The Letters by Suzanne Woods Fisher Page A

her purse. “Thank you, Rose. For everything.”
    After Rose and Mim set dinner up, they left. Delia sank down in a chair at the table. It was after six and she was hungry, exhausted, and sore. She ate like she hadn’t eaten in days. Afterward, she took a long hot bath, climbed into bed with the Farmer’s Journal , and listened to the peculiar sound of buggy horses as they clip-clopped along the asphalt road. It was so quiet here, so strangely quiet. Tomorrow, or maybe the next day, she would decide what she needed to do next. For now, she was right where she needed to be. She had no doubt of that. In the middle of an article about raising feeder pigs, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

    Bethany didn’t know what to make of the newest guest in the farmhouse basement. The lady drove up in a fancy car andwent straight to bed. Three days had passed and she still lay there. Mim said she spoke in the manner of a British queen.
    “Am I to presume you are Miriam?” the lady had asked her when they first met, shaking her hand. She said everything about the lady was stylish and expensive.
    Rose brought meals to her and tried to keep the boys away from playing near the basement windows. She said that it was obvious the woman needed a good rest and that was the least they could give her.
    Well, that lady could sleep all she wanted, but Bethany did suggest to Rose that she ask for room payment up front, just in case the lady expired in her sleep. “It happens, you know,” she whispered to Rose. “I heard about it at work. A maid walked into a hotel room to clean it and there was a dead body. Just lying there. Decomposing.”
    Rose laughed. “Delia Stoltz isn’t dying. She’s just . . . I don’t know what. She’s worn out. And she’s here for a reason. The Lord brought her to us. He has a plan.”
    That was just like Rose—always attributing unexplained events to God’s sovereignty. Bethany believed in God, how could she not? But there were a lot of things that happened in life that were just . . . bad. She didn’t think it was fair to blame God for a person’s bad choices, bad decisions. Take her father’s final choice, for example. That certainly wasn’t God’s fault.
    Then whose fault was it? Bethany didn’t know. Mammi Vera blamed Rose for his death, but that wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair. Bethany didn’t know what would have become of them without her stepmother. Rose was taking care of her father’s cranky mother, she was looking after his children, and she was determined to pay back all of her father’s debts, one by one.

    Bethany was doing all she could to help. It was the least she could do for Rose. Before she and Jake got married.
    She heard a horse and buggy come up the drive. Curious, she wiped her hands on a rag and peeked out the window. Why, it was that audacious, flirtatious Jimmy Fisher. Bethany quickly looked in the washstand mirror Rose had left on the kitchen counter. She pinched her cheeks and bit on her lips to give them a little blush, smoothed back her hair, and hurried outside.
    Jimmy jumped out of the buggy when he saw her. “Well, well, hello there.”
    “I don’t know why you act so surprised,” Bethany said. “You know I live here.”
    “I haven’t seen you at the market in a while and thought I’d stop by. I was passing through.”
    “Passing from where to where?”
    “From there to here.” He grinned. “I have a little side job for Amos Lapp, down the road. Snow geese are causing damage to his winter wheat field. If they’re left alone, they’ll leave a bare spot of wheat several acres in size.”
    Bethany had heard about them. Thousands of snow geese had been wintering in a wildlife area of Stoney Ridge.
    Luke and Sammy appeared out of nowhere, wide-eyed. “You gonna shoot all them birds?”
    “Nope,” Jimmy said. “There’s a limit to the amount a fellow can shoot.” He bent down to the boys’ height. “I’m gonna set some firecrackers and flush