“Your father would be so proud.”

Through flickering lamplight, he met her gaze. “We made a great team.”

The corners of his mouth rose in a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. She nodded, offering a bittersweet smile in return. His words were true, but they weren’t enough to build a life on. Not for her.

He rapped the doorframe twice, spun, and vanished.

She crossed to the window and raised the shade fully. The scene below knotted her stomach.

Nora and Jonas stood locked in an embrace as the EMTs loaded Rebecca into the ambulance.

A crowd of Amish men clustered nearby, hats in hand. Buckets of ice littered the lawn. Buggies stood in the shadow of the barn.

Striding from the porch, Richard beckoned Jonas into the front seat of the ambulance. Jonas nodded, and Richard crossed to his SUV, parked akimbo to her van.

Nora limped to the back of the ambulance.

Jonas lifted her to join Rebecca and the older EMT.

The young EMT closed the rear doors and hopped into the driver’s seat.

Slipping into the cab, Jonas paused and glanced up at the house. Richard’s headlights sliced through the dark, catching him in sudden brightness. He lifted a hand.

Wait for me.

She touched a palm to the wavy glass. At that moment, the driver must have said something, because Jonas snapped around his head and disappeared into the ambulance. It sped down the lane, rounded the corner, and was gone.

Ice is a valuable commodity in a community with no electricity. She remained at the window until the men retrieved their buckets and vanished into the night. Likely, the precious resource would be halfway melted by the time they returned home.

Her pulse rushed in her ears. From all sides, darkness encroached, cold as the vacuum of outer space. Her lungs seized, and she clutched her belly with raw fingers. From deep within, a single sob rose and tore from her throat in a strangled cry. She dropped her forehead against the glass, and pain split her skull. Her body was one giant bruise. As her cry echoed to nothing in the empty house, she too was left feeling hollow. A shell of a person who just hours ago had been a warm being, suffused to the tips of her eyelashes with love.

She pried open the window, and fresh air stirred the rank odors of sweat and sickness. She blinked and stared at the scene. The room—the entire house—was in shambles. How could she let him come home to a mess?