Nodding, Anna mentioned having just returned from a weekend visit. “My parents understand why I wanted to spread my wings. And I appreciate that.”

“Well, we’re certainly delighted to have you on board here.”

Anna thanked her again, and after the short visit, Anna noticed Mart talking in the hallway with another tour guide, the same young Mennonite woman he often sat with in the break room. Anna kept walking toward the entrance and to her car, feeling a little down, though she wouldn’t let on, just as she hadn’t let on how nervous she’d been for her interview weeks ago.

Once inside her car, she took out the small notebook from her purse to look up the locations for the stone walls, then opened Google Maps on her phone to enter the first destination. As she backed out of her spot, she saw Mart heading across the parking lot to his car. He raised his hand in a high wave and gave her a big smile.

She waved back.

Before returning to Glen and Sadie’s place, Anna drove to the first wall on her list. It was a lovely setting, across the road from pastureland with a pond. She slowed her car, moving along the shoulder and wishing she knew more from Mammi, though that was not possible now. There were many tall black walnut trees—a grove of them—on the north side of this wall. Just as Sadie mentioned, thought Anna. But not a single pin oak.

Anna drove farther up the road and turned around, then backtracked, creeping along as she scrutinized the wall and the trees again. Next, she drove to a smaller stone wall a few miles away, and later, the last wall, which turned out to be the one running between the wide meadow and Gabe’s uncle’s property at Peaceful Meadows. She was the most familiar with this one, of course, having admired it whenever she was there to volunteer.

Eventually, Anna returned to the Flauds’ farm and hurried to her room to change clothes from work.

That evening, after supper, Anna could tell that Sadie seemed blue. “Let’s go for a walk,” she suggested.

Sadie shook her head. “Ach, I oughta keep workin’.”

“It might make you feel better if you come,” Anna said while sweeping the kitchen floor.

“Well, ya know, I have been wanting to go an’ see the tree house again. . . .”

“And I know the easiest path to take there.” Anna finished sweeping. “It’d be gut for me, too,” she admitted.

“All right, then.” Sadie dried her hands and untied her white half apron and hung it in the pantry across the room.

———

Being in the dense woods felt refreshing to Sadie as she walked with Anna on the little path that led through the familiar underbrush, though it had been a while since she’d last walked there. “Feels nice in the shade,” Sadie said, making small talk.