Hearing Hope - Beth Anne Lewis (i like reading books .txt) 📗

The man at her door looked to be bearing bad news. What went up in flames now?

Thought Hope, thinking of the terribly hot summer when any small spark started a fire on the dry Kansas prairie.
“Mrs. Ashford?” His slow moving lips were easy to read. How did he know?
“I am she.”
“I’m from the telegraph office in town. We received a telegram saying that a threshing machine blew up ‘bout thirty miles south of here. We were given the list of men who were with it and were informed that there were no survivors. There was . . . a--a Mr. Joshua Ashford. Do you know him?”
She must not be seeing straight. “Joshua Ashford . . . w-was among those who died

?” At his nod, she stuttered on, unfeeling. “He is . . . my husband.” Despite her deaf ears, she could hear her heart thudding in her chest. Surely he was misinformed.
“Please accept my condolences ma’am. I realize this is difficult news for you. We in town will do all we can to help you and --” Not able to take any more, Hope shut the door on him. If not for the large mound under her apron, she would have collapsed on to the ground in tears. Instead she leaned against the door and sobbed. Not Joshua. Not her Joshua. She still remembered the day he left with the other men to harvest the neighboring farms with the threshing machine.


Hope looked out into the still-dark morning as she stirred the scrambled eggs. Today was the day Joshua was leaving. It would be the longest time they’d been separated since they were married. She sensed the clunking of boots on the hard wood floor of their small house, and smiled. His strong arms sneaked around her waist while his head rested on her shoulder. Kissing her cheek, he signed into her hand, “Do you think you can get by with lip-reading while I’m gone?”
She nodded and continued listening with her hand.
“Can you read mine?”
She looked into his eyes, those pools of blue that she seemed to drown in. Then he kissed her warmly. The smell of burning eggs caused her to pull away and take the pan off the hot stove. She poured his coffee, filled his plate, and they both sat down at the table, trying to savor those last moments together.
Putting her hand on her belly, Hope said, “My time may come while you are gone.” She knew she talked strange, but how could she fix it when she couldn’t hear?
A cloud shaded Joshua’s eyes, but only for a moment. Smiling, he said, “Then whenever I feel like quitting I’ll remember I have a beautiful wife and baby to hurry home to.” He squeezed her hand, and finished his breakfast. How she wished she could hear his voice.
The next minutes flew by in a blur, and soon, too soon in Hope’s thinking, she felt the groaning and banging of the huge threshing machine outside their door. Above the noise the great monster made, came, “Hey Ashford, you ready to go?”
Joshua opened a door and motioned that he’d be right there. Hope hurried to get together enough food to last him a few days. The farmer’s wives would feed the men when they harvested their fields. She added a loaf of bread to the bundle of dried fish, carrots, and a few cookies and put it in Joshua’s bag. He came over and kissed her again.
“Be careful.” She signed.
“As long as you be careful yourself. I want to see you and that baby alive and well when I return. Now, I’ve told Mrs. Mcallister to drop in on you about every other day, so if you need anything

, you tell her. You hear?”
She nodded like a dutiful child.
“Now,” he cupped her cheeks in his hands. “Don’t worry about me. Just worry about you.” He kissed her forehead, then gathered his things. She followed him outside. As he climbed onto the thresher and it lumbered him away from her, Hope saw him wave and say, “I love you Hope.” Then he smiled that smile that had always made her knees weak, and blew her a kiss.
And, just as the sun was rising, he was gone.


Hope stirred, realizing how late it was. The dried tears on her face and her puffy eyes made her feel weary, but she knew she needed to eat -- for the baby’s sake. As she tried to rustle something up, her mind kept going round and round what the man had said. Joshua can’t be dead. He just can’t. I only saw him two days ago. But the man had a telegram . . . No, he’s not dead. Her inner argument continued as the night dragged on. She felt numb, as in a dream. Maybe it was a dream and it would all go away when she woke up in the morning. Thinking this, she fell exhausted on the bed.

Hope woke to a gentle hand on her arm. As she forced her crusty eyes open, they fell on Mrs. Mcallister who was holding a bowl of something that smelled hot, but not necessarily good. Seeing the kind face of the woman made her dissolve into tears again.
“I know, dear, I know.” Mrs. Mcallister set the bowl down and took up stroking her hair.
Unable to go to the effort of talking in her grief, Hope signed, “He can’t be dead. He can’t.” Though she didn’t understand sign language, Mrs. Mcallister seemed to get the meaning.
“You poor thing.” Lifting Hope’s face so she could read her lips, she said, “I made you some broth that will keep up your strength for the baby. I take it you haven’t eaten much?” At Hope’s head shake, she held the bowl to her lips saying, “Drink.”
Hope obeyed, but grimaced at the bitter tasting liquid. When she’d drunk about half the bowl, she managed to say, “I need the outhouse.”
Mrs. Mcallister nodded and helped her out of bed. Though as she flipped back the sheets, they both gasped. The small red stain seemed to leap out at them. Blood meant something was wrong, seriously wrong, with the baby.
“I can’t loose this baby. Not after what happened . . .” Hope didn’t want to be crying again, but she was.
“Hope. Look at me. Calm down. You have to fight if you want to save the baby. I don’t want you givin’ up on me now. I’ll do all I can to help, but you’re the one everything rests on. Now, you go use the necessary, and I’ll clean up. Then it’s bed, nothing else.”
Hope nodded and made her way outdoors. Tears slipped one by one off her face as she cleaned herself up. Joshua would never be able to hold his child, and now there was a chance that she wouldn’t either. He needed to be here. Pushing thoughts of what she was going to do after she had the baby out of her mind, she went back into the house and sank into a clean bed.
“I don’t care what you say. I’m staying here at your place until we get this child born. I’ll first go home and get my things. I’m sure Mr. Mcallister won’t mind.” The kind woman bustled around, her motherly way comforting Hope.
“Thank you.” Hope whispered.
Smiling, Mrs. Mcallister handed Hope a small leather book. “I’d read some of this if I were you.” Then she was out the door.
Hope knew exactly what the book was, it was a Bible. She knew about God, and seemed to remember going to church with her family. Memories were so hard to recall with no sound involved. But when she and Joshua started courting, He seemed to fade away from her mind, until she rarely thought on Him at all.
She opened the little book to the bookmark; thoughtful Mrs. Mcallister; and her eyes fell on the verses in Psalm 103. “Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”

Heals all diseases? Satisfies desires? This was not the god she had grown up knowing. The god she knew wanted nothing but perfection, striking grim circumstances on all who crossed him. She flipped through the thin pages, the phrase in Job caught her eye. “Who makes the people deaf . . . is it not I, the Lord?”

Did God take away her hearing to punish her? Other verses filled her mind, primarily the ones promising God will triumph over the world, and to her surprise, promises of the deaf hearing again in that day.
Mrs. Mcallister walked back in at just that moment.
“I have some questions.” Hope said.
“I thought you might.” Mrs. Mcallister pulled a chair over to the bed and took up her knitting.
“What I’m reading is saying that God cares about me. I don’t understand. I’ve never really read the Bible, only parts that are about justice and punishment and all. This is so different from what I grew up on.”
“Hmm, think about it like this. Imagine God as your earthly father.”
Hope remembered how her father had shunned her because of her disability, had completely ignored her, and at times had made fun of her.
Seeing her expression, Mrs. Mcallister said, “Maybe that’s not a good example. Take Joshua then.”
That got the tears started again.
“Try to listen dearie. Imagine Joshua wants to talk with you, to be with you, every moment of every day. You probably don’t have to imagine that, because he already di--does.” She caught herself before she used past-tense. “Imagine you ignore him. He wouldn’t force you to love him, he would wait patiently until you are ready. He might try to get your attention, though. That’s like Jesus. He loves you so much, and is ready to be your best friend, to take away all your sorrows and replace them with joy. Sometimes He’ll send trials to get your attention and to draw you closer to Him.”
Eyes still damp, Hope said, “But I’ve done too many horrid things to be able to be close to him.”
“Hope, that’s the best part. Jesus came to the earth and died, so you didn’t have to. All your sins are forgiven, even before you commit them. The Bible says no matter what you do, the Lord’s mercies are new every morning, and he’ll never give up on you.”
There was a silence, and they seemed to both be basking in that truth. Then Hope