"The boys have talked about rumschpringe for years," Edna said. "They just need to get it out of their system. We're sure they will settle down when the time comes."

Rufus nodded. Mark and Luke struck him as a little young for rumschpringe, not even old enough to attend Sunday night singings. Not old enough to consider courting. They were barely out of school. English boys their age would still be looking forward to high school. Amish boys should be taking up a man's share of household chores, especially in a family just moving to a new farm.

But Mark and Luke Stutzman were not his sons.

And neither was Joel.

"Were you pleased with the outcome of the meeting last week?" Ike stabbed his fork into the last of the green beans on his plate.

Rufus recognized the seasoning in the green beans. They must have come from his mother's cellar, canned from last year's garden bounty. Franey would have made sure the new family lacked nothing.

Including him, apparently.

He roused to answer Ike's question. "I'm pleased that community support seems to be growing. Even in the last week, more people have come forward and said they want to help."

"Are they English or Amish?"

"Both. I am only trying to do what is right."

"Then perhaps it will work out. You are an honorable man."

Ike's look of approval moved from Rufus to Beth. Rufus resisted the urge to squirm.

"I made pie," Beth announced.

All three daughters stood and began to stack dishes. Rufus saw no way out.

Forty minutes later, after insisting he could not eat a second slice of blackberry pie, Rufus climbed into the buggy and told Dolly to take him home.

If only he and Annalise could have a quiet, uninterrupted meal. They needed to do better than snatch a few minutes at a time.

"The estate did not look too promising. I'm not sure what's in the boxes," Mrs. Weichert told Annie on Friday afternoon. "I made an absurdly low offer for the whole lot, unseen. I did not expect they would accept it."

"Let's hope there's an amazing find in one of them." Standing beside the truck bed full of boxes and crates, Annie wriggled out of her unzipped sweatshirt. Drenched in the sunshine of a May sky, she jumped at the chance to work outside.

"I pulled up next to the trash bin on purpose," Mrs. Weichert said. "Use your own discretion. Feel free to chuck whole boxes if you don't see anything we can use."

"I'll get right to work." Annie hefted herself up on the open tailgate.

"I need coffee."

"Fresh pot ten minutes ago."

Mrs. Weichert disappeared through the shop's back door. Annie went to work. She estimated at least thirty boxes and crates of various sizes, all of them securely sealed. She pulled a box knife off her belt loop and went to work. Slashing open the first six boxes within reach revealed assorted books, handmade crafts, a porcelain figurine collection, dishes, fabric scraps, and throw pillows. Annie could see already that she would have to go through every box to find the one item that might make it to the shelves. Another batch would make a local thrift store very happy, and the rest was headed for the Dumpster. She immediately set aside the box of fabric scraps, wondering if there might be anything in it that could find its way into an Amish quilt.

Annie lost herself in the work. Two boxes held evidence of a lifetime carving habit and another a colored-glass bottle collection. Annie set aside a box of books for closer inspection later. A box of photographs made her pause long enough to find a place to sit.

There were almost exclusively black and whites, some of them professional portraits, and some reaching back decades. Perhaps even a hundred years.

Annie turned over a stack of photos and flipped through looking at the backs. A few had partially legible notations of names, places, and dates. For the most part, though, they were unmarked.

Probably the last person who might have known who these stern faces belonged to was gone. Words like "Mother" and "Uncle N after the war" did little to bring these lives into twenty-firstcentury memory. Someone was giving away an entire family history because no one was left to remember it.

Annie thought of the lists of names that traced her family and Rufus's. Three hundred years ago they shared an ancestor. Now they had an occasional unsubstantiated story, or a rare photo from her family. A year ago she had paid attention to none of it. Now she could not imagine boxing it all up to sell to a stranger willing to haul it away.

She let out the heaviness that had gathered in her chest and wiped an eye with a knuckle.

"Annalise, are you all right?"

She turned at the shoulders to see Elijah Capp standing at the end of the truck, a toolbox hanging from one arm. "Hello," she said. "Yes, I'm fine. Just sorting all this stuff."

"Mrs. Weichert called about a plumbing problem."

Annie nodded. "The sink in the back room. It's not draining well. I don't think it's anything too troublesome."

"I'll take a look."

"Thank you, Elijah." She raised her eyes to meet his. He seemed to hold words in his throat that he could not bring himself to say. "Is there something else?"

"I don't know if Ruth told you she saw me," he finally said, "when she came down with you a couple weeks ago."

"No, she didn't say anything." Anyone could see Elijah Capp was still twisted in heartbreak.

"I know she's not coming back." Elijah ran his thumb and index finger along the brim of his hat. "But she's not over me."

"Well, Elijah, I think you're right. On both counts."

"She's wrong if she thinks I can't make my own choice. I wish she would make room for happiness."

Annie moistened her lips. She was not sure she understood what he was talking about-and if he were planning something, she was not sure she wanted to know what it was. She sliced open another box. "What are you saying, Elijah?"

He shifted his weight and shrugged one shoulder. "Ruth and I are not any more unlikely than you and Rufus."

Annie stopped, midmotion, and turned her whole body toward Elijah. Squatting in the dust in her jeans, picking through the remains of an unknown life with her hair once again tumbling out of its ponytail, she felt about as un-Amish as she had at any moment in her life.

"At least you and Ruth have the past together," she finally said.

"That's not good enough for me." Elijah's jaw set.

"Still, it's something." Annie's legs ached from squatting. She stood up and looked down at Elijah from the truck bed. "Sometimes I think Rufus and I are getting close, but I always manage to disappoint him with what I don't understand about being Amish."

"Is that how you think he feels?"

"Doesn't he?" Annie doubted Rufus talked to anyone about his feelings, so how would Elijah know?

"He's not disappointed. He just doesn't know what to do with you."

"Because I'm English? Because he has no business getting involved with me?"

"Because you do the unexpected."

Annie blew out her breath. "That must frustrate him no end."

"I think it pleases him no end."

"I don't know if I can ever follow Ordnung. Rufus deserves to be with someone who understands his life."

"He deserves to be with someone who is his life."

Air rushed into Annie's throat far too fast, and she turned away.

Elijah shifted his toolbox to the other arm. "I'll go see about that stopped drain."

Annie smoothed out the purple Amish dress on her bed. It had once been Ruth's dress. Ruth, someone who knew how to be Amish.

Annie had done so well over the winter.

She learned to cook. She would learn to quilt properly. Her ears throbbed with Pennsylvania Dutch and High German. She learned to pray. Sort of. And she had broken the spine of her Bible with wear.

Then she went home and wore that stupid red dress-still hanging in the closet of her childhood bedroom.

When she put it on, she slid into old skin, where everything fit. Nothing about her life since had fit right.

Annie dropped her T-shirt and jeans to the floor and pulled the purple dress over her head. Her fingers had become nimble with pinning the pieces of the dress in place. She yanked a brush through her hair, pinned up the blond mass, and put on a prayer kapp.

She did not have a mirror in her bedroom. The only mirror in the house was the small one in the bathroom. But she still had her imagination, and it served her well in forming a mental picture of herself.

Perhaps her own ancestors had looked not so different from this. Plain dresses. Tamed hair. Kapps on their heads as they sought to discern humility and peace as a way of life.

The rap on the door sounded distant, as if it came through the centuries rather than simply up the stairwell. Annie almost did not move, not willing to surrender the moment. But the sound came again, more insistent.

There was no time to change. Besides, it was no secret to anyone in town that she sometimes wore Amish clothing. Annie clutched purple yardage in her fingers and descended the stairs.

She opened the front door. "Rufus!"

"Hello, Annalise." He stood with his hands crossed in front of him at the wrists. "I am more than a week delayed, but I thought perhaps we could have that walk."

Annie smiled and laid her hand in his open palm.

"Am I taking you away from something?" Rufus allowed himself to squeeze Annalise's hand as they started down the crumbling sidewalk that she had not allowed him to fix. Yet.

Annalise shook her head. "I was just planning a quiet evening at home."

"I see."

"You're wondering about the dress, aren't you?" Annalise said. "You've seen me wear it plenty of times."

"When you come to supper, or church." Rufus inhaled her scent, her nearness. "But in your own home?"

"It makes me feel peaceful. Helps me think."

"And your thoughts tonight?"

"I haven't felt so peaceful lately. Being Amish...well, it's not as easy as people think." Annalise raised brimming eyes. "And I've missed you."

"Things will settle down now," Rufus said. "The Stutzmans are in their own house. Life will go back to normal."

"I hope so."

"You have nothing to worry about, Annalise."

"Don't I?"

"No. No one holds a candle to you." Rufus squeezed her hand again.

"Let's take a very long walk, then." She squeezed back.

"What do you have in the way of garden tools?" he asked as they reached the street and fell into rhythm with each other.

Annalise sucked in a smile. "For my garden? I'm afraid I don't have much to work with."

"Why don't we walk over to Tom's hardware store? Jacob is going to need something that suits his size to break up your soil tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"I thought my brothers and I could do the tilling while you're quilting."

"Oh, no you don't. I want to be there."

Rufus paused his steps, forcing Annalise to stop and look at him. "Let me do this for you, Annalise."

She started to protest further but put a hand to her own mouth. "Demut. I don't have to do everything myself."

Twenty-Three.

I saw you out walking in that purple dress." Mrs. Weichert moved a set of figurines and cleaned the glass shelf beneath the small statues.

Annie tilted her head to one side as she ran a thumb along a row of forty-year-old books on Monday. "It was a nice evening for a walk."

"I suppose a lot of people think you're crazy, but I think you look darling in those dresses."