“We should do something Christmassy,” Hannah said.
“Like what?”
Hannah shrugged. “How about making Christmas cards? We used to always do that.”
“Christmas cards?” Tillie asked.
Everyone had climbed down from the buggy. The women headed toward the house as the men took care of the horses. They would be a while, Tillie knew. Most men in their district liked to take time to talk about the weather and other things. A lot like she’d seen English men do—not so much in Columbus, but in Pontotoc, in town on Main Street. Sometimes right outside Leah’s store.
She nodded. “We can get the kids to help,” Hannah said. “Then we can take them over to the nursing home, or even the veterans’ hospital. They always love things like that this time of year.”
That was true. She knew there were a lot of people who didn’t take the time to make cards or go visit or anything like that. “Do you have a visit planned?” Tillie asked. A lot of times youth groups and buddy bunches would plan the event, then take the cards to the designated place on a certain day. The lucky recipients got the cards, Christmas cheer, and an unexpected visit all in one.
“No,” Hannah said. “I thought it might be fun for the kids.”
Essie, Aaron’s eight-year-old daughter, jumped up and down in place. “I want to color cards. I want to color cards.”
Laura Kate, the oldest of the Zook girls and by far the most serious, gave her sister a reprimanding look. “We all want to color cards, and see? We don’t have to yell about it.”
“Do I have to?” Andy was fifteen now and way too grown up to do something as silly as color cards for another person. That is, unless there was a girl his age involved. Then he might want to.
Hannah smiled at her son. “Not if you don’t want to, but I have a feeling that when Brandon and Shelly get here, they’ll color cards with us.”
Andy idolized Brandon. Tillie was certain he was probably about the coolest thing Andy had ever seen. Brandon had been raised English, drove a car, had a girlfriend he still claimed wasn’t his girlfriend, and went to school on the computers in the public library in town. She was certain that to Andy, Brandon’s life was about as interesting as could be.
When Hannah had come back to Pontotoc, she rejoined the Amish church and married Aaron, and Brandon had moved in with Leah. Now he lived with Leah, Jamie, and Peter in a little house near town. He helped out Leah in her shop—he and his not-girlfriend Shelly, that is. There was an apartment above the shop that was now empty, but Tillie figured once Brandon graduated from high school, he would move into the apartment himself. He was independent that way, like a lot of English kids. And she had to admit he took his mother’s return to her religion fairly well, though she had a feeling he was still dealing with the fact of learning that Aaron, not Mitchell McLean, was his father.
“If you say so,” Andy said and headed for the kitchen.
“I’ll get all the things,” Tillie said.
Mamm helped Mammi into her room and got her settled down with a puzzle book and a cup of tea while Hannah gathered the girls plus Andy around the table.
“Mom?” Brandon yelled.
“In here,” Hannah called.
A moment later Brandon and Shelly appeared in the dining room doorway.
Hannah immediately went over to hug her son. Tillie could only imagine how hard it was for Hannah to give up Brandon so she could follow her convictions and marry Brandon’s real father. Hannah and Brandon seemed to have a special bond. Maybe it was just everything they had gone through after Mitch’s death, but Leah adored Brandon almost as much as his mother did, and Tillie was sure that it was a comfort to her sister to know that her son was well taken care of.
Hannah squeezed Brandon tight, then gave a quick hug to Shelly as well.
“What are y’all doing?” Brandon glanced around at the supplies Tillie had placed on the table. There were Christmas stickers of all sorts, some glittery, some puffy. Most were snowmen and wreaths made from sprigs of holly, but she noticed that a few sheets had Santa Claus faces on them. But they were giving the cards to people who perhaps had once believed in Santa, so what was the harm in that? She wasn’t sure the bishop would see it that way, but it was done now. Kind of like the baby she carried.
Then not at all.
“Your mother wanted to do something Christmassy,” Tillie said. “Then she came up with the idea of making Christmas cards to take to the veterans’ hospital or the nursing home.”
Brandon clapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation. “I love making Christmas cards.” Definitely not something Tillie would’ve expected him to say before he met Shelly, but he was a smart boy in doing things his girlfriend liked even though she wasn’t his girlfriend.
Hannah shot Andy an I told you so look.
He shrugged and pulled out a chair, plopping down next to Laura Kate.
Once everyone was settled around the table with markers and colors and glitter glue and stickers and everything else they had available to create Christmas cards in order to make someone’s holiday a little brighter, she felt the baby kick. It wasn’t an unusual phenomenon. She had heard that being up and about rocked the baby to sleep, so babies tended to be less active when the mom was active. Now that she was sitting still, he, or she, woke up and demanded a little attention of her own.
