Read Lifted Up by Angels for Free Online Page B

after.”
    “Would you like to have one for your very own?” Rebekah asked.
    “How can I keep it at my apartment?”
    Rebekah thought for a moment. “I will keep it here for you. I will feed it and take care of it. But it will always be yours, Leah. And you can come visit it whenever you like.”
    Leah’s heart melted at the girl’s sweet gesture. “Thank you, Rebekah. This is the nicest present anyone has ever given me.”
    “I told Charity you would like my present. She said she didn’t think a grown-up English girl would like a chicken, but I knew you would because you’re my friend. You helped me in the hospital, even when no one made you help me.”
    “Do you remember the hospital?”
    “Oh, yes. I remember the shots and the Christmas party and the funny bed that moved up and down.” Rebekah giggled. “I liked to push the buttons and make it move.”
    “Do you remember Gabriella? The nurse who sometimes came to visit us?”
    “She was pretty,” Rebekah said. “She held my hand when I was scared and when you were asleep.”
    Leah was glad that someone else had seen theelusive Gabriella. There were times when she wondered if she’d imagined her. “Gabriella helped me too.”
    “I can’t wait to see her again,” Rebekah said confidently.
    “How do you know you will?”
    “She told me so the night before I went home.”
    Leah figured that Charity and Ethan had not shared with Rebekah Leah’s ideas about Gabriella’s being an angel. If they had, Rebekah would certainly have mentioned it to Leah by now. “Well, tell her hi from me if you do see her,” Leah said. “Where’s Charity?”
    Rebekah slipped her hand into Leah’s. “Everybody’s in the kitchen making jelly. We can help.”
    Leah hesitated. She wasn’t sure she’d be wanted, but Rebekah fairly dragged her into the farmhouse kitchen. She found the women in the family hovering over pots boiling on the woodstove. Charity was washing jars in the sink and lining the clean ones up on the countertops and tables. “Leah!” Charity said. “How nice you are here.”
    Leah shifted from foot to foot self-consciously. Tillie and Oma smiled at her, but shethought the smiles looked stiff. “I’ll just stay a minute. You look busy.”
    “We make jelly a couple of times during the summer. And we put up vegetables from our garden so we’ll have plenty to eat during the winter,” Charity explained. “Soon Rebekah, Simeon and a few of their friends will set up a roadside stand for the tourists to buy what we don’t use.”
    “I guess I’m used to just going to the grocery store and buying what I want,” Leah said. “My mother didn’t cook very much when I was growing up because she worked.”
    Leah saw Charity’s mother and Oma exchange glances. She recalled how Charity had spoken about Amish women and their devotion to home and family. “Of course, Mom had to work,” Leah added defensively. “Sometimes I’d cook supper. I have my grandmother’s favorite recipes. Maybe you could come over sometime and we could bake bread or something.”
    Charity flashed Leah a big smile. “That would be fun for me.”
    Charity’s mother asked, “Would you like to help us make jelly now, Leah?”
    “Sure,” Leah said, surprised by the offer. She really wasn’t looking forward to going back toher tiny apartment and spending the evening alone. “What should I do?”
    Tillie led her over to a large basket of green apples. “You can peel these. And when we’re finished, you can take some jars of jelly home with you.”
    “Thanks,” Leah told her, and set to work, grateful to be busy. Grateful to be a part of the busy household, if only for a few hours.
    Leah was putting gasoline in her car later that evening when she encountered Jonah Dewberry filling up a battered green car at the pump in front of her.
    “Hello, Leah,” he said cordially. “Do you remember me?”
    “It’s Jonah, isn’t it?”
    He nodded. “How are you liking your