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“Hey, Jacob!” Mark shouted from beside the grocery store, waving his hand in the air. “Come quick! I have an idea!”
Jacob secretly hoped that Mark's 'idea' was to go indoors. Unbeknownst to his friend, he'd just spent no less than five hours outdoors, and his lips were on the verge of turning blue, or perhaps he was up for losing a finger. Either way.
“Okay so,” Mark began. Jacob knew this could be no good. No matter where he was, in the city or in Hope Crossing, when someone started out a conversation with 'okay so', something bad was sure to follow. He was right. “I was in the store over there, the one with the screens, (he called television sets screens) and I saw what they did to this tree.”
“You mean the Christmas tree?” He'd seen the tree last year; it was a simple lit Christmas tree without decorations. He'd always assumed that the shop owner was too lazy to take it any further. “The one with the lights?”
“Yeah, what else would I mean?” Mark placed his arm around Jacob and hunched down, as if he were a mobster trying to relay a trade secret. “Look, I got myself two boxes of those Christmas lights and I was thinkin'...well...you know that huge pine tree by the road here? The one you can see from the school?”
“I've seen it,” Jacob admitted, his stomach starting to churn.
He'd seen that tree far too many times.
“Okay, here's my plan. We're going to take these Christmas lights and—”
“Mark, I kissed Deborah.”
Mark paused for the briefest of seconds; his expression frozen, almost as if he could not properly process the information, and then he went back to what he was saying.
“—decorate the tree.”
“What are you going to do for power?”
“The school has a white gas generator; they're using it for the Christmas pageant. All we have to do is plug in!”
“You do realize,” Jacob said. “That the school isn't right next to the tree, right?”
“I, oh, I know, but I have seven hundred yards of Christmas lights. I can use the rest of it as an extension cord! I'm going to make this happen!”
“Well, did you get any spare lights?”
“Why would I need spares? We have enough!” “Well—“
“And what are you two up to?” Sarah Mast asked, coming up behind them.
“Christmas shopping!” Mark shouted, nearly jumping out of his skin.
“Your family makes Christmas presents for each other, Mark,” Sarah said, walking around to the front of them. “What are you really doing?”
She was holding a huge package, which might have been suspicious under any other circumstances; however, the label indicated she'd been at the fabric shop.
“Are you making something for Dorothy?” Jacob inquired, pointing at the fabric. Sarah immediately curled her lip up, forming a disgusted expression as she often did when he said the name.
“Her name is MOTHER. You can call her MOTHER, same as I do.”
“That's my choice,” Jacob said sternly. Sarah giggled uncontrollably.
“Jacob is trying to be tough again!”
“Don't underestimate him,” Mark said. “I once saw him catch a fish thiiiiiis big!”
“Mark,” Jacob said. “That joke isn't even funny in the English world.”
“What's in the box?” Sarah asked, pointing to the box at Mark's feet. Jacob had assumed they were Christmas lights.
“That's super-secret Christmas stuff,” Mark grinned. “You can't see it yet.”
“What do they do for Christmas in the English world?” Sarah asked Jacob, though she had asked this question at least a million and one times before.
“Well, there are presents, apple cider, and things like that. Usually there is a fight over something stupid...oh, and then there are the movies. Christmas movies play for three months straight.”
“That sounds...weird...” Sarah said.
“If you think that's weird you should see the Halloween movies.”
“What do you mean?” Mark asked, raising an eyebrow.
Jacob had never told them about the English tradition of watching scary movies right before and after Halloween, and briefly contemplated the repercussions of introducing Mark and Sarah to 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'.
“Well,” Jacob said. “In the English world, we like to terrify ourselves before Halloween. I guess it's more fun if you think a serial killer is coming after you.”
“There's a lot wrong with you guys,” Sarah pointed out. “Preaching to the choir,” Jacob muttered.As they stood there in the middle of town speaking with one another, they were almost oblivious to the tourist traffic wandering around. Exactly eight people had stopped to take a photo of them, standing there talking, and most of the Englischers had made a point to walk around them with a wide berth. Jacob had been here long enough to become accustomed to being treated like an animal in a zoo, and at this point, he barely noticed.
Tourism in Hope Crossing had apparently increased over the past few years because of Rachel Troyer's 'Whoopie pie' experiment. The popularity of her pies had increased tourism, but only to her grocery store, and occasionally the town's bed and breakfast. For some reason, other shops in Hope Crossing were still on the decline, and this had prompted several in town to demand a rather unconstitutional redistribution of wealth.
“I need poster board!” Sarah Mast announced. “For the pageant. We have to make signs!”
“For what? Doesn't everyone know what's happening by now?” Mark asked, taking off his hat momentarily to scratch his head.
“No silly, for the kids. We have to write down their lines on poster board so they can see it!”
“How hard is it to remember Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and the two wise men?” Mark demanded.
“Three,” Jacob corrected. “What?”
“Three wise men and three shepherds.”
“Well, at Mister Smarty Pants,” Mark said, rolling his eyes a bit. “Oh no, look at that,”
The three of them directed their attention across the street, and Jacob nearly lost his lunch. It was Mr. Weaver. He was just popping out of the hardware store, holding a plastic bag.
“You have to hide me,” Jacob said, ducking behind Sarah. “What's your problem?” Sarah demanded.
“The problem is Mr. Weaver just went to the hardware store to buy Jacob's murder weapon,” Mark said, trying hard to keep himself from howling with laughter.
“Why would Mr. Weaver want to kill you?” Sarah demanded as she followed Jacob through a walkway between the grocery store and a 'All you can Eat Amish Buffet'.
“Oh, he didn't tell you?” Mark asked, still laughing as they turned a corner and ended up in a small gravel parking lot behind the store where several horses were hitched. “He kissed Deborah Weaver!”
Sarah stopped dead in her tracks. It was almost as if a pair of brakes had been slammed, and she even managed to skid across the gravel.
“Say that again?” She asked, raising an eyebrow. “You heard me, let's get to our buggy,”
“I think we should just grab Jacob and toss him into the street,” Sarah muttered as she reluctantly followed them behind the buildings.
“We could be overreacting,” Mark pointed out. “He didn't actually look at us. He probably didn't even see us.”
“Not us,” Sarah hissed, “him!”
“Yeah, I'm the bad guy,” Jacob said. “Blame it all on me. “Accurate,” Mark confirmed.
They continued running behind buildings, eventually emerging back onto the main street. There was no sign of Mr. Weaver, nor anyone else they needed to avoid. Apparently, their paranoia had been unnecessary.
***
“So your name is...Gretchen...” Thomas said, circling the table as he studied the young, dark haired woman. He probably should not have considered her young, as she was nearly his age, but he had a way of looking down on Englischers. Not that he didn't have good reason. Each time he encountered one; he couldn't help but be reminded of that business with his grandfather so many years ago. He did have an outstanding way of controlling his temper, especially in situations where it was of the utmost importance. “What is it that you think you're doing here?”
“I came to see my son,” Gretchen stated, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead.
Thomas knowing Jacob would be out of the house for several hours, doing...whatever it is he did at that time of day, had taken the liberty of inviting Gretchen over for lunch, though, at thispoint, it was more of an interrogation than a lunch. Dorothy was milling around in the background, trying her best to listen in on the conversation while preparing sandwiches.
“You came to see your son after...how many years has it been?” Thomas inquired, standing at the opposite end of the table.
“Fifteen,” She said. “It's been fifteen years. Can I see him?
Please?”
“Whatever possessed you to come seek him out after fifteen years?”
“I just...I feel like I made a mistake. Well no, not really,” She said, wiping her forehead again. “At the time, you see, I couldn't take care of him. It just...there were too many things going on.”
“And what about now?” Dorothy asked as she set the sandwiches on the table. “Are there too many things going on now?”
“Well no, of course not,” She stammered a bit. “That's why I'm here I mean—”
“Why don't we just get down to it,” Thomas said. “Okay?.” Gretchen said.
“Are you here to take Thomas away?”
“Well...I don't know,” She said. “I mean does he want to come with me?”
“He's built a life here over the last two years,” Thomas said. “We've become pretty fond of him, if you catch my meaning.”
“I'm not trying to take him away from you,” Gretchen said, trying her hand at being reassuring. “I just...I just want to know my son. Is that too much to ask?”
“That'll be up to him,” Thomas said. “You could push it, I suppose, but you'll want to think about the foundation of your relationship with him. Push it too hard or it at the wrong time, and it is sure to crack. And those cracks, while you can fill them in all you want, are never going to go away, and your foundation will never be the same. I sure wouldn't build on a cracked foundation.”
“I'm not sure if I take your meaning...” Gretchen said. “No, you probably wouldn't.”
