The Revealing by Suzanne Woods Fisher

become the man he was meant to be. Just when Rose thought Vera might be suffering from a little softening of the brain, she up and surprised her with some insightful thing she said. From time to time, Rose felt a surge of affection for Vera, but mainly she felt she brought a lot of unhappiness on herself. Goodness, she went out halfway to invite it.
    Rose gazed at Vera, a stout, sad woman in her sixties, a widow, her only son gone. Let her have this hope.
    Then another thought crowded in: What about Naomi? What would that hope mean for her?

    Naomi felt unsettled, the way air shifted right before a rainstorm was due in. But the sky was delphinium blue and empty of clouds. Restless and at loose ends, she picked up her scissors, grabbed a swatch of pink fabric from her scrap basket, and cut triangles for a new quilt. She needed a new project, something to calm her mind. Her fingers flew without needing a pattern, a skill that irked Bethany. Each triangle was identical to the one before it. When she had finished with the pink fabric, she glanced up and noticed Bethany comeup the driveway. She had been working at the Sisters’ House today and was on her way home. Naomi thought she might stop by the house, but she beelined into the barn. She set the scissors down and stared out the window, still bothered by something she saw earlier today. Or thought she saw.
    Earlier this afternoon, Naomi had dropped off a package at the post office and she spotted a man walking down Main Street. She didn’t immediately recognize him until he crossed the street. There was something familiar about the way he walked, arms bent and aggressive. If she didn’t know better, she thought the man looked like Jake Hertzler . . . but that was impossible. He was long gone and good riddance to him. She never—not ever ever ever—wanted to set eyes on that horrible man again.
    Naomi had only seen Jake Hertzler one time, late at night, though she would never forget it. It would be easy to give in to feelings of hatred for that awful man. But she refused. Instead, she prayed for his soul whenever she thought of him because she knew it was in jeopardy. It was impossible, she knew, to allow hatred to grow in your heart if you prayed for that person. Hatred may visit your heart, but you needn’t invite it to stay.
    She picked out another scrap of fabric from her basket—another soft shade of pink—and set to work cutting out pieces. She felt a little better, but not much, and she reached into her pocket for a Tums. Something just didn’t feel right today.

    Bethany went hunting for Galen in his barn and found him, head bowed low, in the tack room, where he was rubbing down an enormous oval collar with a rag of liniment. She watched him work for a moment, breathing in the smell of saddle soap and oil and horses. Galen looked at home in the tack room, but he looked lonely too. “Do you use that for training buggy horses?”
    He spun to face her, startling at the sound of her voice. “This collar? No. But Amos Lapp bought a new Belgian for fieldwork and he shies at the collar. He asked me for help, so I thought I’d start with a larger collar so it’s not rubbing the horse’s neck. I wanted to clean it first.”
    Clean it? Why, every piece of equipment in this tack room looked like it had been spit and polished that very morning. Meticulous. Fastidious. Galen didn’t even use metal nails to drape the leather bridles—only wooden pegs, so nothing would crimp or crack. Curry combs, leather hole punchers, hoof trimmers, shears were hung in designated spots. Rolled leg wraps, bandages, tins of liniment and oil and saddle soap were arranged in a single row above the workbench. Lead ropes were coiled as neatly as lariats. Stacked on a tack trunk was a pile of clean horse blankets.
    “Is it always like this?”
    He looked around the small room. “Like what?”
    “So . . . scrupulously tidy?”
    “Yes, except after one of your brothers have been in