An Amish Second Christmas

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  “He didn’t ruin it,” she replied. “He convinced the bishop to let me write my column, and then he told me that he loved me.”

  Daet froze. “Wait—so you’ve got a proposal and you’re acting like someone died?”

  “It isn’t so simple!” she said. A burst of wind made her pull her shawl closer. “I’m not the same as Naomi, and you know it. She loves to darn socks and plan elaborate meals. When she works on a cross-stitch, she feels relaxed and happy. She’s the perfect Amish wife. But me—I don’t like those things, Daet, and that is what makes me unmarriageable. The way Naomi feels when she cleans out the cellar is how I feel when I see my column in the paper. I know I shouldn’t, and that my priorities are all wrong, but it’s how I feel. And I can’t pretend otherwise.”

  “If you had kinner of your own—” Daet began.

  “Waneta has kinner of her own,” she said. “And I’ve never seen a more unhappy woman! I can’t be Atley’s Waneta. I can’t do that to him. He deserves a woman who will make him happy.”

  Daet sighed, then nodded slowly. “There are unhappy marriages, that is true, but marriage is a complicated relationship. There is time for Abram and Waneta to find their balance yet.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Explain this to me—what is it about those columns that gives you such joy?”

  “Daet, I know you won’t see it the way I do,” she began.

  “Humor me.” He nudged her toward the barn, and they started walking together in that direction. “Just . . . pull it apart and put the pieces on the table for me. What about those letters you write fills you up with happiness?”

  “I’m heard,” she said. “I have something to say that I feel strongly about, and instead of having to crush it down inside of me lest I sound like a chattering female, I . . . I say it! And no one judges me for having said it. No one says I should keep my peace and let the men do the talking. No one laughs to themselves that this is why I’m still single. I say my piece, and people listen. When people look me in the face, they see an old maid. But when they read Miss Amish, they hear my words, my ideas, and they come back for more.”

  Daet grunted.

  “My column is popular,” Maggie went on. “My editor’s name is Horace, and he says that ever since people found my column, there are Amish communities as far as Pennsylvania who order our paper. For me, Daet! To read my letters!”

  “Yah,” he said, and his slow march didn’t change.

  “And I like it,” she said at last. He didn’t understand. She could tell. No one did, except for Atley, perhaps.

  “What about five years from now?” Daet asked. “Ten? Twenty? Will a column be enough? Will it still be popular? Or will it have been enough for a year or two and then faded away?”

  “I don’t know, Daet. I do know that if I silence myself I become angry and irritable. And I don’t like myself that way. Right now, I know my heart is broken over Atley, but at least I’m being honest. I’m feeling what I’m feeling. I’m speaking my own ideas. I’m just being myself, and there is freedom in that.”

  “Yah, yah. . . . ” Daet slowed his steps, then turned toward her again, coming to a stop just as the cloud slipped past the moon and the watery light spilled over his lined features. “So if I understand you right, you are tired of pretending to be quieter than you naturally are, and you long to be heard and understood by this vast audience of strangers. What about your own kin? What about your own community?”

  “I’ve given up there, I suppose,” she admitted. “Daet, you didn’t hear how Naomi talked about it. She liked my column right up until she knew I was the one who wrote it!”

  “Yah, your sister has always been intimidated by you,” Daet said with a sigh. “She was the cook, and you were the smart one. And she always did want to be smart like you.”

  “She’s not the only one—” Maggie began.

  “Wait,” Daet said, chewing the side of his cheek. “Now, just something to think on, my girl. If you could be understood heart and soul by a vast multitude of strangers, or by one person, what would you choose?”

  “Daet, I don’t think that’s a fair question,” she said.

  “Yah, it’s fair. And I mean being really understood. Having someone look into your eyes and see your heart—that kind of understanding. If you could have that with one person, and if you could write your ideas and thoughts into a hundred empty books, and put them away for your grandchildren to read after you are gone . . . If you could be truly understood by only one person, would that be enough?”

  Maggie didn’t answer, but his question had settled into her heart.

  “Your community will never fully understand you, my girl. You have always been different from the other girls—and God forgive me, but I have done my best to dampen your light to make you less terrifying for the men. But if we are honest, you and I, we know that you’ll always be different around here, so having your community’s full approval and understanding is never going to happen, whether you write your column or not. So, for the sake of this decision, forget them. This is a choice between a multitude of strangers and one man.”

  Daet gave her a long look, then started trudging toward the barn once more. He didn’t turn, but his last words floated the icy wind back to her. “He loves you, Magdalena.”

  Maggie stood there with the egg bucket in one hand and her heart hammering in her chest. She was terrified of being married to a man she adored, making him miserable, feeling empty and lonely on a soul level.... She was terrified of being so close to happiness and yet still not being able to reach it.

  Daet got to the barn door, opened it, and disappeared inside.

  Today was Christmas, and five years ago, Atley had given her a little strawberry pincushion and his heart all tied up together. If she could talk to him like she used to . . . If she could have a lifetime of Atley’s love and understanding, could she sacrifice that larger audience? Could his love be enough?

  She might never be a joyful housekeeper, but if she could sit down in the evenings and write out her thoughts in big, empty journals like her daet had suggested . . . if she could lie in bed next to Atley and be truly understood by one man . . . Would it be enough?

  This wasn’t about whether she could make a life for herself without a husband. Many women had, Aunt Ruth included. This was about whether she could face a lifetime without Atley, and that was where her heart welled with longing. She’d only ever loved one man, and if he could love her as she was, she could wrap herself in the warmth of his heart and let the hearts of the Englisher strangers go....

  She stopped, weighing that possibility inside of her. Could she walk away from her column for him? Yes, she realized. Not for any husband, but for one man she could.

  But it wouldn’t work. The one man to understand her wanted a woman more like Naomi. Atley understood her like no one else, and that meant he knew her weaknesses, too. Even without the column, she was opinionated and too open. She was filled with emotion that she couldn’t just press down. Even without that column, she wasn’t that meek Amish woman. She couldn’t be the Waneta in his home, breaking his heart day after day.

  Atley wanted better, and she didn’t blame him. She would celebrate Christmas with her family. The column was all she had.

  * * *

  Christmas night, Atley and Abram sat in the sitting room, mugs of hot coffee in hand. Atley took a sip and looked over at his brother.

  “Tomorrow there will be more guests,” Abram said. “I heard Aunt Sarah say that the Lapps will be here in the morning.”

  “Yah. . . . ”

  It would be Second Christmas, the day for visiting and card games, laughter and eating. Atley wasn’t sure he had it in him. Tonight, he listened to the soft murmur of the women talking in the kitchen, interspersed with the clatter of cutlery and plates as they did the dishes.

  Uncle Ben sat across the room, his Bible in his lap, but his eyes were shut and he breathed deeply.

  “I don’t
know why you’re so miserable,” Abram said, setting his coffee down on a side table. “You’ve been moping around all day.”

  “I’m not moping,” Atley said irritably. There was no privacy here to sort out his own thoughts, and right now he needed to find a way to make some peace with all of this. He loved a woman who wasn’t right for him, trying to save them both from future heartbreak. But what of the current pain?

  He loved her—that was all he knew right now.

  “What are you going to do, then?” Atley asked, changing the subject. “About Waneta? You can’t go on like this.”

  “I don’t know,” Abram said, and he pushed himself to his feet and ambled to the front window. Snow was falling softly, and for a moment both brothers watched it drift down.

  “Will you separate?” Atley asked.

  “No.”

  “Then you have to fix this.”

  Abram heaved a sigh and turned away from the window again. His gaze moved over to his uncle, who was still asleep in that chair.

  “I loved her, you know,” Abram said softly. “I was besotted. Everything turned around her.”

  “I remember that,” Atley replied.

  “But we were too different, and I was too stubborn to see it.” Abram scrubbed a hand over his hair.

  “If you could do it all over again, would you still marry her?” Atley asked.

  Abram was silent for a few beats; then he smiled sadly. “In a heartbeat.”

  Atley blinked. “What? You would?”

  “I loved her. I do love her still. She’s . . . frustrating and emotional and insists upon me talking about my feelings. She gets her own feelings hurt far too easily, and she won’t accept an apology unless I say the actual words. She wants tenderness when I don’t know how to give it, and she wants me to understand those passing emotions of hers as if a man could! She drives me crazy every single day, and yet . . . ” Abram’s face softened. “I love her.”

  “Did you tell her?” Atley asked.

  Abram sighed. “Yes, I told her, but maybe not enough. I don’t know how it went so wrong. I never thought we’d be in this place—me away from them while they celebrate Christmas without me.”

  “And no doubt, her family hears all about you,” Atley said with a small smile.

  “Shut up,” Abram muttered. “But yes, no doubt. We were arguing like always, and then something changed. A wall went up. Neither of us would back down.... I didn’t know we were that close to the edge.”

  “Love wasn’t enough, was it?” Atley murmured, but Abram’s attention had shifted to the window and he shaded his eyes. Headlights were coming down the drive, and Atley rose to his feet and met his brother at the window.

  “An Englisher guest?” Atley said.

  The car stopped, and the back door opened. It wasn’t an Englisher guest; it was an Amish woman, her kapp gleaming and her shawl pulled tight around her. She turned to the window, her eyes large, her face ashen, and Atley recognized his sister-in-law immediately.

  “Waneta . . . ” Abram breathed, and he took four long strides to the front door, flung it open, and marched out into the snowy night. Frigid wind whipped into the house, and Atley went to the door, watching his brother plunge through the falling snow toward his wife.

  Waneta shut the car door, and the vehicle backed out again. She stood there looking at Abram in the light of those receding headlights. For a long moment there was nothing but tension, and then Abram closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around her.

  Atley shut the door with a solid thunk. This was a private moment. Uncle Ben blinked his eyes open and rubbed a hand over his beard. The Bible slipped closed, and he caught it before it slid from his lap.

  A moment later, there were footsteps outside and the door opened again and Abram and Waneta came inside together.

  “Waneta!” the bishop exclaimed. “What’s happening? Is everything all right?”

  “I left the children with my aunt,” Waneta said. “And I came to find . . . my husband.”

  She looked up at Abram hesitantly, tears shining in her eyes. Abram touched her cheek tenderly.

  “The children will be fine,” Abram said gruffly. “Waneta, let’s go upstairs and talk, you and I.”

  Uncle Ben’s gaze moved between Abram and Waneta; then he smiled. “Waneta, we are so glad you came. Please, go on upstairs and take as much time as you need.”

  The married couple would go home later, and Atley would have that bedroom to himself again. Abram and Waneta disappeared from the sitting room, and there was an eruption of voices in the kitchen when the women saw Waneta had come.

  “That’s marriage, my boy,” Uncle Ben said, stroking his gray beard with a strange little smile on his face. “Those vows bind a couple in a way that you cannot fathom before you’re married yourself.”

  What did Atley know of the internal workings of a marriage? Perhaps his brother was right that he knew nothing about this domain.

  “Will they ever be happy?” Atley asked.

  “They’ll sort it out,” the bishop said, placing the Bible onto a table next to the chair. “That’s what married couples do—some more gracefully than others, of course. When a man and woman finally realize what they have to lose, that is the moment that they finally bend.”

  “You think Abram will bend for her?” Atley asked.

  “I know it.” The bishop smiled ruefully. “And he’ll be a better man for it, too.”

  That wasn’t the answer that Atley had expected from his rigid uncle, the bishop.

  “Did you . . . bend?” Atley asked uncertainly.

  “Oh, yes!” Uncle Ben laughed softly. “Many years ago, and more than once.”

  Abram and Waneta’s footsteps creaked up the stairs, the murmur of their voices filtering through the wall. Abram loved his wife still, Atley knew. He loved her so deeply that even when he was most angry with her, he reached for her in his sleep.

  Abram’s and Waneta’s voices upstairs had gone silent, and the bishop rose to his feet, stifling a yawn.

  “Happy Christmas, Atley,” his uncle said. “I’m going to bed now. It’s too late for an old-timer like me.”

  “Good night, Uncle.”

  Atley stood by the window, watching the snow fall. Maggie wanted to write that column, and Heaven knew she’d never be a traditional woman, finding her bliss in the laundry, as she so humorously put it. She’d always be Maggie with the big heart and the even bigger emotions. She’d be funny and frustrating and harder to fill than other women would be. Her happiness wasn’t so easily acquired.... But if he could call her his—

  An idea had sparked inside of him and he knew it was too late to go hitch horses and wake up the Lapp household, but he would see her for Second Christmas.

  Maybe, just maybe, she would be willing to take a chance on him. He wouldn’t make his brother’s mistake and wait until they were six years married before he bent for the woman he loved. Because like his brother, his arms would feel empty until the woman he loved was in them as his wife.

  Chapter 7

  Maggie sat on her bed, a rock in the palm of her hand. It was small and round, perfect for target practice . . . and she’d kept it all these years.

  When Atley gave that rock to Miriam Peachy, she’d smiled her thanks ever so sweetly, touched his arm, batted her lashes, and the minute he turned his back she just tossed it away. Maggie had gone back for it, scouring that part of the road until she found it. Atley had thrown that rock away on a girl who would never appreciate it for its true value. He should have given it to her, she’d told herself.

  But this rock had never been about target practice or their time together; it had been a symbol of his affection. Miriam could have learned to be worthy of that.

  So why, fifteen years later, did it hurt so much to think about another woman in Atley’s arms?

  Loving him should mean loving him enough to let him have the life he wanted. He deserved a beautiful, sweet wife who would cook u
p a storm and starch his Sunday shirts with a smile on her face and no desire for anything else.

  The family had left for the Grabers’ place a few minutes ago, and Maggie had decided to stay behind. She couldn’t face him—not like this. She rose to her feet, her heart still feeling sodden and heavy in her chest.

  Atley had to return to Bountiful, and once he was gone it would be easier. She had her column, at least, and she had her aunt Ruth to show her how to live this single life with some grace and dignity, because she would not throw herself away on some old widower, either.

  Maggie fiddled with the rock as she descended the stairs and headed into the kitchen. There were some Christmas treats that her mother had left on the counter for her, and she picked up one of the shortbread cookies but put it back on the plate.

  She wasn’t hungry.

  Outside she heard boots on the step, and she glanced at the clock on the wall. It was nearly ten in the morning. It could be anyone—friend or extended family coming by to wish them a Happy Christmas. There was a knock and she instinctively put her hands up to check her kapp before she went through the mudroom to open the door.

  When she pulled the door open, Atley stood on the step, and he gave her a hesitant smile.

  “Atley?” she said, stepping back. “What are you doing here?”

  He came inside and swung the door shut behind him. He held a little package in one hand and he lifted his shoulders.

  “It’s Christmas,” he said. “You were trying to avoid me, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I was.”

  “Any other girl would have tried to spare my feelings,” he said.

  “I’m a grown woman, and I think we’re past that, aren’t we?”

  A smile spread over Atley’s face, and he caught her hand, tugging her close. “I love you, Maggie.”

  Maggie pulled her hand free and went back into the kitchen. She couldn’t do this—not again.

  “Maggie?” He followed her, that little package in his hands still.

  “Atley, stop it,” she said, her voice tight. “It doesn’t matter how we feel.”

  Atley was silent for a moment; then he held out the little package toward her. “Open it—”