"Nice to meet you." Shannon turned to Kate and gritted her teeth. "There's another one waiting for you down the hall. I'm afraid she's related." She held up the applesauce. "She gave me this. Made by real Amish people."

"Who is it?" Kate said.

Both Mamma and Dat shook their heads.

Shannon winced. "I don't know. But she's a talker. After two minutes I was looking for her OFF switch."

With a sense of foreboding, Kate led her parents out of the dressing room. A high-pitched screech echoed down the hall. Immediately they snapped their heads in the direction of the sound. There was no mistaking that voice.

Bewildered, Kate looked at her parents. "What is she doing here?"

Dat shook his head in disbelief.

They watched as Ada sashayed towards them with a wicker basket hanging over her arm. The spring in her step left no doubt that she was in very good spirits. Her eyes lit upon Dat and Mamma, and then her expression sparkled with recognition after examining Kate for a few seconds.

"Kate!" she squealed as she jogged forward to meet her wayward relative.

The occasion called for an embrace, so Kate reluctantly held out her arms to her sister-in-law.

"I am a lucky soul indeed to find you," Ada said. "This building has about a hundred hallways. I wasn't sure I was in the right place."

"What are you doing here?" Dat said.

"Last night I was halfway asleep when the idea came to me," Ada said, tripping over her words in an effort to get them all out at once. "Aaron was quite alarmed when he heard you were taking the bus to visit Kate today, and he asked me to follow you over and bring a little cheer. This morning I called Madeline Schwimmer from the phone at the grocery store, and she said she'd be delighted to drive me." Ada beamed with satisfaction.

Kate could only pretend to share her jubilation.

Ada's gaze traveled from Kate's bright yellow sundress to her rather frivolous orange heels, courtesy of Shannon's credit account at Nordstrom. "Look at you!" she gushed. "You're all made up and ready to take on the world." She leaned close to Kate and lowered her voice. "I think the fancy clothes suit you. Might as well be honest about who you are."

"You brought some of the applesauce," Mamma said.

Ada reached into her oversized basket and pulled out a jar. "Look what we did, Kate. Me, Anna, Mary, and Mamm Weaver. My sister Sarah came too. More than one hundred quarts in one day. I thought my feet were going to fall off, they hurt so bad."

Ada handed Kate the bottle. "From the MacIntosh apples?" Kate said.

"Jah," Mamma said.

Ada waved her hand in the air dismissively. "I don't know the kind. Mamm Weaver dumped the apples in the sink and told me to wash. Mary had to bring me a stool because I could barely stand on that hard kitchen floor of yours. Mamm saw how badly I suffered and told me to go put my feet up on the sofa. Ach, what a time we had!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw Dat flash a peculiar half smile.

"And look at this." Ada produced a small bottle of apple cider, a beautiful amber gold. "My boys were a big help to Elmer and the twins. And lots of neighbors dropped by, didn't they, Mamm Weaver? The Zooks, the Herschbergers...oh, too many to name. Nathaniel King lent a hand, but secretly I think he came over because Sarah was there."

Kate's stomach flipped at the sound of Nathaniel's name, but she did not betray any emotion to Ada. She refused to give Ada the satisfaction of knowing that the mere mention of Nathaniel King sent Kate reeling. Resolving to bury her curiosity so Ada wouldn't suspect, she nodded politely but didn't reply. As it turned out, her pretense didn't matter. Ada was eager to talk about Kate's one-time boyfriend.

"And, Kate," she said, patting Kate on the arm. "I don't want you to fret one bit about Nathaniel. He told Aaron that he has completely forgiven you and has not one iota of bad feeling left in his heart for you or the family."

Kate forced her throat open to speak. "That is very good of him."

"The whole community worried over him for weeks, but I'm convinced he has completely recovered. That boy won't slow down. He's joined two different youth groups, and he and Sarah go everywhere together."

Kate wanted to crawl into a hole. Did she look as distressed as she felt, even with a painful smile pasted on her face?

"Plus, Nathaniel loves Sarah's apple pies." Ada glance darted between Kate and Mamma, and she sighed in conspicuous contentment. "We'll have those two married off next year, Lord willing."

Mamma, who avoided confrontation at all costs, cast her eyes downward while Ada chattered away.

It was only with supreme effort that Kate kept her composure. A gaping hole in her chest quickly sucked every bit of light right out of her. Why was this news so devastating? She had already learned the brutal truth from Nathaniel's own mouth.

"Ada," Dat said, "Kate does not need to hear this. Leave well enough alone."

"I am just sharing the news. My boys adore Nathaniel. He plays Scrabble with us once a week and is already their favorite uncle," Ada said, prattling merrily.

Kate thought she might scream if she were forced to listen any longer.

"Nathaniel is a fine man," Ada said. "Don't you think so, Dat Weaver?"

Dat did not answer. He was studying Kate intently. What he saw in her face must have made him unhappy. His eyebrows loomed over his eyes like dark storm clouds.

He took Mamma's hand. "Ada, could you wait here while we find a vending machine for Kate? She needs something to eat before her final performance."

Ada pulled a bright green apple from the basket. "No need. I brought apples."

"She needs some sugar."

"I brought pie," Ada replied.

Still holding tight to Mamma, Dat grabbed Kate's hand and pulled them both away. "She wants something not in your basket."

Dragging Mamma and Kate with him, he plowed his way to the end of the hall, around a corner, then into the stairwell, where the metal door slammed behind them. The deafening clang echoed off the cement stairs.

Without saying a word, Dat pulled Kate to him and wrapped his thick arms around his daughter. Kate could not remember ever before receiving an embrace from her reserved father. Feeling as if she had run a marathon, she inhaled and exhaled with purposeful breaths until her heart slowed to normal and the vice squeezing her lungs relaxed.

"He hates Scrabble," she said.

Still holding tightly to his daughter, he said softly, "You still love him."

A pathetic sob escaped Kate's lips.

"Elmer said as much," Mamma whispered.

Dat stroked Kate's hair gently while Mamma came from behind and placed her hand on Kate's shoulder. "Then why did you leave us, liebe?" Dat's voice wavered. "Why?"

Kate tugged away from her dat's arms and wiped her eyes. "I tried to explain in the note. Maria needed me to testify for her son. Her brother drove me to Milwaukee. I told them I could only stay for a few weeks and then I was planning to return to Apple Lake."

Mamma and Dat looked at each other in confusion. "That is not what Aaron told us."

"Aaron?"

Without warning, Dat buried his face in his hands and moaned. "Aaron. My son. What has he done?" He sank to the steps and sat, face in hands, his stocky frame shaking with every drawn breath.

Care seemed to weigh Mamma down as she sat next to Dat and put her arm around him. "I am beginning to see."

"See what?"

Mamma motioned for Kate to sit next to her. She put her hand to Kate's cheek. "Tell us what happened, liebe. The day you left."

"Carlos came to get me. Maria needed me to care for her baby and then testify in a custody hearing. She might have lost her son if I had not helped."

Dat lifted his head.

Mamma nodded. "You saw Aaron?"

"Jah. I told him to tell you I would be back before harvest. And I wrote the notes for you and Nathaniel. I did not feel I could explain everything in my note."

"She wrote notes," Dat said.

Kate took Mamma's hand. "On the day of the buggy accident, I knew. I knew that the Lord wanted my future to be with our community, to be with my family and my faith and Nathaniel. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt."

Mamma exhaled slowly. "Oh, my liebe, oh, my liebe."

"But then Aaron wrote and said you were happier without me, that my worldly ways were destroying our family. I doubted your love. I doubted my worthiness to live in the community."

Dat spoke in monotone syllables. "How many letters did you write us, Katie?"

"Five. But you never wrote back. What was I to believe?"

Pain filled their eyes as Mamma and Dat gazed at each other. "We sent you six letters, liebe," Mamma said. "All but one came back unopened. We never got any of yours or ever saw the note."

Kate grasped the import of what Mamma said. "You didn't?"

Mamma shook her head, tears rolling down her cheek. "Aaron brought in our mail every day for weeks. I thought he was being thoughtful."

"My son," Dat said, his hands clasped around his knees, his face a picture of agony.

Kate felt dizziness wash over her. She would not have imagined that Aaron, even with his rigid ideas, could do such a thing. "He sent me three letters. He told me the family was better off without me." Kate stared dumbfounded at the floor. "He must truly despise me to hurt me so. To hurt you so."

"He does not despise you as much as he loves himself," Dat said. "And desires to be bishop."

The three sat in silence, listening to the distant howl of the wind outside. A storm was blowing in.

"So this is why you decided to stay in Milwaukee? Because you thought we didn't want you?" Dat said.

"Jah."

To Kate's surprise, her mamm smiled. "Oh, liebe, now you can come home. Now you can come home. We will demand that Aaron confess his sin and explain to Nathaniel. You can come home!"

Kate slowly stood and leaned against the railing. "Nae, I cannot. I talked to Nathaniel on the phone. He knows that Maria's boyfriend is dead and that I caused his death. He forgave me but said he never wanted to talk to me again." Her voice cracked, and she walked around the small landing to regain her self-control. "He hasn't merely rejected me, Dat, he acts as if I meant nothing to him, ever. Am I of so little value?"

Dat pulled her to sit next to him again. "You are of infinite value."

"The Lord and Nathaniel have both abandoned me."

"How could our Lord and Savior abandon someone He bought with such a high price? Look at me, Kate." Dat reached out and held her face between his hands. "I am your father. I am an imperfect man with many faults, but I would never turn my back on you. You are more precious to me than all the treasures in the world. Now think of our perfect Father. It is not in His character or His nature to forsake one of His children. It is impossible. If you cannot see God that way, then you do not see the love a father has for his daughter. God's ways are not our ways. We cannot know why things happen. We can only trust that He knows all things. We must not trust in the arm of flesh, only God."

Kate stood up and turned her back on her parents. Slumping her shoulders, she lowered her voice to a near whisper. "Aaron has deceived us, Jared is dead, and I have lost Nathaniel. It does not seem like the doings of a being who loves me."

Mamma tried to grab her hand. She shrank from her mother's touch.

"Nothing is lost to the Lord," Mamma said.

"I am," Kate said. She looked into her mamma's eyes. "I will have a brilliant singing career. People from all over the world will know my name. I'll have everything I ever dreamed of." She depressed the latch on the stairwell door and slowly pushed it open. "Let God run other people's lives and leave me alone."

Chapter Forty.

"There." Shannon stabbed one more bobby pin into Kate's hairdo. "I am amazing. We get started twenty minutes late and I still manage to make your hair look gorgeous with a half hour to spare."

Kate fingered a curl at the base of her neck. "Thanks, Shannon."

From behind, Shannon put her hands on Kate's shoulders and stared at her reflection in the mirror. "Now, if only we could fix that sadness as easily as I fixed your hair, that would be a real trick."

"I am fine," Kate said.

She stood and removed her first costume from the clothes hanger. Shannon, familiar with the routine, helped her ease it over her head and tightened the laces in the back. Kate raised her arms to make sure she had freedom of movement then dropped them to her sides and nodded at Shannon.

Shannon gave her a quick yet significant hug and turned to retrieve her own costume from the rack.

One of the girls from the ensemble stuck her head around the divider. "Kate, Dr. Sumsion's out here to see you."

Kate emerged from the dressing room and looked to her left. Mamma and Dat sat with Ada on a bench at the far end of the hall. They stared at her but were too far away to do anything but observe. She looked the other way and spied Maria and Carlos marching toward her, with Alex riding on Carlos's shoulders.

Kate knew she was glad to see them rather than feeling so. In her present state, she was incapable of mustering enthusiasm for anything.

She gave Maria a hasty hug. "Thanks for coming," she said.

"Hey, what about me?" said Carlos, spreading his arms for Kate.

"Sorry," Kate said. "You get a handshake."

Carlos glanced expectantly at the dressing room door. "I need a hug. Where's Shannon?"