Read Online Her Brother's Keeper by Beth Wiseman - Free Book Online

friend. Was he . . .” She took a deep breath. “Was he, um . . . badly abused?”
    Hannah nodded, and Charlotte swallowed back the knot forming in her throat.
    â€œYa . He was.” Hannah looked away as a tear rolled down her cheek. “I think Mamm told you . . . he was my fiancé. We were to be married.”
    Charlotte was anxious, yet relieved, that Hannah didn’t share the details about Ethan’s time in foster care. “I’m-I’m sorry.” She waited to see if Hannah would tell her about Ethan’s death, but they were both quiet. Finally, Charlotte stood up. “If it’s okay with you, I think I’d like to go lay down for a while.” She wasn’t tired, but she didn’t want to burst into tears.
    Hannah jumped from her chair, hurried around the table, and threw her arms around Charlotte. “I’m so sorry. So sorry that someone hurt you. Thank you for sharing that with me.” She eased away and wiped the tears from her cheeks with both hands. “I feel so much closer to you now. And I know how blessed I am to have such a wonderful family. I don’t want to take it for granted. Ethan always said we were the family he’d never had.”
    Charlotte doubted that was true. I was his family.
    â€œWe couldn’t wait to be married. I still miss him.” She buried her head on Charlotte’s shoulder, and Charlotte slowly wrapped her arms around Hannah, but only because it seemed awkward not to. She was starting to like Hannah, but she didn’t want to get any closer to her than necessary. Charlotte had loved and lost plenty of times. No need to add Hannah to that list. And she still felt uneasy about Ethan’s fiancée and hadn’t been able to mentally clear Hannah from having something to do with his death.
    All the tears in the world couldn’t bring Ethan back. He might have had a hard childhood, but so had Charlotte. Before coming here, he’d had a good job as a roofer, a nice apartment, and lots of friends. It was his job that brought him to Pennsylvania in the first place. The company he worked for had won a bid to put a new roof on a church in Lancaster County following a storm that had caused some structural damages to several buildings. Charlotte had known about it, but she could have never predicted that he would end up staying. Someone needed to take the blame for Ethan’s death, and Hannah would have to sit in the guilty seat until Charlotte could prove her innocent. Otherwise, the loss was more than Charlotte could bear.

    Hannah sat down on her bed after a cool bath, and as her wet hair lay against the back of her white nightgown, she closed her eyes and welcomed the breeze coming through the screen in her room. After a few moments, she laid back and closed her eyes.
    Lord, I’m lifting up Mary with extra prayers tonight, for peace and healing. I also ask, Lord, for You to forgive me for not being kinder to Mary. Mei cousin has been through baremlich times in her life, and I cannot put right in my mind how a mother or father can hurt their own kinner. Aamen.
    Hannah recalled the awful stories that Ethan had told her before he died. And to learn that Mary was also harmed at the hands of her own family . . . it was just so sad. She wanted to do something nice for Mary, to bring some joy into her life, and maybe by doing so, she could bring a small amount of happiness into her own heart. In the strangest way, she felt like Ethan was encouraging her to befriend her new cousin. She smiled, feeling comforted.
    At times, Mary seemed familiar to her. Nothing Hannah could put her finger on, just a sense that maybe she’d known her from somewhere. That was impossible, but she was going to take it as a sign that she and Mary were growing closer, and for that, Hannah was grateful.
    She turned up the lantern on her bedside table and pulled her knitting supplies from the bottom drawer. It would take her a