An Amish Christmas (19 page)

“Do you do a lot of visiting with relatives?” the woman who had just spoken asked Meg.

She shook her head. “We don’t have many. My parents are the only ones, really.” She hesitated. “Unfortunately, we don’t get along well with them.”

Catherine raised her face, concern in her eyes. “This is true?”

“No, no, I shouldn’t have said that,” Meg answered. Why had she felt the need to air her personal problems?

Sensing her reluctance to discuss it further, the women changed the subject. The evening slipped by in what seemed like minutes. Meg had made substantial progress on her scarf when it dawned on her that she should really give these women time to themselves. I’ve been enjoying myself far too much, she thought, wrapping up her knitting. The women must have
things they want to discuss that they can’t, or won’t, talk about in front of me.

“It has been lovely to meet all of you,” Meg said. “Please excuse me now. I must go to bed.”

They nodded, but no one stopped what they were doing.

“Sam,” she called out to her son, “finish up and come upstairs.”

“Okay, okay,” he called back. “In a minute.”

Meg headed to the staircase, holding her knitting. As she climbed the steps, she wondered if she was intentionally getting too involved in these people’s lives. She was allowing herself to be lulled into ignoring her situation, had even complained about her problems.

This was not her world, and it never would be. Sooner or later she would have to face the mess that was her real life.

On Saturday morning Meg looked out her bedroom window to see the countryside completely covered with a soft, thick quilt of snow. Everything—houses, barns, trees—stood partially hidden beneath at least half a foot of snow, all sounds muffled by its weight. Tree branches sagged beneath the heavy snowfall. The temperature must have dropped further in the hours before dawn, and many of the trees were decorated by glistening ice that sparkled when the pale sunlight managed to break through the clouds. The magnificent serenity nearly took her breath away.

She tore herself from the view to wash her face and brush her hair. Getting dressed in the mornings was considerably faster here than it had been at home, primarily because the Amish didn’t keep mirrors in the house. The only time Meg looked at herself was when she picked up the tiny makeup mirror she had in her own purse. There was no way of fussing over
how her clothing looked. After a day or two, she had abandoned the idea of putting on makeup altogether, not only because she couldn’t see well enough in her mirror to do it properly, but because it made her uncomfortable around all the other women with their fresh-scrubbed faces. By this point, the notion of wearing a face full of makeup struck her as faintly ridiculous, as if she were slathering dirt on herself.

She didn’t know how to do the hairstyle favored by the women here—what she thought of as a version of French braids tied back—but she had taken to gathering her hair into a neat ponytail. That kept it off her face while she was working and, more important, while she was cooking or baking.

Buttoning her sweater against the morning chill, she came down for breakfast to find the main room of the Lutz house a scene of controlled chaos. The great-grandchildren were there with their mothers, selecting from a long row of ice skates that had been set out this morning. Meg noted every type of skate, from beginners’ runners that attached directly to shoes to adult heavy black skates for hockey and racing, most of them well worn from years of being used and, no doubt, handed down. The younger Lutz children rushed in and out, balancing the completion of their chores with locating appropriately fitting skates for themselves. Meg noticed about a dozen hockey sticks stacked against the wall and a pile of thick black gloves on the bench.

James and the children were sitting off to one corner, also trying on skates.

“Hey, guys,” Meg said as she came over.

“They invited us to skate with them,” Sam said. “There’s a pond that’ll be ice! I’ve never done that before.”

Lizzie was lacing up a pair of old but serviceable white skates. “You want to come, Mom?”

Meg hesitated. “Is Catherine going? Or any of the other women?”

“No,” James answered. “They said they had too much to do. It’s just dads and kids, I guess. We may get to play some hockey with them, too.”

Meg already knew there would be a lot of work going on that day. Saturday was the regular cleaning day in the house, and the big event was on Tuesday. If the other women were staying behind, she would do the same.

“I’ll stay here this morning,” she said. “Maybe later I’ll have a chance to get out and mess around with everybody.”

James had moved to kneel in front of Sam and help tighten his laces. “Okay, these are good.” He gave a couple of solid pats to the black skates before turning to Will. “How is it going?”

Will shook his head as he yanked off a skate. “Kinda tight.” Clutching the skate in question, he got up to check out his other options. Seeing they didn’t need her, Meg went back toward the kitchen area. Barbara stood at the table, a group of kerosene lamps gathered from around the house spread out before her. She was carefully cleaning them with a rag. Meg greeted her and, reaching into a cabinet for a mug, asked if she could assist.

“No, thank you. But my mother is at the root cellar, getting some food to cook for today and tomorrow. Maybe she needs
help. The front walk is shoveled, but I don’t know about the back …”

Meg, nodding, filled her cup with coffee. Practically hidden from view, she observed Jonathan and Eli hurry into the room, yanking on jackets and gloves before grabbing skates, hockey sticks, and hats. Several teenage boys in coats and black mufflers came to the front door, entering the house just long enough to pick out hockey sticks.

“Later,” Barbara said to Meg, “we can go for a sleigh ride or be outside with the children, if you like.”

Sam came running up to Meg to say good-bye. “It’s so cool the way people come into each other’s houses, isn’t it? Everything’s just right there, all together.” He gave her a hug. “Bye. See you later.”

“Have fun,” she called out to her family.

James gave her a wave and a smile. Her older son and daughter also called out their good-byes, Lizzie applying the lip balm she always kept in her jacket pocket as she left.

A sliced loaf of banana bread had been set out on a plate on the counter, although most of it was already gone. Meg reached for a piece and took a bite. On a Saturday at home in Charlotte, she reflected, James would have been at the office or in his study working. If the kids had a free day, she would be the one taking them skating at an indoor rink, assuming she could have gotten them to agree to go in the first place, which was unlikely. Even so, she would have to drag Lizzie and Will practically by force. And it wouldn’t have been happening until well after noon, when they might be willing to get out of their pajamas and into clothes.

“Are David and Samuel going skating, too?” she asked Barbara.

“No, they’re cleaning out the barn now. Aaron already cleaned the chicken coop, so he left, but they have a lot of work. And tomorrow is a church Sunday. They want to finish things.”

Meg was confused. “Don’t you go to church every Sunday?”

Barbara shook her head. “No, every other Sunday.”

“Oh.” Surprised, Meg finished her coffee and rinsed out the cup. “Well, I’m going downstairs to see if I can help your mother. Then I’ll shovel in the back.”

Barbara nodded, her attention on a spot on one of the lamps that was giving her difficulty. She rubbed at it furiously.

Meg rotated her shoulders in small circles as she walked, wanting to loosen them up a bit as she went to help Catherine lift the enormous sacks in the cellar. Who needs free weights when you have beets and potatoes, she thought with a smile.

Everyone returned in time for lunch, the children ruddy-cheeked and in high spirits. James came over to kiss Meg hello on the cheek, cheerfully complaining that he had used muscles he didn’t remember he even had, and would pay for it the next day. While she wasn’t sure how friendly she wanted her response to him to be, she was genuinely pleased to see that the four of them had had a wonderful time together. James and Will discussed the fine points of their hockey game with the other participants during the entire first course of hot beef barley soup and bread. Lizzie, seated next to Meg, ate her entire bowl of soup without complaint as she told her mother how much
she enjoyed the skating, even though so many kids had appeared throughout the course of the morning, she wouldn’t have been surprised if the ice had opened up and they’d all fallen into the pond.

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.