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God’s benevolence.”
    Presented that way, his point of view made perfect sense to Leah. “Don’t you ever get curious about the rest of the world, though?”
    She could tell she’d hit a nerve. For all of his confidence about his lifestyle, there was yearning too. And by the way he played the video game, she guessed, there was intense competitiveness. “I cannot tell you otherwise, Leah.Yes, I do wonder what certain things would be like among you English. Since I’ve been here in this hospital, I have seen many people who care and who help others. Like Amish ways.
    “But I have also seen your newspapers and your television programs since I’ve been here. They tell terrible stories about your world. People kill others to steal their cars—even when they have cars of their own.” He shook his head. “This is not a world where I want to live.”
    Leah couldn’t deny that horrible things went on in the world every day. “All right, I agree. The world’s not a perfect place. But why not try to change it instead of hiding from it?”
    He shook his head. “The elders tell us that it is far more likely that the English will change our ways than that we will change theirs.”
    “Do you always do what the elders say?” Both he and Charity quoted rules and words of others. Did they ever think for themselves?
    “
Gelassenheit
,” he said. “That’s German for patience and resignation. It means obedience to the Amish community. It is not something we
do
. It is something we
are
.”
    Leah had been raised to be on her own. Her mother’s many marriages, their frequent movesand different schools had taught her to be independent. But she saw quite clearly that for the Amish, individuality was not a virtue. It was a curse. She stood. “Well, it looks like we’ve come full circle, Ethan. You were right after all—the English and the Amish can’t mingle.”
    He stood too. “But we can care about one another,” he said carefully. “We can always care.”
    She knew he meant
care
in a brotherly way. But after spending time with him, she didn’t want to be just another sister to him. She wanted to be a girl who mattered to him the way Martha Dewberry mattered. Except that Leah wasn’t Amish. And she never would be.
    That evening, Leah overheard Ethan tell his sisters that he was returning home on a shuttle bus. Rebekah reacted immediately, asking him not to leave her and Charity. Leah reacted too, but quietly, deep inside herself. She knew she was going to miss him.
    “Papa needs me to work, but I will be back,” Ethan said.
    “When?”
    “Tomorrow evening. By suppertime.”
    Leah’s heartbeat accelerated.
Good. He’s coming
back
. When he left the room, he passed the table where she sat, trailed his fingers across the surface and softly brushed her arm. She met his gaze and felt a rush of yearning. She wanted to stand up and throw her arms around him. Instead, she sat perfectly still.
    She was preparing to go to bed when Dr. Thomas came into the room. Leah was surprised to see him there so late on a Friday night. “I got tied up in the emergency room with a leg fracture; that’s why I’m so late making rounds,” he explained.
    “I’m not going anywhere.” She felt apprehensive. “So, do you know anything about what’s wrong with me yet?”
    He shuffled her chart, laden with X rays and papers. “I know that I want to do a biopsy on your knee first thing Monday morning.”

“W hy do you have to do a biopsy?” Leah asked Dr. Thomas.
    “A biopsy is nothing more than a diagnostic tool—”
    Leah cut him off. “I
know
what a biopsy is! That’s how the doctors discovered that my grandmother had cancer.” She gasped. “Do you think I have cancer? Is that why you want to do a biopsy?”
    “Now, calm down. There are some cancers that have a hereditary factor, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have cancer. I don’t want to make a false diagnosis, and since we don’t know what’s wrong with you