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“Linda keeps insisting she needs a recipe. ‘How can I make it if it’s not written down somewhere?’Linda’s always sayin’.”
    Lettie listened, amused.
    “Rachel said Linda once wanted to know how much water to add to the dough, as if there’s a certain amount that always works.”
    “What’d Rachel tell her?”
    “She said to add water till it felt right.” Hallie shook her head. “Goodness, but the poor thing complained up and down, ‘Well, how am I s’posed to know what it should feel like when I’ve never made it before?’ And ya know what? Linda’s got a point.”
    Lettie could no longer squelch her smile.
    “Finally, Rachel said right out, ‘Linda Ann, if ya throw it up to the ceiling and it sticks, you’ve added too much water!’ And that was that.”
    Now both Hallie and Lettie were nearly bent over, laughing. “Sounds like something my own mother said to all us girls when we were growin’ up.”
    “Why, sure. It makes plenty gut sense, doesn’t it?”
    They were nodding and joking about this so much that Lettie forgot to write down the phone number for Dr. Hackman. “Well, for goodness’ sake,” she muttered, realizing it only after she’d closed the phone book.
    “What’s wrong?” Hallie asked.
    “Just forgot the phone number, is all.”
    Hallie fell silent. And Lettie decided yet again that it was truly best not to involve her cousin in her highly unusual mission.

six
    D ad, you joker , thought Heather after he sent a text reminding her of the lodge program next week. I won’t forget! She smiled as she walked past yet another farmhouse that afternoon. The road was winding – and earlier, poor, anxious Grace had been forced to keep a sharp eye out for every mailbox on their drive to Susan Kempf’s. And now to discover her mom’s missing... again. Heather felt terribly sorry for her.
    “Something’s really messed up about this,” she whispered, leaning her head back so the sun could shine full on her face. She really wanted to meet Grace’s mom, this woman who flitted so easily in and out of lives. Lettie Byler’s behavior perturbed her, especially now, when it appeared she’d slipped away as if she’d been tipped off about Grace’s coming.
    Heather’s mom would never have done something that odd.But now, her father was a different story. He had certainly seemed impulsive lately in his decision to buy land in the heart of horse-and-buggy country, then construct a modern farmhouse on it. Yet other than this surprising turn of events, the only other impulsive act he – and Mom – had ever committed was adopting her. At least it seemed spontaneous to her, based on Dad’s recent account of how she had come to be theirs.
    She couldn’t forget how he looked when he’d told her, just days ago. It was still hard to accept that she had an Amish mother somewhere. Here in Ohio, perhaps? Well, not a mother per se, but someone who’d given her life. Her father had looked almost vulnerable as he revealed the story – she’d missed his tender side since Mom passed away. Her lifelong impression of who she was before his startling news – and the way she viewed herself now – were all mixed up in her mind, crisscrossed like a pattern on one of Marian Riehl’s quilts.
    Her thoughts flew back to Grace, and she wondered how her friend was getting along with Susan. Had Grace ever been this far from home before? Heather seriously doubted it. As for herself, this trip would be her last for a while.
    She sighed. When she attempted to view her life through the prism of the future, she hoped for an opportunity to live many more years. Besides, as Mom had said just weeks before she died, it wasn’t only about living: It was about loving. “And loving well.”
    How could a girl forget something like that? And to think it had been Mom’s desire to see the Lancaster naturopath Dr. LaVyrle Marshall and enroll in her Wellness Lodge – a desire her mom never got to fulfill. In a very