Thankful by Shelley Shepard Gray Read Free Book Online Page B

that coming for supper two nights a week was going to be to his benefit.
    Joe clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s feed and water the horses so we can get some breakfast. You know, if we don’t hurry, Nate and Henry will eat us out of house and home.”
    â€œI’ll do the water, you do the feed,” Aden said.
    â€œDon’t make a mess, son,” Joe cautioned.
    Aden grinned at the familiar warning. It was the same thing Joe always told him. Just as him watering and Joe feeding the horses was the way they’d always divided the chores.
    As he turned on the hose, Aden realized it was going to be yet another thing he was going to miss.

chapter five
    Christina tried not to look like she was pouting. She truly did. But as they all sat together in the great room after supper and listened to Aden tell them his big news, she felt betrayed and dismayed.
    And so very sad.
    And if she was honest, more than a little angry.
    For most of her life—well, at least the last ten years—she’d taken to leaning on Aden for just about everything. Since she was her parents’ eldest child, she’d long felt the weight of responsibility of much of the chores on her shoulders. It had been nice to know that he, too, could handle some of her younger siblings’ problems.
    But even more than that, she had truly enjoyed being around him. She’d liked looking across the room and seeing him reading one of the hunting or fishing magazines he’d always liked so much. Even better, she’d enjoyed sharing amused glances with him when her parents said something particularly funny or when one of her brothers acted just a little too full of himself.
    Now all that would be gone. Now he would be gone.
    â€œI’m sorry, but I just don’t understand,” Mamm said for about the eighth time in as many minutes. “Aden, surely there isn’t any hurry for you to be out in the world on your own.” Her eyes widened. “Or is there a hurry? Are you unhappy?” Her eyes widened. “ Ach! Has something happened?”
    â€œNothing’s happened,” he reassured her. “This isn’t about me being happy or unhappy here. It’s about moving forward.”
    Mamm looked skeptical. “Moving forward?”
    â€œMartha, I’m talking about being older. About needing some space of my own.”
    â€œBut . . . you have your own room.” Her brow wrinkled. “Do you need a bigger room?”
    â€œMy room was fine. It is fine. But what I am trying to say is that I need more than that.” Obviously agitated, he met Christina’s eyes. Wrapped in his gaze was everything he was obviously feeling— frustration that his meaning was being misconstrued as well as humor in her mother’s need to wrap everything up into something she could easily understand.
    But overriding both those emotions was an unmistakable plea for help. And right then and there, Christina knew she had no choice but to back him up. Even though she didn’t understand his decision, she couldn’t refuse his need any more than she could refuse her youngest sister’s need for hugs.
    Clearing her throat, she said, “Mamm, Daed, you all are forgetting that Aden is not a child or a teenager in the middle of rumspringa . He’s a grown man at twenty-four years of age! Why, many men his age are already married and have kinner of their own by now. How can we expect Aden to go courting when he’s got a houseful of all of us watching his every move?”
    Treva, ever the most level-headed of them all, nodded. “You know, that makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve certainly felt like I’ve been watched a bit overzealously from time to time.”
    â€œYou needed watching, Treva,” their mother declared. “Especially when you were seeing that awful Simon Beachy.”
    â€œSimon wasn’t that bad.”
    â€œHe wasn’t that good,”