Rising, she outened the gas lamp, lifted the sheet and quilt, and slipped into bed, wondering for the hundredth time if anyone else in Hickory Hollow knew about her adoption and would be willing to share with her. I’ve already asked everyone I can think of, she thought, frustrated at the idea of having to wait until Mamma was ready.

With Mamma not returning home anytime soon, maybe there was someone outside the family who knew something. Even a small detail would help relieve her desire to know. So far, Britta hadn’t told Susie of the reappearance of this continual yearning. After all, that night more than two years ago now, Susie had advised her in so many words to wait for Mamma’s timing. And I’ve tried. . . .

Lying in bed, unable to sleep, Britta wondered, Would any of the ministers remember my beginnings here? Bishop Beiler, maybe?

Rolling over, she contemplated the questions that churned in her mind, feeling trapped in a box with its lid on too tight.

Getting up, she sat and leaned back on the headboard, wondering what all had been involved in her adoption process. She noodled on that for quite some time, and as she did, she thought of Mattie Beiler, who had been a midwife for many years but had long since retired.

Might Mattie know something?

Then, out of the clear blue, Ella Mae crossed her mind. What if Mamma told her how I came to be adopted? Dare I ask?

Somehow, Susie managed to maintain her hectic pace into October, including starting to sew her bridesmaid dress for Cousin Verena’s wedding next month and completing two custom-made family trees on a shorter-than-normal deadline. Word of her fine handiwork had spread all over Lancaster County in the past years, even beyond the Plain community. Stitched with Love, she now called her little business, after some folk at market had started referring to her framed family trees that way. Susie was humbled by the praise and thankful for the extra income.

Britta’s hand-quilted table runners were also quite popular, as was the beloved peanut butter spread. In addition to the many tourists who came their way, a lot of their regular customers dropped by to pick up a month’s worth at a time, saying Mamma’s version just tasted better than their own.

When Susie was alone with her thoughts while she worked on her royal blue dress, she couldn’t help wondering how Obie and his Sugar Valley sweetheart were getting along.

Initially, it had been somewhat freeing, not waiting for his next letter, and she supposed he had taken her final letter as the termination of their friendship. But now, she wished she could remember precisely what she’d written. Was it too abrupt?

At the time, she’d believed she was doing the right thing in setting him free, and herself, too. Yet she still treasured his old letters. This, too, troubled her.