Emma Blooms At Last (21 page)

“H
ave a gut day with your cleaning, Daughter,” Wyman said as he pulled the buggy into the Yoders' lane on Monday morning. “This is your last day to work until after Christmas, jah?”

Vera nodded glumly. “I'm to get paid today, too, but that doesn't seem nearly so exciting, with Pete still missing. I've prayed and prayed.”

“Then you've turned your brother's situation over to God, and that's the best any of us can do,” Wyman insisted as he gently lifted her chin with his hand. “No need to carry your problems into the Yoder house. Working cheerfully and well is the way to spend your day. I'll be back for you around two.”

“Thanks for the ride, Dat.”

As Vera opened her door to get out of the rig, Wyman noticed a couple of younger fellows—Cletus's sons, by the looks of them—coming around the side of the machine shed. He waved at them, but they were too focused on his daughter to notice.

“Vera, Vera!” one of them called out.

“Come right here-a!” the other one added with a laugh.

Wyman stiffened. This was his seventeen-year-old girl they were taunting—but she had the sense to ignore them and head straight for the house. When she'd gone inside, the fellows finally waved to him and then headed into the barn, so Wyman turned the rig toward the road again.

He'd gotten a call from the locker that Pete's deer was processed and ready for pickup, so that was his next stop. Amanda and Jemima were pleased about having the deer meat, and they were planning to serve a venison roast when Eddie came home from the mercantile to celebrate the holidays . . . not that Christmas would be the same with Pete still missing.

Better follow your own advice. It's in God's hands, and He knows exactly where your boy is,
Wyman reminded himself.
Better follow your instincts about those fellows catcalling at Vera, too.

Wyman turned the rig around in the next wide spot in the road. He was still kicking himself for not reading Pete more clearly, or being more aware of Reece Weaver's irresponsible ways, so he wasn't taking any chances where Vera was concerned. As his reason for coming back, he would step inside to express Christmas wishes to the Yoders, and if everything appeared to be on the up-and-up for Vera, he'd leave. It didn't hurt to get a look at the house where his daughter was working her very first job, after all.

Wyman drove back into the lane and stopped alongside the tidy two-story white house. As he stepped up to the porch, he noticed how the windows sparkled in the morning sunlight, probably because his Vera had cleaned them recently. What he saw going on in the front room, however, propelled him through the door without bothering to knock.

“Who are you and what do you think you're doing?” Wyman demanded as he strode toward the two young men he'd seen
earlier. They were standing on either side of Vera as she gripped the handle of a broom, and their playful grins told him
exactly
what they had in mind as they flirted with his pretty daughter. “Where's your mamm? Or your dat?”

At close range, the two brothers looked to be twenty-something, both of them sporting English haircuts and clothes. They backed away from Vera, but they didn't seem particularly contrite. “The parents got called down the road to help a neighbor,” one of them replied.

The other one hooked his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans. “We were just making sure Vera could find all the tools she needed.”

“Vera, get your coat.” Wyman gestured toward the door, holding her gaze.

“But Dat, I—”

“No buts. I'll call later and explain to Mrs. Yoder why you won't be working here any longer.”

His daughter's distressed expression tore at him, but as Vera fetched her wraps, Wyman was glad he'd walked in when he had. Scowling at the two young men, he held the door for his daughter and followed her out. She scurried toward the rig with her shoulders hunched, and by the time he'd taken the driver's seat, she was crying inconsolably.

“Nothing was going on,” she protested as Wyman drove them toward the road. “The Yoder boys were only teasing me. I was handling it just fine—”

“I know you believe that, Vera,” he countered gently, “but you were outnumbered. I was the same age as those fellows once, and I—”

“And now I won't get my pay, and I'd hoped to—”

“Money's nothing compared to your safety, Vera. Your reputation, too,” Wyman added ruefully. “It would break my heart if I
so much as
suspected
those fellows had taken advantage of my dear, innocent daughter. I'm sure Cletus and his wife will see it that way as well.”

Vera gulped and sniffled, not answering him.

Wyman sighed. Why were so many unfortunate things happening with his kids? Just when he thought he'd gotten his family settled into the farmhouse in Bloomingdale, all manner of problems were cropping up. He didn't attempt further conversation as he went to the locker and then loaded boxes of white-wrapped packages into the back of the buggy. It was only nine thirty when they returned home, yet Wyman already felt the day had gone sour.

Vera hurried toward the house, her feelings still hurt, as he went into the barn for a wheelbarrow. He was grabbing a box of frozen meat from the back of the buggy when he heard horses' hooves and creaking wheels making their way up the lane behind him. Wags dashed out of the barn and began barking raucously.

“Say there, Brubaker! You remember the parable of the lost sheep?” a familiar voice called out.

Wyman straightened to his full height, not looking behind him. That reedy remark could only have come from Uriah Schmucker, the bishop of the Clearwater district he'd moved away from—and whose farewell had consisted of slamming the door in Wyman's face.

Now what?
Why has Uriah come such a distance to torment me, on top of everything else that's happened?
Considering the way this bishop had smashed Amanda's pottery at the other house, he couldn't welcome this fellow with open arms. But he couldn't ignore Schmucker, either.

“Wags, hush!” Wyman pointed at the overgrown puppy until he sat down beside the barn door, his tail thumping wildly. When he turned, his heart nearly sprang from his chest. Pete—
his
Pete!—
was stepping out of the passenger's side of the buggy, looking rumpled and somewhat sheepish, indeed. But he was home, and all in one piece, and—

Wyman couldn't think for running. He grabbed the boy in a bear hug, aware that he was babbling, but he didn't care. “We thought you were—Pete, we've been so worried that you'd—where have you—”

For the briefest moment, his son hugged him back before shrugging out of Wyman's embrace. “Hey, Dat.”

All the air left Wyman's lungs, but he refrained from launching into a lecture. Uriah Schmucker was standing there, assessing their reunion with a smug smile.

“Remember this boy, do you?” the bishop teased. “Seems he's been hiding out in one barn or another, with his friends sneaking him food. It was the gelding that gave him away.” Uriah gestured toward the large black horse tethered behind his rig. “I heard tell that you'd been to Clearwater a couple-three times trying to find him, so here he is—your prodigal son. A Christmas gift, a few days early.”

“You have no idea,” Wyman rasped as he willed his pulse to return to normal. He extended his hand, keeping his other arm around Pete. “Can't thank you enough, Uriah.”

The wiry fellow cleared his throat in a way that suggested there was more to his story. “Pete, I'm sure the rest of your family will be happy to see you—and they'll be glad when you've had a bath, too. Don't forget your duffel.”

Pete nodded. He kept his head low as he untied Blackie, fetched his belongings from the buggy, and then headed into the barn.

Uriah stepped closer to Wyman, one eyebrow raised. “On the way here, your boy told me you've gotten into a money crunch. Says you've forbidden him to quit school so he could help out.”

“He's only thirteen,” Wyman protested, his hackles rising. “I told him he couldn't—”

Bishop Schmucker held up his hand for silence. “And you did the right thing, Wyman, at least where your son's concerned,” he added. Then his lips flickered. “But if you haven't figured out that Reece Weaver's as crooked as a dog's hind leg—”

Wyman bit back a retort. He wasn't happy that Pete had revealed their financial difficulties, but perhaps Uriah could shed some light on how to handle his elevator situation.

“And that he jumped the fence and went English because there was more profit in it,” the bishop continued in his nasal voice, “then you got what's coming to you. Weaver took advantage of your trusting Amish nature and work ethic, which he himself abandoned after his dat passed on.”

Wyman considered this information. Schmucker hadn't told him anything he didn't already know, but the bishop's words had the ring of experience. He glanced up, waving at Pete as the boy headed for the house. “So how do you know so much about Weaver?” he asked. “You're right. I chose him because his dat built our elevator in Clearwater.”

Uriah rolled his beady eyes. “Weaver built a hog-confinement building for me. Couldn't trust him any farther than I could throw him, and I was ready to throw him out after his first week on the job.”

There was more to this story than Uriah was telling, but Wyman sensed he wasn't going to hear it. And since his former bishop had been good enough to escort his son home, there was only one polite thing to do. “Would you come in for coffee? The girls were baking Christmas cookies this morning . . .”

“Got to move along. Just wanted to be sure your Pete made it home. Boys that age get grandiose notions of what they can do and how far they can go,” Uriah added with a laugh. Then he
nailed Wyman with an intense gaze. “Don't wait too long to do something about Weaver.
He's
got grandiose notions, too. Merry Christmas to you, Wyman.”

“You've just made that wish come true for my entire family.” Wyman held Uriah's gaze for a moment. Moving out of this domineering bishop's district had been the only way he could've held his new family together, but Schmucker had done him a tremendous favor today. Maybe more than one . . .

As Uriah's buggy rolled down the road, Wyman finished loading the venison into his wheelbarrow. Then he went into the barn and picked up the phone.

“Jah, Ray, it's Wyman,” he said when the
beep
came to leave a message. “How about you set us up an appointment with your attorney to deal with Reece Weaver? I'm not cutting him any more slack, after some information I just got from Uriah Schmucker—who, by the way, brought our Pete home just now,” he added happily. “I'll look forward to your callback.”

As Wyman returned to the loaded wheelbarrow and pushed it toward the house, a tremendous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Sure, he needed to have a talk with Pete to be sure the kid had no plans to run off again, and most likely he and Amanda would need to smooth Vera's ruffled feathers. But hadn't this day taken a big turn for the better? It never ceased to amaze him, how the Lord could make everything work out for the best.

“P
ete, I'm sure glad you came home,” Simon said, grinning at his older brother. “Homemade pizza's my favorite, and we don't have it nearly often enough!”

Amanda watched both boys help themselves to another slice, marveling at how much food all the kids were tucking away tonight. Profound relief had filled the kitchen the moment Pete had walked in. After everyone had exclaimed over him, and while his dat was still outside talking to Uriah Schmucker, Pete had quietly apologized to her and Jemima and returned all but a few dollars of the cash he'd taken.

Amanda considered the missing money an investment in his maturity, for Pete then admitted to her that he'd made a foolish mistake, taking off in the night. He seemed genuinely touched when she'd asked what he wanted for supper, to celebrate his return. Freshly showered and wearing clean clothes, he was the picture of contrition as he closed his eyes over another mouthful of cheeseburger pizza.

“So did you really sleep in a barn?” Cora quizzed him.

“Jah, what if a horse
pooped
on you?” Dora added with wide brown eyes. Then she and Alice Ann got the giggles.

“Poop!” the toddler crowed. “Horsey poop!”

“Alice Ann, that's enough, honey,” Amanda murmured near her ear.

Pete looked down at his plate as though he'd rather forget about his days away from home. “I was in the Slabaughs' loft, silly,” he replied. “Tim and Toby, my gut friends in Clearwater, were figuring to join their older brother, who works on a ranch in Kansas. They were going to take me with them, but . . . well, it didn't work out that way.”

“We're glad to have you back, too,” Amanda remarked as she pulled another pizza from the oven. “Sometimes plans like that sound a lot better than they really are.”

“I hope you've gotten that out of your system for now,” Wyman said with a purposeful gaze at his son. “Plenty of time for getting out in the world when you're older.”

“Jah, jah,” Pete replied with an impatient sigh. He'd endured his father's interrogation earlier, and he'd apologized again for the worry he'd caused them, too. “I've
told
you I'll stay in school, so I don't know what else I can say—”

Amanda set the steaming sausage pizza on the hot pad in front of Pete and removed the empty pan. She squeezed Wyman's shoulder when she saw the color rising in his face. “We're all thankful it turned out the way it did,” she insisted as she gazed at her husband, “and we're happy for Vera that Cletus Yoder came by with her pay after he found out what happened there this morning, too. Forgive and forget seems like a gut plan for the rest of our evening.”

Wyman relaxed as Amanda sliced the pizza, and then he reached for a slice. “Could be you're right, Wife,” he murmured.
He winked at her. “I'm hoping that big platter of sugar cookies on the sideboard is for our dessert.”

“Jah, my name's on the yellow star with the sprinkles,” Simon said.

“Pink angel cookie!” Alice Ann piped up. Then she joyfully jammed a chunk of cheese pizza into her mouth, smearing sauce all over her chin.

When everyone had finished eating, Lizzie and Vera ran the dishwater while the twins scraped and stacked the plates. Amanda convinced Jemima to sit down and work on their second quilt for Abby and James, knowing how the colder weather made her mother-in-law's ankles ache. Wyman, Jerome, and Pete headed to the barn for the livestock chores, while Simon raced outside for a final romp in the snowy yard with Wags. It felt so satisfying to have everyone settling into their usual routine again that Amanda was in the mood to think toward the two upcoming holidays.

“Vera, what favorite dishes do you kids and your dat enjoy most for Christmas?” she asked. “With all of us together for the first time, I'd like to celebrate with foods both families like best.”

“Let's have a turkey!” Lizzie replied without missing a beat.

“White Christmas pie,” Jemima called from the front room.

“Dressing with walnuts and raisins,” Vera replied. “We go through a lot of that. And the boys love corn-bread casserole, and Dat likes the cranberry salad you make in the grinder with apples and oranges.”

Amanda nodded, keeping a mental list. “Jah, Jerome loves all of those, too. And he's partial to sliced yams and apples baked with marshmallows over them.”

Dora's eyes lit up. “Marshmallows! Let's have the lime Jell-O salad with pineapple—”

“And the different-colored baby marshmallows, jah!” Cora finished. “And it's green, for Christmas!”

“We'll be sure to have all the ingredients for those,” Amanda replied. “We'll ask the fellows for their ideas when they come in. What with Christmas Day and then Second Christmas meals, we'll go through every bit of that.”

“Can we invite Merle?” Cora asked in a hopeful voice.

Amanda leaned down to stroke her daughter's cheek. “What a thoughtful idea, honey. I asked Abby earlier if they'd like to come, but she didn't give me a for-sure answer,” she replied. “They might go to visit their family in Queen City, you know.”

Dora giggled. “We can make it Jerome's special project, to ask Merle—so that
really
he can see Emma again.”

Not yet five and already a matchmaker.
Amanda had noticed Jerome looking like a man with a plan today, so perhaps Dora's idea would come to pass without any obvious nudging on their part.

As the girls finished in the kitchen, Amanda lit more lamps in the front room. She smiled at Alice Ann, who'd perched on a chair beside Jemima's frame to watch her quilt. The little pixie in pink was running her index finger over the part that was completed, following the simple loops of the quilting stitches that made the basic nine-patch design look a little more special.

“What with my helper beside me, I figure to finish this before I go to bed tonight,” Jemima said. “I recall helping my mamm with quilts this way when I was a wee girl.”

“Me, too,” Amanda said. “I loved seeing how the colors went together in the different designs and picking out the fabrics we'd use from leftover pieces of the dresses Mamm had sewn for me.”

Alice Ann reached in front of her, pointing to a square. “Pink,” she stated. “Like my room.”

And wouldn't it be a good project for all of them to work on after the holidays—a quilt for when Alice Ann graduated to a big-girl bed? Amanda returned to the kitchen and jotted a note about
calling Abby to ask her to gather up some pink fabric remnants from the store. The fellows returned from the barn then, swarthy cheeked and chatting amongst themselves.

Wyman smiled at her. “Remember how Pete and Eddie built the bathroom out in our Clearwater barn because you girls were always in the bathroom upstairs?” he asked. “Well, we've figured out how to use the leftover wood from that project.”

“Birdhouses!” Simon piped up. “I've never seen
any
of those in Sam's mercantile!”

“Treva would probably sell some in her greenhouse store as well,” Amanda added. “I think that's a fine idea!”

“And remember the flowerpots and wind chimes I pieced together from chunks of your broken pottery, before Uriah Schmucker made me stop?” Vera said from the sink. “I'm going to make them again! I'd rather do that than clean houses, anyway, and—well, I hope you don't mind that I saved the pieces of that bowl you broke the other day.”

When Amanda saw Wyman's pleased expression, she smiled as well. “I thought your first ones were wonderful, Vera. I saved all those broken pieces from when Uriah smashed my dishes in Clearwater, too. So you have a couple of boxfuls to work with, in a lot of colors.”

“We Brubakers are becoming quite a cottage industry,” Wyman said as he hung his heavy coat on its peg. “I'm all for that—especially during the winter.”

Amanda smiled at this turn of events, and at the improvement of the emotional atmosphere as well. As Wyman and Jerome headed into the front room, Pete and Simon following, she sensed their family might enjoy its first peaceful evening in several days. She was about to put away the cookie sheets and baking utensils for Vera and Lizzie, when it suddenly seemed like a good idea to head for the bathroom.

She made it just in time to vomit into the toilet. Amanda felt sweaty and light-headed. As she leaned against the bathroom wall, she wondered if something in the pizza had upset her stomach, or if . . .

Quickly rinsing her face with cool water, Amanda waited for her head to stop spinning. This wasn't the first little spell she'd had lately, but it was too soon to say anything. With a smile on her face and a prayer in her heart, she returned to where her family was gathering around the Nativity scene in the front room.

*   *   *

A
s Jerome read the familiar passage from Luke that told of Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem, Wyman felt a sense of satisfaction settle over him. His runaway son was home and had a plan for earning an income. His eldest daughter had decided that working at home was the better option for her. He and Ray had an appointment with the attorney tomorrow. Alice Ann had eagerly climbed into his lap to cuddle. The pieces of this Christmas season were falling into place like a jigsaw puzzle designed by God Himself.

“‘And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger,'” Jerome read in a low, heartfelt voice, “‘because there was—'”

“‘No room in the inn'!” Simon recited with childlike excitement. He'd been moving the pieces of the Nativity set on the table while Jerome was reading, shifting the sheep and the cow and rearranging Mary, Joseph, and the Wise Men around the wooden stable.

Alice Ann looked up at Wyman with a perplexed expression. “But Jesus broke,” she said mournfully. “On the floor.”

“That was a little
statue
of Jesus, just like the figures of Mary and Joseph and the animals are statues,” Wyman explained carefully. With a three-year-old, everything was literal, and the religious
concepts were more than she could grasp. “The real Jesus—His spirit—is everywhere, sweetie. He's right here in our home—in this room—with us, even if we can't see Him.”

Alice Ann gazed around the walls and up at the ceiling, her finger in her mouth.

“He's in our hearts,” Amanda joined in as she placed a hand on her chest, “and He'll live there all our lives if we ask Him to. Jesus can be everywhere at once, with every one of us.”

Alice Ann placed her hand on her chest, and then on Wyman's, as if comparing. “In there?” she whispered.

“Jah.” Wyman felt a rush of goose bumps as his little girl tried to understand this important concept. “So without the glass baby in the Nativity scene just yet, we can say Mary and Joseph are
waiting
for Jesus to come, just like we waited nine whole months for you, Alice Ann, while you grew in your mamm's belly.”

“Jah!” Simon blurted. “We thought you'd never come out so we could see who you were!”

“Just like I was waiting to see Cora and Dora,” Lizzie said with a grin. “But I'm mighty glad they weren't born in a cold, smelly barn.”

“And then there's Simon, who sometimes
acts
like he was born in a barn,” Pete quipped.

Simon arched his eyebrow playfully. “That was a bad one, wabbit,” he teased. “I was born in the same place
you
were, ain't so?”

Wyman chuckled, pleased that the kids from both sides of their blended family were helping explain this mystery to Alice Ann. “But even though Jesus was born amongst the stable animals, God worked everything out for Mary and Joseph and Jesus, so they could be a family—just like we are.”

Alice Ann's eyes lit up. Family was a concept she understood.

Wyman bussed her cheek and went on. “So we wait for Baby Jesus's birth every year at Christmas—”

“There?” Alice Ann pointed her tiny finger at the Nativity set.

Wyman's breath caught. Did he dare promise this impressionable young child that their porcelain Holy Family would be complete by Christmas Day? “He'll come when the time's exactly right,” he replied carefully, glancing at each of the older kids and adults, hoping they'd keep this Christmas mystery alive until the new Christ Child was delivered to the house.

“Gut,” Alice Ann pronounced solemnly. “I wanna see Him!”

Wyman shared a smile with Amanda. The light from the oil lamp glowed around her like a halo this evening as he waited with great love and longing for
her
to bear a child. Now
there
would be reason for celebration, the concrete evidence that their family was growing—the sign and seal that God had chosen to bless them with new life that would strengthen their bonds in a very special way. As he held Amanda's gaze from across the room, he dared to believe that this fondest wish would soon come true.