Best Friend's Ex Box Set

llowed Mamm's lead and treated Daniel like one of us, but from the beginning he was challenged in ways that none of us had been. It took a long time to feed him his bottle because he had trouble swallowing and often would spit up much of what he'd eaten, and it took him longer to reach the milestones that Honor had reached because he didn't have the muscle control or strength she did.

"What's wrong with Daniel?" I asked Mamm one afternoon not long after his birth. We were we preparing pies for the church dinner, and Mamm rolled the crusts while I filled them. "Why does he seems so different from us?" Mamm simply replied that boys were different, but we knew better. He'd been a quiet baby who never cried or got fussy. Faith had once asked Mamm if it was normal for boy babies to be so silent, and Mamm had said, "I wouldn't know, but I thank God that he is so good natured and unfussy!"

As he grew, Danny continued to be the quiet one. He smiled and nodded at us all when we talked to him, but he never uttered a sound in return. By his first birthday, Mamm and Dat had grown worried about the fact that Danny wasn't yet talking, so they asked for permission to take him to see a specialist. The doctor performed a range of hearing tests on Danny and then pronounced him absolutely normal on every level. Mamm asked why he wasn't talking yet, but the doctor had no answer for her.

He suggested that there might be a wide range of causes, and said that further testing would be necessary to narrow down the reasons for Danny's silence. Mamm and Dat both said that no further testing was necessary, and that they would simply accept Danny's condition as God's will. The doctor argued that if the cause was physical, then maybe surgery or therapy could help Danny learn how to speak. My parents had calmly repeated their decision and then brought Danny home.

The next day, we all began learning sign language so that we could communicate with him. Mamm turned the learning into a game and Danny had taken to the lessons like a fish in water. For the rest of us, it was a struggle to balance lessons with our other responsibilities, but Dat reminded us that it was part of our duty to perform good works and if communicating with our younger brother wasn't something important to us, then we might want to reevaluate our commitment to God.

"Mamm didn't tell me you were coming," he signed as he pulled back and looked up at me.

"No, she doesn't know," I said shaking my head trying to swallow the lump that rose in my throat and threatened to choke me.

"We better tell her, don't you think?" Daniel signed as he took my hand and tugged me toward the front sitting room where Mamm usually sat at this time of day mending clothing or reading verses from her family Bible while Verity and Honor did the mending.

"Gracie! Gracie! Let's tell Mamm!" Daniel signed excitedly with one hand as he tugged on my arm with his other pulling me toward the front room. I looked down into his smiling face and, for a moment, felt completely helpless.

"Let's go help Verity by setting the table, okay?" I suggested, trying to distract him. If I could hold off the questions about Mamm and Dat until Faith and Hope arrived, then we could try and explain what had happened together. My main concern was making sure that Daniel knew he would always be loved and cared for.

"Okay, Gracie!" he signed cheerfully as he dropped my hand and headed for the kitchen to gather the plates and utensils. When I followed him, he held up the napkins and signed that he'd fold them in a special way for dinner.

"That would be nice, Danny," I said facing the empty room. I looked around and felt the enormity of Mamm's absence as I realized she'd never sit in her chair quilting or darning socks again. I bit my lip to hold back the tears as Verity called me over to the stove to help her prepare supper.

"Let me take my things upstairs out of the way, okay?" I said to her as we exchanged a look over Danny's head. She nodded and I grabbed my suitcase and slipped out of the room.

I quickly climbed the stairs and dropped my suitcase off in the bedroom I had once shared with Faith and Hope. There were three twin beds placed at different angles, each with a small, wooden desk that Dat had made positioned next to it. The desks were old and worn as many a homework assignment had been done while sitting at them. Mamm had made the quilts on each bed using the scraps of fabric each of us had liked best as the base. They were traditional flower garden quilts that had been on the beds as long as I could remember. Mine was blue, Faith's was purple, and Hope's was green. As I sat down on my bed and ran my hand over the complex pattern of fabric stitched together and sewn by hand by my mother, the tears began to flow.

I raised my hand to my mouth and held in the sobs that were forming in my chest. I couldn't break down now. There wasn't time for me to grieve; my family needed me and I had to step in and keep everything in order until we could figure out how to live without our parents.

"Grace!" Faith called from the living room. "Come down and help with dinner!"

"Coming!" I called as I stood up and looked around the room one more time. No matter how far I'd gone away from the farm, whenever I came home, I felt like a child again. Today my childhood was officially over. I nodded, smoothed my dress, wiped my eyes, and steeled myself for what was about to come.

"Gracie, it's good to see you," Hope said as she signed to Danny to get the glasses out and fill them up. "How was your trip down?"

"Good, it was good," I said as we exchanged silent looks of pain.

"It's good to have you home for a bit," Faith said as she stirred the vegetables cooking on the stove. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Verity bite her lip as she mixed peas into the salad she had fixed.

"It's good to be home," I said trying to keep things from going south before we ate. "Where are Jacob and Samuel?"

"Oh, they're taking care of some farm business," Hope said in a tone that was a little too bright. "We thought it would be nice to have a family dinner here with all of you."

A small sob escaped Verity's lips and I walked over and put my arm around her whispering encouraging words. Danny looked up from his place at the table and signed, "What's wrong with all of you? You seem very sad."

Hope and Faith shot me looks that told me it was time to break the news. I knew the task was going to fall to me, so I slid in next to Danny on the bench at the table and put my arm around him.

"Where's Honor?" I asked.

"Right here," Honor said as she opened the back door and walked into the kitchen, covered in straw and dirt.

"Okay, well, Danny, we are sad because we have to share some very sad news with you," I began. I had no plan for breaking this news to my fifteen-year-old brother, so I just plowed ahead hoping that my sisters would jump in when necessary. "Danny, Mamm and Dat were in an accident this morning."

"Are they okay?" he frantically signed. "Where are they?"

"No, Danny, they're not okay," I said as I felt the tears welling up again. "Danny, Mamm and Dat were badly hurt and they didn't make it."

"Didn't make it home?" he signed hopefully.