Free Plain Again by Sarah Price Page B

release, her daed would at least be able to walk. In addition, it further alarmed her that his speech remained so slurred and difficult to understand at times, especially when he was the slightest bit tired.
    “I’ll make a ramp,” Harvey had said while they were milking the cows.
    Amanda had looked up from where she sat, surprised that the usually quiet Harvey had spoken at all. “A ramp?”
    “For the porch steps,” he replied, his voice somber and serious. “So he can go in and out with ease. Fresh air will do him good, I reckon.”
    She wasn’t certain how to reply. She had grown accustomed to few interactions and no kindness from the people in the community. During the past two weeks, she had felt isolated and alone, limited to her daily communications with Alejandro during which she attempted to mask her true feelings of sadness at being apart from him, a sadness which had been greatly heightened by the mistreatment from neighbors and other members of the church district. It would do no good to complain and add to his stress, she reasoned to herself.
    “I . . . I don’t know what to say,” she finally said. “That’s quite kind of you, Harvey.”
    He nodded his head but, as was typical for Harvey, said nothing in return.
    It was two days later when Harvey brought in the mail that had just been delivered by the postal worker. In the past, Amanda would have walked out to retrieve the mail, usually in the evening. However, with the reporters camped at the mouth of their driveway, the police had decided to let the postal worker onto the property to hand-deliver the mail to whomever was in the barnyard. As chance had it that day, it was Harvey.
    “Letter for you, Lizzie,” he said as he set the mail on the counter. Without another word, he turned and walked back outside to continue with the barn chores.
    Lizzie glanced at Amanda, who had been sitting next to Elias, reading aloud from a three-ring binder with handwritten letters in it. She had taken to reading to him at night, a way to entertain him. “I wonder from whom that letter could be.”
    Amanda shrugged. “Won’t know until you look.”
    Just the day before, two of the young schoolchildren had stopped by the house with a brown paper bag in their hands. They had smiled shyly when Amanda opened the door. In the barnyard a buggy was standing, with a hitched horse stomping its hooves, eager to continue on its way home for the evening feeding.
    “For Elias,” the older of the two children had whispered. She had glanced at the younger one, clearly her sister. “From the schoolchildren, to help him recover.”
    Amanda had taken the brown paper bag and thanked the children, watching as they scampered back to the buggy. When it had finally disappeared around the barn in the direction of the road, Amanda had shut the door and walked back to the kitchen where she handed the package to her daed .
    “Open it,” he slurred.
    It was a three-ring binder with sheets of paper inside, each one with a child’s drawing and a Bible verse. It had been organized by age, Amanda had quickly realized. The younger students had their pages at the beginning of the book, easy to identify with the lack of detail in the drawings and the large, crooked writing. Toward the middle of the book, the drawings became more sophisticated and the verses written in much improved handwriting. Finally, the last several pages were clearly written by the older students, with detailed drawings and more involved Bible verses. Interspaced between the encouraging Bible verses were letters from the children that wished him a speedy recovery.
    It had been, indeed, a very lovely gift.
    Now, Amanda closed the binder and set it carefully on the edge of the sofa as she watched her mamm open the envelope. Lizzie slit the edge of the envelope with her pretty mother-of-pearl letter opener, a birthday gift from one of her sisters when she was a young woman. Patiently, Lizzie placed the opener on the