“Do you have a fireplace?” he asked.
“In the living room.”
“Firewood?”
“In the garage.”
“I will build you a fire, Leah.”
She found a flashlight, several candles and a stash of matches. Ethan laid a fire in the stone hearth and lit it. Soon the flames danced and warmth seeped into the large room. Leah collected blankets, afghans and pillows and made a nest in front of the crackling fire. “Now, if we just had some food, it would be perfect,” she told him.
In the kitchen they rummaged through the refrigerator and pantry and came up with hot dogs, chips, sodas and a can of baked beans. Ethan fashioned cooking sticks from wire coat hangers, and soon the aroma of cooking hot dogs filled the air. He warmed the beans deftly in a pot over the open flames.
“Who ever thought we’d have a picnic in December?” Leah asked as they ate.
“Who ever thought I’d be so far from home in December?”
“Are you all right about this, Ethan? I mean, do you wish you hadn’t come with me?”
“No. I wanted to come. You would have starved without me,” he teased.
“Probably.” She glanced around the room. The flickering flames sent shadows dancing against the walls. The wind howled outside. “Tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve, but I don’t think we’re going to party it in.”
“I will not miss the party. I am with you. That is all that matters to me.”
Leah felt a tingle up her spine. “I guess we’ll have to sleep here in front of the fireplace,” she said, fluffing a pillow and stretching out.
“We can do as the Amish do,” Ethan said. “We can bundle.”
“How do we bundle?”
“It’s an old Amish custom, not always approved of by parents and elders. But when dating, a boy and his girl will lie in bed together. They do not remove their clothes, but they spend the night in each other’s arms.”
Leah’s jaw dropped. “This is an Amish custom?”
“Sex without marriage is forbidden,” Ethan quickly added.
“I’d guess so. But—wow—doesn’t bundling sort of invite trouble?”
Ethan chuckled. “Winters are long and very cold. Amish couples do it to keep warm.”
Leah rolled her eyes. If any guy but Ethan had fed her such a line, she would have laughed at him. She thought that lying in bed with a person you love all night long without going all the way would be a temptation too hard to resist. “What happens if a couple gets carried away? What if they mess around and get into trouble?” In a way, Leah found it embarrassing to discuss such ideas with Ethan, but the subject of bundling was so unexpected from the morally upright Amish, she wanted to know more.
“If a girl is with child, then they must confess their sin before the entire church and ask forgiveness.”
“You mean they have to stand up in front of everybody and tell them if she gets pregnant? If that’s the case, then maybe they should keep quiet and just get married.”
“They usually do marry,” Ethan said. “Yet they must still make a public confession.”
Leah made a face. “That’s awful! It sounds pretty humiliating to me.”
“In God’s eyes, sin is sin. It does not matter which of God’s laws we break. Sinners must repent.”
“Does everybody forgive them?”
“It is required to forgive.”
Leah had seen how difficult it had been for Ethan’s father to forgive his son Eli for leaving. “Really?” she asked.
A slow smile spread across Ethan’s face. “Maybe not as quickly as it should be done,” he admitted. “But that is what is supposed to happen.”
Leah hugged her knees and stared into the fire. “Will your father forgive you for leaving?”
“Perhaps he already has.”
“I’ll be honest,” Leah said, still gazing at the flames. “I felt sorry for your parents last night. And I expected your father to put up more of a fight to make you stay. Why didn’t he?”
Ethan got up, threw two more logs on the fire, then returned to sit beside Leah. “He has known for a long time that I have been unhappy. We have had many talks about it. And I think that losing Rebekah wounded his heart deeply. He has said that perhaps her death was God’s punishment for him.”
Leah thought back to Rebekah’s funeral. Even then she had disliked the stoic that’s-the-way-it-is mentality of Ethan’s family. She had been angry over Rebekah’s senseless death. Her discussion with Ethan at the time had brought her neither understanding nor comfort. “Did he mean he feels he’s being punished over the way he treated Eli?”
“Yes. His heart was proud at the time. He showed Eli no mercy.”
Slowly a light of understanding flickered on inside Leah’s mind. “That’s really why you came, isn’t it? You don’t just want to see Eli again because you miss him. You want to make things right between Eli and your father.”
“I want to see my brother. I want to talk to him face to face. If I can persuade him to return home, even for a visit, then perhaps he and Pa can start anew.”
Disappointment hit Leah hard. She had hoped that Ethan had come mostly because of what he felt for her. “Sure,” she said. “I get it now.”
Ethan rose on his knees, took her hands in his and forced her to look into his eyes. “I have many questions, Leah, inside my heart. Not only about Eli, but also about you and me.”
Had he read her mind? She returned his gaze. The light from the fire burnished his cheek, turning his skin a warm copper color. The reflections of the flames flickered in his eyes. She could drown in those eyes. “I don’t have any answers for you, Ethan.”
“We will find the answers together.” He traced a finger down the length of her face, sending shivers up her spine. She wanted to lie in his arms, but she was afraid. “I will not dishonor you, Leah,” Ethan said. He had made the same promise to her in the summer at the campout. But now the winter winds howled, and the night was dark and long. They were alone.
“That’s the problem,” Leah confessed. “I don’t much care about my honor right this minute.”
He sat down behind her and wrapped his arms around her, nestling her back against his chest. She fit perfectly within the curve of his body. “I love you,” he said into her ear. “And it is because I love you that I will do nothing to shame you.”
He made her feel cherished, respected. The strength of his embrace, the warmth of the fire, the softness of the pillows and blankets covering them, combined to make Leah’s eyelids grow heavy. She listened to the wail of the wind and the rhythm of Ethan’s breathing. “I guess we’re bundling,” she murmured. “A nice custom, Ethan. I like it very much.”
In the safety of Ethan’s arms, Leah drifted off to sleep.
ELEVEN
By morning the storm was over and sunlight flooded the house. Ethan had kept the fire burning all night, and Leah stretched lazily, feeling warm and snuggly beneath the pile of blankets. The smell of coffee forced her eyes open. “Is the electricity back on?” she asked sleepily.
“No, but I found coffee in your kitchen and have made it for us in the fireplace.”
She took a mug from him and sipped it, making a face. “This stuff always smells better than it tastes.” She smiled at him shyly. “Thanks for taking care of me all night.”
“A pleasure,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
She blushed, remembering the night before. She had felt comfortable in his arms, but in the clear light of the day, she was glad he had respected her enough to not take advantage of their situation. “So,” she asked, “are you hungry?”
He grinned. “Are there more hot dogs?”
“We can have cereal,” she said.
She wrapped the blanket around herself and padded into the kitchen. Ethan followed, and together they prepared bowls of cereal and returned to the warmth of the fire.
“I will shovel the driveway,” Ethan said. “It will be clear for your mother’s return.”<
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“Once the electricity comes back on, we can do lots of things,” she said. “We have a big collection of videos. And tonight is New Year’s Eve.”
“And we can watch the ball drop?”
She laughed. “I’ll tell you all about it.”
Ethan stood. “I’d better get busy. The walkway is long and the snow deep.”
After he had worked an hour, Leah went outside to join him. “Time for a break,” she said. She lugged her large yellow plastic snow dish from the garage.
“But I still have much to do.”
“So what? I’m bored and I think we should play.”
He jammed the shovel into a snowbank. “With that?” He pointed at the bowl-shaped disk. “What is it?”
“You’ll see. Come around back, where there’s a hill.”
The hill was at the back of the giant yard. So much snow covered it that it was hard to see exactly how steep it was. Leah tossed the dish down, lay across it on her stomach and gripped the short nylon handles on either side. “See ya!” she shouted, then scooted the disk forward. It slipped downward, picking up speed and making her squeal. At the bottom she coasted to a stop and jumped off. She trudged back up the hill and handed Ethan the dish. “Your turn.”
His eyes danced. He took the disk and zipped down the hill, his laughter flowing behind him with the sprays of snow. By the time he climbed back up, she had a snowball hidden behind her back. “At home we use cardboard for such rides,” he said. “And the ground is not so steep.”
She tossed the snowball in his face, snatched the dish with her free hand, leaped onboard, and flew down the hill, laughing as he sputtered and wiped snow out of his eyes and mouth. “Gotcha!” she yelled.
He started down the hill after her, clomping through the snow, getting stuck in areas that were waist high, struggling against the snow’s heavy wetness. Leah kept laughing. When he arrived at the bottom he doubled over, gasping for breath. “I thought you’d be in better shape,” she teased, “you being a farm boy and all.”
“You flirt with danger,” Ethan said, lifting his gaze to hers.
“I don’t think so,” she needled. “You’re a wimp.”
He pounced on her. They rolled in the snow. Ethan stuffed handfuls of it down the front of her jacket and sweater. Leah squealed, trying in vain to fend him off. “You’ll pay for this!” she promised.
He pinned her on her back, grinned and plopped a fistful of snow in her face. “How will you make me pay?”
“I’ll poison your food!” she sputtered.
“How? You don’t cook without electricity.”
“I’ll find a way.” She squirmed as he tossed another heap of snow at her face. “Get this stuff off me. It’s freezing!”
He paused, looking down at her with a smile that lit up his face. “I know a good way to get the snow off.” He tugged off his glove and brushed her cheeks with his bare hands. Then, holding her wrists, he bent over and kissed her with such an intensity that she was certain the snow would melt from the very heat of his mouth.
By midafternoon the electricity was back on, and Leah took a long, hot shower. Afterward she showed Ethan around the house, including the basement rooms where he would be living. He stashed his few belongings in the closet and went back upstairs with her to the kitchen.
“I have my grandmother’s recipe box,” she said. “I’ll bet I could fix us something special for supper.”
“I am hungry,” he confessed.
“Ethan, you were born hungry,” she said as she riffled through the box. Her grandmother’s familiar handwriting made Leah feel linked to the woman she had loved and lost when she was still a child. Leah pulled up a card. “This one looks easy. If Mom has all the ingredients, we’ll be eating in a couple of hours.”
Leah studied her grandmother’s neat writing and swallowed a lump of emotion. She set to work on the beef stew.
Leah and Ethan ate in front of the fireplace, where Ethan had laid fresh logs. He wolfed down three bowls of stew, and three slices of bread, topping off the meal with two glasses of milk and half a bag of vanilla wafers.
“Get enough?” Leah asked, slightly awed by the sheer quantity of food he had downed.
“Is there more?”
She threw a pillow at him. “Eat this.”
Later Leah made popcorn. Close to midnight, she stopped the video they were watching and switched over to network television. Crowds of people were partying in Times Square. Leah found a bottle of sparkling grape juice in the refrigerator. Neil and her mom often liked wine with their dinner, but with Neil’s chemo he couldn’t drink alcohol, so her mother sometimes served the bubbly grape juice instead. Now Leah filled two of her mother’s good wineglasses for her and Ethan.
“Watch, watch!” she said as the great, glowing ball began to descend and the crowd began the countdown.
“They all seem very happy,” Ethan observed.
“The start of every year means starting fresh. People like that.”
“I am starting fresh, too.”
The ball hit the bottom, an orchestra played “Auld Lang Syne,” and Leah clicked her glass to Ethan’s. “Here’s to us.”
He sipped the juice while gazing at her over the rim of the glass. “Now what?”
On TV people were hugging and kissing. “We’re supposed to kiss for good luck. And wish each other Happy New Year.”
He set his glass down and pulled her into his arms. “Happy New Year, Leah.”
“Happy New Year to you,” she whispered as their lips touched.
“This is a good custom among you English,” he said.
His wording jarred her. You English. For a while she had forgotten their differences. She warned herself not to forget again. “Well, back to our movie.” Her hand was shaking as she clicked the remote. She settled into the heap of pillows and blankets still strewn in front of the fireplace.
“Maybe we should go to our beds. The electricity has warmed the house.”
“Maybe later,” she said stubbornly, not wanting their time of togetherness to end. “We’ll watch some more films—we’ve got a bunch more.” She gestured toward the stack on the floor.
“We would have to stay awake all night.”
“So what? We can sleep all day tomorrow.”
“Sleep through the day?” He sounded scandalized.
“Okay—half the day. At least until you need another feeding.”
He laughed. “It is different not to have cows to feed, chores that must be done. I’m not used to this.”
“We have goldfish,” she said. “Want to get up at five in the morning and feed them?”
“No,” he said, stretching back against the pillows. “I want to watch movies all night with you. It is a brand-new year, is it not? We can begin it however we please.”
Leah had faced the start of other years before, but never had she felt that one could hold so much potential for happiness along with so much room for tragedy. The possibilities whirled in her head. Would her cancer remain in remission? Would Neil win his battle for good health? Would Ethan love her enough to stay in her world? She chased away the list of questions and punched the Play button.
Leah woke with a start. Electronic snow filled the TV screen. It was daylight, but the day looked cloudy, the skies dreary. Beside her Ethan was on his stomach, fast asleep. Groggily she reached for the remote and clicked off the VCR. What time was it anyway?
She heard a noise. With a start, she realized it was a key in the front door. “Oh, no!” This wasn’t the way she wanted to be found. “Ethan! Wake up!” Leah shook his shoulder.
“Leah! Honey, we’re home,” she heard her mother call. “Where are you?”
“Hurry!” Leah urged Ethan.
Leah scrambled up. Ethan rose beside her just as Leah’s mother and Neil came into the room.
Her mother stopped dead in her tracks. Her mouth dropped open as her eyes swept over the pillows and blankets in front of the fireplace. Her gaze h
alted on Ethan. For a stunned moment, no one spoke. Finally, in her frostiest tone, her mother said, “Just what is going on here, young lady? I want an explanation, and I want it now.”
TWELVE
“I—I can explain,” Leah stammered.
“I’ll just bet,” her mother snapped.
Neil stepped forward. He looked shocked, as if Leah had struck him. His look cut her deeply. She’d rather have done anything than upset Neil. “Is this your friend Ethan?” he asked.
Ethan held out his hand. “I am Ethan.”
Neil took Ethan’s hand, but before he could say a word, Leah’s mother stormed over, picked up a blanket and shoved it at Leah. “Is this what you do behind our backs? Tell us you’re visiting a friend, then shack up with your boyfriend?”
Leah felt her face burn with embarrassment. “That’s not what happened, Mother—”
“I trusted you!” her mother exclaimed. “Is this how you pay me back?”
“If you’ll let me explain—”
“I can’t believe it, Leah. How could you do this to us?”
Neil put a hand on his wife’s arm. “Calm down, Roberta.”
“Calm down? She’s not your daughter, Neil. She—” Leah’s mother stopped her tirade. “I didn’t mean that,” she amended quickly. “I’m just so upset.”
Neil looked at Ethan. “Why don’t I take Ethan and show him my car collection? That’ll give you and Leah a chance to clear the air.”
Grateful for Neil’s offer, Leah nodded vigorously. Neil had a knack for knowing what to say and do in a crisis. And this was a crisis.
“I should stay,” Ethan said, looking bewildered. “This is my fault, too.”
Leah turned toward him. “Go on with Neil, Ethan. You wouldn’t want me around if it were your father’s and your discussion. I need to talk to my mother alone.”
Ethan hesitated, then said, “All right, I will go. But if you need me, call for me.”
She watched Ethan and Neil leave, waited for the click of the front door, then spun on her mother. “That was so embarrassing! You shouldn’t have said those things in front of Ethan.”