Snowfall by Shelley Shepard Gray Read Free Book Online

“And good night to you, Ruth.”
    Thursday-night supper at the Keim house was never a quiet affair. It never had been, what with she and Aaron having six kinner , Lovina supposed. Back when her own children were small, she’d kept a firm hand on them. Maybe, too firm.
    When Peter married Marie, they’d taken over the main house and Lovina and Aaron had moved to the dawdi haus . In what had felt like no time at all, Peter and Marie had had Roman and then twin girls, Elsie and Viola.
    Those had been wonderful-gut years. She and Aaron had loved being around Peter’s children, finally getting to enjoy the children without feeling the heavy responsibility of raising them to be proper and faithful adults.
    But now that all three of those grandchildren were grown? Well, things had changed quite a bit. Yet again.
    Marie and Peter were having a hard time getting used to having so many quiet evenings on their own, so about three months ago, Marie had started hosting Thursday-night suppers for anyone in the family who wanted to come over. She’d told everyone that she simply wanted to see them all at least once a week.
    Lovina suspected that Marie had another reason, to do with Lovina’s favorite granddaughter, Elsie. Elsie and Landon were newlyweds, and Landon had a very busy job refinishing floors and consequently was gone a lot. Soon after Elsie married Landon, Peter and Marie wanted to create a way to help ease Elsie’s life, given that she was now almost completely blind.
    Elsie was doing much better than any of them had ever imagined she would. She had a Seeing Eye dog now, a lovely, friendly, golden retriever named Betsy who was as smart as a whip.
    Now, on Thursdays, at least, Elsie and her newlywed husband wouldn’t have to worry about supper.
    Just as important, the rest of the family wouldn’t be besieging Elsie the rest of the week, trying to monitor how she was doing.
    They were all used to looking out for her. At first, Lovina had imagined that giving Elsie more space was going to be an easy thing to do.
    Instead, pulling away and letting her be more independent had been more difficult than any of them had imagined. Especially for herself. She was terribly fond of her sweet, shy granddaughter. Ironically, shy Elsie was the one who was most able to stand up to her.
    Which meant that Lovina, to everyone’s surprise, had been the first person to back down. Of course, Lovina had learned the hard way that no good came from trying to force her wishes on another person.
    Tonight Elsie and Landon were over, as was Lovina’s daughter Lorene and her husband, John Miller. Roman, his wife, Amanda, and their daughter, Regina, lived with them in the main house. While they sometimes chose to go out for supper, they were around the table, too. Marie had elected to serve a pork roast and mashed potatoes. Lorene had brought over roasted carrots and squash, and Amanda had made a peanut butter pie.
    As they passed plates, conversation was lively, especially since little Regina was intent on telling her grandfather every single thing she’d done with her mother that day.
    Elsie was also glowing because she’d received a letter from Viola. Landon had read it aloud to her when he’d gotten home from work. Therefore, the two of them were sharing all of Viola’s news, as well as the fact that Viola and her husband, Edward, would be coming home for the holidays.
    â€œIt’s going to be a wonderful, busy Christmas,” Lovina said with a soft smile at Marie. “We’re going to have to plan accordingly.”
    â€œI agree. With Viola coming home, our haus is going to be full to bursting, and we can do some of our favorite projects. Maybe we can even make some homemade bird feeders to give as gifts.”
    Lovina privately thought that the last thing her missionary granddaughter was going to want to do was make bird feeders. She kept that to herself, however. Lovina smiled.