“You’re sure?”
“Ja. Get your coat and come on.”
Soon they were trekking over the path that had been made earlier. The snow was getting inside her boots, but she was more concerned with how the snow would’ve gotten into Holly’s shoes and whether she was warm enough in that thin dress and shawl. She had been completely serious about her threat to get a plane to fly Holly out of here if she got sick.
“You seem deep in thought,” Benjamin said.
“Oh—sorry.” She looked over at him. “I’m just worried about Holly.”
“Why?”
She let her guard down, explaining about how Holly’s clothes seemed inappropriate and how the pins bothered her and how her shoes were probably all soggy from the snow.
“I wouldn’t be too concerned. Those black stockings the girls wear are pretty thick and warm and they have lots of layers of under-things beneath those dresses.” He chuckled. “Trust me, I was the only brother of three sisters.”
“Three sisters?”
“Ja. Ruth lives in a settlement a few miles from here.”
“Does she know about Miri?”
“Ja. Everyone knows, Rachel. This is a small world here.”
“Oh.”
“Mamm has probably taken Miriam’s death harder than anyone.” He sighed. “Although it’s been difficult for all of us. I think every one of us feels somewhat responsible.”
“Responsible for her death?” Rachel was confused.
“I mean responsible that she left the settlement. As senseless as that may seem, it probably makes us feel somewhat responsible for her death too.”
“Oh.” Rachel shivered, pulling her scarf more snugly around her neck. However, she wasn’t sure if it was the temperature that had chilled her just now . . . or his words.
“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that Mamm is not exactly herself. My father died last spring, which is why I’m helping with the farm. But this news about Miriam—well, it’s been hard on her.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I was hoping you might be able to say something to encourage her.”
“Right . . . well, I’ll do what I can.”
He pointed to a red barn that was very similar to the Millers’ barn. “That’s where they are. It sounds like they’re already having lunch. It’s a pretty casual affair. Mostly just sandwiches.” He grinned at her. “How do you feel about peanut butter and marshmallow cream?”
“What—that’s a sandwich?”
He nodded. “It’s one of the favorites.”
“Holly will probably love it.”
He was leading her toward a door that was partly open, and she could see lots of people, all dressed just like the Millers and Holly had been dressed, milling about. Women seemed clustered on one side and men on the other. Some were eating. Some were talking. And some of the younger children, including Holly, she noticed, were running around and playing a game of tag or hide-n-seek or something. The barn was warmer than she expected and the general atmosphere was surprisingly cheerful. She knew she should be relieved, but once again, she resented this. She wanted to find them all sitting solemnly with hands folded and the children fidgeting, and she wanted Holly to complain and say she wanted to go home—home to Chicago. But right now Holly was chasing a boy around the hay bales, stacked like bleachers in the back of the barn. This was a children’s paradise.
“Mamm is over there.” He led her past a food table, with a couple other rough-board-and-sawhorse tables nearby. Sitting at one of them were a number of elderly looking women.
“Mamm,” Benjamin began gently, “I want you to meet Rachel Milligan. Michael Milligan was her brother.”
“I know who she is,” the older woman told him a bit sharply.
“This is my mother, Mrs. Schrock,” Benjamin told her as he pulled over a folding chair, setting it down next to his mother, who was dressed in black, and patting on it for Rachel to sit. “I’ll get you a sandwich,” he offered as she sat.
She almost told him not to bother, except that she’d barely touched the oatmeal and her stomach was starting to growl. She turned to the gray-haired woman. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mrs. Schrock.”
“Your brother was married to Miriam?” Mrs. Schrock peered curiously at her.
“Yes, and my brother loved your daughter very much. They were very happy together.”
“I met young Holly.” She nodded. “She is a sweet child.”
“Yes, I agree.”
“Thank you for bringing her to us.”
Rachel looked down at her hands in her lap and wished for the right words. Instead, she struggled to hold back tears. It was just too hard being considered the delivery person—as if they thought she could simply transport her niece and then leave.
“God has given us a second chance with Holly.”
Rachel looked up, taking in some quick breaths and hoping to hold her tears at bay. “A second chance?”
“Because we lost Miriam. God has given us Holly . . . in return.”
Rachel looked directly at her, staring into the faded blue eyes. “I lost my only brother and I lost Miri, my only sister-in-law, and now I am losing Holly.” Her voice broke. “What is God giving me in return?” And then to her embarrassment, the tears began to pour out. “Excuse me,” she said in a choked tone. With blurry eyes, she hurried through the crowded space and rushed outside, following the path back to the Miller house. She ran inside and up the stairs and into Sarah’s room, where she lay down on the narrow cot and allowed her tears to flow freely.
Fortunately, she was recovered by the time the family came home. Even more fortunately, Holly was completely oblivious to her aunt’s public breakdown. However, she noticed Sarah looking curiously at her and she supposed someone had mentioned it to her . . . and Lydia. Just the same, Rachel held her head up and tried to act as if nothing was wrong. When it came time to prepare supper, she joined Lydia in the kitchen, trying hard to make herself useful. But this time, something in her was changed. Whether it was having been humbled or feeling defeated, she felt as though she’d lost something today . . . and she wasn’t sure she could get it back.
Supper was very much like supper had been last night, except that this time, neither Holly nor Rachel was caught off guard by the long silent blessing before the meal. Although Rachel tried to appear pleasant, she said very little as they ate, feeling as if she was biding her time. She wasn’t even sure why. Afterward, she offered to help in the kitchen again.
“Aunt Rachel, do you still want me to tell you all about church?” Holly asked as the four females worked together.
With her hands in the soapy dishwater, since she was washing tonight, Rachel tried to toss her niece a warning glance, as if to say, “later,” but Holly didn’t get it.
“Everyone sat and sat and sat,” Holly began. “And lots of men stood up and talked. And then for a while no one talked at all. And then we sang. But it was a different kind of singing. And then we sat and sat and sat.” Holly made an exasperated sigh. “I never sat so long in my whole life.”
Lydia and Sarah laughed. “It takes some getting used to,” Lydia gently told Holly. “But you did real good today. For your first time too.”
Rachel smiled at Lydia, grateful for the encouragement she was giving Holly. Perhaps Rachel had been too critical of this hardworking woman. Clearly, she cared deeply for Holly too.
“And when it was all done, we ate peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches.” Holly smacked her lips. “Yum-yum.”
“I thought you’d like those.”
Holly looked curiously at her. “How did you know I had peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches?”
Rachel shrugged as she handed the last pan to Lydia to rinse. “I had a feeling.”
“And then we got to play—all the kids got to play in the barn, Aunt Rachel. It was so fun.”
Rachel nodded. “Sounds like fun.” She squeezed the water out of the dishrag and looked at Lydia. �
��Are we done with this dishwater now?”
“Yes.” Lydia rinsed the last pot. “You can dump it.”
Rachel reached into the deep sink to grasp the large plastic dishpan, lifting the heavy tub and thinking she was going to pour the dishwater down the drain. She had it about chest level when the greasy, soapy plastic edge slipped in her hands and the whole mess tipped toward her and poured right down her front, soaking her sweater and jeans with nasty, greasy, gray soapy dishwater. She let out a shriek and stepped back, but it was too late. Whatever didn’t soak her wound up all over the kitchen floor in a slippery, grimy gray puddle. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, seeing Lydia’s sickened look. “I can clean that up.”
“No.” Lydia handed her a dish towel to blot herself with. “You go and change out of those clothes. I will take care of this.”
“Poor Aunt Rachel,” Holly said with sympathy. “I’ll go up with you.” Then, taking Rachel’s hand as if she were a wounded child, Holly led her up the stairs. Once in the bathroom, Rachel carefully peeled off her soggy, messy clothes, piling them in the corner, and suddenly realized she had just ruined her only pair of jeans.
“Can you take those down to Aunt Lydia?” Rachel asked Holly as she wrapped the sodden bundle in a towel to keep it from getting on Holly. “See if she can wash them for me.”
“Okay.” Holly nodded.
“And when you come back up, can you bring me my pajamas? They’re under my pillow on my bed.”
“You’re going to bed already?” Holly looked surprised.
Rachel shook her head. “I don’t have any other clothes to wear.” She pointed to the damp bundle. “Those were my only pants.”
“Oh.” Holly’s eyes grew big.
“So take that to Aunt Lydia, okay?”
“And bring back your pajamas?”
“Yes.”
After taking a quick bath and getting into her pajamas and into bed, Rachel opened her e-book and decided to make the most of her “early” bedtime. In a way it was a relief to be up here and away from the curious members of the Miller family. She knew she was the misfit in this house. Even Holly, who was just a child, had managed to meld almost seamlessly into the Amish way of life.
Tomorrow, Rachel decided, she would put on her clean clothes and pack her bags, and even if Lydia refused to hand over Holly, Rachel would go and get herself a room in the hotel in town. At least that would give her a place to figure things out. If there was any way to figure this out. Mostly, she wanted to get away from here. The sooner the better. In the meantime, she would enjoy this brief break up here in Sarah’s room.
“Aunt Rachel,” Holly said as she returned to the room, “you don’t have to go to bed now.”
Rachel smiled at her. “It’s okay. I think this is my punishment for making a mess in the kitchen. An early bedtime.” She held up her e-reader. “Besides, I can catch up on my reading. So, really, it’s all right.”
“But Aunt Lydia found some clothes for you to wear,” Holly explained as she played with Rachel’s hair.
Sarah came in carrying a bundle of what looked suspiciously like Amish clothing. “Mamm said to give you these,” she said quietly.
“Oh, Sarah, that’s okay,” Rachel told her. “I don’t need to wear your mother’s clothes. Besides, they’d be too big for me.”
“They’re not Mamm’s clothes,” Sarah said. “Noah went over to Mammi’s to get them. They used to belong to Aunt Miriam.”
“Miri?” Rachel reached over to touch the blue dress.
“Mamm says you are about the same size.”
Rachel nodded. “Miri and I used to swap clothes sometimes.”
“This was my mommy’s?” Holly said as the realization sank in. “When she was Amish?”
“Mamm told me that Mammi saved them,” Sarah confided to Holly. “She thought Aunt Miriam would come home someday.”
“Oh.” Holly got a very sad look, then turned to Rachel. “Can I get in bed with you, Aunt Rachel?”
“Sure.”
Holly snuggled up to Rachel in a way that warmed Rachel’s heart and gave her hope.
“I want to sleep with Aunt Rachel tonight,” she told Sarah. “If it’s okay.”
Rachel stroked Holly’s hair, which had tumbled out of its bun. “It’s okay with me, Holly, but it will be pretty snug in this tiny bed.”
“You can have my bed,” Sarah offered generously.
“Thank you,” Rachel told her.
After a while, Holly seemed to recover from her melancholic moment, but now she looked at Rachel hopefully. “Will you please put on the Amish dress, Aunt Rachel?”
“Right now?”
Holly eagerly agreed. “I want to see how you look.”
Rachel sighed. “I don’t even know how to do it,” she said. “All the pins and everything.”
“I’ll help you, Aunt Rachel,” Sarah said.
Rachel was surprised that she’d called her “aunt.” “All right,” she agreed. “But it seems silly, since it’ll be bedtime in an hour or so anyway.”
“Please,” Holly begged.
So it was that Rachel allowed both Sarah and Holly to dress her up like an Amish woman. Once she had the dress on—although she knew she must look ridiculous—she had to admit that it wasn’t uncomfortable. Plus it fit.
“Let’s go downstairs,” Holly suggested, “and show Aunt Lydia.”
The last thing Rachel wanted to do was parade around in this outfit, but both Holly and Sarah looked so hopeful she couldn’t refuse them. However, she was somewhat surprised to find that Benjamin was down in the front room. He was talking to Daniel about Buttercup, and he sounded concerned that she hadn’t calved yet.
“I want to give her until midnight,” Benjamin was saying. “After that . . . well, she might need some help.”
“Ja.” Daniel slowly nodded. “We cannot let her go too long. It is one thing to lose the calf, but we do not want to lose the cow.”
Benjamin looked up to see them standing at the foot of the stairs, listening to this conversation. “Oh!” He looked surprised. “Rachel, is that you?”
“She’s wearing my mother’s old Amish clothes,” Holly proclaimed.
“I spilled dishwater all over my clothes,” Rachel explained quickly.
He nodded with a hard-to-read expression.
“Is Buttercup going to be okay?” Rachel asked.
Benjamin shrugged. “I hope so.”
“Who’s Buttercup?” Holly asked with concern.
Sarah quickly filled her in and then Holly begged to go out to the barn to see, and Daniel acted like it was perfectly fine.
“Is it really okay?” Rachel asked Benjamin.
“Sure. If she wants to.”
“I want to—I want to,” Holly said eagerly. “I’ve never seen a calf being born before.”
“I haven’t either.” Rachel tossed Benjamin a look now. “But I mean is it okay . . . as in, well, is Buttercup’s calf going to be okay?”
Benjamin gave her a look that showed he understood her meaning, then turned to Holly. “Here’s the deal, Holly. You can come out to watch for a while, but if I decide that Buttercup doesn’t need an audience, you can’t complain if I say it’s time to come back to the house. Do you understand?”
She nodded somberly. “Yes. You mean if Buttercup is uncomfortable with too many people watching her, right?”
He grinned. “Ja. Right.”
And so they bundled up, and Holly, Sarah, and Rachel followed Benjamin out to the barn, where they gathered around Buttercup, waiting for her miracle—at least Rachel hoped it would be a miracle—to begin.
9
After more than an hour of waiting for poor Buttercup to calve, watching as the anxious cow lay down, then stood up, again and again, Rachel could tell the girls were getting restless. Holly seemed as interested in the calico barn cat Cookie as she was in seeing a birth. Seated on a straw bale, Holly had turned her full skirt into a snug cat bed, and Cookie was purring
contentedly.
Even so, Rachel knew it was getting late and was about to call it a night when Lydia came out to the barn and insisted it was time for the girls to go to bed.
“You both have school tomorrow,” she told them sternly.
“I have school?” Holly gave Rachel a puzzled look as she gently eased Cookie from her warm, comfy bed. “I thought I was on my Christmas vacation.”
“School goes all week here,” Lydia quickly explained. “Right up until Christmas. And, ja, you will go to school with Sarah and Ezra in the morning.”
“We get some days off after Christmas,” Sarah assured Holly. “And don’t worry—we’re mostly working on our Christmas play this week.”
“You’re having a Christmas play at your school too?” Holly’s eyes lit up. “Is it A Christmas Carol?”
Sarah frowned. “I don’t know what it’s called.”
“I’m sure it’s not A Christmas Carol,” Rachel told Holly.
“Will I be in the play?” Holly asked hopefully.
“Ja, I think so,” Sarah said. “I’m playing the innkeeper’s wife, and Ezra is Joseph this year. Maybe you can be an animal. The younger children are mostly animals.”
“I want to be a horse,” Holly proclaimed.
Sarah looked uncertain. “I don’t think we have horses in it.”
“Come now, liebschen.” Lydia wrapped an arm around Holly. “It is time to go to bed.”
Holly turned to Rachel. “You can stay here and watch Buttercup have her baby,” she said. “You don’t have to go to school tomorrow.”
“Ja,” Lydia told her. “You do not need to go inside unless you want to, Rachel. I will see the girls go to bed.”
Once again, Rachel felt dismissed, but it seemed pointless to resist. Lydia was clearly in charge of her household. Besides, Rachel was curious to witness a cow giving birth. “All right,” she told Holly. “I’ll stay here. But first let me kiss you good night.” She bent down to hug and kiss Holly. “Good night, sleep tight, and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”
A Simple Christmas Wish Page 8
