A Simple Amish Christmas (9 page)

 

Samuel realized he shouldn’t be playing games with little Annie Weaver, and he told himself he wasn’t.

Then she had stared into his eyes for those few seconds.

What had she seen that caused her eyes to blink rapidly, caused her to look away? When she did, he lost all his resolve.

“See something that bothered you?”

“Excuse me?”

He leaned forward in his chair, lowered his voice. “I thought you might have seen something that bothered you, when you glanced at me then looked away. In fact, you suddenly look a little
naerfich
.”

“I am not nervous,” Annie declared, picking up her paper napkin and beginning to shred it into tiny pieces.

“Humph. Usually when people shred things, it’s a way of dealing with uncomfortable situations.”

She jerked her hands into her lap. “Oh, so you’re a psychologist now, are you?”

“No. I’ve observed a bit of human nature in my years is all.”

“Samuel Yoder, you act as if you’re fifty years old, and I imagine you’re not a day over thirty.”

Samuel tugged on his beard, accepted the tea Charity brought them.

“Samuel, Annie.” The girl actually giggled when she looked at Annie. “Nice to see you
both
here.
Mamm
asked me to bring over this basket of sweets for you, in case you wanted an afternoon snack.”

“
Danki
, Charity.” Samuel’s stomach growled so he reached inside the checkered cloth and pulled out a warm, miniature honey bun. “I’m usually not one for sweets, but suddenly I’m starved.”

“Harassing me must work up an appetite.”

Samuel’s laughter rang out through the café, causing a few
Englischers
to stop and look their way.

“I believe that’s what I enjoy about your company, Annie. You don’t mind speaking what you’re thinking—fairly rare these days.”

“Perhaps it’s only rare around you.”

“
Ya.
I think you might be right.” Samuel popped the honey bun into his mouth and sipped his tea.

“Why do you think that is?” Samuel asked, when the conversation seemed stalled.

Annie merely stared at him, not rising to the question. But now Samuel had waded too far into the pond to back out.

It wasn’t like him to stop a woman outside a store and speak to her—a brief nod would be more his style.

And he’d never followed one into a café and sat down beside her.

He didn’t have to worry about making a fool of himself in front of little Miss Annie—he could check “task completed” in that column.

As the sounds around them faded into a comfortable blend of peripheral life, he leaned forward and asked one of the questions that had lately troubled him much, one she had inadvertently touched on.

“Why do you think it is people are so reserved around me?” He picked up another honey bun but didn’t eat it, opting instead to unwind the miniature roll of dough. “I don’t mean they’re rude. Plain people are among the most polite, in my opinion. But it’s as if an invisible barrier exists between myself and others.”

He set the sticky bread down, dabbed at his fingers with his napkin. “It might be that I irritate you—
ya
, I was listening to your words and your body language—but at least with you, the barrier is gone for a moment.”

Annie looked directly into his eyes again, and his pulse kicked up a notch. He waited, but instead of responding, she sipped her tea, looked out the window, sipped her tea again. When he’d about given up, she cleared her throat.

“I noticed the reservation you speak of between
Englisch
doctors and patients too.”

He sat back and waited, knowing there was more.

“There’s a respect, but also a distance.”

Samuel nodded. “I suppose you’re right—though it could be my rude, arrogant, unpleasant personality.”

Annie smiled now, looked up at the ceiling. “
Ya
, I suppose it could be that too.”

“Or?”

“Or it could be—”

“Annie. Samuel. I’m sorry to keep you both waiting.” Rebekah pulled out the chair, still beaming at them both.

Samuel helped her set Annie’s things and his hat at a nearby table.

The conversation changed, and he had a second cup of tea.

He was surprised to find he actually enjoyed their company, as he wasn’t usually one to linger and sip tea in the middle of the afternoon.

But then it could have been that he was gazing across the table at Annie of the beautiful chestnut hair, and though she no doubt took great care to pin it beneath her prayer
kapp
, wayward curls insisted on escaping.

They finished their tea, spoke of the cold weather, even talked of the upcoming holiday. He stayed far longer than he’d planned.

As he said his goodbyes and made his way back out into the lightly falling snow, he couldn’t help wondering what it was that Annie had been about to say—and she
had
been about to say something else.

Why did she think people maintained a distance from him?

Annie was young, but she had a degree of perception that was unusual.

If he were looking for a wife, which he wasn’t, he’d be tempted to court young Annie. And wouldn’t he be earning himself a tongue-lashing then? He could just imagine the list
of adjectives she’d come up with should he ask her to go on a buggy ride.

Somehow though, driving home through the cold winter afternoon—the idea became less humorous and more something he had trouble putting away.

Not that he’d ever act on it.

9

 

S
aturday, Annie helped the rest of her family give the house and barn a thorough cleaning. The Sunday service would take place at their home the next day—ironic since she was being baptized. It did rotate to their place once every twelve weeks. Still, Annie couldn’t help smiling as she beat out the rugs.

Things had worked out better than she could have imagined when she was walking down the streets of Philadelphia, cringing at the brazen holiday decorations.

Then her mind slipped to thinking of Samuel, and she beat the rug a bit harder.

It wasn’t in her nature to avoid a man or a confrontation. But neither did she enjoy disagreements, and the truth was he did make her a bit uncomfortable.

She’d been nervous around doctors before.

Her first rotations had left her more jumpy than Reba’s kitten. The doctors at Mercy Hospital had expected as much though. They’d been patient and kind. They’d also been older, reminding her more of her father than of someone she might consider going on a buggy ride with.

Is that what she was struggling against?

An adolescent crush?

The thought made her blush more than the winter breeze did.

Her father had been back to see Dr. Stoltzfus that morning. The danger of pneumonia had passed. Though the two casts remained, he was now able to move around on crutches.

And though she still needed to check on him, he wasn’t a full-time job for her anymore.

She broached the subject with her mother that afternoon as her
dat
hobbled off to the barn, Adam helping him over the snow so he wouldn’t slip and fall.

“Perhaps I should see about finding a job in town.”

“Why would you say that, Annie?”

“
Dat
doesn’t need me around here all day. The bandages only require changing at night and in the morning. I love working around the house, but more and more I find myself with time on my hands.”

Rebekah stopped kneading the loaves of bread she was preparing for Sunday’s meal and studied her. “You’ve changed, you know.”

“How so?”

“There was a time when you avoided work, and it hasn’t been so long ago.”

Annie laughed. “I suppose you’re right.” She fiddled with a napkin on the table. “So what do you think I should do? Is there someone in town who is hiring?”

Rebekah began kneading the dough again. “How many times last week were you called to families’ homes, to help them with their sick ones?”

“Three, no, four times.”

“It would be difficult to continue helping others as much as you are and also hold a job. If I remember correctly, two of those times you were gone nearly all night. Adam is becoming quite used to sleeping in people’s barns while he waits for
you—not that he minds, but if he didn’t sleep he’d never be able to do his job the next day.”

“
Ya
, but that’s my point. Adam has a job. He contributes. Charity has a job. I’m not contributing to the family. I should be bringing in some income.”

Rebekah gave the bread a final thump. “You’ve been home less than two weeks. I don’t see as our expenses are any more than they were before you returned.”

“But
Mamm
, you know
Dat
feels everyone should work, everyone should contribute.”

“Has your
dat
brought this up with you?”

Annie shook her head.

“ ’Course not, because it’s not bothering him. If it was, he would have mentioned it to me.”

“And still I feel I should be adding something tangible to the household, what with you and
Dat
feeding so many mouths.”

“And you are adding something to our home—our community.” Rebekah reached across the table, covered Annie’s hands with her own, dusting them with the flour from the bread. “Your
dat
is very proud of you, Annie, and so am I. You are helping people in a way that few among us can. So you aren’t paid for it. Why should such a thing matter?”

“I should be earning something,” Annie insisted stubbornly.

Rebekah pulled a pan of vegetables toward her and began slicing them for a stew. “Perhaps God will provide a way you can do both—earn some money and help others.”

Annie shook her head.

“Have you talked to Samuel about this?”

“No.”

“Does he know what you’re doing? About your visits to the other families?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t brought it up and neither have I.” Annie squirmed in her seat, feeling suddenly like a small
kind
with her hand caught in the jar of oatmeal cookies.

“Hmph. He’s a
gut
man, Annie. It might be he’d have some ideas on the subject.”

Annie stood, paced back and forth between the kitchen and living room. They’d removed the partition between rooms for the next day’s service and it gave her plenty of room to walk, but somehow it didn’t ease her restlessness. Finally, she stopped beside the table.

“I didn’t tell you what happened when I first came back, what Samuel said to me.” She drummed the back of the chair with her fingers as she thought back to that day, to the cold and distant man Samuel had been.

Which was the real Samuel Yoder? The one who had scolded her like a child on the porch? Or the one who had spoken to her like a woman while sitting with her at the café?

The way he had initially questioned her commitment to her family still rankled when she thought about it. And his rebuke that her family had a right to know about her nursing degree still irked her.

“There’s actually quite a lot I haven’t told you,” Annie murmured. Then she turned, grabbed her coat, and walked out of the house.

 

Annie told herself she wasn’t running away, but sometimes she feared she’d go crazy unless she broke free of the house’s four walls. Fortunately, today the weather was unseasonably warm. Clouds hung low over the fields.

At breakfast the men had discussed a heavy snowfall that had been forecast—it was due to arrive before Monday. All the
more reason to walk out to the garden now and have a look at what might be.

She’d been in the small fenced-in area less than ten minutes, pacing around and doing her best to remember spring, when her
mamm
joined her there.

“I come here a lot myself.” Rebekah sounded as if she were discussing where to plant the radishes in April, not questioning why her daughter felt the need to rush out into a snow-topped garden on a Saturday afternoon. “Mostly, I walk out this way when I start feeling like I could outrun one of the horses in Jacob’s barn.”

Annie stole a peek at her mother. “I thought you were always perfectly content.”

“No one’s always perfectly content, dear.” Rebekah brushed snow from the top of the fence post, then moved past her into the garden area. “Secrets aren’t always bad, Annie. Unless they weigh heavy on your soul—like the clouds pushing down over our fields.”

Looking out at the land, Annie realized her mother was right.

She’d been carrying this burden around far too long—not just since she’d come home, but since she’d left over three years ago.

“When I went to stay with
aenti
, I continued my schooling. I couldn’t seem to stop. Learning more made me want to learn even more.” She moved closer to her mother, near where the vines would flower and bear fruit in the spring.

“I became a registered nurse,
mamm
. I worked in a hospital with sick
kinner
.”

Rebekah reached out, touched her face as gently as the breeze touched the vine they stood beside. “And I’m expecting you’d be missing those children some days.”

“That’s it?” Annie’s voice rose in disbelief. “That’s all you have to say? I must miss the
kinner
?”

“Well, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

Annie’s thoughts tumbled over one another, as she tried to grasp the gentleness in her mother’s voice, the compassion on her face. “That’s not the point, though. I thought. That is…”

She finally gave up and sat down on an upended milking pail.

“Are you so surprised I would have guessed what you were doing, Annie? You’re my oldest girl. I’ve watched you for twenty years. I know you better than anyone does.”

“But, what I did was wrong. It goes against our teachings, our ways. Tomorrow I’m to be baptized, and I hadn’t even told you of this. I thought you’d be angry with me. I thought…” Her voice fell away like so many leaves scattered in the wind.

“That you needed to hide who you are—what you are— from your parents? Oh, Annie.” Rebekah leaned forward, folded her in an embrace that was softer than the downiest quilt. “We love you because you are our
dochdern
, because you are a beautiful person God has shared with us. And we’re proud of you.”

Taking Annie’s face in her hands, she looked her straight in the eyes, as if this was the most important thing she’d said all morning, perhaps in many years. “Baptism is a committing of yourself to God, to our church and our community. We will speak with Bishop Levi before the service. He already knows of your time with the
Englisch
, but if he thinks a confession is necessary then so be it.”

Annie nodded, brushed at her tears.

“As for the gifts God has given you, I have no doubt he’ll provide a way for you to use them in our community, among
your Amish
schweschders
and brethren. God has a reason for everything, dear one, even our
rumschpringe
.”

Annie stood, walked to the fence, and plucked at the dried leaves of the vine.

“Doesn’t mean it will be easy, finding a way to fit your
Englisch
gifts into our community,” her
mamm
continued. “Plain folks can be stubborn regarding any type of change.”

Swiping at her nose, Annie attempted a laugh. “And so our conversation has come around full circle. If we’re talking about stubborn Amish, you must be referring to Samuel Yoder. I’ve never met a man more mulish.”

Arms linked, they turned and began walking back toward the house.

“I won’t deny that, but tell me about the night you came home—about what Samuel said to you.”

So she did.

They discussed the evening Annie stepped into her father’s room and saw him lying in his bed, and how Samuel had challenged her willingness to stay and care for him. By the time they’d gained the porch steps, the sky had grown darker, though it was still early in the afternoon and the temperature had not yet turned.

“Annie, I wish you could have known Samuel before. He was quite a different person.”

“Before what?”

“The accident. Before his
fraa
and
boppli
died. Samuel was more like Adam then—maybe not as quick with a laugh, but always smiling, always with a light in his eyes.”

Rebekah sat down in the rocker, and Annie sat beside her, curious to hear the entire story, though some part of her wanted to turn away from it.

“It wasn’t his fault, but he blamed himself. He was out on a call, and Mary tried to drive the buggy over to a neighbor’s.
She made it to the Lapp’s and should have stayed the night.” Rebekah’s voice came from a distant place—one full of heartache, one people knew existed but preferred to forget about until life thrust them into its path again. “No doubt Mary thought there was time for her to make it home.”

“There was a storm?” Annie asked.

“
Ya.
It had been threatening all day, but we all thought it might hold off until morning. When it hit, well, it had the fury of a hard, driving rain—only it was snow.”

Annie waited, barely daring to breathe.

“Later they realized the horse must have lost its way.”

Silence surrounded them as Rebekah sank into the memory. Finally, she sighed, shook herself from it.

“They weren’t found for a day. It broke that man’s heart. He’d helped so many, but he couldn’t help Mary and little Hannah. Samuel wasn’t the same afterward. It was as if he became frozen.”

“I remember a little of it, a bit of the funeral.”

“You children were very young. The community turned out for them, but I doubt Samuel noticed. His grief was a heavy burden, still is, I imagine. After the accident, being around other families became a difficult thing for Samuel. I think it reminded him of all he’d lost.”

“Is that the reason he’s sometimes so angry?”

“I don’t know if
anger
is the correct word. You know our ways, Annie. After watching you these two weeks, I believe you’ve accepted them.”

Annie began to interrupt her, but Rebekah held up a hand to silence her.

“I do believe you’ve put your
rumschpringe
behind you and fully embraced our faith.”

“
Mamm
, I’m joining the church tomorrow morning.”

“True. But occasionally sons and daughters will do so to please their parents. With you, I believe it’s more. With you, I believe it’s a true reflection of your heart.”

This time Annie didn’t interrupt, merely nodded and watched her mother intently, waiting.