Jacob's Return (26 page)

“Why you—”

Simon raised his hand to stop the curse. “Not in front of the children.”

Jacob couldn’t believe it; his brother was joking! “All right, you two,” he said to Aaron and Emma. “Upstairs for warm clothes now, before anymore gifts for anybody.”

Jacob placed the pups back in Simon’s arms. “Find a wooden box with nice high sides for them, brother, or you’ll find them in your part of the house more often than you’d like.”

Simon chuckled as they walked away. Then Aaron turned and ran back. Simon bent down to see what he wanted and got his neck hugged tight. Jacob nodded to his brother when his son returned to his side, but he could not speak for the love he’d seen for Aaron in Simon’s eyes.

As his brother stood watching the children with longing, Jacob thought Simon just might take good care of Rachel and the baby after all. As should be.

This was going to be a good Christmas.

* * * *

This did not bode well for a good Christmas.

Rachel looked from Simon to Jacob. Their easygoing manner with each other had lasted nearly all the way through a hearty breakfast, complete with souse for toast. It survived puddle-making pups and Emma’s bowl of hot oatmeal upside-down in Simon’s lap.

But the test of gift giving was questionable.

Nothing as silly as envy over who got the better gift. That was never their way. No, this problem was older, more deep-rooted.

This rivalry had started when they were children, Rachel knew better than anyone, and it held her, almost as a prisoner, in its center. Which of them did she like best? Which would be her husband? Now, heaven help them all … which man had the right to present such a gift?

From the way Simon and Jacob stood staring at each other — each of them holding a wooden baby cradle to give her — Rachel knew if someone did not say something soon, words best left unsaid would once again come between them. Words that could destroy.

“Levi?” she implored.

But it was Ruben who harumphed and stomped both feet, propelling himself from his rocker to a standing position. “Like two schoolboys trying to give your lunch to a pretty girl, you act,” he said. “Rachel does not have to choose which cradle she wishes to keep — no, nor the giver either — witless boys.

“She can keep both. One can stay upstairs, the other down. Then there will be no toting, like I have to do.” He turned to his wife. “Hey, Es, now Daniel can use the downstairs cradle and we can leave ours home.”

Esther rolled her eyes.

Ruben looked from one frowning man to the other and sighed. “Still not happy I see,” He tutted shaking his head. “And on Christmas day too. All right, I will decide. Your painted one, Simon, matches the painted secretary in the corner there. Leave it down here in the best room. Jacob, put yours in Rachel’s bedroom. It’s a fine match for the chest of drawers she’s always favored.”

Rachel admired Ruben’s ability not to point out in which bedroom the chest now stood. She could tell Es was downright impressed.

Simon placed the cradle he’d re-painted by the secretary. “Looks good,” he said before he settled in one of the rockers.

Jacob carried the cradle he built upstairs to put in Rachel’s bedroom. He knew he was acting like a horse’s hind end … a little boy, just like Ruben said, and devil take his former friend for pointing it out.

It
was
Simon’s place, as Rachel’s husband, to give such a gift, not her brother-in-law’s, and as soon as he grew up a bit, Jacob promised himself he would tell Simon so.

When he came back down, he followed the aroma into the kitchen where Rachel spooned cinnamon apples over the ham in the oven. He reached over to touch the curls at her nape below her kapp, then thought better of it and clasped his hands behind his back, instead. “Sorry, Mudpie. I should know better.”

She shut the oven door. “You should.” Then she turned to him with a sigh. “But thank you for saying so. Did you say it to Simon?”

“Ach, Rache, do I have to?”

“What did Ruben call you? Witless?”

Even when she insulted him, he wanted her. He wanted to smooth his hand over the mound of her stomach to feel her child’s movement visible beneath her apron. When she was bent over the stove, he’d not only wanted to touch the curls at the nape of her neck, he’d wanted to kiss her there. Lord, how he wanted.

Simon stepped into the kitchen, and turned right around to leave.

“Simon,” Jacob said. “I was wrong. The cradle should have come from you. Not me.”

Simon relaxed his stance and nodded. “For the most part, you have been a good brother.”

No. He had not. Not lately. “I thank you for the words, but I do not deserve them,” Jacob said in earnest, and was glad he had a reason to smile just then. “I hear the twins squealing. Let’s go see what the pups wet now.”

“Pa-pop, look,” Aaron said as they came into the best room. “Unkabear, look. Momly. A barn from Boob.”

“And a Pokey,” Emma added, holding up a carved, black lamb for their inspection.

Levi laughed. “They will think all lambs are black.”

“And a moo-cow.”

“A whole farm, Ruben. You made them a farm?” Rachel asked. “It is so good. You could be a toy-maker.”

“Pop would scold you for that, Rache. He likes Ruben fine as a farmer. He never had it so easy.”

Ruben slapped his knee. “Never so easy.”

Aaron ran to the window. “They come, they come.”

“Pop must be here with Atlee,” Esther said. “Don’t crow so around Pop, Ruben, or you’ll be working twice as hard.”

His father-in-law entered the house. “Good man, your Pop,” Ruben said with resounding zeal.

Esther patted his cheek. “Smart man, my husband.”

“You staying, Pop?” Rachel asked as she kissed her father’s cheek and gave him a wrapped present which he took with no comment. He felt that gift-giving should not be given primary attention on Christmas, so he would open his gifts alone, later.

“No, Little One,” he said. “I bring Esther’s cakes to the older members of the church and say blessing for them over their dinners. I eat with you tomorrow, Second Christmas, at our house.”

Rachel accepted that happily. Second Christmas was always good as first in her book. Better, maybe. Downright lazy not to work two whole days in a row.

Atlee wasn’t having a good day. He thought at first Emma and Aaron were Jacob and Anna when they were little, then quick as a wink, he got it straight.

Ruben shook his head when Atlee gave everybody a
handkerchief. Everybody needs a
schnoopduff
, already,” Atlee said.

“Ya, and they don’t cost too dearly, either,” Ruben muttered.

Atlee laughed heartier than any of them at the words. “You betcha, already.”

Simon placed the plates of roast turkey and ham on the table.

Rachel wiped her hands on a towel. “
Kum esse
, come eat, everybody.”

“Hard to choose what to eat, Mudpie,” Ruben said. “So many good things. Ah, German noodle ring.” He rubbed his hands together. “My favorite.”

Esther shoved his shoulder with hers. “Everything’s your favorite.”

With his return shove, Ruben managed to kiss his wife’s cheek. “Good pickled relish and chow chow, Rache.” He smiled innocently.

“Told you he liked the sours,” Esther said.

“Kissed you first. Proves I like sweets more.”

“The Christmas turkey, he fattens long enough, and he eats good,” Atlee said.”

“In North Dakota,” Jacob said, “we didn’t celebrate on December 25th, like this, we celebrated Old Christmas on Jan 6th, instead.”

“Pass the chestnut stuffing, Jacob.” Simon said. “When did you have second Christmas then?”

“We didn’t, and I missed it. Christmas is better here.”

After dinner, in the cozy best room, a fire burning in the fireplace, Atlee began the carol singing. The twins sat on a quilt near the fireplace, Daniel in a cradle beside them, while they played with their new toys.

Later, Jacob took out the old sled and they all went out to get some exercise and make room for cake and pie. Esther’s long cumbersome dress did not stop her from taking a slide down the hill with Ruben, him screaming all the way. When they turned over at the bottom, Ruben kissed his wife with great fervor, then he covered her face with snow.

Esther got him back by shoving snow down his neck. He chased her around the barn.

The snow fight Jacob started went on a long time before Ruben and Esther returned.

Rachel doubted she and Simon would ever play that way. She could not look at Jacob while Ruben and Es were gone. She knew what would happen with them in the same circumstances.

Throwing off such thoughts, she went to take Simon’s arm. Come and take a fat lady for a walk. Their talk was of the day, mostly the children’s excitement and the puppies. It was good to be pleasant with Simon. It was good to remember why she married him, that she had not been stupid. He had been a good man then; he seemed to be so again.

* * * *

Rachel woke on second Christmas to the twins’ calls. “
Siss widder am schneea
.” It was snowing again.

 “Come on then,” she heard Jacob tell them. “We’ll hitch Caliope to the sleigh, give the lines a jingle, and across the fields we’ll fly to see Uncle Boob, Aunt Es, and Daudy Zook.”

Tucked warmly between the adults, the blowing snow tickling their faces, the twins giggled the whole way. Es’s roast pork with apple dumplings ‘ate good’ too. So did the oyster pie and pickled pears.

During the meal, Rachel’s father surprised them all by inviting Simon to give the
Anfang
the next Sunday.

To give the opening sermon was a great honor for the Deacon. Simon lowered his head. “Thank you, Bishop Zook.”

Again her husband’s humility amazed her. Determined to show her appreciation, Rachel rose to go to him, placing her hands on his shoulders and her cheek against his. “I’m happy for you, Simon. That’s a fine Christmas gift, Pop.”

“It is not a gift. It has been earned.”

A minute of silent communication seemed to pass between her father and her husband.

Second Christmas was good. As good as First. That afternoon, everyone went skating on Echo Pond, with a big bonfire to warm their hands. Aaron loved that best.

They built snowmen and started another snowball fight.

“On the way home, snow covered the corn fields and became the only light to brighten their way. At the crest of the hill, Jacob stopped the sleigh. “Emma, Aaron, see that starry sky?” They looked up and nodded. “That’s the same sky that looked down on Baby Jesus.”

“Oh,” they said, eyes wide, awe in their voices.

He began to sing,
Ihr Kinderlein, Commet
, O come, All Ye Children, and Rachel knew this was the best Christmas ever.

Chapter 16

Weeks later, the darkness of midnight filled Rachel’s bedroom.

And her heart. And her mind.

Her eyes would not close. Her bed offered no comfort. Sleep would simply not come.

The January weather made it necessary to bundle up, even at night, and though she was snug and warm beneath her quilts on the outside, she shivered with cold inside.

For months her husband had been good and kind. Loving almost. He seemed to respect her for the first time in their marriage.

He’d smiled and played at Christmas. He’d bought the twins puppies.

Rachel swallowed a sob. She had come to like her husband, to want her marriage to work. Despite everything, she had been so willing to try, to forgive everything and begin anew. She wanted almost to ask if he could forgive her. But she wondered if any husband, even one who loved his wife, could forgive the kind of sin she had committed.

But now he had begun to frighten her again, more as each day passed. Tonight most of all.

Rachel lay her palm protectively over her child to ride the crest of each life-affirming motion. A foot here she felt, an arm there. Sometimes she thought he must be tumbling head over heel, so many arms and legs did she feel kicking all at once.

If Simon realized how much time was left before the birth, she feared for the safety of this beloved innocent kicking furiously below her hand.

The time for her to have borne the child, if it were his, had come and gone and still she carried high and proud.

Big. She was so big, she’d carried off the look of being near her time until here she was, almost two weeks beyond it. And now Simon watched. He watched her like a caged beast waiting for the locked doors to open so he might leap free … and devour everything in his path.

As in years past, when Simon walked into the room, Rachel’s heart beat furiously. And now, even her child stopped stirring, as if sensing some slight movement might draw the wrong attention.

Lord she was teaching an unborn child fear, and she did not know how to keep from it. If her babe did not also know joy, she would weep for him.

Would that there were less fear in store for them both.

Rachel must admit, at least to herself, that when Jacob walked into a room, her heart leapt and so too did her child, as if he sensed her happiness and joined her revelry. He danced in joy, did her baby, like his mother would like to do. And she could not help the gladness that bubbled up within her when it happened … when Jacob’s son rejoiced in his father’s presence.

Jacob. Her son’s father.

Simon would be furious when he realized the child in her womb was not of his seed … and worse, that he was Jacob’s.

Rachel had once thought herself willing to pay any price for her night with Jacob. And now — she closed her eyes — now she held something of such value, she understood what price could be too high.

“Please, God,” she whispered. “Keep this child, Your child, safe, no matter the sins of his parents.”

She had reason to pray. Simon had been on edge, angry all this evening. Even Aaron’s silly play had failed to bring a smile to Simon’s lips, and Aaron usually managed it, even if no one else could.