An Amish Christmas (11 page)

James looked grim. “We’d better find out what we’re dealing with. Thanks.”

Meg saw that her children had finished eating. “Kids, why don’t you clear your plates, then run upstairs and make your beds?”

“Sure, you bet.” Will jumped up with false cheerfulness.

Meg happened to catch James’s eye. She saw he was no more pleased with their older children’s behavior than she was.

Finally, David and James left, and Meg was alone with Catherine, helping to clean up.

“How many children do you have?” Meg asked, stacking dirty dishes in the sink. She tried to ignore the soreness that accompanied her every move.

“Nine,” Catherine said.

“Nine children,” Meg echoed in amazement.

“Two are married. You met Jonathan and Eli. There’s
Amanda, who’s sixteen, and Benjamin, who’s seventeen. The youngest are Aaron and Rachel. They’re eleven and eight. They were visiting at my sister’s house last night. And then there’s my daughter Barbara. She’s getting married next week.” Catherine began washing the dishes.

“Really?” Meg asked in surprise. “Next week?”

“Yes. We’re having family and friends from all over to celebrate.” She gave a little grin. “And do lots and lots of eating. The lunch and evening supper will be across the road at Joseph’s house. He is one of the married children I told you about. About three hundred people are coming.”

Meg reached for the small towel that was resting near the dish rack. She tried to picture herself being as calm as this woman if she were having three hundred guests at her house in a week.

“How will you manage …” Meg hesitated, wanting to ask more, but fearful she would say something foolish.

“Everyone helps,” Catherine said. “Lots of people cooking, serving food, cleaning up.”

Meg dried a pitcher, feeling ignorant and nosy at the same time. She didn’t ask any further questions, and Catherine finished the rest of the dishes without volunteering anything else. When she was done, she excused herself. “It’s laundry day. I know you’re not feeling well, so you rest.”

“You know, Catherine, I really don’t know what will happen with the car,” Meg said. She paused, unsure what she wanted to say or ask.

It was obvious the car wasn’t going to be ready to go anywhere today, but they had no place else to go. Maybe the Lutzes
would take them to a motel or something. Meg dreaded the idea of the five of them cooped up in a motel room for an indefinite period. Not to mention the cost. Yet they couldn’t impose on these people any further. For all Meg knew, they hated having non-Amish people in their house.

Catherine looked at her. Her eyes, Meg realized, were a pale blue. They crinkled at the edges as she gave Meg a warm smile. “You’re welcome to stay here as long as you wish.”

“I … We can’t …”

“You can if you want,” Catherine said simply, heading out through another door leading from the room.

Having persuaded Catherine that she was indeed up to performing some sort of work, Meg sat on the couch next to a veritable mountain of towels. Catherine had brought them to her from an outside clothesline, and they were cold and rigid from the December air. Meg shook them out as best she could with her sore shoulders, then folded them into thirds and in half. She paid close attention to the task, wanting this minimal contribution to be done properly. These people clearly had very high standards, at least in housekeeping, and she didn’t want anybody to have to redo her job, small as it might be.

Meg found it was a relief to become totally engrossed in the task. She didn’t have to think about the fact that she and her family were stranded with virtually no money, or that their only form of transportation was a twisted wreck that might not even be fixable. Nor did she have to think about how furious she was at her husband, who had lied to her, basically stolen all
the family’s money only to throw it away, and brought them to this point. She could also block out the vague but horrible image of what their immediate future would look like when they figured out how to get from here to her parents’ house.

Shake, fold, smooth, put to the side. The graying, scratchy linens made her recall the white towels in the bathrooms of their house in Charlotte. Lots of detergent, bleach, fabric softener, and a hot dryer kept those enormous Egyptian-cotton bath towels fluffy and blindingly white. They held a sweet, lightly performed scent, noticeable only when she wrapped herself up in one, an especially cozy feeling after it had been resting on the electric towel rack, warming on a winter’s morning. Meg picked up a towel from the pile and held it to her nose. No perfume, but she found that she liked its absence, the smell of fresh air somehow infused into the rough fabric, making her want to take a deep breath.

Bracing, she thought, but probably not so inspiring when you’re dripping wet on a freezing morning.

The door opened, and Meg tensed as she saw the expression on James’s face. His mouth was set in a way that told her the news was not going to be good.

“What happened?” she asked. “You’ve been gone for hours.”

He unzipped his jacket. “The place they towed it to suggested we might want to get to a shop that specializes in vintage cars. So we did that. But the guy there can’t even do anything until the insurance guys take a look. Someone will come by today or tomorrow, hopefully. They’ll call us at the phone outside here, or I’ll have to keep calling them.”

“Is it a big deal to fix?”

“The guy gave it a quick look while I was there. He said there’s extensive damage from the front fender all the way to the rear quarter panel. In other words, lots of bodywork needed on the driver’s side.”

“How long will that take?”

James scowled. “That’s the thing. He said a week or two.”

“A week or two?” Meg repeated. “We can’t stay here for that long.”

James gave her an exasperated look. “What would you have me do, Meg? You sound like Lizzie. I can’t snap my fingers and get us out of here. If you have any ideas, please feel free to share them with me.”

They were interrupted by Sam, who had been outside with his sister and brother. Meg had told them all to go for a walk earlier when their whining about how bored they were had become too much for her.

“Hey, sport, what are you up to?” James asked Sam.

“They were fighting too much. Besides, I’m freezing.”

“Come over here.” Meg moved the folded towels away and patted the couch beside her. “I’ll warm you up.”

Sam sat down, and she put her arms around him, vigorously rubbing his back through his fleece jacket. She kissed the top of his head as he leaned in to her. James went over to the sink to get himself a glass of water. Meg guessed he felt as uncomfortable as she did prying into their hosts’ cupboards or refrigerator.

One of the doors opened, and the three of them looked up at the sound. An elderly man, slightly stooped, stood in the doorway. His hair was nearly white, and he had bangs falling across his forehead, plus a long, full beard. He was dressed just
like all the other men they had seen in the house, in black pants with suspenders and a dark blue shirt. He wore a black vest as well.

“Ah,” he said, smiling. “Our visitors.” He came forward, moving to take a seat at the big table. “I am Samuel Lutz. David is my son.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the door from which he had emerged. “We live there.”

James went over to introduce himself and Meg and shake Samuel’s hand. Then Samuel turned his attention to Sam. “And who is this young man?”

Shyly, Sam identified himself.

Samuel Lutz’s eyes lit up. “Ahh, another Samuel! Very good!”

Sam obviously hadn’t put his name together with the name of this odd-looking man. “Oh. Yeah.”

The older man smiled. “We will be good friends, then. I will call you Young Samuel.”

Sam looked uncomfortable but said nothing.

“I heard we had visitors. I wanted to meet you before the crowd comes in for lunch. My daughter-in-law will be here soon, I think, to put it out.”

As if on cue, Catherine joined them from outside. She was in conversation with a young girl dressed much like she was, down to the white head covering with the untied strings.

“Hello,” said Catherine. “This is my daughter Amanda. She and your daughter are in one bedroom.”

“Oh, yes.” Meg looked at the girl with interest. “Lizzie said she didn’t get a chance to meet you last night.”

“I was out,” Amanda answered with the family’s accent, “but I got up early, so we never talked.”

“But now it is lunch, so you’ll meet her.” Catherine moved to the kitchen area and opened the oven door to check on what she had inside. “Everyone will meet everyone.”

Amanda pulled open a kitchen drawer.

“Thirteen,” Catherine said. “Plus some little ones. Maybe three.”

Amanda nodded and reached into the drawer to pull out flatware.

Meg whispered to Sam, “Run outside and get your sister and brother. We all need to help.”

By the time the table had been set and everyone was assembled, there were seventeen people. They all seemed to be speaking in a language that sounded like German, although Meg couldn’t be sure. As soon as they saw the Hobarts, they switched to English.

The Lutz family said grace silently, and Meg realized the spoken grace when they first arrived probably had been done for their benefit. Introductions were swift, and she didn’t remember all of the names. A few stood out. The older man, Samuel Lutz, was married to Leah. Somewhat stout, with a full face and lips, she was polite but no more than that, lacking her husband’s genuine warmth. Two men arrived with small children in tow, and Catherine explained that their wives were baking. Meg had no idea why that meant they had to miss lunch, but it didn’t seem like the right moment to ask. She knew she would remember Barbara, a bubbly young woman who was introduced
as the daughter getting married the following week. Jonathan, the older of the two sons who had helped them the night before, also joined them at the last minute.

Meg’s children, silent with the strangeness of it all, seemed taken aback by the size of this lunchtime gathering, which apparently was a daily occurrence. Catherine indicated that the two teenage roommates should sit next to each other, and Amanda greeted Lizzie with a smile and obvious interest. Lizzie barely returned her greeting and said nothing more to her. The men and women took their places on opposite sides of the table.

With Meg and a stone-faced Lizzie joining them, the women helped serve what seemed like an endless succession of overflowing bowls and platters. The main meal consisted of bean soup, chicken in gravy, meat loaf, buttered noodles, brussels sprouts, peas and carrots, creamed corn, and hot biscuits with butter. The Hobart children ate little, pushing the food around on their plates, until they got to the desserts, which included pound cake, apple dumplings, rice pudding, and mixed fruit.

There was little conversation at the table. Meg observed the line of men across from her, all with the same haircut. The older ones had beards and no mustaches. Their clothing was virtually identical. The women kept their hair tucked under bonnets, and all had on the same simple dresses, some with black coverings like full aprons, the top half of which resembled an upside-down triangle. The dresses differed only in color: muted, dark tones of blue or purple or gray. Meg wondered at the fact that even by this point in the day their clothes remained perfectly pressed. She noted that the garments were
held closed with straight pins rather than buttons or zippers. There was not a single piece of jewelry or a hint of makeup on any of them.

The men reported to one another on the progress of whatever they had been working on that morning. David had missed much of his morning work by taking James to see about the car, but he managed to get to the barn, where they were shoveling out manure, bringing it to an area where they stored it to be used as fertilizer. One of the men updated the others on repairs he was making on their horses’ harnesses. James asked if he might help with that job, saying he didn’t think he could manage a shovel just yet, but he could try to make himself useful until he could put his back into something. David nodded.

Lunch was over quickly. The men left, and the women cleaned up before dispersing. The smaller children were left behind, giving Meg an idea for something to occupy her own children’s time. Catherine said it wasn’t necessary for anyone to watch her grandchildren, that they would be fine playing near her, but Meg insisted that her children babysit. All three of them shot daggers at her with their eyes, but Meg was delighted to see that it wasn’t long before they actually seemed to be enjoying interacting with the toddlers.

Amanda said a smiling good-bye to all of them and ran out to where her brother Jonathan waited in a buggy.

“She’s off to deliver to the store, and I’m going to prepare for supper,” Catherine explained, setting out a large knife and chopping board. “I have to get back out to hang up the rest of the laundry.”

She hadn’t even sat down after serving lunch, Meg observed,
and now she was on to the next meal and more chores. Did she ever rest?