Hannah's Joy (23 page)

An Excerpt from

N
AOMI
’
S
C
HRISTMAS

Pleasant Valley

BOOK SEVEN

by Marta Perry

Coming in November 2012 from Berkley Books

N
aomi
Esch froze in her seat at the family table, unable to stop staring at her father. Daadi had just tossed what felt like a lightning bolt into the middle of her thirtieth birthday celebration. Around her, she could feel her siblings and their spouses stuck in equally unbelieving attitudes.

“Ach, what is wrong with all of you?” Daadi, eyes narrowing, his beard seeming to bristle, glared at his offspring. “This is a reason to celebrate, ain’t so?”

Lovina, her brother Elijah’s wife, was the first to recover, her sweet, heart-shaped face matching her character. “We wish you and Betty much happiness.” She bounced baby Mattie, who’d begun to fuss, in her arms. “Wilkom, Betty.”

Betty Shutz, a round dumpling of a woman with a pair of shrewd brown eyes, nodded and smiled, but the glance she sent toward Naomi was cautious.

Isaiah, the youngest and most impetuous, said what everyone must be thinking. “But what about Naomi? If you and Betty are marrying, what is Naomi to do?”

The question roused Naomi from her frozen state. What was she supposed to do, after fifteen years spent raising her siblings, tending the house and garden and her beehives, and taking care of Daadi?

Daadi’s gaze shifted, maybe a bit uneasily. “Naomi is a gut daughter, none better. No one would deny that. But newlyweds want to have time alone together, ja? So we . . . I was thinking Naomi would move in with Elijah and Lovina. They are both busy with the dry-goods store and three young kinder besides. It would be a big help to you, ja?”

Elijah and Lovina exchanged glances, and then Lovina smiled at Naomi. “Nothing would please us more than to have Naomi with us, but that is for her to say, ain’t so?”

“Denke, Lovina.” Naomi found that her stiff lips could move after all. “But what about my beehives?”

Odd that her thoughts had flown so quickly to her bees in the face of this shock. Or maybe not so odd. The beehives were the only things she could call truly hers.

“I’ve already talked to Dick Holder about the hives, and he’ll be happy to give Naomi a gut price for them.” Daad spoke as if it were all settled, her life completely changed in a few short minutes.

“I will not sell the hives.” Naomi could hardly believe that strong tone was coming out of her mouth. Everyone else looked equally surprised. Maybe they’d never heard such firmness from her.

Daad’s eyebrows drew down as he stared at her. “Komm, Naomi, don’t be stubborn. It is the sensible thing to do. Betty is allergic to bee stings, so the hives cannot stay here. And Elijah’s home in town isn’t suitable. The money will give you a nice little nest egg for the future.”

A babble of talk erupted around her as everyone seemed to have an opinion, but Naomi’s thoughts were stuck on the words Daad had used. Her future. He clearly thought he knew what that future was to be. She should move from one sibling to another, helping to raise their children, never having a home or a life of her own.

She was engaging in selfish thinking, maybe, unfitting for a humble Amish person. But . . .

She looked around the table. Elijah, the younger brother she’d comforted when bad dreams woke him in the night. Anna and Mary, the next two in the family. She’d taught the girls everything they needed to know as Amish women, overseen their rumspringas, seen them married to gut men they loved. And Isaiah, the baby, the one whose first stumbling steps she’d guided. Were they to be her future, as they had been her past?

Much as she loved them, her heart yearned for more. Marriage might have passed her by during those years when she was busy raising her siblings, but she’d looked forward to a satisfying future taking care of Daad, tending her hives, enjoying her part-time work at the bakery.

Amos, Elijah’s middle child, just two, tugged on her skirt. A glance at his face told her he’d detected the strain in the air. She lifted him to her lap, running her hand down his back, murmuring soothing words. He leaned against her, relaxing, sucking on two fingers as he always did before going to sleep.

Lovina met her gaze from across the table and smiled. “Naomi is wonderful gut with children.”

“For sure,” Betty said, her first contribution to the conversation. “A widower with kinder would do well to have a wife like Naomi.”

Somehow that comment, coming from Betty, was the last straw. Naomi had to speak now, and quickly, before the rest of her life was set in stone by the family.

“You are all ser kind to give so much thought to my life. But as dearly as I love my nieces and nephews, I have no wish to raise them. And I will not give up my beehives. So I think I must find this answer for myself.”

She took advantage of the ensuing silence to move the sleeping child to his father’s arms. Grabbing a heavy wool shawl from the peg by the back door, she walked out, closing the door gently behind her.