He took her cold hands in his. “What do you say, Anna? Will you marry me? Can we start our lives together in the fall as man and wife?”
Anna opened the front door to her grandmother’s house and felt she stepped back in time to when she was a little girl attending her Christmas Eve gatherings.
Nothing had changed about the warm, delicious scents coming from the kitchen, the laughter and the welcomes she heard from the family and friends assembled within. She set her plate of cookies on the counter and surveyed the bounty of casseroles, breads, and desserts that would be eaten that evening. Then she walked into the living room.
Her mamm and dat were already there along with Mary Katherine and Jacob and Naomi and Nick and many of her other cousins and other relatives. She went to hug her grandfather, who sat by the fire cradling his newest great-grandchild.
Pine boughs tied with red ribbon and small pots of poinsettias adorned the mantel. There were candles everywhere lending a warm glow. They were the modern flameless ones with batteries hidden in them, Anna noticed, looking like real ones but so much safer with so many kinner running around the room.
She said her hellos and gave and received hugs. But as the room filled with those she loved, she wished for the one—actually, two—who weren’t there. Gideon and Sarah Rose had their own family to visit, and she wouldn’t see them until the next day.
Leah asked everyone to take a seat, and quiet settled over the room. The great-grandchild was taken off for a nap. Grandfather made himself comfortable in the big armchair, opened his worn Bible, and found the story of the birth of the Christ Child.
It was her favorite part of Christmas, this story of that long-ago night when there was no room at the inn and a very special baby had been born.
The room was quiet but for the occasional pop from the sap as the wood burned in the fireplace while her grandfather quietly read the story. His body might be old and feeble, but his voice sounded strong and commanding, filling the room. Anna glanced around and saw that every person there—child to adult—listened, rapt.
Afterwards, Anna helped the other women set out the many dishes that had been brought: ham and turkey and sandwiches and casseroles and cookies . . . my, she’d never seen so many cookies. Her frosted sugar cookies went fast. They always did.
Hours later, after the last Christmas memory had been retold, the last crumb had been eaten, the last wish for a wonderful Second Christmas had been made, the last dish washed, Anna watched the last buggy roll down the road. She closed the door and gazed out at the snow beginning to fall gently.
“Shall we have a cup of tea before bed?”
“That would be nice.” She stayed at the window, looking out.
“Missing someone?” her grandmother asked, coming to slip her arm around Anna’s waist. “Or maybe two someones?”
“Gideon needed to spend tonight with his parents. They’re not really able to get out much these days. Not in the cold weather, anyway.”
“But next year . . . maybe you’ll be spending it with Gideon and Sarah Rose and his parents.”
Anna smiled. Her grandmother wasn’t fishing for information—she would ask if she wanted to know something.
The teakettle whistled, and Anna moved quickly to turn off the flame beneath it and pour them both a cup of hot water. Anna breathed in the soothing scent of chamomile as she sat at the table and tried to relax.
“So tell me what’s troubling you.”
It was a statement, not a question. Her grandmother knew her so well.
“What makes you think I’m troubled?” she asked, bluffing.
Her grandmother just looked at her. “All day today while you’ve been helping me you’ve had that little line between your eyebrows, the one you get when you’re thinking about something troubling. And you were very quiet. That’s not like you.”
“Are you saying I talk too much?” Anna asked in what she hoped was a teasing voice.
Leah reached over to take her hand. “You were almost withdrawn tonight.”
“I’m just tired. We’ve been so busy at the shop and then all the cleaning and cooking.”
“True. But I also know that anniversary dates of when we lost our husbands are hard, too.” She paused, looking at Anna with sympathy. “Especially when they’re near a holiday.”
Anna pushed her mug away. “Bless Samuel,” she said after a moment. “He held on until after Christmas. Tammy, the hospice nurse, was amazed. Said he told her he didn’t want Christmas ruined for me if he died that day.”
She sighed and rubbed at her forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “Samuel didn’t consider that I’d think about him every day. Especially near Christmas. After all, how could I not remember that was the season our dreams died?”
Her grandmother reached over and grasped her hand. “Samuel had a will of iron, and he wanted to live for you even more than for himself. But just before he died he told me he wondered if it was God’s will for him to go.”
“I know. You told me.” That had happened on one of the days when her grandmother and some of her friends had come to the house and insisted Anna take a break. She hadn’t wanted to but, under their kind, yet firm insistence, had taken their buggy and gone into town for a few hours. She’d come home to find Samuel talking with her grandmother and noticed that he seemed more at peace than he’d been in a long while.
The other women had fussed over her, making her eat some soup they’d prepared and waved away her thanks for them cleaning up the house and putting some meals in the freezer.
“That’s what I figured it was.” Still, Leah watched her. “Is everything all right with you and Gideon?”
Anna lifted her chin. “Everything’s fine.” More than fine, she wanted to say. He asked me to marry him and I said yes.
So why didn’t I say that? Anna wondered. And why didn’t I say yes to Gideon?
“You’re sure?”
“I’m positive. I’m just tired. And, of course, I’m a little disappointed that he couldn’t come tonight. But I’ll see him tomorrow.”
She yawned and covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m glad you invited me to spend the night. I think I’ve got just enough energy to climb the steps and fall into your guest bed.”
Getting up, she walked to the sink to wash her cup, then did the same when her grandmother handed her the cup she’d used. Together they climbed the stairs to their rooms and exchanged a hug before going into them.
But long after she climbed into the narrow bed in her grandmother’s guest room, Anna lay there, exhausted from her day but totally unable to sleep.
Second Christmas dawned cold and clear.
Visitors began arriving after breakfast bearing good wishes and presents. Last night they had celebrated the birth of Christ, the gift of God to man.
Today was a day to celebrate the joy of the season and the gifts friends and family had made, gifts made from the heart and hands.
Gideon and Sarah Rose showed up at 9:00 a.m. dressed in their Sunday best.
“Hope it’s not too early,” he said, looking sheepish. “Someone here couldn’t wait.”
“Merry Christmas!” Sarah Rose cried, holding out a package covered a bit clumsily with wrinkled wrapping paper and a lot of tape. A package almost bigger than she was.
“Thank you!” Anna accepted the gift and bent to hug her. “Come inside. It’s cold out!” She carried the box and surreptitiously shook it to see if she could guess what it was, an action that didn’t go unnoticed by Gideon.
He grinned at her and took the box. “No guessing.”
Sarah Rose bounded into the house. “Leah! I have a present for you!”
Anna smiled at him. “How about some coffee to warm you up?”
His eyes darkened. “How about a kiss?” he asked in a lowered voice.
“Hey, Gideon, are you coming or going?”
John slapped him on the back and eased past him to enter the house.
Shrugging, Gideon ste
pped inside and slapped the other man on the back. “Coming,” he said. “Not letting you eat all the food!”
Anna shook her head and smiled as she shut the door and followed Gideon inside. Like Sarah Rose, he carried packages. Unfortunately, he hadn’t put tags on any of them so that she could tell which was meant for her.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked quietly, leaning forward so no one could hear.
Not that anyone paid them any attention. John talked animatedly with Lizzie in the kitchen, gesturing with the cookie in his hand as he spoke. Leah sat with several friends in the kitchen, enjoying tea and plates of goodies.
She nodded. “Why don’t you two go into the living room and I’ll get your coffee? Sarah Rose, someone gave me a package of white hot chocolate mix. Shall we try it?”
“White hot chocolate?” Gideon asked, looking interested.
“Sorry, should I have asked if you wanted that instead of coffee?”
“I guess men can’t drink white hot chocolate.”
“We’ll still think you’re a manly man,” Anna teased him. “How about I bring you a cup of each?”
“Sounds great.”
Sarah Rose leaned against the counter in the kitchen as Anna heated water in the teakettle. “How can it be chocolate if it’s white?”
“I don’t know. But it is.” Anna poured the hot water into mugs and, on a whim, reached for candy canes sitting in a jar nearby. “To stir with,” she told Sarah Rose. “Help me pull the cellophane off them.”
Anna had never seen the kind’s eyes so big. She watched as Anna put the mugs on a tray and pouted only a little when Anna said she couldn’t carry the tray because the chocolate was hot and she didn’t want to risk Sarah Rose burning herself. When Anna handed her a plate of sugar cookies, the little girl was pacified and proudly carried it into the other room.
Sarah Rose sat on the sofa, took one look at the presents piled on a nearby table, and immediately forgot about the white chocolate.
“Can we open our presents first?” she asked her father.
“Drink your chocolate first. But blow on it to cool it down before you drink it.”
“Just one?” Dutifully she blew on the chocolate.
“After.”
Sarah Rose looked to Anna, but Anna quickly picked up the plate of cookies and offered it to Gideon. She didn’t want to interfere in his parenting . . . well, she’d convinced him to change his decisions regarding his daughter before, but she couldn’t do it all the time.
Oh, but it was Christmas.
She pushed the plate closer to Gideon.
“Thanks, I have one.”
“Have another,” she said and, with a tilt of her head in Sarah Rose’s direction, raised her eyebrows and sent him a silent message. She saw him look at his daughter, and his lips quirked as he studied her little cheeks puffing in and out as she blew like mad on the hot drink.
“An ice cube would probably make that cool off faster,” Anna said casually.
Sarah Rose looked up, her eyes widening. “It would.”
“Maybe if you went into the kitchen and asked Leah very nicely she’d give you an ice cube.”
The child bounded up and started out of the room, then raced back and hugged Anna, almost making her spill her drink. “Danki, Anna!”
She watched her head for the kitchen and then looked at Gideon. She found him watching her.
“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“Why wouldn’t I? You said you needed more time. You didn’t say no.”
Anna nodded. “No, I didn’t.”
Sarah Rose returned with a cup with two ice cubes. Anna saw Leah peeking out from the kitchen, a mischievous smile dancing on her lips. Apparently, Sarah Rose had a coconspirator in the cooling off the hot chocolate so she could open presents faster.
Anna had wondered if Sarah Rose would like her present of a book on knitting, but the child unwrapped it and immediately became excited, flipping through the pages of projects for children. She chattered with Anna about which project they’d do first while Gideon unwrapped his present, a navy blue cardigan sweater Anna had designed and knitted for him. He took off his suit jacket and immediately put it on, exclaiming over its workmanship and warmth. Anna felt warmed by his appreciation and thought he’d never looked more handsome.
“Now it’s your turn,” Sarah Rose announced and set her book down. She pushed the box she’d put near Anna’s feet closer to her. “This is from Daedi and me.”
Anna tore at the paper, pulled open the flaps of the box, and dug through wadded up tissue paper to reveal a footstool, the wooden legs beautifully carved, the top covered with a simple cross-stitch pattern with slightly crooked letters.
“Daedi made the stool and I did the top,” Sarah Rose told her, kneeling beside her on the floor and running a hand over it. “He said you have to be on your feet all day at work so you can put your feet up on this. You can take it to work or keep it at your house.”
Anna felt tears well up in her eyes.
“Daedi, she doesn’t like it!” Sarah Rose cried, distressed.
“I love it,” Anna said, reaching to hug her. “I love it so much.” She looked at Gideon and saw that he was watching her with that quiet air of his, but the expression in his eyes spoke volumes.
He loved her. She had no doubt of that. And his child sitting beside him, looking at her so expectantly—she loved her, too.
It was the best gift she could have been given.
14
Jamie walked into Stitches in Time frowning, her mouth downturned, and her shoulders slumped.
Curious, Anna followed her into the back room and watched her put away her things.
“Something wrong?”
“I didn’t have a very good Christmas.” She poured herself a mug of coffee from the percolator on the stove and sat down, wrapping her hands around the mug to warm them. “I know we’re supposed to tell ourselves it’s the thought that counts but I don’t think a lot of thought went into the things I got for Christmas.”
Then she looked stricken. “Oh, I didn’t mean you or anyone from the shop. I loved my presents I got from all of you.”
Her hand went to the purple beret on her head. “I love this. You know I do. And the throw that Mary Katherine made for my sofa is so nice to wrap around me when I study. The quilted placemats Naomi sewed make my hand-me-down wood table look so cute.
“And the little doll that Leah sewed that looked like me . . .”, she trailed off. “Well, that was the sweetest, most unexpected present.” She frowned. “Okay, that’s why I was so disappointed in the other gifts I got. They weren’t as thoughtful.”
Anna patted her shoulder and reached over to the counter for the box of cinnamon rolls she’d brought to work. She opened the box and held it open under Jamie’s nose. “Not everyone has the time or interest in making a gift.”
Jamie chose a roll, took a healthy bite of it, and closed her eyes in appreciation. “Yeah, well, one aunt gave me a boxed set of perfume and bath oil. Half of it had evaporated because the box sat in the local drugstore for so long. I told my mom I needed a plain cardigan I could wear with everything, and she got me a ski sweater with reindeer on it for goodness’ sake.”
Anna sat down. It was early, and the front door was still locked. Once the sign on the door was flipped to “open” there would be a big after-Christmas sale rush. “What are you really upset about?” she asked gently.
“How’d you know it wasn’t the gifts?” Jamie asked, staring into the coffee with a glum expression.
“Because I know you.”
“I went to my parents for Christmas supper, and all they did was argue. Mom had to tell everyone how hard she’d worked since sunup on the big supper and Dad—well, never mind. Both of them kinda ruined things by bickering.”
She sighed. “I was just hoping it would be different this year. That everyone would remember the reason for the season, you know? Sometimes it can be hard to be around fam
ily during the holidays.”
Then she gasped. “I’m sorry! Talk about putting my foot in my mouth! I didn’t mean—”
Anna bent down and hugged her. “It’s all right. I know what you meant. You’ve told me about your family and how they’ve hurt you, especially during the holidays. You’ll change that.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“One day you’ll have a family of your own, and you’ll make the holiday what it should be. You’re already starting by wanting things to be better.”
Jamie bit her lip, and then when Anna nodded encouragement, a slow smile bloomed on her face. “You’re right. It’s when we stay content with what we don’t want that things don’t change.”
She tilted her head and studied Anna. “Love looks good on you.”
Anna blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I know the Amish are quiet about dating and getting engaged. But it’s sure no secret the way you feel about Gideon and Sarah Rose.”
Anna felt a blush steal over her. “No?”
“No,” Jamie said definitely. She rose and put her cup on the counter, then turned and hugged Anna. “I’m happy for you.”
Tilting her head, she gave Anna a sly look. “I don’t suppose you got engaged at Christmas?”
“No.”
“Would you tell me?”
Anna grinned. “Maybe.”
Mary Katherine rushed into the room, breathless. She shed her coat and put her purse away in a cupboard, then turned back to the others, her expression happy and expectant. “Glad you’re all here early. Got something to tell you. Let me get the others.”
She walked over to the doorway. “Naomi? Get Grandmother and come back here.”
When everyone gathered in the room, she grinned at their expectant faces. “I have an announcement. Jacob and I are going to have a baby!”
“That’s your announcement?” Anna couldn’t resist asking. “We all guessed that at least a month ago.”
Mary Katherine’s face fell. “You knew? How did you know?”
Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3 Page 15
