The Winnowing Season (28 page)

She believed him. He seemed to be having fun because she was enjoying herself. Samuel hadn’t even given her a look of disapproval when she asked if she could help Landon’s granny decorate her house for Christmas.

Leah had been in Englisch houses before, but this was different. Unlike
the Englisch drinking parties where she’d worked so hard to fit in and never did, she almost felt at home here.

“If I were to”—she peered into the kitchen to make sure Erlene wasn’t within hearing range—“live Englisch for several years, would this become ordinary and dull?”

Landon reached into the bowl of popcorn and put a piece in her mouth. “What do you think?”

“Mmm.” Leah licked her lips, but rather than giving in to her desire to flirt with Landon, she turned back to the tree. She’d prepared the popcorn herself, using a microwave. Within seconds, ta-da! It was done.

Landon moved to the iPod station and turned the music down.

“Hey. Louder, not softer.”

“I’d like to be able to hear you rather than read your lips. Okay?”

The song “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” made her want to do just that—if she knew how to dance. She tapped her feet to the beat of the music.

Landon shook his head, a big grin on his face.

Leah put her hands on her hips. “Are you laughing at me?”

He made her feel alive and as if she could step into this kind of life with only a little planning. She returned to the worn-out cardboard box that contained the glass bulbs and various ornaments and sat beside it, looking at the different pieces. She picked up a small snow globe that contained a miniature Nativity scene.

“Aww.” She held it up. “It even glitters.”

“Well, it’s unlikely that Jesus had glitter all around Him … or snow.”

She’d always thought of Christmas as Jesus’s birthday, and Christmas had snow, right? Whenever she had read the story, she imagined the bitter cold that Joseph and a pregnant Mary had traveled through. “There wasn’t any snow?”

“Not likely. I watched a History Channel special, and it claimed that Jesus was actually born in the spring. Besides, even if He was born in winter, Bethlehem doesn’t get all that cold in the winter, not like Pennsylvania and Maine.”
He pulled a wooden snowman out of the box. It had some words written across its belly.

“Can I see it?” She set the globe on the floor next to her.

“No making fun of me.” Landon handed it to her.

The inscription said, “I love you, Granny.”

“Is this your handwriting?”

“Depends.”

She laughed. “On what?”

“On what you’re going to say about it.”

For no reason that she understood, she felt tears prick her eyes. The Englisch weren’t as detached from one another as she’d thought. Similarly, she supposed that not all Amish were as family oriented as the Englisch thought. “It’s sweet, Landon.”

“Then I did it.”

She pointed at him, gaining control of her emotions. “You be yourself. All the time.”

He sat on the floor next to her. “I will if you will.” He tugged gently on the string of her prayer Kapp.

She gazed into his eyes. “It’s harder for someone like me.”

“Why?”

“Because I almost never fit in anywhere, and I know very little about most subjects.”

“No one feels as if they fit in, Leah. All of us are learning all the time. It’s who you are that makes the difference.”

She picked up the snow globe and shook it, watching the glitter settle over the manger scene. “I don’t know who I am. But I’m pretty sure I’ve been trying to figure it out in all the wrong ways.”

A longing to know the true Christ filled her. Not the Christ of the Amish or the Englisch, but the Christ who lived and died in a place she was unfamiliar with, in a culture so different from the Englisch and the Amish she couldn’t imagine it. She wanted to know the Son of God who loved every nation and
every culture if only people turned to Him. Then she would know whether she was willing to yield to His will.

“Landon,”—she kept her eyes on the snow globe—“am I stupid?”

“What?” He stared at her. “You’re one of the smartest people I know.”

“Kumm on. Don’t lie. I don’t need that.” She shook her head, the snow globe taunting her ignorance. “I know
that’s
not true. But do you think I have a below normal IQ?”

“No.” Landon shifted. “Why would you think that?”

“There’s just so much I don’t know.”

“Me either.”

“Yes, you do.”

“You think I’m smart? Heck, I couldn’t even finish a two-year degree at a junior college.”

“And I don’t even know what that is.”

“Okay, so you’re not familiar with certain areas of life. That doesn’t make you stupid. A community or junior college is smaller than a college or university, and it offers fewer classes and only basic degrees. Now you know. And guess what? No one will ever have to explain it to you again, because you learn things easily and quickly and permanently. That’s what makes you smart. Why do you ask?”

“I want to figure out my life, but if I’m too stupid to do it right, I need to know.” She took the snow globe ornament and hung it on the tree at eye level.

Landon laughed. “I promise you that you’re just as smart or smarter than most who are trying to do the same thing.”

“If you’re right, could we slip off to attend a church sometime?”

“Because that’s part of what you want to figure out?”

“Yeah, but even if I can slip off without being noticed, I can’t get to a church without a ride.”

“We can do that. I’ll come get you on Sunday nights, saying Granny needs a little help, and we’ll go in search of a church. Can I drop you off?”

She couldn’t breathe for a moment before realizing he was teasing her.
“Landon, you
will
go with me, mostly so I can duck out the back and have a ride waiting if I don’t like it.”

Leah stared at the Christmas tree. What did this next year hold for her? She would turn eighteen, but that seemed almost unimportant compared to all the other things on her heart and the doors of opportunity before her.

“Do you believe He forgives every sin, even the ones we did on purpose?”

“Yeah. And it fits with who He is. Why else would He leave heaven to come to earth to die a miserable death?”

Leah paused. She had lived the near opposite of Jesus’s example. She had spent most days thinking about how to make her own life better. What would Jesus say about her desire to leave her Order? Would He tell her she was being selfish?

“Cookies are ready!” Erlene walked into the room with a tray of cookies and milk.

Leah tucked away her thoughts for a later time. For now, she was content to finish decorating and, for the first time ever, to turn on the lights of a Christmas tree.

TWENTY-SIX

Jacob laughed, trying to pluck the roasted marshmallow from Rhoda’s stick. Without much fanfare, she pulled it beyond his reach, secured the marshmallow, and from the kitchen table where they sat, she again extended the stick near the fire.

Never directly over a flame, mind you. She was cautious and picky about the best way to warm the white fluff. He remembered their first marshmallow fight, the one that took place the night she had noticed him. Before he and Samuel picked her up that evening, Jacob already knew he wanted to court her. Now, at their second marshmallow roast, close to five months later, Jacob knew he wanted to marry her.

Maybe he would propose on Christmas Day. That was just seven days away. Was he moving too fast for her? Maybe he was hoping for too much.

While she held the long stick over the fire, he clutched it, jiggling it and refusing to let go.

She smiled, a melancholy mood evident in her responses to him. “I’m not fighting over a marshmallow.” She released the stick to him “You want it, it’s yours.”

“Ya?” He edged his chair closer to hers. “So what’s the fun in that?”

The smile didn’t leave her face as she shrugged without answering.

Despite his best efforts, he couldn’t prod her into cutting up with him. So what was on her mind? He was in no hurry to figure it out. They had the whole evening, and with another long week of work behind them, they were alone at last, facing the warmth of the kitchen hearth. Well, somewhat alone. The house had plenty of people, but all of them gave Rhoda and him their Sunday evening courting privacy. He couldn’t imagine a better way to start a week.

“Look what you did.” She pointed at the marshmallow that had caught fire.

“It’s your fault.” He let the burning marshmallow melt and fall into the fire before he stuck a fresh one onto the stick.

“So is that one for me?” Rhoda nudged his arm.

“Oh, it’s for you, but you won’t get to eat it.” He tried to maintain a poker face, a term that he had not understood until his time with the Englisch. “Because I intend to stick it in your hair.”

“If you do, I’ll …” Rhoda paused, clearly trying to think of the best response threat.

“Have gooey hair?”

Rhoda’s expression spread into a confident grin. “Well, that too, I suppose. But then I’ll have to leave you to go wash my hair.”

He quickly laid the stick on the table. “You win.” He put his arm around her. “Because you’re going nowhere.” He leaned in until his lips were covering hers.

She kissed him.

Jacob reluctantly pulled away, sighing contentedly. She knew more about his past than he’d ever hoped to share with anyone, and they continued to grow closer. The past seven weeks since he’d shared his secrets with Rhoda had been some of the best he’d ever known.

“Rhodes.” He brushed his fingers along the back of her hand. “What’s going on inside that beautiful head of yours?”

A faint smile and a shrug was the only answer he received.

Was it Nicole?

She’d been coming by to work with Samuel for at least an hour every day for three weeks. She spent all day with them on her days off from the store. Strangely enough, Samuel seemed to look forward to seeing her. If she arrived before or during dinner, he wasted no time in excusing himself and disappearing with her to work on the solar panel installations.

But the young woman’s coming and going seemed to grate on Rhoda’s
nerves. When he’d asked her about it, she simply said the necessary interruptions put her and Samuel behind on other work.

Jacob tended to keep a low profile when Nicole was around, but he’d met her and had waved at her from a distance a couple of times. Mostly he worked elsewhere, aiming to make up for whatever chore Samuel was unable to do because of the solar panel work.

Samuel asked Nicole not to use their real names
if
she ever blogged about them. He said she not only agreed to it, but she seemed to accept that the request was simply the Amish way. And it was. It just wasn’t a rule that most Amish worried about.

Jacob intertwined his fingers with hers. “Kumm on. I’ve seen something flicker through those gorgeous eyes half a dozen times.”

“Oh, really? Know me that well, do you?” Rhoda propped her chin on her hand, grinning.

“Ya.” He squeezed her hand, talking softly. “And I want you to tell me.”

She studied him. “You’re sure?”

As if a candle had been lit in a dark room, he knew what was bothering her: Bob and Camilla Cranford. At first he thought her friendship with them was a bit of a substitute for missing her parents, who were about ten years younger than Bob and Camilla. “I’m sure.”

He had declined every invitation from Rhoda or Camilla for a visit. Sandra had him edgy about keeping a low profile in Maine, but he could do this for his Rhodes, couldn’t he?

“I know you’re reluctant to visit people’s homes or do anything that makes you stick out, but—”

“You want me to meet Camilla and Bob.”

Rhoda propped her arms on the table. “They’ve invited us to dinner on Christmas.”

“And?” He knew there was more. Rhoda had talked to him about the Cranfords several times, sharing her thoughts.

She played with a tiny piece of bark that had fallen off the stick. “I can’t tell them what I keep hearing … and seeing. It’s clearly a closed subject. I figured that out during my first visit, so I wouldn’t push them on it, but you’re good at figuring out moods and piecing together what people aren’t saying. I need your help with this.”

This request to help her understand some part of what she was picking up on was completely new, and he liked that she trusted him, but … “I won’t be any good at helping you. I know you think I would, but I’m only good at figuring out your mood and what you’re not telling me.”

“Then come with me anyway. I think you’d like them. Camilla is very serious about life—sort of a quiet, stalwart woman—but she has quite the sense of humor when trying to teach me how to cook Maine style. And Bob has done a little of everything on the ocean—from deep-sea fishing to sailing. You’d have a good time. And it could be your Christmas present to me.”

How could he deny her request, regardless of what Sandra thought? Actually, he was beginning to like this idea. She cared for them so much that they’d probably have a great time. Then maybe on their buggy ride home, he’d discover it was the perfect time to ask her to marry him.

Jacob had a new plan. “But if I say yes now, you’ll know what your present is.”

“Really? You’re not just teasing me?”

“It’s yours. You can count on it.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him.

“Jacob.” Leah slammed the front door as she entered.

“In the kitchen, trying to apply some frosting to Rhoda’s hair.” He winked at Rhoda.

Leah came through the kitchen door, unbuttoning her coat. “There’s a phone call for you.”

Jacob paused for a moment, the enjoyment of his quiet evening with Rhoda draining from him. “Who is it?”

“She wouldn’t say. Sounds like an old woman or someone who’s about half dead.” Leah shrugged.

He looked at Rhoda. Her grin faded as quickly as his. “I’ll be right back.” He smiled, only this time it was forced. “Don’t go anywhere.”

He went to the barn, hoping it wasn’t Sandra. But who else would it be? Hardly anyone knew he was living here. A knot formed in the pit of his stomach. It could be Erlene, but he had no idea why Landon’s grandmother would need to speak with him. Besides, Leah would have recognized her voice.