“Are you ready for Christmas?” Eunice gave him a bright smile.
Levi grunted and he hoped it passed for an answer.
Tillie didn’t say a word, just trailed behind them as he led the way up the porch steps and held the door open for them. Eunice’s youngest daughter carried a sack full of what looked suspiciously like limbs from a cedar tree.
It was a full-on invasion, and Levi settled himself for a morning of company. With any luck, since Mims had come over the day before, she wouldn’t come today.
“I got some coffee on the stove if you have a mind for a warm-up,” Levi said. He might be hurting, he might be in mourning, and he might wish that the world would go away, but he still had his good manners.
Tillie set the sack down next to his couch and rubbed her hands together. “Coffee would be wonderful.”
He expected they would talk about him as he left the room and went into the kitchen, but to his surprise, they followed behind him. They had coffee poured before he could even tell them where the cups were stored. Or, rather, Eunice did. Tillie hovered around the doorway as if she would rather have been anywhere but in his kitchen.
Was his inhospitable nature that obvious to her? Or maybe she had her own reasons for not wanting to be there? He handed Eunice the container of snickerdoodle cookies that Mims had made the day before, then studied Tillie Gingerich.
She was beautiful, he supposed, in the way all pregnant women were. Even though no one was allowed to talk about it. She was round and serene, even if she did look a bit unhappy. Or maybe the word was uncomfortable? Her eyes held a knowing light as if now she knew the secrets to it all. It was one thing about women—mothers—that amazed him. Once they gave birth, it was as if they knew more about the universe than any man alive.
He shook his head at himself.
“No?” Eunice asked. “You don’t want a cookie?”
She seemed crushed that he wasn’t going to eat one of his own cookies, so he grabbed one from the container.
“Let’s sit,” Eunice said.
If he didn’t know any better, he would think that Eunice was trying to do a bit of matchmaking between him and Tillie. But that was impossible. Or maybe he was just too incredibly sensitive now that the holidays were here. Had he ever gotten a chance not to be sensitive? No, not since Mary died. He hadn’t had the chance at all.
With any luck though, this visit would be short. Just neighbors trying to be neighborly, helping out someone they thought was in need. He supposed that to most he was in need. But to himself, he needed only peace and quiet.
“Your dog . . .” Tillie started, then trailed off.
“Jah,” Levi said. “Any day now, I think.”
As if she knew they were talking about her, Puddles thumped her tail against the floor without raising her chin from her paws. It seemed she laid that way most times these days, and it made Levi wonder if it was the only comfortable position the poor dog could find. From the look of her, she was going to have ten or twelve pups running around very soon.
“I’ve always liked cattle dogs,” Tillie said. Her voice held an amusing tone, almost wispy and whimsical.
“You can have a puppy if you have a mind.”
Tillie snapped her gaze from Puddles’s place near the potbellied stove back to Levi. “No,” she said with a shake of her head. “That’s very kind of you to offer, but—” She didn’t finish the rest. It wasn’t so kind of him to offer. He was going to have a bunch of puppies to find homes for soon, but more than anything it was what she didn’t say. She wasn’t going to have time to look after a puppy soon, and about the time Puddles’s litter would be ready to go to homes, Tillie Gingerich would have a newborn baby to look after.
Levi waved away his words. “If you know someone.”
Eunice smiled. “It’s a shame she didn’t give birth earlier. You could have had great Christmas presents for people. I know a lot of kids in the area would love to have a puppy for Christmas.”
Tillie sat up a little straighter in her seat. “Mamm, what about Peter?”
Levi searched his brain to figure out who Peter was to the Gingeriches but couldn’t come up with an answer. “They won’t be ready to go home in time for Christmas,” he said unnecessarily. It was less than two weeks away.
“But if he has the promise of a puppy . . .” Tillie left the rest unsaid.
Eunice beamed her daughter a huge smile. “I think that’s a great idea.” She turned to Levi. “Could you save one for a little boy who would take very good care of it?”
“Of course.” It was one less puppy to have to worry about when the time came.
“You remember Leah?” Eunice asked.
Levi nodded. He did. Leah was Hannah’s twin. They were a little older than he and David, but in a community the size of Pontotoc, most everyone knew most everyone else. Leah had gotten married a couple of years back to a man named Jamie, if he was remembering correctly, who had a son named Peter. Right. There was more to the story, but for the life of him Levi couldn’t remember it all. Just that Jamie—if that was his name—and Leah were Mennonite, and Peter was their son. Or he was now. And it seemed this boy needed a dog, like most boys do. He would have kept one of Puddles’s puppies as his own, strictly for the baby Mary carried. He had known after everything was said and
