In Plain View by Olivia Newport Page B

mind.
    “Jacob,” Sarah said again. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
    “I just may have,” Jacob said.
    “Someone you know? You do business with a lot of people in Philadelphia now.”
    He shook his head slowly. “Not business. And someone you know as well.” He turned to lock eyes with his sister.
    “Oh?”
    “Maria.” Jacob exhaled the name. “I think I saw Maria.”
    “How can that be?” Emerson asked. “You’ve always said she disappeared when she was barely grown.”
    “She did,” Sarah said. “We never knew what happened. No one knew she was unhappy, if that’s what she was. I was only seven or eight myself. Jacob, you can’t have been more than ten. Christian was not married yet. Are you certain?”
    “No. It was someone in men’s clothing. Drab, ordinary fabrics. A hat pulled down low. But the face! It was like looking at Magdalena, only twenty years older.”
    Sarah’s eyes locked on his. “Jacob, do you know what it would mean to Mamm to find Maria?”
    Jacob nodded.
    “What can we do to find out if it is Maria?” Sarah turned to her husband. “Emerson, you must help.”
    Emerson turned his palms up. “How? I never met Maria. I’ve never even met Magdalena. And I certainly did not see whoever Jacob thinks he saw—which may have been a complete stranger.”
    “But if it was Maria—”
    Jacob put a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “Emerson’s right. I’m not even sure what I saw. The rain distorts many things.”
    “But if it was Maria, then she is here in Philadelphia. We can ask around. You have connections. Emerson knows a lot of people. We could at least try for a few days.”
    Jacob shook his head. “Katie is due to have the new baby in a few weeks. I promised this would be the last trip for a while. This is no time for me to linger in Philadelphia. “No, it couldn’t have been her.
    The crowd thundered again.
    “That’s it,” Emerson said. “They’re demanding a new government, and I believe we’re going to get it. The Assembly will have no choice but to vote themselves out of existence because of their own incompetence. When the Continental Congress meets next month, Pennsylvania will vote for independence.”

    From where Magdalena sat, she could see Nathanael clearly. He always sat in the same place during church. No matter whose home the congregation met in, Nathanael managed to put himself along the outside edge among the unmarried men. Magdalena learned long ago that she could sit on the same outside edge, in the facing women’s section, and see Nathanael clearly during most services.
    Nathan helped his father work both their farms, but he had never moved into his own cabin. Just last week Magdalena had stopped in at the cabin and saw that someone was squatting there. Though Nathan’s mother had outfitted the cabin with basic supplies when he acquired the land, anyone passing through now could see it was untended. What was to stop someone from taking up occupancy?
    Mrs. Buerki often invited Magdalena to supper, where she sat next to Nathan and smiled as she passed dishes around the table. Nathan was polite and ate well. He seemed to find some pleasure in her silent company after meals. As far as anyone knew, he slept well at night. His family said he was the first one to wake in the morning and out to the barn to tend the animals. If asked a question, he answered as simply as possible, but never discourteously.
    But he was not her Nathanael any longer. Magdalena wondered if it would be worse to give up hope that he would return to her, or worse to be certain he never would.
    It had been a year and a half. In a few weeks another wedding season would begin—the third since she and Nathan talked of marriage. Magdalena was tempted to stop stitching linens for her chest. What was the point?
    She sang the last hymn with half a heart, feeling as if it were moving at half the usual ponderous pace of the hymns from the Ausbund . This one had fourteen