Free The Choice by Suzanne Woods Fisher

condition of those baby birds worried her. Andy was just barely getting over their father’s death, if such a thing were possible, she thought. She wasn’t really sure she’d ever feel the same way she did before Jacob died. The pain wasn’t as severe as it had been a few months ago, though it would catch her off guard sometimes. Just yesterday, she found a list with Jacob’s handwriting on it and tears flooded her eyes. Most days, though, grief wasn’t at the forefront anymore.
    Still, neither was happiness.
    By the next afternoon, with Andy’s vigilant care, the baby birds made a complete turnaround. They were noisy and demanding houseguests. Smelly too. Carrie insisted that the nest be moved out of the warm kitchen and into the barn. Andy objected, certain they would freeze to death.
    “They’ll be fine, Andy,” Carrie said reassuringly. “The barn is protected.” She pointed to the barn. “Go.”
    Just as soon as Andy disappeared into the barn with the nest, Mattie came to the door bringing a box wrapped up in warm scarves. She unwrapped the box on the kitchen table. Inside were five creamy white eggs. “They’re Canada geese eggs. Dad ordered a batch to restock the pond. You’ll need to keep them incubated for about a month. I thought, in case the hawk babies don’t make it, well, this way he’d have something else to take care of.”
    Mattie packed the eggs up again to keep them warm.
    Daniel took the box out of her arms to take to the barn. Solemnly, he looked at her and said, “You have a good heart, Mattie Zook.”

5
    It was just about a year ago, Carrie realized, on a beautiful fall day just like today—crisp and cold, with leaves on the trees in shades from red to yellow—that she had made her last batch of sweet cider with her father. She had watched Jacob closely as he mixed juices from different varieties of apples to make his sweet cider. He was very particular about his cider.
    “Folks count on my cider, Carrie girl, to help them get through the long winter, so we got to make it just right.”
    Together, they sampled blends before deciding on the perfect combination. “Thirty-six apples, not one more or one less, make a gallon of cider,” he had said, counting them out.
    Even then, she felt a shiver of precognition, to seal that memory— a perfect moment, a perfect day.
    After Daniel sold the fancy-grade apples from this year’s harvest to a packing house, Carrie decided to use the leftover apples to re-create her father’s cider. In the carriage house, Daniel had found an old cider press and cleaned it up for her. All week, she had been trying to match the taste of her father’s cider—sweet and tart. Carrie didn’t think the taste of her cider rivaled Jacob’s— her apple varieties differed from his—but it was close enough for the neighbors. At church on Sunday, Carrie told one person, the right person—Emma—that she was making Jacob’s cider, and by Monday morning, neighbors were lined up at the farmhouse with empty plastic gallon milk jugs.
    One of the first customers was Annie Zook, a school friend of Carrie’s who married one of Mattie’s cousins and was pregnant with twins.
    “That girl is about ready to pop,” Emma said, waving to Annie as she drove off in the buggy. Emma had come for the day, to help, she said, but she spent her time talking with visiting neighbors. She glanced curiously at Carrie’s flat midriff. “Seems like we should be getting an announcement pretty soon, doesn’t it?” Then she frowned. “Though Mother said that you might take after your own mother, who had trouble having babies. She said your mother was a frail and sickly thing. She said your mother was a carrier of hemophilia and that’s why it was a double whammy with Jacob being a bleeder and Andy being a bleeder. She wondered if you might have trouble too.”
    Carrie stiffened but wasn’t surprised. The Plain had a saying: a new baby every spring. “If Esther seems to know so