Glenn blinked back sudden tears, relieved that Marietta remained unaware of the emotional roller coaster he was riding. He’d made some serious mistakes and some very self-centered assumptions during his time in the Helfing household. He needed to make amends so Marietta would know how much he appreciated all she and her sister had done for him and his family . . . without expecting anything from her in return.
Fear not! For behold, I bring you tidings of great joy . . .
Joy. It had been so long since Glenn had experienced joy, he’d forgotten how it felt. As the crowd around him began a rousing rendition of “Joy to the World,” he felt encased in a bubble, separated from their exuberance. He needed to pop that bubble and emerge into a fresh new existence—no, a whole new life, with a new attitude—before Marietta would give him another chance.
If she was to become his wife, it would be because she fell in love with him.
Glenn understood that now. As she stood so close to him, holding little Levi, Marietta reminded him of Mary with the baby Jesus. She had a soft glow about her, a wholesome purity and strength that he admired more than he could say.
The realization stirred something within him. Just as Mary had gained favor with God when He’d chosen her as the mother of His Son, Marietta stood far above other women Glenn knew—and she’d not consciously sought such a position. She was just an innately good woman.
Glenn sighed. How could he possibly become good enough to deserve her? If he was to find the happiness with Marietta that he so deeply desired, he needed to pay a lot more attention to her—needed to show her exactly how special she was . . .
Fear not! For unto you is born a Savior—Christ the Lord!
And hadn’t he seen evidence of Jesus and His love at every turn lately? Gabe and Pete and Howard and all the men who’d built his family a new home . . . Bishop Jeremiah, with his wise, patient counsel . . . the ladies who’d unfailingly provided lunch at the construction site . . . the friends in this schoolroom who’d never given up on him. And of course Marietta and Molly, who’d housed and fed and cared for him and his family without complaining about how it had cut into their shop’s Christmas profits.
What wondrous love was this? And why had he been so oblivious to it?
Applause filled the schoolroom. Glenn blinked. Somehow, the remainder of the program and the carol singing had gone on around him, but he’d been too immersed in his thoughts to pay any attention. He clapped loudly so no one would realize that he’d gotten lost in his own little world.
As the applause faded, Bishop Jeremiah stepped up on the dais. “You scholars have gotten our Christmas celebration off to a wonderful-gut start,” he said as he smiled at each of them. “We all want to thank you and Teacher Lydianne for the heartfelt way you’ve shared your faith with us on this most blessed night of our Christian year.”
Jeremiah gazed out over the crowd, his face alight with Christmas spirit. “I wish each and every one of you a meaningful day tomorrow, pondering our Lord’s birth. And I’ll see you all at The Marketplace for our Second Christmas celebration on the twenty-sixth! It’ll be a day of food and festivities, with lots of games and singing. Merry Christmas!” he exclaimed. “And now for the best part—the refreshments downstairs!”
“Be careful going home, too,” Deacon Saul chimed in. “The snow’s coming down fast and furious now.”
As the folks around Glenn started for the stairway, chatting excitedly about upcoming events and the weather, his thoughts returned to a more practical level. It was his responsibility to get everyone home safely, no matter what condition the roads were in. “I’ll go fetch the horse, Dat, while you folks have some quick punch and—”
“Glenn, are you all right? You got very quiet for a while.” Marietta’s green eyes, mere inches from his, reflected the concern in her whispered observation.
He held his breath. Oh, but he wanted to pull her close and thank her for—no, he really wanted to kiss her and ask if he could start again—
“Dat! Marietta! Dawdi!” Billy Jay called out as he broke through the people around them. “I did it! We all did it! It was a wonderful-gut Christmas program, and—”
When his son reached for him, Glenn realized once again that his priorities needed shifting. Nothing was more important—or a more direct display of love come down from heaven—than the amazing, resilient bundle of energy God had entrusted to his care.
“Billy Jay!” Glenn crowed as he grabbed his boy up in a hug. “You did a fine job, son! And you clean up pretty gut, too—are these clothes new?”
“Jah, Marietta made ’em this week!”
Glenn hugged his son again and then let the squirming boy hurry downstairs with his friends. As he looked at Marietta, he prayed he wouldn’t say anything clueless. “Denki for all you’ve done for Billy Jay, and for Levi and Dat—and for me, Marietta,” he said beneath the noise of the crowd. “And jah, I’m all right now. Better than I’ve been for a long while. Denki for asking—and for caring.”
Her shy smile ignited a tiny spark of hope in his heart. “You’re welcome, Glenn. Merry Christmas to you.”
He swallowed hard. It was such a commonplace sentiment at this time of year, yet her words seemed to ring with a deeper meaning. Or was he hearing more than she was saying?
Fear not!
Glenn chose to believe the angel’s message this time—for wasn’t he gazing at a real-life angel? “And Merry Christmas to you, dear Marietta,” he whispered.
Chapter 26
Clutching the harness lines, Molly urged Opal along the two-lane county highway. The snow on the curving road was drifting in places, which made it impossible to drive on the shoulder, as she preferred. Because the English had a penchant for last-minute Christmas Eve shopping, the traffic was trickier than she’d hoped. For a few minutes her rig would be the only vehicle on the road, and then suddenly she’d have four or five cars behind her. Headlights flickered from side to side in her rearview mirrors as impatient drivers pulled out to pass her and then swerved back into the lane.
Molly couldn’t let her concentration waver. Her windshield wipers were going full-tilt, barely keeping up with the snowfall. Even with her safety lights flashing, she felt vulnerable on the blacktop’s unlit, hilly stretches. If a speeding driver popped over a rise and hit her rig before he saw it, her holiday plans would take a deadly detour.
As Molly turned off the highway and spotted the bishop’s tall, white house on the next rise, she relaxed. Someone—a Mennonite neighbor, most likely—had plowed the road and people’s lanes, so the rig rolled along more smoothly. When she’d left the schoolhouse, Jeremiah and his mamm had still been chatting over refreshments, so she was hoping for some time alone with Pete. After she’d turned onto the Shetlers’ lane, the mare stopped near the house, but Molly clucked to keep her going.
“Go to the barn, Opal,” she called out. “Something tells me we’ll be spending the night here. And that’s not such a bad thing, ain’t so?” she added with a chuckle.
After she’d parked her rig and situated the mare in a stall, Molly grabbed the tote bag she’d brought along. She jogged across the bishop’s yard and entered the house through the mudroom. Not wanting Pete to quiz her about the contents of her bag, she hung it on a wall peg and put her coat and bonnet beside it. She took off her boots and placed them on the old rug beneath her coat.
“Shetler, you slacker!” she called out, pausing to smooth her apron and dress. “I saved you a spot at the Christmas Eve program, and you never showed up!”
This was a fib, of course, but why should she let him off the hook just because it was a holy night? By the light of Margaret’s kitchen lamp, Molly saw that the new cabinets were in place and that their contents had been put back into them. She knew Glenn and Jeremiah had accomplished this, but she intended to tease Pete about being able to do carpentry work yet not come to the school program—
But he was asleep on the sofa.
Pete’s arm had drifted dow
n to rest on Riley’s back—which explained why the dog hadn’t barked or greeted her at the door. The golden lifted his head, giving her a doggy grin as his tail beat a quick rhythm on the floor.
“What a friend we have in Riley,” Molly murmured as she took in the scene from the kitchen doorway.
Should she wake Pete or let him rest? There’d been a time when she wouldn’t have considered keeping quiet, yet something—maybe Christmas Eve generosity—told Molly to wait him out in the recliner.
Pete’s face, bathed in soft lamplight, made her pause. His pale features appeared pinched, as though he might be in pain—or exhausted from the discomfort his injuries had caused him all day.
She’d never seen him looking so vulnerable. With his leg in a cast, propped on the arm of the sofa to keep it elevated, and his left arm bound against his body in a black sling, Pete Shetler wasn’t the swaggering, cocksure daredevil she’d come to love. And she was sure he’d never intended for her to see him this way—defenseless against her scrutiny.
Molly smiled. She could razz him about this scene later, when Pete would be able to fire back insult for insult.
As she leaned back in the recliner to keep watch, Riley resettled himself against the bottom of the sofa as though he, too, was content to let Pete sleep.
About ten minutes later, the back door opened. Molly heard the bishop and his mamm in the mudroom, taking off their coats. They’d known she was coming for a visit—and they would’ve seen Opal in the barn—so she slipped out of the chair to greet them.
“Pete’s zonked out,” she said softly.
Margaret nodded as she hung her heavy black coat and bonnet on a peg. “I suspect he overdid it today, supervising Glenn and Jeremiah while they put the kitchen back together,” she remarked.
“I’m glad you put your mare up for the night, Molly,” the bishop said as he stepped out of his unbuckled galoshes. “I couldn’t in gut conscience let you drive back home. It’s nasty out there—bet we’ve already gotten four inches, and the snow shows no sign of letting up.”
Molly tried not to appear too delighted by Bishop Jeremiah’s declaration. Even if she was thirty-five, it made the situation seem more respectable than if she had invited herself to sleep over.
“It’ll be nice to have a guest for Christmas—and you’ll surely improve Pete’s mood,” Margaret put in. “Your sister knows you were coming here, jah?”
Molly nodded. “She rode to the school with Glenn’s bunch so I could leave when I was ready. I, um, brought something along as a surprise for Pete,” she added, nodding toward her tote bag. “It’s not quite Christmas Day, so would it be all right if I whipped it up in your kitchen? I ran short of time today and—”
Margaret squeezed her shoulder. “Matter of fact, I have a few last details to finish for tomorrow’s dinner myself,” she remarked. “We can do our cooking now—so the bishop won’t chastise us for working on a sacred day, you know.”
The two of them chuckled as Jeremiah playfully raised his eyebrows. “You ladies have a couple of hours,” he said, glancing at the wall clock. “Meanwhile, why don’t I rouse Pete and get him to bed? He’ll have quite a surprise tomorrow when he sees you at the breakfast table, Molly.”
“Sounds like a plan—and denki ahead of time for putting up with me,” Molly added.
She couldn’t help grinning as she grabbed her tote bag. Her visit with Pete was working out even better than she’d planned.
* * *
“While the roads are still passable, I’m going to fetch more horse feed and hay from our barn and bring Ned back with me,” Glenn said as he pulled the double rig up close to the Helfings’ house. “I suspect we’ll be snowed in tomorrow, and it’s not right for you girls to be feeding my horses as well as your own.”
“The roads are none too gut even now,” Marietta said from the back seat. “Don’t feel you’re putting us out, Glenn. You can certainly wait a day or two to get that feed, and if you ask, a neighbor will look in on Ned, jah?”
“Snowed in?” Billy Jay echoed hopefully. He wiggled on the seat beside Glenn. “You better let me help you get that hay and stuff, Dat. It’s not like I have to get to bed, coz there’s no school tomorrow—or for a long time—coz it’s Christmas!”
Glenn rumpled his son’s hair, laughing. He recalled being just as excited about the holidays when he’d been Billy Jay’s age.
“I’ll help, too, if you need me,” his father put in from the seat behind Glenn. “But I can tell you that the metal folding chair I sat in all evening didn’t do my hips any favors—even if it was the best Christmas program ever, Billy Jay.”
“How about if you help me set the table for breakfast, Reuben?” Marietta suggested kindly. “Some hot cocoa and aspirin will help those hips, I bet.”
“Cocoa?” Billy Jay whispered hopefully. “And cookies, maybe?”
“You had a handful of cookies after the program,” Marietta reminded him as she lifted Levi’s carrier into her lap. “Maybe more sugar right before bed isn’t such a fine idea.”
“But it is Christmas Eve,” Glenn put in indulgently. “And if you’d rather keep your dawdi and Marietta company while I’m gone, Billy Jay, I’m fine with that. Won’t take me long to load that feed and get back—and if you’re still up, I’ll join you at the table.”
“Jah! Let’s do that,” Billy Jay said. “I’ll get the door!”
As the boy clambered over Glenn’s lap, popped the rig door open, and dashed through the snow toward the house, Marietta chuckled. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this wound up,” she remarked softly. “It’s been quite a night for him.”
Glenn sensed she was in a receptive mood, and he wanted to make the most of it. “You made his success possible, Marietta,” he murmured. “I can’t thank you enough for sprucing him up and helping him learn his recitation, and—”
She reached over the back of the seat to grasp his shoulder. “I was happy to do it for him, Glenn. It’s gut to see him smiling again. And maybe after you’ve loaded your feed,” she added, “you might want to see that your furnace is set the way you want it, in case you don’t get back to the house for a few days.”
“Gut idea,” Dat put in. “And be sure the doors are shut tight. Remember how the door blew open once while we were at Sadie’s place, and we had a drift in the front room when we got home?”
Glenn nodded as his father stepped out of the rig and took Levi’s carrier so Marietta could get out more easily. He was confident that the doors on their new house were shut firmly—but what would it hurt to check, if it would make his dat feel better?
A few minutes later he was rolling down the road, paying special attention as he approached the intersections. He was grateful that in the moonlight, the accumulating snow made the edges of the unlit pavement easier to distinguish—and he was glad he could reach their place on lesser-traveled roads. Someone had plowed recently—Howard, most likely—so the going was easier than Glenn had anticipated.
As he pulled into the home place several minutes later, Glenn mentally thanked the fire chief for clearing the lane there, as well. At the sight of the dark house, he sighed. He and Dat—or Dorcas—had always left a lamp burning when they went someplace in the evening. But he focused on the task at hand. No sense in ruining Christmas Eve by getting lost in memories that would only make him miss his wife and his mamm.
He pulled up close to the barn door. After he put a tarp on the back floor of the rig to keep it cleaner, Glenn stacked several bales of hay between the back seats, which faced each other. Then he tossed in a bag of oats.
“Come on, Ned, we’re taking you with us this time,” he said as he led his other gelding outside to tether him to the rear of the rig.
As Glenn hopped back in to drive closer to the house, he was tempted to just head back to the Helfing place—it was obvious that the doors were shut tight. He clearly recalled setting the thermostat at sixty—warm enough to keep the pipes from freezing, in case he couldn
’t convince himself to return to the empty house anytime soon.
Something told him to peek inside, however, so he wouldn’t have to fib to Dat and Marietta. Glenn told himself he needed to get past his aversion to this vacant place and do something about it. Maybe he could ask Marietta’s opinions about where to get the bedding and curtains and rugs . . .
I’ll have plenty of time to think about that tomorrow. Christmas Day’s going to be even quieter than usual if we get as much snow as I think we will.
Glenn opened the mudroom door and flipped the switch of the gas light fixture. As he leaned down to unbuckle his galoshes, he paused, frowning. A white curtain as well as a panel of blue fabric pulled to the side—just like the ones Dorcas had made years ago—hung at the window.
Glenn straightened slowly, his mind spinning. As he looked toward the unlit kitchen, the shadows suggested other objects he knew had not been there when he and Gabe had finished their sweeping the day before.
When he flipped the kitchen light switch, his jaw dropped. A new table with six chairs filled the empty space that had bothered him so much the last time he’d been here, and a huge poinsettia sat in the center of it. A fresh towel hung on the handle of the oven, and a cheerful blue canister set was lined up in one corner of the countertop, near the stove. The kitchen windows had fresh curtains, as well, and when he eased one of the top drawers open, he found a silverware organizer filled with eating utensils and new knives.
Glenn’s hands began to shake, and his throat tightened. Who had done all this—and when?
On impulse he rushed into the front room, gaping at a sofa and chairs and tables with lamps. His feet couldn’t seem to stop, and when he’d raced up the stairs he found room after room filled with new furniture. The beds were made up with colorful quilts, and coordinating rugs covered the bedroom floors. There was a bassinet for Levi and a twin bed with a kid-sized table and chairs in Billy Jay’s room, along with a bookshelf. The bathroom had fresh towels hanging on the racks.
Christmas Comes to Morning Star Page 23
