A Christmas Mourning

by Laura Bradford

  “I was hoping I could ask you a question or two about your days as a schoolteacher—in particular your last one in the schoolhouse purchased by Heavenly Tours.”

  Fannie looked up from her knitting and chuckled softly. “That was many, many years ago, Claire. I’ve had children and even a few grandchildren since then.”

  “I know, and I know it’s unlikely you’ll be able to help, but I have to ask.”

  “I am listening . . .”

  “You had a Christmas program that last day, yes?”

  “Yah.”

  “One of your students lost something very special in the hours leading up to the start of the program and I guess I’m just hoping you might have a suggestion on where I could begin to look.”

  Fannie looked up from the blanket taking shape in her lap, a knowing smile claiming a small corner of her mouth. “This is about Grace Fisher’s Christmas spoon, yah?”

  Claire felt her mouth gape but recovered enough to nod.

  “I thought so.”

  “So you remember it then?” she prodded.

  “What I remember most is hearing a knock on my door that Christmas morning. It was Jakob—asking if I’d seen the Christmas spoon. He cried when I said I had not.”

  “Do you at least remember him having the spoon in school that last morning?” Claire asked.

  “Yah. He took it out of his lunch pail when he came to school and showed it to the children seated in the desks closest to his. He told of the special hot chocolate Grace would make for them on Christmas morning and how she would stir it with the spoon—a spoon given to Grace by her grandparents, I believe.”

  “Then what happened? Do you remember?”

  Fannie set her needle and yarn next to her lap and scrunched her forehead in thought. “It was time to practice the children’s songs and verses. The buggies were to come in the afternoon. There was much to do to get ready.”

  “And Jakob? What did he do with the spoon?”

  “I let him show it to all of the children—big and little. The boys, they did not seem to understand Jakob’s excitement, but the girls did.” A soft cluck of amusement filled the space left by Fannie’s pause, disappearing as quickly as it came. “It is then that I knew Elizabeth was smitten by Jakob. I do not think that child took her eyes off him when he told of the spoon.”

  “Elizabeth?” she echoed. “As in Elizabeth Miller—I mean, Troyer?”

  “Yah.”

  “But if Jakob was only nine, she couldn’t have been more than what? Six? Seven?”

  “She was almost seven.”

  Claire stilled her rocker and leaned forward. “Why was she so taken with the spoon?”

  “It was not the spoon, Claire. It was Jakob. He was a kind boy. A patient boy. He helped Elizabeth with her reading when I was busy with the other young ones.”

  “But what does that have to do with the Christmas spoon?” Claire prodded.

  “It belonged to Jakob.”

  • • •

  There was no denying the heaviness in her feet as Claire stepped back onto the main road. If she headed west, she might be able to make things right for Jakob, but at what cost? Ben had been through enough the last few months, hadn’t he?

  The approaching clip-clop of a horse broke through her thoughts and she looked up to find Benjamin Miller smiling at her from his buggy seat. “Did you have a nice visit with Fannie Lapp?”

  “How did you know I . . .” Her words petered off as she took in the mailbox little more than three feet away. “I did. She was very nice.”

  “Does she remember the Christmas spoon?”

  Aware of the slight tremble in her hands, she shoved them into the front pockets of her slacks and stared down at the gravel road beneath her feet.

  “Claire?”

  More than anything, she wanted to find the Christmas spoon, hand it to Jakob, and know that the guilt he carried because of it was gone once and for all. But if her hunch proved right, the end to Jakob’s pain would mean a resurgence of Ben’s.

  “Claire?”

  The sound of her name brought her gaze back to his. “She remembers.”

  “Then that should be a reason to smile, yah?”

  She tried. She really did. But when she’d set out to help Jakob, she hadn’t intended to hurt Ben in the process. The thought that she might do that made it impossible to smile with any sincerity. “Fannie does not know for certain what happened to the Christmas spoon. Nor do I. It is only my guess.”

  He studied her closely for a few silent moments before motioning her to join him on the buggy seat. “You can tell me of your guess while I bring you home.”

  “No, it’s okay. I can walk. It’s how I got here.”

  “Soon the sun will go down. It is best if I drive you.” Again, he patted the seat. “It will not take long.”

  Slowly, she stepped up and onto the buggy seat beside Ben. When he was sure she was settled, he whispered something in Pennsylvania Dutch to his horse and turned the buggy in the required easterly direction. When they were officially on their way, he returned them to the topic at hand. “Tell me of your guess.”

  “It is silly, really.” She pointed to a calf off to their right and forced a lightness into her voice she didn’t feel. “That baby cow sure is cute, isn’t he?”

  “It is a she, Claire.”

  “Okay, yeah, I guess that makes sense on a dairy farm.” She heard the hollowness of her laugh and hurried to cover it with idle chitchat. “But what happens to the male calves? Are they sold to non-dairy farms?”

  The buggy noticeably slowed in the wake of yet another unrecognizable command from Ben. “Why do you ask of cows when I have asked for your guess?”

  Touché.

  Ben was perceptive. It was one of the reasons she valued his friendship so much. But at that moment, she couldn’t help but wish he was a little less so . . .

  “Claire?”

  Inhaling deeply, she gave words to the turmoil raging inside her heart. “I want to help Jakob. I really do. But knowing I might hurt you in the process isn’t the way I wanted to go about it.”

  His quick tug on the reins brought the buggy to a stop. “I do not understand. How can finding a Christmas spoon hurt me?”

  “I want you to be able to move forward, Ben. But you can’t do that if every time you turn around, you’re having to revisit—no.” Waving aside her words, she sat up tall on the seat. “Let’s not do this, okay? The notion that it’s even possible is really quite ridiculous.”

  She felt the buggy shift ever so slightly as he cocked his head upward toward the dusky sky. “This is about my Elizabeth, yah?”

  “Ben, please. Let’s just keep going so you can get back to your own house before dark and—”

  “Speak your guess.”

  “Ben, it’s just a guess. I could be way off. I mean, she wasn’t even seven yet.” When he didn’t reply, she filled him in on everything Fannie had told her, her voice growing almost whisper-like as she got to the part about Elizabeth and Jakob.

  “You believe my wife took the Christmas spoon? A spoon that belonged to Jakob?”

  “She was a child then, Ben. Even Amish children make mistakes, no?”

  “But she grew.”

  It was the part of the puzzle she couldn’t explain away on youth. Then again, had she made amends for every foolish thing she’d done as a little girl?

  “Maybe she forgot she had it—if she even had it at all.”

  “We must look, yah?” Tightening his hold on the reins, Ben spoke softly to the horse and set it back on its original course. “I will drive you home when we are done.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  If he heard her, he did not answer, the purposeful clip-clop of the horse’s hooves against the gravel filling in the weighted silence. The part of her that wanted peace and happiness for Ben prayed for her hunch to be wrong. The part of her that loved Jakob prayed it wasn’t.

  When they reached hi
s family’s farm, Ben turned onto the dirt driveway and brought them to a stop outside the home he and Elizabeth had shared. It was hard to imagine a younger Ben and his new bride sitting side by side on the front porch, looking forward to a future together that they’d never get to have.

  “Ben, I shouldn’t be here,” she whispered. “It’s not right.”

  • • •

  Everywhere she looked, it was there—the single cup and plate beside the sink, the lone chair positioned next to the propane-powered lamp, the solitary black coat hanging to the right of a half dozen empty pegs.

  No, Ben should have a beard—a long one, by now. There should be jackets of varying sizes on all the other hooks. And if there was to be a plate left out on the counter, it should be one in a stack of six, seven, maybe even eight . . .

  That was the way it was supposed to be inside an Amish home after a decade of marriage. But because of a cruel twist of fate on the heels of a secret that never should have been kept and was only recently revealed, Ben’s beard had never had a chance to really grow, the extra coats had never been needed, and unless someone came for dinner, more than a single plate would be excessive.

  Blinking against the tears she knew would solve nothing, she cleared her throat and followed the man up the wooden steps to the home’s second floor. She tried to focus on the sound of his heavy-soled boots in relation to the gentle click of her kitten heels, but the sadness she was desperate to shake off remained. In fact, it kept pace with them down the hall and into the sparsely furnished bedroom Ben had shared with his bride of three weeks.

  Her steps slowed and she trailed him into the bedroom. There, just inside the doorway, she took a moment to soak up her surroundings—the thin double mattress covered in a simple quilt of muted colors, the wooden table with a washbasin perched on top, and another set of hooks tasked with hanging Ben’s black pants, black suspenders, freshly laundered button-down shirts, and the black hat he wore on Sundays.

  Ben’s footsteps stopped midway across the room, their sudden silence guiding her focus to a cedar chest at the foot of his bed. “If you are right, Claire, it will be in here.”

  Her heart ached at the hint of uncertainty he wore and she stepped in beside him in a show of solidarity.

  Any hesitation she detected, though, disappeared as he wrapped his large calloused hands around the rounded lid and lifted, revealing a folded quilt, a white kapp, and an all-too-familiar notebook that had uncovered the kind of truths that had left Ben and the entire Heavenly community reeling for months.

  “Like I said in the buggy, we don’t have to do this, Ben,” she said around the sudden lump in her throat. “We could wait and do it another—”

  “We will look now.” With efficient hands, he took out the quilt, the kapp, the notebook, and a handful of other items Elizabeth had tucked away for her life as Ben’s wife. “Some are things we got as wedding gifts. I tried to give them back after Elizabeth’s death, but few would take them. I keep them here for when Ruth is married.”

  She smiled at the mention of the man’s sister and Claire’s fellow Lighted Way shopkeeper, but it didn’t last long. “Why not keep them for when you remarry, Ben?”

  He did not answer. Instead, he continued to empty the chest—item by item, onto the floor. When he reached the bottom, he sucked in his breath so fast she clasped her hand around his upper arm. “Ben? Are you okay?”

  Bracing his hands along the edge of the chest, he slowly lowered himself to his knees, whispering something beneath his breath she did not understand.

  “Ben?” she repeated.

  “Het is hier,” he whispered. “Het is zoals u zei.”

  “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “It is here,” he repeated in English. “It is as you said.”

  She followed his hand with her eyes—past a stack of dishes, a brightly colored holder designed for housing scissors and other helpful tools, and a boxed set of coffee mugs. Just beyond the mugs, she sucked in her breath. For there, in the far corner of the chest, peeking out from a piece of balled-up newspaper, was a long silver handle, etched with holly leaves . . .

  “Ben! That’s it! That’s exactly the way Jakob drew it in the picture, holly leaves and all!”

  Without thinking, she reached past him and into the trunk to retrieve the newspaper-wrapped item. Sure enough, the handle was for a spoon . . .

  “Oh, Ben,” she rasped. “Jakob is going to be thrilled.”

  “I do not understand, Claire. I do not understand why Elizabeth kept such secrets. I believed she was a kind person—a good person.”

  She looked down at the spoon and then back at her friend, the defeated set to his shoulders reining in her insensitivity in short order. Desperate to ease his pain, she cast about for just the right words to say under the circumstances. “And from everything I’ve heard about her from you and from Jakob . . . and even from Fannie just a little while ago . . . your Elizabeth was a good person, Ben. You have to realize she was a child when she took this.”

  “But why did she not return it when she grew?”

  It was a question she couldn’t answer. No one could. But in the interest of the man now struggling his way back onto his feet both literally and figuratively, she could certainly try to put herself in Elizabeth’s shoes for the purpose of making an educated guess.

  “I can’t know for certain, Ben, but I don’t believe she took this to be unkind. I think, based on what Fannie said, she took it because it belonged to someone she thought highly of. As for why she didn’t return it when she was older . . . I don’t know. Maybe she was afraid Jakob would be upset with her. Or maybe she simply forgot it was there.”

  He looked down at his feet, the brim of his hat shielding his eyes from Claire’s view. But she didn’t need to see them to know her friend was hurting. Ben had loved Elizabeth. He’d made her his wife. Learning she’d kept secrets from him had to make him question everything he’d believed about their marriage. Including Elizabeth’s true feelings for him.

  Reaching out, she wrapped her hand around his and squeezed. “Let’s look at this as a good thing, shall we?”

  “A good thing?” he echoed, raising his gaze until it mingled with Claire’s.

  “Finding this will make someone we both care about very, very happy.” She released his hand and took in the delicate details of the holiday heirloom. “I can’t wait to see Jakob’s face when we hand it to him.”

  “I will put Elizabeth’s things away when I return,” Ben said, motioning toward the pile of items he’d made on the floor. “Jakob has waited far too long for what is his. Let us go now. I will drop you at his front door if you like.”

  “Please come with me,” she pleaded. “We can give him the spoon together.”

  “No, Claire. It is you Jakob wants to see. It is you who listened and knew where to look.”

  She trailed him into the hallway, down the stairs, and through the first floor to the front door. “But you let me look. You didn’t have to do that, you know.”

  He might have shrugged, she wasn’t entirely certain. But, either way, he led her outside and over to the buggy and its waiting horse.

  “Ben? Please don’t dwell on this. She was six.”

  Taking his place behind the reins, he waited for her to get settled. “I will do as you ask. But Claire, do tell Jakob that I am sorry.”

  • • •

  She took the steps to Jakob’s second-floor apartment two at a time. Since the moment she met the detective, his smile had claimed a piece of her heart. In the beginning, it was in the form of a much-needed friendship. Now that they were more, it was in the form of hope—for the kind of future she’d all but written off for herself.

  Jakob did that for her.

  By being a kind and gentle person.

  Now it was time for her to do something for him . . .

  At the top, she paused and allowed herself a moment to revel in the squeal she felt building deep inside her chest.
When she was ready, she knocked—once, twice. “Jakob? It’s me. Claire. I have something to show you.”

  Thirty seconds later, the door swung open. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. I called the inn a little while ago and Diane said you were out.”

  “That’s because I was.” She gestured past him into his apartment and tried to keep her growing excitement in check. “Um, is it okay if I come in for a moment?”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course.” He stepped to the side to allow her entry into his living room and then closed the door as she headed toward the corner cabinet.

  “Is your book of pictures still in the bottom cabinet?” she asked.

  He stopped in front of the couch and shrugged. “I boxed it up and put it in the crawl space this morning before work.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my memories are right here”—he pointed at his head—“and that’s good enough. Dwelling on them the way I have the past day or so doesn’t change a thing except maybe us.”

  “U-us?” she stammered.

  “I would imagine you might get pretty fed up if I keep letting something like a drawing drag me down. You deserve better than that, Claire. And I want to give you better.”

  She lowered her purse onto the edge of the coffee table and took a step closer to the man who meant more to her with each passing day. “I don’t like seeing you hurt, Jakob. How could I? But the fact that you are still so affected by what happened this many years later just underscores how special you really are.”

  “I robbed my mamm of a piece of her past. I did that with my carelessness. It’s hard not to be affected, you know?”

  “What if you could make it right now?” she asked.

  His answering laugh held no joy. “I can’t, Claire. No amount of wound licking can change that. I know this. I really do. I just need to remember that when I start kicking myself again.”