Danny nearly fell asleep during dessert, and she quietly steered him upstairs for a warm bath before bed. She sat on the edge of his bed as his eyelids grew heavy in the middle of a story he was telling her about the day’s adventure. She kissed him gently and tucked him in, running her hand over his soft hair. He was so big.
She closed her eyes. Oh, Lord God, she prayed. Thank you for blessing me with the gift of my son. Thank you for blessing me with life and love and laughter.
Stairs creaked, then floorboards. Her heart quickened at Sol’s footsteps on the stairs, and then he stood in the doorway, his face flushed from being outside. She reached her arms out to him and he reached for her. When she kissed him, his lips were cool against her own.
After a long hot bath, Jaime wrapped herself in a towel. It felt scratchy and stiff, dried days ago in the winter sun. She heard a knock on the door and C.J.’s voice on the other side. “Mattie wanted me to bring up some fresh towels.”
She opened the door for him and he handed them to her.
“Mind if I brush my teeth while the lantern is here?”
She stepped back so he could get in the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Tucker wanted to come in too, but there wasn’t enough room for the three of them. “It is so dark and so cold here. I’ve never realized how much I take electricity for granted.”
C.J. went to the sink and brushed his teeth. “Not just electricity.” He spit out a mouthful of toothpaste. “I’ve noticed a lot of things we’ve taken for granted.”
He shook out the toothbrush and set it in a glass. He turned back to Jaime and cocked his head. A softness came over his face. They were silent for a moment. The faucet dripped, and steam swirled. She heard Tucker’s heavy breathing, right up against the door, sounding like a bull in a ring.
“Are Tucker’s cuts okay?”
“Yup. Just a few surface scratches. Not really sure if Tucker scared off the bobcat or the bobcat scared off Tucker.”
Jaime felt water drip from the tips of her tousled hair strands, tucked in a towel. She turned away from him and studied the nightgown Mattie had loaned her. A rivulet of water ran down the small of her back. He took a step closer and put a hand on her bare shoulder. He kissed the water dry on the back of her neck. His stubble found the curve of her neck, then gentle lips made their way. She was paying him no mind.
“The towels smell like sunshine.”
“This skin you’re wearing is pretty sweet smelling.” He slipped his arms around her waist. “Pretty beautiful too.”
“No . . . ,” she laughed, embarrassed, and tried to squirm out of his arms and reach for her nightgown. “Don’t be silly . . . I’m not beautiful.”
Jaime could feel him still, arms around her, tensed, steady.
“When are you ever going to believe me? That I think you’re beautiful? That when I tell you I love you, I mean it.” He said the words slow and low.
Jaime took a deep breath. She was glad she wasn’t facing him. “And Eve? Do you love her too?”
C.J. dropped his arms. “Eve? What about Eve?”
Jaime kept her head tucked down. “Since she started working at the school last fall, she’s all you talk about. Every day, you bring her up. Something she said, something she did for you. Baking brownies, taking Tucker for a walk. I know you stay late to talk to her after school. She even called you today! Earlier—right when the car came out of the pond. Remember?”
“I remember.” He turned her around to face him. “So . . . you think I’m having an affair with Eve?”
“I don’t know. Not yet, maybe, but it’s inevitable.”
“You are jealous of Eve.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement.
“No! Of course not. How ridiculous.” She sat on the edge of the tub and thought about Mattie’s encouragement to be honest with each other. To really talk to each other, about everything. Thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams. Even fears. She took a deep breath. “Yes. Yes. I am jealous of Eve. I think she is the kind of woman you should have married. The kind you wish you had married. Someone who doesn’t have issues trying to please her father. Someone who isn’t a mess. Someone who would be a wonderful mother. Not like me. I’d make a terrible mother. A child would need years of therapy just to survive having me as his mother.”
There. She said it all. She could feel C.J. watching her. He sat down on the floor, leaned his back on the tiled wall, his hands resting on his bent knees. “Jaime, look at me.”
She lifted her eyes.
“You’re right. There is something I haven’t told you. It’s about Eve.”
Here it comes. She knew it. All along, she knew it.
“Jaime, Eve is seventy-three years old.”
He was smiling his big, wide smile, the one that was so contagious. She looked at him in wonder.
C.J. dropped his chin to his chest, trying hard not to smile, not to laugh, but when he lifted his head and their eyes met, a short laugh rolled out of him, then another, and another, until he was doubled over. She felt so foolish. So foolish and silly. Then the laughter left his face and he stared back at her for the space of three slow, thunderous heartbeats. She was surprised he couldn’t hear it, the beating of her heart.
When he saw she wasn’t laughing, he stood and held his hands out to her, pulling her close to him, wrapping her in his arms. “I love you, Jaime. Nothing can change that.” He brushed her cheek with the words, with his lips.
She stood on tipped toes, hair still dripping. “Thank you, C.J.”
“You mean, for this?” His eyes glinted and he kissed her, and soon they were a laughing mess.
Mattie was right, Jaime thought later, in bed, after C.J. had fallen asleep with his arms wrapped around her. Love was much more than words. It was a phrase her mother would have appreciated and used in a greeting card. Maybe tomorrow she would tell C.J. about The Voice, that she was a praying person now. Tomorrow, for sure. Right after she told him that she had quit her job at Sears Portrait Studio. She knew she couldn’t go back to it, even if she was returning to a promotion.
Instead, she had an idea of what she wanted to do with her passion for photography. She wanted to get back outside, where she belonged. To photograph nature and wildlife and—dare she think it?—to become a photographer of the Amish. Not of their faces, of course, but of their lives. To chronicle the day-to-day activities of these simple, peaceloving, yet oh-so-fascinating people, for future generations to know that such a way of life could exist. Quilts hanging on a clothesline on a snowy day, like the photo that had won the National Geographic contest. And children at play, and well-tended barns, and buggies traveling down a country lane. Would it work? Would anyone buy her photographs? She took a deep breath. She didn’t care. She would be doing something she loved.
Jaime yawned. Tomorrow, she would tell C.J. everything. Mattie was spot-on—she and C.J. needed to talk more to each other, from-the-heart kind of talking. But right now, she felt so cozy, lying here with her back pressed against him. The simple touching of his body to hers. And with her hand still in her husband’s, she fell asleep.
Christmas Morning
On Christmas morning, Mattie rose early and made breakfast, decorating the plates of eggs, bacon, and hash browns with sprigs of parsley, grown from a little pot she kept by the sunny kitchen window.
“That sure smells good,” Sol said as he came in from the barn, kissing her cheek.
At Danny’s place at the table was a pile of gifts covered by a dishtowel. He lifted it and added a new whistle he had carved late last night, sitting by the fire. He looked up at Mattie, suddenly shy.
“Eagle whistle.” He shrugged. “To remember.” He rubbed his chin. “He could have died.”
“But he didn’t,” Mattie said quietly but firmly.
Sol took something from his pocket and lifted the dishtowel in front of Zach’s place.
“What are you up to?” Mattie asked.
Sol got a look on his face like Danny did when she
caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “It’s Zach’s broke-off key to his car. I got it loose this morning by using a blowtorch.”
Mattie raised her eyebrows. “You’re encouraging him to keep the car?”
Sol pretended to look indignant. “I’m doing nothing of the sort! I’m just . . . taking the advice of a wise woman I know and letting him chart his own path.”
She smiled. “You, Solomon Riehl, are a wonderful man.”
Sol’s cheeks reddened. “Only because you help me be a better man.” He took off his coat and hat and hung them on the wall peg.
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” she said.
“Sounds serious.”
She nodded. “It is.” She took two mugs from the cupboard and poured coffee into them. She handed one to Sol and he sat in a chair at the table. She leaned with her back against the kitchen sink. “I’d like to consider fostering children. A baby. A foster baby. I think it would be good for all of us—you, me, and Danny. And it would be good for some child out there too, who needs a home like ours. I’m not giving up—I’m still hoping we’ll have another baby. But I have a great longing to be a mother, Sol, and maybe that doesn’t mean I have to bear the children. Maybe God has kept me from bearing another child—for now—because he wants me to care for a motherless child. And you—you’re such a fine example of a man. You could have such a strong influence for good on a child who doesn’t have any men in his life.”
There. She said it. She had practiced this speech last night as she was getting ready for bed. She watched him carefully to see his reaction, but he didn’t seem at all surprised or resistant.
He took a long sip of coffee. Then another. He looked out the window. “Boy or girl?”
Hope filled her. “Either.” She tilted her head. “Does it matter to you?”
He shook his head. “You are what matters to me. You and Danny. If you’d like us to foster a child, then we can do that.”
“You mean it? You’re not just saying yes because it’s Christmas?”
He smiled. “I think it’s a fine idea, Mattie.”
Mattie put down her coffee cup and crossed the room toward Sol’s open arms. She was smiling wide and laughing, really laughing.
The sun came up in a sky that was hazy with frost. The air shimmered so with the cold that it was like looking at the world through a sheet of oiled glass.
After breakfast, Danny opened his gifts and Sol read the Nativity story from the book of Luke—first in German, then in English.
And then the Riehls had church to go to, and it was time for the Fitzpatricks to be on their way. Mattie invited Jaime and C.J. to come too, but when they heard the service would last three hours, that a hymn lasted as long as twenty minutes, and that the entire service was in German . . . they quickly declined.
As Jaime went downstairs, she realized she was leaving this Amish farmhouse as a different person. How could so much happen in less than two days? On Friday night, she arrived here as a complete mess, a nutcase! Her thinking was so scrambled, so mixed up. She had such a warped sense of what love should be. No one would ever be enough to fill that empty space inside—not her father, not her mother. Not even poor, dear C.J. It wasn’t a human-sized space. It was too vast, too deep. She wasn’t quite sure all that it meant—about God being the only perfect love—but today, Christmas, she was starting to have a glimpse of what it meant. She was loved by a love that was enough!
She heard the grandfather clock ding-dong its message: half past seven. She knew they had better hurry to leave so that the Riehls could make it to their church service by eight. And she and C.J. hoped to meet Eve at her church by nine. C.J. wanted Jaime to meet Eve, face-to-face.
In the kitchen, as they said goodbyes, Jaime stooped down to envelop Danny in a bear hug. She even tried to hug Sol, though it ended up being awkward, kind of a half hug. Next Jaime turned to Mattie, taking in her pale hair and clear skin, her gray eyes, calm and penetrating. Jaime’s eyes filled with tears and she tried to blink them away. Mattie took her in her arms the way a mother held a child. Jaime felt as if she was being given a hug and a prayer all wrapped up in one. Mattie made her promise to come by for dinner.
“Soon!” Mattie insisted. “I’ll get you liking my chow-chow yet.”
Jaime wasn’t sure about chow-chow, but she knew she’d be back to this little farm. Very soon.
Zach opened the kitchen door. “Ready to go?”
Jaime sniffed and wiped her cheeks with her hands. She followed C.J. outside. In front of the kitchen step was a horse harnessed to a sled. “My car! I completely forgot about it with all the excitement going on last night. Zach, did you leave it at Friendly’s Ice Cream Parlour?”
“Well. Not exactly.” Zach flashed her one of his incredible smiles. “Kind of a long story. A funny story, actually. I’ll tell you all about it as we head into town.” He looked back at Mattie and Sol. “I’ll be a little late to church. But I will be there. Tell my folks I’ll be there.”
He took a step toward the sled, then spun around to face Jaime. He patted down his jacket and reached inside his pocket. He pulled something out and held it up. “Hey—I almost forgot about this! After they yanked your car out of the pond, Danny was climbing around inside it when he thought no one was looking.” He raised an eyebrow at Danny. “He must have left this in the car.” He tossed it to Danny.
Danny caught it, gazed at it for a moment, then tossed it to Jaime, grinning his jack-o’-lantern grin. “You keep it. Dad and I can make another.”
It was the owl whistle.
Mattie waved a dishcloth until she couldn’t see the three figures on the sled any longer. She smiled, wondering how Jaime was going to take the news that Zach had to abandon her red car in a snowdrift after not quite making a bend in the road. She was glad not to be a witness to that particular conversation.
Sol and Danny disappeared into the barn to get the horse and buggy ready for church. Mattie knew they’d be out in a few moments, eager to leave. She should go inside to finish the dessert she had prepared for church dinner, and put on her bonnet, but not quite yet. She took in the sight of this dazzling Christmas morning, air as cold and clean as mountain ice, of the snowy fields that sparkled like crushed diamonds, of glistening icicles off roof gables, of the winter visitors at the bird feeders she and Danny kept filled with sunflower seeds. She took a deep breath. The air held the distant scent of pine, a clean scent, fresh as the snow.
Emmanuel, God is with us.
The world was immense, unpredictable, and sometimes a frightening place. But right now her son was in the barn, laughing and peppering his father with questions. And Sol was with him, buckling the buggy traces to the horse, patiently answering his son, and she didn’t have to cook dinner today.
This was her life. Not quite the one she had imagined as a girl, but it was her life, built with care and attention, and it was good. She felt good.
And God was with them.
She climbed the porch steps, pulled open the kitchen door, and went inside to get ready for church.
Discussion Questions
Mattie and Sol’s world is very different from the world in which Jaime grew up, and probably the world you grew up in too. What attracts you to the Riehls’ world?
The Amish do celebrate Christmas, but not the way the English do. For most Amish families, gifts are given only to the children. And a large meal will be shared among extended family. The Amish have a saying: “The best things in life are not things.” Does it ever seem as if a typical American Christmas—the commercialization, the excess—has gotten out of control? What are some ways you can tone down your family’s traditions so there is more time for true Christmas peace?
Mattie’s inability to have another child consumed her. She described herself as turning into someone she didn’t want to be. At a baby shower for her friend Carrie, she said she felt bitterness as real as bile in her throat. “But why couldn’t it be she who had a baby? W
hy was it that her sisters-in-law and friends could do something that she couldn’t seem to do?” How does Mattie’s experience after her miscarriage help you feel compassion for those who struggle with infertility?
Mattie and Jaime forged an unlikely friendship. Besides the snowstorm, what circumstances in their lives drew them together?
What do you think it says about Jaime that she likes to view the world through the lens of her camera? Did Jaime’s insecurities frustrate you? Why? Did you ever see yourself in some of her insecurities? Did your thoughts about Jaime change at all as the story progressed?
In many ways, C.J. seems to be an ideal husband. He is considerate and kind. He’s even a good cook! How did you feel when C.J. wondered how he could love Jaime enough when she always wanted more? Do you think we expect too much from people?
How did you feel about the fact that Jaime often questioned and doubted her relationship with her husband? What was the underlying, unresolved problem for Jaime that she projected onto C.J.?
What are your overall thoughts on Jaime’s father? Have you ever known anyone like him—big ideas, poor follow-through? Discuss Jaime’s revelation that she was expecting something from her father that he simply didn’t have to give.
What was your response to The Voice? Have you ever sensed God was trying to tell you something? Was it audible? Or was it a knowing, a deep inner prompting?
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