17

Will was walking along the street that acted as a property line for Windmill Farm, replacing No Trespassing signs that had gotten knocked down in the thunderstorm last night. The wind was the worst part of the storm—branches were down all over the farm. He hammered a nail on a cockeyed sign and stepped back to straighten it.

“Hey!”

Will turned to see that schoolteacher approaching him from down the street. Will raised a hand in greeting. Gideon Smucker stopped, his spine stiffening enough to be noticeable from a hundred feet away. A smile curled Will’s lips. This should be interesting. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know how this blustering, tongue-tied man felt about Will—suspicious, jealous, threatened. All because Will was spending time with Sadie Lapp. A great deal of time with her. Probably more time than this schoolteacher had a clue about!

Sadie, the woman Will knew he could never have and yet—

No. He wouldn’t think he wanted her. She was a diversion, a spring fling, an excuse to spend a great deal of time at the farmhouse, to eat at the Lapp table and enjoy being a part of a healthy, happy family. After June 16, Sadie could renew her relationship with the schoolteacher, with Will’s blessing. Sort of.

Now a yard apart, Gid and Will eyed each other up and down, waiting to see who would speak first. If Will were a cartoonist, he would draw two raptors, one head up, one head down, neither willing to look each other in the eye because that would be considered an out-and-out threat.

Gid was taller than Will, and lankier. With those thick glasses, he reminded Will of Clark Kent, the alter ego of Superman. Bumbling, awkward, ill at ease, but good-hearted. Even Will couldn’t deny that. Then his insides tensed at the sight of Gid’s large, work-roughened hands. Those calluses would scratch Sadie’s smooth skin. Surely she wouldn’t let those hands touch her.

“I saw you. Early this morning. Talking to a man in a gray car.”

You could have heard a pin drop, a heart beat. A blue jay shrieked overhead, breaking the silence. Another screeched in response.

Will had been careless. The man in the gray car was Mr. Petosky. “I was out this morning, yes. I go out every day to make sure the bird-watchers are respecting the Lapps’ property lines.”

“He handed you something. I saw it.”

Will’s mouth went dry, and he couldn’t think what he should say. Mr. Petosky had given him the bands for the chicks that he had obtained for his breeding colony—the one that had been wiped out by the virus. But he hadn’t bothered to notify the government of that fact. Those bands were treated like gold—all bands were registered with the game commission’s office. With a dramatic flair, Mr. Petosky had counted the bands out, one by one, as he handed them over.

Will tried, probably too late, to defuse the situation. “You must be mistaken.”

“Something isn’t quite right.” Gid took a step closer to him and pointed a finger at his chest. “You’re up to something.” His words emerged roughly, as though each one was formed of grit. “Whatever it is . . . leave Sadie alone. I don’t want her to get hurt.”

The gloves were off and Will stepped closer. “Seems to me that you’ve done plenty of that yourself,” he snorted.

Gid looked as though he was about to explode. “Leave her be,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “She’s not a girl to be toyed with.”

“Gideon!”

Both Gid and Will spun around to face Sadie, staring at them with a shocked look on her face. They had been so focused on each other that they hadn’t noticed she was at the end of the driveway, getting the mail from the mailbox. How much had she heard?

She was indignant, but not at Will. “Gideon, my relationship with Will is none of your concern.”

Gid’s eyes flashed, hurt. “It’s my concern if he’s doing something wrong. And dragging you along with him.”

Sadie’s cheeks turned the color of berries. “Gid, calm down. Will and I are—” She hesitated.

Will held his breath in anticipation of her completed statement as to what he was to her.

“Friends,” Sadie finished.

Friends? Just . . . friends? A blast of disappointment shot through Will.

“And he’s not dragging me along anywhere.”

Gid held his fisted hands at his hips as though ready to strike at any moment. “Then why weren’t you at the gathering last weekend?” Gid demanded. “Mary Ruth was counting on your help with the girls’ alto section. And yesterday, why weren’t you at the workshop frolic at Rose Hill Farm? Bess was looking all over for you when her daughter was stung by a bee.”

Will knew the answer to those questions. On Sunday, he talked Sadie into going canoeing on Blue Lake Pond. And yesterday, she was heading out to pick wild strawberries in a secret patch near the woods and he offered to help her. They were having such a good time that they lost track of time and didn’t get back until the frolic was nearly over.

Gid glared at her. “What kind of friendship is that, Sadie—when it makes you forget about promises you’ve made to others?”

Sadie was livid. The way her lips looked at that moment—thin and tight—Will wanted to kiss them again, change their conformation to something much softer.

But Will thought it would be wise to take this opportunity to beat a hasty retreat. “I’ll just be on my way.” He took off up the driveway before either Sadie or Gid could say another word.

As Will loped toward the cottage, he weighed his options. Maybe he should try to forget about Sadie and concentrate on getting his problem solved by June 16. After all, Sadie had no place in his life outside of this farm, nor he in hers, and he needed to get a grip. Pursuing her the way he had been could bring trouble—he had already created animosity with Clark Kent. And Fern was definitely onto him. That woman scared Will. She watched him like a hawk whenever he was near Sadie, which was often. More and more often.

This was a great example of why he didn’t like to complicate his life with relationships. It was like walking on thin ice. You never knew when the ice was going to crack and you were going to fall in a hole. Trouble was brewing, and that was the last thing Will needed this spring.

Still, there was just something about Sadie. Maybe . . . he would worry about life after June 16 some other day. For now, he had found a girl who was worth the trouble.

Gid was outside chopping wood when the air began to fill with the smell of rain. Daylight was fading away and the wind was picking up, so he put the ax down and stacked the wood. Before he went inside, he sat on the fence, his head in his hands, berating himself. He was such a fool. Stupid, stupid, stupid! He whacked his hands on his knees so hard that he tipped forward, barely catching himself before he landed, face-first, in the freshly plowed soil. It would serve him right.

Sadie, his Sadie, was involved with another man. An English cowboy. He could see it in her eyes as he confronted her on the road—the way she became so flustered, so defensive.

It was his own fault.

He had bungled things so badly—flown off the handle when he never flew off the handle. He accused her of not keeping promises to her friends. He made her feel guilty because Bess couldn’t find her for her daughter’s bee sting. It might have been true, but it wasn’t as if Bess couldn’t manage a simple bee sting. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

He hadn’t trusted in the Lord to bring her back to him and had tried to compete for her attentions, her affections. And all he had done was push Sadie closer to the man who was winning her heart.

No wonder Sadie considered him to be untrustworthy. He was.

“God, how can I make things right?” he murmured. “How can I get Sadie to forgive me and trust me again if I behave this way?”

Crows screamed overhead, seeming to mock him with their harsh cawing.

Somewhere, in the deep creases of his mind—the folds where hopes and dreams were caught—he had believed that whatever was wrong between him and Sadie was reparable. When you loved someone, it didn’t seem possible to suddenly lose that bond.

“Anything wrong, son?” His father’s voice was gentle. “You look like you’re not feeling well.”

Gid snapped his head up. His father was standing a few feet from him with a worried look on his kind face. “I’m all right.” Another lie. He wasn’t all right. His head ached. His stomach ached. His heart ached.

“Sadie will come around. Give her time.” His father leaned on the top rail of the fence beside him.

“Not as long as Will Stoltz sticks around.” Gideon straightened up and looked his father in the eyes. People told him that they had the same blue eyes. His father’s were older, though, and crinkled at the edges.

“You know it goes back further than that, Gid.” His father’s mouth set in a stern line. “You jumped to an assumption about her that was wrong. I’m ashamed to say that I did too.”

“No, but I’ve—” He stopped before he said he’d learned his lesson. He had just proved again to Sadie that he didn’t trust her, that he didn’t think she had good judgment. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Gid pounded his fist on the rough planks of the fence. “Dad, what can I do? How do I win her back?”

Ira’s bushy eyebrows shot up. “You don’t. You just keep being the man you are.”

Gid stared at his father.

“If Sadie is as smart as I think she is, she’ll figure it out.”

“What if she doesn’t?”

“Well, Gid, the way I see it, there are plenty of other fish in the lake.”

Maybe. But none like Sadie Lapp.

The sun was rising over the corn rows as Will brewed a pot of coffee and cleared a stack of papers off a chair to sit down at the kitchen table. He had to push a few things out of his way to set the coffee cup down too. He really should take time today to clean up after himself, he thought, looking around at the growing collection of dirty dishes in the sink. He had started to eat most of his meals right from the pan. It crossed his mind that cleaning up was a new thought. He was proud of himself!

Suddenly, the door to the cottage burst open. “HELLO!”

Will jumped slightly and spilled some of his coffee onto the table. Hank Lapp stepped into the cottage, carrying his rod-and-reel fishing pole. It looked like he’d been on the lake, or else was headed that way. He strode across the room and handed his rod to Will. Will had patiently untangled the mess of Hank’s line one afternoon, and ever since, Hank considered him the finest untangler east of the Mississippi. He was forever hunting Will out on the farm, handing him his rod to repair.

“Well, Hank, you’ve got a real bird’s nest here,” Will observed. “I’ll try, but I’m not sure I can fix this one.”

“DAGNABIT. I was afraid of that.” Hank sauntered over to the kitchen table, pulled things off a chair, sat right down across from Will, and eyed his cup of coffee.

“Here, take this. I haven’t had a sip.” Will pushed the cup on the table in front of him.

“Oh, no thanks. No, no. I didn’t come over here meaning for you to offer me food and drink.” Hank picked up the coffee cup and took a sip with a loud slurp.

It always amazed Will to see how much space Hank Lapp took up. It wasn’t just his Christopher Lloyd–like appearance: ragged white hair, leathery skin, one eye that looked at you and the other that didn’t. It was his presence. He had an outgoing, fun-loving nature and a window-rattling laugh. Whenever Hank found him on the farm, Will felt as if he needed to protect himself from the blinding brightness, the piercing loudness. He wanted to shout out: “Warning! Warning! Protect yourself! Get your sunglasses on! Put on your earplugs!”

Hank picked up a cereal box and looked at the cover. “I’m not stopping you from breakfast, am I?”

“No. Would you like some cereal? I don’t have milk.” Will didn’t have a refrigerator in the cottage, which considerably limited his meal choices—just one of the many reasons he happened upon the farmhouse at mealtimes.

“No milk? Ah well.” He reached in the box to grab a handful, as he started talking about a recent fishing trip with Edith Fisher. “I told you about it, didn’t I?”

Will was always a little uncertain of how to respond to that question. He couldn’t begin to keep straight all the tall tales Hank wove into his fishing stories. Fishermen, in Will’s point of view, were pretty much the same everywhere—they talked, they fished, and they talked about fish. It’s one of those universal rules.

But there wasn’t time to answer. Hank had taken a sip of coffee and started in again. “Now, what was I saying? Oh yes! Edith! It might surprise you to hear that Edith likes to fish. Some of the ladies think fishing isn’t ladylike, but Edith isn’t one of them. She even makes up her own bait and she’s a little secretive about it, which I happen to find appealing in a woman. A little mystery is a good thing, I always say.”

With a sinking feeling, Will realized that this didn’t have the makings of a short visit. Hank was so easily diverted that Will was afraid he’d never get back to the original point if he didn’t stay on task. What was the point of the story, anyway? Maybe there wasn’t a point. That was often the case with Hank.

“So the fishing was a little slow the other day. I rigged up a jiggin’ hole to trick her. When she wasn’t looking, I made a slipknot on her lure and let it go. Looked to Edith like she got herself a fish! She started hootin’ and hollerin’ ’cause she was sure she had a whopper fish on the end of her lure. Telling me how she was bringing home dinner! When she reeled it in, she sure was bringing in a nicely prepared meal!” Then he threw his head back and laughed with gusto, stopping with a choking snort. “She reeled in a can of Spam! And here’s the best part—she stood up in the boat to scold me—” he wagged a finger at Will to illustrate—“and she fell right overboard!” He laughed so hard that tears ran down his cheeks. “Then, she was so mad that she spent the entire way home drenching me in the mighty flood of her words.” That started him on another laughing jag. “She’s still mad. Says I should have my fishing license taken away.” Finally, he pulled himself together and wiped his face. “If a man can’t fish, he might as well pull up the sod blanket, if you ask me.”

The story went on, but Will lost the thread of it. He emptied the rest of the coffeepot into Hank’s cup.

“Anyhoo . . . Edith won’t go fishing with me anymore.” Hank ran his knuckles over his bristled cheeks. They’d probably get a shave sometime in the next day or two—for sure before Sunday church. “So I came to see if you might like to go fishing with me. Menno used to be my fishing partner, you see, and M.K. is eager to go but she never stops talking long enough for the fish to get a word in. Sadie’s plenty quiet, but she’s too tenderhearted for fishing and hunting. She refuses to hook a worm. She carries spiders outside instead of smushing them like the rest of us.” He looked Will directly in the eye. “I just thought you might like to give it a try.”

Will felt honored. He felt like he had crossed over a bridge and was considered a member of the family. “I would. I’d like that. I know I could never take the place of Menno, but I’d like to go with you sometime.”

“No one could take the place of Menno. No one should be asked to. But I can’t deny you’ve been a blessing to all of us, Will. Especially Amos. He’s finally got his vim and vigor back. It’s been good to have you.” Hank looked over at Will swiftly, then stood and looked for a place to put the empty coffee cup. The sink was filled with dirty dishes, as was the counter. He finally put it back on the table. He paused at the door and turned around. “Life’s full of turnarounds.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” Will said, walking over to see him out.

“But it sure is a blessing to know that the good Lord knows about every single thing that happens to us and has a divine, almighty reason for it all, the good and the bad too.”

Will closed the door behind Hank and looked at the kitchen counters and sink. What a mess. It would take half the morning to clean it all up—to get hot dishwater, he had to heat up the water on the woodstove. No wonder he hated to wash dishes. But it wasn’t just the mess that troubled him. It was everything, his whole life. That would take much more than half a morning to clean up.

What if these Amish people in this little church district were right? What if every detail meant something? What if the ups and downs and stupid mistakes he had made in the last few months had some kind of specific purpose? What if everything that happened to him ultimately fit together into a plan?

The thought was overwhelming. Terrifying and wonderful.

M.K. had been looking forward to this particular morning for five weeks. It was the last Saturday to serve her sentence with Jimmy Fisher at Annie’s grandfather’s house. When he arrived in his buggy to pick up M.K. and Uncle Hank, he was alone. His mother, he said, was still miffed at Hank for playing a practical joke on her and said she wouldn’t be coming today to help.

“You mean, help supervise,” M.K. said under her breath, and Uncle Hank jabbed her with the pointy part of his elbow.

Uncle Hank begged off. “I better go do some fence-mending with Edith.”

M.K. squinted at him. He squinted back. He opened the buggy door and practically shoved M.K. inside. “Now you two work hard and see that old feller gets plenty of loving care.” He put Fern’s hamper, filled with prepared food for the week, in the backseat.

Jimmy and M.K. didn’t speak to each other for the entire fifteen-minute ride to Annie’s grandfather. When they arrived, the old man was in his chair on the porch, looking dead, as usual, and M.K. carefully tiptoed up to him to see if he was still breathing.

“GIRL, WHERE YOU BEEN?”

M.K. flinched. He got her every time.

“He forgets,” Jimmy said, lugging the hamper past M.K. to take to the kitchen.

“SPEAK UP, BOY! YOU MUMBLE. I’VE SPOKEN TO YOU ABOUT THAT BEFORE.”

“I SAID GOOD MORNING,” Jimmy said. He lifted the hamper. “BROUGHT YOU GROCERIES.”

“COYOTES?” He smacked his lips together. “I AIN’T HAD COYOTE MEAT IN YEARS. GUESS IT BEATS STARVING,” he snapped, in his wrinkly voice. “HOP TO IT. STIR YOUR STUMPS.”

Jimmy and M.K. exchanged a glance. Jimmy was going to try to fix the sagging porch corner today, so he went back to the buggy to get his tools as M.K. started to unload the hamper. She added some wood to the smoldering fire in the stove so that she could warm up some oatmeal Fern had made for the old man’s breakfast. The stove started to smoke and seep soot. “You’d better clean out the stovepipe,” she told Jimmy as he passed through, swiping a cookie from the hamper of groceries.

“Me?” He mumbled around a cookie in his mouth. “That’ll take all morning. I wanted to get that porch done. I can’t do everything, you know.”

M.K. held back from giving him a snappy retort. “We can’t leave him with a clogged stovepipe. It’ll start a fire.” M.K. pulled a chair over to the stove. “I’ll help.”

Jimmy exhaled, a slow whistle. The pipe rose out of the stove and angled at the ceiling. He climbed up on the chair to try to pull apart the lengths but couldn’t work them loose. “Botheration! This could take all morning.”

M.K. pointed out to him that botheration wasn’t a word, but he ignored her. “Sometimes I think you are getting as deaf as Annie’s grandfather.”

“I hear you,” Jimmy grumbled, “but it goes in one ear and out the other.”

“Nothing to stop it,” M.K. said.

“It’s too bad you don’t think about things that the average person might actually have to face.”

“Like what?”

“Like how to tolerate working alongside one of the most aggravating girls on earth.”

It never took long on these Saturday mornings for Jimmy Fisher’s manners to go right out the window, which wasn’t a long toss. She thought about pushing his chair back so he would fall, but she supposed that might be mean. “And that, Jimmy Fisher, is just one of the many reasons why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Who would want one?” He looked down at her. “Nothing but a nuisance. But if I wanted girlfriends—” he snapped his fingers—“they’d come running.”

Sadly, that was true. It was a never-ending mystery to M.K. that so many girls swooned over the likes of Jimmy Fisher.

He hopped off the chair. “I’ve got a brilliant idea.” He reached into a pocket and drew out a metal tin. He opened it and showed M.K. what was inside. “Firecrackers.”

It was a well-known fact, to everyone but his mother, that Jimmy Fisher was never without firecrackers. He took three out of the tin. “Just takes a pinch of gunpowder to clear the stove, pipes, and chimney.” He snapped his fingers again. “Easy as pie.”

For once, M.K. was the one to think twice. “Jimmy . . . I’m not sure . . .”

He waved her off. “Prepare to be swept up in a whirlwind of superior force.” He unlatched the stove door, then looked at her and squinted. “Uh, maybe you should stand back.”

M.K. went into the other room and watched from behind the doorjamb. Jimmy struck a match to the kindling inside and threw in the firecrackers.

Then quite a lot happened. With an explosion that left M.K.’s ears ringing into the new year, the whole stove danced on its legs. The stovepipe came clattering down from the ceiling, belching a bushel of black soot all over them and the entire kitchen. The windows were covered with coal dust, darkening the kitchen. M.K. thought Jimmy would have been killed outright by the explosion, but he seemed to be still standing. She saw his eyes blinking rapidly in the midst of his coal-blasted face. His eyebrows were missing.

“Maybe one firecracker might have been enough.” He spit soot out of his mouth. A burnt-powder haze hung in the room.

It took M.K. a few minutes to get over the shock of it. Then, she roared! “Jimmy Fisher! Er batt so viel as es finft Raad im Wagge!” That did as much good as a fifth wheel on a wagon! She stamped her foot and shook a fist at him. Her ears were still ringing. “I won’t be hearing right for a week or two!”

“As if you didn’t bring this all on yourself.”

M.K. and Jimmy whipped around to locate the source of that familiar voice.

Fern! So ubiquitous!

“At this rate, you two are going to be working off your Saturdays for the rest of your lives.” Fern said she happened to be leaving the Bent N’ Dent when she heard the firecrackers and knew Jimmy Fisher was behind it. So, she decided to check up on them. “Good thing I did,” she said, as she folded up her sleeves to set to work. “The two of you without supervision are an accident waiting to happen.” She pointed to Jimmy. “Don’t look so surprised. A person could hear that explosion halfway to Harrisburg.”

“Oh, he’s not surprised,” M.K. said. “He just doesn’t have any eyebrows left.”

It took the three of them the rest of the morning to put the kitchen into the shape Fern expected it to be in. By noon, a miracle had taken place. Jimmy scooped a little soot here and there, not much, but at least he fit the stovepipe back together. M.K., naturally, did the work of ten, scrubbing, sweeping, polishing, dusting. The kitchen was restored to its pre-explosion condition. And the stovepipe was cleaned out.

Annie’s grandfather slept through the entire thing. When he woke up, he hollered for his lunch.

As Will dipped the oars into the placid, dark water, a glorious feeling of well-being washed over him. Sure, he was broke and facing serious legal problems, but not at the moment. At the moment, he was rowing on a beautiful lake with a gorgeous girl seated before him, serenaded by the soft hoots of a pair of screech owls.

Often, lately, Will forgot that he had a job to do and that Sadie was an Amish farmer’s daughter. All he could think about tonight, as they set out for a fishing trip to Blue Lake Pond so that he would have some practice before Hank took him out, was how much he wanted to kiss her.

He blamed the soft spring air, the colors of the evening sky, and that strand of sandy blonde hair that kept working its way loose. He blamed the tiny scatter of freckles on her nose and cheeks. He blamed those sky-blue eyes and that rosy mouth. He blamed the way her soft laugh chimed like bells. Granted, today wasn’t the first time his thoughts toward her had turned in a romantic direction.

He rowed the little boat out to the middle of the lake. “It doesn’t get much better than this—fishing on a warm spring evening!” A mockingbird imitated the call of a dove. A dove cooed in reply, and he figured the mockingbird had a laugh over it. Will slid onto Sadie’s seat and put a worm on the hook for her as she looked away. She didn’t like anything to get hurt, she said. Even a worm.

He was so close to her that all he needed to do was to tilt his face and he was in a perfect position to kiss her. He slipped a hand behind her head and pulled her face toward his. Then he was kissing her deeply, but gently, as if he had all the time in the world.

After a moment, she pulled away. “That was nice, Will. Very, very nice.” She put a finger to his lips. “But don’t do it again.”

He studied her face for a moment in disbelief, trying to judge how he should respond. Were his instincts off that much? She was always giving him mixed signals—something he found mysterious and compelling. Certain he caught a twinkle in her eyes, he said, “My deepest apologies. The moonlight has made me lose my sensibilities.”

The corner of her mouth ticked, but whether it was from amusement or annoyance, he couldn’t tell. Then she laughed, a sparkling fall of notes in the still of the evening. He didn’t look right into her eyes but rather at those adorable freckles that were sprinkled across her nose and cheeks, like someone dusted her with cinnamon.

But she had a point. They came here to fish, not kiss. He was ashamed of himself. Okay, maybe not at this exact instant, but by tomorrow for sure. His only excuse was that he liked her so much. The more he’d witnessed her caring ways, the more she had gotten under his skin. There were times when he thought he might be falling in love. She wouldn’t believe him if he told her, so he didn’t intend to. He could hardly believe it himself.

He cast his line out into the lake and watched the gentle ripples undulate through the calm surface. “What would you say if we went into Lancaster for dinner soon?”

Sadie practically dropped her pole. “I can’t.” The answer was quick, like she didn’t even have to think about it. She shifted her shoulder away from his and kept her eyes on the surface of the lake. “Someone might see us.”

A laugh burst out of Will. “People around here aren’t stupid you know. They’ve figured it out.”

She pulled farther away, looked at him. “Who has? What are you talking about?”

He read the shock in her voice even though he couldn’t see her face—just the outline of her hair and prayer cap, lit by the moon around its edges like an angel.

“People know about us, Sadie. They’re not blind.”

She stood up. The boat rocked dangerously. “Who knows? And knows what? There’s nothing to know.”

He wished Sadie would quit moving around so much. One slight misstep and they could both end up in the lake. Wasn’t this just what had happened to Edith Fisher? He reached up and put his hand on her shoulder, pushing her down on the bench. “You’re going to capsize this little boat.”

She pressed her palms together, tucked her hands between her knees, and bowed her head forward. “I can’t do this, Will,” she said, and her words hovered above them for a second. “Will . . . I . . .” She didn’t have to finish the rest of the sentence for him to know he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.

Finally, he said it. “You want to just be friends. Buddies. Pals.”

Her shoulders rose, then fell. “Exactly.”

It was a speech he had given to many girls, but this was the first time he had been the recipient of it. “Is this because of the bumbling schoolteacher?”

She looked at him sharply. “He’s not a bumbling . . .” That single strand of hair, pulled loose from the bun at the back of her head, framed her cheek. She guided the lock behind her ear with trembling fingers before answering. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Gid.” She stiffened her back, lifted her chin. “It has to do with me. And it has to do with you.”

“That’s the thing I don’t get about the Amish. You should be free to choose your life’s path, Sadie.”

Long seconds ticked by before she lifted her eyes to meet his. “I am free to choose, and I have made my choice. But you . . . are you so very free, Will? It seems as if your life has a giant shadow over it.”

Will looked away. He hadn’t expected this. His mind spun around and around. This conversation wasn’t going at all the way he had planned. He looked back at Sadie, who was still searching his face. He was trapped. He would have to say something. “A shadow?”

“Yes. A shadow. Your father’s shadow. Seeking his approval and never getting it.” She gave him one of her direct, clear gazes. “So I am going to ask you again: are you so very free?”

The question hovered in the air, and Sadie was still waiting for his answer, stepping into the role of the Almighty, trying to stir up Will’s conscience. “You don’t know me well enough to figure that out, do you?” The words came out sharper than he meant them to, but he was irritated. He reeled in his line, took the oars, and swung the boat around, then began rowing swiftly toward the shore.

Wisely, Sadie never said another word. By the time they got the boat tied to the dock and started for home, Will was no longer annoyed with her but furious with himself. He never let himself get defensive. He never lost it. He absolutely never lost it. His fraternity brothers called him the Teflon Guy. Nothing ever bothered him.

Why did he have such a strong reaction to Sadie’s question? Because she couldn’t have been more right.

Sadie was free to choose, and she had made her choice. He was the one who wasn’t free. He wasn’t free at all.