Eventually, they came up with something that wouldn’t cause Leah too much alarm, sketching out the basics of the attack but not all the aspects of his recovery. And for the next half hour or so, they worked together on the letter, stopping along the way to talk about this and that.

“Ya know, I feel pretty unsure of myself right now,” Sol said thoughtfully, his gaze on the letter in front of them.

“What do ya mean?”

“Well, I can’t help wonderin’ how a young woman would respond to my deafness, if it lingers. And then there’s all these injuries.” He looked down at his wrapped right hand. “I’m all battered up.”

His dejection was evident. “What’s happened surely wouldn’t lessen a young woman’s regard for ya, Sol. Not if she cares for you.”

He brightened as he looked at her, and Ellie realized that even if another girl didn’t feel that way toward him, she certainly did. Her heart fluttered at the thought.

After they finished the letter, Dawdi came indoors, shuffled across the sitting room, and sat down in his chair. Before she noticed the time, Sol glanced up at the small clock above the sink and said he’d kept her much too long.

“Goodness, family Bible reading and prayer will be startin’ soon,” she said, looking over at Dawdi and seeing his slack jaw. “Looks like he’ll be content right there for a while. I won’t disturb him.”

“He might be disappointed to miss out when he wakes up after his forty winks,” Sol said as Ellie folded the letter.

The way Sol said it, Ellie almost wondered if he was wishing he might join her and her parents. “Well, I should go,” she said, getting up, yet feeling strangely reluctant to leave.

“Denki again.” He smiled. “I’ll see ya, Ellie.”

“At breakfast tomorrow.”

“Lord willin’.” He leaned back in the chair. “Gut Nacht.”

“Take care, Sol.” She opened the inside door and then the screen door, wondering why she hadn’t noticed how chilly it had become in the house.

The moon was scarcely visible, a waxing crescent so thin in the sky she stopped to stare at it. A barn cat meowed loudly across the lane from where she stood, and a crow caw-cawed overhead. She turned to look in the direction of the orchard, where she and Dawdi loved to walk in the late afternoon, but all she could see in her mind’s eye was Sol picking fruit and occasionally stopping to talk to her. All the while, I thought we were just friends.