In the morning, after yet another pork-based breakfast, as Gretchen and I – and our pails - head to the blueberry bushes again, I share what transpired the previous evening with Rebekah.

        “Whoa,” is about all Gretchen can say, and then I watch as her brain spins like a ferris wheel in a tornado.

        “I bet anything she’s going to go for it,” she finally says.

        “I think she almost has to, don’t you?” I say. “But do you think I should talk to Helene or wait until after Rebekah lets me know her decision? I don’t want Helene to feel as if I’ve gone behind her back to unduly influence Rebekah. But I also don’t want to say something prematurely.”

        “Yeah, that’s a tough one,” Gretchen says. “It’s just the two of them in the kitchen right now, though, so it’s pretty likely that that’s the topic of their conversation. With Helene’s history as an Englisher herself, who knows how that will influence the outcome.”

        I see her looking over my shoulder toward the road every few seconds as she’s talking to me.

        “Hey, Gretchen,” I say with a little smirk. “Just like a watched pot never boils, a watched road never brings our cavalry in the form of Tova Morgenstern.”

        Gretchen gives me the side-eye. “You’re so not funny, Allen,” she says and starts popping berries into her pail with renewed speed and defiance. She’s suddenly become an Olympian berry-picker.

        “You got a quota to make before Helene agrees to teach you the fine art of cornhusk doll-making or something?” I ask.

        “I hope Tova’s bringing masking tape for across your mouth,” says Gretchen. It seems the lack of cell phone accessibility has made my little Southern belle all kinds of surly this morning.

        “RACHELLE!” I hear Helene call from the house. “May I please speak with you a moment?”

        Gretchen and I gape at each other between the bush we’re sharing.

        “Uh-ohhhhh!” says Gretchen, her eyebrows high. “Someone’s about to get a paddlin’ from the principal!”

        I drop my bucket and head toward the house.

        Rebekah is nowhere to be seen. I step lightly across the threshold, stupidly imagining that somehow that will soften the impact of what’s about to transpire.

        Helene is whisking eggs with such ferocity that they’re practically becoming meringue-like in their frothiness.

        With no preamble, she says, “So, Rebekah informs me that she’s going to New York City with you to receive musical training from contacts you still have there?”

        I take a moment to absorb the enormity of this. She’s actually accepted my offer? Oy.

        “We did talk about it last night,” I say softly to her back, feeling exactly as Gretchen described it – as if I am a bad child in the principal’s office.

        “You’ve made quite the impression on her in less than forty-eight hours,” she says, then punctuates it with a sardonic huff.

        I choose not to respond to the challenge she’s just laid at my feet.

        “What do you possibly get out of this, Rachelle? Are you some great savior in your eyes, whisking her away to a better, brighter world?

        I sense her sharp edge is underwritten with agony. There is no question but that she is teetering on the precipice of tears here.

        “No, honestly, Helene. It’s nothing like that whatsoever.” I walk to where she’s standing so that she has to face me. “I do not believe in coincidences.” I let that sink in a moment before I plead my case to her. “Here I am, a musician – an opera singer with flaming red hair, no less – rescued by you and your family who, just a month earlier, lose a beloved member with red hair and opera training she acquires during Rumspringa. Doesn’t that feel like G-d’s hand upon all of our shoulders?”

        Rather than responding, Helene whisks her bowl of eggs faster still. “And how about this, Helene: out of all the countless arias I have in my repertoire, the one I choose to sing for Rebekah, when she asks to hear me perform, is the only one she knows…because her own mamm – who I look like – sang it to her whenever the three females of the family were alone together. There’s no WAY that’s a coincidence, Helene. No. Way.”

        Helene’s cheeks are now glistening with tears.

        “She’s supposed to go with us. It cannot be more obvious that this is G-d’s plan here.”

        I tug the bowl and fork from Helene’s grip and place them onto the counter. Then I hold her hands in mine, look her square in the eyes, and say, “I will take the utmost care of her, Helene. You have my word on that. She will be safe, and she will be immersed in music programs that will enhance her joy and depth.”

        At this point, Helene is wracked with sobs. “I am so afraid we’ll lose her,” she says with a tone so sorrowful I feel a catch in my own throat.

        “I understand that,” I say. “But that’s not who she is. I’ve known her only two days, and even I know that.”

        Helene uses her apron to stanch the flow on her cheeks. “But she’s so vulnerable right now,” she insists. Coldness has returned to her tone, and it feels like both an accusation and a hard slap. Then she adds softly, as if she’s surrendering to her enemy, “And honestly, you can’t believe how much you look like my sister-in-law, her mamm.”

        “No such thing as coincidences,” I repeat with a softness that matches hers. We hold each others’ eyes a long moment before I say, “She needs this to connect to her mamm and to fuel the gift she inherited from her.”

        I’m feeling the need to hug her. But just as I take the step forward to do that, the kitchen door clatters open, and there stands my wonderful partner in road-trip mayhem with an overflowing bucket of blueberries in each hand.

        “Recess is over, Allen!” she says. “I did the pickin’, so now YOU get to do the washin’!”

        I adore this girl. She surmised that I needed the cavalry and quickly went into high gear on my behalf. She’s not just a gifted writer, but a true-blue champion of a friend, as well. She is worth a hundred million times her weight in corn cobs!