“Should I come back tomorrow when it’s light? We won’t be able to see much out there tonight.”
Mammi smiled sweetly. “You’ll be able to see it well enough. Go out there and look up to the rafters.”
“Are you sure? It’s mighty cold yet.”
“The barn is nice and warm. It will only take a minute.” When neither Tyler nor Beth made any indication of moving, Mammi pursed her lips. “Please? It would make me so happy.”
Tyler nodded. He would bend over backwards to make Mammi happy. He stood and offered Beth his hand. “Will you come?”
“What is this?” Beth asked.
Mammi took a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at Toby’s face. “Dawdi and I did something special in the barn.”
Beth pulled her gloves from her pocket. “Okay, but I need to get Toby to bed.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Mammi said. “We’ll get him ready and say prayers, and you can kiss him good night when you return. Now hurry so the wagon doesn’t leave Tyler behind.”
Tyler and Beth threaded their way through the crowd of young people, even avoiding Vernon by taking the long way around the kitchen table. They stepped out into the night. Tyler closed the door, muffling the voices inside. The scents of hickory smoke and pine, two of Beth’s favorite Christmastime smells, hung in the crisp, frosty air.
Tyler lifted the glowing lantern from its peg on the porch and took her hand. The cold seemed to disperse from the very air. Beth shivered with the pleasure of his warmth. When had Tyler wheedled his way into her heart like this, as if he belonged there, as if no one could fill the emptiness but him?
Her heart pounded like a drum in her chest, demanding her full attention. Did she love him? She could barely remember what giddy, head-over-heels love felt like.
She hesitated briefly as they stepped off the porch. At nineteen, she had thought she loved Amos. He had been charming and funny and given her a thrill every time he smiled at her. She couldn’t let herself get carried away like that with Tyler—even when she had no desire to be sensible. His hand felt so gute.
They trudged to the barn, the snow crunching beneath their feet. The faint strains of another carol came from the house. Dawdi must have asked for one more song.
“What do you think your mammi wants us to discover?” Tyler said.
“I don’t know, but I’m afraid my fingers will freeze before we find what we’re looking for.”
In response, Tyler wrapped his arm around her. “I’ll keep you warm.”
In the dimmest corner of her mind, she thought about resisting him but didn’t have the will or the desire to do it. “Denki for humoring my mammi. She gets her heart set on things.”
“I don’t mind. It lets me spend a few more minutes with you. After this, all I get is Vernon Schmucker.”
Beth giggled. “I’m envious. I won’t get to see him again until the next gathering. That could be weeks away.”
The well-greased hinges of the barn door opened quietly, and they heard the horse stir in the darkness. Tyler hung the lantern on a peg. The shadows danced in every direction around them as they gazed around the musty barn.
“See anything out of the ordinary?” Tyler asked.
“Mammi said to look up.”
They turned their eyes upward at the same time. In Dawdi’s barn, the rafters were only three feet over their heads.
A small sprig of green with white berries dangled from a string above them.
“Is that what Mammi wants us to see?” Beth said.
Tyler kept his gaze on that sprig as if it might disappear if he looked away. “Oh,” he said.
“What is it?”
He slowly shifted his gaze to her face. “It’s mistletoe.”
“Why would Mammi hang mistletoe in the barn? It’s not even an Amish tradition.” Beth’s puzzlement didn’t last very long. Mammi had a full bag of tricks, and she obviously wasn’t above using any and all of them. Dear Mammi proved more persistent than a spider in a waterspout. Beth almost laughed out loud until she noticed how intently Tyler stared at her. Or more specifically, her lips. He obviously took the mistletoe very seriously.
She fell silent as he moved closer. Close enough that, in the still of the barn, Beth could almost hear his heartbeat. “I wish your mammi hadn’t done that,” he whispered with that deep, smooth-as-chocolate voice, and the barn suddenly felt twenty degrees warmer. “I’ve resisted all evening, but now that the idea is in my head, I don’t think I’m strong enough to put it out.” He brushed his thumb down her cheek. “Please, can I kiss you?”
She should have refused him. He’d been entirely too fresh with her already. But when his thumb moved slowly along her jawline and then traced the outline of her lips, she lost the power of rational thought. “Uh-huh” was all she could muster.
Tyler wrapped his arms around her as if to protect her from harm. Then he lowered his head and brought his lips down on hers. A sigh bubbled up in her throat. Even though the temperature sat well below freezing, Tyler’s kiss felt like a rare spring day when Beth could warm herself by turning her face to the sun. She almost sensed the balmy air caressing her cheeks while birdsong filled the meadow and wildflowers swayed in the breeze. She reached up to wrap her arms around his neck. This was where she wanted to stay forever.
He responded by squeezing her with those strong arms and leaving her breathless in a thousand different ways. “Beth, my Beth. I love you like crazy.” She felt powerless to do anything but try to stay on her feet. She feared her knees might buckle at any second or she might float off the ground and never come down again. Had her heart ever beat such a wild rhythm before?
His mouth returned to hers, and his second kiss was filled with longing and tenderness so profound that Beth ached with compassion. How could she not love this man?
He pulled away from the kiss but still held her close. “Remember when I told you I didn’t believe in love? I made a mistake. I’ve never felt anything like this before. I’m so far off the ground that I’m halfway to Heaven. I want to marry the woman I love. The woman I can’t live without. I want to marry you, Beth. Please say yes.”
With her hands still around his neck, Beth laced her fingers together to keep them from trembling. This did nothing to steady her ragged breathing. “I thought you didn’t care about love.”
He withdrew from their embrace and placed his hands on her shoulders. “If I were willing to settle for just anybody, you know I’d be married already. There are probably a dozen girls who’d say yes to me tomorrow if I asked. Lorene Zook, Millie Coblenz, even Eva Raber would probably say yes, if I could convince her to say anything. Don’t you see, Beth? That’s not what I want.”
Beth took a step back. His words knocked her out of her romantic stupor and brought her crashing back to reality. The pain and heartache of three years with Amos assaulted her as the memories came flooding back. “Why did you say that?”
He stiffened and squared his shoulders as if readying for an attack. She’d done it to him too many times before. “I’m sorry if what I say upsets you, Beth. But I won’t take it back. I love you.”
How many times had Amos said he loved her before they were married? Tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. “Amos often told me he could have married any girl in our district. He’d point them out after gmay. Look, Beth, there’s Grace Martin. Look how pretty she is. She wanted to marry me. I could have had Wanda Weaver or Esther Miller, who actually knows how to cook. I could have had any girl I wanted, and I got stuck with you.” She choked on the memory.
Pain and anger burned in Tyler’s eyes. The raw emotion she saw there made her catch her breath. His words were slow and measured as if he kept his composure with great effort. “You’re always saying you want me to fight back,” he said, the muscles in his jaw tensing, “but I refuse to fight with a dead man. I am not Amos Hostetler, and if I haven’t convinced you of that by now, I never will.”
“Amos used to—”
His control almost crumbled. “I don’t care what Amos used to do,” he snapped, his eyes flashing with lightning.
Beth froze. In all the time she had known him, with all the abuse she had heaped upon him, she had never seen him truly angry before.
Taking a deep breath, Tyler turned his face from her and wiped his gloved hand across his mouth. When he spoke, his self-possession had returned. “You don’t want to see the kind of man I really am, because you’d rather hold on to your pain like a security blanket. You can refuse to trust God because of what happened in the past, but I refuse to suffer because of it.” He took a step toward her and reached out a hand but lowered it before she had time to decide if she wanted to take it. “I love you better than my own soul, Beth, but I’ll not compete with a dead man for the rest of my life. You won’t forgive Amos, and you’re angry with God.”
“What do you know?”
“Oh, you’re angry all right. You’ve given God the cold shoulder ever since I’ve known you. You think you can manage your life all by yourself with no help from anyone, even Him.”
“Because God abandoned me.”
“You’re wrong, Beth. If you were willing to open your eyes, you’d see His tender mercies everywhere. And you’re fooling yourself if you think you don’t need to be rescued. But I can’t do it. Open your heart and let Jesus change you. Nothing else is good enough.” Frowning with his entire body, he reached up and yanked the mistletoe from its string. “Please accept my apology for what I said about all those other girls. But I’m done explaining myself.” He tromped out of the barn, leaving it a much more desolate place. Springtime had disappeared, and she felt as cold and empty as a starless winter night.
Chapter Nineteen
Beth should have been overjoyed, but she felt numb. She snipped the thread and held out the mint-green dress for a final look. Her last Christmas order and it was a whole nine days before Christmas. She’d made enough money to put away five hundred dollars and have a little leftover for some Christmas shopping for Toby and the rest of her family.
She glanced at Mammi, who was washing up the breakfast dishes. After last Friday night, Mammi hadn’t exactly been cross with her, but she’d acted like an exasperated mother whose child wouldn’t eat her broccoli. “My dear,” she had cried when Beth told her about the mistletoe disaster, “how am I ever going to convince you that your mammi knows best?”
Toby sat on Dawdi’s lap while Dawdi read him a book. With wide eyes, he bounced excitedly on his great-great-grandfather’s lap with his finger in his mouth. Dawdi never actually got through a whole book. Toby just liked turning pages. Toby could use a new pair of shoes and another book for Christmas. And maybe a ball. Toby loved playing catch with Tyler.
Beth’s heart grew heavier at the thought. Toby wouldn’t be playing ball with Tyler again. The balls would be a waste of money.
Beth blinked back the unjustifiable tears. She would be fine. Just fine. Better to be sad over what might have been than to risk another miserable marriage.
Miserable marriage? Her heart rebelled at the thought that marriage to Tyler would be terrible. Tyler, who always put others before himself, couldn’t be as bad as Amos. But how could she know for sure? She refused to take the risk. Better to be lonely than desperately unhappy.
But at the moment, she didn’t feel merely lonely. Her heart had cracked into a million shards of glass. Could she live with that pain for the rest of her life?
Hearing a quick step on the porch, she smoothed her apron and willed her heart to slow to a gallop. Her reaction was silly. It wouldn’t possibly be Tyler. He’d told her he was done explaining himself. He wouldn’t be back.
Her cousin Aden poked his head into the great room. “Hello, everybody,” he said, with the wide smile that seemed to be a permanent part of his face. Beth hadn’t seen him without one since he’d married Lily Eicher. “We are here to finish that chest for Lily.”
We? Beth held her breath. Tyler was surely with him.
“How nice to see you,” Mammi said.
“Tyler made me promise to come.” He glanced at Beth with a playful gleam in his eye. “Although I think he’d say he spent his time well on those days I didn’t show up.”
Beth couldn’t muster any kind of smile. Aden obviously didn’t yet know that Tyler had given up on her or that he would probably consider his hours on Huckleberry Hill a complete waste of time.
“Tyler’s right behind me in his sleigh,” Aden said. “Dawdi, do you want to come out and help us?”
“Sure do.”
“I’ll go out and get started,” Aden said. He nearly shut the door before swinging it open again. “It’s nice to see you, Beth. I’m sure Tyler will be in to say hello.”
Nae, he wouldn’t.
Dawdi closed the book and placed Toby on his feet. He rocked back and forth a few times to gather enough momentum to stand. He retrieved his heavy coat from the hook and pulled his gloves, hat, and scarf from three different pockets. When sufficiently bundled, he tromped out the door.
“Make sure Tyler comes in to see us before he leaves,” Mammi said.
Beth’s heart raced. She should have told Dawdi not to bother but couldn’t bear to say it. She wanted to see Tyler in the worst way. Oy, anyhow.
The corner of Dawdi’s mouth quirked upward. “I ain’t about to tell Tyler Yoder what to do. He’s a man. He can make up his own mind.”
Mammi raised her eyebrows as if Dawdi were the one who wouldn’t eat his broccoli. “Do you really believe that, Felty?”
Dawdi chuckled, shook his head, and walked out. He started singing the minute the door closed behind him. “Joy to the world, I love my Annie-banannie, but she should keep her nose out of other people’s porridge.” His lyrics didn’t quite fit the rhythm of the original music, but he altered the tune somewhat to make it work out. Despite her low spirits, Beth smiled.
Mammi propped her wet hands on her hips. “I’m not fond of porridge. I prefer to stick my fingers in other people’s pies.”
Beth had the sudden overpowering need to jump from her chair at the sewing machine and race to the kitchen. She dropped the new mint-green dress on the table before stealing a peek out the window. She caught a glimpse of Tyler’s leg before it disappeared into the barn with the rest of him. Her heart flip-flopped. It was a very good leg.
She turned to see Mammi staring at her with a loving scold on her lips. “I truly thought the mistletoe would work.”
Beth pretended to be very interested in some fabric scraps on the table so Mammi wouldn’t see the flash of pain in her eyes. “I already told you, Mammi. Tyler and I are just friends.”
Mammi dried her hands on a towel, came around the counter, and wrapped her arms around Beth’s waist for a grandmotherly hug. “Dear Beth. Why do you want to be so miserable?”
“I don’t. I want to be happy.”
“Then why are you jogging down the road to unhappiness? No, not jogging. Sprinting. I’m trying to get you turned around, but you’re not making it easy.”
“I can’t be so shortsighted as to trade my future, even for something I want wonderful-bad right now. That was my mistake with Amos.”
“You don’t think Tyler will make you happy?”
“He might, but I can’t be sure. My first marriage cured me of any desire to marry again.”
Mammi pulled out a chair and motioned for Beth to sit. Then she sat and reached under the table, where she kept a ready basket of knitting supplies. She took up a pair of needles already threaded with blue yarn and started knitting. It came as naturally as breathing to her. “I’m knitting a blanket for Suvilla Mast and Alvin Hoover’s wedding in April, in case you wanted to know. Have you noticed how my matches always seem to work out?”
“Except for me, Mammi.”
“You shouldn’t let Amos ruin the rest of your life. He was a pill, but do you really want to give his memory that much power?”
Beth leaned her head on her hand. “It was so hard.”
“Well, I can’t help you there. Marriage is hard work. One time I made Felty so mad, he slept in the barn for a week. But our disagreements forced us to learn to get along. He would hurt my feelings, and I would make him so mad he couldn’t spit straight, but he got tired of sleeping in the barn. We had to talk even when we couldn’t stand to look at each other.” She patted Beth’s hand. “No person will make you as happy or as angry as your husband. But if you can’t bear the sorrow, you’ll never know the happiness.”
“Amos never made me happy.”
“Maybe you weren’t married long enough.”
“We were married too long.”
Mammi shook her head. “In marriage, you have to give a little.”
“To the point of losing myself?”
“To the point of becoming your best self and helping him become his best self.” With yarn poised on her knitting needles, Mammi leaned in and whispered as if she were sharing some grand secret even though Toby was the only one around to hear. “Don’t you see? You are strong, Beth. Amos might have learned eventually. You could have taught him how to be a gute husband.”
Beth fell silent. She didn’t know if she believed that. Would she have found the strength to insist that Amos be a better man? “What if he had refused to be better?”
“Then God would have told you to leave him and given you the strength to do it.”
Beth drew back in surprise. “Leave him? I couldn’t have left him. I would have been excommunicated.”
Mammi shrugged. “There are some married Amish folks living apart, usually because one of them is too proud to change. It happens. We don’t believe in divorce, but I am convinced that God would never want one of his children to be treated the way you were treated. He wants you to be happy.”
“But He didn’t stop me from marrying Amos in the first place.”
Mammi’s needles clicked in comforting rhythm. “God lets everyone make their own choices. Amos chose to be mean. God would have let him reap the consequences of those choices. You could have come back to Wisconsin to live with your folks. Or even left the church, if it came down to that. God would have shown you the way.”
Huckleberry Christmas Page 18
