Once again she allowed her gaze to rest on her lap and was surprised to see the gnarled hand of Ellie Byler come her way. Ellie squeezed Tillie’s fingers where they laid in her lap. “It will all be clear soon, dear,” Ellie said.
It was on the tip of Tillie’s tongue to ask what she meant, then she realized Ellie had watched her look from Levi to Melvin. Tillie wanted to explain. But she didn’t have the words. Maybe because she couldn’t explain it herself.
Instead, she squeezed Ellie’s fingers, then stood as the preacher bade them to do so.
As they sang, a dozen questions started floating around inside Tillie’s head. She should be singing about the beautiful night when Jesus was born, but all she wanted to do was ask Ellie Byler how long she’d been married to her husband before he passed. It was something like seventy years, maybe. It had only been a couple of years since he died. And before that, the two were inseparable. Did their love come first? Was it always there? Or did it grow in the time that they spent together? What if you thought you loved one person and maybe you were really in love with somebody else?
And what did it matter for her?
She centered her attention back on the song, but still she was only going through the motions. They knelt and prayed and church was dismissed. Still her mind was wandering. But she had to push it all aside. It was Christmas Day. It was cold, but the sun was shining bright, a beautiful day to have church, a beautiful day to be alive. And she needed to soak in that moment then instead of worrying about everything else. It had already been decided that Melvin was coming back. They would be married. They would kneel and pray and ask for forgiveness and eventually life would move on. And if the thought didn’t fill her with the greatest joy of perhaps the best Christmas present she could ever receive, then that had to be due to exhaustion and hormones. Nothing more.
* * *
“Do you want me to come in?” Mims asked.
Levi shook his head. He tried to smile, but from the look on Mims’s face, he knew it was a poor attempt. She gave him a worried smile back. “I don’t mind,” she said. “I could even spend the night if you want.”
Levi hopped down from the buggy. He lifted the grocery sack full of leftovers from behind the seat and tried that reassuring smile for his sister once more. He wasn’t certain, but he had a feeling that this attempt wasn’t any more successful than the time before.
“Levi—” Mims started.
“I’m fine,” he said. “Get on home. It’s cold out here.”
Mims pulled the blanket a little closer around her legs and seemed as if she wanted to say more. “I’ll come by in the morning to pick you up.”
“I have a horse and buggy that works.You know that, right?”
“Funny,” she said. “But if I drive, I know you have to come.”
His sister! Levi chuckled. Despite his melancholy air of the day, Mims was always able to make him laugh, even if just a little. “I see how it is. You come and get me, then I have to go to whatever function it is that you think I need to go to.”
She clicked her tongue at him and pointed her finger. “Got it in one.”
Levi shook his head. “Of course. Now get on home.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
Now why did that almost seem like a threat?
Levi lit the lantern sitting on the porch and took it into the house with him. The worst thing about coming home in the wintertime: it seemed to get dark so early. Normally he would be home way before sundown, but since his family had wanted everyone to get together after church, he had gone back to his parents’ house. They had cookies and coffee and opened presents. They laughed and told stories and visited until a little later in the afternoon. That was why he was getting home so late.
He made his way into the kitchen. He checked on Puddles and her puppies, then put all the leftovers his mamm had sent home with him in the icebox. He placed the lantern in the center of the table and sat down. His house had never felt emptier than it did in that moment.
He saw them together today, Tillie and Melvin. And them together was exactly how it was all supposed to be. So why did it bother him so? Why did he give it a second thought, a second look?
Because on some level he didn’t think that was how it was supposed to be.
How was that for seeing things that weren’t there? He had known Melvin was back, but he had held out the hope that—
Hope that what?
Anyway he sliced it, Tillie and Melvin needed to be together. If they stayed English, if they came back to the Amish, whatever their decision was, for baby Emmy, the two of them needed to make a family. And he was no part of it.
“You had your chance at a family,” he told himself.
From her place by the stove, Puddles whined and thumped her tail. Little puppies tumbled around, their eyes still closed as they tried to find something to eat. To have that the only of life’s problems. Something to eat.
“Merry Christmas, Puddles,” he said, then grabbed the lantern and headed for the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Mamm!”
Tillie looked to her mother, who was still standing at the stove flipping pancakes like a short-order cook.
“Is that Hannah?”
Mamm looked to the clock above the sink. “She said nine, right?”
Tillie nodded. And it was a little after that. Hannah must’ve
