strand of hair under her cap. “She’s from Oregon,” she said, her face becoming an emotionless mask. “Visiting Amish country.” She clasped her hands behind her back again and looked at me. “Isn’t that right?”
For a surreal moment life stopped and I took it all in. Alexander, watching and waiting, as if defeated, to see how it would all play out. Klara, trying with all her might to pretend as if nothing of importance was taking place right here, in this moment. And a lovely young woman, who I assumed was my cousin, gazing at me with such intensity that I felt as if I were splitting in two.
Then she reached for my hand and gave it a shake. “I’m Ada.” Her smile was warm and genuine. She looked the way I wanted to feel. Trusting. Protected. Hopeful.
“Ada! Deine kapp!” Klara snapped.
One delicate hand fluttered to the back of the woman’s head, and she blushed. “I was getting ready for bed when I heard voices.”
“She needs her rest. This is too much for her,” Klara said to me. “She’s ill.”
“I heard,” I answered.
“You did?” Ada asked. “From who?”
“The Gundys.”
She looked at me straight away, her mouth solemn but her eyes smiling. “How are they?”
Klara stepped between us, forcing our hands apart, and spoke to Ada again in Pennsylvania Dutch. Ada sighed and whispered, “Ya.” Then she turned to me. “You will come again?”
“Ya.” I winced, hoping I didn’t sound as if I were mocking her. The word had slipped out. “Yes. I would love to see you again.”
“Come along, then.” Klara opened the front door and stepped out. I followed her, turning to wave at Ada, but she was already heading back up the stairs, the skirt of her dress swaying a little with each labored step.
I followed Klara out the door and then veered to my right, heading toward the daadi haus.
“Where are you going?” Klara’s face was still stony.
“To see Mammi.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible right now.”
I kept walking.
“The door to her house is locked.” Klara had her hand over the pocket of her apron.
I turned then and looked straight at her. My face wasn’t placid. Nor was it still. I could feel it growing redder by the moment. “Unlock it then, or I will march right back into your house and up those stairs and tell Ada I’m her cousin.”
She stared me down for a few moments. I held her gaze. A cow mooed in the distance. A cat leaped from the porch down to the ground and then darted toward the field. I caught the scent of fresh-tilled soil in the breeze.
I followed a few feet behind her. By the light of the moon I could make out bare trellises lining the side of the house. We reached the backyard and skirted the perimeter of a garden plot. At the daadi haus a modern, battery-operated lantern sat on a table on the porch, and next to that was a lone rocking chair. The little house was painted the same sparkling white as the other buildings on the farm, with no embellishments. At the base of the front steps was a pot of daffodils in full bloom.
“She’s asleep,” Klara said as we reached the door and she quietly unlocked it. “But you may look at her.”
She stepped inside and I followed, my heart pounding furiously at the thought of seeing my own birth grandmother for the very first time—well, actually, for the very first time since she carried me into an airport twenty-six years ago and handed me over to a pair of strangers.
Blinking, I stood there inside the stuffy room and took in the sight of the old woman. She was sleeping in a recliner, tufts of white hair like cotton balls poking out from under her cap. Her head was tilted back and her mouth was open just a little. My eyes fell on her chest, which seemed so still, and I held my breath until I saw it rise and fall.
“What’s wrong with her?” I whispered.
“She’s getting older.” Klara shrugged.
There was a quilt spread across Mammi’s lap, and with a small gasp I realized that it looked exactly like the one she had sent with me when she gave me over to Mama and Dad. For some reason, just seeing it there softened my heart toward this woman and made me feel connected to her in a unique way. Maybe she had surrendered me to strangers in an airport, but it wasn’t as though