“How about we start by contacting the youth pastor to see if we can borrow the van?” Mart said. “That way we can all travel together, and there’ll be plenty of room to include more.”

“Great idea. Let us know,” Austin said, and the others agreed, as well.

“Definitely. I’ll text everyone,” Mart said.

“Perfect,” Charlotte said, smiling across the table at Austin.

As the gathering was dispersing and they were saying good-bye, Anna looked forward to getting together with all of them again, happy that Mart had invited her.

Sadie was glad her parents had stopped by for a visit that Friday evening. Because it was so warm and humid, Glen had suggested they sit outdoors beneath one of the shade trees in the backyard, where a neat mulch skirt surrounded the base. He carried the porch chairs out there, and Sadie’s father helped her frail mother down the walkway to the inviting sheltered spot.

Meanwhile, Sadie went in to dish up generous helpings of vanilla ice cream, then placed all four bowls on a tray to carry outside with a plate of chocolate-chip cookies. With Anna gone, Sadie hoped to broach the topic of Anna’s grandmother’s stay in Strasburg as a teen. Sadie had no false hopes that she would uncover a trove of information so many decades after the fact, but this way she could at least talk freely to her parents.

Birds flapped their wings and dipped in the birdbath across the yard as Sadie served her parents and Glen. A welcome breeze cooled Sadie’s brow as she sat next to her mother, who remarked that the last Preaching service had seemed longer than usual. “Do you think it will be that long again this weekend?”

“Well, there was the members’ meeting at the end last time,” Sadie reminded her. “A long discussion ’bout dividing the church district, since there are more than forty families now.”

“Ach, how’d that slip my mind?”

“What’s that, Martha?” Sadie’s father asked, bending his ear her way, his straw hat firmly set on his gray head.

“She was sayin’ the last Preaching service seemed long,” Sadie told him, wishing he would get a better hearing aid. Last time they’d dropped by to visit, she had told him as gently as possible that it would make for a more enjoyable conversation. Maybe that’s why they haven’t come to see us for a couple of weeks, she thought.

Glen nodded his head at his father-in-law. “Time to get padded benches for the older folk.”

“Well, sometimes they do bring out padded rockers for Preachings,” Sadie said.

“And next time we host church, we’ll be sure and have them for yous,” Glen said, looking at Dat and Mamm. “Don’t let me forget, Sadie, jah?”

Sadie agreed. All this talk of forgetting and not remembering was weighing on her, what with her sister Eva so heavy on her heart.