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through your fingers before you realize it.”
    Rosalyn’s crestfallen expression tugged at Edith’s heartstrings. The cotton curtains were faded from the sun, and the woven rag rugs were patched on the back, so threadbare the girls avoided standing on them when they were washing dishes or cooking at the stove. When they’d moved to Willow Ridge, she and her sisters had hoped Dat might be able to part with some of the items their mother had made, but he seemed determined to keep Mamm’s memory alive by clinging to every little thing associated with her—even though those items were falling apart.
    The kitchen fell silent, so stuffy Edith longed to open a window—except Dat had always insisted that no one else rise from the table until he did. He didn’t like to feel rushed by women clearing away the dishes and removing leftover food.
    Finally, he stood up. “After this afternoon’s work, I realize how short on replacement parts I am, so I’ll be leaving early tomorrow,” he remarked. “I like it that the trip to Kansas City is a lot shorter from here than it was from Roseville.”
    Edith and her sisters nodded mutely.
    “Make something substantial for breakfast so I won’t have to buy lunch along the way,” Dat continued. “I’ll let my new driver find his own meal while I’m at the clock-repair store. Every little bit helps when it comes to economizing. Your mother stretched a dollar farther than anyone I’ve ever known.”
    When he left the kitchen, Edith and her sisters sprang from their chairs. Rosalyn ran dishwater while Loretta scraped plates and Edith gathered the silverware and glasses. “I need to buy another canister of formula powder,” she murmured. “Dat will raise a ruckus if he sees the price sticker on the can Will left, so I’ll pay for it out of our stash. Please don’t tell him I’m buying it, or he’ll think we intend to defy him and keep the babies longer. But what else can I do? We don’t have enough to feed them through tomorrow.”
    Rosalyn glanced out the kitchen window. “Folks are still over at the Grill N Skillet for the wedding, so Zook’s Market’s not open, most likely.”
    “ Jah, the stores are all closed for the day,” Loretta reminded Edith. “The Witmers have closed the Grill N Skillet for its supper shift so folks can stay at the wedding party as long as they want to. Lydia and Katie Zook plan to help with the cleanup, too.”
    “Hmm.” Edith stood between her sisters, assessing the wedding guests who sat clustered in lawn chairs behind the café. “Maybe if I ask Preacher Henry nicely, he’ll let me into his store just long enough to . . . or maybe I’ll have to go when they first open in the morning.”
    “Go now, while Dat’s downstairs working,” Loretta suggested in a low voice.
    “We’ll keep the babies quiet for you,” Rosalyn chimed in under her breath. “I haven’t gotten a gut look at them yet.”
    “Me neither. What’re their names?”
    Edith gratefully grasped her sisters’ shoulders. “ Denki so much—I won’t be long,” she promised. “Leroy and Louisa are such sweet little things. You can’t help but love them.”
    Before any more time slipped away, Edith grabbed a couple of twenty-dollar bills from the plastic coffee canister where they kept the money from selling their cage-free eggs to the Hooleys’ mill store—a sideline Dat’s cousin Reuben had left behind when he’d returned to Roseville. Her pulse pounded as she hurried across the lot behind their house and then strode past the Brennemans’ cabinetmaking shop, toward the back door of the café.
    As she’d hoped, Lydia Zook was helping in the kitchen and was sympathetic to Edith’s need for formula. As the storekeeper’s wife walked her down the road to the white market with the blue metal roof, Edith answered her questions about the babies with what little information she had. It seemed Asa Detweiler was all the talk among the curious wedding guests, but