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head—“what is that shape on her face called?”
    “It’s unusual. I’ll give you that much.” Tobias straddled the fence. “I say it’s an irregular, thin blaze shaped like a T.”
    “Ah, for
Tobias
.” Sadie winked at Levi.
    Andy hadn’t picked up on what Tobias was thinking as Sadie had.
    Tobias straightened his straw hat. “Ya, that’s right.”
    A look of amusement passed between Sadie and Levi at Tobias’s hint that he wanted the horse.
    Andy shook his head. “You’re not ready for a horse of your own yet.”
    “But, Daed,”—Tobias jumped off the fence—“all the boys my age got their own horse, and lots of boys younger than me too, and none of ’em have a dad who owns a horse farm!”
    Was Andy too strict about this? In his dream vacation he’d have a week off from second-guessing himself when it came to single parenting. “I don’t blame you for wanting one. They’re magnificent creatures, but you’re not ready yet.” Despite its stature and strength, a horse had emotional needs, lots of them, and none were easily conveyed. Most boys rode horses for themselves, for their own joy and pride, but Andy needed more from Tobias than that. And changing people’s mind-sets
after
they had what they wanted was tough. Heshould know. He dealt with people and how they treated their horses all the time.
    Tobias yanked off his hat and threw it to the ground. “Man! That’s not fair.”
    Andy wanted to give the boy his own horse, had wanted to for a couple of years now. It should be one of the natural perks of being Amish and living on a horse farm, but he had to trust his gut, and his gut said Tobias didn’t respect the animals enough.
    Not yet. He was doing better. Less than two years ago, he would sit on the fence and complain to his uncle for being too patient while training them. Tobias had wanted to use unnecessary force to make the horses comply. He didn’t feel that way anymore, which was good, but it wasn’t enough.
    Levi released the horse’s harness, and she trotted off. “You’re not helping your case by acting like that.”
    Tobias folded his arms, staring at his hat.
    Sadie pursed her lips and gazed heavenward, looking determined to control her response, but Andy wasn’t sure whether it was to keep from teasing Tobias or laughing out loud.
    He was grateful that Levi had found Sadie and that she had wanted to move into Andy’s home rather than getting a place of their own. The four of them—Andy, Levi, Sadie, and Tobias—made for an unusual family, but the oddity also helped dilute Tobias’s reality. As the son of a grass widower, Tobias lived with the constant reminder that, unlike other boys his age, he didn’t have a mother.
    As for himself, Andy no longer carried the weight of what others thought. He’d dealt with all that years ago, but the frustration of thesituation got to him at times. She had all the power—the power to leave or return, the power to have a life he knew nothing about. But there wasn’t anything he could do about that. He couldn’t even divorce her. It wasn’t permitted. Well, there were a few exceptions. If the spouse who left demanded a divorce and a judge agreed, the Amish had to comply, or if the spouse who left threatened to fight for custody unless divorce was granted, the church leaders would grant the divorce to protect the child or children. In all his days Andy had heard of only one Amish person getting a divorce. But the dream of divorcing her lived on, because it would give him some semblance of power and a voice in what she’d done to him and Tobias.
    Sadie nodded toward the driveway. “FedEx is here.”
    The truck pulled to a quick stop, and a man in a navy-and-purple uniform went between the two front seats and into the back of his truck.
    Almost every item that had arrived via FedEx the past few years came from the Pennsylvania Humane Society. Andy and Levi housed and retrained the occasional abused or neglected horses the society