Free Susanna's Dream: The Lost Sisters of Pleasant Valley, Book Two by Marta Perry

accident. Do you want to hear about it?”
    It was smart that the bishop began with Susanna’s love for Elizabeth. She might be more willing to listen. Still, Nate hoped that the bishop might use his influence to reconcile Susanna with her family, and not just because it would make things easier for him with the shop. He hated seeing anyone so alone as Susanna seemed to be.
    Susanna hesitated for what seemed a long time. Finally she nodded. “Please.”
    Bishop Mose leaned back in the rocker. “Ach, well, sometimes it’s hard to know where to begin. Your mother . . . your birth mother, that is, was named Diane Wentworth.”
    Susanna came to attention at the name. “So she really was Englisch, then?”
    “Ja. She met your father, Eli Weaver, when he was working out west. Eli’s family lived here in Pleasant Valley. Still does. But he had a yen to see a bit more of the world, so he went to Ohio, where he had kin.”
    That fit together, Nate thought. Susanna and her parents had lived in Ohio before they came to Oyersburg.
    “Apparently Diane had left home, and she didn’t seem to have anyone. But those two fell in love, and the way I heard it afterward, there was no turning back. Diane decided to become Amish, and by the time they moved back here, she had the language so well that folks who didn’t know would have a hard time guessing she’d ever been Englisch.”
    He paused, as if waiting for Susanna to ask a question, but she remained silent. Nate stirred. It would be more natural for her to be besieging the bishop with questions.
    So he asked one himself. “They lived at the orchard where Lydia and her husband live now?”
    “Ja, that’s true. They had the three little girls—such sweet kinder.” The bishop sighed. “Chloe, the baby, was only about a year old when they decided to go to Ohio to the wedding of friends. You were three, and Lydia was five.” He paused for a moment. “A truck hit the van they were in.”
    “Terrible,” Nate murmured. Folks sometimes feared driving on the busy roads in buggies, but a motor vehicle could be just as dangerous.
    “Everyone was rushed to hospitals. It was hard to identify them, but eventually the police came to me. I went with the family to do what we could. Diane and Eli lingered for a day or two. You kinder were in three different hospitals. I thought a married couple should be with each of you to make decisions. Your father’s brother and his wife went with Lydia. Elizabeth and Jonah Bitler, close friends, went with you. But when a cousin and his wife reached the hospital where Chloe was, they found she’d already been taken away by Diane’s mother.”
    The bishop stopped there, maybe to let Susanna take it in. Or maybe because it was difficult for him, remembering such a time.
    Susanna stirred, smoothing her hand on her right leg. “I was injured in the accident.”
    The bishop nodded. “Your leg was badly smashed. You had other injuries, too. The doctors didn’t hold out much hope for you, but Elizabeth never gave up. I always thought it was only Elizabeth’s love that brought you through.”
    Tears shone in Susanna’s eyes, but she didn’t speak.
    “Lydia was badly hurt, as well, with a head injury. Her aunt and uncle were just as devoted to her. She recovered, but she never remembered her life before the accident.”
    “So they decided to split us up,” Susanna said, her voice barely above a whisper.
    The bishop nodded. “Lydia’s parents wanted her to know the truth, but Elizabeth . . . well, she wanted you to believe she was your mamm. So, in the end, that’s how it was. Chloe was out of reach in the Englisch world, and it was agreed that this decision was best for the two of you.”
    Bishop Mose frowned, staring down at his work-worn hands, slack in his lap. “We don’t know the future. We can only act as seems best at the time. If the decision was wrong, at least it was made out of love.”
    “I understand,” Susanna said.