Amish Christmas Joy by Patricia Davids Page A

alone.
    * * *
     
    Leah wasn’t surprised when her sister came over that evening. Although they made a habit of visiting each other at least once a month, the closeness they once shared was missing. Leah knew part of that was her fault.
    “Do you know what you are doing?” Rhonda demanded.
    “Good evening, Rhonda. Won’t you at least let me take your coat before you start scolding me?”
    “I can’t stay. Why are you befriending Caleb Mast?”
    “We talked about this at church. I don’t believe I have befriended him. He wants to enroll his daughter in our school. She has special needs. It’s important that I know what those are. I’m sure the school board will ask for my input on his request. I take my job seriously.”
    Rhonda paced the small kitchen. “I don’t know why he had to come back.”
    Leah softened her tone. “He doesn’t intend to stay long. He’ll be gone and things will get back to normal, except Maggie and Ike will have another grandchild in school, and David will have a new cousin.”
    “I don’t want David to have anything to do with Caleb or his Englisch daughter. Wayne won’t tolerate it.”
    “I’m sorry he feels that way. Joy is a wonderful child who has led a very sad life. I think she can be happy here. I think she can learn our ways and become a productive member of our community. I hope he can see that. As a member of the school board, his acceptance of her is important.”
    “What if her father changes his mind and comes to take her away?”
    “Is that what’s wrong? Are you and Wayne afraid Caleb has come back to claim his son?”
    “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
    Leah drew her sister close. “He gave up any right to David when he denied him years ago. Wayne is David’s father in every sense of the word.”
    “In every sense but one, and that is the most important.”
    “That is the least important part of being a father. Wayne loves David. He could not love him more if he tried.”
    “I know.” Suddenly there were tears streaming down Rhonda’s face. “But every time he sees my son he is reminded of my sin. I can tell by the way he looks at me. He can barely touch me. He is so angry now that Caleb is back. I don’t know what to do.”
    Leah led her weeping sister to the sofa and sat beside her. She had always suspected that things weren’t good between Rhonda and Wayne, but her sister had never spelled it out so plainly. Nor had Leah asked.
    Rhonda looked up with pain-filled eyes. “You hate me, too.”
    “Oh, Rhonda, I don’t hate you.”
    “I ruined everything for you.”
    “You did what you thought was best for you and your child.”
    “We don’t talk like we used to. Remember when we were girls, we would huddle together under the quilts at home and talk about the boys we liked and the kind of lives we wanted to live? We used to laugh so much. We never laugh anymore.”
    Leah had been deeply hurt when Wayne broke their engagement to marry Rhonda. As the youngest child, Rhonda had always seemed to end up with the best of everything. She had been the prettiest girl in Hope Springs. Everyone said so. She was smarter, more popular, more outgoing—she was everything that Leah wasn’t.
    Rhonda could have told Wayne no. She could’ve gone to stay with their childless cousin in Indiana. The couple would have welcomed her and raised her baby as their own. It seemed to Leah that Rhonda was intent on spoiling her life, too, since she had ruined her own.
    Leah had let her bitterness simmer, and it had tainted her relationship with her sister. It wasn’t right.
    “I remember how it was. We used to laugh all the time. You must come and stay with me for a few days. Wayne and David can manage without you. Who knows, Wayne may realize how much he misses you, for I believe he loves you, even if he has trouble showing it.”
    Rhonda pressed a hand to her scarred cheek. “If only I wasn’t so ugly.”
    “You are not ugly, and you must never say so again. That is