream. We were here at our house – you and I – and there were girls here.” She smiled.
Christian’s eyebrows lowered. “Girls?”
“Jah. Young women. And they were all expecting bopplin except for one or two of them – they already had babies.”
Christian wondered where Hannah was going with this and why she seemed so excited. He nodded for her to go on.
“Don’t you see Christian? I think it was from Der Herr. I’m thinking maybe he wants us to open our home to young women who choose to keep their babies.” Hannah’s whole countenance lit up like the Englischer houses decorated at Christmastime. “I know I must sound ab im kopp. I remember a young Englisch couple, maybe sixteen or so, at the clinic. It seemed like the girl wanted to keep her boppli, but her beau told her no. He said that he would leave her and that her folks would probably shun her if she kept the baby. But what if she had someplace that she could go, Christian? What if she had a safe place to have her boppli?”
What could Christian say to Hannah’s sparkling eyes? He hadn’t seen her this happy in forever, it seemed. He couldn’t burst her bubble by telling her that the leaders probably wouldn’t approve. He shrugged. “I guess we could talk to Bishop Hostettler and see what he thinks of it.”
She jumped up and threw her arms around Christian. “I knew you’d understand.”
“Hannah,” Christian warned in a cautionary tone. “Don’t get your hopes up too high. The leaders might not approve.”
“But what if their being here brings them closer to Der Herr? What if they find Jesus here? We’ll not only tell them about the love of Christ, but we could show them too.”
Christian sucked in a breath. “Are you up to this, Hannah? It wouldn’t be difficult seeing these young women have bopplin?”
Hannah shook her head adamantly. “Don’t you see, Christian? We wouldn’t need our own boppli. We would get to help others have theirs. We would be surrounded by bopplin.”
“I don’t think that would be the same thing, Schatzi,” he said sympathetically.
“Oh, I know. But it would be something.”
Concern now covered Christian’s face. “You’re not trying to atone for sins that have already been forgiven; are you, Hannah?” He remembered how at the retreat he’d learned one of the symptoms of PAS was attempting to cover guilt with good works.
“Nee. I just want to help people. I want to save lives. Imagine if someone had been there to talk me out of it. We might have a houseful of bopplin.”
Christian swallowed hard. “If someone had talked you out of it, we probably wouldn’t be married, Hannah. You would have married Samuel.” Christian couldn’t help the bitterness in his voice. It had been something that he’d thought about many times. He’d never said anything, but sometimes Christian felt as though Hannah would have rather married Samuel and had his baby.
Hannah noticed Christian’s fallen countenance. “I’m sorry, Christian.” Her eyes rimmed with tears. “I don’t know how things would have turned out. But I know I don’t regret marrying you. I thank Der Herr every day for giving me you.”
Christian couldn’t silence the doubt that clouded his thoughts. “If Samuel were still alive, you’d be with him.”
“Christian, stop. Don’t do this.” Hannah rested her hand on his. “I love you.”
His eyes were filled with so much pain. “More than you loved him?”
“Please, Christian. I don’t want to argue with you. Don’t do this.”
“Just say it, Hannah! Just say you loved Samuel more than me.”
“Why are you doing this, Christian?” Hannah sobbed.
“Because I want to know the truth.”
“I loved both of you.”
“If that’s true, then why did you give yourself away to Samuel? You barely let me kiss you, Hannah, and you gave yourself – all of you – to Samuel.”
“You said you’d forgiven me for that. Why do you keep bringing it up?”
“Because maybe I can’t forget about it. Maybe I wonder, every time we share our marriage bed, whether you’re thinking of me or him. Maybe I wonder if you’d have been happier with Samuel. You chose him before we were married. And before his death, you’d chosen him again. Why?”
“You rejected me, Christian. Have you forgotten? You rejected me and Samuel was there. He was there for me when nobody else was – including you.” Hannah sighed. “Don’t you see, Christian? I’ve always loved you. You were not my second choice, Samuel was. Did I love him? Yes. Do I love you? Yes. Can’t you see that it was God’s original intention for us to be together? I know I made a mess of things. But can we please just put all this behind us? I don’t want to deal with this anymore. I can’t deal with this anymore. I need a normal life, Christian. I need you to accept me for who I am and we need to move on. This hurts too much. I don’t want hurt anymore,” she cried in desperation.
Christian’s shoulders dropped at her words and he chided himself. How could he have heaped this burden on her? They’d been doing so well. Hannah had finally found something to be happy about, and he had to crush it. Christian opened his arms and gathered Hannah close. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I’m sorry I brought that up again. Forgive me,” he spoke into her hair.
Christian resolved, from that point forward, to never mention the hurtful things of the past again. As much as he could help it, he would only dwell on the positive.
“No.”
Hannah hadn’t expected the bishop’s response to be so concise. “But we could help people. We would be sharing God’s love and –”
“I’m really sorry, Hannah. The leaders have unanimously agreed that it would not be in our best interests. I do believe the Englisch already have places like that. And we don’t want to encourage wantonness amongst our young people,” Judah Hostettler said.
Hannah remained silent.
“Perhaps you will consider helping out some other way. I know they need volunteers at the crisis pregnancy centers and some women even stand in front of clinics and try to persuade women not to abort,” he suggested.
“I don’t know if I would feel comfortable doing those things,” Hannah said hesitantly.
Judah patted her arm. “Just pray about it, Hannah. The Lord will direct you.”
“Jah, I will do that.”
As she and Christian traveled home from their meeting with the bishop, Hannah couldn’t help but feel defeated. She wanted to do something so badly. If she could just make a difference, just save one life, then she’d feel like she’d accomplished something.
Perhaps she would go back to the clinic to speak with some of the young women, although she dreaded the thought of setting eyes on that horrid place again. Would I have listened to someone? Maybe if someone had offered me hope. All she could remember is how desperate and hopeless she’d felt. She
was almost certain that if someone – anyone – would have offered her an alternative, she may have taken it.