A Simple Christmas Wish by Melody Carlson Read Free Book Online Page B

they played the I-spy-with-my-little-eye game, picking out farm animals and other items of interest. As the car drew closer to their destination, Rachel grew uneasy. She knew that somehow she had to prepare Holly for the fact that her aunt Lydia might be assuming she was about to get guardianship of her niece.
    “I can’t wait to meet your aunt Lydia,” Rachel began carefully.
    “Will she be just like you?”
    “Well, no, I don’t think so. Maybe she’ll be more like your mommy.”
    “Oh.” Holly slowly nodded, as if taking this in.
    “And there is a possibility that Aunt Lydia will invite you to live with them.”
    “On the farm?” Holly turned to peer at Rachel.
    “Yes. On the farm.”
    “You mean for always?”
    “It’s a possibility.” Rachel’s hands tightened on the wheel, but she kept her eyes straight forward.
    “Would you live with me there?”
    “Well . . . no, I mean Aunt Lydia’s not my aunt.”
    “Then I don’t want to live there either,” Holly declared.
    “But it’s a farm, Holly. With cows and horses and trees to climb and cousins to play with. You might decide you really like it.”
    Holly didn’t say anything now, but her arms were folded across her front in a stubborn gesture, and her expression seemed to be a mixture of sadness and fear.

    “Anyway, I hope that you and I will always be together, Holly.”
    “Really?” She sounded hopeful.
    “Of course.” Rachel reached over and smoothed her hand over Holly’s hair. “I love you, sweetie. You know that. I love you more than anyone else in the whole wide world.”
    Holly beamed at her. “I love you too, Aunt Rachel. More than anyone in the whole wide world too. I mean now that Mommy and Daddy are . . . gone.”
    Rachel felt the lump growing in her throat and was afraid she was about to start crying again, but then, seeing a dark gray buggy ahead with a triangular SLOW sign on the back, she decided to use this as a distraction—for both of them.
    “Look, Holly,” she said eagerly, slowing the car and pointing down the road. “There’s a horse-drawn buggy up there.”
    “Really?” Holly leaned forward. “There’s a horse too?”
    “Yes. You’ll see it in a minute, when we pass it.”
    They followed the buggy for a while, and then, seeing there were no other cars coming their way, Rachel eased the car into the other lane and slowly passed the buggy, putting down her window enough to hear the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves.
    “What a pretty horse!” Holly exclaimed.
    “It is pretty.”
    “And look at the funny man and woman,” Holly said eagerly. “They’re all dressed up like the olden days. Are they going to be in a Christmas program too?”
    Rachel remembered the Christmas program at Holly’s school before school let out. The children had put on a version of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol . “No,” she said slowly asshe pulled in front of the horse-drawn buggy. “Those people dress like that all the time, Holly.”
    “Why?”
    Expecting questions like this, Rachel had done some research on her computer last night, reading up on the Amish, in hopes that she’d begin to understand them better herself. Unfortunately, by the time she’d turned off her computer, she felt more confused than when she’d started. From what she could tell, there were a lot of different kinds of Amish and they didn’t all believe and do the same things, although there did seem to be a few commonalities. Perhaps that was all she needed to explain for now.
    “The people in that buggy are Amish,” she began.
    “Amish? What is Amish?”
    “Amish is like a religion. Kind of like how we go to church . . . sometimes.” Rachel knew this was an understatement, but she had to start somewhere.
    “Oh, so they dress up like that to go to church?” Holly nodded as if this made sense. “But is it Sunday?”
    “No. It’s Saturday. Actually, they dress like that every day. The Amish people are kind of old-fashioned. They