That night I couldn’t sleep. There were still so many questions, and the more I relived the evening, the more it was a puzzle. How could it be that no one in the family had ever slipped and told a childhood story that included a third sister? I searched my memory, but I couldn’t remember a clue about a girl who took back a promise and as punishment was told that she didn’t exist anymore.

Then I remembered something I had heard the night I pressed my ear against the wall and listened to my parents argue back and forth. At one point my mother had said in a fierce voice, “Don’t forget what happened to my sister.” I had assumed that she was referring to Aunt Miriam. Now I realized that she must have been talking about Aunt Beth, and I tried to remember what my father had said in response to those words.

Then it came to me. In a voice that was stiff as a plank of wood, my father had said, “I am thinking about your sister, and I’m hoping that history doesn’t repeat itself.”

Everything changed after I met Aunt Beth. Now when the phone rang at Rachel’s house, I snatched it up if the Caller ID revealed Beth’s number. Josh showed me how to get to her house by train, where to get off, and how to walk the four blocks from the station to the gray house with the green shutters.

Later that week, Beth and I worked together on a letter home that would secretly send information to my mother.

Dear Family,

I miss you all, and think of you often. I am enjoying my work here, and have made some nice friends. I have a new friend named Betty, who is so much fun to be with. She has a bubbly laugh, and she loves to tell stories about her family. I can listen to her all day long. As a matter of fact, she is sitting beside me as I write these words. We’re getting to be as close as sisters.

My mother hadn’t wanted me to write about Aunt Beth, but I thought this message would be clear to her and no one else.

When I was with Beth I was like a starving person. I couldn’t get enough of her lilting voice. I loved the stories of her funny mishaps as she adjusted to living among the English—like all the things she’d blown up in the microwave, and the times she would search for matches when the sun went down, forgetting that she could turn on a light.

Aunt Beth, too, seemed to drink me in. She wanted to know everything about home. Sipping a cup of tea on her porch swing, I said, “The last time you were with my mother, you said that you would write to her. Did you?”

“I did for a while,” she said. “Then I got a letter from your father, asking me to stop because the letters upset her. The last letter I had sent was around the time that John and I moved to this house. A couple of years ago, John mentioned the idea of moving, and I told him that we could never leave because Becky wouldn’t know where to find me.”

“Do you miss them?” I asked.

“Every blessed day. Especially your mother. When I was little, whenever Miriam was mean to me, or I got in trouble for being fidgety at services, I’d crawl into Becky’s bed and she’d put her arm around me and smooth out my hair. And she’d always tell me the same thing. ‘It’s okay, Elizabeth. Your sister is here.’ And I’d always feel better.”

We were quiet for a few minutes. The porch swing swayed gently, and the tea was beginning to cool. I bent down and placed the mug on the floor. “Aunt Beth,” I began, enjoying the smile that spread across her face at the words, “what do you call yourself?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I wondered what you are if you’re not Amish.”

Beth paused for a moment before speaking. “I used to be Amish.”

That seemed to say everything.