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joyride. You oughta be ashamed.”
    Bess’s eyes went wide with disbelief. Mammi? A sweet little old lady?
    Mammi frowned. Then she marched through town and down the road that led to Rose Hill Farm. Bess hurried to keep up with her, wondering what in the world her grandmother was up to and how she could ever explain this to her father.

3
    ______
    Dear Dad,
    Mammi and I are getting along fine, just fine. She seems to be fully recovered from her female surgery. I didn’t realize that pulling a tooth or two would be considered female surgery, but she said it definitely falls under that category. And one thing I’m learning about her, it’s best to just agree.
    Did you know Mammi’s rose business is taking over Daadi’s pasture land? Those roses of hers—they’re something else. In full bloom! Lots and lots of rose blossoms. To handpick and hand trim. Each and every day. My hands have been pricked by so many thorns they look like a pin cushion.
    Love,
    Bess

    Jonah was rubbing a final coat of stain on a picnic table ordered by Mrs. Petersheim. She was one of his best customers, and he had promised to deliver the table for a family reunion she had planned this weekend. The humidity was working against him and the stain wasn’t absorbing like it should. He put down the rag and opened the workshop door to let the breeze in. It had been a hot June. Even after thirteen years, he still wasn’t quite used to the extremes of Ohio weather. Hotter in the summer than Pennsylvania and colder in the winter. He stood by the door, looking out over the fields of oats planted by his neighbor. It still ate at him, to not be able to work his fields anymore. He missed farming. Like his father, he had always marked his year by his growing crops. He planted alfalfa on the day after the new moon. Then oats and clover went in. Corn in April, when the sap was rising in the maple trees. The seasons turned like a wheel.
    It used to give him great satisfaction to see crops growing in the fields, as if he was part of something bigger. But he didn’t have the physical capability to farm anymore. He had tried to keep up for years now, but it was too much for him. He wasn’t the same man he was before the accident. The doctor warned him he would end up in a wheelchair if he kept asking too much from his back. “Jonah,” the doctor said, “if I were you, I would consider that limp a small price to pay for still being alive.”
    A small price to pay? What about losing the only woman you’ve ever loved? What about trying to raise a child alone? What about the fact that his daughter never knew her mother?
    He had worked so hard to honor Rebecca’s memory and raise Bess the way she would have wanted her raised. He created a new life for himself and Bess, and the Lord had blessed his efforts. When he finally decided to lease the fields and try his hand at furniture making, the business took off. So much so that he had taken on a partner, Mose Weaver. Mose was a lifelong bachelor, an older, quiet man who spoke with a lisp when he talked, which was seldom. Most knew Mose was silent as a tomb, a man of deep thoughts, none of them revealed. Some thought that was because he had no thoughts at all, but Jonah knew better. Mose lived with his parents, worked hard, and wanted for little. He was a fine business partner for Jonah. There was more than enough work for both of them.
    Jonah had no complaints about his life. But with Bess gone this summer, and with the painful awareness that she was growing up, he knew that things were going to be changing soon. He never did like change.
    And what would life look like after Bess was raised? Sallie was forever pointing that out, as if he didn’t wonder about it himself.
    Jonah wiped the sweat off the back of his neck. Sallie had been making loud suggestions lately about getting married. He was fond of Sallie, but the thought of getting married made his throat tighten up. There had been a time, four or five years