Christmas at Rose Hill Farm (20 page)

He found his father lying on the La-Z-Boy recliner in the living room and was shocked by the changes in his appearance. Painfully thin, a gray pallor to his skin, less of his thinning swoop of gray hair on his head than ever. His eyes were closed and for a second, Billy thought he might have already passed.

“What do you want?” His father's voice sounded flat, wary, deeper and gruffer than usual.

“It's me.” He moved no closer, but stayed where he was at the edge of the kitchen door. “It's me, Dad. It's Billy.”

His father's eyes flew open and Billy was shocked to see the whites of his eyes were yellow-tinged.

His father squinted for a closer look. “Take off your hat so's I can see you.”

Once the hat was off, Billy stood fidgeting, letting his father get a look at his face. “So, boy. Where you been?”

He curled a hand around his hat brim. “Here and there.” He lifted his chin defiantly. “Working with roses.”

His father gave up a short snort. “Figured.”

Billy moved closer to the recliner and studied his father's form. “I heard that Sam and Ben and Mose are gone.”

A spasm of coughing gripped his father and Billy felt a spike of concern. The room was so cold, the air so dank. He moved to add some chunks of kindling to the fire Caleb had started in the wood-burning stove, and filled up a teakettle with water to set on top of it.

He sensed his father's eyes following him as he moved about the dimly lit room. He washed a mug and found a tea bag in the cupboard, then brought a cup of soothing chamomile tea to his father. When he reached for it, he shifted into a sitting position and Billy put some pillows behind his back to support him.

“Sit down. You're making me dizzy.”

Billy scraped a chair up to sit next to his father and stared into his familiar eyes. The lines on his face had deepened. He looked old, tired, and beaten, and an unexpected urge to protect him rose within Billy. “Maggie Zook tells me you're dying.”

His father waved his palm. “You know how Maggie tells tales. I'm just a little under the weather.” But they both knew that wasn't true.

Billy looked up and met his father's eyes squarely. “We have some things to settle between us.”

As Billy's father studied his face, he saw a weariness in his eyes that went bone deep. “Yeah, I know.”

The room grew still. Outside, a soft snow had begun, but inside the fire glowed gold and pink. In the firelit room all was silent, waiting for the words that hovered between them to be spoken. “Dad, I never stole that cast-iron bank.”

For a moment, his father's eyes were tormented. “I know. Your brothers did.” His voice fell to a murmur. “I suspected it all along.”

“You knew? You never thought to come find me? To tell me that?”

“I was . . .” He gulped to a stop and Billy saw his body tremble. His father's eyes pinched tightly closed. “I was angry about the Bann. Too stubborn.”

Billy sighed and slumped his shoulders in relief. “Must be a family trait. I was too angry and stubborn to come home. Until now.”

His father silenced him with a movement of his hand. “I thought you were getting high and mighty. Thought you needed to be taken down a peg.”

“You were right. I was. And I did.” It was Billy who needed to take the first step, his heart thumping hard. “Can you forgive me?”

“You? I'm the one . . .” His voice grew even more raspy as he went on. “I'm the one who needs . . .”

Self-consciousness suddenly bloomed between them, for the words needed not be said to be felt. His father held out his hand, and Billy took it. His grip was claw-like. Surprising strength for a weary man. “You're home now,” his father said, his voice gravelly with emotion. “That's what matters.”

Hearing his father's words brought a great, crushing feeling of relief to Billy. His father's eyes drifted shut and he slept, his chest lifting painfully, a hissing sound whistling between each breath that escaped his dry lips.

The death rattle had set in, Maggie had said. Pneumonia.

Billy sat on a chair, slumped over, watching his father's labored breathing. He felt a quiet, a deep calm that he didn't want to leave or disturb. He stayed very still, and his mind and heart grew still as well.

Suddenly, he realized he wasn't alone.

George had come and was leaning against the doorjamb of the kitchen, arms crossed, one ankle looped over the other.

Billy leapt to his feet. “Oh wow.” His heart went wild. The room seemed to spin around crazily while he stared at George,
struggling to comprehend the incredible. At last he stammered again in a choked voice, “Wow. Wow. Wow. You're not a hobo, are you?”

George smiled. “I never said I was. You called me that.”

Now Billy understood why George's presence always brought him a measure of ease. His tranquility somehow seeped into him and calmed him. “You're a death angel, aren't you? An avenging angel.”

George's eyebrows lifted in amusement. “What's that?”

“You kill people. Like in the Old Testament, during Passover.” Billy made a sweeping paintbrush movement, like he was marking a house. “Don't tell me you weren't there.”

“Actually, I wasn't there. Not me. There's rather a lot of us.” He crossed the room to warm his hands by the wood-burning stove. “Lots of misconceptions about angels out there. But I do get a kick out of some of them. Hollywood. Crazy stuff.” He rolled his eyes. “My biggest pet peeve is when Hollywood makes it seem like angels wish they could be on Earth, like they're missing something. We come from a place that is without sin. Hard for you folks to understand, but there's a whiter white than what your eyes can see. Bluer blues. Greener greens. Once you get a taste of Heaven, you never long for Earth. ‘For a day in thy courts is better than a thousand.' I believe that's in Psalms.” He sat down in a chair across from Billy, pulled an apple and pocketknife out of his jacket, and sliced the apple. He stabbed it with the tip of the knife and picked it up. “You want it?”

Billy shook his head and eased back in his seat.
Man, this angel eats
constantly.

“I'm always hungry when I'm down here. Never feel satisfied.”

“It kind of freaks me out when you read my mind.”

George chuckled. “Another misconception. Angels aren't omniscient. Not even the Dark One.” He ducked his chin and
peered at Billy as if to say,
And
we all know who that is.
“We don't need to be mind readers. You people give yourselves away. Just to straighten things out, only the Father is omniscient.” He chewed a slice of apple. “I'll grant you one thing—we angels do seem to scare people a lot.”

Billy was lost. “Wait a minute. If you're a death angel, you're here for my father, right?” His eyes went wide. “Or are you here for me? That's what you meant by a lot at stake, isn't it? Am I the one who's dying?” His heart started pounding again.

“Interesting question. Everyone and everything is in a state of decline. You know it as the Second Law of Thermodynamics. We call it the fallen world. As for the moment of
your
death—no, that's not happening right now. There will be a day when your time on earth comes to its end. But that won't be a minute before your life is complete.” He went into the kitchen to find a mug, helped himself to a tea bag, then poured the mug full of hot water from the teapot on top of the wood-burning stove.

George sat back down again and stretched out his legs, steeping the tea bag in the mug with a steady beat, up and down, up and down. “Earlier today, a fellow had a heart attack and the ambulance was driving him to the hospital. His heart had stopped. But then the ambulance hit a pothole and jump-started his heart. He's good as new.” He made a seesawing motion with his hand. “Sort of. He was a little shaken up. But he's back on track now.” He took a sip of the tea. “Nothing like a little jolt of mortality to get a man interested in knowing his Maker.”

“George . . . did you put that pothole in the street?” Billy held out his wrist. “Did you send Amos to find me that Christmas afternoon?”

George grinned, revealing a row of even white teeth. “Tell you what. We'll have a lot of time in the future to talk about curious coincidences. For now, let's talk about why I'm here.”

“Why are you here?”

“What do you think?”

Exasperated, Billy's hands flew up in the air. This angel couldn't give a straight answer. “If I could figure that out, why would I think you're here to kill me?”

“That's another pet peeve—that people think angels are sent to kill. Only God determines when a person's life on earth is complete.”

“I never thought I'd hear an angel say he had a pet peeve.” Though Billy never thought he'd be having a conversation with an angel, either.

“Well, sure.” George sliced off another piece of apple and chewed it. “We do have personalities. Michael, for example, he's always in a hurry. Eager to carry out his business and get home again. Me, I like to take my time. Get to know my business.”

Billy coughed a laugh. “So . . . I'm your business?”

George smiled. “Since August 3, 1962.”

“What happened then?”

“You don't remember?” George chuckled. “You were seven and saw a rainbow. You looked up at the sky and said, ‘Thank you, God.'
That
was your moment.”

“My moment for what?”

“Of first knowing God. Thanking him. Giving praise. That was when your spiritual journey truly began. That was when you were pointed out to me. ‘Keep an eye on that one,' Mario told me.” He squinted and looked at the ceiling. “I think it was Mario. Might have been Monroe.”

When had Billy last looked at a rainbow and thanked God for it? He felt so far from God right now. And now, when he needed God the most, he had no right to ask for help. “Let me get this straight. If you're not a death angel, then you're a guardian angel?”

George smiled. “One of many. ‘For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.' Another Psalm.
You folks down here . . . you need a lot of help.” He leaned back in the chair. “I'm not saying it's easy. There's a lot of troublemakers around here. You'd be amazed. They're all over, just looking for ways to drag a soul down.” He glanced at Billy's sleeping father.

“It doesn't seem to take much.”

George laughed. “No. No, it doesn't. Takes a lot to keep your eyes on the prize.” He lifted his eyes upward. “Oh, but what a prize awaits, Billy. Have no fear. ‘But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.'” He dropped his head. “Paul penned that in a letter to the Corinthians, I believe.”

“Then, the Bible is relevant to you, in Heaven? I would think it would be kind of . . . old news.”

“‘For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.' Another Psalm. I love those Psalms.” George was watching him, with eyes as exacting as calipers. “You still don't get it, do you? ‘If we believe not,
yet
he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.' A letter to Timothy, I believe.” He sighed, growing exasperated with Billy's denseness. “Seriously, man! Do you not
ever
read the Good Book?”

Billy chose not to answer
.
It just hadn't occurred to him to look to the
Bible
for answers.

“It means that God is faithful, even if you are not.” George closed his eyes and shook his head, as if to say,
What a wasted opportunity.
“You know, a lot of problems in life would be solved if you people would just read the Word of God. It's all there. Everything you need to know.” George reached out to adjust the quilt that lay over Billy's father. “All you need to do is to accept God's help. Just ask, Billy.” He leaned back. “You did it before.” He glanced down at Billy's wrist.

Billy's turned his wrist over and thought of how differently
he would have handled his family had he known how much he mattered to God, if he'd known he hadn't been forgotten, if he'd realized he was being looked after. He had felt so hopeless, so all alone. And yet he had never been alone, not even during that hard time.

For a long time, they sat without speaking, sipping on their tea, honoring the deep quiet. It was past midnight. Billy felt unnaturally alert, aware of the preciousness of each passing hour. Once or twice, his father's eyes flickered open, then closed again.

Then George stirred, as if he was preparing to leave.

“Don't go, George.” Billy cleared his throat. “Please don't go.” He wanted George with him this long night.

George smiled. “I won't go until you're ready for me to go.”

His father's head bobbed slightly, then fell back down. His chest seemed to strain for each bit of air.

Billy closed his eyes—
Lord, don
't let George leave, not yet
—and knew that the gift of faith was being offered to him. From somewhere inside him a yes rose up, and an unfamiliar peace replaced the restlessness in his soul.

When he opened his eyes, George was gone. On the chair, neatly folded, was the blue winter coat Billy had given to him on the day he had first met him, and the handful of twenties he had paid him for working in the greenhouse.

A
mos and Maggie had spent the morning wandering in and out of shops in Stoney Ridge, looking for a gift for Bess for Christmas.

“I don't know why the thimble with roses won't do,” Maggie said. “It's beautiful. It's stunning. It's exquisite.”

“It just doesn't seem quite right.”

Maggie stopped in front of a bench and flopped down. Amos sat down beside her, looking up the street to see what other options there might be: the fabric store, the Hay & Grain, the Acme grocery store.

“Doesn't it tell you something, Amos, that you don't even know what to get Bess?”

Amos's lips compressed and a muscle ticked in his jaw, but he stared squarely at Maggie. “What are you getting at?”

Softly, Maggie said, “Amos, it might be that you have an idea of who Bess is, who you
want
her to be, without really knowing her.”

“No,” Amos said, peeved. Maggie thought she knew everything. “You're wrong about that. I know her. I've known her for years. I know her very well. Very, very well.”

Maggie sighed. “I've tried to be kind, but I can't hold back any longer. Amos, Bess just doesn't feel the same way about you that you feel about her.”

He snapped a glance at her, then turned away again.

She seemed to be waiting for something. “You've got a strange way of not saying things, Amos. How's a friend supposed to help when you keep closed up so?”

He heard something confrontational in Maggie's voice. He didn't want to fight. He didn't want to feel. He didn't want to think. He didn't want to know. “Bess made a promise to me,” he said in a raspy voice. “We made a promise to each other.”

“She can't help her feelings for Billy any more than you can help your feelings for her.”

Amos stared at her, not moving a muscle.

Maggie pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Sometimes you can't stop yourself from loving someone.” She lifted troubled eyes to him, then looked away. “As much as you try, you just can't help yourself.”

A poignant silence fell.

“After Christmas, she said we could set a date. She hasn't told me she wants to call off our wedding. Just postpone it.”

“You have to be the one to let her go, Amos. She won't break things off with you, but not setting a date is her way of telling you. That's just the way Bess is.” She took his hands and squeezed them, in a grip that surprised him. “I'm not saying this to hurt you. I wouldn't be a good friend to you if I didn't tell you the truth and I always tell the truth. Marriage is hard enough without being married to someone who would rather be with someone else.”

Hearing in her voice what he already knew brought a great, crushing feeling to Amos's heart. For a moment they both concentrated on their joined hands. “Thank you, Maggie,” came his gruff words. “And I want to be just as good a friend to you.”
He leaned toward her. “Stop lying to your father and take that teaching job.”

Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened to a silent
O
.

During the night, snow had started to fall. Bess woke early, wide awake, and decided to do the barn chores for her father. A Christmas Eve gift for him. She fed Frieda and the chickens in the henhouse, then went into the greenhouse to check on the mystery rose, half hoping it would be open, half dreading it would be open. When it did, Billy would identify the rose and then he would leave.

Two minutes later, she left a message on the answering machine at the shanty of Billy's father's farm. “The rose has bloomed!” And then she waited for him.

All during the morning hours, snow continued to fall. The snow lay on the land nearly six inches deep, with little sign of abating, though it was a gentle storm: no wind, fat downy snowflakes. After lunch, Bess waited for Billy in the greenhouse, wondering if she should go over to his farm. But then again, if his father was passing, it would seem terribly awkward to walk in and happily tell him that a flower had bloomed. She heard the door click open and eagerly spun around to face the door, smiling brightly. “It's here! It's bloomed!”

There stood Amos. Her eyes widened in surprise. He couldn't have missed the droop of disappointment on her face as she realized he wasn't whom she expected.

“Mind if I come in? It's cold out here.”

“Oh, of course!”

Halfway down the brick path, he stopped. “Has there been a death message yet about Billy's father?”

“Nothing yet.”

“I haven't given your Christmas present to you yet, Bess,” he
said, his voice soft. “Maggie helped me pick it out.” He fished in his coat pocket and pulled something out, then strode closer to her and opened his hand. On his palm lay a small silver thimble with a band of pink roses painted around the base.

She picked it up. “It's beautiful.”

“It is that. But . . . it isn't the gift you really need from me.” He swallowed. “Christmas being a time of giving, I thought it might be appropriate to . . . give you what I know you want most from me, Bess. Your freedom.” He sounded not bitter, but resigned.

Bess was speechless. “Amos—”

He lifted a palm to cut her short. “Don't say a word. Maggie was the one who set me straight. Why would anyone want to be married to someone who would rather be married to someone else? Marriage is hard enough, she said.” He gave a half laugh. “Not that she would know. But I do think she's right.” He took her hands in his. “I'll always hold a soft spot for you in my heart, but I know I need to release you from your promise.” He lifted her hands to his mouth and kissed them, but didn't release them. “Would you tell me one thing? Did you ever love me at all? Even a little?”

His dark brown eyes, filled with unspoken misery, locked with hers. The tears splashed over her lashes and ran in silver streaks down her cheeks. “Oh yes, Amos. I did. I do. I just . . .”

“You just love him more.” His eyes were soft with understanding. He squeezed her hands one more time and released them.

There were no more words. Bess felt a lump gathering in her throat. She swallowed, but the emotion couldn't be gulped away.

Amos glanced at the door. “Well . . .” The word hung in the cold air like the ting of a bell in a winter woods.

“Yes, well . . .” She spread her palms nervously, then clutched them together.

“I'm not exactly sure what one says at a time like this.”

“Neither am I,” Bess admitted.

Amos looked down into her eyes. “I've always wanted only your happiness.”

It struck Bess that Amos was one of the kindest persons she'd ever known. He was a gentleman all the way through, was Amos. She took his hand and placed the thimble in its palm, then curled his fingers over it. “It's actually a little small on my finger. But I think it might fit Maggie's perfectly.”

He fell silent for several long, long seconds. “I'd better go. The Zooks invited my mother and me for Christmas Eve supper.” His eyes found hers at last, and for a moment she thought he meant to kiss her. But in the end he only nodded formally and reached out for the door handle. “See you around, Bess.”

When the door closed behind him, Bess sighed and sank back against it, closing her eyes, savoring the sweetness of the moment between them. In an instant, the door that led to a life with Amos had closed, and though she had never been entirely convinced that she wanted to pass through it, she felt a final spark of doubt. Had she been mistaken in not marrying Amos? But she knew the answer.

She kept an eye on the driveway all afternoon, waiting for Billy, but he never came. By day's end, she went back down to the greenhouse one last time to put the rose back in its corner for the night. The air was knife-cold; the hazy winter sun hung low in the sky. The strong, sweet fragrance of the blooming rose filled the greenhouse. For a long moment, she stood in front of the rose, thinking how delighted her grandmother would be to know this rose had survived another generation. She heard a squeaky noise, spun around. And there he was.

“He's passed,” Billy said, standing in the open doorway. “My father died a little while ago. I waited until Caleb Zook came over. He's there now, calling the undertaker.”

“I'm so sorry.”

He closed the door behind him and walked down the brick path toward Bess, stopping a few feet in front of her. “We made our peace, he and I.” His voice had a quiet sincerity she hadn't heard in years. “All night long, he slipped in and out of consciousness. But when he was alert, we talked. We actually talked a lot. He told me . . .” His voice cracked and his eyes grew glassy. “My father told me he was proud of me.” With the back of his hand, he wiped away tears. “It's strange. My father is dead and I don't feel the way I thought I always would on this day—sad and empty. I feel . . . grateful. I was with him when he died and it was . . .” Billy swallowed, trying to keep his emotions tamped down. “It was something I'll never forget, as long as I live. He let go of his bitterness and disappointment and his face grew so . . . peaceful. It's hard to describe, but I don't think I'll ever be afraid of dying after today.” He put his hands in his pockets. “Someone told me there's a verse in the Bible that says ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.' I never thought of my father as a saint, but I suppose from God's point of view, he was. We all are. And death, strangely enough, is a precious thing.”

Bess didn't know what to say so she didn't say anything. The deaths she had experienced—her grandmother's, Simon's—they didn't feel precious to her. They felt awful.

He took off his hat and spun it around in a circle. “He told me to find my brothers and bring them back to the fold.”

“Ohhhhhhhh.” Bess drew out the word for emphasis. That was a huge and complicated deathbed request.

“He also told me I was a fool to let you go.”

Bess swallowed. “He was right.”

Billy crossed the distance between them in four long strides. Then his hands were on her shoulders and his eyes became suddenly fierce and she felt her pulse leap. “Are you going to marry Amos?”

She shook her head. “No . . . no, I'm not. We spoke about it this very afternoon. We called off the engagement.”

His eyes searched hers. “Was Amos all right about that?”

“More than all right. He was the one who told me the wedding was off. I think he knew . . .”

“Knew what?”

Bess took in a sharp breath. “I think he knew that as hard as I tried, I couldn't stop loving you.”

Suddenly he scooped her into his arms, kissing her with passion, stirring to life every feeling she had and a few she never knew existed. Too soon, he lifted his head, holding her face in his hands, searching her eyes with a harrowed look. “I love you,” he said hoarsely. He pulled her against him, enfolding her so tightly in his arms it seemed he'd never let her go.

She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. How was it possible to feel such happiness? They kissed again, less hurried now.

“So you got my message.”

He kissed her eyes, her forehead, her cheeks. “What message?”

“The rose! It's bloomed.”

Abruptly, Billy released her; in a few short strides, he was in front of the workbench, standing in awe at the open rose bloom. Bess followed behind him, pressing close to him. He examined the rose closely—sniffing it, peering into it, counting its petals and stamens. He looked in an old botanical print book and compared the drawings to the rose in front of him.

“Well? Is it the rose?” Everything inside her was on tiptoes.

“It'll have to be verified . . . but it has all the characteristics of a German rootstock dating prior to the Perle von Weissenstein.” He closed his eyes reverently. “Imagine that. The oldest known rose of German rootstock. Right in front of us.”

“Think of the stories it could tell. The long trip over the ocean on the
Charming Nancy
. All those rose lovers who kept it alive over three centuries.”

His hand found hers and curled around it as they soaked up the rose's revelation. “So George was right. It's a wonderful Christmas.”

“Who's George?”

Billy put his arm around Bess's shoulder and pulled her close to him. “It's a long, long story. I'll tell you later. For now, Merry Christmas, Bess.”

“And to you, Billy.” They stood a moment, arm in arm, admiring the bloom. “What should we call the rose?”

“It will be given an official Latin name that no one can pronounce or ever remember. Part of me would like to call it the Bertha Riehl. It has the same kind of impact on others that Bertha used to have—tricky and stubborn, spikey with thorns, interrupts your life, turns it upside down.”

“And thank heaven for that, Billy Lapp,” Bess said, in a brash tone that surprised even her. He was right. She was getting more and more like her grandmother.