An Amish Family Christmas (9 page)

Rebecca looked up from a pan of bread she had just pulled from the oven. “How is it with you?”

Naomi unwound her scarf and took off her coat. “Oh, who knows?”

“How is our bishop?”

“Well enough. I showed him the letters.”

Rebecca bent and put fresh loaves into the cookstove. “I thought you would. How was he with them?”

“He says the
Ordnung
never changes when it comes to matters of war.”

“Of course. What did you expect him to say?”

“I expected him to open his eyes. I expected him to open his heart.”

“Naomi, honestly.”

Naomi flared. “Why not? Is God Old Order Amish? Might he not have something new to say to the people? Might he not want to change a few minds? Soften a few who inside themselves are stone?”

“You’re asking a lot of one bishop, no matter how kindhearted he is.”

“I’m not asking for the moon. I’m only asking for God to have more of a say in this than the
Ordnung.
I’m asking—”

She stopped abruptly.

Rebecca glanced over as she straightened up, closing the oven door. “What? What is the matter?”

She followed Naomi’s gaze.

Luke was standing fully dressed at the bottom of the staircase.

Eight

“L
uke!”

Naomi ran and threw her arms around him, kissing him.

“You’re up...you’re all right!”

Luke’s arms remained at his side. When Naomi pulled back to look at him, he didn’t smile or speak. But his eyes showed more light than she had seen since the accident. He glanced at Rebecca, who had started toward him and stopped. He looked from her to the fresh loaves of bread cooling on the counter. Then he walked past his sister and Rebecca and sat down at the kitchen table. The two women glanced at each other and at him.

“What is it?” asked Naomi. “What do you want, Luke?”

Rebecca went to the cookstove. “I’m pretty sure he wants coffee and some fresh bread with butter and jam.”

She filled a mug with coffee and set it in front of him. He looked at it but didn’t touch it. Rebecca cut two thick slices of bread, put them on a plate, and brought it to him along with homemade butter and blackberry jam. Luke made eye contact with Rebecca, and she
felt a warmth there. He turned in his chair and fixed his eyes on his sister.

“Cream and sugar. That’s what he wants,” she said with a quick laugh. “He always has to have his cream and sugar.”

She took cream from the icebox while Rebecca gave him the sugar bowl. Once he had both in front of him, he put three heaping spoonfuls of sugar in the coffee and poured in a generous amount of cream, stirring them together until the black coffee was a muddy brown. Then he picked up the blue mug and began to drink.

Though he still seemed to be far off in the distance, Naomi couldn’t resist mussing his brown hair and smiling. “My sweet brother and his sweet coffee.”

She was rewarded by Luke shifting his eyes from his coffee and its curl of steam to her face. A small movement of his lips lifted both corners of his mouth. A surge of happiness, flashing light as if it were silver, went through Naomi’s chest.

“Thank you, Lord,” she said out loud. “This is much more than I expected, and it comes much sooner as well.” She hurried to the parlor. “Is Micah in here?”

“No,” Rebecca told her. “He went out to the barn.”

“I must tell him.”

Rebecca smiled. “Another emergency?”

Naomi hadn’t removed her coat and was quickly out the door. “
Ja
. Don’t you think so?”

She found her husband grooming several of the horses inside the large gray barn.

“Micah. Forgive me. I must speak. Luke is up!”

He gave her a puzzled look, stopping what he was doing, brush in hand.

She laughed. “I’m sorry. I mean to say he’s up on his own and dressed. He came downstairs from his room without any help and
now he’s sitting at the table drinking coffee and eating bread and jam. We must tell the doctors. And the bishop and the ministers.”

Micah instantly put the brush on a shelf behind him and ran for the house. As he passed his wife he reached out and gave her arm a squeeze. She followed him inside. Even from across the room she could see fresh life come into Luke’s dark brown eyes as Micah rushed in and wrapped his arms around him, lifting him from his chair. Slowly Luke’s arms went around Micah in return. Naomi had already cried so much that morning, reading the letter of the young soldier’s mother, she didn’t think she had anything left inside her. But tears slipped down her face just the same.

“All of us should have coffee.” Rebecca brought the large pot to the table and put it on a coaster. “And bread. And cheese. It’s lunchtime.”

Micah sat down next to Luke for a few moments, smiling into his face and gripping his shoulder. But when Rebecca and Naomi brought cheese and roast beef to the table, he immediately got up, shook Luke’s hand, and went to the parlor with his plate of bread and meat and a cup of coffee.

Rebecca bowed her head. “Thank you, Lord, for the fruit of the earth and the labor of our hands, which you have blessed. Thank you that Luke is once again sitting at the family table. In Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Luke stared at Naomi as she began to butter a slice of the white bread. She tried to read his expression but didn’t understand what he was saying to her until he flicked his eyes to the parlor door and back to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know how much you remember. You were in an accident.”

His head seemed to move slightly as if in a nod.

“It was very bad. A car struck the buggy. Mama and Papa—” She couldn’t finish the sentence and hung her head a moment. Then she tried again. “It was on the way into Lancaster. The car collided with
our buggy. The horse was killed. Mother and father were killed. Ruth was killed. You were thrown clear and hit your head. Other than that, you weren’t terribly hurt. But your head injury was bad enough. You have been in bed. Hardly able to move. It’s because of the injury you’re not speaking.”

He set down his coffee and left the rest of the food on his plate untouched, focusing all his attention on her.

“Now it is only you and me in this house, you and me and our dear friend Rebecca, who I’ve asked to live with us for a while. Micah, you may remember, enlisted in the army last year and went to Afghanistan as a medic. Now he is back, I thank God, and is living here as well.”

Luke’s dark eyes continued to ask the question that had launched Naomi into her lengthy explanation of what had occurred since the crash.

“Luke, Micah was placed under the
bann
because he went to war. You know that’s what our people do when someone breaks the
Ordnung.
Even though he has returned, he’s not been welcomed back into the community. If he would repent of what he did, the
bann
would be lifted. But he hasn’t and he says that he won’t. He tells us he believes God called him to go to war to save the lives of the wounded.
Ja
, he said this to the bishop and the entire leadership. So the
bann
remains in force. He can’t speak with us, nor can he eat with us. Even though we’re husband and wife, we can’t share the same room, can’t touch. That’s why he’s in the front parlor and we’re sitting here.”

Luke’s eyes remained on her.

“Oh, Luke.” She rubbed her hands over her face. “Micah and I love being part of the Amish community. Both of us want to remain Amish. Our roots are here. Our childhoods.
Ja
, we believe our future is here too despite the difficult circumstances we’re living under right now. So we’re abiding by the
bann
and praying God will work things out somehow. It looks impossible to me. But
seeing you up on your feet and moving around on your own seemed impossible to me a few weeks ago, and look at you now. So the God who has set you free can set Micah and me free as well, can he not?”

Another question formed in Luke’s eyes. It felt strange to Naomi to be conversing with her brother in this fashion, but it also felt strange that she seemed to be able to understand what he conveyed through his face and eyes.

“You haven’t heard Micah’s arguments. I happen to agree with him. I think Rebecca does as well.”

Rebecca nodded, sipping her coffee. “I do, Luke.”

“So that’s not an issue between him and me,” Naomi went on. “However, we haven’t been able to convince the leadership. That means Micah will be shunned until he confesses he was wrong. But he asks us how he can in good conscience say he was wrong to save the lives of men and women injured in battle.” She shrugged. “What can I say to that?”

After he ate, Luke wandered about the house, looking in every room and examining different objects. Several times Naomi and Rebecca watched tears form in his eyes. He picked up an old faceless doll Ruth had played with as a child, his father’s pipe, and his mother’s sewing kit and took them upstairs to his room. Naomi followed him and watched as he arranged the doll and pipe on his bookcase and placed the sewing kit on his bedside table. Then he lay down on his bed and closed his eyes.

Please let the healing continue, Lord
, Naomi prayed.
Inside and out.

She walked across the road to where a small wooden hut held a telephone and called the doctor’s office to explain what had occurred and make an appointment. After that she drove the buggy to the bishop’s house to tell him Luke was up and around but still silent. He praised God and prayed with her and said he and the
ministers would come over the next afternoon. Returning to the house, she found Luke still napping and began to help Rebecca make supper. At five o’clock she wiped her hands on a cloth and smiled at her friend.

“Three at the table and one in the parlor. I’ll wake Luke and fetch Micah if he doesn’t come in from the barn on his own.”

Micah was walking in the door and thumping the snow off his boots when Luke trailed his sister down the staircase. Micah smiled at them and served himself a bowl of cabbage soup along with a plateful of scalloped potatoes and corned beef and peas. Rebecca followed after him into the parlor with coffee and a roll.

“Thank you, Father, for food and shelter this night,” prayed Naomi at the kitchen table. “Thank you for the family you’ve given us here. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

Luke began to eat and then stopped. Naomi saw his eyes travel to the parlor door and back to her.

“He must eat alone,” Naomi reminded Luke. “We’re not to speak with him. That is the
Ordnung.
Micah has agreed to abide by it.”

His eyes locked onto hers and seemed to catch fire. He took his bowl and plate and stood up, crossing to the parlor and going in. Rebecca and Naomi looked at one another. Naomi took Luke’s coffee to him. When she entered the parlor, the two men were eating side by side. Micah looked up and smiled at her. Luke kept his head down and spooned the soup into his mouth.

“What are they doing?” Rebecca asked once Naomi had returned to the table.

“Abiding by the
Ordnung
,” Naomi replied, cutting her corned beef with a fork and knife. “Both are eating in silence.”