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agreeing with Mam and Esther, yet not feeling much conviction, if any. She was now intended by God to be a widow, to raise Annie, her only child.
    By herself.
    Esther remained close as Mam looked on. “Rest now,” she urged, squeezing Rachel’s hand. “Please, just rest.”
    She wouldn’t rest much, not the deep, life-giving rest that comes from a long day of toil. She would nap, but it would not—could not—possibly be restful.

    That night, Rachel was alone for the first time. Mam and Esther had left Rachel to sleep, but her slumber was fitful and intermittent. Terrifying visions continued to haunt her as she fought to repress the nagging remnants of memories involving the accident, repeatedly refusing to see the sights her mind thrust upon her.
    Giving up, she turned on the bedside lamp to read her New Testament, only to find that the room remained engulfed in hazy darkness. She blinked her eyes, trying to brush away whatever it was, assuming that her eyes were overly tired, strained perhaps. Slowly the darkness subsided.
    She had been reading her New Testament only a short time when the words began to rill together like a gray smudge on the page. Thankfully, the distortion lasted only a few seconds, then cleared up. She said not a word to the night nurse but fell into a troubled sleep, the Testament still open in her hands.
    Hours later, she awoke to a night sky, a starlit view from her hospital room. Getting up, she wandered to the window, looking up at a shimmering half-moon. “Oh, Jacob, I wish you hadn’t had to die,” she whispered. “You were such a peaceable man. Why did you and Aaron have to go that way?”
    Her dreams just now had been filled with more nightmarish images. A horse—a sleek bay mare—lay sprawled out on a highway. Dead. And what might’ve been an Amish market wagon was twisted and on its side, all burst to pieces. She shuddered anew and rejected the repulsive visions. She would not, could not allow herself to see the memories that had torn her world apart. Yet with the shunning of images came shooting head pains, like long needles piercing her skull.
    She closed her mind to the recollection of distant screams as well. The ear-piercing cries of a child.
    Aaron? Annie?
    Turning from the window, she limped back to her hospital bed, though it afforded little comfort. Once again she fell into a troubled sleep, dreaming that she was searching about her on the road, the sharp pain in her womb and the spasms in her head keeping her from moving much at all. She saw Jacob lying helplessly, wounded and bleeding. She began to cry out in her sleep, awaking herself with a jolt, only to find that the dimly lit hospital room had turned hazy beyond recognition.

    The next morning, Rachel was sitting in a chair near the hospital bed, wearing her own bathrobe that Esther had so graciously brought to her from home, when the nurse carried a large breakfast tray into the room.
    “Good morning, Rachel,” the nurse greeted her, though Rachel could make out little more than a filmy white shape.
    “Gut mornin’ to you,” she replied, not able to determine where the coffee or juice or eggs or toast were located on the tray. She didn’t feel much like eating anyway, so she sat silently till Mam and Esther began coaxing her to “just taste something.”
    “Honestly, I’m not very hungry.”
    “Ach, now, what a nice selection of things,” Mam prodded discreetly.
    “Looks mighty tasty to me, too,” Esther said, getting up and picking up something on the tray—maybe a glass of juice or milk; Rachel couldn’t be sure. “Here, why don’tcha just have a sip?”
    Though she felt they were treating her like a reluctant toddler, Rachel went along with the suggestion, reaching out toward the shadowy figure. But she fumbled and missed making contact, and the glass crashed to the floor. “Oh, uh, I’m awful sorry.”
    “Rachel? What’sa matter?” Mam asked as Esther wiped up the mess.
    “I guess it’s