Though the Schwartz family had escaped their fire with only the clothes on their backs, still there were secret meetings, newspapers disappearing to reappear later wrapped around mysterious boxes, bright red ribbons on packages that were hidden behind couches, in the pantry, even under his bed.
How did a box large enough to hold a man-size coat appear under his bed?
He left it there, shaking his head and telling himself that in only two more days the craziness would stop.
He had a strong feeling that his life would never return to what it had been before, and he found that thought didn’t bother him as much as it might have a year or even a month ago. Becca and her family had only been in his home a week, but already their routines were precious to him.
Samuel’s jokes as they ate each meal around the table.
Clyde’s muddy boots leaving trails from the mudroom to the kitchen and back again.
David’s appetite, which was indeed quite amazing.
Georgia’s stack of books—where did she get them all? Some were stamped Shipshewana Public Library; others were quite worn around the edges.
Francine’s Englisch blue jeans and hoodie that she thought no one knew about.
He’d even grown used to the plaintive sound of Eli’s harmonica as he did a final walk-through of the horses—always with Hannah and Isabelle trailing next to him.
His life was fuller, richer than it had ever been, and Daniel realized with a start that he was happy. He hadn’t been this unburdened since...since his family had inherited the money.
What a curse that blessing had turned out to be.
Only it wasn’t the money that had been the problem. He understood that now. His family had been waiting to fall apart at the seams. The money had just caused that disintegration to happen a little faster than it might have otherwise.
He walked from his bedroom through the kitchen. A new drawing sat on the table—the girls left him one nearly every day. This one had two stick horses with extraordinarily large heads. One was labeled Ol Boy and the other Constant. He smiled at the misspellings, but what tugged at his heart was the stick-figure man standing in between them. He had arms twice as long as his legs, a pear-shaped head wearing an Amish hat, and on his shirt was a big heart, instead of a pocket. In case he didn’t recognize himself, someone had penciled the word Daneel underneath.
Becca’s mamm walked into the room and caught him staring at the picture. “The girls left that for you.”
“Ya. Their penmanship is improving.”
“Can’t say the same for their spelling, but in this case, I suppose it’s the thought that counts.”
“Indeed.”
She patted him on the shoulder as she passed him by, but must have seen something in his eyes, because instead of continuing to the stove she backed up. “Is everything okay?”
“Ya. It’s fine.”
That was another thing. Though Sarah never seemed to stop working, nothing slipped past her. She was the first to bandage a scratched knee, find a misplaced kapp or counsel a bruised heart.
“You looked a bit sad, there, for a minute.”
“Thinking of my family, I guess.” The admission surprised him, but Sarah only nodded her head in understanding.
“I don’t know the details, and I don’t need to, but I pray for you and for them every night.”
She left it there, not expecting or needing an explanation. Daniel wondered at the simple way she cared for her family, even as he hurried outside to be sure both horses were hitched up and ready to go. By the time he walked back into the kitchen, everyone had gathered at the table and a steaming bowl of chicken soup was at each place.
He scooted into his normal seat at the end of the bench, and each member of the family bowed their head to pray.
It occurred to Daniel then that Christmas was about so much more than gifts hidden under the bed. This family had no money to speak of, yet they were filled with joy—for each other, for the gifts they’d made, for the Christ child. As he helped Isabelle take a pat of butter for her bread and then pass the dish on, he realized that he was actually looking forward to the school play they were about to attend and the festivities of the next few days.
How long had it been since he’d felt anything but sadness and remorse on the holidays?
But this year was different.
This year he was surrounded by freinden, and he was sitting across from the girl he hoped to marry.
Becca glanced up, caught him staring and immediately reached for her napkin, which only made him smile wider.
It wasn’t food on her face that made him stare, it was what she’d come to mean to him—and he meant to find a private moment to tell her before the Christmas holiday had passed.
They fitted into two buggies, though it was a bit snug. He still didn’t understand how the Schwartz family had ever managed with only one. He couldn’t help reaching for Becca’s hand and squeezing it, which was immediately noticed by Hannah.
“Are you going to kiss her?”
“Hannah, that’s rude.”
Daniel turned to smile at Georgia, who was pushing up her glasses and tugging Hannah back onto the rear seat bench.
“Why was it rude? I’m just asking a question.”
“And we saw them kissing yesterday in the barn.” Isabelle piped in. “So it’s natural to wonder.”
“Still, it’s private. How about we play a game of I Spy?”
Daniel started to laugh. Becca shook her head, but she didn’t pull her hand away. “Those two are a handful.”
“So you’ve mentioned.”
The schoolhouse was decorated in snowflakes cut from local newspapers, construction paper formed into chains of garland, and pine cones decorated with glitter. Apparently, whoever had been in charge of the glitter had been a bit overzealous, as the stuff seemed to be everywhere—on the floor, in the seats, and even a bit on the ceiling, Daniel looked up and saw. How did glitter land on the ceiling?
With five of the Schwartz children still in school, there was at least one member of the family in every skit, song and recitation. The punch and cookies afterward were especially good, but Daniel’s mind was on something else. When was he going to ask Becca to marry him? Where could he possibly do it? Finding a single private moment wasn’t easy. Finding several private moments was almost impossible.
Becca stepped closer and put a hand on his arm. “We can go if you want.”
“Oh, okay. Sure. Where...?”
“They’ve all gone.”
“Who has all gone?”
“My family.”
“I don’t understand.”
She raised her eyes to his as a light blush splashed across her cheeks. “They already went home, is what I’m saying—home to your house.”
“All in your dat’s buggy?”
“Ya. I mean, I think Clyde and David and Francine left with freinden, but Mamm took the younger ones home.”
“Oh.”
“They thought we might like to be alone.”
A moment alone was exactly what Daniel had been wishing for, so perhaps this was a little push for him to do what he’d been wanting to do for nearly a week now. He wasn’t one to dawdle once he’d made up his mind, and he had definitely made up his mind that he was in love with Becca Schwartz.
Once they were in the buggy—alone—he couldn’t think of where to go.
“Would you like to drive to town and get a piece of pie or something?”
“Nein. I’m full. Unless you’re hungry...”
“I’m full, too.” He called out to Constance, but when he reached the road, he didn’t know which direction to go. His brain felt a little addled, like when he woke up after a particularly deep sleep.
“Perhaps we could drive around and look at Christmas lights for a little while.”
“Ya. That’s a gut idea.”
“Constance seems to like the snow.”
“She likes to go—doesn’t matter if it’s sunny, raining or snowing. She’s sort of like Hannah and Isabelle.”
There was a light dusting of snow on the fields, not enough to affect the roads, but enough to give the landscape a nice Christmastime feel. Englisch houses sported inflatable yard decorations and large light displays. Amish homes were easily recognizable by candles in the window. He drove slowly through the streets of Shipshe. Becca chatted about the school festivities, the Christmas displays, and how much she was looking forward to Christmas Day. But Daniel barely heard what she was saying. He was growing more and more nervous by the minute.
His hands had begun to sweat, and twice he’d dropped the horse’s reins.
“Are you cold?”
“Nein. This blanket is warm, and your heater works well.” She sighed. “Dat would love to have a heater in our buggy. Mamm would, too, though she’d never ask for one.”
“Your mamm isn’t one to complain.”
“No, she’s not.”
A familiar look came over Becca’s face then, and he knew that she was planning another scheme, another way to pull her family out of poverty. Only she didn’t need another scheme. She had him. She just didn’t know it yet.
So he drove to the city park, where the trees had been decorated with tiny white lights. Fortunately they had the place almost to themselves—a church van full of youth was loading up to leave on the far side of the parking lot, and an older couple had parked their truck and were walking hand in hand down the path.
Now was the time.
Now was when he needed to tell Becca how he felt.
He directed Constance beneath the boughs of a fir tree and set the brake. He then turned to the woman he’d grown to love and covered her hands with his.
“There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
“There is?” Her eyes widened, not in surprise so much as anticipation. She couldn’t be surprised, could she? Surely she understood how he felt.
He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I care about you, Becca.”
“You do?”
“Ya.” He nodded his head, feeling like an idiot. Why couldn’t he just spit it out? “In fact, I love you, and I want to marry you.”
She stared at him a moment, then leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. “I care about you, too, Daniel. I do. You’re a kind man with a generous heart, but...”
“But?” He hadn’t expected a but.
“But I don’t really know anything about you.”
“Oh.” Daniel couldn’t form a cohesive thought. He’d been so keyed up about asking that he hadn’t considered what he’d say next. Yet here Becca was, waiting for his answer.
“Um. You don’t know anything about me?”
“Not about your past, not really, and I understand that. I do. After our talk. You remember, the talk that you gave me when you caught me snooping?”
He nodded, trying to focus on what she was saying and not the sweetness of her smile or the pinkness of her lips.
“You told me a little then, like about your bruder leaving the faith. But you said...what was it? That you didn’t want to go into your past—not now, maybe not ever.”
He winced at the words.
“Which is fine for freinden, Daniel. But if I agree to marry you, to be your fraa, then I need to know your past every bit as much as you need to know mine.”
She sat back, hands folded in her lap, watching him.
When had Becca become the wise one?
And why was he hesitating to tell her everything?
He cleared his throat. “You’re right. There should be no secrets between us.”
“Exactly.”
“And I know I can trust you with the details of my past.”
“Of course.”
“Only it’s hard.” He stared out at Constance. The horse didn’t seem bothered by the cold evening or the light snow. For all he knew, she was enjoying looking at the lights. He understood as much about the thoughts of horses as he did about the thoughts of women—make that one woman.
“It’s hard to talk about a thing after you’ve stayed silent for so long.” He turned his complete attention toward Becca. He knew he needed to look her straight in the eyes when he told her about his past. “I’m a millionaire.”
“Excuse me?”
“I inherited a large sum of money when I turned twenty-five, we all did. That is, everyone in my family did.”
Becca had sat up straighter and was looking at him as if he’d sprouted ears out of the top of his head. “Is this a joke?”
“Nein. Listen to me. Becca...” He reached for her hand, pulled it toward him and stared at it as he traced his thumb over her palm. “My mamm’s bruder was Mennonite. I barely remember the man. Only met him a few times. He was gut at writing code for computers—”
“Code?”
“And he developed some app, something Englischers use on their phones. He sold it and made a lot of money, and then some big corporation used his code for their apps. The entire thing snowballed. Apparently, it surprised even him, and I don’t pretend to understand it all.”
“You’re a millionaire?”
She wasn’t smiling. She didn’t look thrilled about this revelation. In fact, she looked as if she’d been chiseled from ice.
“Each member of my family inherited a portion of the money. We receive it when we turn twenty-five, and even then we only receive so much a year, or I might give it all away. I suppose my onkel knew we might do that. He understood the Amish life. I guess that’s why he set it up the way he did, where we receive a certain percentage each year.”
“A million dollars?”
“A little more than that.” From the look on her face, he was pretty sure he shouldn’t tell her just how much more, not right now. Perhaps the entire revelation had been too much. Maybe he should have broken the news more gently. But how?
“It’s why my parents fight all the time, why my bruder left the faith, and why even my schweschdern seem so...changed.”
“Is this why you broke off your relationship with the girl you were to marry?”
“I found out she didn’t care for me at all...only for my money.” He was once again surprised that the memory of Sheila no longer felt like a knife in his heart.
“So you moved here and pretended to be poor?”
“Well, yes, but no. It wasn’t like that.”
“Were you laughing at us this entire time?”
“Nein. Of course not.”
“Our simple meals and our plain clothes and... No wonder you made such a big deal about our single buggy. You and your fancy horse.”
“I can explain about the horse.” She was staring at him with such disbelief that he found himself stumbling over his words. “I didn’t want the money. Didn’t want to live that way anymore, but then, when I got here, I knew that it would be a waste of money to purchase an older horse.”
“Like ours?”
“I reasoned that a horse was something I’d be using for the next twenty years. I could live in a dilapidated house on a run-down farm, but when I saw Constance I knew that I—”
“Take me home.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I want to go home right now.”
“Becca, you’re taking this all wrong.”
“You have been lying to me since the day you arrived—me, my family, our community. You’ve been pretending to be just like us when in fact you were sitting back and laughing.”
“I never laughed at you.” He felt his temper rise, knew that he needed to shut his mouth or he was going to say something that he’d regret.
“Take me home, please.”
“I thought you cared about me.”
“And I thought I knew you.” If she’d shouted the words at him, they wouldn’t have hurt nearly as much. But the look on her face, the expression of disappointment, tore at his heart.
They rode home in silence.
Daniel tried to figure out where he’d gone wrong. How had this evening turned so horribly bad? How should he have handled it? But he knew the answer to that. He should have been honest from the beginning.
Still, he had to try one more time. As he directed Constance into his lane, he glanced Becca’s way, but she wouldn’t look at him.
“Becca, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. You care for me. I know you do, and I care for you. The money, well, it could be a good thing. It could help your family.”
“I don’t need you to rescue me, Daniel.” Her chin rose a fraction of an inch. “I don’t need your money. My family doesn’t need your money. What we needed was your friendship—and friends don’t lie to one another. They don’t pretend to be something that they’re not.”
He’d barely stopped the buggy when she jumped out and fled up the porch steps.
* * *
The next twenty-four hours felt like an eternity to Becca. She avoided Daniel whenever possible, which wasn’t easy given the amount of snow falling outside and the amount of people inside.
Their family tradition was to spend Christmas Eve with only the immediate family, but this year that included Daniel. It would have been strange to leave him out, given they were living in his house.
Though her heart felt bruised, she couldn’t help seeing what was happening around her.
Daniel helping her mamm slice the chocolate cake.
Daniel playing chess with Eli.
Daniel sitting with Hannah and Isabelle and reading to them.
When her father told a Christmas joke—What do sheep say to each other at Christmas? Merry Christmas to ewe—Daniel laughed.
When Georgia misplaced her book, Daniel helped her find it.
The Amish Christmas Secret Page 16