The Amish Christmas Candle

by Long, Kelly; Beckstrand, Jennifer; Baker, Lisa Jones

  “It smells delicious in here,” he said. “You and the nieces must have baked up a storm.”

  She pulled the container of frosted and glittered sugar cookies from the cupboard. “These are for the school program tomorrow night, and don’t even think about sampling them.”

  He glanced up from his screwdriver, took a look in the bowl, and smiled. “They look like you pulled them out of heaven. Probably taste like that too.”

  “Well, if they don’t taste good, you can sneak them onto the eats table, and no one will have to know who made them. That might be a gute idea anyway. People tend to get indigestion when my name comes up.”

  Yost set the screwdriver on the counter, wrapped his hands around Bitsy’s upper arms, and looked her square in the eye. “Don’t ever put yourself down like that. I have lost track of how many gute deeds you have done for my family, let alone what you do for everyone else in the community. Mary is so busy she doesn’t even have time to blink more than twice a day, but Levi will have treats to take to the school program because of you. I couldn’t have made them or bought something at Glick’s Market. You were my only hope.”

  “Why not Glick’s Market? They sometimes have cookies or Martha’s famous homemade rolls.” Bitsy was proud of herself for not rolling her eyes when she said it. When Lily was dating Paul, she only got a homemade roll when she paid for it.

  “I thought you knew. I don’t go to Glick’s Market any-more.”

  “Why ever not? The sandwiches at the gas station will make you sick. That’s a mistake I’ll never make again.”

  He rubbed his hand up and down her arm. His touch was comfortable and familiar. “Paul Glick and his family have slandered you and your nieces over and over again. I won’t give my business to someone who talks that way about the woman I love.”

  It wasn’t so much what he said but the way he said it, with his chin lifted and fire blazing in his eyes, that made Bitsy’s legs weak and her heart melt into a puddle at his feet. How long had it been since any man besides her nephews-in-law had stood up for her? Her fater certainly never had. The bishop, the ministers, the deacon? They seemed happy when she came to church, but they always eyed her with suspicion, prone to believe whatever gossip Paul or anyone else repeated about her.

  No one dared, or even wanted, to defend a rebellious Amish woman with pink hair. Until Yost. Her body felt as warm as chicken noodle soup on a cold December day.

  How could she not love Yost Weaver?

  Of course she loved him, and the thought made her slightly dizzy.

  For once in her life, she was speechless. She couldn’t have said anything without bursting into tears, and as far as she knew, she had never burst into tears in her life. She wasn’t about to start now.

  She clamped her mouth shut, even though she should have had the decency to say denki.

  Yost reached out and nudged his thumb down her cheek. “Flour,” he said. “Two days ago Paul and his dat were in the harness shop, and Paul was telling some outrageous story that you paid an Englischer to pour something stinky on his shirt at your nieces’ wedding. I nearly peeled out of my skin I was so angry. But Gotte has said that he who is angry with his brother is in danger of hellfire, so I didn’t say anything. But when they left, I told Ira that there was no truth to it.”

  Bitsy’s lips froze to her teeth. “That’s not entirely true.”

  A line buried itself deep between Yost’s brows. “What’s not entirely true? The story or my denying it?”

  She took his hand and led him to the sofa. Things always seemed less dire on the sofa. “Luke caught wind that Paul was going to try to ruin the wedding. We had to do something. I couldn’t shoot him because I don’t believe in guns. So we asked one of our Englisch friends to spill our bottle of valerian root on him. He stunk so bad he had to leave, and the wedding went on peacefully without him.”

  Yost sat very still for several seconds, then took Bitsy’s face in his hands and kissed her until she thought she might suffocate. He finally came up for air and laughed. “You are a genius, Bitsy. Paul Glick makes himself unpleasant wherever he goes. I’d say he got his just deserts.”

  “I’m glad you think so. The deacon chastised me for over an hour. It was almost like being in church. But then he forgave me, and I gave him the rest of the valerian root because he has trouble sleeping at night.”

  Yost threw back his head and laughed even harder. “I’m wonderful happy you didn’t shoot Paul, because I refuse to date someone in prison, no matter how much I like her.”

  Bitsy finally smiled. “Prison orange is not my color.”

  Yost wrapped his fingers around an errant lock of Bitsy’s hair. “I like the salt-and-pepper gray. It’s so pretty on you.”

  Someone knocked on the door, and Yost scooted away from Bitsy. After he’d been so kind about Paul, she didn’t know why that small movement bothered her so much. Bitsy opened the door, and her gute day was ruined. Her dat stood on the porch, leaning on his cane and peering into her house as if he might find something wicked going on right before his eyes. His frown hung off his face like drooping Christmas lights on an Englischer’s house.

  Bitsy could have counted on one hand the times her dat had come to her house in all the years she’d lived there. He probably thought just being there was some sort of sin.

  Dat didn’t need an invitation to come in, which was good because all Bitsy could do was stare at him. Why was he here? He hobbled over the threshold and brightened considerably when he caught sight of Yost sitting on the sofa. “Yost Weaver,” he said, holding out his hand. Yost jumped up and grabbed Dat’s hand before he fell forward. “I’d heard rumors,” Dat said.

  “Cum, Sol,” Yost said. “Sit here.”

  Yost gave up his place on the sofa, but if he expected Bitsy to sit next to her dat, he didn’t know her as well as she hoped. She pulled a chair from the table and slid it into the sitting room. Yost glanced in her direction then sat next to Dat.

  Dat leaned forward, propping his hand on his cane, probably hoping to get close to Bitsy so he could take a gute whiff. He liked to make sure Bitsy didn’t smell like perfume. She probably smelled like coconut, which, as far as she knew, hadn’t yet been declared a sin by the bishop. “Elizabeth, I have noticed some wonderful-gute improvements in your life. You still fall far short of the glory of Gotte, but you have stopped coloring your hair and wearing those prideful tattoos. I am well pleased.”

  Bitsy had discovered years ago that if she could make herself indifferent to Dat’s insults, they didn’t hurt quite so bad. But indifference didn’t seem to be working today. It galled her that her dat could still make her feel so small, like that sixteen-year-old girl who never did anything right. The girl who craved her fater’s love like the desert craved moisture. At eighteen, she had gotten on that bus before she dried up and blew away on the wind.

  After she returned to Bienenstock with her nieces, she did her best to avoid her parents, and on the rare times they saw each other, Bitsy found she could bear their criticism better when she was obstinate—or sassy, as her friends at the dental office used to say. Her dat hated sassy, and so she found she loved it. The only thing she enjoyed more than her dat’s approval was his disapproval.

  “Susie Borntreger colors her hair,” Bitsy said, propping her elbow on her knee, cupping her chin in her hand, and gazing at Dat as if she were sharing some great secret.

  Yost nodded. “It’s true. I checked at gmay last week.”

  Dat was the master of selective listening. He picked up his cane and shook it in Bitsy’s direction, but he looked at Yost. “I did my best to train her up in the way she should go, and she turned her back on me and Gotte. I gave up hope for her soul. But I can see that you have changed her, Yost, and helped her remember her duty. I am grateful.”

  Yost frowned, shook his head, and lowered his eyes in an impressive show of humility. It made Bitsy’s teeth ache. “I can’t take any honor on myself. I only told Bitsy I like her ha
ir better gray. She is the one who has made all the changes, and I admire her for trying to improve herself. She’s tired of standing out.”

  Yost might as well have sprouted horns for as shocked as Bitsy was. She was tired of standing out? Where had Yost come up with that notion?

  He looked at her with such affection in his eyes, she momentarily forgot to be irritated. Had his love made him blind? Or just dumm? Had her fascination with him made her devoted or just weak?

  One thing was for sure. She couldn’t have been more irritated. “Dear Heavenly Father,” she said, right out loud, “please give me patience. I need it right now.”

  Dat glared at her, while Yost widened his eyes, pressed his lips together, and inclined his head in Dat’s direction, hinting that she shouldn’t pray out loud while her dat was in the room—as if she didn’t know that already.

  “Now, Lord,” she growled. “I really need it now, or I might be forced to ask for a nasty heat rash.”

  Dat pounded his cane on the floor. “I can see there is still some work to be done. Bitsy was always a headstrong girl, never seeking humility or righteousness.”

  Yost seemed to grow calmer even as Dat became more agitated. He laid a hand on Dat’s knee. “Now, Sol. We can never go back to the past, but it’s time to set things right. If Bitsy had been shown love instead of disapproval as a child, maybe she wouldn’t have left home. Can you consider that maybe, possibly in a small way, you are responsible for her leaving?”

  Of course Dat couldn’t ever consider such a thing.

  Warring emotions pulled Bitsy this way and that like a piece of taffy. Anger at her father was never far from the surface, but she was grateful—deeply grateful—to Yost for trying to make her dat see the consequences of his unyielding temper. But it also chafed that he talked about her as if she weren’t in the room.

  She felt the irritation like sandpaper against her skin. Yost seemed to think he’d changed her and that those changes made her a better, more desirable woman. He loved her—at least she thought he loved her—but he also wanted a conventional Amish fraa, and it was apparent that he was hoping he could somehow manage to have both.

  Her heart sank so far, she’d have to crawl under the house to find it. This was all her own fault. She had let herself get so caught up in being in love that she had lost part of herself—the part that wouldn’t conform just to make someone else happy. The part that told her that she was enough—that Gotte had created her and loved her for who she was, not in spite of it.

  One thing was for certain. She had to get rid of both Yost and Dat immediately. She couldn’t hear herself think while Dat glared at her and Yost gazed lovingly. She thought of grabbing her shotgun and pointing it in Dat’s direction, but that would only make her look ridiculous, and she would never actually use it on him.

  “I brought her up Gotte’s way,” Dat protested. “Spare the rod, and you spoil the child.”

  Her gut clenched. She was sick of both of them. Would they leave if she threw up?

  She’d have to scare them away.

  Without using the gun.

  “But what does that get you?” Yost said. “You might have obedient and fearful children, but they won’t love you, and when they grow up, they’ll only want to leave.”

  Bitsy stood up and walked out of the room. Dat and Yost were so busy debating child-rearing theories they didn’t notice her leave. She jogged up the stairs and into her room, where she took off her dress and donned her long pink nightgown and her green fuzzy slippers with the googly eyeballs on the toes. She took off her kapp and let her braid fall over her shoulder. Dat wouldn’t like the uncovered head, but he would be pleased that her hair was a lovely mixture of strands of gray, white, and black.

  She marched down the stairs and stood by her chair. All conversation ceased as Dat stared at her hair, and Yost stared at her slippers. Jah. They were terrified. “I’m wonderful tired from a long day of falling short of the glory of Gotte. It’s time for you to go.”

  Yost couldn’t have jumped to his feet faster. He took Dat by the elbow and helped him stand. “Of course,” he said, glancing at her doubtfully. “You must be tired from all that baking.”

  “Wonderful tired,” she said. Of all of it. “Don’t forget your cookies and the casserole for Levi’s family.”

  Yost flinched as if the thought of cookies had surprised him. He seemed uneasy but unsure as to why. She’d give him a why, if she decided to let him in the house ever again. That thought sent a twinge of pain zinging right through her heart. “Of course,” Yost said. “I can’t forget those.” He grabbed the containers from the counter. “Denki again, Bitsy. This means so much to all of us.”

  Just go, Yost.

  There was too much to stew about without Yost’s piercing blue eyes muddying her thoughts. Things would be so much easier if she didn’t like him. Ach, du lieva, the whole thing was too annoying.

  Dat was too shocked or maybe too indignant to say anything. Yost followed him out the door and winked and smiled at her before closing it behind him. Wink? How dare he wink? She should have used the shotgun. No one winked when they had a shotgun pointed at them.

  Unless they were stupid.

  Jah, Yost would have winked with or without the shotgun. She’d be overjoyed never to see him again. Mostly.

  She leaned her shotgun against the wall and took her beehive-shaped candle off the windowsill. What was the use of saving it? A candle was meant to be burned. She sat on the floor next to the window seat and lit the candle. The cats played at her feet while she watched it burn. No flame had ever been lovelier.

  She sat there, looking into the flame and rethinking her life, and renamed all her cats.

  Chapter 6

  Yost could have floated to Bitsy’s house. Last night after Bitsy had suddenly gotten so tired, Sol had invited Yost to his house, where Sol had given his wholehearted approval to the marriage. Sol had even listened patiently when Yost had admonished him to be a better, more loving fater and to stop finding fault with his lovable, feisty, completely wunderbarr daughter.

  With Yost’s help, Bitsy and Sol could mend fences. They had been holding grudges too long.

  Bitsy was going to make him dinner tonight before they went to Levi’s school Christmas program. The program was a big event, and the scholars prepared for weeks. Levi and his siblings were nervous, his parents were nervous, and Yost was a wreck. Levi needed something to go well for him.

  Yost bounded up Bitsy’s porch steps and knocked on her door. All he wanted to do was take Bitsy in his arms and kiss her. He couldn’t help himself. Sol approved, Bitsy’s hair was a normal color again, and the bishop had said they could see each other every day of the week. It was going to be a very Merry Christmas.

  He drew his brows together. What was that sound coming from inside the house? It sounded like a table saw cutting into a piece of sheet metal. Was Bitsy in some sort of trouble? With his heart pounding against his chest, he threw open the door. Bitsy sat on the sofa reading a book and her shoulders were moving in time to the loud and obnoxious “music” coming out of a small CD player next to her.

  But it wasn’t the music that knocked the wind out of him. Beneath Bitsy’s kapp, her hair was bright, fire-engine, Christmas-wrapping-paper red. It hurt his eyes to look at it. What had she done?

  “Bitsy?” he said, loud enough for her to hear him over the music.

  She flinched and looked up. That’s when he saw not one but three temporary tattoos on her neck. She might as well have thrown a rock at him. She caught her breath and gave him the stink eye. “Yost Weaver, don’t you know how to knock?”

  “I knocked but the music was too loud,” he said, barely containing the annoyance that simmered inside him.

  The beeswax candle that used to be on her windowsill sat on the counter. It looked as if it had been burning for hours. The beehive was halfway gone.

  She reached over and turned off the CD player. Blessed silence. “What did you say?
I couldn’t hear you over the music.”

  He wasn’t even sure where to begin, so he started with the most trivial thing first. “I . . . what . . . you lit the candle.”

  “Candles were meant to be used, Yost. They were meant to brighten the night and share their light—which sounds like the start of a very gute poem. The candle was not meant to sit on a shelf and behave.”

  He shouldn’t have asked about the candle. It was all nonsense. “Bitsy, what is going on here? I thought you . . .”

  She closed her book and set it on the sofa, giving him a look of patient forbearance mixed with her familiar annoyance. “I suppose I won’t get to read any more of this trashy novel today.”

  “I . . . what happened to your hair?”

  “Ach, the girls reminded me yesterday that I always dye my hair red for Christmas. It’s a tradition, but I think I overdid it a little.”

  “A little? Bitsy, it’s outrageous.”

  She smiled, actually smiled, as if his astonishment was a gute thing. “Denki. I’m glad you like it. I think I’ll rinse it out a little before the program tonight. I don’t want the scholars to forget their lines because they’re looking at my hair.”

  “But I thought we agreed that your hair looked better plain.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Hmm. We did agree about that, didn’t we? Ach, vell, I decided I like it better dyed.”

  He sort of stumbled toward her. “Bitsy, I thought you weren’t going to wear tattoos or dye your hair anymore.”

  “Have a care, Yost, or you’ll step on El Diablo.”

  Yost looked down. Mittens was right at his feet. The cat arched his back and hissed at Yost. “El Diablo?”

  “I decided to rename my cats. You have to admit that the names we came up with were a little boring.” She pointed to Snowball, formerly Farrah Fawcett, who lounged on the windowsill. “That is Marie Antoinette. The orange one is Cyndi Lauper, and the other one is Lady Macbeth. And of course, El Diablo.”