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“It's really beautiful here. So much scenery.” So far I wasn't really faking too much. This
     morning, as I cleaned, every time I glanced out the window, the nearness of the mountains took my breath away. As did the
     amount. When God made Montana, he didn't skimp on the mountains.
    “Didn't you have mountains in Seattle?” Tabitha asked, scrunching her face as Nicholas's chubby hands reached for her long
     hair.
    “We did, but I could only see them out of the upstairs window of our condo.” And only if I leaned my head against the window
     frame to look past the rows of other condos that blocked my view.
    “So why didn't you have your own house?” Allison asked, now leaning back against the counter inspecting her nails.
    “We were going to buy one—” I stopped the note of self-pity creeping into my voice.
    “But you moved here instead,” Tabitha said with a quick grin. She got up from the kitchen floor, swung Nicholas into her arms,
     and held out her hand to Anneke. “Is it okay if I take the kids outside?” she asked. “I thought they might like seeing the
     horses.”
    “They might be scared,”Allison said. “They're still city kids.”
    Tabitha simply shrugged Allison's comments away with a grin. “Not anymore. They're farm kids now.”
    “Give me a few minutes, and I'll come with you,” I said.
    Tabitha may have allowed Montana to make its hurried claim on my children, but I knew that the horses and cows Tabitha felt
     so comfortable around would terrify my children.
    “Are you going to help?”Tabitha asked.
    “Isn't that what farmers' wives do?” I was going to make the best of our time here, and if working with large, unwieldy creatures
     was part of it, I could play
Little House on the Prairie.
I hadn't considered helping with the cows until Gloria had called. I don't know if it was the take-charge note in her voice
     that spurred me on when she said she and Gerrit and the kids were coming or the blanket assumption that I wouldn't be able
     to help. Pride makes a woman do foolish things.
    With a shrug in my direction,Allison followed her cousin out the door, leaving me alone to do what quick preparations I could
     before the VandeKeeres invaded.
    Twenty minutes later I stepped out into the empty yard. I glanced around but could neither hear nor see Allison,Tabitha, or
     my children. I heard the distant whinny of a horse but couldn't place the direction. Suddenly the rattle of a truck penetrated
     the stillness and an empty stock trailer came toward me from behind one of the barns. Gloria was driving, and behind her,
     in the cab of the truck, I saw a jumble of heads.
    The truck screeched to a halt and three boys piled out in a tangle of arms and legs and laughter, followed by a barking dog.
     The boys glanced my way, nodded, and gave me the sheepish smiles of self-conscious teenagers. The dog ignored me.
    I racked my brain for the boys' names. Joseph, Douglas, and Nathan. Gloria and Gerrit's boys. During our time in Seattle I
     had accompanied Dan home once for Christmas and once for a family get-together. All I remembered of the nieces and nephews
     was a bunch of kids sitting still long enough for the obligatory prayer before the meal, then filling their plates and running
     off to various rooms in the house.
    Just as Gloria turned the truck off, Allison and Tabitha stepped out of one of the older barns on the yard.
    The boys had already run off toward the fields, the dog following, its tail waving like a plume, its mouth open like it was
     smiling at the prospect of moving cows.
    “Good morning, Leslie,” Gloria said as she got out of the truck. Gloria was a slimmer, more nervous version of Wilma. Pretty
     in an uptight way. “So. Here you are.” She twitched out a smile. “It's good to have you with us. Mom's so happy about that,
     too.”
    I almost mouthed those last words along with her. Each time I met Gloria she said precisely the same thing. Like she had written
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