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She held a pill bottle in front of him. “How many of these did you take?”
    He squinted at the bottle, trying to remember. “Four.”
    “When?”
    “Maybe a half hour ago. On my way here.”
    “That’s more than double the dose.” Claire’s voice was laced with disapproval.
    “I’m sorry.” He tried to push himself up off the couch that he had no memory of lying down upon. “I’ll go now.”
    Yet again, this was not the sort of situation in which he wanted to apologize for that fateful night. Not like this, lying on his back, barely able to string two thoughts together.
    “You”—she looked at the pill bottle label—“Mr. TomMiller, passed out cold in my front room and scared me and my girls out of our wits. I’m trying to decide whether or not my son should take you to the hospital.”
    “No, please,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
    To prove it, he gave a great effort and sat up. He intended to go straight into a standing position, but all he could manage before succumbing to the dizziness again was to push himself upright. It didn’t last. He found himself sliding back down onto the pillows.
    The last thing he needed was to be taken to the hospital for what would be marked as an accidental drug overdose.
    Her voice softened. “How long ago did you eat?”
    He thought about it. “Last night.”
    “Ach.” She clicked her tongue. “An empty stomach and morphine is not a good combination. You will have some soup now.”
    Even in his misery, he smiled at the take-charge tone in her voice. She didn’t ask if he would like some soup. She told him that he was going to have some.
    Claire had always been a little bossy—but only for the good of others. He and his older brother, Matthew, thought it was cute. Matthew, already a man, had delighted in her while Tom quietly and painfully worshipped from afar—as only a teenaged boy could.
    The young girl he had met outside on the porch now maneuvered her wheelchair to a spot near the couch and peered down at him. “Hi. I’m Amy. You are a first, you know. We almost had a woman give birth in our kitchen once, but we never had a tourist faint in our front room.” She paused for a breath. “What happened to your face?”
    “Leave the man alone, Amy,” Claire called from another room from which he could hear the clatter of dinnerware. “I am sure he does not feel like answering your questions right now.”
    He turned his head. Through a connecting doorway, he saw Claire busy in the kitchen, an older girl at her side. Both were bustling about, lighting the gas stove, opening a mason jar of what looked like vegetable soup, slicing bread. His almost-sister-in-law had changed a little. Her blond hair, what he could see of it, had streaks of gray. Her body had grown slightly heavier—perhaps with childbearing.
    As his head cleared further, he noted that Claire was barefoot, and her skirt stopped several inches above her ankles. This was a surprise. No Swartzentruber Amish woman showed that much skin. They wore their dresses completely down to the tops of their shoes, and the fabric was darker and heavier. Claire’s dress was light blue, and the material thinner. He glanced down at the floor. Linoleum. It even had a small pattern. No Swartzentruber church would allow something that fancy. It was wooden floors for them. Period. Even the finish used on the wood floors was prescribed.
    Either the Swartzentruber Amish had drastically changed their ways or she had become Old Order Amish. That was practically unthinkable. The ultraconservative Swartzentrubers considered the Old Order Amish too modern even to have fellowship with them. If Claire had become Old Order Amish, that meant that she would have been excommunicated by the church where she had grown up.
    “Did you get hold of your wife, Levi?” she called from the kitchen.
    “Yes,” a man’s voice answered from a place near Tom’s feet. “Grace was at the grocery store with Sarah, but she should be