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doorway into the great room that filled the first floor of the Zooks’ home just in time to hear me tell Mary I was fine. He made a noise of disagreement. I pointedly ignored him and let his mother pat my hand.
    Next thing I knew Mary was wiping my face with a cool cloth and fragrant tea was waiting for me on the little table beside my chair.
    “Thank you,” I whispered, as I rested my head against the back of the rocker. What a luxury, being cared for like this! I tried to remember the last time anyone had done something special for me. I couldn’t come up with a single incident. I was the one who cared, not the one cared for.
    I was so emotionally weak that I had to keep my eyes closed a few minutes or more tears of self-pity would have fallen.
    I felt Jake’s eyes on me. When I finally looked at him, he gave me a half-smile as if to say, “See? You love being fussed over just like everyone else. And if you need to cry some more, it’s okay.”
    Then he winked, and I swear I blushed.
    “Are you sure you’re all right, Rose?” Esther hovered over me, her brown eyes wide with concern, her rosy cheeks stained a deeper pink than usual.
    Esther wasn’t a Zook, but during the summer after Mary fell down the stairs, she had come to serve as a maud or maid for the family, something unmarried women often did within the Community when the need arose. Expediency dictated that the men of the family, needed in the fields, not care for Mary. So Esther had moved into the room vacated when Mary and John’s daughter Ruth had married and moved to Honey Brook with her husband Isaiah.
    I smiled at Esther. She was so beautiful with her head of rich, thick chestnut hair caught beneath her organdy kapp , but I couldn’t tell her. She wouldn’t like the compliment or the attention; it would embarrass her. Her whole life she had been taught to emphasize community at the cost of self, and compliments emphasized the individual in a most prideful way.
    “I’m fine, Esther,” I assured her. I took a drink of tea, jerking as I scorched my tongue. “Really, I’m fine.”
    I ignored Jake as he gave another soft snort of disbelief. The man could say more with throat noises than anyone I knew.
    Esther didn’t look any more convinced about my condition than Jake, so I forced myself to sit up straight in Mary’s rocker. I’d be fine if it was the last thing I did.
    Mary went to the kitchen with the damp cloth in her hand, and I sat up straighter still as I realized she was walking with a limp.
    “Mary! Your leg!”
    She turned and shrugged. “Some days it’s better than others, but it’s always bad at night when I’m tired.”
    “Arthritis?”
    She sighed. “In the ankle and the hip. I tell John that I am a better forecaster of rain than that forecaster he has in the barn.” She walked to me with a freshened cloth which she put across my forehead. “But it’s you we’re worried about.”
    “A couple of her friends died today,” Jake said. “It’s hit her hard.”
    Mary looked horrified. “I should think so.” And she gently ran her hand over my hair until I felt like Hawk.
    “Mom,” Jake said gently, “you’re hovering.”
    Mary immediately withdrew her hand.
    “No,” I said. “Don’t listen to him. Hover. Please.”
    She placed her hand gently on my head for a minute, and then took a chair near me. “You drink your tea,” she ordered. “Then Esther can take you up to Cara’s old rooms. They’re empty and clean, and Esther made up the bed for you.”
    I smiled at the thought of Cara, married three weeks ago to her Todd. We had all been at the wedding though Mary and John hadn’t stayed for the reception.
    “Oh, Mary!” I was touched by her kindness. “I can’t stay. I need to get home.”
    “Why?”
    “Yeah,” Jake said. “Why?”
    I sputtered a bit but could come up with no good reason. No one waited for me there, not even a cat. My landlord wouldn’t allow pets. No one would know whether I slept