THE LANTERN CAST A GLOW upon the mantel clock, making it easy for Lydia to see the time from where she sat on the love seat.

Nine forty.

Ten minutes past bedtime.

Or at least it was ten minutes past the bedtime Henry had imposed on her during the years of their marriage. Would there ever come an evening when she’d look at the hands on the clock and think differently?

Henry certainly wouldn’t have approved of her sitting in her jacket, staring out the front window, waiting for Jessica and Liz to pick her up, as she’d been doing for the last twenty minutes. More than his disapproval, he would’ve forbidden her to go traipsing out into the night with her friends, sneaking onto someone’s property —no matter if it was for a charitable reason or not.

Bedtime was an indisputable time, written in stone. No arguing. For her own good.

Or . . . had he imposed the routine because it also kept him from having to interact with her?

The thought had been weighing on her mind a lot lately.

Each time she glanced around the room, she had slowly come to realize what their time spent together had really been like. Oh, how she’d romanticized their hours together. But it hadn’t been like that at all, had it? She had been such a small part of Henry’s daily life.

An early bedtime didn’t leave much time for him to spend with her in the evenings after getting home from work, eating a quick supper, doing chores, reading the Bible, and then getting ready for bed and the next day.

Now that she really thought about it, how many nights had she gone to bed wishing that she had someone to talk to into the night . . . someone to pray with when old fears kept her awake . . . someone to hold her close simply because he wanted to?

Beginning to feel her emotions get the best of her, she took in a deep breath. A long, cleansing breath to muster her strength.

Well, she certainly had not been ending her day at nine thirty for a while now, she thought a bit defiantly, and she wished she could tell Henry she was feeling just fine. More than fine, actually. She was feeling excited and useful and necessary. Especially tonight, anticipating the venture ahead of her.

Oh . . . and maybe slightly nervous, too. As a girl who’d never taken part in Rumspringa, she was about to embark on the most adventurous thing she’d ever done.

Suddenly hearing the crunch of Jessica’s tires on her gravel drive, a rush of heart-ticking adrenaline shot through her veins, replacing her sad thoughts. All at once, feeling like a young, giddy schoolgirl, she picked up the brown paper bag sitting alongside her chair and rushed out to her friends, locking the door behind her.

Liz waved to her from the passenger window and Jessica apologized the minute she slipped into the backseat of the SUV. “I’m sorry we’re so late.”

“I was hoping you were still coming.” Lydia settled in with the bag on her lap.

“I didn’t want to leave until Cole went to sleep, which seemed to take forever.” Jessica eased down the driveway. “And then Marisa was slow getting to the apartment.”

“And I had a showing tonight,” Liz turned around to inform her.

“Did you make a sale, I hope?”

“Not even close.” Liz grimaced. “I spent practically all afternoon with a couple, then most of the evening. At the end of it all, they informed me the wife has a cousin who’s in real estate and their family’s upset they’re not using him. So they’re switching on me, midstream.”

“That sounds verra disappointing.” Lydia felt for her. “I’m surprised you still wanted to do this tonight after a day like that.”

“Trust me, the thought of a nice, hot bath did cross my mind,” Liz admitted. “But I couldn’t back out. This was my idea, and I shouldn’t be complaining. My circumstances can’t even compare to poor Norm Fletcher’s. He’s got to be devastated about his son.”

“Wait a minute.” Jessica tapped the steering wheel. “Now I remember the Fletchers. They used to go to our church, right? Ryan was a few years younger than me?”

Liz nodded. “Their family went to our church for the longest time until Norm’s wife ran off with a fellow parishioner. Once that happened, Norm never showed up again.”

Lydia could certainly understand that. Gott forgive her, she’d barely been able to make herself go to Sunday services without Henry, and her circumstances weren’t anything like that. “How did you find out about Mr. Fletcher’s son?”

Liz twisted around to look at her again as she explained. “I ran into one of Norm’s neighbors at the grocery store. I’d sold her a house down the street from his many years ago. She’s the one who told me about Ryan being in intensive care at a military hospital in Germany.”

“Where had he been stationed?” Jessica sounded curious.

“I have no idea.” Liz shook her head. “All she said was Norm was having a rough time of it, understandably. He’s retired, all alone, and not in the best of health. He’s just waiting for Ryan to be okay and to get back home.”

“I sure hope all is well with him. . . .” Jessica’s voice drifted. “I ended up bringing a scarf for him.”

“You knit an entire scarf?” Lydia asked in shocked unison with Liz.

“I wish! You guys are great mentors, but that hasn’t turned me into a world-class knitter —not yet anyway.” Jessica laughed. “It’s a taupe-and-gray striped scarf that Aunt Rose made. I found it in her treasure chest.”

Lydia smiled, remembering the morning she and Jessica had gone through the antique cedar chest at the back of the shop, filled to the brim with incredible hand-knit pieces and quilts Rose had made and stowed away. Most likely for times just like this.

“What did you girls bring?” Jessica asked.

“Well, when I was on the hospitality committee at church, Norm was always one for a hot drink,” Liz said. “So I brought a basket of teas and coffees and flavored creams.”

“Oh, that’ll go nicely with my contribution,” Lydia spoke up. “I wasn’t sure what to do, so I brought a jar of my strawberry preserves, and then I made peanut butter spread and a loaf of sourdough bread.”

Jessica gave a thumbs-up signal with her right hand. “That sounds yummy, Lydia.”

“You really know how to make peanut butter spread?” Liz asked.

“You can be mighty sure I do.” Lydia laughed. “My maam started me on chores when I was verra young, growing up in Pennsylvania. Making the spread is one of the first things I wanted to learn to do.”

“I can never get enough peanut butter spread,” Liz confessed. “That’s another thing you’ll need to teach me to make as soon as my kitchen gets fixed. Oh, my. Fry pies and peanut butter spread. There go my weight-watching efforts again.”

Lydia laughed. “I’ll be glad to show you how anytime you’d like, Liz.”

“You told me your mother is still in Pennsylvania, right, Lydia?” Jessica asked.

“Jah, in Lancaster County. My younger sister is there too.”

“How did you end up in Sugarcreek, so far from home?” Liz wanted to know.

It was odd how for so many years Sugarcreek had seemed a long way from her home in Pennsylvania. But now it was beginning to feel just the opposite —Pennsylvania seemed a long way off. A place she didn’t know anymore.

“My maam sent me here with Henry after my father died,” she said bluntly.

Liz and Jessica grew quiet, too polite to ask questions, but Lydia could sense their curiosity. Maybe it was the intimacy of the car, or the anonymous darkness outside the window —whatever it was, she felt compelled to open up and share with them.

“My maam thought it best if I married and went to live with him. One less mouth to feed, I suppose.” She’d always thought she could’ve been a help to her mother, but obviously her mother had looked at it just the other way around. Maam had gone on a husband hunt for Lydia so quickly that she’d felt like she’d lost her father and her home all at the same time. She’d mourned for both of them simultaneously for a long while. “I had just turned eighteen and Henry was twenty-nine.”

“Do you hear from your mom very often?” Jessica asked.

“Oh, jah. I get a letter from her once in a while.” Not nearly as many letters as she sent to her mother. “My younger sister writes sometimes too. She’s in love every other week. I hope she waits to get married. She’s only nineteen.”

“I was twenty-two when I got married, and I definitely thought I knew everything there was to know,” Liz said.

“You must’ve married Cole’s father when you were young too, Jessica.”

“Oh, me?” Jessica nodded. “Yes, I was young, all right. Nineteen to be exact, and more immature than you can imagine. As it turned out, I may have had one of the shortest marriages in recorded history.”

“Jessica, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” She’d only been trying to draw Jessica into the conversation. She hadn’t been trying to be nosy or bring up an awful memory.

“You don’t have to be sorry, Lydia. It was all my fault. None of it was very smart of me.” Jessica turned to Liz. “I’m sure Aunt Rose told you all about my foolishness.”

“No.” Liz shook her head. “Rose and I talked about a lot of things, but I’m guessing she thought it was your story to tell. If you ever wanted to.”

“Oh, my poor aunt.” Jessica sighed. “I sure put that woman through a lot.” Her voice drifted as she maneuvered the car over the empty road. “But she was always full of grace. That was Aunt Rose.”

A silence fell over the car and Lydia felt uncomfortable, wishing she’d never asked Jessica about Cole’s father in the first place. She was hoping Liz in her open, funny way would fill in the gap, but she assumed even Liz wasn’t sure what to say.

She was surprised when Jessica began talking again. It was almost as if she needed to.

“You know, I don’t know that I’ve ever said this out loud . . . but the night of my parents’ accident, I’d been fussing and fussing before they left home.” She turned on the blinker and eased left onto another dark road. “So much so that I had good reason to believe —as a young girl might —that because I’d acted up, I’d been punished, and that’s why my parents never came home to me again.”

“Oh, Jessica.” Lydia’s heart immediately went out to her friend.

“You poor thing,” Liz sighed.

“Yeah, well, when Aunt Rose took me in, I was nothing but good. Good behavior all the time. I minded, never got into trouble. I did well in school and in sports, I worked hard, and I did everything as right as I could. But by the time I got to college . . . Aunt Rose had always said, ‘Remember who you are. Remember you’re a child of God.’ But when I got away from Sugarcreek, when I got on that campus, it’s not like I forgot I was a child of God. It was more like I didn’t want to remember I was.”

“That happens to all of us at times,” Liz offered.

“Yeah, and it happened to me big-time.” Even in the dimness of the car, Lydia could see Jessica shaking her head.

“When I met Sean my sophomore year,” Jessica continued, “I let all of the good in me go bad. That boy was like a drug to me. Little by little I grew more and more addicted to him and his ways. I gave up so much for the thrill of being with him. I did things I never imagined I’d do. Skipped classes, let my grades drop, drank far too much, gave up my body to him . . .”

“Don’t you think a lot of kids go astray at that time of life?” Liz interjected.

“Jah,” Lydia agreed. “Even sometimes a teen’s Rumspringa years can get a bit wild and get the best of them.”

Jessica chuckled sardonically. “Yeah, well, I took it one step further. Actually Sean and I took it one step further. During spring break we took off and drove to Las Vegas with another crazy couple I hardly knew. Our big plan? To get married. The crazy couple was going to be our best man and maid of honor. I called Aunt Rose with the good news once we got there,” she remarked caustically. “Understandably she barely said a word, just offered to buy me a plane ticket home, which of course I refused.”

Jessica grew quiet for a moment and Lydia could just imagine how the memory of that call made her feel.

“But anyway . . .” Jessica kept her eyes focused on the windshield as she continued. “Sean and his friend went out to have a bachelor sort of party the night before the impromptu wedding was supposed to happen. It was all pretty sad, really, him with a hangover at our so-called ceremony the next day and me with a maid of honor whose name I couldn’t quite get right.” She paused, as if remembering. “A month and a half later when I found out I was pregnant, Sean immediately dropped out of college and out of sight. The next thing I knew I was getting annulment documents from his family’s lawyer, and poor Aunt Rose had to take me in again.” Shaking her head, her voice sounded strained as she continued, “I know it was all for the best, but even so my poor choices meant Cole never had a father. No man in his life to ever love him, which is the worst part of it all.”

Lydia could feel the pain in Jessica’s words. “What about the boy’s parents? Cole’s grandparents?” she dared to ask.

“Sean’s mom and dad? My goodness, no,” Jessica said definitively. “Ironically, they thought I was the devil and that I had been the bad influence on their son. That I’d forced myself on him. Come to find out, though Sean never acted like it, he was from some well-to-do family from the northeast. And they certainly weren’t going to let me —a ‘hick’ from Ohio —and a baby who they assumed wasn’t even Sean’s ruin their son’s future. After a couple of times trying to contact them, I let it go.” She sighed. “I didn’t want Cole to know there were people who could’ve been in his life but didn’t want to be. I never had to grow up that way. I certainly didn’t want him to.”

Lydia wondered what Jessica would tell him one day when he got old enough to ask about such things.

“Despite everything, you’ve raised a good boy,” Liz said reassuringly.

“Jah, he was helping me unpack some boxes the other day,” Lydia chimed in. “He’s a sweet one, for sure.”

Jessica glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “I think he’s starting to get more comfortable with all the changes lately.”

Detecting a lift in Jessica’s voice, Lydia felt relieved.

“Goodness, I’m embarrassed,” Jessica said as she turned the car around a corner. “I’ve talked all the way here.”

Lydia hadn’t really noticed. The driver who took her to work most days —an older man named George —seemed to talk a lot too as he wound his car over the roads to town. George was a bird-watcher, and she was fascinated by everything he had to share. He’d told her she was a good listener, but after all the years of near silence with Henry, she had to admit she liked to hear what was on people’s minds.

Looking out the window to see where they were, she was surprised that the streets and houses looked somewhat familiar to her. “Isn’t this near where you live, Liz?”

“Yes, my street is just two blocks east.”

Lydia leaned forward in the seat to get a better view. “I can’t believe you both came all the way out to pick me up just to have to turn around and head back to town.”

“You don’t think we’d do this without you, do you?” Jessica asked.

“You’re officially a part of the Secret Stitches Society, Lydia.” Liz looked over the seat and smiled.

Warmed by their words, she hugged her parcel to her chest as Liz directed Jessica to turn off the headlights and park on the side of the road. As soon as Jessica cut the engine, the other women began gathering up their gifts. They were just about to exit the car when Lydia blurted out, “Wait.”

The two of them turned around to look at her. “If you’re nervous, Lydia, I totally understand,” Jessica said. “I was so nervous my first time with Liz.”

“I am a little nervous, jah,” Lydia admitted. “But I also thought —well, maybe we should say a prayer. Even a silent one.”

“That’s the best idea yet,” Liz said.

As they bowed their heads, Lydia not only asked for healing for Norm and Ryan Fletcher, but she gave thanks for the clear night and for these new women in her life too.

Seconds later, Jessica lifted her head. “Okay, are we ready, ladies?” she asked.

Closing each of their car doors as gently and quietly as possible, Lydia followed behind Jessica and Liz as they tiptoed across the silent street toward Norm Fletcher’s property.

Creeping onto the man’s driveway, she was just giving thanks for the moonlight illuminating their way when two lights encased in brick stands at the base of the drive flickered to life. That didn’t seem unusual at all —not until they dared to take a few steps more. Halfway up the drive, a row of spotlights flashed on over the garage, causing each of them to freeze in place.

Not sure what move to make next, they glanced at each other apprehensively. Finally, Liz took charge, waving Lydia and Jessica toward the walkway. Hopeful, the three of them pranced in that direction. But even there, with each step they took, lights burst on, alternating one side of the walk and then the other.

“This is crazy!” Jessica hissed.

“I know, but we’re almost there,” Liz encouraged.

The front stoop was definitely in sight, and Lydia had switched her prayer of thanks to a plea not to be caught. Because as they each took turns laying their gifts on the porch, more lights sparked and gleamed, beaming in their faces from spotlights above the front door.

“This place is booby-trapped!” Jessica whispered.

“Motion sensors everywhere.” Liz waved again. “Quick, before Norm comes to the door and sees us.”

Lydia felt like she was running for her life as the three of them flew across Mr. Fletcher’s yard and out onto the empty street.

Luckily, they didn’t have to wait for Jessica to unlock the car. The doors were open, and Lydia’s heart was pounding wildly as she fell into the backseat. “Oh, my goodness.” She tried to catch her breath. “That scared me. The next time I’m going to pray there aren’t any secret lights.”

The other ladies were trying to catch their breath as well, but around their puffing and huffing, they laughed.

“Amen to that, Lydia,” Liz said as Jessica started the car, and with their good deed complete, they escaped into the night.