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called up the ladder. “Can I come up?”
    “Ne! I’m coming down,” Miriam answered, descending the ladder so fast that her hands barely touched the rungs.
    Charley followed her. He jumped off the ladder when he was three feet off the ground and landed beside her with a solid thunk.
    “I came to see how Molly is.” Susanna looked at Miriam and then at Charley. “Something wrong?”
    Miriam felt her cheeks grow warm. “Ne.” She brushed hay from her apron, feeling completely flustered and not knowing why. She’d held Charley’s hand plenty of times before. What made this time different? She could still feel the strength of his grip and wondered if this feeling of bubbly warmth that reached from her belly to the tips of her toes was temptation. No wonder handholding by unmarried couples was frowned upon by the elders.
    “Ne,” Charley repeated. “Nothing wrong.” But he was looking at Miriam strangely.
    Something had changed between them in those few seconds up in the hayloft and Miriam wasn’t sure what. She could hear it in Charley’s voice. She could feel it in her chest, the way her heart was beating a little faster than it should be.
    Susanna was still watching her carefully. “Anna said to tell you to cut greens if you go in the garden and not to forget to meet Mam.”
    The three stood there, looking at each other.
    “Guess I should be going,” Charley finally said, awkwardly looking down at his feet.
    “Thanks again for bringing the hay, Charley. I can always count on you.” Miriam dared a quick look into his eyes. “You’re like the brother I never had.”
    “That’s me. Good old Charley.” He sounded upset with her and she had no idea why.
    “Don’t be silly.” She tapped his shoulder playfully. “You’re a lifesaver. You kept me from drowning in the creek, didn’t you?”
    “In the creek? Right, like you needed saving.” He laughed, and she laughed with him, easing the tension of the moment.
    They walked out of the barn, side by side with Susanna trailing after them, and crossed the yard to the well. Charley drew up a bucket of water, and all three drank deeply from the dipper. Then he went back to the barn to guide the team and wagon down the passageway and out the far doors. By the time he’d turned his horses around and driven out of the yard, Miriam had almost stopped feeling as though she’d somehow let him down. Almost…
     
    Later, in the buggy on the way to the orchard with her mother, Miriam had wanted to tell her about the strange moment in the hayloft with Charley. In a large family, even a loving one, time alone with parents was special. Miriam was a grown woman, but Mam had a way of listening without judging and giving sound advice without seeming to. Miriam valued her mother’s opinion more than anyone’s, even more than Ruth’s and the two of them were the closest among the sisters. But this afternoon, she didn’t want sisterly advice; she didn’t need any more of Ruth’s teasing about her friendship with John Hartman. Today, she needed her mother.
    But before she could bring up Charley, she needed to find out what Ruth and Anna had been hinting about after breakfast, concerning Johanna. If Johanna had trouble, it certainly took priority over a silly little touch of a boy’s hand. She was just about to ask about her older sister when Mam gestured for her to pull over into the Amish graveyard and rein in the horse.
    Sometimes, Mam came here to visit Dat’s grave, even though it wasn’t something that their faith encouraged. The graves were all neat and well cared for; that went without saying, but no one believed their loved ones were here. Those that had died in God’s grace abided with Him in heaven. Instead of mourning those who had lived out their earthly time, those left behind should be happy for them. But Mam—who’d been born and raised Mennonite—had her quirks and one of them was that she came here sometimes to talk to their father.
    When Mam