Free The Harvest of Grace by Cindy Woodsmall Page B

could milk the herd and nothing else. All those unoccupied hours gave her time to really miss her sisters, especially Ruth.
    Sunlight sparkled off the murky water. The cows were probably upstream, wading in the creek to cool off. The temperature had to be nearing the nineties, and it was only early June. The almanac said this summer would be unusually hot and dry, which would take a hard toll on livestock and crops.
    She needed to be working—cutting hay, scrubbing the milk house and parlor for inspection, and tending to the cows’ hoofs and udders, for starters. Michael said the farm had a lot of debt, but if she kept her nose to the grindstone, this place was bound to become profitable soon. He hadn’t shared the financials with her, but it couldn’t be that bad.
    Hearing the sound of crunching gravel, she walked to a clearing to catch a glimpse of its source.
    Aaron Blank was finally leaving the house.

    She’d like to know why he’d come home. Michael had told her that Aaron cared nothing for dairy farming, so he hadn’t come back to work.
    With him gone for a while, she could visit with Michael and Dora and enjoy the kind of Sundays she’d had since arriving here. She went to the old homestead and knocked lightly as she stepped inside. No one greeted her.
    That wasn’t normal. She went into the living room. Michael sat on the couch, staring out a window. Dora was in her rocker, holding a book, but she wasn’t reading.
    “Hello?” Sylvia whispered.
    Michael turned to her with a forced smile. “I’ve been wondering where you were.”
    He didn’t sound like himself.
    “ Kumm rei , Sylvia. We could use a bit of cheering up.” Dora lifted her book. “I can’t get enough light to be able to see.”
    “And you can’t find your glasses, right?” Sylvia looked around, trying to spot them. She snatched them off the top shelf of a bookcase and passed them to Dora. “Now, who do you think put them way up there?” She eyed Michael.
    He smiled again, this time a real smile. “I look better to her when she can’t find those things.”
    Dora put on her glasses and began reading.
    Sylvia hadn’t seen the Blanks look this sad in months. When she’d arrived, neither Dora nor Michael had any words left in them. They’d been blessed with only two children. Their daughter, Elsie, had died eight months earlier in a terrible accident, and their son, Aaron, had left without a word three months later and entered rehab.

    Sylvia, Michael, and Dora had spent their evenings together during the cold winter months after she arrived. She and Michael played games and read. She and Dora baked and sewed. After a while Michael and Dora slowly began to open up. Dora had said that talking to an outsider helped them. And it had helped Sylvia feel as if she mattered. After leaving her parents and sisters, she needed someone to treat her like family.
    “What was the sermon about today?” Not that she wanted to know. But talking about religious things always lifted Michael’s and Dora’s spirits.
    Within an hour they were relaxed and appeared to be feeling better, just as Sylvia expected. She took the Old Maid cards out of the drawer, and Michael joined her at the table for a game.
    Dora took off her glasses and adjusted the frames. “Michael, did you use my glasses for reading last night?”
    “Hush now, Dora.” Michael grinned. “You’re going to give Sylvia the idea we’re a cranky old couple.”
    “Nothing worse than someone thinking that.” Sylvia shuffled the deck.
    “We are not a cranky old couple, ” Dora retorted. “He’s the only crank.”
    Sylvia burst into laughter and dealt the cards.
    Michael picked up his hand. “Aaron’s back.”
    Afraid he might read her displeasure if she looked at him, Sylvia kept her focus on rearranging her cards. “We met when he came by the cabin last night.”
    She wouldn’t mention his being in the milking barn that morning. Fresh grief had settled over Michael and Dora for