“No.” The word flushed itself from Ellie, low and hot. “I can’t. Don’t ask me to do this, Leda.”

“There isn’t anyone else. We aren’t talking about people comfortable with the law. If this were up to my sister, Katie would go to jail whether she was guilty or not, because it’s not in her nature to fight back.” Leda gazed at her, eyes burning. “They trust me; and I trust you.”

“First of all, she hasn’t been formally charged. Second of all, even if she were, Leda, I couldn’t defend her. I know nothing about her or her way of life.”

“Do you live on the streets like the drug dealers you’ve defended? Or in a big Main Line mansion, like that principal you got acquitted?”

“That’s different, and you know it.” It did not matter whether Leda’s niece had a right to sound legal counsel. It did not matter that Ellie had defended others charged with equally unpalatable crimes. Drugs and pedophilia and armed robbery did not hit as close to home.

“But she’s innocent, Ellie!”

It had been, long ago, the reason Ellie became a defense attorney-for the souls she was going to save. However, Ellie could count on one hand the number of clients she’d gotten acquitted who had truly been wrongfully accused. She now knew that most of her clients were guilty as charged-although every last one of them had an excuse they’d be shouting all the way to the grave. She might not have agreed with her clients’ criminal actions, but on some level, she always understood what made them do it. However, at this moment in her life, there was nothing that could make her understand a woman who killed her own child.

Not when there were other women out there who so desperately wanted one.

“I can’t take your niece’s case,” Ellie said quietly. “I’d be doing her a disservice.”

“Just promise me you’ll think about it.”

“I won’t think about it. And I’ll forget that you asked me to.” Ellie walked out of the kitchen, fighting her way free of Leda’s disappointment.

Samuel’s big body filled the doorway of the hospital room, reminding Katie of how she sometimes would stand beside him in an open field and still feel crowded for space. She smiled hesitantly. “Come in.”

He approached the bed, feeding the brim of his straw hat through his hands like a seam. Then he ducked his head, bright color staining his cheeks. “You all right?”

“I’m fine,” Katie answered. She bit her lip as Samuel pulled up a chair and sat down beside her.

“Where’s your mother?”

“She went home. Aunt Leda called her a taxi, since Mam didn’t feel right riding back in her car.”

Samuel nodded, understanding. Amish taxi services, run by local Mennonites, drove Plain folks longer distances, or on highways where buggies couldn’t go. As for riding in Leda’s car, well, he understood that too. Leda was under the bann, and he wouldn’t have felt comfortable taking a ride from her, either.

“How . . . how are things at home?”

“Busy,” Samuel said, carefully choosing his words. “We did the third cutting of hay today.” Hesitating, he added, “The police, they’re still around.” He stared at Katie’s fist, small and pink against the polyester blanket. Gently he took it between his own hands, and then slowly brought it up to his jaw.

Katie curved her palm against his cheek; Samuel turned into the caress. Her eyes shining, she opened her mouth to speak again, but Samuel stopped her by putting a finger over her lips. “Sssh,” he said. “Not now.”

“But you must have heard things,” Katie whispered. “I want-”

“I don’t listen to what I’ve heard. I’ll only listen to what you have to say.”

Katie swallowed. “Samuel, I did not have a baby.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then squeezed her hand. “All right, then.”

Katie’s eyes flew to his. “You believe me?”

Samuel smoothed the blanket over her legs, tucking her in like a child. He stared at the shining fall of her hair and realized that he had not seen it this way, bright and loose, since they were both small. “I have to,” he said.

The bishop in Elam Fisher’s church district happened to be his own cousin. Old Ephram Stoltzfus was such a part of everyday life that even when acting as the congregational leader, he was remarkably accessible-stopping his buggy by the side of the road for a chat, or hopping off his plow in the middle of the field to make a suggestion. When Elam had met him earlier that day with the story of what had happened at the farm, he listened carefully and then said that he needed to speak to some others. Elam had assumed Ephram meant the church district’s deacon, or two ministers, but the bishop had shaken his head. “The businessmen,” he’d said. “They’re the ones who’ll know how the English police work.”

Just after suppertime, when Sarah was clearing the table, Bishop Ephram’s buggy pulled up. Elam and Aaron glanced at each other, then walked outside to meet him.

“Ephram,” Aaron greeted, shaking the man’s hand after he’d tied up his horse.

“Aaron. How is Katie?”

It was slight, but Aaron stiffened visibly. “I hear she will be fine.”

“You did not go to the hospital?” Ephram asked.

Aaron looked away. “Neh.”

The bishop tipped his head, his white beard glowing in the setting sun. “Walk with me awhile?”

The three men headed toward Sarah’s vegetable garden. Elam sank down on a stone slab bench and gestured for Ephram to do the same. But the bishop shook his head and stared over the tall heads of the tomato plants and the climbing vines of beans, around which danced a spray of fireflies. They sparked and tumbled like a handful of stars that had been flung.

“I remember coming here once, years ago, and watching Jacob and Katie chase the lightning bugs,” Ephram said. “Catching ’em in a jar.” He laughed. “Jacob said he was making an Amish flashlight. You hear from Jacob these days?”

“No, which is the way I wish it to be,” Aaron said quietly.

Ephram shook his head. “He was banned from the church, Aaron. Not from your life.”

“They’re the same to me.”

“That’s the thing I don’t understand, you know. Since forgiveness is the very first rule.”

Aaron leveled his gaze on the bishop. “Did you come here to talk about Jacob?”

“Well, no,” Ephram admitted. “After you dropped by this morning, Elam, I went to see John Zimmermann and Martin Lapp. It’s their understanding that if the police were here all day, they must be thinking Katie’s a suspect. It will all hinge for sure on whether the baby was born alive. If it was, she’ll be blamed for its death.” He frowned at Aaron. “They suggested speaking to a lawyer, so that you won’t get caught unawares.”

“My Katie doesn’t need a lawyer.”

“So I hope,” the bishop said. “But if she does, the community will stand behind her.” He hesitated, then added, “She’ll have to put herself back, you understand, during this time.”

Elam looked up. “Just give up communion? She wouldn’t be put under the bann?”

“I will need to speak to Samuel, of course, and then think on it.” Ephram put his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “This isn’t the first time a young couple has gotten ahead of their wedding night. It’s a tragedy, to be sure, that the baby died. But heartache can cement a marriage just as much as happiness. And as for Katie being blamed for the other-well, none of us believes it.”

Aaron turned, shrugging off the bishop’s hand. “Thank you. But we will not hire a lawyer for Katie, and go through the Englischer courts. It’s not our way.”

“What makes you always draw a line, and challenge people to cross it, Aaron?” Ephram sighed. “That’s not our way.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” Aaron nodded at the bishop and his father and struck off toward the barn.

The two older men watched him in silence. “You’ve had this conversation with him once before,” Elam Fisher pointed out.

The bishop smiled sadly. “Ja. And I was talking to a stone wall that time, too.”