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psychologist who had treated her
     after she witnessed Mudder and Daed dying when their buggy was hit by a wheat truck.
     She recalled the weeks and months it had taken her to adjust to a new way of life,
     new clothes, new surroundings, new people. The one place she had fit in, she said,
     was in school. Her mentor had been right. Education suited her. Studying suited her.
     She soaked up every morsel of fact, equation, and data thrown at her by her teachers.
    “Next spring I’ll have a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in sociology,”
     she said, her face lighting up with a smile. “Then I’ll work on an advanced degree,
     a master’s they call it. I’ll work as a graduate assistant while I earn it.”
    “This is good for you?” Annie really wanted to know. She never had wanted more book
     learning. Her cooking utensils and her ovens and sugar and flour—these were the tools
     of her trade, and they gave her a sense of accomplishment grounded in the knowledge
     that she served others with nourishment to their bodies. “The nervousness you had
     before, the sadness…it’s gone?”
    “I take a medicine for it and the medicine helps.” Catherine rubbed her hands on the
     chair’s wooden arms. “What I’m doing makes me happy, and it’s possible someday I won’t
     need the medicine.”
    “You’re happy?”
    “Very. I have a passion for research.”
    “But you haven’t married?”
    “I know that’s how you gauge happiness, and I’m so sorry for your loss.” Catherine
     hugged her bag to her chest again. “But for me, it’s different. That’s not to say
     I don’t understand love. There’s a man—”
    “An Englischer?” Annie tried to keep the disappointment from her voice. Catherine’s
     path had long ago diverged from her family’s. This shouldn’t surprise her. “You plan
     to marry?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe. We’re talking.” The momentary happiness had seeped from her
     voice. “There are issues. He’s a medical resident. He’s studying to be a doctor.”
    “A smart man, then. Someone who helps others.” This was good. Different, but a man
     who served others was good. “What stands in the way?”
    “I found I can’t have children.”
    The flat way she said the words spoke to Annie of how long and how hard her sister
     had worked to accept the truth behind them. Tears pricked Annie’s eyes. She blinked
     them away. You took David home before I was ready, but You gave me the gift of his love and You
     gave me his son. I am blessed . “Are you sure? How can you know?”
    “Doctors know these things. There are tests.”
    “And this man doesn’t want you because you can’t give him children?”
    “Annie! No! Dean’s a good man. He loves me. He says we’ll adopt.”
    “So then, what?”
    “I don’t know. It’s the same old thing. The thing I went through with Melvin. Poor
     Melvin. Did he ever marry?”
    So all those words, that psychology Catherine sought when she ran away from her family
     and her community had not given her the peace she sought. Some lessening of her pain
     and sadness, but not peace. Annie chose not to throw it in her sister’s face for surely
     a woman of such learning had reached this conclusion on her own. “He did. He and Elizabeth
     have two children.”
    “Wow.” Catherine sniffed and smiled a watery smile. “Good for him. He deserves such
     bounty.”
    None of them deserved bounty. God gave them these things because of His grace, not
     because of anything they did. Catherine had forgotten much in the outside world. They
     sat silent for a few minutes, listening to the rumble of thunder in the distance that
     reflected unspoken thoughts and feelings and words.
    “You never did say.” Annie studied the tense way her sister held her bag, then followed
     her gaze out the windows to the black curtain of clouds that made it seem later than
     it was. “Why did you come now?”
    “I’m planning for my