A Simple Amish Christmas

by Vannetta Chapman

  Knowing she needed to maintain control of her anger, Annie pulled in a deep breath, fought to keep her voice low, and said clearly, “You might not have anything to say, but I do.”

  “Best say it to Ruth then. She’ll be back from town directly, I expect.”

  “It’s not Ruth I need to speak with.”

  Phillip jerked his gaze back toward her. “I don’t understand—”

  “I know you don’t,” Annie said softly.

  “I’m not sure I understand completely, but I do know there’s a young lady in there who needs her dat’s love and acceptance.”

  “I don’t expect you to be telling me what my daughter needs.”

  He started walking away, but Annie hurried to catch up with him. “Apparently someone needs to, and I believe you and your fraa asked me to come out and look after Sharon’s medical condition. Or you asked Bishop Levi to find someone, and he found me. So you either trust him or you don’t.”

  “Is this about Sharon’s health?” Phillip turned on her, frustration edging his voice.

  “As a matter of fact, it is, Mr. Smucker.”

  He stormed away from her then, didn’t stop until he’d reached the nearest tree and stood studying it. When he turned back, Annie saw some of the struggle had gone out of him— much of the pain remained, but a bit of the resistance he’d been carrying was gone.

  “The girl seemed fine this morning. Is she sick?”

  “She’s not sick, Mr. Smucker. She’s pregnant.”

  He flinched at the word.

  “Your grandchild will be born soon, probably in this very house—the same house Sharon was born in, but I can’t assist that birth alone. Belinda needs to come and see her.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not ready yet—”

  “This boppli will come whether you’re ready for it or not. I’m worried about Sharon’s emotional state, which could affect the boppli’s health.”

  Phillip studied her now, concern replacing the look of stubbornness.

  “I’ve always looked forward to being a grossdaddi. Sharon’s child will be my first.”

  “And you wouldn’t want anything to happen to him or her?”

  He stood up straighter now, taken aback by her comment. “Of course not.”

  Annie moved closer, bridging the gap between them. “I understand you might be upset with Sharon, but she needs to see the midwife.”

  “It’s early yet—”

  “She needs to get out of this house. Let her go into town. Certainly allow her to attend the school presentation tonight and the Christmas service tomorrow. Sharon needs to feel the love and support of her freinden.”

  Phillip didn’t agree or disagree with her.

  “Don’t doubt our community will care for Sharon and her baby.” When he remained silent, Annie thought back to what David had said to her a few hours before, found herself echoing his same words. “It’s what we’ve always done for one another—and you’d do the same for them.”

  She waited until he nodded slightly, then she walked to her buggy and drove away.

  Her heart still ached over Samuel, over the loss of a relationship that had come to mean so much to her in such a short time. To think she’d begun to care for him, begun to love him.

  Did she love Samuel Yoder?

  What caused men like him and Phillip Smucker to insist on carrying life’s burdens alone?

  But then Samuel hadn’t spoken of carrying his alone. He had spoken of a woman named Rachel. A woman Annie had never heard of before.

  A woman he didn’t seem to care for very much.

  Annie pulled on the reins and turned her buggy toward home, toward her family, toward something that might make sense.

  In a few hours the kinner would present the school Christmas presentation.

  Would Samuel be there? If he was, what would she say to him? What would she say to her family?

  She didn’t have any answers, so she prayed the entire drive home. She prayed both Samuel and Phillip would have a change of heart. Prayed Sharon would heal from the hurtful time she’d been through. And she prayed the baby would arrive safely into a family that had learned to accept it and make room for it, and was willing to love it.

  25

  As Samuel drove home from the district’s far side, drove home from the family that had a solid case of the flu but nothing worse, he felt like a man who had stepped into one of those carnival rides he’d once watched in an Englisch town.

  He’d never actually ridden a carnival ride, of course, but he had studied them a few years back. Returning from a trip to visit his bruder in Ohio, the bus he’d been traveling in had pulled over for a thirty-minute rest stop. After purchasing a dinner he still would rather forget, he’d gone outside to enjoy the afternoon’s sunset.

  The large gasoline/travel station was surrounded by what had to be an acre of concrete parking space, and it shared one side with a large discount store.

  As he sat eating what they’d advertised as a bologna sandwich and drinking a small carton of milk, Samuel watched families come and go with the packages of goods they’d purchased—more goods than he could imagine carting into his home.

  The carnival had been set up in front of the discount store. As the day gave way to evening, the lights of the various rides came on, pulsing with each turn as they slung the Englischers round and round. He’d stood there, watching, slightly amused by the distractions of a world so near and yet so foreign.

  Then he’d caught sight of the giant wheel rising into the night.

  “It’s a Ferris wheel,” Charles said. The elderly gentleman who’d come to stand beside him had been his seatmate for most of the ride from Ohio.

  “Ya. I’ve seen them when they come to our discount store in Mifflin County.” He sized up Charles, finally smiled. “It’s just we’re not usually out at night—because of the buggies and all. I’ve never seen one lit up.”

  The wheel continued to rise into the sky, turning round, moving toward the ground and then rising again.

  “Took my granddaughter on one two years ago. Thought I might lose my dinner.” Charles laughed. “You’ve ten minutes left, if you want to try it.”

  Samuel stuck his hands into his pockets, turned with Charles and walked back toward their bus. “Think I’ll stay on the ground, danki. It’s a sight though, isn’t it?”

  As their bus had pulled away, his gaze had been drawn to the lights of the Ferris wheel again, rising up into the night.

  Driving through town—his town that was now completely closed up for Christmas Eve—he realized this was truly his home, and he had no desire to leave.

  He’d never had an urge to try the Englisch world, never wanted to sample what they had to give—from what he could see, nothing they offered made up for what he would lose by leaving behind the life of his dat and grossdaddi.

  No, Samuel was completely content in his life, other than the loneliness, which sometimes bit into his soul.

  And most days he accepted that as a part of Gotte’s wille.

  Then Annie had dropped into his life, and he’d begun to wonder if his aloneness had been God’s will or his own pridefulness. Perhaps he’d been too immersed in his own aloneness to let anyone else into his life.

  A white truck passed him on the road, spewing snow and slush.

  Were he honest, he understood he’d been selfish all along pursuing Annie. He’d been guilty of claiming the very best for himself. And he had watched David, knowing David would make a better husband for her.

  David was younger. David would be home more often, not traveling around the county every time a boppli fell ill.

  David wasn’t damaged.

  Samuel knew that as much as he tried to cover it up he would always be somehow damaged.

  He understood by the stricken look on Annie’s face that what he’d seen in the barn between the two of them had been innocent enough. What she didn’t understand was the look on her face, the laughter in her voice, the se
cond before she’d realized he was there.

  The scene remained frozen in Samuel’s mind.

  Playing round and round like the carousel.

  Annie—young, carefree, happy.

  Annie as she should be, not as she was with him.

  He flicked the reins lightly, moved past the schoolhouse where buggies were hitched all the way from the doorway to the road.

  Best he didn’t stop tonight.

  Seeing her wouldn’t help.

  Besides, he should write to Rachel. Tell her he’d come in the spring, as soon as he found a buyer for his farm. It was long past time he joined his bruder Benjamin there.

  But he kept thinking of the Englisch Ferris wheel, twirling round and round.

  Up, up, up, and then over.

  Morning sunlight poured in the window of the Hostetlers’ living room windows. The brightness hurt Annie’s eyes.

  The fact it was Christmas morning hurt her heart.

  She stared down at her folded hands, stared at the row of top stitches so recently sewn on her new midnight blue dress, stared anywhere but across the room into Samuel’s eyes.

  She tried to concentrate on Bishop Levi’s words.

  “We all know Christmas is about the Infant Child, what he brings to our lives, what he offers to our hearts. We know this, but we live as if he hadn’t even been born in that manger so long ago. We live as if the Christ child hadn’t exchanged heaven for a manger—for you and for me.”

  Tears blurred her vision, and the top stitches became a single white line.

  Annie was guilty of all those things Bishop Levi spoke of and more. It seemed whether she lived in the Englisch world or the Amish one, she insisted on putting her own needs first.

  It seemed Christmas wasn’t so simple after all.

  When would she learn?

  When would she stop acting like the kinner who waited for Second Christmas and gave so little thought to the true meaning?

  She didn’t realize the tears were tracking down her cheeks until Charity pressed a handkerchief into her hand.

  “Danki,” she whispered.

  Instead of replying, Charity turned and hushed Reba.

  “I want to know why she’s bedauerlich on First Christmas,” Reba mumbled.

  Annie looked up to see if Bishop Levi was nearing the end of his sermon. Though he had stepped back toward the center of the living room, he hadn’t closed his Bible, and he didn’t look as if he was ready to sit for the final Christmas hymn.

  She stared back down at her hands, at the handkerchief stitched by Charity. If she could calm her pounding heart, stop the river of tears, she’d be able to make it to the end of the service.

  Rebekah sat directly behind her. Annie’s mind drifted away from Bishop Levi’s sermon and back to her conversation with her mamm the night before.

  She remembered little of it, since she’d spent most of the time sobbing in her arms. It was so unlike her—she’d always prided herself in having some semblance of control over her emotions.

  Her cheeks warmed at the memory, and almost against her will her gaze went up, over and across the room—found Samuel, who continued to watch her.

  Bowing her head, she forced her mind back to the bishop’s words. “It is simple, though. Christmas is a time of grace, and all we need do is accept His grace.”

  “Give him grace, Annie.”

  “I think I love him, Mamm. Is that even possible?”

  “Of course it is.”

  “But I’ve been home less than a month.”

  “Love doesn’t take time, dear. It takes giving of yourself.”

  “Then why would he walk away? Why wouldn’t he listen?”

  “We don’t know what Samuel is struggling with, what burden he carries. Give him time and give him grace.”

  The bishop’s words and her mamm’s intersected in her mind and in her heart, wove together until she feared they would tie her stomach into knots.

  Professionally, she understood the signs of a panic attack, realized she needed to relax.

  Physically, she seemed powerless to stop the trembling claiming her body, heart, and soul—stealing her very breath.

  Suddenly the room’s warmth and the closeness of the women around her pressed down on Annie. She needed to be outside, in the snow, in the fresh air, away from sympathetic but well-meaning looks like Reba’s.

  She glanced up, but instead of finding the bishop, her gaze again locked with Samuel. Her heart slammed into her throat, and she worried it would stop beating.

  As if, even across the room and across the dozens of people who sat between them, she could feel his love for her.

  She knew then.

  She finally understood. Not all of it, but enough.

  And the knowing hurt her nearly as much as all that had come before.

  Pulling in a shaky breath, she turned to Charity. “I need to use the facilities,” she whispered.

  Charity nodded, scooted her chair to the side to make room for her to pass through, and again hushed Reba.

  Samuel watched Annie rise and push past the row of chairs.

  He had not slept much the night before, but he had prayed—prayed and read through his parents’ Bible. It had the family tree written in front, a tree marked by love and commitment, not obligation. Working his ways through the pages, he had found many answers.

  Meeting privately with the bishop before the services, he had found more. Levi had helped him to see that his insecurities were coloring his judgment, much as the clouds on a summer day could tint the fields behind his home. He should have trusted Annie, should have listened to her explanation, and he should have believed what was in his heart.

  Rising from his seat, he knew that now was the moment to ask her forgiveness.

  Actually, he had two questions he needed to ask her.

  Once free of the rows of chairs, free of the overly stuffy room, Annie pushed through the door at the back of the kitchen.

  She hadn’t lied.

  She did need to use the bathroom, but she needed air more. She gulped it in as if it were water, relished in the feel of it in her lungs, even as the cold brushed her face, bit at her fingers and nose.

  Fresh snow lay on the Hostetlers’ fields, on the fences, and of course on the nativity scene the kinner had set up in front of the barn.

  Annie moved hesitantly toward it, studied the wooden figures of Mary and Joseph. In front of them was a feed trough, filled with hay and holding a baby doll swaddled in a blanket.

  The holy family.

  She reached out, touched the babe, closed her eyes, and prayed.

  Prayed for peace.

  Prayed for compassion.

  Prayed for understanding.

  It was exactly as Bishop Levi had said, and she’d been foolish to focus on other things. She was here, home, where she belonged. The Lord had allowed her to come back and be surrounded by family and freinden who cared for her.

  She drew in a shaky breath.

  A winter finch hopped from a nearby bush to the ground, and from the ground to the trough where the baby lay.

  Perhaps she could resolve to be like the finch.

  The finch wasn’t an eagle, soaring across the morning sky. It hopped and twitted, making its way from one spot to the next, until it reached its destination.

  She could survive as the finch did—day by day, one small step at a time.

  It wasn’t the life she had envisioned, but life in any form was a gift.

  Isn’t that what the bishop had been trying to say?

  Isn’t that what she’d learned from Kiptyn?

  If she were honest with herself, she’d admit she had been lucky to know Samuel before he’d needed to move on—she would count the little time they’d shared together as a gift, and she’d always treasure the memory of this Christmas season.

  “I brought your coat.”

  His voice caused her heart to beat faster.

  She waited until he moved beside her, a
ccepted the coat he placed over her shoulders with a tentative smile, though another part of her heart trembled at the sight and smell and closeness of him.

  It will get easier, she thought. I don’t know how, but I do know it will get easier.

  “You’re not angry anymore.” He loosened her kapp strings that had become entangled beneath the collar of her coat.

  When she reached up to help pull them free, their hands touched, and she thought she might lose her composure then, turn into a sobbing, puddling heap, but she remembered the finch and drew a steadying breath.

  “No, Samuel, I’m not angry anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “I was wrong to be angry with you earlier. You’re doing what you think is best for your family—for your schweschder-in-law. I see that now, and I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” His voice rose higher in disbelief, even as her stomach tossed and pitched.

  “Ya. I wasn’t being fair to you.”

  Samuel reached for the bale of hay nearest the wooden Joseph and sank down on it, looking as if he might collapse into the feeding trough if he didn’t. “Annie, you owe me no apology. I promised you—”

  “You promised me nothing.” She met his eyes then, even as her chin went up and a fraction of her old spark return. “We went out a few times, that’s all. We were not promised, Samuel. I won’t be having people saying we were.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” He pulled at his beard and peered out toward the buggies as children began pouring from the house. “I know there was no formal question asked or answer given. I almost wish, that is… if I had.”

  Annie waited, her heart hammering so loudly she thought surely he would hear and think she was having a stroke.

  Suddenly he was beside her, entwining her fingers in his and pulling her toward the barn’s back side. “I want to show you something, Annie.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “This will take no more than a few minutes.”

  “But my family will be leaving now that the service is ended.”

  “No one ever leaves that quickly, and I can’t talk to you with twenty or thirty kinner crawling all over us amidst the manger scene.”