The Christmas Quilt by Patricia Davids Page B

stung the back of his eyes, but he blinked them away. Pushing open the door, he stepped out. From the backseat of the car he pulled a small satchel and then stepped aside. Roseanne backed the car onto the main road. She waved once then drove back the way they had come.
    Gideon faced the lane leading toward a large, rambling white house. Smoke rose from two of the home’s three chimneys. Over the years, his family had added on to the original home with a second smaller house for his mother’s parents.
    The addition of a Dawdi Haus, or grandfather house, was a common practice among the Amish. Grandparents and elderly relatives were able to maintain their own households when they retired and yet were surrounded and included by their extended families. It was a good way to grow old.
    A large well-tended barn and outbuildings stood a few dozen yards back from house. There were horses in the corral and cattle in the pasture. This was the home Gideon hadn’t seen in ten years. From this spot nothing much had changed. Only everything had changed. He had changed.
    Hefting his bag, he started walking up the road. The cold wind slipped under the collar of his coat, making him hunch his shoulders to block the breeze. The snow on the ground crunched beneath his feet, making him think of his walk with Rebecca through the snow-covered streets of Hope Springs.
    She wasn’t the only reason he’d come back. Rebecca had merely been the needle on the compass pointing him to his way home. He hadn’t realized how lost he truly was until hesaw her again. Perhaps someday he would tell her she had been the instrument of his return.
    In Gideon’s mind, Booker no longer existed. His life in the English world was at an end. It was Booker who soared above the clouds and looked down on the backs of birds flying beneath him. It was plain Gideon Troyer walking this rural road with his feet planted firmly on the good earth God had made.
    Even as Gideon faced the fact that he would never fly again, he wondered if he could do it. Could he gaze at the sky and not long to be up there? Giving up flying hurt as much as giving up an arm or a leg.
    It wouldn’t be easy to come back, but it was the right thing to do.
    Plain Gideon had many tasks before him. The first was to gain his family’s forgiveness. Facing his father and mother was shaping up to be a difficult thing as he approached the farmhouse. His heart started hammering. His palms grew sweaty. Admitting his mistake, making amends for the way he’d left, he had a lot to atone for. He prayed God would grant him the courage he needed this day.
    When plain Gideon took his rightful place among the faithful, only then would he be free to discover if Rebecca Beachy still cared for him. If she did not, he would accept that it was God’s will.
    Please, Lord, give me the wisdom to convince her we belong together.
    He arrived at the front door of his childhood home with a growing sense that he had finally made the right decision. This was where he was meant to be.
    When the front door opened and his father walked out, Gideon’s courage failed him. He couldn’t speak.
    His father’s eyes widened in shock. “Gideon?”
    Abraham Troyer had aged in the ten years that had passed. He seemed frail now. His shoulders bowed forward, as if theweight of his life was hard to carry. How much of the gray hair, how many of the worry lines on his face were due to Gideon’s selfishness?
    His father took a step toward. It broke the spell holding Gideon rooted to the spot. Dropping to one knee, Gideon bowed his head, closed his eyes and spoke the words that burned in his heart. “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned.”
    He heard a muffled gasp, but he was afraid to look up. What if too much time had passed? What if merely asking for forgiveness wasn’t enough? What could he do to convince his father that he was sincere?
    Suddenly, he felt his father’s hands drawing him to his feet. He opened his eyes and met his