* * *
Rachel watched Caleb jog away and she wanted to sit down, put her head on her arms and weep. When her life was finally coming together, when things were finally starting to make sense, why did he have to leave?
Had he really said he loved her?
She walked back to the buggy in a daze.
Her little sisters had moved on from I Spy to playing finger games with pieces of yarn they both kept in their pockets. Clyde was looking out the window and saying that by this time next year he would be a father. But Ethan’s gaze met hers, and she knew he knew.
Had Caleb spoken to him?
Or did she simply have a love-dazed look about her? Because she was in love with Caleb Wittmer. For the life of her, she couldn’t think of why she hadn’t told him, but she would. In time, she would.
The day passed in a flurry of family and celebration and gift giving. Though their holidays were dramatically scaled back as compared to Englischers’ celebration, the fact that they had over twenty people in the house with her aentis and onkels and grandparents and cousins meant that there wasn’t a quiet moment. And though she felt terrible that she had no gifts for anyone—she hadn’t known she’d be back home and, in fact, she still had Caleb’s sweater in her bag waiting to be finished—that didn’t stop everyone from stacking gifts around her.
She received a new coat, gloves, mittens, an outdoor bonnet, a scarf and a small book of poetry. Her mamm gave her a basket overflowing with writing supplies—stationery, a new pen, envelopes and stamps. She kissed Rachel’s cheek and whispered, “Maybe you can write to Caleb,” which was what she thought about doing for the next hour. But she fell into bed without uncapping the pen, a whirlwind of emotions clouding her thoughts. She was exhausted, heartsick that Caleb was gone and tremendously happy to finally be home.
* * *
New Year’s Day arrived with a blizzard that kept everyone inside. Rachel finally began writing Caleb. She had tried several times before that. Each night she’d sat in front of her little desk, pulled the paper toward her and stared at it.
What could she say to him that he didn’t already know about her?
How could she describe her feelings?
When could she expect to see him again?
The questions swirled and collided in her mind until she would invariably push the paper away, climb into bed and huddle under the covers. She was still grateful to be home, but a malaise had settled over her feelings until it felt as if she was viewing everything from a distance. She constantly berated herself for feeling blue. She should feel grateful! Had she learned nothing from her time away from home? Yet no matter how much she told herself that she should feel happy, she often found herself on the verge of tears.
After she cleared the breakfast dishes, her mamm suggested she spend some time on the sun porch.
“It’s still snowing.”
“Not on the porch.”
“I’ll freeze.”
“We put windows in years ago and a small butane heater. Remember?”
Rachel nodded, but in truth she didn’t remember at all. There was much she still couldn’t recall, though each day brought at least one new revelation about her past—she couldn’t abide peas, she was the family’s designated baker, she visited the local library at least once a week, she had a kitten named Stripes that slept in the office in the barn.
“There’s a rocker and even a small desk there,” her mamm continued. Rachel’s younger sisters were playing jacks in the barn, Miriam had gone to her mother-in-law’s for the week and Ethan and her dat were in the barn working on a table that they planned to sell at the next auction. Only Rachel and her mamm remained in the house. It was quiet and forced Rachel’s thoughts to address questions she didn’t have answers to. The entire thing made her want to go back upstairs, back to bed.
“You know, your dat built the porch for me because I sometimes suffer from winter blues, or seasonal depression, as the Englisch doctor calls it.”
“I thought he built the porch for us kids.”
“It was a wunderbaar place for you all to get a bit of sunshine when the weather kept us in for days on end, but nein, he built it for me.”
“And did it help?”
“Ya. As a matter of fact it did.”
“Do you think I’m depressed, Mamm?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“Maybe.”
“How’s your energy level?”
“Low to nonexistent. It’s as if I have the flu, but I don’t.”
“Moody?”
“You know I am. You caught me crying when I spilled the flour on the floor yesterday.”
“Problems sleeping?”
“I toss and turn a lot.”
“Perhaps we should make an appointment with the doctor.”
Rachel shrugged. “I’m still a little confused, a little lost, and I miss Caleb.” She hesitated, not sure if she was ready to share her deepest fears yet.
Instead of pushing her to say more, her mamm went to the kitchen, brewed two mugs of hot tea and brought them back. That kindness reminded her of Ida and gave her the courage to speak her fears. “What if Caleb doesn’t really care about me?”
“So you think he doesn’t know his own mind?”
“What if those feelings arose out of the oddness of our situation? He saved a coatless girl who might have died in the snow. Maybe that’s not love he feels. Maybe it’s relief or surprise or merely affection.”
“Have you written him yet? Have you asked Caleb these things?”
“Nein. I want to. I mean to, but then when I sit down...I don’t know what to say.”
“Say what’s in your heart, dear.”
So with her mamm claiming that it would be a lovely place to write a letter, Rachel found herself alone on the sun porch. The new pen and paper waited before her as snow billowed outside the window. She noticed the calendar on the wall, stood up and pulled it off the hook.
Scanning back through the months, she marveled at all that had happened. If she had known what she would endure, she might have hidden upstairs the entire year. But those trials had brought her Caleb, and she would never wish away the times they had shared. She carried the old calendar to the desk, opened the drawer and pulled out the new one that her father always picked up at the hardware store. Opening it, she saw a beautiful sunrise over fields laden with snow. Across the bottom was printed:
Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come,
Whispering, “It will be happier.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Did she believe that? Could she trust Gotte that this New Year would be happier, would be better than the last?
She stared out the window, glanced back at the calendar. She prayed, she doodled and finally the words began to flow.
January 1
Dear Caleb,
You must think terribly of me, since I’ve yet to write. I received your postcard and your letter. Thank you so much. I’ve wanted to write to you, but when I try, my thoughts and feelings become tangled. Do you think that what we feel for each other could be situational? Do you worry that when I regain all of my memories, and life finally returns to normal, when spring comes and you are busy with your alpacas and farming...do you think we will feel the same?
Please give my best to your parents.
Sincerely,
Rachel
She sealed the envelope, carried it out to the mailbox and tried to fill the rest of the day with useful activities. The hours seemed hollow, though. She felt as if she was walking in a dream that she couldn’t quite wake from.
Caleb’s reply arrived so quickly that she marveled at the efficiency of the postal service. Her mother handed her the letter and nodded toward the sunroom. She settled at the desk and tore it open with shaking hands.
>
January 6
Dear Rachel,
I check the mailbox each day, sure that I will find a letter from you, and today that dream came true.
I am pleased to hear that you do have feelings for me, and I am sure that the love I feel for you is genuine and lasting. It may have begun when I picked you up out of the snow, but remember I didn’t even like you very much then. I hope that line made you laugh or at least smile.
The alpacas don’t seem to mind the snow. Their coats have become quite thick. I’m looking forward to the first shearing.
My regards to your family and my deepest feelings for you,
Caleb
A week later, she received a nice fat envelope from Montgomery, Indiana. In it was a circle letter from Ida to Deborah. Ida spoke of her crochet work, updated Rachel on the families she’d met in the area and asked what types of flowers they planted in the spring. John wrote a half a page below that, the comments directed more to Rachel’s father, although one line assured Rachel that they continued to pray for her each day.
And below both of those messages were two pages from Caleb. He spoke to Ethan about the alpacas. Rachel hadn’t realized Ethan was interested in the animals. Her mamm paused in reading the letter as Rachel told them how she’d named each one, and how they acted when they were spooked, and how gentle they could be if you fed them carrots.
“Can we get one?” Becca asked.
“We’ll help. We promise we will,” Clara chimed in.
At the bottom of Caleb’s writing, he wrote a personal line to each person in the family. The letter surprised Rachel. Though his tone was informal, it reminded her of the letters her friends had received, years ago when she was first out of school. They would hear of a boy in another community, or perhaps the boy had visited a relative in their area, and the boy would begin to write—not merely to the girl, but to the family. It was a sort of long-distance courting, this getting to know one another.
Was Caleb courting her?
Is that what his letter meant?
Her mamm was holding up another envelope, but Rachel had missed whatever she’d said.
“What?”
“There’s another letter here.”
“It’s for me?”
“Seems to be. It’s a smaller envelope that was inside this large one, and your name is on the outside.”
Her younger sisters began making kissing sounds, Ethan asked to see the portion about the alpacas and her father picked up The Budget after winking at her.
As if she was in a dream, Rachel stood, walked across the room and accepted the small envelope. Her fingers traced her name on the outside. She glanced up at her mamm.
“Perhaps you’d like to read it in the sunroom.”
“Ya. I would.”
Which caused Clara and Becca to fall into a fit of giggles.
Rachel paid them no mind. Caleb had written to her before. She’d lived with his family for nearly a month. Why did this seem different? Why was her heart hammering and her pulse racing?
She hurried to the sunroom and sat in the rocker, near the small heater, which she cranked to high.
The room was cheery even on a dark winter evening. Her mamm had used yellow and green and blue fabric to sew several lap throws that were scattered around the room. An afghan made from variegated purple yarn was folded and placed in a basket near her feet. She pulled the afghan across her lap and opened the envelope.
Dearest Rachel,
I hope you enjoyed my letter to your family. I suppose it might appear quite old-fashioned, to write to a girl’s family, but as you know I’m an old-fashioned sort of guy. Your letter caused me to realize that perhaps I haven’t made my intentions clear. Oh, I blurted out my feelings casually enough, no doubt flabbergasting you as you stood under the overhang of the store on a snowy Christmas morning. I meant what I said then, and I’ll say it again here—I love you, Rachel Yoder, and I’d like to court you. I realize long-distance relationships are difficult, and I know that you are still recovering from your accident. I’d like to hear more about the things you are remembering, the things you worry about and how well you are settling in. I want to know everything about you, Rachel.
It occurs to me that we barely know one another, and yet I remain affectionately yours,
Caleb
She read the letter twice more, and then she moved to the table in the corner of the room, pulled her stationery toward her and began to write. She poured out her heart in a way that she hadn’t in the first letter. She found herself filling page after page, telling him about her mother’s seasonal depression, that she might suffer from the same, and describing the sunroom to him. She held nothing back, and why would she? If he cared about her, then he wouldn’t run from such revelations. And if he did run, then he wasn’t the man she thought he was.
Chapter Thirteen
Caleb had never thought of himself as an impatient man, but waiting for spring, waiting for an opportunity to go and visit Rachel—that took all the patience he could muster. They continued exchanging letters through January and February, and finally, in March, the last of the snow melted.
“Give her our love,” his mamm said, pushing a lunch sack into his hands as the bus pulled into the parking area.
“And tell her dat that I hope to meet him someday.” Caleb’s father winked. They’d talked about his relationship with Rachel on several occasions. He knew how Caleb felt, and he was the one who had suggested that Caleb write to the whole family. “Show her you want to be a part of her entire life, not just make her a part of yours.”
The ride to Goshen was more familiar this time. He passed through Indianapolis without gawking at the skyscrapers, and he breathed a sigh of relief when they navigated the highway interchange and popped out the other side. Caleb knew he was getting close once he saw the signs for Nappanee.
The plan was to stay for a week, attend the auction in Shipshewana and speak to both Rachel’s parents and her bishop about his intentions—if she still felt the same way. Their letters had been filled with everyday tidbits, but they rarely wrote about their feelings. He didn’t want to push her. He certainly didn’t want to rush her, and he could tell from her letters that the time at home was doing exactly what it should—it was healing both her heart and her mind.
Ethan and Rachel were waiting for him when the bus pulled into Goshen. He gazed out at the blustery spring day, at the woman that he had thought of and dreamed of and prayed for, and he felt as if his heart was taking flight like a child’s kite.
Rachel waited at the buggy, one hand patting the buggy horse as the other held her kapp on her head. Ethan jogged up to see if he needed help with his bags.
Caleb stood staring at her, his suitcase in one hand, his hat in the other, until Ethan slapped him on the back and said, “She’s doing better—our Rachel is.”
And those two words—our Rachel—helped him to start moving toward her again.
Her color was better, the dark circles under her eyes were gone and a ready smile played on her lips. She’d gained some needed weight. She looked more like a woman and less like a lost girl. Her dress was a pale green, freshly laundered and covered with a white apron.
She looked more beautiful than he remembered.
He wasn’t sure how to greet her.
Ethan must have sensed their awkwardness because he muttered, “I think there’s something I was supposed to pick up in the store,” and gave them a few minutes alone.
Rachel cocked her head, her smile widened and she looked directly into his eyes. “How are you, Caleb?”
“Gut, and you...you look fabulous.”
And then his heart won over any thoughts of impropriety.
He dropped his bag on the ground, crammed his hat on his head and closed the gap between them. Rachel stepped into his arms, and he was content for the
first time since Christmas Day.
On the ride to the Yoder farm, Ethan continued to pepper him with questions about the alpacas. He planned to go with Caleb to the auction, and he hoped to purchase a few of his own. He asked about shearing and mating and feeding and bedding.
Caleb tried to answer intelligently, but his mind was on the woman in the front seat of the buggy.
If he’d thought they’d have time alone when he reached the house, he was mistaken. Rachel’s little sisters were home, and they insisted he follow them to the barn, peek in on the new foal and pet the newest litter of kittens. He thought the time spent with Ethan and Clarence would be pure torture, but he finally relaxed, realized Rachel wasn’t going anywhere and enjoyed the time with her bruder and dat. After all, her family would be his family if this trip was the success he’d prayed for.
Dinner was a busy, raucous affair, especially with Miriam’s new infant, a boy that they had named Stephen.
“We all call him baby Stevie,” Clara explained. “Stephen sounds old, and he’s not going to be old for years and years yet.”
“He won’t let you call him that when he goes to school,” Becca reminded her.
“That won’t be for a long time.”
“Time flies.”
“I wish this dinnertime would fly so I wouldn’t have to listen to you.”
“That’s enough, girls.” Deborah gave her youngest daughters a serious look. They waited until she’d turned her back to make faces at each other.
Later that evening, Rachel asked him, “Is my family too much?”
“What do you mean?”
“Too loud, boisterous, nosy... I almost died when Becca asked if you’d kissed me yet.”
They were sitting in two rockers in the sunroom he’d barely noticed during his first visit—the sunroom that Rachel had told him so much about.
“I want to kiss you again right now.”
“You do?”
“Ya, but I believe your parents can see us from the sitting room.”
Amish Christmas Memories Page 17