Amish Christmas Memories Read online

  Could she remember if she tried harder?

  Was it possible to force memories to the front of your mind?

  Or was her brain permanently damaged?

  All she knew for certain was that it was the most important thing she had to do—more important than finding a job or learning to crochet again. She needed to know where she belonged. Regardless what the doctor had said, she wasn’t sure she ever would regain her memories. She glanced again at the paper, at the name of the counselor she’d spoken with briefly at the hospital. Amish generally didn’t see a physician unless something of a serious nature was wrong, and she didn’t know anyone who had ever been to a counselor. Why would they pay someone to listen to them talk? They had big families and neighbors and community.

  But Rachel didn’t have any of those things—not really. So maybe for her, a counselor would be a good idea. There was always a possibility that it wouldn’t do a bit of good at all, but, oh, how she wanted to believe that it might.

  * * *

  Caleb had tried not to stare at Rachel during the service, but she was seated two rows ahead of him and to the left—on the women’s side, of course. He hadn’t been staring at her so much as looking in her direction. She’d kept her head down through most of the service. She’d thumbed away tears several times. She’d seemed lost when they’d stood to sing or kneeled to pray.

  He did not understand her moods at all.

  Yesterday, when they’d been out gathering things for his mother, her mood had been quite chipper. Then when he’d pulled her away from the snake, she’d looked at him with pure gratitude. He’d thought she was going to throw her arms around his neck. That idea caused his palms to sweat as if he’d been chopping wood for an hour. In many ways, she scared him more than a copperhead snake did. Now, why was that?

  She hadn’t been in the serving line with the other women, and he didn’t see her eating, but toward the end of the meal he saw Bishop Amos walk back into the main room from the stall area. A few minutes after that, several children dashed back where he had been, and then almost immediately after that, Rachel came out.

  Instead of eating, she grabbed a cup of water and sat down at a far table.

  “Go and talk to her,” Gabriel said.

  “Ya. Go and invite her to sit with us.” Beth was cradling their sleeping baby in her left arm and eating with her right.

  “Who?”

  “You know who,” they both said.

  “Who said I want to talk to her?”

  “Your face.” Gabriel grinned at him as he picked up another chicken leg from his plate. “Now go over there.”

  When Gabriel and Beth started laughing, Caleb stood up in disgust. “You two are acting narrisch. Maybe you need to go for a walk or something.”

  But he wasn’t actually angry with his best friend or his best friend’s wife. He just felt...out of sorts. Their laughter actually eased the knot of tension in his stomach. His friends helped to remind him that life wasn’t so serious.

  Why did he constantly forget that?

  He’d stood up and was walking toward the dessert table, but he was thinking of that, of how he should attempt to be more lighthearted, when he practically collided with Rachel.

  She let out a startled “oh.” He put up his hands to try to stop his momentum, and the cup of water sloshed over the front of both of them.

  “There should be some dish towels behind the table.”

  He didn’t ask how she knew that. It seemed that Rachel remembered things best when she wasn’t trying to remember them. He followed her over to the now empty serving line. She pawed around in a box behind the table and finally came up with two dish towels.

  “I’m glad it was water and not milk or coffee,” she said.

  “I’m glad it was only half-full.”

  His statement caused her to laugh and that caused him to laugh, and suddenly he was reminded of Gabriel and Beth.

  “Say, would you like to come over and sit with me and my friends?”

  She shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her where she sat, but she followed him back to the table. On the way, he snagged two different desserts and sat them down in front of them, and said, “Take your pick.”

  Rachel stared at the desserts as if she couldn’t decide, and Caleb was afraid he’d ushered in another emotional moment, but then a smile pulled at the corner of her lips and she said, “Give me a choice, and I’ll always pick chocolate. I may not know my name, but I remember that.”

  “Smart woman,” Gabriel proclaimed.

  Beth started talking about the merits of dark chocolate over regular chocolate. Rachel told them about the goats in the back stall.

  “So you’re that kind of girl, huh?” Caleb wiggled his eyebrows. “You know, the kind that goes and sits with the goats during a party.”

  “Ya. I’m shy all right. At least I think I am.”

  Gabriel was about to respond to that when the baby began to fuss, and Beth claimed she needed to go and feed him.

  “Want to come with me? If you haven’t been in Amos’s house, you should. He makes cuckoo clocks and has them everywhere. It’s amazing.”

  The girls bundled up in their coats and then walked out into the wintry day, leaving Caleb staring at the dessert that Rachel hadn’t eaten and his own empty plate.

  “You’ve got it bad, buddy.”

  “Got what?” He pulled her plate toward him and stabbed his fork into the chocolate pie. Not that he was hungry, but it was chocolate pie. It would be a shame to see it tossed because Rachel forgot to eat it. Who forgets to eat a piece of pie?

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about. You ask a question, but then your mind wanders before I can answer it.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know you.”

  “Ya, okay. Maybe. I’ve been a little distracted lately.”

  “A little? You practically bowled Rachel over when you went up to the dessert table.”

  “I was trying to think how to approach her.”

  “Approach her?”

  “Ya.”

  “She’s not a wild horse, buddy.”

  “Good analogy.”

  “I wasn’t making an analogy, and I haven’t heard that word since we were in eighth-grade English class.”

  “She resembles a wild horse in a lot of ways—”

  “Who does?”

  “Rachel.” Caleb pointed his fork at him. “Now whose mind is wandering?”

  Gabriel raised his hands in surrender. “So this wild-horse thing. What did you mean by that?”

  “Think of it. A wild horse doesn’t initially know who to trust.”

  “Do you think Rachel doesn’t trust you?”

  “I think she’s still scared, skittish even.”

  “Go on.”

  “Wild horses are unpredictable.”

  “Because they’re scared, and they’re wild.”

  “Exactly. So we need to prove ourselves trustworthy.”

  “We?”

  “Then she’ll relax, and then she’ll remember who she is.”

  “Is that what the doctor said?”

  “After that, she can go home.” Caleb scraped up the last bit of chocolate crumbs into a pile, but he didn’t bother eating them. Instead he stared at them, as if the answers he sought were there, amid the pile of dough and chocolate and cream.

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I have no idea, Gabriel.” He stood and gathered up the plates. “But when I do, I’ll let you know.”

  As he walked toward the buckets where he needed to put his dishes, he paused to look out the barn’s window. Beth and Rachel were stepping up onto Amos’s porch, walking close together, bundled against the cold. She didn’t look skittish, not around Beth, but she certainly acted that way
around him.

  Why was that?

  Why did he make her nervous?

  And what could he do to help her feel at home and safe?

  * * *

  “Do you like babies?” Beth asked. Simon had fallen asleep after eating and was making little baby sounds. His mouth formed a small o, and his long eyelashes lay softly against his skin.

  “Who doesn’t like babies?”

  “My little schweschder.” Beth smiled and set the chair to rocking. “She says they only eat, poop and sleep.”

  “She might have a point.” Rachel glanced around the bishop’s guest room. The living room had been full of cuckoo clocks, but the room they were in had only one—a clock shaped like a schoolhouse, with a small owl that popped out on the quarter hour. “I like them—at least I think I do. Babies are small and sweet and easy to please.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Tell me about you and Gabriel.”

  “Not much to tell. We grew up together, stepped out together when we were old enough and then married.”

  “So you always knew he was the one?”

  “Actually that took a little convincing. Gabriel was a perfect boyfriend—always bringing me flowers or chocolate or taking me to a movie.”

  “Sounds like he was intent on wooing you.”

  Beth shrugged. She was about the same age as Rachel, but plump, with a round face and a ready smile. “I guess. Truth is, Gabriel liked to play, and he liked having me around to go with him. When it was time to settle down? He wasn’t so sure about that.”

  “What changed his mind?”

  “I told him that I wanted to marry and start a family. I said if he didn’t, that was fine, but it might be time for me to step out with someone else.”

  “You said that to him?”

  Beth grinned, her head bobbing up and down.

  “Would you have...stepped out with someone else?”

  “Ya. I wasn’t going to wait until I was an old maid. Gabriel would have been happy betting his extra money on buggy races...”

  “And buying you flowers.”

  “That, too. He might have carried on that way for years. My point is that he saw no need to stop being a boy, but I was bored with those things. I wanted a home and a baby.” She kissed the top of Simon’s head, and the baby popped the corner of his fist into his mouth and began sucking on it.

  “I don’t know what I want,” Rachel admitted. “I feel...restless, I suppose.”

  “Of course you do. You’re still trying to figure out who you are. Probably Gabriel was, too—before we decided to marry.”

  “But the difference is he had his friends and family to help him figure that out. He had you.”

  “You have frienden here, Rachel. Whether you realize it or not.”

  Rachel noticed that Beth didn’t say this flippantly, and waited for Rachel to look up at her, to see how serious she was, to nod in agreement.

  “Now, tell me about Caleb.” Rachel raised the baby to settle against her breast and rubbed his back in soft, slow circles.

  “What about him?”

  “He seems smitten.”

  “With whom?” She’d never even heard Caleb mention a girl, other than the one who had dumped him for being old-fashioned.

  “With you, silly. Tell me you haven’t noticed.”

  At first, she stared at Beth, her mouth open and heat rising in her cheeks, but then she began to laugh. The owl poked out of the cuckoo clock, chiming the quarter hour and causing her to laugh even harder, which caused Beth to join her.

  “I don’t know what we’re laughing about.” Beth dabbed at tears that were leaking out of her eyes. “But it feels gut to do so.”

  “We’re laughing at the thought of Caleb being interested in me...in, you know, that way.”

  “So you don’t think he is?” Now Beth was wrapping a blanket around Simon, tucking it up under his legs and resettling him in the crook of her arm.

  “Nein. I think he can’t wait to be rid of me.”

  “Really?”

  “I aggravate him all the time.”

  “You do?”

  “He corrects everything about me—my hair, my clothes, even the fact that I haven’t found a job yet.”

  “You’ve only been here a week.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Do you want a job?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. It might help with this restless feeling if I was doing something useful. It might help me remember who I am...or was.”

  “How do you plan to find one?”

  Rachel reached into her pocket and pulled out the sheet of paper Amos had handed her. She stared down at it a moment and then passed it to Beth.

  “Bishop Amos wrote this?”

  “Ya. How’d you know?”

  “He has a funny way of making his t’s. Always has.” She tapped the sheet of paper. “This is a gut list.”

  “A quilt shop, a bakery, a restaurant and a school.”

  “Which would you like to work at?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Of the four, I personally would pick the quilt shop. Katherine, she’s demanding but fair.”

  Rachel chewed on her bottom lip a minute. Finally, she said, “I suppose I could give it a try.”

  “Have you given any thought to seeing this doctor?”

  “Nein. I mean, I have thought about it, but I haven’t made up my mind. Seems a little...drastic.”

  “Could help, though. Several of the people I went to school with have been to see her—you wouldn’t be her first Amish patient.”

  “Did they have memory problems, too?”

  “Nein. One of the girls was an older teenager and she struggled with eating too little, another miscarried a baby the first year she was married—had real trouble moving on from that, which is understandable. The man who went to her, he blamed himself for his parents’ dying in a buggy accident.”

  “My problems seem kind of small compared to those.”

  “They’re not small when you’re the one dealing with them every day.”

  “That’s true, though I imagine Caleb will think it’s a waste of the church’s money.”

  “Caleb isn’t as harsh as you make him sound. Maybe he comes across that way because he’s intimidated by you.”

  “Me?” Rachel’s voice rose in a squeak.

  “I think that Caleb is somewhat afraid of women, but he must like you. After all, he saved you—twice.”

  “Anyone would have done that, I think. It’s not like he could have left me lying in the snow.”

  “I heard that when he saved you from the snake, that he was quite shook up.”

  “That only happened yesterday. How did you—”

  “Everyone’s talking about it. You know how it is with the Amish grapevine. Or maybe you don’t remember that part.” Beth glanced up at the clock, which was about to cuckoo again. She stood and began gathering her things. “Here’s something you should remember about Caleb...”

  Rachel was pulling on her coat, but she stopped, her arm midway into the sleeve, at the seriousness in Beth’s voice.

  “It’s not my place to share the details, but Caleb was hurt by the two girls he tried to date.”

  “He told me a little about that.”

  Beth’s eyebrows rose in surprise, but she didn’t comment on that. “Since then, well, it’s been almost a year...”

  “That long?”

  “Caleb hasn’t appeared interested in putting his heart on the line again. I think, that at our age, if you’re hurt from something once, you shy away from it. But if you’re hurt twice? It can spoil your outlook for a long time.”

  “He’s rather young to be deciding he wants to be a confirmed bachelor.”

  “Except maybe it’s no
t something you decide. Maybe it’s just something that kind of becomes a habit.”

  “I guess.”

  “Anyway. Trust me—he’s interested.”

  “In...”

  “In you, silly.”

  “But he doesn’t even know me, not really. I don’t even know me.”

  They were walking to the door of the guest room, and Beth stopped, reached out and put a hand on Rachel’s arm. “Maybe who you are isn’t just your memories. I know they’re important, and I know that you want yours back. I don’t blame you.”

  She brushed at the sleeve of Rachel’s coat, knocking off some imaginary lint. “But who you really are? That’s your heart and how you perceive things and how you treat people. It’s not just your experiences.”

  “So what am I to do? Forget about remembering?”

  “Nein.” Beth’s voice softened, and she glanced down at the babe in her arms. “But maybe you’re not just trying to remember for yourself. Maybe the real reason to remember is that people love and miss you—the people back home, wherever home is. I’m sure they’re very worried.”

  “And Caleb?”

  “I’d say sit back and enjoy your time together. Who knows. Maybe he’ll start bringing you chocolate and taking you to Englisch movies.”

  Which was such a ludicrous thought that Rachel began to laugh as they walked back out into the snowy Sunday afternoon.

  Chapter Seven

  By the time they made it back home after the Sunday afternoon meal, Caleb had resolved in his mind to be kinder to Rachel. He didn’t really think he’d been unkind, but perhaps he had been harsh. It certainly wasn’t his place to judge her clothing or how soon she found a job. He couldn’t begin to imagine what she was going through, and although he thought she should get over it, he couldn’t honestly say that it would be easy for him if he’d forgotten everyone and everything.

  The talk with Gabriel had helped.

  Rachel needed to feel safe, to trust them, and then she’d remember. Once she remembered, they could return her to her home, like a lost puppy that people put up posters for in town. Had Rachel’s family put up posters for her? Were they even looking for her?

  He and his dat completed a few chores that had to be done, even on a Sunday, and then his mamm served a simple dinner. Afterward they all sat in the house’s main room, the fire throwing out heat and a soft glow, lanterns lit against the winter darkness outside, a north wind rattling the windows. Caleb was staring at The Budget, which he’d already read and so provided very little entertainment, when he saw a posting that read: