“Nein. She seemed to think I was stalling, but actually I was worried that I couldn’t provide for you and Jo. I don’t have a real farm, a real home...” He watched Abigail, trying to read her reaction.
“Asher provided me a home, but he never loved me. I understand now that where you live isn’t what matters. What matters is how much you care for one another, whether you cherish one another, whether you’re kind...not the type of house or the size of the farm.”
“Mammi reminded me that a home is made of love and dreams.” Thomas suddenly wished he hadn’t drunk the coffee. The strong brew felt acidic in his stomach as the old doubts rose up to meet the dark brew. “Abigail, there’s something I need to tell you before...well, before this goes any further. It might change how you feel.”
“Nothing can change how I feel, Thomas.”
He nodded in agreement, but his words voiced his fear that the opposite might be true. “I know you believe that, but hear me out. There’s a reason I haven’t married. There’s a reason that I thought I’d never make a good husband or a good father.”
“Baby Jo loves you.”
“And I love her. I really do. I had no idea that I could feel so...protective toward a boppli.” He crossed his arms on the table, determined to get through this. “My family, growing up, it wasn’t what a family should be.”
“You’ve hinted at that before.”
“My dat was an alcoholic.”
The voices around them had faded into the background, until it seemed to Thomas that it was just him and Abigail sitting there together. Suddenly it wasn’t so difficult to pour out the doubts that he had so carefully stored in his heart.
“It was terrible—truly. We never knew if there’d be enough money for food or proper clothes. My parents insisted on hiding it from our church, so the bishop and elders didn’t know how dire the situation was.” He shook his head at the memories. In some ways those days seemed as if they’d occurred last week, and in other ways they seemed as if they’d happened to someone else.
“That must have been terribly hard for you. My parents were emotionally distant, but they always provided for us.”
“Occasionally someone would understand the seriousness of our situation and try to help. My dat would rudely assure them that we were fine, but we weren’t fine. My mamm wasn’t. My schweschdern weren’t. I wasn’t.” The admission brought him freedom. It was as if he’d been carrying around a giant weight and had just realized he could set it down. “I became the man of the house at a very young age.”
“Both of your parents have passed?”
“Ya. My dat when I was only twelve. My mamm a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Here’s the thing. I’ve done some reading on the subject, and doctors agree that sometimes alcoholism can be genetic.”
“I’ve never seen you drink.”
“I don’t, but what if I have the gene? What if it’s something that just...switches on when you turn forty, like high cholesterol or male-pattern baldness?”
“You’re going to be bald?” Her voice was teasing, but her eyes couldn’t have been more serious. She reached across the table and covered his hands with her own. “You are a gut man, Thomas. And I know, in my heart of hearts, that you’d be a gut husband and an excellent father.”
Oh, how he wanted to believe that.
Somehow, looking at Abigail with her hands covering his, he could. He didn’t know what had caused his own dat to choose the wrong path. Perhaps it had been a sickness that he couldn’t overcome. Maybe he’d been weak willed. Possibly he hadn’t known of the danger that waited for him behind that first bottle.
But Thomas knew. He’d be vigilant. He wouldn’t let anything come between him and his family.
“If I ever...”
“You won’t.”
“But if I did...”
“Then we would face it together. I wouldn’t hide it from others, Thomas. I don’t know why your mamm did, but I know I wouldn’t. We have friends and family and a church that cares about us, and they’re on the inside of our lives where they belong. We won’t push them out, no matter what problems we face.”
And those words convinced him more than anything else.
Abigail had been through the worst that a young woman could experience—a loveless marriage, the untimely death of her husband, being a single mother, being penniless. Instead of breaking her spirit, those things had made her stronger. They’d helped her become the woman who was sitting across from him.
She cleared her throat. “There is one more thing we haven’t discussed, though.”
“I can’t imagine anything else that would possibly matter.” He offered her a sheepish grin. “I was worried you didn’t feel the same.”
Her smile was a reflection of his, but it quickly dimmed. “We still don’t know how the probate of Asher’s estate is going to turn out. I thought I’d hear this week...”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. After learning how indebted Asher was... Well, I don’t understand what I’m supposed to do with that. I haven’t the vaguest idea of where Baby Jo and I will live if we lose the farm.”
“It’s something we can figure out together.” He waited until she stopped staring into her coffee. “If I can trust you with my past, my history, you can trust me with your future.”
“Ya. You’re right, Thomas. I can.”
They walked toward his buggy arm in arm, surrounded by shops that were decked out for Christmas. It was the most joyous time of the year, and Thomas felt that joy inside him.
They stopped beside the buggy. Abigail reached up and kissed him softly, gently on the lips. His doubts and fears fled, and he was filled with a sense of calm.
He understood that there were many important decisions ahead of them. They’d make them together. By this time next year he’d have a family of his own, and they’d celebrate the season together.
Chapter Fourteen
Abigail stood staring at the coffeepot brewing on the stove, her heart and mind full of far too many emotions and thoughts.
“The coffee goes in the cup.” Mammi reached around her for one of the mugs.
“I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed,” Abigail admitted.
“All you have to do, at any given moment, is the next thing.” Mammi held up the pot. “Coffee?”
“Ya. That’s definitely the next thing.”
She’d told Mammi about her conversation with Thomas. Mammi had clapped her hands and sent a “praise the Lord” up to the heavens. When Abigail cautioned her that there were still a lot of details to work out, Mammi had nodded in understanding, then smiled and offered, “Faith makes things possible, not easy.”
That pretty much said it all.
Abigail added a touch of cream to her coffee and sank into a chair at the table.
Mammi peered over her own cup of coffee. “How did Baby Jo sleep?”
“Gut. She woke me an hour ago to feed her, and now she’s fast asleep.” The sky was just beginning to lighten, though clouds pressed heavily across the horizon—snow clouds if she wasn’t mistaken. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I feel excited and happy and a little...pensive.”
Mammi sipped her coffee and waited.
“I was supposed to hear from the lawyer this week.”
“Yup. Are you worried?”
“Not really. It just feels as if the New Year is going to be full of changes, and I have no idea which way those changes might take me.”
“True.” Mammi patted her hand. “But you do know who will be with you on your new path.”
Leave it to Mammi to correct her train of thought. Regardless of what news the attorney brought, she wouldn’t be alone. She’d have Jo and Mammi...and Thomas. That realization
did more than ease her worries. It put a song in her heart.
She dressed Jo in a warm onesie and added a stocking kapp she’d knit—it was red with white hearts and to Abigail’s way of thinking looked very festive. A year ago, she hadn’t known how to knit. Now she was knitting garments for her doschder. It was amazing the changes that a short time could bring.
Changes in her abilities.
Changes in her heart.
Thomas stopped by midmorning. By that point, they were stringing popcorn with cranberries. Baby Jo lay in her playpen, waving her arms and looking as if she approved of the new decorations.
Mammi made brownies topped with broken peppermint.
Thomas and Abigail fetched pine boughs and stretched them across the mantel, windowsills and bookshelves. They filled the air with the scent of winter and Christmas and celebration.
It was as she was clearing up the lunch dishes that a car pulled up in front of the house. Gabriela Martinez stepped out.
Thomas tried to leave them alone to discuss the probate, but Abigail wanted him with her. She wanted her entire family with her. So it was that Thomas sat across from her, holding Baby Jo. Mammi sat to her right, her old weathered Bible on the table in front of her. Gabriela sat on her left, a large envelope filled with papers in front of her.
“It isn’t what we hoped,” she said right away. “But it’s not as bad as it could have been.”
Abigail had no idea how to answer that, so she didn’t.
“Given the degree of indebtedness and the fact that you have no prospect of a regular income, the judge has ordered that the farm be placed up for auction after the first of the year.”
Abigail blinked, but still couldn’t speak. It could have been worse.
“The good news is that the balance of the funds in the account will remain yours, as will the items in the house, the livestock and the buggy.” She looked up from the papers. “I must say that I agree with the judge’s ruling. A farm this size, it’s probably more than a single mom would want to deal with. And the fact that it’s going to auction means that you don’t have to worry about finding a buyer or settling the debts.”
She pulled out more papers. “As we discussed earlier, I filled out a bankruptcy petition and presented it to the judge. He approved it, Abigail. You can effectively walk away from Asher’s bad business decisions. You can have a new beginning, though the bankruptcy will remain on your credit history. You might have trouble procuring a loan, at least for the next ten years, since this was a Chapter 7 bankruptcy.”
Abigail pulled in a deep breath. Glancing out the window, she saw that it had begun to snow. Christmas Eve, fresh snow and court papers to sign. Those three things didn’t seem to go together, yet here she was. And then she remembered Mammi’s words from earlier that morning:
All you have to do, at any given moment, is the next thing.
With a smile and a prayer, she picked up a pen, and she began to sign the forms.
* * *
Thomas stood on the front porch with her as they watched Gabriela drive away.
He reached for her hand. “Are you upset?”
“Surprisingly, I’m not.”
“Worried?”
She shook her head, then gazed up into his eyes. “Nein.”
“I love you, Abigail Yutzy.”
“And I love you, Thomas Albrecht.”
“We’ll start over. Start fresh. I have some money saved, enough for a good down payment on a place.”
“And unlike me, you have a good credit history.”
“I do, though you know...” he traced her jawline with his thumb, then bent to kiss her lips “...I’ve heard Amish don’t like to go into debt.”
“You are correct. We don’t.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him back. “Too bad you’re not going to get paid for all that work you did on the Yutzy place.”
“I’m getting paid. There’s an entire plate of brownies in there, and I plan on eating my fair share.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Would you look at that?” He turned her around, so that she was facing toward the fields and his arms were snug around her. “It’s really starting to come down.”
“A fresh snow...for Christmas.”
Baby Jo let out a shout from inside the house. Abigail pivoted in Thomas’s arms again and smiled up at him. “Sounds like our baby girl is ready to begin celebrating.”
“Indeed, it does.”
They walked into the house as the snow continued to fall and the evening darkened. Mammi was sitting in her rocker and the room was cozy from the fire in the big black stove. The room smelled of baking and wood fires, pine boughs and Christmas. It smelled like home, though it wasn’t Thomas’s home and never would be.
But these people were his home, and the fact that they wouldn’t be in this place for the coming year didn’t really matter at all. They’d be together, and that was far more important than the location.
* * *
It was difficult for Thomas to leave that evening, but he did because Baby Jo was snoozing softly, Mammi had already gone to bed and Abigail looked as if she could barely keep her eyes open.
He kissed her at the door. “I’m getting used to this.”
“My falling asleep on you?”
“Kissing.”
“Oh, ya.” She stifled a yawn, then snugged herself into his arms. “Me too.”
“Merry Christmas,” he whispered.
“It’s not Christmas yet.”
“I know, but I wanted to be the first to say it to you.”
He kissed her again, then slipped out into the night. When he reached his home, he stopped over at the Lehmans’. They’d made it a policy long ago not to exchange gifts, but every Christmas Eve, he enjoyed a cup of coffee and slice of pie with them. All the children were there, and Chloe was atwitter with details of her newest boyfriend. It seemed like just the other day Thomas had been avoiding the family because of her crush on him. Time had moved them all along.
When he was alone in the kitchen with John and Mary, he caught them up on the happenings in his life.
“I’m happy for you, Thomas. Abigail sounds like a lovely person, and it’s plain as the peaches in that pie how much you care about her.”
“I’ve never heard love compared to pie before.”
“What my fraa is saying is that we love you like a son, and if there’s ever anything we can do for you and your new family—you let us know.”
“Actually...”
He stayed another hour as they hammered out the details. Then he borrowed some plain brown wrapping paper and a spool of bright green ribbon and hurried home to wrap his gifts.
The next morning with his schweschdern and their children was as special as it had always been. He didn’t have to tell everyone that he had big news. As soon as he walked through the door, Lily said, “Oh, bruder. I can tell you have something to say. You’re practically bursting to share it. I know! A Christmas wedding. Just like I had hoped.”
“Someone’s getting married today?” He’d picked up his infant nephew, who he was no longer afraid to hold. “Is it you, Fremont? Are you getting married?”
His nieces and nephews thought that was hilarious, but his schweschdern wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d told them every detail of his conversation with Abigail in the coffee shop. Everyone congratulated him, even his nieces and nephews. They celebrated Christmas with the reading of the Christmas story, gifts and a wunderbaar meal.
The day passed in a blur—Thomas’s thoughts hopping between the loved ones in front of him and the loved ones that he was eager to go and see. Grace and Lydia left with their families to visit their in-laws, and Lily and Josiah snuck off for their traditional Christmas afternoon nap.
Thomas was only on his third game of checkers, kids spread around him and the baby in his lap
, when Lily came back into the room, claiming the baby. “Go. Go see her.”
“But...”
“Just go before I change my mind.” She yawned, then smiled. “I think I need another cup of coffee.”
Duchess seemed quite content to clip-clop down the road on a bright Christmas afternoon. They passed Amish and Englisch families alike who were outside, enjoying snowball fights and making angels in the snow. His heart lightened as he turned down Abigail’s lane. If she was surprised to see him so early, she didn’t say anything about it.
“Say, that’s a lot of presents you have there.”
It wasn’t. It was five presents, and three of them were for Baby Jo.
Abigail and Mammi both cooed over the bouncy seat, play quilt that had mirrors and rattlers and stuffed animals sewn on it, and basket full of tub toys.
“I think someone was spying on me at Yoder’s the other day. I seem to remember looking at each of these things.”
“Maybe. I’m not saying I would spy on you, but maybe that’s the way it happened.”
Mammi gave him a knitted toboggan hat which just happened to match the scarf that Abigail gave him.
“I’m ready for any winter storm now.”
He gave Mammi a beautifully braided cord to wear and attach her glasses to. “Woven from alpaca yarn. I thought you could appreciate that since it’s—you know—handmade and natural.”
“Very kind of you,” Mammi said, reaching up to kiss his cheek. “Now you should give Abigail her gift before she snatches it away.”
“I wasn’t going to snatch.”
“You do look a bit impatient.”
“I suppose I might snatch, if you keep teasing me.”
He’d spent an inordinate amount of time on the bow for her package, but it still looked like what it was—homemade. Abigail didn’t notice. She pulled on one end, unwound the green ribbon, then slipped it into her pocket. “That’ll make a nice hair ribbon,” she said.
He could just see it, braided through her hair.
She slid a finger under the pieces of tape and carefully unwrapped the present. She ran her finger over the words on the cover—Mom’s First Journal—then looked up at him, tears sparkling in her eyes. “It’s lovely. Thank you.”
An Amish Baby for Christmas Page 18