A Christmas Mourning

by Laura Bradford

  “Actually, you can make it right.” She turned back to her purse and reached inside, her hand instinctively closing over the holiday heirloom.

  “Claire, please . . .”

  “No, really, you can.” She pulled out her hand and extended it toward Jakob.

  He stumbled backward as his focus came to rest on the silver spoon with the holly leaves etched into its handle. “Is that really my . . .” The question disappeared as he stepped closer, his eyes wide. “I don’t understand. How did you find it? Where did you find it?”

  “Ben helped me.”

  “Ben?”

  She nodded. “It was in his home.”

  Something resembling anger flitted across his features. “In his home?”

  “For the past ten years, yes.”

  Anger gave way to confusion before morphing, finally, into resignation. “Oh, no . . . Elizabeth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “In her trunk. It was wrapped in a piece of newspaper at the very bottom.” She closed her eyes against the memory of Ben’s defeated stance. “He told me to tell you he’s sorry. That he didn’t know.”

  Seconds turned to minutes as Jakob looked from the delicate Christmas spoon to Claire and back again, a range of emotions taking their turn across his face. When he finally spoke, all that was left was relief and . . . hope? “I know it’s late, but can I drive you out to Mamm’s house so you can give it to her for me?”

  Claire drew back. “Don’t you want to be the one to give it to her?”

  “You know I can’t do that, Claire.”

  “You can’t hand her something that belongs to her?” She heard the shrillness in her voice but could do nothing to stop it. “You became a police officer, Jakob, not a monster. Surely you can hand your mother a family heirloom that’s been missing for twenty-six years!”

  The spoon disappeared inside his fist as he reached out and pulled her close. “Knowing that you’re the one handing it to her is the next best thing, Claire. Truly.”

  She knew it was not hers to argue. She wasn’t Amish. Had never been Amish. But she cared about Jakob. That alone made the extent of his excommunication hard to accept.

  “What if you got to watch me hand it to her?”

  “My father would never allow me in his home, Claire.”

  “That’s his choice, I suppose. But when it comes to Heavenly Treasures, it’s my choice.”

  • • •

  Jakob’s nervousness was as tangible as the brightly colored baby bibs she’d stacked and restacked a half dozen times over the past five minutes. He tried to play it down, of course, but she, and her tiled floor, knew better.

  “If I could attach some sort of mop to the bottom of your feet that one section of tile between the counter and the front door would be clean enough to eat off, thanks to you.”

  He took one more glance out the window and then turned, his amber-flecked eyes belying his attempt at humor. “And I’m pretty sure those bibs couldn’t be any straighter if you’d used a level on the top and a ruler on the sides.”

  “Touché,” she said as she stepped away from the rack and joined him in the center of the room. “We both need to stop. There’s really no reason for either of us to have this much angst.”

  “You mean besides the fact we’ve made my niece an accomplice in this whole thing?”

  “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” Claire held up her hand in the space between them. “We’re not talking about robbing a bank here, Jakob. We’re talking about you being able to give something very special back to your mom. Those are two very different things in my book.”

  “It doesn’t matter what I’m trying to give her, Claire. Once a person is banned from the Amish community, there isn’t supposed to be any more contact. You know this. I know this,” he said, raking his fingers through his dark blond hair. “Yet I’ve essentially tricked Esther into bringing my mother to your store. So I can see her.”

  “It was my idea,” Claire reminded.

  Jakob lowered his hand to his mouth and exhaled against his fist. “An idea I didn’t try too hard to nix.”

  “You need to relax and—”

  “I am glad that you are here, Jakob.”

  She whirled around to find Ben standing at the back of the store, his tall frame filling the doorway. “Ben! We didn’t hear you.”

  “I did not mean to interrupt.” He hesitated a moment and then strode all the way into the showroom, his eyes trained on Jakob. “The man at your police station said I might find you here.”

  Jakob stepped around Claire to secure an unobstructed view of his childhood friend. “Is everything okay, Ben?”

  “I wish only that I had known sooner. If I had, you would not have wondered for so long.” She felt Jakob’s questioning eyes on the side of her face but said nothing as Ben continued. “I do not know why it was in Elizabeth’s chest. I do not know why she did not tell you or why she did not tell me. I know only that I am sorry.”

  “I have it back now, that’s all that matters.” Jakob extended his hand to Ben and smiled as the gesture was reciprocated. “Thank you, Ben. For looking . . . and for coming to find me now.”

  “It was the right thing to do.” Ben nodded first at Claire, and then Jakob. “I must go now.”

  Jakob turned to Claire and hooked his thumb toward the rear hallway. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, I just want to walk Ben out to his buggy.”

  “Of course.” She waved at Ben and then watched as the two men disappeared through the open doorway and into the shop’s back room. Six months earlier, if someone had told her Benjamin Miller and Jakob Fisher would one day be shaking hands in the middle of her shop, she’d have thought it unlikely. But time did, indeed, have a way of bridging gaps and healing wounds and she was glad.

  “Claire?”

  A mix of excitement and apprehension shot up her spine at the familiar voice and she turned to find her friend and former employee, Esther Fisher, leading Jakob’s mother into the shop. Even if she’d never met Grace Fisher, Claire would have known she was related to Jakob. She had the same amber-flecked brown eyes, the same dimple-accompanied smile, and the same undeniable aura of sincerity.

  “Esther, hello!” She pulled the young pregnant woman in for a hug and then released her to address Jakob’s mother. “I believe the last time I saw you, Grace, was at Esther and Eli’s wedding last December. How are you?”

  “I am well, Claire, thank you.”

  A quick glance over her shoulder revealed no sign of Jakob. A look back at Esther netted a shrug. “I-I don’t know if you know this or not, Grace, but a good deal of what I sell in my shop comes from your daughter, Martha, and your granddaughter, Esther. They do such beautiful work. I imagine they learned much of it from you?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Perhaps?” Esther repeated. “Grossmammi, you draw beautifully.”

  Claire followed Grace’s gaze around the shop until it stopped on a pegboard tasked with hosting an array of Amish proverbs and English sentiments written in calligraphy across small wooden signs.

  The most beautiful attire is a smile . . .

  The dearest things of life are mostly near at hand . . .

  Worry ends where faith begins . . .

  Memories are gifts we leave our loved ones . . .

  “I know you have been a good friend to Esther and to Martha. And to my—”

  The back door smacked against its wooden frame a split second before Jakob’s words accompanied him in their direction. “Sorry about that, Claire. I didn’t mean to run out on you like that but I wanted to make sure Ben knew there was no hard feelings and . . .”

  She heard the slight intake of air as Jakob’s eyes skipped past hers to land on his mother’s. The only thing she was unsure of was who, exactly, it came from.

  “Oh. I didn’t realize . . . wow . . . I . . .” Again, Jakob’s words went nowhere as he looked from his mother, to his niece, to Claire, and, finally, to the floor
. “I-I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t be here. I can’t put you in this position.”

  Prying her focus from Jakob, Claire fixed it, instead, on Grace. Like her son, Grace was clearly stunned. But unlike her son, she seemed unable to look at anything but Jakob. And in that look, Claire detected a range of emotions Grace was clearly trying to control. But amid the uncertainty and the surprise, there was no denying the fact that joy was responsible for the tears glistening in the woman’s eyes.

  She waited for Grace to protest Jakob’s statement, to call out to him as he turned to leave, but it never came. Instead, Claire gave voice to the sentiment she knew Grace could not.

  “No. You can’t go. You’ve waited too long for this.”

  Jakob stopped but didn’t turn back. “You do it, Claire. I just want to make it right, that’s all.”

  “Fine. Stand there if you must, but please don’t leave.” Desperate for Jakob to have his moment, Claire pivoted on the balls of her feet and motioned for Grace to follow her to the counter. “I don’t know how much you really know about me beyond the fact that I own this store and that I adore your niece, Esther. But I’ve also grown very close to your son. Jakob is a good man—an honest, kind, giving man who wants the people in his life to be happy and safe.”

  When she reached her destination, she walked around the edge of the counter and retrieved the narrow white gift box from the shelf below the register. Setting the box down atop the counter, she looked up at Grace. “For twenty-six years, Jakob has held himself responsible for losing a special Christmas spoon that was handed down to you by your grandparents.”

  Grace’s hands drifted upward to her mouth as her eyes shifted to the hallway and the son she couldn’t see from their vantage point. “That was so long ago.”

  “For Jakob it may as well have happened yesterday. Because, in his eyes, he hurt you. And for someone who knows, firsthand, what it’s like to lose links to a treasured past, that pain has only magnified in strength in recent years.”

  “I do not want him to worry,” Grace said in a voice choked with emotion. “I have my memories.”

  Using her index finger, Claire scooted the box closer to Grace. “Jakob wants you to have both.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “Jakob wants you to have your memories and your grandparents’ Christmas spoon. That way, once Esther’s baby is old enough, you can make your special peppermint hot chocolate with a whole new generation.”

  Slowly, Grace lowered her hands from her mouth, her wide eyes trained on Claire. “That spoon was lost. Many, many years ago.”

  “What was once lost is now found.” She gave the box one more nudge and followed it up with what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “Open it.”

  Grace looked from the box to Claire and back again. “I do not understand,” the woman repeated.

  “You will.”

  Seconds turned to minutes as the fifty-something woman took a step forward toward the box, only to step right back to her original starting place.

  “Grossmammi, open it,” Esther urged. “Claire is my friend. She would not ask you to open that box if there was not a reason.”

  Squaring her shoulders beneath her navy blue aproned dress, Grace lifted the box from the counter and slowly removed the lid, tears making their way down her cheeks before Esther could even make out the contents. “It is my Christmas spoon,” Grace whispered.

  Esther’s answering gasp only served to quicken Claire’s smile. “Yes, it is.”

  “But how? It has been lost for so long.”

  She mentally weighed the pros and cons of sharing the nitty gritty of her search for the heirloom, but the how didn’t matter even half as much as the who standing in silence on the other side of the stockroom doorway.

  “Jakob never forgot that Christmas spoon. Or the way you smiled every time you brought it out on Christmas morning.”

  “I, too, have not forgotten. Only it is not my smile that I remember. It is Jakob’s. It is what I see when I close my eyes each night.”

  This time she was certain the gasp she heard was Jakob’s, the affirmation that his mother had not forgotten him a gift she could only fathom.

  Retrieving the spoon from the box, Grace slowly turned it over and over inside her hand, stopping every now and again to trace her finger along the holly leaves etched into its handle. “This was given to me by my grandmother when I married Mose. Each year, when I was young, she would take this spoon from her hope chest and make the most wonderful peppermint hot chocolate. While she measured and stirred, she would tell me the story of Jesus’s birth and the wise men who traveled great distances to see Him. It was a memory I held dear and one Mose allowed me to re-create with Martha and Jakob when they were children.”

  “The way your face looks right now?” Claire said. “That’s exactly the same expression Jakob’s had when he first told me about that spoon. Well, right up until he got to the part about losing it, anyway. Once he did, all trace of joy was gone.”

  Grace stole a peek in the direction of the hallway but remained standing beside the counter. “Will you do something for me, Claire?”

  “Of course . . .”

  Reaching out, Grace grabbed hold of Claire’s hand, flipped it over, and gently placed the silver spoon against her palm. “I first treasured this spoon because of what it represented to me—the memories it unleashed. But when I became a mother, I treasured it for something very different—a chance for my past and present to meet. One day, Jakob will marry and have children of his own. When that day comes, perhaps this spoon will allow his past and present to meet, as well.”

  “What are you saying?” Claire asked.

  “I want Jakob to have this. I know he will treasure it.”

  A flash of movement out of the corner of Claire’s eye netted a familiar yet raspy voice. “Mamm, please. I can’t take that. It is because of me that Isaac never got to experience Christmas morning the way Martha and I did. It is because of me that you lost the one physical link you had to your childhood. And it is because of me that your smile on Christmas morning was never quite the same.”

  Keeping her back to her son, Grace closed Claire’s hand around the spoon and squeezed. “If my smile was not the same after the spoon was lost, it was because my son’s smile was not the same.”

  “Mamm, I—”

  Grace released her hold on Claire’s hand and crossed to the display of signs on the other side of the shop. Seconds turned to minutes before she finally brought her finger to rest on a pale yellow sign in the center. “Memories are gifts we leave our loved ones,” Grace read aloud.

  “That one has always been my favorite,” Claire said, as her gaze returned, once again, to the delicate spoon in her hand. “It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yah.” Grace squared her shoulders and then turned to face her niece. “Esther, it is time to go. We must not keep Eli waiting.”

  Jakob crossed to Claire, took the spoon from her hand, and met his mother in route to the door. “Mamm, I can’t take this. It was given to you.”

  “And I, in turn, have chosen to give it to you, my son.”

  Excerpt from Plain as Day

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at a new

  Amish Mystery short,

  Plain as Day,

  coming in March!

  The national bestselling author of A Churn for the Worse returns to the Amish community of Heavenly, Pennsylvania, where shop owner Claire Weatherly must unravel the perplexing ties between a lost piece of jewelry and the disappearance of a cherished author.

  When a mysterious rattling sound confounds the guests at Heavenly’s local inn, Detective Jakob Fisher steps in and cleverly deduces the noise’s source. But the necklace he discovers sparks an even larger mystery when Claire realizes it’s connected to the writing of a popular author who’s vanished and left her fans clamoring for a new book.

  Determined to track down the necklace’s owner, Claire vows to follow the cl
ues wherever they lead—even if it means finding someone who might not want to be found . . .

  • • •

  She led the way into the room and over to the dresser beside the window, her mind’s eye noting the guests’ suitcases stacked neatly atop one another inside the partially open closet and the cozy mystery novel Diane had leant Mary Thompson atop the freshly made bed. Leaning over, she slid the third drawer from the top open and glanced back at Jakob. “See? That’s the rattle. Sounds like something is moving around in there somewhere, doesn’t it?”

  A knowing look skirted across Jakob’s face as he stepped around her for a closer look at the empty drawer. “Do you think it would be okay if I took the drawer completely out for a few minutes? The light over by the bed is a little better.”

  Claire shrugged. “Sure. Though I’m thinking the rattle has something to do with the track, don’t you?”

  With careful yet efficient hands, Jakob removed the drawer, gave it a quick rattle-accompanied shake, and then carried it over to the foot of the bed. When he had it situated flat, he reached across the drawer, felt around the back right corner, and pressed. Slowly, he slid his hand in the direction of the window to reveal a shallow compartment previously hidden by what had appeared to be the bottom of the drawer. Inside it, glistening in the last of the day’s waning sunlight, was a silver chain and pendant. “Voilà,” he said, stepping back. “I give you the reason for the so-called mystery rattle.”

  •

  “Is it just me or is there something familiar about this?” Diane asked, breaking through Claire’s thoughts and redirecting them to the pendant and chain now stretched across the armrest of her aunt’s chair.

  Hoisting her legs up and onto the couch, Claire rested her cheek against Jakob’s shoulder. “It’s funny you say that, because I thought the same thing when I saw it. Yet, for the life of me, I can’t place it. I’ve tried to picture it on certain guests we’ve had but nothing fits—”