They hadn't changed, but he had—in ways they couldn't possibly understand. He tried to talk to his father and to Steve, but they had no frame of reference at all for what he tried to communicate to them. His father had served in Germany, his brother one tour during the early days of Desert Storm.
They looked away from his injuries and their discomfort when the pain he'd suffered caused them pain. They couldn't understand why he'd put himself through the trouble. Sure, one of the men who served under his command had done something wrong, but couldn't he have looked the other way? Hadn't he considered the consequences to himself?
"Young man? Young man?"
Chris blinked and came back to the present. The older woman sitting beside him was staring at him curiously.
"Can you show me how to print these out?"
"Sure." He explained the steps and the printer hummed and spit out picture after picture of smiling plump-cheeked children.
Returning to the computer, Chris logged out of his e-mail account and did a Google search. After inputting the name "Malcolm Kraft," he saw several hundred results come up.Clicking on the first one, he read about the event he was so familiar with, an event that had forever changed his life.
Funny thing, he thought darkly, how bad things could turn so quickly, how they could go so differently from how you thought they would. How what you did in the name of morality could turn so many people against you, including the most important.
Why had God let so many bad things rain down on him when he thought he was doing the right thing?
The story was more than a year old, so he skipped ahead since the events were etched on his brain. What he was hoping to find was that Kraft was still safely tucked away where he should be—prison. He'd felt he had to do this every few months. Too often there were stories of people being released from prison early. Kraft had promised at the sentencing that things weren't over between them. It wasn't wise to ignore the threat.
Tapping the keyboard, he searched the library system for the book that had been recommended to him by his buddy.Relieved to find they had two copies, he glanced up to see where Hannah was and saw her over in the children's section, looking like she'd be a while.
He clicked back to his Google search for Kraft and went from one story to the next when he realized Hannah was standing next to him. Quickly he hit the back button and the screen for the book he wanted came up.
She held out a book called Learn a New Word Every Day. "I think Annie will like this one."
Sitting down in a chair next to him, she searched her purse for her wallet and pulled out her library card. "I thought you wanted to get a book."
Chris jumped up. "Sorry, I'll get it and we can be on our way."
"There's no rush—" she called after him.
"Nice young man," the woman beside her said. "Helped me print out photos of my grandkids."
"I see."
She glanced at the computer Chris had been using and wondered why he'd hit the back button so quickly when he looked up and saw her standing there.
Repeating his action, she glanced curiously at the list of articles about some man serving time in a military prison. Her heart in her throat, she skimmed the contents of the article quickly, hoping Chris wasn't involved somehow.
Something moved in the periphery of her vision and when she looked up, she saw him crossing the library, a book in his hand.
"You said Chris showed you how to print something?" she said to the woman. "Can you show me?"
"Oh, sure, hon."
The woman leaned over and used the mouse to click on a bar on the top of the screen and there was a whirring noise from the printer beside Hannah. She looked for Chris and saw him searching a shelf, his back to her. Keeping her eyes on him, Hannah reached for the page printing out and quickly folded it into a square that she tucked into her pocket.
"Thank you for the help," she told the woman.
"I didn't think the Amish were allowed to use computers."The woman gathered up her sheets of paper and slid them into a manila envelope and stood.
"They're allowed for business," she said with a smile. "As long as we don't bring electricity into the home for them."
Jenny used a laptop for her writing and she had to take it to the barn to recharge it. She'd told Hannah she loved writing in longhand best and then typed her work on the computer.Sometimes when she needed to do research she came to this library; several times she'd brought Hannah and shown her how to look up quilt patterns on the computer.
Hannah chatted with the woman at the next computer for a few minutes. The woman was clearly enjoying working on the computer since she said she didn't have one at home. That news surprised Hannah. She thought every Englisch person had a computer.