Aunt Hannah and Martha and John

Aunt Hannah had one steady dream for her nephew John: marry a sensible local girl, take up the family plow, and carry forward the farm that had fed generations. Instead, John went off to college, then to seminary, and returned as a pastor with a wife named Martha who cannot keep a kitchen in order to save her life. She is not the woman Aunt Hannah would have chosen. She cannot churn butter, cannot stretch a meal, cannot hold her own in a country church where a pastor's wife is supposed to set the standard. As John begins his first congregation, Aunt Hannah watches from the sidelines, her silence sharp with disappointment and her love tangled up with grief for the life she wanted for him. But time has a way of teaching even the most stubborn hearts what really matters, and this gentle, wry story asks whether family can find its way back to each other when expectations have been thoroughly broken.