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  Daniel and his father had already pulled their harvest in, but they hadn’t planted nearly as much this past year, making for an easier haul. Throughout his mother’s pregnancy, they’d all tried to pitch in to lessen her load, helping with milking, egg gathering, and the yard. Annie had assumed most of the laundry, housecleaning, and cooking.

  “Yeah, I guess I’m okay.” Charlotte glanced at him before she shifted the gears in the truck.

  “It’s just weird,” she said in a soft voice. “I really was going to look for Andrea, but I have a full-time job, plus I was taking care of Janell.” Lines of concentration deepened above her eyebrows and under her eyes. “I don’t understand why she was so indifferent.”

  Daniel shook his head. “I don’t know, but I agree with you, that maybe she’s jealous or bitter that she wasn’t returned to her family when you and Ethan were.”

  Charlotte shifted gears again, then tucked strands of hair behind her ears with one hand. “You heard her say that she had great parents, and probably a privileged childhood. You’d think she’d be happy about that, especially if she knew exactly how bad things were for Ethan and me.” She blew out a heavy puff of air. “I just want peace, and it seems like every time I get close, something else kicks my heart into overdrive again.” She frowned. “And not in a good way.”

  “Peace comes when our soul is calm. Restlessness divides us from God, from the peace only He can provide.” Daniel faced forward and clamped his hands on the dashboard when Charlotte slammed on the brakes to stop at an intersection. He was undecided whether or not Charlotte was a bad driver, or if the truck just made her appear to be.

  “I know.” She brushed hair out of her face. “I pray for peace constantly.”

  “It will come.” Daniel’s mind drifted back to the bishop and his imposed deadline.

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you . . .” She hit the gas pedal with a jerk as they shot forward. “I have someone coming to give me a quote about wiring my house for electricity. I can’t afford it right now, after paying for Janell’s funeral, but I figure it can’t hurt to at least get a price. That way I’ll know how much I need to save.”

  Daniel swallowed back a knot that was forming in his throat. Did she realize the implications of what she was saying? “Uh . . . I thought you said you’d gotten used to not having electricity.”

  “Well, I’ve gotten used to not using a blow-dryer or wearing makeup, but I don’t have an oven, and I miss a microwave.” She grinned. “And air-conditioning in the summer.”

  Daniel was still letting the information soak in when Charlotte spoke again.

  “Just think of all the meals I could cook for you if I had a regular oven and not just a cooktop.” She looked his way and smiled before she refocused on the road, just in time to hit the brakes again when a car pulled in front of her. Charlotte had said that riding in the buggies scared her, but Daniel was pretty sure they were safer in the buggy than when she was driving.

  “But you never cook. You eat at Lena and Amos’s haus, or at our haus, or sometimes with Hannah and Isaac. And you don’t need electricity to have an oven. Ours runs on propane, the same way your stove top does. You just need a propane oven.”

  “Well, if I’m eventually going to get electricity, I might as well wait and get an electric oven then. I can’t afford to buy one right now anyway, whether it’s propane or electric.”

  Daniel stayed quiet for a few moments, until he couldn’t stand it anymore. “What are we going to do?” He pointed a finger at her, then back at himself.

  “When, now?” She didn’t look at him, but she chewed on the side of her bottom lip.

  “Ya. Now.” He’d taken his hat off, but he put it back on to protect his head every time she hit a bump, lifting him from his seat. “Now . . . and forever.”

  Still gnawing on her lip, she shrugged. “I’m just taking things one day at a time. I have a job at the newspaper that I like now. I have to believe that I took care of Janell as best I could. And now I have to decide whether or not to seek out a relationship with Andrea.”

  “What about our relationship?” He narrowed his eyebrows as he stared at her.

  “What about it? You know how I feel about you.” She cast her gaze his way, then shrugged again. “I don’t think there’s any big rush to do anything. We’ve only been dating for a few months.”

  It seemed like an eternity to Daniel. “Charlotte, do you want a future with me?”

  She closed her eyes for a few seconds, which caused Daniel’s heart to hammer against his chest until she set her sights on the road again. “Do we have to talk about this right now? I just buried my mother.”

  “Now she’s your mother? I thought she was just Janell.” He folded his arms across his chest, knowing he was acting like a child.

  “Daniel, please. Please not now. I’m upset about Lena’s cancer, about Andrea, and, believe it or not, there is a level of sadness about Janell too.” She pulled into Daniel’s driveway but didn’t even put the truck in park. “Can we talk about us another time?”

  Daniel nodded before he leaned over and kissed her. “Ya, sure.”

  But as he got out of the truck, he thought about what the bishop had said. The clock was ticking. Maybe he should have told her that, but pushing Charlotte on any issue had never won him any points. And this was surely the biggest issue of Daniel’s life.

  Charlotte pulled Big Red back onto the highway as tears flooded her vision. She blinked, allowing them to trail down her cheeks as she pondered what she was most upset about. Lena, Andrea, her mother’s death, or Daniel’s inquiries? He wanted them to have a future together, but Charlotte would have to adapt to Daniel’s way of life. Even though she loved him with all her heart, there was a lot to consider.

  It wasn’t the clothes she would have to wear, the lack of electricity, or not having a microwave or air-conditioning that she was most concerned about. As she ran her hand along the oversized steering wheel of her 1957 red Chevy truck, her stomach churned at the thought of giving up her gift from Amos, along with her independence.

  Amos had made a trade a long time ago with an English man, to satisfy the man’s debt. The old truck had been sitting in his back pasture until Amos got it running. She couldn’t recall her father giving her more than a spanking—or worse—but Amos hadn’t blinked an eye when he so freely gave Charlotte the truck.

  She also couldn’t imagine driving a buggy around town more than ten or fifteen miles at a time. No more quick trips to Walmart. And her trek to work via buggy was going to be a long haul through all kinds of weather. But giving up Big Red tugged at her heart in a way she hadn’t expected.

  But even all of those reasons didn’t add up to her biggest fear. She was scared of the commitment it involved—to Daniel and to God. What if she was baptized into the faith and messed up? What if her upbringing had left her too scarred to be a good wife? She came from a substandard gene pool. Did she really want to have children? Was she capable of being a good mother?

  Large families were important to the Amish folks, and Daniel was no different. He’d mentioned wanting children plenty of times in passing, even before they’d fallen in love. But for now, for today, she wanted to focus on Lena.

  She turned onto Black Horse Road and started toward Lena and Amos’s house. Bless their hearts for trying to protect her from the news of Lena’s cancer recurrence, but she felt detached from them, from the community. Everyone else seemed to know Lena’s diagnosis, and funeral or not—someone should have told her.

  Maybe I think of myself more as family than they do.

  She trudged up the porch steps of the King house a few minutes later, and Lena answered the door, wiping her hands on her black apron.

  “You should have told me.” Charlotte didn’t try to control her tears. “Everyone knew but me.”

  Lena pushed the screen open and held out her arms. “Mei sweet maedel.” She held on to Charlotte for a few moments, stroking her hair. “Surely, you under
stand why, ya?” Easing away, Lena cupped Charlotte’s cheeks in her hands. “You said good-bye to your mudder today, and we felt that was enough to handle.”

  Charlotte gazed into Lena’s eyes. In a tearful whisper, she said, “You are more of a mother to me than Janell ever was.”

  Lena stepped back and motioned for Charlotte to come in. Amos was sitting on the couch reading Die Botschaft with Buddy in his lap. She still missed the little guy: his shrill bark when she’d get home and the way he’d affectionately showered her with wet kisses as he wagged his tail. But he barely noticed her now.

  Amos lowered the newspaper and took off his reading glasses when he saw Charlotte. Amos was a quiet man, but she had learned to communicate with him using few words. His expression usually said it all, and right now, his eyes were dark pools of fear as a muscle flicked in his jaw. Learning Lena was sick again was devastating for him. If Charlotte thought for one moment that she could have what Lena and Amos have, she’d hog-tie Daniel and drag him to the altar.

  Amos wasn’t an affectionate person, but he locked eyes with her. “We are sorry for your loss.”

  Charlotte sniffled. Amos assumed she was crying about Janell. “Thank you”—she blinked to clear her tears—“but I’m upset that no one told me about Lena.”

  Amos lowered his head for a few seconds. “Lena will be fine.”

  The man said it with such determination, Charlotte felt hopeful right away.

  “He’s right.” Lena smiled as she looked down at her chest. “These breasts have properly nourished two fine children. They’ve done their job.”

  Charlotte smiled back at her surrogate mother. Lena had been brave during all the cancer treatments before, and she seemed equally confident about her diagnosis now.

  “I’m sorry you are upset that we didn’t tell you.” Lena folded her hands in front of her. “You are our family, Charlotte, so that had nothing to do with our decision to hold off telling you this news.” She pointed to the rocking chair. “Now, sit and dry your tears, dochder.”

  Charlotte happily did as she was told. She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Lena or Amos directly refer to her as “daughter,” and it warmed her heart.

  “Now, tell us, how did everything go today?” Lena sat in the other rocking chair as Amos cautiously put his glasses back on and lifted the newspaper.

  Charlotte crossed one leg over the other and relaxed against the chair cushion. “Okay, I guess. There were lots of flowers, and I appreciate that.”

  Lena smiled. “I’m glad you were pleased.”

  “There was a surprise guest at the funeral. Well, not really a guest.” Charlotte took a deep breath. “My sister showed up.”

  Lena sat taller as she brought a hand to her chest. “The one you only recently found out about, or should I say remembered through your counseling sessions?”

  Charlotte nodded. “Yes. It’s been awhile since I told you about it, but I’d had a faint vision about Andrea. I wasn’t able to put it all together until Janell confirmed that I had a sister who was taken from her when I was three or four.” She paused, picturing Andrea’s face, the way her cheeks dimpled, even if she wasn’t smiling. Just like Ethan’s used to do. But Andrea’s dark eyes had burned with an emotion Charlotte recognized.

  “Anyway, she was there, but she didn’t seem interested in us getting to know each other.”

  Lena scowled. “That’s a shame. I’m sorry to hear this.”

  Charlotte slouched back into the chair a little, kicking her foot into motion. “She paid a private investigator to find out about her background. And it sounded like she was meeting me just to put some sort of closure on the whole situation.”

  Lena tipped her head to one side. “Will you see her again?”

  “I don’t know.” Charlotte stood and made her way to the window, then looked back at Lena. “Will you be having chemo again? Are you having surgery soon? What is the plan?”

  Lena smiled. “Charlotte, I am going to be fine. The doctors have already said they feel fairly confident that they will be able to get all of the cancer by removing my breasts. If I need follow-up chemotherapy, I’ll be having it in Pittsburgh, most likely.”

  Fairly confident?

  “Where does your sister live?” Lena apparently wanted to change the subject too.

  “I don’t know.” Charlotte tapped the windowpane with her finger. “She left before I had a chance to ask her much of anything.”

  No matter how much her sister cited her great parents and life, Charlotte suspected something was amiss with Andrea. Charlotte had hauled bitterness around for most of her own life, and she had a way of recognizing it in others, no matter how hard a person tried to disguise the emotion. She’d carried around her own despair until she’d found her Amish friends, established a close relationship with God, and fallen in love with Daniel.

  Daniel. How could she tell him about her fears? Is love enough when there is so much to consider? She’d hoped they could just continue on the way they were for a while longer, but Daniel was antsy. He wanted to know what the future held, and she couldn’t blame him for that. She just didn’t know.

  Three

  Daniel stood beside Annie, staring out the window in the living room, his chest tightening as he watched their new houseguest slam her car door. The woman carried a red suitcase with cat pictures plastered on all sides and several luggage tags dangling from the handle. A gray purse was slung over her shoulder, a bag so big that it seemed to make her tilt to one side as she wobbled toward the porch.

  “How long do you think she’ll stay?” Annie brought a hand to her chest, her voice boasting enough panic to cause Daniel to shudder.

  “Probably until after the boppli is born.” Daniel quickly calculated that his mother’s baby was due in three and a half weeks. “It’s got all its fingers and toes by now. Maybe the baby will come early.”

  Annie glared at him. “We want the baby to go full term if possible.” She huffed, then refocused on their Aunt Faye, who was now carting two more smaller suitcases toward the bottom porch step where she’d left the first one. “Ach, dear. Look at all that luggage. This doesn’t look gut.”

  Daniel lowered his head, shook it, then moved toward the front door. “I should help her carry in her things.”

  “Look!” Annie’s voice squeaked as she pointed out the window. “She’s bringing in grocery bags. Daniel, what are we going to do?” His sister sounded like a frightened child, as opposed to an eighteen-year-old young woman.

  Daniel hesitated, his hand on the doorknob. Aunt Faye was known for her bizarre food offerings, particularly her pickled oysters. He eased open the door, Annie on his heels.

  “Wie bischt, Aenti Faye.” Daniel waved and forced a smile as their aunt stopped short a few feet from the porch, a bag on each hip.

  “It’s about time you showed up. I’m an arthritic old woman with a bad back, bunions, and corns the size of walnuts on my feet.” Hunched over, and almost as tall as Daniel, Aunt Faye’s loose strands of gray hair dangled beneath her Mennonite kapp on either side of a weathered face.

  She thrust the two bags at Daniel when he got close enough to her, then shuffled past him to where Annie was standing. “The rest are in the car. I’m going to go check on your mother. I suspect she’s been sorely neglected and needs tending to.” She pulled the screen door open, reached for the knob, and turned around. “Annie, dear, take special care with the bag on the passenger seat. I’ve brought along enough pickled oysters so we can have a few with each meal this week.”

  Annie nodded as she trudged across the yard to their great-aunt’s blue station wagon. Aunt Faye had been shunned over five years ago. Did the bishop know she was coming to stay with them? Annie had stayed with their aunt during a difficult time last year and that visit had reconnected them to Aunt Faye, even though they’d been out of touch since the shunning.

  Annie had fought hard to convince their parents that she could keep up with things now that their mothe
r was on bed rest until the baby was born, but it was their father who agreed that Aunt Faye could stay to help out. Did Daed have any idea about the woman’s cooking?

  As he carted his aunt’s suitcases upstairs to the guest bedroom, he thought about Charlotte. He hadn’t spoken to her since her mother’s funeral two days ago, but they didn’t usually talk or see each other during the workday, unless Daniel took her to lunch on days he didn’t have any jobs scheduled. His part-time work building storage sheds was sporadic, and it would really drop off during the wintertime.

  But Charlotte had gotten in the habit of stopping by after work, at least every other day or so. Maybe he’d pushed her too hard about the future. Their father had recently gone ab im koff about the usage of cell phones, demanding everyone keep them out of sight and turned off except for emergencies. Daniel had done as his father asked, but he’d tried to call Charlotte the past two nights before he went to bed, and the calls went to her voice mail. He hadn’t left messages.

  Annie was abusing the cell phone privilege in the evenings too. Daniel had heard her talking in a loud whisper to Jacob King recently. Her former fiancé had fled the community months ago to pursue a life in the Englisch world. Annie told everyone she’d gotten over him, but her tears said otherwise. Daniel hoped Jacob was okay, wherever he was, but he was glad that Annie hadn’t married Jacob—even if he was Lena and Amos’s son and Hannah’s brother. Annie might have ended up leaving with him, and Daniel was sure his parents wouldn’t survive if Annie fled their community.

  What was he thinking when he got involved with an Englisch woman—a woman who had the potential to crush his heart—something he swore he’d never let happen again? Edna Glick might not be the woman he’d once thought she was, but she’d left a scar on his heart just the same. Now he was in his second serious relationship, and it seemed to be on shaky ground.

  He was going to stay hopeful that Charlotte would be baptized into the faith, opting to share a future with him in the community he had called home his entire life. He wanted to build a life with her and have a dozen kinner, or at least a few. And even though Charlotte’s childhood had been rough, he was sure she would be a wonderful mother. He’d watched her with the kinner in their district, the way she was not only nurturing but patient.