The Christmas Courtship

by Emma Miller

  “Phoebe’s son,” Joshua corrected, trying to temper his anger. He just couldn’t believe Edom would do such a thing as to try to take a child from his mother. He’d had an idea Edom wasn’t a good man, but this went beyond his understanding. “John is Phoebe’s son but technically not Edom Wickey’s grandson. Edom isn’t Phoebe’s father, but rather her stepfather.”

  Benjamin eyed his son. “You’re talking about going there and back in the same day?”

  “Ya.” Joshua slid his hands into his pants pockets. “I’ve already talked with Shorty Davies. He can take us up and back in his van. He says it will be a long day, but he used to be a truck driver before he retired. Says he’s used to long days.” The sixty-five-year-old was their neighbor. He’d told Joshua that he hadn’t taken well to retirement and that was why he spent his days as a hired driver for the Amish in the area. “And Bay says she’ll go with us,” Joshua added.

  “So you won’t give Eunice Gruber reason to talk. A single man and a single woman, unescorted. Good thinking.” Benjamin flipped the seat back over and picked up the stapler. “Well...if you think this is best, you have my blessing. I like Phoebe. She’s good to Rosemary and the littles love her to bits. Her past is no reason for her stepfather to treat her this way. Or the boy. A child that age belongs with his mother.”

  “It’s settled.” Joshua tapped the edge of the workbench with his knuckles. “We’ll go tomorrow and bring the little one home.”

  “Ya, but any trouble—” Benjamin met his son’s gaze “—and you use Shorty’s cell phone and you call me.” He stroked his rusty-colored beard, which was beginning to gray. “And I’ll come up there myself and get the boy.”

  Joshua grinned. “Danke, Dat.” He turned to go, but his father called his name. “Ya?” he said, looking back.

  “I know some see pride in their children as hockmut. But I don’t see it that way.” Benjamin turned on the wooden stool he sat perched on and removed the glasses he wore for doing close work. “I’m proud of you, sohn. That you would take up for Phoebe when she has no man to do it for her.”

  Embarrassed by his father’s praise, Joshua nodded, not making eye contact with him. “We leave at five thirty tomorrow morning. I’ll use Shorty’s phone to call you at the shop and let you know once we have the boy and we’re safely on our way home.”

  Joshua walked out of his father’s workshop and hurried through the dark barn, eager to tell Phoebe the arrangements were made.

  He was nervous to come face-to-face with Edom. After all the things Phoebe had told him, he didn’t much like the man. But he was also excited to bring Phoebe’s son home, because if everything worked out the way he was praying it would, he’d be bringing home his own son, too.

  Chapter Eight

  Phoebe sat on the middle seat of the van beside Bay, twisting her fingers together in her lap. She stared out the window. There had been a heavy snow the evening before in northwestern Pennsylvania, so heavy that she had feared the driver Joshua had hired would cancel their trip. But as promised, he had shown up early that morning at the Miller house to take them to New Wilmington to fetch John-John. Rosemary and Benjamin had seen them off with egg and scrapple sandwiches and two large thermoses of hot coffee for breakfast, which was enough for Phoebe, Bay, Josh and their driver. There were also sandwiches and cold salads for lunch. The plan was to stop for dinner somewhere on the turnpike, once they were on their way home.

  They passed the road sign welcoming them to New Wilmington and a heaviness settled in Phoebe’s stomach. It wasn’t that she wasn’t excited to see her little boy, to feel him in her arms again, because she was. But she was dreading the confrontation with Edom, a confrontation she knew would take place. There was no way he would simply allow Phoebe to walk out of the house with her son. And she was worried about Joshua’s safety. What if Joshua defended her and Edom became violent? She knew from experience that her mother wouldn’t intervene. Elsie Wickey was either unwilling or unable. Phoebe wasn’t sure which. Her only hope was that Joshua would keep a cool head even if her stepfather did not.

  Phoebe couldn’t imagine what this trip had cost Joshua. She’d tried to find out the last time they had stopped to use the restroom. He’d bought everyone, including the driver, a hot chocolate with fluffy marshmallows at Starbucks. He’d also bought them crunchy gingerbread cookies called biscotti. And refused to let her pay for her own drink or tell her how much it had cost him to hire a driver and van for the day. He kept telling her not to worry about it, but she had promised she would pay him back. She wasn’t even sure how she would do it. She had little money of her own. But she and Bay had been talking about making wreaths for other seasons, and she had suggested ones made from grapevines that could be decorated in various ways. An hour later they had a plan to make not just grapevine wreaths, but swags to go over doors and such, and Bay had offered to pay her to make them. The idea was to sell them in the greenhouse shop Bay and Joshua hoped to have built by spring.

  “Phoebe, you okay?” Joshua asked gently from the front passenger seat of Shorty’s minivan.

  Phoebe glanced at Bay, who was knitting while staring out the window, tapping her foot to Christian music playing on the radio. Technically, they weren’t supposed to listen to radios, but Joshua had assured them that because it was Shorty’s vehicle and he had chosen Christian music, it was okay. Apparently, Bay loved music like this, because she was so focused on the tunes that she wasn’t paying any attention to Phoebe and Joshua.

  “I’m all right,” Phoebe said, keeping her voice down. “Just nervous.”

  “No need to be,” he insisted. He reached out as if he was going to take her hand and then pulled back, she suspected for fear Bay might see him. “I’ll be right there with you.”

  Phoebe closed her eyes, saying a prayer. She thanked God for Joshua and asked Him to deliver her son safely into her hands. “You don’t know Edom,” she said when she opened her eyes again. “He’s going to be very angry.”

  “He’ll have to deal with that anger himself, Phoebe. Because that’s not our problem.” His tone sounded confident and strongly masculine. “You’re doing nothing wrong.”

  She glanced out the window again and saw her own reflection in the glass. She had dressed carefully in the same clothing she’d been wearing when she had gotten on the bus almost two months ago to go to Hickory Grove. She wore her black dress, black stockings, black shoes, black dress bonnet over her prayer kapp and the heavy black wool coat that had been a hand-me-down from years ago. Clothes that didn’t seem like they belonged to her anymore. Not when she had a blue dress and a green one and a new cloak Rosemary had sewn for her.

  “I just want this to be over,” she said softly.

  “And it will be.” He met her gaze, his dark brown eyes warm with caring. He was dressed in his Sunday clothes of all black, and a black hat and coat. “We’ll be in and out of there in a couple of minutes. You get your son and bring him back to the van, where Bay, Shorty and I will wait. Then you go back in for anything you want, anything of yours or John-John’s.”

  “I don’t want anything of Edom’s,” she said, shaking her head adamantly.

  Joshua opened his arms wide. “Then this will be even quicker. Before you know it, we’ll be on the road heading south. And you’ll have your son, and no one will separate the two of you again.” He hesitated. “Okay?” he asked gently.

  She couldn’t resist the faintest smile. His optimism was contagious. “Okay,” she responded.

  Ten minutes later, they pulled into her stepfather’s barnyard, which in no way resembled Joshua’s father’s place. While the Miller farm was neat and orderly, Edom Wickey’s place was not so well cared for. The dilapidated farmhouse was a two-story frame structure with tall brick chimneys at either end. Behind and to the sides loomed several barns, sheds and outbuildings, all missing shingles and in need of repair. A derelict windmill, missing
more than half of its blades, leaned precariously to one side. None of the recent snow had been cleared, and a dog barked hungrily from atop the doghouse it was chained to. The two driving horses in the pasture looked thin and cold and were without blankets.

  Phoebe saw the state of unkempt property register on Joshua’s face, but he said nothing.

  “Pull up there please, Shorty,” she instructed, pointing to the back porch.

  The moment the van rolled to a stop, Joshua was out of the van. He opened the sliding door and offered his hand to Phoebe, who was already out of her seat belt.

  “We’ll be back in a couple of minutes,” Joshua said.

  “I’ll move the car seat up,” Bay offered, setting down her knitting. “John-John will want to sit with his mother.”

  “We can sit in the back.” Phoebe stepped down out of the van and into the snow without Joshua’s aid. “I don’t mind,” she told Bay.

  “Nonsense. I like the back. I might even stretch out and take a nap on the way home.”

  Phoebe heard the screen door of the back porch open and then close. She turned, steeling herself to see Edom. To her relief, it wasn’t him, but her mother.

  “Phoebe!”

  Elsie Wickey was a tall, thin, sallow-faced woman with a narrow beak of a nose, a wide mouth and very little chin. But to Phoebe, she had always been beautiful. “Mam,” Phoebe croaked, running through the snow and up the rickety porch steps to throw her arms around her mother’s bony shoulders.

  “What are you doing here?” Phoebe’s mother asked, hugging her daughter tightly. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  Phoebe drew back, wiping a tear from her cheek. “I had to come back, Mam. For John-John.”

  Her mother’s thin mouth twitched. She looked older to Phoebe than she had when she’d left. And she appeared tired and sickly. Her nose was running and cheeks chafed. “Edom won’t allow it.”

  “I’m sorry, Elsie, but that’s not up to him.” Joshua took the porch steps two at a time. “I’m Joshua Miller, Rosemary’s stepson. Benjamin’s son.”

  Phoebe turned to Joshua. “Joshua and Rosemary’s daughter Bay brought me here to fetch John-John. I’m taking him, Mam. Back to Hickory Grove.”

  Her mother hesitated, then grasped her daughter’s forearm. “Hurry then. Edom’s expected back anytime.” She held open the back door that was sagging on its ill-fitting hinges. “John-John’s in the kitchen with the girls.”

  Phoebe turned to Joshua, embarrassed by the condition of the house. Everywhere paint was peeling, the clapboard siding was rotting, and the porch posts were leaning, the sagging rails, on their last legs. “Wait here,” she instructed. “I’ll be just a moment.”

  He didn’t seem happy with her request. “Are you sure?”

  Phoebe nodded quickly and then leaned forward to whisper to him. “Watch for him. Call me if he comes up the lane. I want to see my sisters and brothers. Just to be sure they’re all right.”

  The look on Joshua’s face suggested he was debating whether or not to do as she asked, but after a moment he nodded sharply. “Hurry. It would be best if we could be out of here before he returns.”

  Phoebe reached out and gave his bare hand a squeeze, then followed her mother into the house. Phoebe didn’t take off her shoes even though she was tracking snow into the house. She didn’t intend to stay long enough to need to remove her shoes. They passed through the dark mudroom, where there were piles of laundry on the floor, and into the kitchen. The low-ceilinged room was lit by kerosene lanterns hanging from the exposed, smoke-stained beams overhead. It was nearly as cold inside as it was out. She glanced at the wood stove. “Mam, have you no wood?”

  “We have wood,” she murmured. “But Edom has taken to doling it out. I have to save it for cooking.”

  The moment they entered the kitchen, her four stepsisters and youngest stepbrother began calling her name, squealing with excitement and all talking at once, obviously happy to see her.

  “Schweschder!”

  “Schweschder!”

  “Phoebe!” Seventeen-year-old Ephrath squealed and ran across the kitchen to throw her arms around her stepsister’s shoulders.

  Phoebe hugged her tightly. “Ephrath. It’s so good to see you.”

  “Did Mam tell you?” she whispered. “I’m to be married. Next month.”

  “Married?” Phoebe drew back, staring at her. “But you’re so young to marry.”

  “I’m going to get out of here,” her younger sister whispered in Phoebe’s ear. “His name is Noah and he lives in Ohio.” She clasped her red, chapped hands together excitedly. “I’m moving to Ohio!”

  Phoebe met her gaze. “This is what you want?”

  Ephrath nodded. “I’ve not yet met him, but—”

  “Not met him?” Phoebe interrupted, trying to keep her shock from her voice. She turned to her mother. “You’re marrying her off to—”

  “Ne, ne. I want to marry Noah,” Ephrath insisted. “We’ve been writing.” Her thin cheeks grew rosy. “He’s very kind. He’s an apprentice to a mason. He says he can build our house himself come spring.”

  Phoebe sighed, letting her arms fall to her sides. She and Rosemary had had a talk the night before. Phoebe had expressed her feelings of guilt that she and John-John were escaping life with Edom, but her mother and stepsiblings were not. Rosemary had insisted that she had to concentrate on her son and herself and have faith that God would protect those she loved.

  “Mam will give you my address in Hickory Grove, then,” Phoebe told her stepsister. She grasped her hands. “Write to me once you’re married.”

  Ephrath bounced up and down on her toes. “Of course.”

  Phoebe looked around the cold, dim kitchen. Though it was spotlessly clean, it was as in need of repair as the exterior of the house and the outbuildings. Several panes in the window above the sink were covered in cardboard, the glass broken for many years. The paint on the walls was peeling, and the beams overhead were black with smoke. “Where’s John-John?” she breathed, suddenly just wanting to grab him and run from the house.

  “He was here a second ago. John-John? Where are you?” Ephrath called in Pennsylvania Deutsch.

  “John-John?” Phoebe was suddenly near to tears. “It’s your mam. Where are you?”

  And then she spotted him, peering out from under the wobbly kitchen table.

  “Mammi?” he said in a tiny voice.

  “Oh, John-John.” Phoebe crouched down, opening her arms to him.

  For a moment he hesitated, looking at her with solemn eyes that reflected his father’s. Then his rosebud mouth turned up in a smile and he crawled out from under the table on all fours.

  “Oh, John-John,” Phoebe breathed, pulling her son into her arms. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply. He smelled as if he needed a good wash in the tub with a bar of soap, but he also had that scent of the child born of her own body that she would never forget. “Mam’s come to take you home,” she whispered in his ear. “Home to our new house.”

  The little boy clung to her. “Mammi,” he kept saying. “Mammi.”

  Phoebe hugged him for another moment and then stood, lifting him into her arms. She wiped at her eyes as she turned to her mother. As she spoke, she moved from one sister to the next and then to her little brother, hugging them all. “His coat and hat, mam? We should go now.”

  “Phoebe?” Joshua called through the screen door. His voice sounded deeper and more sober than she had ever heard before. “There’s a rig coming up the lane.”

  “It’s Edom!” Phoebe’s mother cried, bringing her hands to her head, which was covered in an old scarf. “Phoebe, you have to hurry.”

  One of Phoebe’s little sisters began to cry, and Phoebe rushed out of the kitchen carrying John-John. “I’m coming!” she called. “Where’s his coat? It’s bitter out.”


  “He shares one with Saul,” Phoebe’s mother said. She grabbed an old quilt from a pile of dirty clothes on the laundry room floor.

  Unlike most Amish homes, they did not have modern appliances running off a generator or propane. Her mother still washed clothes in an old-fashioned ringer washer and hung everything to dry. In the winter, when clothes would only freeze on the line, they hung them in the attic. And because washing was so time-consuming, her mother sometimes fell behind on washing day, causing clothes to pile up.

  “Wrap him up in this,” her mother told her, putting it around John-John’s shoulders.

  “Not your grossmama’s quilt,” Phoebe protested. “It’s the only thing you have left of hers.”

  “Go,” her mother insisted, pushing her toward the back door, where Joshua waited for them.

  “Get into the van,” Joshua instructed, waving her through the door. Though his face was lined with concern, his tone was gentle. “Now, Phoebe. I’ll handle this.”

  “Joshua.” Phoebe gazed up into his dark eyes. “This isn’t your fight.”

  “It became mine when I met you,” he whispered in her ear as she went by.

  “Will you be all right, Mammi?” Phoebe asked over her shoulder as she hurried across the porch, wobbly with its soft spots where it had rotted through.

  “Go, dochtah. Don’t worry about me,” her mother fretted. “He always comes to his senses once he calms down.”

  Phoebe didn’t know that she agreed with her, but what she did know was that her first responsibility was to the safety of her child, even above her mother. Most certainly above herself.

  As Phoebe hurried down the steps, clutching John-John to her, covered by the quilt, the sliding door to the van flew open and Bay stood there, her arms out. “Pass him to me,” she murmured.

  “I don’t know if he’ll come to you.”

  “Here we go, little one,” Bay cooed in Pennsylvania Deutsch. She reached for him.

  It was difficult for Phoebe to let go of her son, but Edom had just pulled up in his buggy. He had angled it so that Shorty couldn’t pull away in the van without risking startling or harming the old driving horse.