Amish Christmas Memories. Vannetta Chapman

      Ida started laughing again, and then she spread her arms to encompass the pile of goods their neighbors had brought. “We’ve been pretty busy in here.”

      “I see that.”

      “Our neighbors brought all of these things for Rachel.”

       “Wunderbaar.”

      “Honestly I forgot about making lunch, but I’ll throw some sandwiches together.”

      Caleb nodded as if that made sense. His mother brushed past him, humming as she went into the kitchen.

      “Let me guess.” Rachel couldn’t have stopped the smile spreading across her face if she’d tried, which she didn’t. “You’re not used to eating sandwiches.”

      “Actually I can’t remember the last time Mamm didn’t have lunch waiting on the table.”

      Rachel attempted to make sympathetic noises, but it probably came out like she’d managed to choke on something. She knew she should keep her mouth shut. Instead she said, “Men can make a sandwich, too, Caleb. Maybe you should give your mamm a little bit of a break here. Having me around? It’s a lot of extra work.”

      He narrowed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath.

      Rachel immediately regretted baiting him.

      “Your community has been very nice. They even brought me some appropriate clothing.” Oops. She’d done it again.

      Instead of aggravating Caleb, he seemed to relax. Perhaps poking at one another felt like safe ground to him. “That is a gut thing. I see you even have several kapps and bonnets there.”

      He picked one up. Unfortunately, it happened to be on top of the pile of underclothes. When he glanced down and saw the stack of underthings, he dropped the bonnet, turned a bright shade of red and then pivoted and fled from the room.

      Rachel grabbed a pillow and buried her face in it so that he couldn’t hear her laughter. Which felt so much better than worrying about what Caleb thought of her—that question was behind the laughter. She didn’t want to think about that, though, or about why it mattered.

      She needed to remember who she was. Borrowed clothes, a guest room in someone else’s house and Caleb looking over her shoulder to see if she was following the rules were not how she wanted to live the rest of her life.

       Chapter Three

      Caleb bought the seven alpacas that afternoon.

      His father had finally said, “You saved the money yourself. If it’s what you want, then give it a try.”

      “Strangest animal I’ve ever seen” was his mother’s only comment.

      Caleb spent the rest of the week making sure the alpacas had adequate space in the barn, reinforcing fencing where he would pasture them and generally getting to know the strange beasts.

      His parents came out once a day to check on the animals and his best friend, Gabriel, had been by twice. Mostly he’d laughed at Caleb’s feeble attempts to interact with them.

      As for Rachel, she hadn’t stepped outside of the house at all. If anything, she’d seemed physically worse on Wednesday and Thursday. At one point, his mamm had walked down to the phone shack and contacted the doctor, who had called in a prescription for nausea and told her to be patient. “These things take time” were the doctor’s exact words.

      So Caleb was surprised when he was in the field with the alpacas on Friday morning and looked up to see Rachel leaning against the fence. She wore a proper dress and coat, plus one of the outer bonnets she’d been given, though there was little wind and the sun had melted away every last trace of snow. She also sported sunglasses, an old pair of his mother’s if he remembered correctly. In the crook of her arm she was carrying a bowl that his mother used to dump scraps into.

      “Nice to see you outside.”

      “If I sit in the house one more day, I might go crazy. One can only read so much or do so many crossword puzzles.”

      “I wouldn’t know.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “Only that I work every day from sunrise until dark.”

      “Life of a farmer, I guess.”

      “Amish women work hard, too. At least most of them do.”

      “Kind of hard to find a job if you can’t remember anything more than your first name.”

      Caleb shrugged. Rachel could find work if she wanted it. They both knew it. Instead of defending herself further, she changed the subject.

      “Have you named them?”

      “Nein. We don’t name our cows.”

      “I don’t see any cows.”

      “We only have three—all dairy cows. They’re in the east pasture.”

      “Oh. I guess I haven’t been in that direction yet.” She reached out her hand and one of the alpacas moseyed over to sniff at her palm.

      “I’d call you Mocha.”

      The alpaca stood completely still and allowed her to rub its top notch of hair.

      “How’d you do that? They won’t let me within five feet of them.”

      When the male alpaca began to crunch on something, one of the females bounded over to join him. Soon he could barely see Rachel because the entire herd of alpacas had congregated near the fence. Caleb walked over to see what she was giving him.

      “Apple slices?”

      “Ya. Your mamm is making an apple pie, but she didn’t want to include the skins. It seems like I always did when I baked a pie...” She shook her head back and forth, as if she could rattle the memory free.

      Caleb scratched at his jaw. “I didn’t think of giving them scraps.”

      “Makes sense, though. Most animals enjoy apple slices. We had a dog once that loved them.”

      Her head jerked up and she met Caleb’s gaze, surprise coloring her features.

      “You’re remembering more every day.”

      “Small inconsequential things. It’s frustrating.”

      “Not to my alpacas.”

      She smiled at that, and Caleb felt inexplicably better. He didn’t pretend to understand Rachel, but he somehow thought of himself as responsible for her. Perhaps that was normal considering he’d found her in the snow only a few days before.

      “Did you get a good deal on the animals?”

      “I think so. Less than three thousand dollars for all seven, and there are two females.”

      “Hopefully you’ll have baby alpacas running around by spring.”

      “That’s the plan.”

      “Do you expect they’ll be much work?”

      “Not according to Mr. Vann. They mainly eat hay and grass, though some mineral supplements are good, too.”

      “So you won’t be spending much money to maintain them.”

      “Nein. Also, they don’t bite or butt or spit. I tried raising a llama once, but that didn’t go so well.”

      Rachel crossed her arms on the fence and rested her head on top of them, watching the group of alpacas dart away and then flop and roll in a patch of dirt. He’d seen them do that before, but watching Rachel watching them, seeing the smile grow on her face, he realized