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“Yes,” she laughed. “I hated it, at first. Mice, bugs, lots of spiders. I was a city girl, after all.”
Hannah hadn’t really thought of all the little critters that might like to live in the barn, nor of Maggie ever having been a “city girl”.
“But I remember those being some of the happiest days of my life,” Maggie continued. Hannah wondered if Maggie would ever be able to move on, after John. Over the past ten years, she had never seen Maggie even look at another man. Would she stay a widow?
She would never have thought her heart would open up again after Troy, but it was happening. She was ready for new possibilities. She was even thinking about taking classes through an online college. She could get some of her general education classes, and then maybe one day she could go for a degree.
“We lived up there when Georgie was born.” Maggie crossed her arms. “Things sure have changed.”
Hannah brought Mae’s plate of uneaten eggs to the sink, and when she looked out the window, she saw a police car slowly pull into the drive. At first, she thought it might just be turning around, but when they continued right up to the house, Emma said, “Maggie, the police are here.”
Her heart sped up when she saw Pastor Phil getting out of the vehicle with the police officer. “Emma, why don’t you go upstairs with Mae.”
Emma didn’t hesitate, just went straight to the highchair, swept the baby up in her arms, and fled up the stairs before the officer reached the porch door.
Maggie didn’t move from her seat, but gripped the arm rests of the wooden chair until her knuckles whitened.
Hannah opened the screen door. “Officer, Pastor Phil, how can we help you?”
The pastor looked at her, not Maggie. “Hannah, is there somewhere we can talk?”
“Me?” Everything seemed to slow down as she heard Pastor Phil begin to speak, but she couldn’t process what was going on. It was as though she had left her body and looked on the scene from above. She led the men to the living room and Maggie sat next to her, taking her hand. Phil held a small leather bible.
“Troy was in an accident.”
Her lungs froze, suffocating her.
“He didn’t make it.”
She looked at the floor, gasping for breath. Troy was dead? Voices echoed around her, but she couldn’t focus on what was being said.
That’s when she heard the thump in her head.
The other shoe had finally dropped.
Chapter 10
The floating feeling left her body like a plane falling out of the sky. She was going to have to tell Emma that her father was dead.
“How… how did it happen?”
The officer stood with his hands behind his back, serious, but cautious. “It looks as though he swerved to avoid hitting something on County Road 95 and lost control of the vehicle, veered off the road and hit a tree. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Alcohol may have been a factor.”
Of course, it had.
“I asked Pastor Phil to be here so he can help you decide what the next steps are for your husband.”
Hannah’s emotions exploded inside her chest, when she fully processed what the officer had said. He had been on County Road 95. Coming to seeher. The room started to spin, her stomach heaved, and a cold sweat beaded her brow. She could hear voices, but it was hard to make out what they were saying.
“Do you need someone to identify the body?” Olivia suddenly standing in the livingroom and asked the officer, sounding like she was underwater.
“Hannah?” Maggie leaned in front of her to look at her eyes. “Hannah, do you want to talk to Pastor Phil?”
She looked at Maggie. “How am I going to tell Emma?”
Maggie’s chin trembled as a tear dripped from it. “We’ll all be right here with you.”
The officer gave his condolences and spoke some more with Olivia, but Hannah didn’t move from the chair. She shook her head to the tea Maggie offered. She listened as the pastor prayed with them. She remembered getting up and asking Emma to come downstairs.
