The next morning, she got up at five to make candy and deliver it to the Fishers for the market booth and packaging. When she entered the kitchen, she saw Nan straightening Joshua’s shirt as he recited a poem.
“Good morning,” she said to Jennie. “My brother is practicing for the school Christmas program.”
The little boy nodded. “I say the poem for all our parents and guests. Everyone comes to the school, and we do skits and read stories. I will recite this poem.”
“It’s a big event for the children,” Nan added, smoothing down his hair.
“I can imagine,” Jennie said. “It sounds lovely, Joshua.”
“That’s enough,” he said to his sister, squirming away from her and running out of the room.
“Take your lunch,” she called after him.
He raced back in, making a wide circle as he grabbed a lunchbox and thermos before running out again without stopping.
Nan smiled. “He was worried I might try to fix his clothes some more.”
“You all take such good care of one another,” Jennie observed as she put the shopping bags on the kitchen table.
Nan shrugged. “The little ones need help. That’s all.”
Jennie thought of her own children’s incessant fighting, quelled now and hopefully for good. Suddenly, she recalled that she would have Michael’s children in her home again soon, and she wondered if they would be any different. After a year spent among the Amish and their children, she didn’t know if she would have the stomach to watch the two complain about every little thing. Her next thought was that their mother wouldn’t be with them. She frowned, hoping that Lydia’s absence didn’t signify trouble; whether the children were spoiled or not, it would break her heart if anything serious had happened to their parents’ marriage.
By the time the twenty-third arrived, Jennie was too exhausted to worry any further about the state of Michael’s marriage. Got To Candy had promised its customers that all deliveries received by that date would be shipped in time for Christmas Day arrival, and it was a vow she realized she had been unprepared to keep. If things went as well next year, she would hire more people for the holiday season, but that was little comfort now as they struggled over the handmade labels and wrappings. She told Shep to warn his brother that they might get spaghetti for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but there was all the peanut brittle the kids could eat.
When Michael and the children arrived late in the afternoon, Jennie glanced down at her old sweater, jeans, and sneakers and realized she hadn’t even put on any makeup that day. It was lucky they had managed to hang the Christmas decorations around the house; no time to decorate herself, she thought.
Scout, as usual, got to their guests first, followed by Shep, who was welcoming everyone over the barking when she joined them. No fancy overcoat and blazer for Michael this year, she noticed. He wore a parka over jeans and a flannel shirt. Evan and Kimberly were a little taller, and Jennie fussed over how much more grown-up they looked, which both of them liked. Beyond that, she could tell their demeanors were more subdued, their expressions almost somber. Michael gave Jennie a shopping bag with two store-wrapped gifts for Tim and Willa, which told Jennie that Lydia hadn’t picked them out; she invariably did her own special gift wrapping.
Tim and Willa came out to greet their uncle, then ushered their little cousins back into the dining room, planning to put them to work taping boxes, at least until they got bored with it. The adults went into the living room.
“Nice tree,” Michael said, barely glancing at it.
“Willa and I used leftover paper to make the braids.” Jennie saw he wasn’t listening and stopped. “Sit down, Michael, and let me get you a soda or something.”
“Great.”
She and Shep exchanged glances, registering that Michael was nervous, completely out of character for him. They wouldn’t ask any questions, she decided, but let him relax and get to it all in his own good time.
They made small talk for a bit. Michael wanted to hear all about their candy business and walked around the dining room, examining the lollipops and tins of brittle. Dinner was pizza in the living room, the only place with space to seat them all.
“Please excuse the takeout, Michael,” Jennie said as she slid the pieces onto paper plates. “As you can see, it’s just too crazy to cook. You probably thought I was kidding when I said you wouldn’t get any good food this trip.”
He grinned. “Are you kidding? First of all, this is great. What’s better than relaxing with pizza? Second of all, I couldn’t be happier for you guys. You’re building this business with no investment to speak of. It’s fantastic.”
“I have to get everything out of here by tomorrow so it can be delivered on Christmas Day. After that, we can all collapse,” she said.
“No, then you have to get ready for Valentine’s Day,” Shep put in. “You guys said you were going to bring in something new.”
Willa, seated next to him, gave an exaggerated groan and a wild-eyed look to her cousins. Evan and Kimberly laughed and began imitating her groan. “That’s right,” she encouraged, “let everybody know how put upon I am. Make ’em feel sorry for me.”
The children grew louder and, following Tim’s lead, got up to make piteous faces and fall to the floor. Jennie laughed, delighted to see Michael’s children acting like kids instead of small adults. The cell phones, she realized, were nowhere in evidence. As Kimberly sat back down next to her, Jennie put an arm around her niece, whose pleased expression gratified her. After a dessert of ice cream with chocolate sauce, Jennie suggested the children take a break upstairs, saying she would be working later on, and if they were up to it, they could come back.
“You sure we can go?” Tim asked.
“Please, you need some time to relax. Besides,” she said with a smile, “we’re doing well with our schedule but not that well. We’ll get tonight’s stuff done if Dad and I give it an extra push later.”
“You don’t have to say it twice.” He led the others upstairs.
“More coffee?” Shep asked his brother.
Michael shook his head. “I still have some. But I want to thank you two for letting me just be here without any explaining. That dinner was perfect, and the kids and I both needed it.”
“You needed pizza? I hear they have excellent pizza in Chicago,” Jennie said in a light tone.
He smiled. “No, we didn’t need pizza. We needed normal.” His expression grew serious again. “We haven’t had any normal in some time.”
“What’s going on, Michael?” Shep asked in a gentle voice.
“I don’t know where to start.” He leaned back on the sofa and stretched out his legs. “It started with me, really. A couple of years back. I was getting tired of the way we were living. I did nothing but work, except when we took these extravagant vacations, where I still did nothing but work, only it was on my phone or laptop. Mind you, I drove myself to get to that point, where I was a big important guy who always had a phone glued to his ear and a million people clamoring for advice or decisions.”
“You’re a successful lawyer. That’s got to come with the territory,” Jennie said.
“It wasn’t only that. I was making a lot of money, but I hated what we were doing with the money. The mindless spending—on clothes and gadgets and junk for the kids. Sometimes I felt like all our junk was going to rise up and suffocate me.”
“I never realized you felt that way,” Shep said.
“It was creeping up on me. And the kids were getting so spoiled. It must have been going on for a long time before I woke up enough to see it. It wasn’t just that they expected someone else to pick up after them, do their bidding. That was bad enough. But they weren’t kind. They didn’t care about anything or anyone. Once I saw that, it became obvious.” He took a sip of his cold coffee. “I was so embarrassed last Christmas by the way they behaved here, and that was nothing compared to other things I’d seen them do. Anyway, I tried to talk to Lydia about
it. Got nowhere.”
“She didn’t agree with your assessment of things?”
“That’s one way to put it. She was furious that I would dare question how, as she put it, she was raising the children. When I suggested that some of our values might be a little out of whack, she really hit the roof. She worked so hard to give me this beautiful life and so on.”
“She did work hard at making things nice.” Jennie recalled the meticulous attention to detail in Lydia’s clothes, her makeup, whatever she did.
“When we were here last year, I realized what nonsense that all is. You guys have a family, not the trappings of a family, which was what I had.”
“Boy, you really didn’t understand what was—” Shep started.
“There was life happening here,” Michael burst out. “In our house, there was no life. Just schedules and appointments. Tutors and choosing the right everything. It was one big competition to stay a step ahead of whoever Lydia decided was important.”
Shep leaned forward. “Why are you talking in the past tense?”
Michael looked down. “She must have realized things were not going in the direction she wanted. She found somebody else.”
“Ohhhh …” Jennie breathed.
“Not just anybody else. An Italian guy she met at some charity function. With way more money than I have and no problem showing it off.”
“You’re getting a divorce?” Jennie asked.
He nodded. “And she’s moving to Italy. Without the children. She says she’ll come back in a few months and take them on a vacation. Vacation, for goodness’ sake!”
There was silence as Shep and Jennie took this in.
“Guess they’d be in the way,” Michael said with bitterness. “Hard to believe she could pick up and leave them like that, but that’s what she’s doing. One day they were the most important things in her life, according to her, and the next, they were of just about no concern at all.”
Jennie tried to hide the shock she was afraid showed on her face. “Do they know what’s going on?”
“They know that we’re splitting up and she’s going to Italy with this man. I don’t think they understand she’s going away pretty much for good. That they’ll be lucky if she drops in for a visit once in a while.”
No one spoke.
Finally, Michael stood up. “I did quite a job picking a wife, didn’t I?”
“Don’t say that,” Shep said. “You couldn’t have foreseen all this.”
“Yes, yes, I could have. The way she is—it was right in front of me, but I didn’t want to see it.” He looked at his brother. “You saw it. I must have realized that, and I didn’t want to hear you say it.”
“Be fair to yourself,” Jennie protested. “You were married a long time, and that was an accomplishment.”
“It was a long time because I was never there. Always working, traveling. I let everything important fall by the wayside. Like you guys.”
“We’ve always been here,” Jennie said. “And we know you cared a—”
“Come on, J, don’t humor me,” he said. “I haven’t forgotten the way things used to be, how close we three were. That was all lost.”
Shep came over to put a hand on his shoulder. “So what are you going to do now?”
“No idea. Now it’s going to be about my kids, getting them through this shock. Then we’ll have to figure out what kind of life the three of us will want to live. All I can tell you is that it’s not going to be the one we were living.”
“Tell us how we can help.”
“Letting us come here for the holiday was a big one. I don’t know what would have happened if the three of us had been alone at home. It would have been awful.”
“We’ll get through tomorrow, and then we’ll spend all our time with the children.” Jennie turned to Shep. “In fact, let’s ask if Evie and her mom will take a double shift, so we can stop working about midday tomorrow.”
“Good idea.”
“No,” Michael said, “I don’t want you paying out extra money because of us. But hey, why can’t we three help? I’ve been known to move pretty quickly when I have to. Maybe if we find something my kids can do, we can speed things along.”
“Okay, then,” Jennie agreed. “Welcome to the staff of Got To Candy.”
She went upstairs to check on the children, her mind racing with what she could do to provide some comfort to her niece and nephew. Shep and Michael sat back down to talk some more. Out of so much sadness, she thought, at least there was this one good piece: The brothers had each other again.
Chapter 19
When Jennie heard the doorbell ring, she hoped with all her heart that it wasn’t one of her deliveries being returned. It hadn’t been easy, but with everyone—including Michael and his children—working at a furious pace, they had kept Got To Candy’s guarantee.
She pushed her chair back from the table, gesturing for everyone else to stay put. Shep, Michael, and all the children were eating roast chicken, string beans, and baked potatoes, the best impromptu meal she could throw together after they got the last box out. She was fascinated to see that Evan and Kimberly ate without complaint, free of cell phones or other distractions.
At the moment, they were engaged in a discussion of the best desserts they had ever eaten, and they barely noticed her leave the room. She was still considering possible shipping errors as she went down the hall. Scout was already barking at the door, frantic to learn the identity of their visitor.
“Come on, Scout, please stop the racket!” The dog barked louder. “You know, sometimes—” she said in a threatening tone as she turned the doorknob.
A woman stood outside in the freezing darkness, several feet away from the door as if hesitant to get too close, bundled up in a long coat against the snowy night. The thick woolen scarf wrapped around her neck and lower portion of her face obscured almost everything but her eyes.
“Yes?” Jennie peered out in the dimness of the porch light.
“Jennie?” The woman took a small step forward and loosened the scarf to reveal more of her face.
Jennie stared at her. How many times over the years had she imagined this very thing? she asked herself. Early on, she had wished with all her heart that it would happen, that Hope would reappear out of the blue the same way she had disappeared. Later, though, she grew angry and hurt. When she pictured her sister coming back, she envisioned herself lashing out, wanting to punish her the way her absence had punished Jennie. It had taken so many years to harden her heart to her sister, getting to the point where she accepted—where she genuinely believed—that she would never see Hope again. The mixture of feelings had been buried along with her memories, and for the most part, she had been successful at keeping them buried.
Yet here Hope was, and all those feelings came rushing back.
“Hope,” Jennie whispered.
The other woman nodded. “Yes. It’s me.”
Her face was drawn, and the wrinkles etched in it made her look older than Jennie knew she was. Whatever she had been doing with her life, it must not have been easy.
“Why?” Jennie was stumbling over the words. “Why are you here?”
As if she hadn’t heard the question, Hope dropped her gaze to Scout, sitting at attention next to Jennie. He seemed to understand that now was not the time for him to create any further commotion. “Nice dog.” Hope knelt and extended her hand for him to sniff. He got up to move toward her.
Jennie grabbed him by the collar. “Sit!” she commanded, and he obeyed at once. “I asked why you’re here. And why now?”
Hope straightened up. “I guess I didn’t expect you to be glad to see me, but I wasn’t expecting quite this level—”
“Of what?” Jennie snapped. “Anger? No, make that fury. You expected the person you abandoned to welcome you with open arms?”
The wind was picking up.
“Do you think I might come in?” Hope asked. “It’s pretty windy. Believe it or not,
I’ve been standing out here for a long time, trying to get up the courage to ring the bell.”
“With good reason.” Jennie herself was freezing just standing in the doorway, and she could guess that Hope must be extremely cold by this point. Exasperated, she stepped back to make room for her sister to enter. Hope stepped over the threshold but made no effort to go any farther. As she unwrapped the scarf fully, Jennie saw that her sister’s brown hair, once thick and shining like her own, was dull and prematurely shot through with gray.
“Jen, who is it?” Shep called out from the dining room.
“That’s my husband,” she informed Hope.
“I know.”
“You know?” Jennie held up a finger as she raised her voice to answer him. “It’s okay, Shep, I got it.” She turned back to her sister. “How do you know?”
“I’ve kept track of you all these years. You must realize that. Remember, I sent mail to you.”
“Oh, now we’re getting to it. The money! Is that what you’re here about? You want it back, right?”
Hope shook her head. “Nope. Not at all. I just came to see you.”
Jennie saw the old scar on Hope’s jaw, an inch-long indentation that was faded but visible, where she had cut herself when she fell out of a tree they were climbing. That must have been thirty years ago. The scar was as familiar to Jennie as if it had been on her own face. In an instant, she was back there, watching the blood gush from the gash, a terrified five-year-old crying as she ran to get help.
Her emotions in turmoil, Jennie felt immobilized. She didn’t know how she was supposed to treat her sister. Worse, she didn’t know how she was supposed to feel about her. She was angry, but she was also aware that her sister had come back. On her own, the way Jennie always dreamed she would.
An Amish Gift Page 16
