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their most beautiful child yet.”
    Now her friends had three or four children and somberly promised to pray for God’s blessing to come to Fannie as well.
    Fannie yearned for another child, but she was beginning to doubt whether the arrows in the quiver, as the Bible said, were truly a measure of God’s blessing. Perhaps the psalmist meant something else entirely, something that would make Fannie feel less discomforted by her inability to bear another child.
    She sat at the kitchen table, where in the past she would allow herself the release of tears when this moment arrived. Fannie had abandoned tears more than a year ago. Now she simply counted off ten slow, deep breaths and composed herself.
    Sadie bounded in through the back door, her cheeks scrubbed fresh by the late spring air and her eyes lit with anticipation.
    “It’s today, right?” Sadie said. “Today we go to for supper with Grossmuder, ya ?”
    The desire to join her boisterous family for the evening meal could not have been further from Fannie’s mood, but Sadie loved to go. Especially since Fannie’s brother’s son began to toddle, Sadie loved to take Thomas’s hand and lead him around the house or yard.
    And Elam would be waiting for them there. He walked over several hours early to help Atlee Hostetler put a new door on the outside entrance to the cellar. Perhaps it was just as well. Among her extended family it would be easier to avoid Elam’s eye. He could have one more day of hope even if Fannie could not.
    “Shall we fix your hair before we go?” Fannie said, taking her daughter’s hand. “Your braids are coming loose.”
    “If we must,” Sadie said, “but please hurry.”
    Fannie took in little of what Sadie said while they repaired her hair and rode in the buggy the two miles to the Hostetler farm. Most of it seemed to be about the words Sadie wanted to teach her young cousin, though in Fannie’s observation the boy showed little interest in expressing himself beyond the few simple sounds he already had mastered. There was plenty of time for that.
    Fannie pulled her buggy in beside her brother’s, and Sadie gripped the bench and looked at her mother for permission to get out. After Sadie once jumped out before the buggy stopped moving and nearly rolled under a wooden wheel, Fannie and Elam became stricter than their general natures about a rule that Sadie must not leave the buggy without explicit permission.
    Fannie nodded. Sadie leaped down, and Fannie followed. They entered the back door together, and the little girl ran to embrace her grossmuder , flinging her arms around Martha’s waist and laying her head against her abdomen.
    “ Grossmuder ,” Sadie said, “my arms don’t reach around you anymore. Are you eating too much?”
    “Sadie!” Fannie said sharply.
    “Sorry.” Sadie hung her head for a few seconds before looking up again brightly. “Where’s the baby?”
    Martha Hostetler laughed. “In the front room. But he’s supposed to play on his blanket right now.”
    “I’ll help him play.” Sadie shot through the door.
    “What can I help you with?” Fannie said.
    Martha turned and removed a knife from a drawer. “I haven’t done the vegetables yet.”
    “I’ll do them.” Fannie took the knife from her mother.
    Amish dresses hid weight gain and shifting shapes, but in a startling moment Fannie saw what had sparked her daughter’s impolite question. Her mother’s bosom was heavier and her apron climbed a less defined waistline.
    Martha was thickening.

    “Clara!”
    Clara jolted at the sound of Rhoda’s voice. Whatever Rhoda needed, Clara would do—dishes, dusting, sweeping.
    She stepped from her room into the hall. “Yes? What can I do for you?”
    “Nothing,” Rhoda said. “I only wanted to say that I’m going to walk the children up to the road and see them off to school.”
    “I’ll take them,” Clara said.
    “No need. I can manage.”
    “Then leave Mari with me.” The three-year-old