of spending time with Morris made her cringe. She couldn’t do it. Panic hit her full in the face. She crumpled the letter and jumped to her feet. “Someone else will have to go.”
She ran out of the room and up the stairs with her heart hammering wildly in her chest. She was staring out her bedroom window struggling to regain her composure when Naomi came in. Without turning around, Greta said, “I can’t do it.”
Naomi slipped an arm across Greta’s shoulders. “Betsy has said she will go.”
Greta flinched. Her little sister was no match for Morris. “Betsy is too young. He’s too mean. You don’t know how he is. He can make her feel worthless with nothing but words. He doesn’t even need his stick to beat her down.”
“I’m not saying it will be easy for her, but she’s willing to do it to spare you.”
Greta bit the corner of her lip. “I’m afraid, Naomi.”
“Of what, child?”
“That I’ll turn back into the groveling, miserable person I was when I lived with him. He called me Mouse because I was always scurrying out of his path. I existed—I didn’t live. I was dead inside.”
She still was. In spite of all she had read about surviving abuse, she knew Morris still had a hold over her. “I don’t have Lizzie’s courage.”
Naomi enfolded her in a fierce hug. “Courage is fear that has said its prayers. God will give you all you need if you depend on Him.”
Drawing strength from the woman she had come to love and admire, Greta nodded. Now it was her turn to be brave. To prove to herself and to him that she wasn’t worthless. “All right, I will go.”
Naomi pulled away to look into Greta’s eyes. “Are you sure?”
She would be coolly polite. She would ignore her uncle’s hurtful ways, and she would never, ever let him make her feel like an inadequate person again. “Ja.”
They returned to the kitchen, and both women took a seat at the table. Naomi said, “It’s settled. Greta will go.”
Afraid her sisters would read the fear in her eyes Greta kept her gaze on her hands clasped together on the table. “I’ll take the bus there and accompany him in the van on his journey. I’ll write to Morris and his bishop and tell them to expect me in four days. That should give them enough time to arrange everything.”
“Gott willing, you will be home two days later,” Naomi added.
Greta let out a deep sigh and looked around the table. “I really don’t want to bring him into this house.”
The sisters exchanged glances. Clara said, “We feel the same, but perhaps this is a test of our compassion. It is the Christmas season, after all. How can we abandon Onkel Morris, ill and alone, knowing that God sent His only Son into this world to teach us to care for one another, even those who hate us?”
“The right thing to do is not always the easy thing to do,” Betsy added in resignation.
“Perhaps his illness has shown Morris the error of his ways, and he is ready to mend our family fences,” Lizzie suggested in a falsely bright tone.
Greta wouldn’t count on it. Of all the ways she had imagined spending her first Christmas at her new home, none of them included sharing it with mean old Morris.
“Joseph, you have very wise granddaughters,” Naomi said with a tender smile.
He nodded. “That may be true, but I’m with Greta. I’ll take him in, but I don’t want the man here, either. Morris will find a way to ruin our Christmas. You mark my words.”
They were going home at last.
Toby Yoder knelt in front of his ten-year-old sister’s wheelchair inside the huge lobby of the Fort Wayne Medical Center. The soaring two-story tall glass windows let the light pour in around her. It reflected off the gleaming marble floors and the chrome legs of the chairs and tables near them. Swags of greenery and red bows adorned the front of the large curved cherrywood reception desk while a massive white Christmas tree with blue ornaments and a gleaming silver star dominated the center of the lobby. Every table had a potted poinsettia or an arrangement of cinnamon-scented pinecones in the center.
Signs of the holy season were everywhere, but they couldn’t lighten his heart.
Marianne wouldn’t look at the sunshine, or the Christmas decorations—or at him. She sat slumped into the corner of the chair as if hiding from the world in a donated black coat that was too big for her. She looked worn to the bone already and she had been up less than half an hour. She was still so weak. His funny, fun-loving and energetic little sister was a shell of her former self and it was his fault.
If it took the rest of his life, he would make it up to her.
He forced a smile for her benefit. “We don’t have to leave town today, Marianne. My old roommates won’t mind if you want to stay at their apartment. It’s not far from here. You can rest up for a few days before we travel to Pennsylvania. I’ll make arrangements for another driver to take us then.”
She shook her head slightly. “Nee. Take me home now,” she whispered.
She hadn’t spoken more than a few whispered words to him since the fire that took the lives of their parents and put her in the hospital. In spite of that, she managed to make it clear she wanted to go back to Pennsylvania. She didn’t want to stay in Indiana.
A non-Amish family walked in through the hospital doors. Several of the children stared openly at Toby and Marianne. Dressed in traditional Amish clothing and wearing a black flat-topped felt hat, Toby knew he stood out from ordinary visitors to the hospital. Although there were large Amish settlements in the area, Amish folks rarely ventured into the heart of the city.
Marianne pulled her oversize black bonnet forward to cover the still raw-looking burns on the left side of her face and neck. She hated people staring at her. A stab of pity took the smile from Toby’s face. He would give anything to undo the decisions that had led to her pain, but that wasn’t possible. God should have put him in her place that night. She should have been the one left unscathed.
The elevator door across the lobby opened and a nurse came out pushing another wheelchair. In it sat an Amish elder wearing a heavy frown. His pale face was almost as gray as his long beard. A young man in scrubs followed them, pushing a cart laden with several suitcases. He left the cart parked near the door and joined the nurse. “Take care of yourself, Mr. Barkman. Merry Christmas.” With a nod, a wink and a thumbs-up to the nurse, he went back to the elevators.
“I don’t see why you’re kicking me out in the cold. What kind of hospital is this?” Mr. Barkman grumbled.
“We aren’t kicking you out, Mr. Barkman. Your driver is on his way. He has picked up your niece at the bus station, and they’ll be here soon. You’re going home with her.”
“That’s no comfort to me. My nieces are the cause of this, you know. Their disgraceful behavior shamed me and put all the work of the farm on my shoulders. It was too much for a
