A Lancaster County Christmas Read online

  Mattie walked through the silent house. She always found it unsettling to rattle around in a house meant for ten. Five empty bedrooms. Too quiet. Too empty. Maybe, she thought, they should move. Far away from here. Into town.

  Upstairs in her bedroom, a dimming afternoon light slanted through the window. She sat helplessly on the edge of the bed, a shirt of Sol’s that she should iron for Sunday church hangiong limp in her hands. She had so much to do, she really shouldn’t give in to taking a rest, but she felt a bone-deep weariness and didn’t have the energy to fight it. What was more and more distressing, she didn’t seem to care. She felt tears coming on. What was wrong with her? The doctor said she should be feeling better after a month or so, but she didn’t. She felt just the same. Worse, maybe. What was happening to her sense of peace, her happiness? What was happening to her?

  Her head itched as it often did after a day of wearing her starchy prayer cap. She pulled out the pins that held the cap in place and set them on the nightstand. The pins released her hair and she thrust her fingers through it, rubbing her scalp. She picked up her brush from the nightstand and took a moment to indulge herself, crossing the room to sit in the rocker by the window. She brushed her hair slowly, a hundred strokes, the way her mother taught her. How many times had she sat in this rocker? She had rocked Danny as a baby to sleep in this rocker. When she woke in the night, she often sat in it, listening to the evening songs of nature—the throaty song of bullfrogs, the violin scrape of crickets’ wings, the clap of a thundercloud. Sol thought she was crazy to get up out of bed in the night—sleep was precious to him. But what she really loved was having time alone with the Lord—time that passed sweet and slow. It was her time for praying. And there were times when she felt God talking to her. Not like a person might talk, but a sense, a prodding. An idea would pop into her head—an insight or a solution to a problem. And then a sweet peace would flood her soul. She knew it was the presence of God.

  But no longer. Since she had miscarried, God had gone silent, so silent. And in her soul, there had been only emptiness left behind, an emptiness that felt hard and cold as stone. She moved through the days as best as she could, but she could summon only a pale shadow of the faith that had always steadied and comforted her.

  Her brush was full when she finished, a thick nest of pale silk, all the luxuriance of pregnancy slipping away as her hormone levels readjusted. Looking at all that hair in the brush made her want to weep. The world had become so very fragile. She slammed the brush on the arm of the rocker. That’s enough, she said sternly to herself, blinking away the tears. She’d been paralyzed with grief, too full of sorrow even to weep. That’s enough, Mathilda Zook Riehl.

  She should go downstairs and iron Sol’s shirt. Sol and Danny would be home soon, wondering where she was. She should go. In a moment. The breath eased out of her in a soft sigh. Her head fell back and she drifted off to sleep.

  “A marriage unwraps slowly.” Jaime said the words aloud as she left the pharmacy and drove toward C.J.’s school. She had heard that phrase uttered on Oprah recently, and it seemed to be meant for her. That’s just what had been happening with her and C.J.—their marriage was slowly unwrapping. “It’s time for a radical change,” she said to the rearview mirror. “It’s as simple as that.” She had practiced this speech dozens of times over the last week, after finally deciding she was going to accept her father’s suggestion to move to New York City and sign with a photography agent friend of his. By the time she reached C.J.’s school, she was so tightly coiled, she ached.

  She pulled into the parking lot of the junior high where her husband worked as a math teacher, and parked next to his yellow jeep. She glanced at her wristwatch: half past four. Perfect. For once she wasn’t late! They were going to drive straight to her father’s house in the city. The plan was to fly to Miami early Christmas morning to embark on a weeklong Caribbean cruise with her father. It was just what they needed.

  A knock on her window made her jump. It was C.J. She quickly turned on the ignition to lower the window.

  “I was starting to worry about you, driving in this snow,” he said.

  An expression of genuine concern filled his dark brown eyes. That way he had of looking at her, as if she was the most beautiful woman in the world when she knew she wasn’t—it always made her knees go weak. Today, it made her feel like an emotional nutcase. How could he be thinking of having an affair with another woman and yet be so warm and loving to his wife? She couldn’t process it. She turned back to face the steering wheel. “We’d better get going. If we hurry we can stay ahead of the storm.”

  “I thought we’d take the jeep.”

  She shook her head. “I want to have the GPS system so we don’t get lost.”

  He hesitated. “Jaime, I have Tucker.”

  Jaime leaned over the open window to face the large coffee-colored eyes of the gigantic yellow lab. He was peering at her, standing by C.J.’s knees. “You said you were going to leave him with the principal.”

  “Al couldn’t take him. They’re going to his sister’s house for the weekend and she’s allergic to dogs. But he did say it was okay to leave your car here for the week. He said the lot would be locked up.”

  Jaime frowned. “There’s got to be somebody else. What about that Eve woman?” That she-wolf who is preying on another woman’s husband? She sneaked a sideways glance at C.J. to catch his reaction.

  “She’s got company staying with her for the holiday. I called and made a reservation at a kennel near your dad’s house. It shouldn’t be any problem. Your dad doesn’t even have to know.”

  “My new car is the problem! Hair on the seat and drool on the windows and—”

  “Then we’ll take my jeep.”

  Jaime looked at the yellow jeep. She hated that jeep. She used to love it, used to imagine that this was what it felt like to be on an African safari. But now, it embarrassed her. The shocks were shot, you couldn’t hear one another, the heater didn’t always work, and Tucker would have to sit between them on the front seat. Plus, she would miss her beloved GPS system. “No. Just put a blanket down.” She flipped up the trunk of her car so that C.J. could get a blanket. While C.J. settled Tucker into the backseat, Jaime set the GPS system for the street name the doctor had given her for the Amish family.

  “Want me to drive?” C.J. asked.

  “No thanks. I . . . I have a quick errand to make as we head out of town.”

  He climbed into the passenger seat beside her and touched her arm briefly. She tensed, lifting her chin to look straight ahead, and put the car in gear. C.J. withdrew his hand as if he had touched a hot stove. They fell silent as Jaime drove through Main Street, under white holiday banners that stretched from side to side of the street with cheerful greetings: “Seasons Greetings!” “Happy Hanukkah!” and “Happy Kwanzaa!”

  As she turned onto a side street, C.J. said quietly, “When did wishing someone a Merry Christmas become politically incorrect?”

  She shrugged, and turned her attention to the homes that lined the street. It wasn’t quite dusk yet, but many houses had turned on their outdoor Christmas lights. The neighborhood looked like they must be having a contest to out-decorate each other: one had an enormous plastic Santa Claus in a plastic sleigh, pulled by eight plastic reindeer. Another was practically covered with blinking lights. She thought she might wind up with epilepsy if she lived across the street from that house.

  C.J. shifted in his seat and turned to her. “A kid said the funniest thing to me a minute ago. I had an envelope sticking out of my shirt pocket and the kid asked what it was. I told him it was my paycheck and he said, ‘Yeah? Where do you work?’” He chuckled to himself. “I love middle school humor.”

  “Did you deposit the check?”

  C.J. rolled his eyes. “No, Jaime. I didn’t have time.”

  Jaime groaned. “That means it won’t get deposited until next week, and then the money won’t be available for a few days past that. C.J., this
time of year, we have so many bills to pay. We have Christmas gifts and—”

  “Your credit card debt. Your cell phone payment.” He reached over and picked up the edge of her scarf. “And let’s not forget Burberry scarves.”

  “Don’t. Start.” She frowned. “I work just as hard as you do.”

  “At this rate, we’re never going to be able to save enough for a house.”

  “You could have accepted my father’s offer to provide the down payment.”

  “Let’s not go there.” He turned toward the window and was quiet for a while.

  She glanced over at him and wondered what was running through his mind. He was usually pretty talkative. Had they already exhausted all neutral territory?

  “I’m thinking I might start tutoring after school and weekends. Eve said some parents have been asking her about it.”

  Eve. That Eve. “You’re trying to make me feel guilty.” How incredibly trite that C.J. would be tempted to cheat on his wife with a woman named Eve. The original temptress! She glanced at him. She wondered if C.J. was in love with Eve. She wondered whether he would ask for a divorce soon. That’s what men do. They leave when they have someone new to go to. She knew that from watching Oprah. From watching her dad.

  “No, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. But we need to face facts.”

  Which facts? Jaime wondered. Yours or mine? Should she confront him? No. Not now. Not today. Not on Christmas weekend. And maybe . . . if things worked out the way she hoped, if she could persuade him that they needed a radical change . . . maybe she wouldn’t even have to.

  C.J. was waiting for a response from her, but before she could get her words set into order, the GPS system told her to make a right.

  “This doesn’t seem like the way it was described to me,” she said, under her breath.

  “Did you set it correctly?”

  “Of course I set it correctly,” she snapped, turning right.

  C.J. peered at the map on the GPS screen and looked skeptical. “If it doesn’t feel right, why would you trust a piece of technical equipment over your gut instinct?” His placating tone was rimmed with an edge of exasperation.

  She clenched her jaw. She knew that question wasn’t just about directions. That question was a perfect metaphor for the differences between them—C.J. followed hunches, especially in his Search and Rescue volunteer work with Tucker. Jaime relied on reality. Equipment. State-of-the-art digital photography.

  It was odd—they met three years ago. He was taking a class to become qualified as a volunteer in Search and Rescue and she was doing a freelance assignment to take pictures of the training sessions for the SAR website. They started in the same place. How had they drifted so far apart?

  The persistent voice on the GPS system interrupted her thoughts to tell her to turn left, so she quickly veered left. They were heading away from town and into a much less populated area.

  “Jaime, what kind of errand did you say you needed to make?”

  Tucker popped his big head over the front seat and C.J. gently pushed it back.

  “I just have to drop something off at a person’s house.”

  “Whose house?”

  “It’s . . . a long story. Please be patient for a few minutes.”

  Then they were silent. Stilted. C.J., who usually never ran out of things to say, seemed reserved, distracted. Finally, he closed his eyes and yawned. As his breathing settled into a rhythm, Jaime felt relieved, knowing he had drifted off to sleep. She wished she hadn’t promised that ancient Dr. Engel to deliver this silly whistle. He made it sound like it would be easy to find, but he didn’t realize Jaime had no sense of direction. In spite of the urgency she felt, she slowed down—partly because the snow was falling even harder. Partly because, despite everything, she was enjoying the scenery. She lived so resolutely in town that she had forgotten all this was out here—all this country. She used to drive out this way with her mother on sunny weekend afternoons. She recognized this area, despite the whirling snow. Blue Lake Pond spread out silvery blue to her left, and just a mile down the road was the most beautiful Amish farm she had ever seen, Beacon Hollow. She and her mother had always wanted to turn up that driveway and meet the family who lived there.

  Five minutes passed. Then ten. It was taking all of her concentration to focus on driving. Jaime thought she knew where they were, but felt a slight panic when the GPS system told her to turn off a main road onto a one-lane road.

  C.J. jerked awake. He blinked and looked around. “Where the heck are we?”

  “Almost there.”

  “What? Something just isn’t making sense, Jaime. You’re driving west, into the countryside.”

  “I have complete confidence in this car and its Global Positioning Satellite system.” At least, she usually did. She felt a twinge of unease as she turned onto a one-lane road that had more than a few inches of fresh, untouched snow on the ground.

  Jaime glanced at C.J.’s hands—the way he had them clenched in his lap was a dead giveaway that he was trying hard not to tell her “I told you so.” She was just about ready to turn the car around when the GPS system told her to turn right to reach her destination. She turned her windshield wipers up as fast as they could go, knocking fat flakes off the windshield, and practically let out a whoop of joy when she saw the numbers on the black mailbox. Voilà!

  She smiled victoriously. Her GPS had not failed her. “See? I told you we were nearly there.”

  He stared at her like she had spoken in Chinese. She ignored him.

  Jaime drove up a long lane, using the fence rails to guide her along the snow-covered road. When she reached the top of the lane, the sight nearly took her breath away. Before her was a farmhouse glowing with buttery lights, smoke from the chimney rising to the sky. A cozy, welcoming beacon in the storm.

  “Where are we?” C.J. asked.

  She pointed to the whistle that was on the car seat between them. “I just need to drop this off at the house.”

  His eyebrows arched in surprise. “Are you kidding me? We’ve lost an hour of driving time because you needed to drop off a toy? What could be so important about this toy?”

  “What’s so important?” Jaime repeated, anger lifting through her like a wave. Those words incensed her.

  How was it that anything Tucker-related never seemed to be unimportant to C.J.? Slobbering all over her car, taking extra time to find Tucker’s kennel—those inconveniences were just fine for C.J. But stopping by a farmhouse to drop off a forgotten whistle to a little boy—that didn’t rank as important? “What do you mean by that?”

  “I didn’t mean anything by that, other than wondering why this toy seemed so important,” he said, exasperated. “Oh honestly, Jaime. What’s wrong with you lately?” He was obviously at the end of his patience.

  She wanted to shout, You’re what’s wrong. I’m what’s wrong. This whole thing is wrong! But she didn’t say a word.

  The blue of early evening had settled over the room by the time Mattie awoke.

  She regathered her bun so that it stuck off the back of her head like a knob and pinned her prayer cap in place. Downstairs, she glanced over her shoulder at the grandfather clock that stood beside Sol’s desk—after five o’clock. Soon it would be dark. Sol and Danny were late coming home. She knew Sol was careful with their boy, but she never quite trusted him to watch Danny as closely as she did. So much danger lurked in the wilderness: rabid wolves and black bears and coyotes. And now the bobcat was prowling around, stealing her chickens! Danny could so easily become lost in the woods or fall into those streams with their steep, slippery banks that meandered through their property. Water was her greatest fear. The Schrocks’ youngest child had died last spring in just that way. These dangers were a constant thing, yet he was her baby no longer, and as Sol was always telling her, she couldn’t coddle him forever.

  Just this very morning, they sat at the kitchen table, sipping coffee, and watched Danny run outside to meet u
p with Zach. Danny pointed toward the house and said something that made Zach’s head fall back in laughter. Zach bent over and swung his cousin up in the air. The morning sun glinted off their two strawberry blond heads and something broke inside of Mattie in a terrible gush of pain.

  “He’s growing up so fast on us,” Sol had said quietly.

  His words, an echo of her own thoughts, pulled her gaze away from the window. She shared the sorrow in his voice.

  Already she felt she was losing Danny. To the world outside of her safe home, to the land he was growing up to love as naturally as he breathed the air and ran through the wheat fields and laughed beneath the azure sky. And she was losing him to Sol and to Zach, into that male world where mothers felt unnecessary, a nuisance.

  Mattie added a fresh stick of wood to the fire, punching the coals to stir them up. She dropped the lid back on the stove with a loud clatter, then went to the window to see if she could find some sign of Sol and Danny. She let her forehead fall to rest against the chilled pane. Where were they? The worry seeped into her like cold from the glass.

  She heard the sound of a car through the wind. Probably someone lost, needing directions. For a moment longer, Mattie stayed where she was, feeling drained of energy, hoping Zach would see them first and send them on their way.