Amish White Christmas Pie (34 page)

He grunted.

“Aren’t you coming inside for dessert?”

“I’ve lost my appetite.”

“But it’s cold out here. Please come in and have a piece of pie with us.”

Will shook his head.

“Don’t you think you should apologize for the things you said in there? Don’t you think—”

“I didn’t mean to hurt Mama Regina or Papa Mark. I’ll talk to them about it after our company leaves.”

Karen grimaced. She knew she couldn’t force Will to go inside or speak to his dad. Maybe if he sat in the cold long enough, he would come to his senses. “Okay, suit yourself.”

When Karen returned to the kitchen, she placed the pie on the counter and turned to Regina. “Will says he’s not hungry and wants to be left alone. So why don’t you go ahead and serve your guests while I go back outside and try again to talk some sense into him.”

Regina nodded. “I pray he will listen.”

“I know the things Will said must have hurt you,” Karen whispered, “but I’m sure he didn’t mean them.”

“I’m sure you’re right. Will is hurting and spoke out of anger and frustration.”

Karen hugged Regina then draped her shawl over her shoulders and went out the door.

“Why’d you come back outside? I thought I told you I don’t want any pie,” Will mumbled when Karen took a seat in the chair beside him.

“I’m here to keep you company.”

He stared straight ahead. “I’m not good company right now.”

“That’s okay; I understand.”

He jerked his head. “I don’t see how you could. You’ve never been abandoned by anyone.”

“I’m not saying I understand how you feel about your daed having left you, but I think I do understand why it’s so hard for you to talk about your feelings.”

“Would you like to know what I’m feeling right now?”

“Jah, I would.”

Will grunted. “I’m feeling that you might be better off without me in your life.”

Karen’s mouth fell open. “How can you say something like that?”

He scrubbed his hand down the side of his face. “I don’t know what kind of husband or father I would make. What if I take after Pop and do things to hurt my family?”

“Oh Will, I don’t think—”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have joined the Amish church. It might have been better if I’d gone English and moved away.”

Karen shook her head. “You can’t mean that, Will. You love the Amish way of life; you’ve told me so many times.”

“Jah, well, that was before my daed showed up and made me feel so
verhuddelt
.”

“The only reason you’re feeling confused is because you haven’t talked things through with him. You need to tell your daed what’s on your heart. You need to let him explain why he never returned or contacted you.”

“He had the chance to explain it while we were at the table.

And what did he do?” A muscle on the side of Will’s neck quivered. “He lied and said he’d left me a note!”

“Maybe he had planned to leave you a note but forgot to do it in his haste to leave.”

“I don’t think he ever planned to leave me a note. I think he decided to sneak off during the night so he wouldn’t have to explain anything to me. I bet he was just looking for the opportunity to find another wife and begin a new life without me in the way.”

Karen wasn’t sure how to respond to Will’s last comment. She didn’t know Frank Henderson well enough to know if he was capable of walking out on his son so he could start a new life. But the desperate look she’d seen on Frank’s face while they were sitting at the table made her think he was hurting as much as Will right now.

Will rose from his seat and walked to the other end of the porch. “I need to get away from here for a while. I need time alone to think things through.”

“Where are you going?” Karen called as he tromped down the stairs.

“For a buggy ride.”

As Karen watched Will walk away, tension knotted her stomach, and she felt herself on the brink of tears. She had a horrible feeling he wasn’t just going for a buggy ride—he was walking out of her life forever.

K
aren returned to the kitchen with her shoulders slumped and her head down. Regina felt immediate concern. “Where’s Will? Couldn’t you talk him into joining us for dessert?”

Karen shook her head and sank into her chair at the table. “He went for a buggy ride, and I—I don’t know when he’ll be back.”

Frank grimaced. “It’s because of me that he’s gone. He wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say. I didn’t even get to tell him the reason I never wrote or came back for him.”

Regina handed Megan a piece of pie. “How would it be if we let the girls stay here at the table to eat their pie while we adults take ours in the living room?” She glanced over at Frank. “It will give us a chance to talk about some important things.”

Megan nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

“I think so, too,” Karen agreed.

Regina was relieved when the girls didn’t argue. In fact, they dug into their pie as soon as Regina set the plates in front of them. Then she gave each of them a writing tablet and some pencils. “When you girls are finished eating, you can draw some pictures if you like.”

“What about the puppies?” Carrie asked. “I thought we were gonna see Will’s puppies.”

“If Will’s not back soon, I’ll take you out to see the puppies,” Mark said.

“Okay!” Kim bobbed her curly red head as she grinned up at him. “I’m gonna draw a picture of the puppy I’m hopin’ we’ll get for Christmas!”

The adults followed Mark out of the kitchen, and once they were seated in the living room, Regina placed a dessert tray and a pot of coffee on the small table in front of the sofa. Then she handed everyone a piece of pie.

“I do remember eating this now,” Frank said after he’d taken his first bite. “It tastes, how do you say it…
wunderbaar
?”

Mark chuckled. “That’s how we say it, all right.”

“What’s wunderbaar mean?” Megan asked.

“It means ‘wonderful.’ That and the word
jah
were the only German-Dutch words I learned during my brief stay with Mark and Regina.”

“If you’d stayed longer, you’d have probably learned a lot more of our words,” Mark said.

Frank looked over at Regina. “Are you sure you didn’t find that note I left in your kitchen the morning I left Will with you?”

“I found no note.”

Frank’s forehead wrinkled as he rubbed the back of his head. “Well, I thought I left it in the kitchen. After my accident, some things were kind of sketchy, and it took me awhile to piece things together.”

“What accident?” Regina asked.

“A few days after I left Will with you, I was involved in a bad accident and ended up in the hospital in serious condition.” Frank paused and drew in a quick breath. “Once I regained my memory and was well enough to return to Lancaster County, I was shocked to discover that you had moved and had apparently taken my boy with you.”

“Of course we took Will.” Mark’s cheeks reddened. “We could hardly leave him in a house that was being sold to someone else.”

Frank grunted. “I wasn’t saying you should have left him there. I just think you should have left word with a neighbor, so that when I returned, I would know where you had moved.”

“We did leave word,” Regina was quick to say.

“But I asked the neighbors living closest to you, and they said they’d heard something about an Amish couple living there at one time, but they didn’t know who they were or where they’d gone.”

“That makes no sense.” Mark pulled his fingers through the ends of his beard. “What were the neighbors’ names, do you know?”

Frank shook his head. “I never asked.”

“What’d they look like?” Regina questioned.

“As I recall, the woman had dark curly hair, and the man had light brown hair.”

“That wasn’t the Johnsons, then.” Regina pursed her lips. “John and Ellen Johnson must have moved from their place by the time you came back to get Will.”

“Did you check with any of the other neighbors?” Karen questioned.

Frank nodded. “I did, but no one knew anything.”

“All of our closest Amish neighbors moved about the same time we did,” Regina explained. “Some came here to Indiana, and some went to Ohio.”

“Why did you leave Lancaster County?” Megan asked.

“Because we wanted to go someplace where we could buy more land and wouldn’t have to deal with so much traffic.” Mark smiled. “I grew up on a dairy farm and liked working with cows, so when I was offered the opportunity to buy this farm in northern Indiana, I jumped at the chance.”

Frank reached for his cup of coffee and took a drink. “I hate to admit this, but when I came back and found you had moved, I decided that you must have left the area deliberately.”

Mark’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why would we do that?”

“Well, uh…I figured maybe you’d done it so you could raise Will as your son.”

Regina gasped. “We would never do such a thing! Why, you’d been gone almost a year without making any contact with us before we moved to Indiana. By that time, we were convinced you weren’t coming back for Will.”

“Even so,” Mark put in, “we did leave word with our neighbor so you would know where to find us.”

Frank stared into his cup as he slowly shook his head. “Guess I jumped to conclusions.”

“I can only imagine how horrible you must have felt,” Karen said.

Megan reached over and clasped her husband’s hand. “Until I got the idea to put that notice in
The Budget
, Frank had lost all hope of ever seeing his son again.”

Regina rose from her seat and peered out the window. “I wish Will would come back. He needs to hear what you’ve told us, Frank.”

Mark glanced at the clock on the mantel. “Speaking of Will, it’s almost time to milk the cows, and since he’s not back yet, it looks like I’ll have to do it alone.”

“I’d be glad to help,” Frank said, “but unfortunately I don’t know the first thing about milking a cow.”

“No, but I do.” Regina smiled at Mark. “Since Will’s not here, I’ll help with the milking tonight.”

“Maybe I should take the girls out to see the puppies first,” Mark said. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”

“Why don’t we all go out and take a look?” Regina suggested.

“That’s a good idea,” Megan said. “I’d like to see the puppies myself.”

Mark rose to his feet. “Then let’s get the girls and head out to the barn.”

Megan smiled as she watched her daughters, down on their knees in one corner of the barn, playing with Will’s honey-colored cocker spaniel and her five lively pups.

“They’re sure cute little things.” Megan nudged Frank’s arm.

“Don’t you think we should consider getting the girls a puppy for Christmas?”