After lunch almost everyone headed back outside to play in the snow. This time Meg and the Lutz women bundled up and joined in. Snowball fights broke out everywhere, and children screamed with delight as they ducked. When sleighs began pulling up, the horses whinnying in the frosty air, the Hobarts were thrilled to find places amid the Lutz children and the neighbors offering the rides. Cuddling under blankets, her children and husband laughing beside her as they bounced along behind the trotting horses, Meg wondered why everyone in the world didn’t want to take a sleigh ride every time it snowed. Rapt, she drank in the sights of the passing farms in their picture-perfect state, the deserted animal pens, their usual inhabitants inside the warm barns, and the gently rolling farmland, an endless narrow strip against the overwhelming expanse of the afternoon sky.
She glanced over to see James and Lizzie, their heads close together, looking out at something far away, James’s arm outstretched as he pointed. The two of them engaged in conversation: That was something she couldn’t recall seeing in ages.
“Is this not the greatest treat in the world?” she asked Will, who was sitting next to her.
“It’s pretty awesome, I gotta admit,” he answered, his eyes wide open and clear, his expression one of pure happiness.
She put an arm around him. He didn’t pull away.
By the time evening rolled around, everyone was exhausted. After dinner most of the children settled down to board games, accompanied by snacks of pretzels and roasted marshmallows. Meg found herself seated at the table with Catherine and Barbara, who explained that they were going over seating details for the unmarried teenagers at the evening supper. Meg wanted to know more but refrained from interrupting them with what she guessed seemed like her endless questions.
During a momentary lull, she decided to jump in with a request she had been pondering for the past few hours. “I truly don’t want to add to the things you have to deal with,” she started, “but I wonder if you would do me a favor.”
Both women looked at her as she chose her words.
“Every Christmas I bake my special brownies and oatmeal cookies. I’ve been doing it forever, and it kind of makes it Christmas for us. Would you do me the favor of letting me bake them for your wedding, Barbara? I promise I won’t disappoint you—I really think your guests will like them.”
Barbara smiled. “That’s a wonderful thing you’re offering to do.”
“It would mean so much to me, for so many reasons,” Meg said. “But it would be my little contribution to wishing you a happy marriage.”
“Thank you. I would be honored.”
Meg laughed. “I’m not sure you should be honored. I don’t know if they’re that good.”
“We’ll see, won’t we?” Catherine grinned. “On Monday we will add them with other baking that is still to do.”
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
The two women had no idea of the significance it had for her, Meg thought. She hadn’t missed a year since Lizzie was born. All three of her children adored the very fudgy brownies and the oatmeal cookies shot through with cranberries. It would have been unbearably sad for her to see the holiday come and go without them. Of course, Meg expected that they would be at her parents’ house when the actual holiday rolled around. That was exactly why she needed to bake them before they left here. She knew perfectly well her parents weren’t going to be excited about the cost, the mess, or the idea of letting their grandchildren run amok by eating all the brownies and cookies they wanted until they had run out.
That was the whole point, though, in Meg’s view. What made it fun was the seemingly inexhaustible supply of sweets without—just this one time in the year—limits applied. Breakfast, lunch, or dinner, if you wanted brownies or cookies, you could have them. It wasn’t such a big deal, considering they were gone in about three days, everyone satiated to the point of nausea, wanting nothing more to do with them until the next year.
Meg went to bed that night feeling that she had done her best to salvage a little bit of home for her family.
The next morning she got up to see the Lutzes leaving for worship, dressed in what must have literally been their Sunday best, black clothes that were basically the same style but not the same garments they wore during the workweek. They hadn’t invited the Hobarts to go with them, and Meg and James sensed that it wasn’t appropriate to ask.
Once all five of them had made it to the kitchen, they took seats around the table in the dim morning light to eat the breakfast Catherine had left for them. The dogs settled beneath the table, Racer snoring lightly, Rufus sitting at attention in case someone should drop a piece of food. Sam scratched the puppy’s head.
Suddenly the five of them felt awkward in the silent house. Sam broke the silence first. “Old Samuel told me about their church service,” he offered as he poured himself a bowl of cereal.
“You are so weird, spending all your time with that old man,” Will said, although he was still too sleepy to put much energy into the insult. He took a long gulp from his glass of orange juice.
“I don’t spend all my time with him,” Sam answered in annoyance. “But at least I know stuff, and you don’t, stupid.”
“Oh, big expert over there,” Will said with disdain.
“Let me guess,” Lizzie broke in. “Their church service is twelve hours. Then there’s a five-minute break, and they go back for another twelve hours.”
Sam made a face at her. “No. I just know that it’s always in somebody’s house or barn, a different place all the time. They have, like, these benches they take around. The men and women sit separate. There’s this book with all their songs and stuff that they’ve been using for, like, four hundred years.”
“Sam, that’s really interesting,” James said, helping himself to some buttermilk pancakes, golden but, by now, cold. “Thanks for telling us.”
“You’re very welcome,” Sam said primly before sticking out his tongue at Will. “Some of us prefer not to be ignorant.”
“Some of us prefer not to be obnoxious little freaks,” Will retorted, reaching for the pitcher of maple syrup.
“I wonder what time they’ll get back,” Meg said.
“They eat and hang around after,” Sam informed her.
At the unexpected sound of the door opening, all five of them turned. Racer jumped to his feet and tore over to the door, barking wildly, startling them with his ability to run, much less move that fast. The puppy took off after him, loudly yapping.
A tall young man stepped inside. He was wearing blue jeans, work boots, and a plaid flannel shirt beneath an open quilted down jacket and a navy-blue knitted cap. In one hand he held a knapsack that he let drop to the floor. The two dogs were jumping and barking for his attention.
Clearly shocked, he stared at the people sitting around the table. “Who the heck are you?” he demanded.
James drew himself up in his chair as if positioning himself in case he had to confront this intruder. Meg’s gaze was drawn to the boy’s blue eyes.
“Excuse me, but we’re guests here—” James started. As James spoke, the boy tugged off his cap, revealing a thatch of blond hair.
Of course, Meg realized. She put a hand on James’s arm. “Wait.”
Her husband stopped and looked at her.
Meg stood up and smiled at the boy. “You must be Benjamin. I’m so glad to meet you.”
Chapter 13
By eleven o’clock on Monday morning, Meg couldn’t decide which was more impressive: the amount of work being done by the dozen or so couples who had appeared at the Lutz house early that morning, or the calm and organized way in which they went about it. One couple, relatives of David Lutz, had been designated to oversee the entire operation, but, once assigned a task, everyone seemed to know exactly what to do. The members of the community had done this many times before, Meg reflected, but their efficiency was nonetheless startling.
The men had their own list of chores, and Meg couldn’t res
ist sneaking out of the baking in Catherine’s kitchen for a few moments to see the activity going on in Joseph’s barn. She paused just inside the doorway to watch a small group assemble temporary long tables, rigging benches to table height and covering them with white cloths. Several men gathered around what appeared to be a floor plan of the seating, consulting on the arrangement of tables.
At that moment, Catherine’s daughter Annie passed by and stopped to tap Meg on the shoulder. Guiltily, Meg jumped and turned around. “I know, I’m slacking off,” she said, surprised to feel her face turning pink. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Annie laughed. “You are curious.” She peered inside. “Okay. Over there, see where the tables meet to make like a letter L? That’s the Eck, the corner place where you can see them best, where Barbara and Moses sit with the people in the wedding party.” Annie pointed to a group of men in a different area, assembling and sorting huge quantities of food. “That is to make the bread stuffing that goes with the chickens. A lot of chickens.”
“Where is all this cooking being done?” Meg asked. “There’s not enough room in our three kitchens.”
“Many houses. My father is now at a neighbor’s barn to kill the chickens and prepare them for roasting, and my grandparents are chopping celery at a different house. I’m going back to my house, where we are peeling potatoes.” Annie laughed. “It is quite a job, making mashed potatoes for three hundred people. Be glad you are not doing the mashing part.”
Meg’s eyes widened. “I hadn’t thought about that. Wow.”
“We have many other people making gravy and tapioca pudding, things like that. As much as possible, we cooked all this week, too. We rented propane stoves to set up in a tent here. We spread the work out tomorrow, too, so everybody has some time to enjoy themselves, right? First, most important, are the church service and the wedding vows. Then the celebration. It’s the beginning of a new family, so it’s a very happy day. And we have always done it exactly the same way.”
Annie smiled and walked off. Meg watched her, thinking about what the young woman had just said. This marriage was truly about celebrating a union. They followed their traditions to bring a new Amish family into being. Anything else was outside the realm of what was important. Nobody had to compete with anybody. She had to laugh, thinking of the vast sums of money spent on some of the weddings she and James had attended over the years, most of it for the sole purpose of impressing.
As she headed back toward the Lutz house, she briefly pondered if it was truly possible to eliminate all desire to show off, even the tiniest bit. Several times she had heard the Lutzes talk disapprovingly about something or other being prideful or vain. They worked hard to avoid that.
Meg looked down as she crossed the road to make sure she didn’t slip on the ice. When she happened to glance up, she saw the figures of her sons following behind Aaron, Eli, and Jonathan with their newly returned brother, Benjamin. All six carried what obviously were heavy buckets, the older boys straining under the weightiest loads. They deposited them by the back door at Annie’s house, closest to her kitchen, and set off back to Catherine’s. Will and Sam lagged behind, talking; Meg could see the younger Lutz boys engaged in animated conversation with Benjamin, practically jumping to get his attention. She smiled. The two boys reminded her of Racer and Rufus when Benjamin had appeared at the house yesterday morning. Jonathan, the elder brother, seemed to be keeping his distance. Benjamin was wearing Amish clothes today, but his haircut, trimmed relatively short and without the ubiquitous bangs sported by the other Amish men, made him stand out. Meg guessed the change in clothes was a sign of respect for his family, although the tension between Benjamin and his parents bubbled painfully close to the surface.
Meg had noticed that, as warm and friendly as they were, the adults of the Lutz clan were not particularly affectionate, at least not in front of her, with the one definite exception of how they treated the young children. Babies and toddlers got plenty of hugs and kisses. But she couldn’t recall seeing the adults exchange a hug or a kiss or even an unnecessary touch. Perhaps they considered that private, not something for public display, or it just wasn’t their way. Meg had no idea and was hardly going to ask. Even so, she was taken aback to see the cool greeting Benjamin received from his father and grandparents when they returned from their church service and found him at home. Maybe it had something to do with his indecision about his future. While warmer, Catherine had refrained from any big display of emotion, although Meg could see both joy and anguish on her face at the sight of her long-absent son.
Initially, the adults hadn’t asked Benjamin where he had been or what he had been up to. The younger children, however, couldn’t wait to hear about his escapades and hustled him off to another part of the house where they could have him all to themselves. He seemed only too glad to leave the room. Walking along now, watching the group of boys, Meg pondered the difficulty of Benjamin’s choices. All she knew for sure, she reflected, was that the lives of these people were infinitely more complex than she understood.
By late afternoon, Meg was exhausted from the day’s labors, but she never would have admitted it. Everyone around her was still going at full steam. One of the older women came over to inform her that she could start on her brownies and cookies. Meg was gratified that they had in fact set aside time for her. She had begun to think she would have to get up in the dead of night if she wanted a chance at her own baking.
James had purchased the supplies, only too glad they could contribute something to the celebration, however small. After sending little Rachel to find Lizzie, Meg began to assemble her ingredients. The goal was four hundred brownies and three hundred cookies. Just a tad more than the usual Christmas batch, she laughed to herself, but hey, this is the land of the Amish. They can do everything, and maybe, as long as I’m here, I can, too.
When Lizzie came running into the house behind Rachel, she was red-faced and out of breath. “What’s wrong, Mom? Rachel said …” Lizzie trailed off as she saw the familiar baking ingredients. Her face broke into a wide grin. “Oh, Mom.” She sighed with pleasure. “The brownies. And the oatmeal cookies, too? You’re awesome.”
Meg smiled at her. “Only if I can get some help. We need to make enough to feed a small city. So wash your hands and tie your hair back.”
Lizzie didn’t have to be told twice. “One sec, I’ll be right there,” she called out as she dashed toward the sink.
Meg was happy to see her daughter so excited. Her daughter’s obvious longing for something familiar didn’t escape her. Even when they left here, though, they weren’t going back home, only on to another unfamiliar world. It would be soon, too. Just another few days, according to the mechanic.
Meg smoothed down the front of her borrowed apron. Then she moved forward, assessing what it would take to lift the enormous sack of flour before her.
When she and Lizzie finished arranging the last platter of brownies, both of them breathed sighs of vast relief. The desserts had come out just right, though they had never before attempted to bake them in such huge quantities. Catherine tasted a brownie and a cookie, giving a brisk nod and pronouncing them good in a definite tone of voice. This, Meg knew, was high praise. After the last pan was washed and put away, she and her daughter shared a high five and a long, tight hug.
By the time she got ready to head upstairs for the night, Meg felt that if she couldn’t partake in any other part of the wedding celebration, she would be grateful for what she had already been allowed to see and do on this day. Just the time spent baking with Lizzie had been a supreme treat. She tried not to compare the obviously tight bonds of these people with the ephemeral connections of her own past. It made for a very sorry assessment of what passed for relationships. To be fair, she reminded herself, most of these people were related in some way. They spent all their lives together. And they had their own problems with one another. Yet Meg could see that the bonds of their religion and community overrode al
l other considerations.
After an incredibly long day, the huge but relaxed crowd of workers sat down to a supper infused with goodwill and laughter. They truly lived by the adage that work was its own reward, Meg reflected. Seated at the table, looking at the open, kind faces around her, she knew she would remember this day for a long time to come.
By the time she said her good nights, Meg was so tired, she wanted nothing more than to feel the pillow beneath her head. On her way down the hall, she passed the door to Benjamin’s room, which was slightly open. When the boy had returned home, he’d kindly allowed Will to continue to stay in the room with him, while Sam moved in with Aaron. As Meg went by, she heard Benjamin say something and Lizzie and Will laugh in response. Guiltily, she paused to find out what they were discussing. She had no idea what her children talked about with the Lutz children, and the opportunity to find out was irresistible.
“No Christmas tree or lights or anything?” Will was asking in disbelief.
“No Santa Claus, none of that,” Benjamin said. “We just hang out, have a big family meal, a couple of small presents. Nothing big, and mostly stuff you can use. The next day we go to worship.”
“The next day?” Will asked. “The day after Christmas?”
An Amish Christmas: A Novel Page 15
