A Lancaster County Christmas

by Suzanne Woods Fisher

  Mattie, Sol’s wife, was shockingly plain. She couldn’t be more than five feet tall, with pale skin and large gray eyes that seemed too big for her small face. Jaime doubted she weighed one hundred pounds with a pocket full of change. She wore her wheat-colored hair in a bun so tight it made Jaime’s head ache just to look at it. Mattie was unremarkable, easy to overlook, yet something about her was compelling, like the hub of a wheel. Yes, that was it. She was the center of this family wheel.

  Jaime looked out the window. It was so dark it was impossible to even see the barn anymore.

  “I might be able to help,” Zach said, more kindly. “I might have—” he glanced down at the table—“a way to get to the main road.”

  Danny blinked at Zach through his round eyeglasses. A fleeting look of panic passed over him. “Ich hab dei Kaer gelast springa!”

  “Was?” Zach roared, as though something hot had been spilled on him. “Ich hab dich gsagt fa weg bleiva!”

  “Kaer?” Sol asked, in a tight, clipped voice. “Was fa Kaer?”

  Everyone in the room was quiet—extra quiet?—and all that could be heard was the sound of the wind gusting outside.

  Zach glared at Danny and pushed himself away from the table, grabbed his coat, hat, gloves, and a flashlight, and rushed outside.

  Danny’s face lit up. “Waarde, Zach! Woch will ich kumme!”

  Before Danny could scramble off his chair to join Zach, Mattie and Sol shouted, in unison, “Nee!”

  Crestfallen, Danny slipped back onto his chair.

  Zach had left in such a hurry that the door didn’t shut tight, and winter came into the kitchen on a blast of arctic air. Sol hurried to close it. As he sat down at the table, he said something else to Mattie in Pennsylvania Dutch. All that Jaime could pick out was something about a car. Zach’s car. Zach had a car someplace—and Jaime knew enough about the Amish to know that he wasn’t supposed to have a car.

  And Sol was not happy. Mattie looked extremely uncomfortable, caught between loyalty to her cousin and her husband.

  Oh. My. Gosh. Mattie knew about the car! Jaime could see it in her eyes. She knows! Mattie suddenly became elevated to a person of intrigue to Jaime.

  In a calming voice, Mattie said something to Sol in Dutch. Jaime guessed it was probably something close to, “Not now. We have company. We’ll talk about this later.” Then she turned to Jaime. “Is there someone who’s expecting you tonight? Is someone worrying about you?”

  Jaime exchanged a look with C.J.

  “We were headed to Jaime’s father’s home,” C.J. offered. “We’re supposed to fly out on Sunday to go on a cruise over Christmas with her father.” He put a reassuring hand on Jaime’s forearm. “I think he’ll be able to figure out that the storm is creating problems for us.”

  Jaime’s stomach did a flip-flop. They had to get there in time to make the cruise. They just had to! This was the very first time her father had invited Jaime to spend a holiday with him. She had such hopes for this Christmas together, that it would be the first of many.

  Danny cocked his head and whispered loudly to his mother, “Why would anyone not want to be home for Christmas?”

  Mattie rested a hand on his head, trying to still him for a moment.

  Jaime wasn’t positive, but she thought she heard Sol say, under his breath, “Only the English.”

  Sol took his time at the kitchen sink, washing up before dinner. His mind was far away, mulling over what to do with Mattie’s cousin Zach. Lately, he was starting to feel some empathy for Eli, Zach’s father. Eli Zook was a stern man who saw everything in black and white. No gray. Zach always had a knack for aggravating his father with multiple shades of gray. And Zach’s friends were part of a wild gang—wilder than any Sol had joined during his late teen years. True fence jumpers.

  In her quiet, persistent way, Mattie talked Sol into offering a home to Zach. She believed that doing so could keep Zach close to the fold. “Remember a saying my grandfather Caleb used to tell us, Sol?” she would ask him with her big gray eyes. “‘Better to stop one paddle short than one too far.’ If we let him go now, if we’re all against him, it’s like going one paddle too far. It’s too much. He might never find his way back.”

  In the end, Sol buckled. How could he refuse her? Mattie always saw the best in others. She saw the best in me, when I was just like Zach. A foolish young man. Mattie even talked Sol into meeting with the judge who oversaw Zach’s court case. He was facing Minor In Possession charges for alcohol use. Since it was Zach’s first offense, and Sol and Mattie were supporting him, the judge was willing to give Zach a steep fine coupled with a generous amount of community service hours to work off the misdemeanor charges.

  Sol understood Zach’s leaning toward the English world, no different than his own. And now, just like Sol had once done, Zach hid a car from his family. How can I judge him when I did the same? Besides, he had always been fond of Mattie’s cousin. Zach’s continual rebellious antics had been funny and irritating, but harmless, in a salt-in-the-sugar-bowl kind of way. If Sol would have ever had a brother, he imagined him to be like Zach. The feckless little brother, the talented one, the handsome one, the one no one could stay mad at.

  Sol had plenty of conversations with Zach out in the barn about what it was really like out there, in that big world. He did his best to convince Zach that what he would gain wouldn’t equal all that he would lose. Zach pretended to listen, but Sol could tell he didn’t believe him.

  Mattie scolded Sol once when he told her about their talks. She didn’t feel he should be trying to influence Zach one way or the other. “It’s his life to live, Sol,” she said. “You just keep being an example of a fine man to him and leave the rest to God.” That was his Mattie for you. She trusted God on everything, right down to the dollars in the bank.

  The hot food had been served up on the table while Sol’s mind was still out in the barn. He grabbed a dishcloth and dried his hands. As soon as everyone sat down at the table, Sol signaled for a prayer and bowed his head.

  Lord God, he silently prayed, I don’t know why you would want us to have English houseguests on this weekend—Christmas weekend—but please give me the grace to tolerate them. No, that wasn’t quite right. The English fellow seemed to be a good sort. He really needed grace to tolerate her—the English woman. His thoughts wandered to other English girls he had met during his Rumspringa. They were all the same: shallow and worldly. She was a pretty one, this girl. It worried him to see the look Zach had on his face, about ten minutes ago, while he had watched the woman stare out the window at the storm.

  Another dark cloud burst in on Sol’s train of thoughts. He was starting to understand Eli’s fear that Zach would turn his other children against the church. Sol had assumed Danny was too young to be noticing Zach’s sloppy work habits—late weekend nights, falling asleep during church. Just a few days ago, he found Danny with a pack of cigarettes. Danny had unearthed Zach’s stash, hidden in a barn rafter, and was fingering a cigarette, sniffing the tobacco. It made Sol furious to think Zach was smoking in the barn. The barn, of all places! And tonight, he discovered that Danny had known about the car and hadn’t told him about it. That he had even turned it on and left it running! What else was Danny picking up from Zach? Six-year-old boys were naturally curious and Danny was particularly observant.

  Mattie gently nudged him under the table and Sol, embarrassed, realized he had gone lost in his thoughts again. Oh Lord, he hastened to add, thank you for the provision of this fine meal. Amen.

  He cleared his throat and tipped his head up, giving up a grin as he saw Danny try to slip that biscuit-colored dog a piece of pork. What he saw next gave him a start—the dog refused the pork. Its large brown eyes were fixed on the English fellow.

  “Tucker knows not to eat unless I give him an OK,” C.J. explained. “It’s part of his training as a service dog.”

  “I didn’t even think about what your dog might need for dinner,” Mattie said. “I h
ave dry dog food in the pantry. We keep some handy for strays.”

  “We don’t,” Sol said. “My wife does. She feeds the birds, stray cats and dogs—”

  “Lost people too,” Danny interrupted.

  C.J. looked relieved. “That would be fine, if you don’t mind. The bag of dog food I brought is in the trunk of Jaime’s car.” As Mattie got up, he added, “Not now. He can wait.” He pointed to the floor and the dog collapsed onto the floor, burying his nose in his paws.

  Sol had never seen such a well-behaved dog. He was worried the dog would go after Danny’s barn owl, but other than an investigative sniff in its direction, he ignored it, as if he didn’t expect to be here long so why bother making friends? “Is he always that good?”

  C.J. looked down at Tucker and stroked his head. “He’s a fine dog, but he’s still a dog.”

  Sol picked up the mashed potatoes and passed the bowl to C.J. “What do you mean, a service dog?”

  “Tucker and I volunteer for Search and Rescue,” C.J. said, scooping some potatoes on his plate. “For the sheriff’s department.”

  “That’s your job?” Danny said. “I’d like that job.”

  C.J. laughed. “No. Just in my spare time. My full-time job is being a math teacher at the junior high.”

  “I’d rather be searching in the woods with a dog all day than stuck in a classroom,” Danny said.

  C.J. grinned. “I love Search and Rescue. SAR, they call it. In fact, that’s how Jaime and I met. She was photographing the training exercises. Jaime works as a photographer. The best in the state of Pennsylvania.”

  Jaime blushed. “I’m not. Not by a long shot.” She speared a piece of meat with her fork. “It’s really quite interesting to see how the dogs are trained. You’d love watching it sometime, Danny.” She took a spoonful of the chow-chow onto her plate. “What is this?” she asked, pushing it around on her fork.

  “Chow-chow,” Mattie said. “It’s an Amish dish. A staple, really. I think I could count on one hand the times I’ve sat at supper without chow-chow.”

  “But what’s in it?” Jaime asked.

  “Pickled vegetables,” Mattie said, looking up at the ceiling as if she was reading a recipe card. “Cucumbers, cauliflower, carrots, green peppers, lots and lots of vinegar. And sugar.”

  “How did it get a name like chow-chow?” Jaime asked.

  Mattie shrugged. “Nobody knows.”

  “How’d you get a name like C.J. and Jaime?” Danny asked.

  “Danny!” Sol warned. He gave his son the look, but Danny’s attention was riveted to the English guests. Danny couldn’t help asking questions. It was just the way his mind worked. He had such a curiosity about most everything, much more than Sol did at that young age. And he was so unusually bright! Sol often worried what choices Danny would make as an adult. Would he remain in the church? Would a farmer’s life be enough for him? But that was a worry that could wait for another day.

  “C.J. are my initials,” C.J. said. “Stands for Charles Joseph. Kind of a mouthful for my mother to holler out when I got into trouble so it was shortened to C.J.”

  Danny snorted. “My dad was named Solomon because his father wanted him to be as wise as King Solomon.”

  Sol tousled his hair. “And that’s why I prefer being called Sol. Lowers expectations.” He exchanged a fond smile with Mattie. She often told him that Solomon suited him and he knew it didn’t.

  Danny’s eyes were turned to Jaime, waiting for an answer to his question. He didn’t give up, that boy of his.

  “I was named Jaime after my father, James, because I was a girl. My father told my mother that one child was his limit . . . and he wanted a boy.” Jaime spread butter delicately on the roll before taking a bite.

  An awkward silence covered the kitchen. Only the English, Sol thought, would put a limit on a family. They didn’t understand what he knew to be true—that every child was a blessing from the Lord. Why would anyone want to limit blessings?

  When they were nearly done eating, Zach blew into the house and took his seat at the table, sullen and mad. He scowled at Danny and didn’t offer to drive the English folks anywhere. No matter where he had hidden that car, it would be tire-deep in snow by now. Sol had to stifle a smile at the thought of the car left running by Danny. It was wrong of his boy to mess with the car, but Sol couldn’t help but find pleasure at the thought of the car’s engine freezing up in this storm. Too bad! Ha!

  After watching Zach wolf down his meal, Sol offered a silent prayer to give thanks back to God for daily bread. He stood and plucked his coat from the wall peg. “Danny and Zach and I will go check on the stock.”

  “Sol, let me help you.” C.J. grabbed his coat and hat from the wall peg. “Let the boys stay in the warm kitchen. Heaven knows Zach earned a reprieve.”

  Zach frowned and Sol knew why. It bothered him to be referred to as a boy. He was itching to be considered a man.

  Zach pushed back his chair and stood. “I’m fine.” He rubbed the top of Danny’s head. “Let him stay.”

  “But I need mice!” Danny looked at his father with panic. “To feed the owl!”

  Sol nodded. “I’ll bring your mice. When I get back, we’ll finish up that puzzle.”

  “Stay out of the pond,” Mattie told Zach, lifting her eyebrows with an innocent look. “That’s your only dry coat.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Zach said. He cast a glance in Sol’s direction with just a wisp of mischief coming through. “If I forget, I’m sure Mr. September will remind me.”

  Sol tried to doff Zach’s hat, but Zach expected it and stepped closer to the door. He braced himself before heading out the door, pausing for a moment with his hand on the door handle. He took a deep breath and rushed outside. Sol and C.J. followed behind and Tucker dashed through the door before it closed.

  As Mattie collected the plates, she basked in a feeling of sweet relief. How kind of that English fellow to offer help so that Danny could stay inside! It was much too cold outside for a little boy. But her relief went deeper than that. She could hardly bear having Danny away from her. She knew it wasn’t right to feel so anxious about a child. She couldn’t seem to help it and the thought troubled her. So many things troubled her. Things she couldn’t tell anyone about. Not her mother or her sisters-in-law or her best friend, Carrie. Not Sol, either. Everyone expected Mattie Riehl to be the strong one and she wouldn’t disappoint them. But oh, she longed to spill all the troubling thoughts that had plagued her lately.

  Who could possibly comprehend, though? Who could understand that she was turning into someone she hardly recognized? Going to baby showers for her friends and sisters-in-law and feeling so terribly envious that they were popping babies out right and left, while her arms remained empty. Everyone was kind, but she knew they pitied her. She knew that she was now defined by her faulty womb. Mattie’s the one having difficulty. Something’s wrong, poor thing.

  This time, conceiving after so many years, she was sure she would finally have another baby. When the bleeding came, it nearly undid her. She couldn’t get out of bed for days. The doctor told Sol it was to be expected with so much blood loss, but she knew it was more than that.

  She gathered every dirty dish and utensil from the table, as well as the English woman’s plate that still held leftover chow-chow. She must not have liked it; she left it untouched on her plate. The English man ate everything.

  Mattie had shooed away an offer of dishwashing help from the English woman. She could tell the woman didn’t have much experience in a kitchen, and she could clean the dishes in half the time without someone asking her what to do or where a bowl went.

  When Mattie finished with the dishes, she glanced over at Danny, sitting cross-legged on the floor with the barn owl in his lap. That was when she noticed that Jaime was crouched on the floor, just a few feet away from Danny and the owl, snapping pictures of them with that fancy camera.

  Mattie reached out and pulled the camera out of Jaime’s
hands. “While you’re in our home, I expect you to respect our ways,” Mattie said in a sharp tone. As soon as the words left her mouth, she wished them back. The shocked look on her son’s face shamed her. What was the matter with her? What made her snap at a stranger like that?

  Jaime rose to her feet. “I’m sorry. I thought . . . they made such a sweet sight.”

  Mattie took a deep breath. She laid the camera on the table and sat down. “We Amish, we don’t want our pictures taken.”

  “I thought it was different with children,” Jaime said. “Before they were baptized. I thought it was just adults who were off-limits.”

  “Ask, first,” Mattie said, more gently.

  Jaime tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “Of course, you’re right. I’m sorry. I’m a photographer. That’s what I do. It’s who I am. I just . . . I looked over at them and in my mind, I saw the picture. I just . . . I did what I do.”

  Mattie softened. “So this piece of metal is why you sent my poor cousin into that frigid pond?”

  Jaime’s eyes went wide, then she burst into a laugh when she saw that Mattie was teasing. She reached over and picked up the camera. “I would’ve dived in after it myself, if he’d only let me. I’ve only had this camera for a few months. It takes amazing pictures.” She let out a sigh. “C.J. thinks I take better pictures with my old camera. He thinks I rely too much on the bells and whistles of this digital camera and not enough on my instincts.”

  Mattie leaned forward in her chair and clasped her hands together. “That’s the first time tonight you’ve stopped looking so worried!” She pulled a chair out for Jaime. She found herself fascinated by her, this English woman. She wasn’t like the Amish women Mattie knew, who were so careful about what they said and how they said it. This woman just blurted out whatever was on her mind. She had a way of looking right at you as if she was searching for something, hoping you had the answer for her. Jaime had held the camera carefully, as gently as if it were a robin’s blue egg. It was precious to her, Mattie could see that. “Your husband must have a lot of confidence in you, thinking your way of seeing is better than a camera’s.”