“It’s a dangerous lake,” Mammi agreed quietly. “We must respect forces that are stronger than we are.” She stopped and put a finger on the pattern page, pursing her lips. Then she went back to count her stitches, her lips moving silently.

  Beth’s gaze went out the window. From here, they could see the drive that led up to the road, and the vegetable garden with its leafy rows. The lake wasn’t within sight, and somehow, it made the questions easier to ask.

  “Mammi, did you know a boy named Arden Bieler?” she asked.

  Mammi’s fingers stilled. “Why?”

  “I just wondered. A newspaper article said he drowned in the lake.”

  Mammi lowered her knitting. “That happens sometimes. It’s why I told you to be careful and not to swim there. It’s incredibly deep.”

  “Yah, I can see that,” Beth said. “But did you know him? Personally? He would have been your age, wouldn’t he?”

  “He was older.”

  “But not by much.” Beth had done the math.

  “Two years.” Mammi met her gaze.

  “Did you . . . Were you . . . Was he more than a friend?” Beth felt her own cheeks warm at the question.

  “He took me driving,” Mammi said, and she smiled faintly. “I liked him a lot. He’d drive me home after Singing, and he’d come visit me with my parents and we’d all eat popcorn together. My mamm and daet liked him too.”

  “So he was your boyfriend, Mammi!”

  “Oh, we didn’t call it that when I was young,” Mammi said. “We had friends, and we had fiancés. Nothing in between. He was a friend.”

  “Did you love him?” Beth asked.

  Mammi was silent, and she picked up her knitting again, counting those stitches.

  “I told you how I felt about Luke,” Beth said. “Was this something similar?”

  “Luke wasn’t the right one for you, dear,” Mammi said. “The right one will choose you without any hesitation.”

  “Did Arden choose you?” Beth pressed.

  “He never mentioned marriage. But he took me driving, and he held my hand, and he called me the most beautiful girl he’d ever met.” Mammi shrugged weakly. “Once upon a time, back before my wrinkles and my white hair, I was a pretty girl.”

  “Mammi, I didn’t know about that!” Beth said.

  “It might be hard to believe now.”

  “No, Mammi, I have no problem believing you were pretty! I meant about a boyfriend. Because that’s what we’d call it today in a more liberal community. He’d have been your boyfriend.”

  “Well, he died. So it hardly matters.”

  “You must have been crushed.”

  “We all were. His parents most of all. His mother just . . . withered.”

  “Did anyone know you’d been special to him?”

  “A few of my friends knew.” Mammi’s knitting needles started to work again. “But it’s in the past now. It was a very long time ago, and while I cared for him, we never did get married. I got to grow old, and his life ended in his youth. Sometimes that’s how things work out.”

  Her words were matter-of-fact, but Mammi’s eyes misted, and she had to stop knitting.

  “Did you find it hard to get to know another man after Arden died?” Beth asked hesitantly.

  “Well, there wasn’t really anyone else my age who was showing interest, dear. I was a pretty enough girl, but the other boys already had fiancées. I settled in to help my aent here at the lake house. Back then, she sold vegetables at a roadside stall, and she did a lot of quilting and baking for the Amish Market. So I helped. The quilts could fetch quite a lot of money, even back then. That’s why my aent left this place to me when she passed away. I suppose she thought I could use a roof over my head.”

  A knock on the door drew both of their attention, and Mammi set her knitting aside and pushed herself to her feet.

  “Mammi . . .” The story had gone off the rails, or at least off the track that Beth had been hoping to follow.

  Mammi looked back, her eyebrows raised questioningly.

  “It’s okay,” Beth said with a smile. “I wonder who’s at the door.”

  The conversation was over, it seemed, but Beth knew a little bit more about her grandmother’s heart. Once, a long time ago, Mammi had been in love with a young man named Arden Bieler. And he’d died. That’s all Beth knew for certain right now. But she had to wonder if this Arden Bieler—who had never mentioned marriage, but who had obviously cared a great deal about Mammi—was the man who’d fathered her daet.

  This wasn’t easy for Mammi to talk about, and Beth knew that because she’d never breathed a word about this before. But she was sharing more now, and Beth felt the honor of hearing Mammi’s story. It felt like a growing trust. They’d get there. She could feel it.

  Beth followed Mammi to the door, and when Mammi pulled it open, Danny stood there with a basket of muffins held out in front of him like a shield.

  “Good evening, Iris,” Danny said. “These were left over from the Sunday church meal, and my mamm wanted to share some with you, if you’d like some.”

  “Oh? What do we have?” Mammi said, ushering Danny into the house. “Are those blueberry?”

  “Yah, there are blueberry and some cranberry orange, my mamm says.”

  “This is very kind. Tell your mamm danke from me,” Mammi said.

  Danny’s gaze flicked over Mammi’s shoulder, and he met Beth’s with a faint smile. He was here for her, and she couldn’t help but smile back. They’d been finding ways to spend time together—just as old friends, she’d been telling herself—but she found her pulse speeding up when he found an excuse to come by.

  “Do you have time for a walk?” Danny asked, addressing Beth.

  Outside, Beth could see that clouds were rolling in, but the cool air was welcome as it whisked past Danny and into the overwarm kitchen. Would it be all right to leave Mammi alone for just a few minutes?

  “Do you mind if I walk a little bit, Mammi?” Beth asked her grandmother. “I could use some fresh air. I won’t be too long. I’ll stay within earshot if you need to call me.”

  Mammi was setting the muffins out onto a platter, and she cast Beth a smile. “Of course not, dear. Be careful by the water.”

  “Always, Mammi.”

  And she now understood a little better why Mammi worried about that lake. She’d lost so very much to those watery depths. Could she even swim? That thought had only occurred to Beth now as she and Danny headed outside together and the screen door clapped shut behind them.

  Beth had never seen her grandmother so much as touch her feet to lake water.

  “Today, my mamm got a visit from one of her friends. The fact that I had my arm around you at the Singing is already a big piece of gossip,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Beth chuckled. “Is that going to cause trouble for you?”

  “For me?” Danny grinned. “I was worried about you.”

  Beth rolled her eyes. “The worst part would be my mother getting her hopes up if someone wrote some gossip back to her in a letter.”

  “Is your mamm hoping you find someone while you’re here?” Danny asked, his tone turning more cautious.

  “My mamm is hoping I find a husband every time I leave the house.” She laughed.

  “Yah, mine wants me married too.”

  “They mean well,” Beth said. “They want us to be happy and settled.”

  “Mine wants to make sure I don’t end up like Zach,” Danny said.

  They headed around the house and back down toward the lake. Danny’s sleeve brushed against her arm as they came to a narrow part of the path.

  “Go ahead.” He put a hand on the small of her back and nudged her forward, and she couldn’t help but feel a little flutter at his touch.

  She stepped onto the beach first, and Danny joined her. Gray clouds tumbled in from the west, blotting out the evening sun and whipping her dress around her calves. The lake went from glittering in the light to a dull gray as a cloud slipped over the sun. Beth stepped closer to Danny, his warm arm pressed against hers.

  “My grandmother knew that young Amish man who drowned here fifty-odd years ago,” Beth said.

  “She knew him?” He was silent for a moment. “I suppose that stands to reason.”

  “They were special friends.”

  Danny’s gaze flicked toward her, and for some reason, she felt some heat in her cheeks. That was private information—or at least it was now. Once upon a time, people had known.

  “Was she there when he drowned?”

  “She didn’t say.” Beth sucked in a deep breath.

  “And this man who drowned . . .” Danny lowered his voice. “Was he . . . ?”

  Was Arden Bieler her grandfather? That was the question, wasn’t it?

  “I’m not sure,” she replied. “The timing would be right, but she hasn’t said he was anything more than a special friend. She did say that he’d never once mentioned marriage. So that doesn’t sound like it, does it? But she’s been trusting me with more of the story, and I think we’ll get there eventually.”

  “Imagine how hard it would be to tell something so personal to one of your nieces or nephews,” Danny said. “Let’s say you had to sit down with a judgmental twelve-year-old and tell her something mean you’d done.”

  “Am I the judgmental twelve-year-old in this scenario?” She chuckled.

  “Yah, compared to your grandmother, you are.” He nudged her arm teasingly. “But you know what I mean, right? We haven’t lived a fraction of the time she has, and yet you need to hear her most private stories.”

  “I know,” she agreed. “It would be embarrassing, and humbling, and I’d avoid it. So it might take a bit more time, but I do think Mammi will tell me what I need to know.”

  “I think so too,” he replied.

  The wind gusted around them, the sky steadily darkening.

  “Would you always love this life, even if something big changed?” Beth asked. “What if someone betrayed you deeply? What if this community fell apart? What if you didn’t have your family around you anymore?”

  “Do you mean, what if I found out that I’d been lied to about my parents or about my family history?” he asked, and his compassionate gaze met hers.

  “Yah, something like that.”

  “Isn’t our faith something different though?” he asked. “It’s about Gott, not about people.”

  “Faith in Gott, yah,” she agreed. “But our baptism is a lifelong vow to the church. Can we break it later? I suppose. But it’s probably better not to swear an oath like that at all than to swear it knowing that you may break it later.”

  “I like to think that the church would be my comfort in hard times like that,” he said.

  He ran a hand over her arm just as a fat raindrop fell next to his fingers, followed by another one on her cheek. The wind rushed through the trees overhead. The rain was starting, and Danny had farther to get home than she did.

  “You want your family stories to reassure you,” Danny said, planting a hand on his head to keep his straw hat in place. “Right?”

  “Maybe I do,” she admitted.

  She wanted them to sit her down and tell her that the Amish way of life was good and right. She wanted them to tell her a family story that proved it. Instead, there were regrets and secrets.

  “Maybe it’s what you do with these family secrets that matters most,” he said. “Not every story in the Bible was for us to emulate. Some were meant to teach us what to avoid. Our parents and grandparents weren’t perfect. Sometimes they’ve earned their wisdom the hard way.”

  Danny took a step away from her, but his warm gaze held hers. “I have to get back.”

  And she wished he’d stay—even with the wind snapping her skirt and the sky growing ever darker with the clouds rolling in. But she had to get back to Mammi too.

  “Yah, me too,” she said as rain came in those big, fat drops.

  “I’ll see you later,” he called, turning to run down the path toward home.

  Thunder boomed overhead as the rain began to fall harder, pattering against the rocky shore. Beth ducked her head against the rain as she headed toward the kitchen door.

  Beth startled as Tabitha came around the house at the same time.

  “Hi, Beth!” Tabitha called.

  “Hi!” Beth jogged up and pushed open the door for Tabitha. “Come in, come in, before you get drenched!”

  Tabitha pressed inside after Beth, and they banged the door shut just as a bolt of lightning lit up the sky. Goldie woofed a greeting, but when a boom of thunder rattled the windows, she whined and crept closer to Mammi, who sat at the kitchen table with a mug of hot tea in front of her.

  “Hello, Tabitha,” Mammi said with a smile. “So nice to see you. Are you here for Goldie?”

  “Nee, Iris, I’m here to visit you,” Tabitha said. “I didn’t get to chat with you after service the other day, so I wanted to come by and say hi. I didn’t expect this deluge, though.”

  Tabitha was coming by to show Mammi some care, and Beth was grateful. They all turned and looked out the window then. The rain was coming down in sheets now, whipped by the wind. All Beth could think was that she hoped Danny had gotten inside by now.

  This looked like a storm that meant business.

  18

  Tabitha got her horse into the Peachy stable—a much safer place for her than outside under the buggy shelter. She was thankful now that she’d left Fritz at home with his proper feed for his sensitive belly. The milk cow stood as close to the stable as she could, and Tabitha led her inside, too, and gave her hay and water to wait out the storm.

  When she got back into the house again, Beth had stoked up a fire in the wood stove, and Iris had a platter of muffins and a pot of hot tea waiting.

  “I had no idea we were expecting a storm,” Tabitha said, and she shook her damp skirt as she stood in front of the stove. Had she known a storm was coming, she would have stayed home. These roads were treacherous enough in rain, let alone a blowing storm like this one. “I put your milk cow into the stable too. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Danke,” Beth said earnestly, joining her at the stove. She wasn’t as wet as Tabitha was, but she’d made a dash through the rain too.

  “Here,” Iris said, handing each of them a muffin. “No reason you have to go hungry while you dry off.”

  The visit was a pleasant one. Iris seemed happy to just sit and listen to Tabitha and Beth chat. Beth was curious about Tabitha’s story—how she left the Amish for Michael, went to school, listened to the lavish encouragement she got from the Englischer teachers who told her how special her scholastic abilities were . . . She’d told the story many times now, explaining how it all happened and how she’d been excited to see how far she could go. She didn’t tell people that she wasn’t completely sorry that she’d left, though. That was a small, conflicted knot inside of her, because if she’d never gone to school, she’d never have the opportunity to work with animals in this way, to save their lives and to enjoy the challenge and the satisfaction that veterinarian work brought her. Without her schooling, she wouldn’t have the same intellectual challenge.

  The Englischer teachers had been wrong that she was special for her scholastic abilities, though. That didn’t make her special. There were plenty of brilliant Amish people who applied their smarts to the work at hand. But they were right about the fact that she’d never be fully happy unless she was following her passion, and hers was to work with animals in the medical field. Tabitha carried around a small amount of guilt over the fact that her rebellion when she jumped the fence had resulted in such a satisfying career that she’d been able to keep.

  But she couldn’t tell people that—they wouldn’t know how to take it. So instead, she told them other truths, such as how she wished she hadn’t married Michael. He had been a complete mistake, and he’d broken her heart. That was normally enough information for most people.

  When their dresses had dried from standing close to the fire, Tabitha and Beth sat and drank the hot, sweet tea. Iris excused herself to go to the sitting room to knit again, and she waved off their offers to join them.

  “Nee, I’m fine. Keep chatting,” Iris said. She was working on a warm, dark gray shawl that was taking shape. Dark gray was the accepted color for winter shawls in this community, and the only difference one might see between one woman’s shawl and another’s was in the quality of the knitting or crochet, or in the quality of the yarn itself.

  When Mammi had settled in the sitting room, Beth and Tabitha chatted for a while more, refilled their cups, and listened to the downpour outside.

  “Did you know the other woman?” Beth asked tentatively. “The one who cheated with your husband.”

  “Nee,” Tabitha said. “And I didn’t want to meet her either. It was so painful that I couldn’t trust myself to behave like a Christian if I was put in her presence.”

  “And he wouldn’t give her up?”

  “Nee.” Tabitha’s mind went back to that painful time when she’d been praying for Gott to save her marriage and her husband had been flagrantly cheating with another woman. “She knew he was married too, and she didn’t care. Or it didn’t stop her. He refused to give her up, and I don’t know what he expected. He probably knew I’d leave him, but it took the responsibility off his shoulders to end our marriage. He was just some poor man with his heart torn between two women . . .” She made a face. “I’m not as bitter as I sound. I’ve made my peace with that. I left Michael, and he didn’t contest anything in the divorce. The week after we signed the papers, he married her.”

  “It’s horrible,” Beth murmured. “I don’t know what I would have done. If you’d stayed Englisch, you could have married again, though.”

  Tabitha slowly shook her head. “It’s possible to be the loneliest you’ve ever been while married. No, I couldn’t do that. I could feel Gott telling me to go home, and when Gott tells you to do something, you’ve got a choice—ignore his voice until you don’t hear it anymore, or obey and have the comfort of his peace. I came home, and I’m glad I did. I made mistakes, and there are consequences for them, but I’m where Gott wants me.”