Emma Miller - The Christmas Courtship

“ Ya , and smart.” She looked up at her cousin, her eyes glistened. “And sweet. He’s already trying to be helpful. Just yesterday I was folding dishcloths and he wanted to help.” She chuckled at the memory. “He made a mess of it of course, but I let him try.”

“It’s the only way they learn,” Rosemary said, chuckling with her.

The women were both silent again for a moment, watching the boys play. Rosemary produced several more hand-carved wooden toys. They were unadorned with paint, but still beautiful and easily recognizable even to a child. There were two chickens, a cow and an animal that took Phoebe a moment to identify.

“Is that...is that a llama ?” Phoebe asked, watching Josiah try to push the wooden animal beneath the pillow his mother rested her foot on.

“It’s an alpaca, a cousin of the llama.” Rosemary laughed. “Our vet, Albert Hartman, raises them. Lives over Seven Poplars way. Used to be Mennonite but now he’s Amish. Married to my friend Hannah. Anyway, Benjamin took the twins to see them a few weeks ago and our boys were fascinated. I’m just waiting for a trailer to pull up in the barnyard and for Benjamin to unload a herd of alpacas.”

Phoebe grinned at the idea.

“Apparently, they can be quite profitable,” Rosemary went on. “Or so Benjamin was telling me. I think he was trying to butter me up.”

This time, when the women fell into silence again, it was a comfortable one. All of Phoebe’s apprehensions about coming to Hickory Grove, her fears that her cousin and family would judge her for her past, were suddenly gone. For the first time in a very long time, she felt at peace. She felt God’s nearness and the belief that she was doing what He wanted her to do.

“I want you to know, Phoebe,” Rosemary said slowly, “that Benjamin and I think it was very brave of you to come here.” She met Phoebe’s gaze. “It was the right thing to do for your son.”

Phoebe gazed into her cousin’s green eyes. “It was kind of you to welcome me.” She hesitated. “Considering—”

“Considering what?” Rosemary asked, sounding annoyed with her. “You stumbled. Who of us hasn’t?”

Phoebe looked down at her hands folded in her lap. “It was more than a stumble. What I did was a sin.”

“Did you love the boy’s father?”

Phoebe was surprised by her cousin’s forthrightness, but she probably shouldn’t have been. Rosemary’s family, the environment she raised her family in, was so different than that of her own. “Ya,” Phoebe murmured, tears welling in her eyes, against her will. “I loved him, and he loved me. We had made plans to marry, John and I. He—” Her voice caught in her throat. She took a breath and went on. “He had put a deposit down on a farm. We were going to live near a creek,” she managed, remembering how happy she had been the day he had taken her in his wagon to see the property. “And then he...he died. A cave-in in his father’s silo.” She lifted her hands and let them fall into her lap. “And then I had John-John and that was that.”

“I understand what our preachers speak of, but don’t know that I believe that it’s ever a sin to love,” Rosemary said thoughtfully.

“Ne,” Phoebe argued, taking a toy sheep from the basket and offering it to James. “I sinned. We sinned.”

“And then you confessed before your bishop and your church,” Rosemary countered. “And no more need be said.”

Phoebe looked up and saw that Rosemary’s eyes were misty. And Phoebe knew in her heart of hearts that everything really was going to be all right.

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