“The most dangerous thing I did today was go to Walmart,” I tell him. “I’ll check in tomorrow.”

* * *

I’ve never been the domestic type. I sure as hell don’t remember the last time I made date pudding. Probably as a teenager, when my mamm was still alive and doing her utmost to instill some semblance of domesticity in her unreceptive daughter. She would drag me into our big country kitchen and my sister, Sarah, and I would help her bake. It wasn’t always the tranquil ritual you might imagine. I was difficult; Sarah outshone me, which only made things worse. Still, it’s a good memory.

My current kitchen is a far cry from my mamm’s, my hands not nearly as capable as hers, but I get the job done with a good bit of sampling along the way, and the pudding turns out better than I anticipated. The entire trailer smells good—and it’s blissfully warm. I bought some plastic cups, and tomorrow after worship I’ll serve the pudding with caramel sauce and chopped walnuts on top. Hopefully, it will help get things off to a good start.

By late afternoon, the kitchen is cleared, the pudding is stowed in a sealable food storage bowl, and I’m poring through The Bridge for a bicycle that will make it easier to get around, at least when the roads are clear. There are no adult bicycles for sale, but there’s an ad for a scooter bike, which is even better. It’s an added bonus that there’s a phone number, which tells me the owner is local and probably Mennonite.

After bundling up, I hike it down to the Amish phone booth at the intersection a couple hundred yards down the road. The phone is inside a frame building the size of an outhouse. There are dozens of buggy wheel marks in the snow, but there’s no one here now. I slide the quarter into the slot and dial. A man picks up on the second ring with an enthusiastic, “Ja!”

“Guder nochmiddawks,” I say, greeting him with the Pennsylvania Dutch words for “good afternoon.” “I’m calling about the scooter bike.”

“It’s a nice one. Aluminum, with twenty-inch wheels and a basket in front for the grocery or whatnot. Good to get around on if the snow isn’t too deep.”

I’ve seen the Amish around Painters Mill travel on kick scooters, even Amish women, and the contraptions are amazingly fast and easy to power. “How much?”

“It’s used, so I’m asking two hundred.”

“Where are you located?”

“East of Roaring Springs.”

My heart sinks. I’m west of town, which tells me his place is too far for me to travel on foot. “I’m without transportation,” I tell him. “Any way you can haul it over to my place so I can take a look? I’m pretty interested and I have cash.”

“The cash part is talking. Where are you located?”

Twenty minutes later, a pickup truck pulls in to the driveway. Grabbing my coat, gloves, and bonnet, I go out to greet him.