Merry's Christmas: Two Book Set (Amish) (17 page)

“No bother,” Hope replied. “Company might be nice, now that Ivan and I won’t be seeing much of each other.” 

Leanne could relate. Boy, could she ever. She knew exactly what it was like to be deleted like somebody’s unread spam. How it was that a guy could be so into her one minute, then onto someone else the next, she’d never understand. The bizarre thing was that Hope didn’t seem all that upset, nothing like the blubberfest Leanne knew she’d been when she first hit town last summer. “Not to hack into your network, but was this your choice?”

“Yeah, but...it’s complicated.” Hope hung her coat and hat on a hook near the door.

Better not push it. Fine. Hope didn’t want to talk about Ivan. Okie skimokie. Just because they’d be rooming together didn’t mean they had to go all Truth or Dare besties with each other.

“You allergic to cats?”

Leanne scanned the apartment warily. “Uh...I dunno. Doubt it.”

Hope shrugged. “Guess I should have asked you that before you climbed all of those stairs, but...” She checked around the wall to the kitchen. “Smokey!  You gonna to show yourself?” 

Apparently Hope’s cat wasn’t going to make an appearance.

Fine by me.

Hope turned back around. “Aloof little diva. But don’t be surprised if she snuggles up to you at night.  Has to be at her option, of course.”

Just then, a small, charcoal-colored cat peered tentatively around the door to the spare room. Leanne reasoned that she should probably make nice. She took a tentative step in Smokey’s direction.

“Take it slow,” Hope advised. “She still has claws.”

“I have a dog,” Leanne mentioned.  “Coco.  At home and all.” Leanne squatted down. Yow. Not the easiest thing to do in her condition. She brushed her fingers on the floor. Maybe Smokey would come to her.

Hope smiled, remembering. “We had dogs, too.  Dogs and cats and horses and sheep and cows and goats and you name it.”

Leanne peered up at Hope, surprised. “You lived out in the sticks?”

Hope nodded, her lips pressed together. There was a wistful flicker in her eyes. “Yeah, till I was about your age. I did.”

three

B
y the light of a lantern, Charity cranked her father’s freshly washed cotton shirt through their wringer. The fabric was wearing at the elbows, she noted. It would need to be patched.

Charity watched quietly as her father and grandfather busied themselves across the room, replacing a broken chair rung. As much furniture as they made and sold, theirs was always the last to get attention.

Opa smiled at her, a familiar twinkle in his eye. He nudged Dat. “Every time I look at her, I still see her mother.”

“
Ja, ja,
” Dat agreed. “More all the time.”

“Same hair, brown as mahogany, same fine bones, same pale blue eyes.”

  Charity lowered her gaze. Never would she begin to say such things of herself, but it warmed her to hear Opa say them to Dat. All these years, Dat had missed Mamm so. What a privilege it was to remind him of her.

Charity shook the wrinkles out of Dat’s damp shirt. What a shame she couldn’t remember Mamm better. Flashes of Mamm’s face were sweet, but so very fleeting. Fainter still were echoes of Mamm’s voice. Just when she thought she’d captured one, it drifted from her grasp.

Dat looked up again as he set the broken rung aside. “You need not do wash tonight.”

Since his labors continued, why shouldn’t hers? “One less thing in the morning. I want to get an early start to market.”

A draft blew in as the door flung open. Aaron and Isaac hurried in, then latched the door for the night.

Dat looked up from the chair. “What kept you two so late? Your sister made a fine pot pie.”

Isaac hung his hat. “We ate ourselves full at the Beachey’s.”

Dat nodded pleasantly. “Did you, now? It wonders me about what else went on there.”

Aaron ambled into the room. “They showed us the milking machines they got.”

Charity averted her gaze. Dat would be kind, but he would not like the sound of that.

“And what did you think, then?” Dat asked.

“Tell him, Isaac,” Aaron prodded.

Isaac moved to his brother’s side. Aaron gave his arm a nudge. “Tell him what you told me.”

“Well... It’s just...” Isaac scratched his head. “I was thinking on it awhile, how they got the electric milking machines approved.”

“For business,” Opa underscored.

“Right,” Isaac hesitated.

Again, Aaron prodded his twin with a look.

“Okay, okay.”

Dat dusted off his knees. “Aaron, let your brother decide what he will say, before he says it.”

Isaac took a breath. “Think how much more furniture we could make. We’d have more to sell if we got some equipment like they use in the other districts. They have lathes and saws and sanders. The bishop said he’d allow it.”

Charity watched as her father paused. He would have just the right response for her brothers.

“Tell me, Isaac. What message did Opa share with all of us, last Sunday meeting? Aaron, you may answer. If you call it to mind.”

Aaron looked completely stumped.

Isaac’s head drooped. “Not everything that is permitted is best.”

“
Sehr gut
, Isaac. So, you were listening.”

“
Ja
, Dat. And Opa. I heard.”

Dat put his hand on Isaac’s shoulder. “There are many things that other people do that we choose not to do. Even other Amish. Hear me that I do not fault you for asking.” Dat glanced between the two of them. “Your Rumspringa years will come to an end, now-once. You will both have to decide these things for yourselves yet. Even Gott will not take that choice from you. But until that time, as long as you live under this roof, this is my decision. We have made fine furniture without English electricity for many generations in this family. We will continue to do that. Do you understand?”

Isaac nodded. Dat turned to Aaron. Aaron accepted it, too. The two of them headed up the stairs to their room. It was over.

Charity picked up her father’s jacket. She fished through its pockets, emptying them in preparation for washing.

Dat cast a glance her way. “Daughter, tell me. Do you dislike Daniel?”  

The question was startling, so out of the blue. “Dislike him? Not at all. I just have work to do.” She pulled a sealed envelope from the pocket of Dat’s jacket, her mind awhirl. It was just like Dat to pick up mail and on his way back from town, and then forget it was in his pocket. Just not on washday.

As her grandfather steadied the chair legs, her father edged the new rung into place with a mallet. “You might take some time for yourself, like the others do. I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy, Dat. I hardly need to run around to know where I belong.” Charity glanced at the envelope she held in her hand. It was forest green in color, like the holly along the edge of their woods.  The envelope felt stiff, as if it contained a card. Above the New York City return address was a woman’s name:

Hope Bright.

Charity looked up, as stunned as she was curious. Never had she known of another woman in their family, not since her grandmother died. “Who is Hope?”

Opa clouded with concern, but Dat maintained his usual composure. He busied himself righting the chair. “No one to us, Child.”

Charity examined the envelope, puzzled. As reluctant as she was to challenge Dat, something about it prickled her inside. “But her last name is Bright, like ours.”

Dat wordlessly crossed to her and held out his hand. “Trust me, Charity. You were not meant to see this. And you would best forget that you did.”

Everything inside Charity begged. Pursue it. “But Dat...”

His voice was gentle, yet firm. “
Guten nacht
, Charity.”

Dat asked very little of her. So, when he did, she felt more than obliged to obey. She relinquished the envelope to him. Wistfully, she watched as he left the room. “
Guten nacht
, Dat.”

Charity’s gaze turned to Opa as he put his woodworking tools away for the night. There had been no mistaking the recognition she’d seen in his eyes. “Is she anything to you, Opa?”

Her grandfather contemplated the question for a while, a long-buried pain resurfacing on his face. “Some things are best unsaid.”

“Then she is,” Charity supposed.

Regret etched across Opa’s expression. “She was.”

As tired as she’d been from the long day’s work, Charity slept very little that night. Hour after hour passed. She did everything she knew to coax her eyes to stay shut. Maybe rolling over would help. It didn’t.

She really should take advantage of the time she had left. Dat always said he needed to “sleep two rows at a time” to make up for restless nights like this. How in the world could she actually do that, any more than a farmer could plow two rows at once? Try as she might to nod off, nothing stopped her curious mind from stirring.

It was unsettling to realize that the Bright family tree extended beyond what she had supposed. All of her life, she’d hung the sole black bonnet on the rack by the door, beside the four black hats of her father, grandfather, and brothers. Who was this Hope—a woman with their last name—living outside in the English world?

Finally, the night ended. Most of it, anyway. And just like that, Charity was twenty. She rested a hand against her throat. She would make nothing of this milestone. Yet, she knew. A great and ominous divide had been crossed, and there would be no return.

Before the sun, Charity rose. She put on a clean dress and apron, then twisted her waist-length tresses into a neat bun at the back of her head.
Careful
, she reminded herself as she situated her mother’s starched white kapp into place. She would make this memento last.

Charity had loaded her goods into the family buggy many times while Dat bridled the horse. It was their regular routine. But something about this morning felt different, in ways she could not describe. It wasn’t her place to question her father, but rather to trust his wisdom about whatever had happened within their family.

It wasn’t a blind faith she had in him. It had been tried and tested over the years growing up in his devoutly run household. Still, she couldn’t help hoping that he would answer the many questions that tugged at her mind.

Stroking their horse’s mane, Dat finally spoke. “I could take this load in myself, you know. It is, after all, your birthday. You could stay. You could be here to receive Daniel.”

Whatever did he mean by that? Had Daniel said something? Shyness swept over her. She dropped her gaze. “You like him for me.” 

“Daniel is a fine young man.  You would be wise to notice.”

She couldn’t prevent a slight smile from curling. “I have noticed.”

Her father moved toward the buggy. “You keep your secrets well.”

“Like you, Dat.”

For a moment, her father stopped, clearly conflicted. “She was my sister.”

Charity took the truth in, quietly stunned. “You have a sister?  I have an aunt?” It was so strange to even say those words.

The cloud that crossed Dat’s face was nothing short of grief. Charity watched him, transfixed. He expelled a heavy sigh. “You are twenty today. I suppose you are old enough to know, now. I had a younger sister,” he allowed. “Once. But no longer. It was her choice.”

Charity felt her eyes mist. Quickly, she blinked. What if Dat noticed? He might think her less mature than she wanted to appear. “She was shunned?”

Faintly, Dat acknowledged the hard truth. “It was after your Mamm died. Hope was about your age then. You were only three. Next to me, your mother was her dearest friend, and she... Well, she never got over Grace dying that way.” Dat stared into the distance. “So, she left. She had already been baptized, but she said she had rushed into it too young. She wanted to go back and start her Rumspringa again, as if she had never ended it.”

Inwardly, Charity grappled for understanding. “Go back out?” Many enjoyed Rumspringa into their early twenties. But the idea of going back to resume Rumspringa after being baptized Amish—that was entirely new. “Is that ever done?”

Dat shook his head. “Not with the blessing of the church, not after baptism. That is for sure and certain.” Dat’s eyes dropped. “She was devastated over Grace. So ferhuddled, doncha know. She wanted to turn back time. Make her choices all over again. It always wondered me if she called it what she did because, deep inside, she knew she would want to come home, when she was a bit older.”

Quietly, something burned in Charity’s heart.  “Do you still think there’s a chance? Maybe she still misses us.” 

“
Ja
, I never doubt that she does. When she left, she said she could hardly stand to part with you and your baby brothers, even for a day. But there was this faraway look in her eye and...” Dat slouched. “Seventeen years, now. And she never came back.”

Charity studied her father intently. “But she writes to you.”

“Every Christmas.”

“What does she say?”

Dat moved toward the barn door. “I return the cards unopened, but not before many prayers.”

It was Charity’s turn to exercise restraint. She knew her father to be a man of deep communion with Gott.

“Perhaps it seems harsh,” he went on, “but she does know where and how we live. If shunning draws her home yet, then it is not rejection. Not at all, Charity. It is the deepest kind of love.”

Dat guided the horse and buggy toward the market where they sold their wares. A small boy pointed them out to his mother as they crossed the busy street. The mother urged her son onward, but he still continued to stare. Even in small town traffic, they stood out so. Charity was accustomed to the attention they always drew among the English. As humbly as they went about their business, there were always plenty of gawks and whispers, not only from the town folk, but also from visiting tourists.

Being the center of attention wasn’t something Charity relished. Plus, with so many cell phones out there, almost all the English had some kind of a camera now. Politely dodging their photographs was more challenging than ever.