An Amish Gift Read online

  An Amish Gift is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 by Cynthia Steckel

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Keller, Cynthia.

  An Amish gift : a novel / Cynthia Keller.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-53814-7

  1. Amish—Pennsylvania—Fiction. 2. Christmas stories. I. Title.

  PS3572.I263A85 2012

  813’.54—dc23 2012028726

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Cover design: Marietta Anastassatos

  Jacket art: Tom Hallman

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “What do you say, Scout? You want to stop for something to eat?”

  Jennie Davis swiveled around as far as she could manage in the front passenger seat to direct her question to the black mutt with white paws and intelligent-looking black eyes, wedged in between the two teenagers in the back of the Honda.

  Thirteen-year-old Willa rolled her eyes. “Mom, why do you always do that? Do you actually expect Scout to answer you?”

  Jennie smiled at her daughter. “What makes you think he doesn’t?”

  Tim, her fifteen-year-old son, spoke with exaggerated bewilderment. “Now, why would we think that? Maybe because that would make you the first person in history to have a conversation with a dog?”

  Shep Davis glanced over at his wife. “After Scout has expressed his preference, could I get a vote? I’d like to stop for some coffee.”

  Jennie rested her hand on her husband’s arm. “You know what? Even if Scout says no, we’re stopping for your coffee.”

  He smiled. “Wow. I’m honored.”

  Jennie smiled back. “On the day Scout drives for seven hours, he can decide when to stop, too.”

  “She actually is insane.” Tim looked down at the dog by his side. “Don’t you think so?”

  Scout only crossed his two front paws on the seat and rested his head on them.

  Jennie nodded, satisfied. “You didn’t think he would talk against me, did you?”

  Willa smacked her hand to her forehead in a theatrical show of exasperation.

  “Hey, more cows.” Shep gestured in the direction of a small herd, tails swishing as they stood patiently in the hot August sun.

  “It’d be nice to have our own cows,” Willa said.

  Jennie swung around in her seat again. “Honey, we’re not going to have room for that. Not that we’d know how to take care of a cow, anyway. But remember, this isn’t a farm—it’s a regular house. With a lot of farms around the area.”

  Jennie figured she was safe in making this limited assertion, though she hesitated to say anything more. They had seen only an old photograph of the house, taken from across the road. Online maps revealed that it wasn’t large, but they knew it contained at least three bedrooms, which was one more bedroom than they’d ever had.

  “Even with just one cow, we could have our own milk.” Willa was getting excited by the idea. “It’d be all natural and stuff.”

  Tim groaned. “Listen to this. Wilma, do you know how hard it is to take care of a cow? You getting up in the middle of the night to milk it?”

  “Don’t call me Wilma!” She had always hated her brother’s nickname for her. “And don’t worry, nobody expects you to get up to milk it. Hard work is definitely not for you.”

  “No, you’re going to do it, right? The person who’s afraid of her own shadow, just going to take charge of that two-million-pound animal.”

  “Will you two stop?” Shep asked in annoyance.

  Jennie was pleased to see an opportunity for distraction. “Look, there’s a place for coffee.”

  “Can I get some?” Willa asked.

  “We’ve gone over this,” Shep said to her. “No coffee at your age. The end.”

  “You can get something else, though,” Jennie threw in. As long as it’s not too expensive, she silently added. It was hard to know how long they would have to make their money last, and it was little enough to begin with.

  After arming themselves with coffee and soda, they continued on the last leg of the trip, another forty-five minutes to the heart of Lancaster County. Jennie and Shep commented on the beauty of the countryside, admiring the wide-open fields dotted by clapboard houses and storybook-perfect farms. The children were far more intrigued by the occasional horses and buggies they passed, staring at the Amish men and women sitting in the open wagons. Willa waved at them and was sometimes rewarded with a return wave from a woman or a man in a straw hat.

  “That is beyond …” Tim’s words were lost as he rolled down the window to stick his head out and get a better view of a man and a boy in a closed buggy.

  “Stop gawking,” Shep said. “They’re people, not exhibits for your amusement.”

  Tim settled back in his seat. “If they didn’t expect people to gawk, they wouldn’t go out like that.”

  Shep glanced at his wife, who was consulting a map. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.” He looked in the rearview mirror at his son. “I’m ashamed that you would say such a thing.”

  “Naturally,” Tim snapped back. “When are you not ashamed of me?”

  Jennie interrupted. “According to this, we should be coming up to our street soon. But I don’t know whether we go right or left.”

  No one said anything in the few minutes it took to get to the next intersection.

  “This is it,” Jennie said. “There’s the street sign, that little one.”

  “Okay, we’ll try this way first.” Shep made a wide turn to minimize any disturbance to the contents of the U-Haul trailer attached to their car. He drove slowly down the narrow road so they could check the mailboxes.

  Willa spotted it first. “I think that says 225. See?” She pointed, keeping her other arm securely wrapped around Scout.

  The numbers were partially worn away from the old mailbox attached to a tilting wooden post. Shep pulled into the driveway, drove a few yards, then stopped so they could get a broad view of the house. He turned off the ignition. The four of them stared at the sight before them in dismayed silence. It was a small saltbox half hidden behind long-untended bushes.

  A fresh beginning, Jennie reminded herself. This will be a fresh beginning. Inwardly, she groaned. They could deal with the overgrown front yard, but the driveway desperately needed repaving, and the house’s paint was visibly peeling. She spotted a number of broken shutters at several windows; some were missing altogether. The whole thing was just sad-looking, she couldn’t help think
ing. Nor did it bode well for what they might find inside.

  Her son was first to break the silence, his tone threatening. “This better not be the place.”

  Jennie tried to keep her voice cheerful. “It’s the place, all right.”

  Her husband glanced over at her. “We passed all those big, open fields. I kind of hoped …”

  She put a hand on his. “I know.”

  Tim interrupted. “We left Lawrence for this?”

  “Mom?” Willa’s voice was tremulous. “Mom, is this for real?”

  “Come on, kids.” Jennie turned to them a final time. “It’s not so bad. I know it’s not what you probably dreamed of, but we’ll fix it up.”

  “What we ‘dreamed of’?” Tim snorted. “This place is a dump.”

  “But it’s our dump. All ours, free and clear.”

  “Not sure what kind of person would pay for this,” her husband muttered under his breath.

  “Shep, that’s not really helpful.” Jennie spoke softly but forcefully. “We need to have a good attitude.”

  “In front of the children, you mean?” Tim turned to his sister. “Yes, by all means, let’s delude the children. It’s not as if they’re smart enough to see for themselves that this is even worse than Lawrence.”

  “That’s enough out of you,” Shep snapped at him.

  Jennie watched her husband get out of the car and slam the door. He was shaking his head, whether about the house or his son, she wasn’t sure.

  “Mom, Tim is right. This is way worse than our house,” Willa pointed out in alarm.

  True, Jennie thought, but she only smiled. “Nonsense. This place is ours, and our old place wasn’t. We can make it into anything we want.” She opened her car door. “And we’ll make it wonderful.”

  Getting out to stand where the children couldn’t see her, she let her smile fall away. Finding out four months ago that Shep was inheriting a house had felt like winning the lottery. It meant they could leave their half of the cramped two-family house they had been renting for nearly ten years and move into a place that was theirs alone. Even more incredible, it was completely paid off. It came to them courtesy of a cousin of Shep’s mother whom no one had even known about. His mother had been dead for some twenty-five years, but apparently, this cousin, Bert Howland, had been a close playmate of hers when they were children. His wife had died long ago, and he had no other living heirs, so he’d named Shep the sole beneficiary of both his home and the bicycle shop he had operated for over thirty years.

  They had been astounded by this act of generosity from someone who may have been a family member but was a total stranger to them. It had even come at the perfect moment, with Shep having lost his most recent job, and the two of them coming to the end of what little savings they had. Though it wasn’t an easy move to make, there wasn’t anything holding them in Lawrence, the small Massachusetts town where they had both grown up. There were few jobs to be had there, and it had gotten grimmer with every passing year. Yet they had never considered leaving, certainly not to go to a strange part of the country where they didn’t know a soul. The children were in shock about being dragged off to Lancaster County, which might as well have been the moon as far as they were concerned; characteristically, Tim was furious, Willa quietly miserable. Still, that was all beside the point. By some miracle, they had been given a reprieve from financial calamity through a place to live and a business handed to them with no strings attached.

  The heat of the afternoon was oppressive. Jennie gazed at the large damaged patches on the roof of the house, wishing she could feel the same gratitude toward this mysterious relative that she had felt earlier. At the moment, what she felt was dread as she contemplated the work ahead of them. Thank goodness she and Shep could do most of the physical labor themselves; he was a magician at fixing things, and she would help. Still, they couldn’t afford to buy the materials they would need. More important, he had a new business to run, and she had to presume that it would demand most of his time and energy.

  Well, she thought, they would simply find a way through. Somehow it would work out.

  Scout bounded out of the car, thrilled to be released from his confinement. He gave a few joyful barks, then raced over to follow Shep, tail wagging, as Willa came to join Jennie.

  “Let’s see what it’s like inside,” Jennie said. She bent over to peer at Tim, who was still in the backseat, his arms folded, his expression enraged. “You going to stay in there all day? I’d have thought you spent enough hours in the car.”

  “I’d rather live here than there.”

  She sighed. “Okay, you’ve made your point. Now come on out.”

  Making no effort to hide his annoyance, he threw open the door and emerged. Tall and broad-shouldered, he looked remarkably like his father, with the same sandy-colored hair and hazel eyes. The only thing missing was the dimple on Shep’s left cheek, which, to Jennie, only made her husband more handsome when he smiled. Willa resembled Jennie, both of them with brown eyes and long brown hair usually tied back in a low ponytail.

  Tim leaned back against the car, hands shoved in his jeans pockets, refusing to look anywhere but at the ground.

  “Fine, be that way,” Jennie said in resignation, turning away and gesturing to her daughter to follow.

  Her husband was already at the side of the house, frowning as he knelt to inspect the foundation. Jennie reached for the screen door, pleasantly surprised to find that it appeared relatively new. That was one less thing they had to worry about, she thought. She would be grateful for small favors.

  Inside the narrow front hall, she wasn’t at all surprised to see a covering of dust practically everywhere. At best, no one would have been here to clean since Bert Howland had died, although, judging from the entryway’s appearance, it had been a lot longer than six weeks. She took a quick tour of the cramped downstairs. Kitchen, half-bathroom, living room, dining room—all small, all apparently unchanged in decades. Dark, heavy wooden furniture did nothing to make the tiny rooms seem any larger. The living room had a rug with areas almost completely worn through in spots. She guessed that the old rocking chair next to a small table and black gooseneck lamp was where the house’s inhabitant had spent much of his time; it held a flattened, faded seat cushion, and a thin pillow with a grimy gray pillowcase offered minimal back support. A coffee cup rested on the table. She leaned forward just far enough to look in, relieved to see it had a dried coffee stain on the bottom but was otherwise empty. In the kitchen, she found outdated appliances, rust on the stove and sink faucets, the refrigerator’s door handle broken. Everything looked grimy.

  Scout came bounding into the room, wagging his tail at the sight of her.

  “So, what do you think?” she asked the dog, kneeling down to scratch behind his ears. “Could have been worse, you know. Way worse.” Hearing Willa’s footsteps coming down the narrow staircase, she called out, “In here, honey.”

  Her daughter appeared in the doorway, looking pale. “I checked out the bedrooms.”

  Jennie stood. “And?”

  “They’re, like, the size of shoe boxes. I mean, I’m not even kidding. There are two that are a joke, and I don’t think anybody’s been in them for about a hundred years. There’s a third one, the big one, if you want to call it that, but don’t bother. That’s where he must have slept.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “The bed has this nasty brown bedspread. I’m not touching it.”

  Her words reminded Jennie of what was missing here. She walked around a dividing wall that stuck partway out into the kitchen. Hidden behind the wall was a small mudroom leading to the back door, crammed with old boots and work shoes, shovels, rakes, tools, and a large garbage can. With relief, she noted the washer and dryer beneath precarious piles of newspapers. She prayed they worked.

  They recognized the sound of Tim’s footsteps and listened as he paused to peer into the rooms clustered close to the staircase. When he joined them in the kitchen, Jennie saw the famili
ar look in his eyes that said he was about to let his temper get the better of him. It was the expression that typically set his father off, which always resulted in the two of them fighting long and loud. She chose to ignore it whenever possible. She held up a hand as if to stop him.

  “Don’t, Tim, just don’t. There’s nothing you can say that we don’t know.”

  “Can we go back home, please?” He made no effort to hide the fury behind his words. “Like, right now.”

  “You know there’s no ‘back home’ to go to. This is home.”

  “No way. This is nobody’s home. It should be torn down.”

  “Lucky for us it wasn’t. This is about the best thing that’s happened to us in a long time. So we’re going to be grateful and make the best of it.”

  “I shouldn’t have come.” Tim gave his mother a defiant look. “Maybe I won’t stay.”

  “And leave me here alone?” Willa was indignant. “Don’t you dare.”

  Jennie was suddenly developing a headache. “Look, kids, it will be okay, really. We have a lot of work to do, but come on, it’s not so bad. If we clean it up, paint, all that stuff, it’ll be fine.”

  “But it’s here,” Willa moaned. “In this place. This weird, awful place.”

  “You don’t know that it’s weird or awful.” Jennie massaged the bridge of her nose. “It could turn out to be great.”

  “This is not going to be a great place.” Tim’s voice rose. “Not now, not ever. And it’s full of those creepy Amish people. Come on, you saw the crazy buggies on the road. Those ugly black clothes—what’s that about? And no electricity?”

  Jennie had come to regret telling the children about the Amish people who populated the area. She’d thought it would be interesting to them, something they would enjoy learning about. Big mistake on her part, she realized; it had made them dread the move even more.

  “That’s part of their religion.” Shep entered the room. Jennie noted that it only took the four of them standing there to make the kitchen feel crowded. “When you learn more about them, you might be a bit more tolerant. Your ignorance isn’t their problem.”

  “Thanks for the lecture, Dad. You are so right. I’m the ignorant moron, not those people who think they’re living in their own little world while everyone around them is in a different one.”