The Amish Widow's Christmas Hope, page 9
As Fern took a mixing bowl from the cupboard on Wednesday after they’d eaten an early lunch, Patience asked, “Can I help you bake, Mamm?”
“I’d appreciate that,” she answered. “Do you want to help, too, Phillip? There are lots of potatoes to peel.”
“Neh. I want to move the logs we didn’t get to yesterday,” he said as pushed one arm through his coat sleeve.
“Aren’t you going to wait for Walker to get here?”
“Neh. The more I do now, the less Walker will have to do on his own once I leave,” Phillip replied seriously.
As he headed out the door, Fern noticed he wasn’t wearing his hat again, but she didn’t remind him. He was right when he said it made his head sweat, and Fern was more concerned about him running around with wet hair than with cold ears.
“I wish I could be in a Grischtdaag program,” Patience said a few minutes later as she spread butter around on a cookie sheet to keep the peanut brittle from sticking to it.
Patience was usually so bashful she wouldn’t speak in front of a group of her peers, much less in front of an audience of strangers. There was something about her being with Jane that emboldened her in a way being around Emma didn’t. Fern sensed it was that Jane was more tolerant, more encouraging, whereas Emma understandably tired of Patience shadowing her.
“Well, you’ll get to be in one when you go to schul.”
“I wish we could stay here and I could go to schul with Jane.”
“What about your gschwischderkinner in Ohio? Don’t you want to go to schul with them?” Going to school with her cousins was something Patience had been anticipating ever since Emma started school.
“Jah,” Patience answered. “But they have lots of kinner in their familye. Jane doesn’t have a schwesder. Or a bruder. So she’d probably like it if Phillip and I went to schul with her.”
Fern was touched that Patience was concerned Jane might have been lonely. At the same time, she had to keep her daughter’s hopes about remaining in Serenity Ridge in check. “That’s true. If we lived here, Jane would love going to schul with you and your bruder. We have to leave on Samschdaag, but I know Jane is very hallich you get to visit her schul tonight.”
Patience held up the cookie sheet so Fern could make sure she hadn’t missed buttering any spots. Fern pointed to a corner and Patience traced it with the stick of butter, asking, “Mamm, why don’t you want to live here?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to...” Actually, it was. Fern started again. “We already have a home in Ohio.”
“That’s Onkel Adam and Ant Linda’s home, not ours. Emma said so.”
Fern tried not to let her annoyance come through in her tone. “Everything anyone has comes from the Lord. He’s the One who gives us a haus to live in and a kuh for millich to drink and a gaarde of food to eat. All those things are His, but He shares them with us because He’s so generous. So you see, the haus in Ohio belongs to Gott even more than it belongs to your onkel or ant. Or to Emma. Gott is just letting them use it for now. And they’re sharing it with us.”
Patience was quiet. After she finished buttering the corner of the cookie sheet, she set it flat on the table and asked, “Does this haus belong to Gott, too?”
“Jah.” Fern smiled brightly, pleased her daughter understood her point. “It does.”
“Then I’m going to pray and ask Gott if He’ll let us live in it.”
Inwardly, Fern groaned. She hadn’t told her children anything about the inheritance or her plan to sell Roman’s house and get a place of their own in Ohio. For one thing, it wasn’t appropriate to include them in adult matters; for another, she didn’t want them to get too excited too early in case her plans went awry. However, she was beginning to think it might be a good idea to tell them sooner rather than later. Maybe I’ll tell them at Grischtdaag, sort of as a gift.
For the moment, she said, “Patience, all of our relatives are back in Ohio.”
“Not all of them. Jane isn’t.” Patience was being unusually assertive. “Walker isn’t.”
“Walker isn’t your relative.” Technically, he was related, but only by marriage, and for some reason, the distinction was important to Fern.
“But if we lived here, maybe he’d ask you to marry him and then he’d be my daed.”
“Patience!” Fern yapped, slapping her mixing bowl down on the table. “I don’t want to hear you talking nonsense like that again, do you hear me?”
Patience’s nose went pink, like it did when she was cold, and her eyes simultaneously filled with tears. “Jah, Mamm,” she rasped. Then she fled the room, and the pattering of her footsteps as she scurried up the stairs tattered Fern’s heart. Nothing hurt a mother more than causing her own children pain.
Why did I react so strongly? she reproached herself. Am I really so worried she’ll tell Jane about her absurd wish that Walker will marry me? Even if she did and Jane repeated it to her father, Walker undoubtedly would have recognized it as being a child’s fantasy, not an idea that originated with Fern.
Disgusted at herself for being overly sensitive, Fern washed her hands and dried them on her apron before climbing the stairs. She expected to find Patience curled up on the bed, but instead she was standing at the window, her back to the door. Although Fern couldn’t hear her, she could tell by the way her daughter’s shoulders were moving up and down that Patience was sobbing.
Fern sat on the bed. “Patience, kumme here. Please kumme sit with your mamm.”
Hanging her head, Patience edged toward her, stopping a couple of feet shy of her mother. Fern reached out to pull the girl onto her lap and cuddled her to her chest, the way she did when she was an infant. Whereas Phillip was always on the move—his restlessness even kept Fern awake during her pregnancy with him—Patience always liked being rocked. How much longer will she let me hold her like this?
“I’m sorry for snapping at you,” she murmured into her daughter’s fine hair. “I didn’t mean to be so crabby.”
Fern hummed, rocking a few minutes more before Patience pulled her head back to ask, “Don’t you like Walker, Mamm?”
“Jah, he’s our friend and he’s been very helpful to us,” Fern answered diplomatically. “But two people need to love each other in a special way in order to get married.”
Patience seemed to think this over before questioning, “Can I still ask Gott if we can live in this haus?”
“You can ask, but Gott might have another haus for us to live in. One that’s in Ohio, close to Onkel Adam and his familye,” Fern cautioned, planting the possibility in Patience’s mind. “Now, we’d better get downstairs and finish making that peanut brittle or we won’t have anything to share at the Grischtdaag program.”
“Can I wear the dress Jane gave me tonight?”
Fern tapped her daughter’s nose. “If we finish baking lickety-split so I can take in the seams.”
By the time Phillip came in, the peanut brittle was beginning to cool and Fern had peeled and sliced all the potatoes. After guzzling down a glass of water, he remarked, “Walker will be hallich to see how many more logs I piled into the wheelbarrow.”
It occurred to Fern that Phillip was becoming as fond of Walker as Patience was of Jane. I’m glad they’re forming a connection but I hope they don’t get too close to their gschwischderkind or to Walker, she worried. Because if they do, no one knows as well as I do how difficult it will be for them to leave Serenity Ridge.
* * *
Walker had reason to whistle on his way to Roman’s house. For one thing, he’d slept through the night without stirring even once. For another, the customers he interacted with at Swarey’s Christmas Tree Farm had been in such cheery moods it was contagious. Most importantly, his daughter’s greatly anticipated Christmas program that evening was going to be all the more meaningful to her because Phillip, Patience and Fern would be in attendance—and there were few things in life that made Walker as joyful as witnessing Jane’s delight.
When he arrived at Roman’s house, Phillip was waving from the porch. Walker noticed the rest of the wood they hadn’t collected yesterday was now stacked high in the wheelbarrow.
“Did you stack all those logs yourself or did you have a team of men helping you?” Walker asked once he’d unhitched and stabled the horse.
“Neh. I did it alone,” Phillip answered, as if Walker sincerely suspected otherwise. “But I couldn’t move the wheelbarrow myself. It’s too heavy.”
“Looks like it’s pretty full. It might be too heavy for me, too.”
“I could lift one handle and you could take the other side,” Phillip suggested, but Walker figured they’d end up tipping the barrow, so he said he’d give it a try first.
After wheeling the logs to the woodpile, he told Phillip he had a very important job for him—holding the ladder while Walker ascended it. Before Walker began cutting up the smaller of the two trees that had been damaged, he wanted to trim the branch that was knocking against the roof above Patience’s bedroom. Since she was indoors, this was an opportune time for him to do it without her seeing him.
They retrieved the ladder from the barn and Walker’s pole saw and two helmets from his buggy. “I doubt any branches will drop on our heads, but it’s better to be safe than sorry,” he told Phillip as he tightened the helmet strap beneath the boy’s chin.
It only took a couple of minutes for him to saw through the small branch, and after Walker descended the ladder, he said, “Gut job. You’ve got a firm grip.”
“I’m going to work construction like my daed,” Phillip told him. “Or maybe I’ll be a tree cutter, like you.”
Over the years, Walker had occasionally imagined what it would be like to have a son to follow in his footsteps, but because he wasn’t ever going to marry again, he’d trained himself to disregard the daydream as soon as it sprang to mind. However, working with Phillip gave Walker a glimpse of what he might have been missing, so he relished the opportunity to mentor the boy, if only for a few days.
The pair worked for nearly an hour and a half before Fern appeared on the front porch. She cupped her hands to her mouth and called, “Would either of you like a snack?”
Phillip answered for both of them. “Jah, we would!”
Walker trailed him into the house. They both took their shoes off at the door before following the mouth-watering aroma into the kitchen.
“We sure worked up an appetite,” Phillip announced, and from the twinkle in Fern’s eye, Walker could tell she found the child’s adult mannerisms as amusing as Walker did.
“The potatoes and ham you smell are for later, but sit down and have some peanut brittle and millich to tide you over until supper.”
“Peanut brittle?” Walker repeated. He pulled out a chair and seated himself next to Phillip as Patience tiptoed toward him, carefully balancing a small plate heaped with candy. He told her, “It looks and smells appenditlich. Your mamm always made the best peanut brittle in Serenity Ridge.”
“Denki,” Fern mumbled. “But I didn’t make this myself. Patience helped.”
“The piece on top is for you,” Patience told him, holding the plate beneath his nose. “You get the biggest one because you cut down the branch above my window.”
He smiled at the little girl as he selected the treat she’d indicated was his. “You saw me doing that?”
“Only for a little bit, and then I went into the kitchen with Mamm. She couldn’t watch because it made her nerves afraid, too,” Patience explained as she offered the plate of peanut brittle to Phillip.
Fern’s nerves were frayed? Walker realized plenty of people were afraid of heights and he shouldn’t take it personally that watching him had made Fern nervous, yet he was still touched by her concern for his safety. “I was fine. Phillip was holding the ladder nice and steady for me.”
“That’s because I’m getting practice for when I go to work,” Phillip said, accepting a glass of milk from Fern. She set a glass in front of Jane and Walker, too, and then took a seat at the table across from him.
“Mind your teeth,” she warned the children. “Peanut brittle is crunchy.”
The four of them bit into their candy at the same time and Walker gave a contented moan when he tasted the buttery richness of the dessert. He took another bite and when he finished chewing, he told Patience in a magnified whisper, “Don’t tell your mamm I said so, but this peanut brittle is even better than when she used to make it by herself.”
Patience gave a self-conscious smile and leaned over to confide, “That’s because we did something secret when we were making it.”
“Did you add a pinch of love?” Walker guessed. He quoted a cliché Fern used to say: “Everything tastes better when it’s made with love.”
Phillip snorted. “That’s lappich.”
But Patience scrunched her eyebrows together in thoughtful consideration. “Neh,” she replied slowly. “If you put love in something you bake, it would melt.”
It took every ounce of Walker’s willpower not to crack up and Fern was covering her mouth, too.
Patience, fortunately, was oblivious. She took a swallow of milk before revealing, “The secret is you have to warm the cookie sheets first because that gives you extra time to spread the mixture on them.”
“Aha!” Phillip pointed at her. “You just said what the secret was. It’s not a secret anymore.” Patience’s shoulders drooped as her brother laughed; it was the only time Walker had seen any hint of discord between them.
“That’s okay,” Fern comforted Patience instead of scolding Phillip for taunting her. “Most people are schmaert enough to know if they tell a woman’s cooking secrets or criticize her baking, she’ll probably serve them the smallest piece of dessert the next time she makes it.”
“That’s right,” Walker confirmed, patting Patience’s head. Then he ribbed Fern, “You did hear me say how appenditlich your peanut brittle is, didn’t you?”
She rolled her eyes, but her riposte was playful. “Most people also know that flattery will get them nowhere. But if you want more, please help yourself, Walker.”
“Denki,” he said with a smug grin, reaching for the candy.
“What’s flattery?” Phillip asked.
“It’s when someone says something nice to you that they don’t really mean.”
“But I did mean what I said about your peanut brittle being the best in Serenity Ridge,” Walker insisted. I meant every word of everything I ever said to you. With more seriousness than the conversation warranted, he looked directly at Fern and reiterated, “It wasn’t flattery. It was the truth. I wouldn’t tell you something unless I meant it.”
In this light, Fern’s eyes were pearly gray and as she returned Walker’s unblinking stare with an intense gaze of her own, it seemed she understood he was no longer discussing candy. “I believe you,” she said, her voice barely audible.
She believes what? That I wasn’t lying about the peanut brittle or that I wasn’t lying about how much I loved her?
“Kumme.” Phillip tugged on Walker’s sleeve. “We still have work to do outside, right, Walker?”
“Right,” he answered, rising quickly. He wasn’t sure what had just transpired between Fern and him, but whatever it was had taken his breath away. He needed fresh air and he needed it fast.
* * *
Because Patience volunteered to pick up stray wood chips and other debris near the fallen tree, Fern was left alone to finish hemming the dress from Jane. She was glad for the solitude, which allowed her to ponder Walker’s reaction to her teasing. He sure got awfully serious all of a sudden, she thought. It was as if I’d personally maligned his character just because I suggested he was flattering me about the peanut brittle.
But deep down, Fern wondered if Walker’s vehement response had less to do with food than with his feelings. When he said, “I wouldn’t tell you something unless I meant it,” could he have been referring to his past declarations of love for her?
As Fern deftly worked the needle in and out of the fabric, her thoughts continued to drift. What if Louisa was right, and Walker only married Gloria as a result of the trauma? It was possible his near-death experience had given him a sense of urgency about moving forward with his life. Maybe Walker had decided he couldn’t wait for Fern to come back—that he wanted to be married and have a child as soon as possible, lest something else happen before he had the opportunity.
Suppose that’s the case. What does it really change anyway? she asked herself. Even without understanding the reasons behind Walker’s decision to marry Gloria, Fern had already come to a truce with him. What more did she need to know? The past was over and by this time next week, she’d be back in Ohio, hopefully researching new places to live. How exciting that will be! she mused, setting her mending aside.
Before calling the children inside to get ready for their outing, she took advantage of her time alone to wash her face, comb her hair and put on her good church dress without any interruptions. Then, as the children cleaned up and changed their clothes, she transferred the potatoes and peanut brittle into portable containers. Walker pulled up in front of the house just as Fern and the children opened the door.
“For me? You shouldn’t have,” he joked, taking the containers so she could climb into the buggy unencumbered.
Fern giggled, glad to put the strangeness of their earlier interaction behind them. Once everyone was seated and the buggy was rolling down the street, she began pointing out landmarks to her children, who leaned forward to look out the front window.
