The Amish Midwife (25 page)

I followed Klara out the door and then veered to my right, heading toward the
daadi haus
.

“Where are you going?” Klara’s face was still stony.

“To see
Mammi
.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible right now.”

I kept walking.

“The door to her house is locked.” Klara had her hand over the pocket of her apron.

I turned then and looked straight at her. My face wasn’t placid. Nor was it still. I could feel it growing redder by the moment. “Unlock it then, or I will march right back into your house and up those stairs and tell Ada I’m her cousin.”

She stared me down for a few moments. I held her gaze. A cow mooed
in the distance. A cat leaped from the porch down to the ground and then darted toward the field. I caught the scent of fresh-tilled soil in the breeze.

I followed a few feet behind her. By the light of the moon I could make out bare trellises lining the side of the house. We reached the backyard and skirted the perimeter of a garden plot. At the
daadi haus
a modern, battery-operated lantern sat on a table on the porch, and next to that was a lone rocking chair. The little house was painted the same sparkling white as the other buildings on the farm, with no embellishments. At the base of the front steps was a pot of daffodils in full bloom.

“She’s asleep,” Klara said as we reached the door and she quietly unlocked it. “But you may look at her.”

She stepped inside and I followed, my heart pounding furiously at the thought of seeing my own birth grandmother for the very first time—well, actually, for the very first time since she carried me into an airport twenty-six years ago and handed me over to a pair of strangers.

Blinking, I stood there inside the stuffy room and took in the sight of the old woman. She was sleeping in a recliner, tufts of white hair like cotton balls poking out from under her cap. Her head was tilted back and her mouth was open just a little. My eyes fell on her chest, which seemed so still, and I held my breath until I saw it rise and fall.

“What’s wrong with her?” I whispered.

“She’s getting older.” Klara shrugged.

There was a quilt spread across
Mammi
’s lap, and with a small gasp I realized that it looked exactly like the one she had sent with me when she gave me over to Mama and Dad. For some reason, just seeing it there softened my heart toward this woman and made me feel connected to her in a unique way. Maybe she
had
surrendered me to strangers in an airport, but it wasn’t as though she just walked in there and gave me over randomly.

We’re whom she wanted for you
, my dad had said.
Whom God wanted
.

“Did she make that quilt?” I asked Klara now.

“Decades ago.”

“How old is she?”

“Seventy-eight.”

She was only two years older than Dad had been, but compared to him she seemed ancient. “I have questions for her,” I said.

Klara exhaled loudly. “I don’t want to wake her up.”

“What does her doctor say?”

“Not much.” Her voice softened a little. She glanced out the window into the darkness.

“I wanted to ask her about Giselle.”

Klara stiffened.

“And about
Mammi
meeting my parents in the Philadelphia Airport—”

“You need to go,” Klara said. Her voice was harsh.

“Please. Won’t you help me?”

Klara stepped back out onto the porch, and again I followed her. As she locked the door she said, “Did Marta put you up to this?”

I almost laughed. “No.”

“What has she told you?”

I shrugged, thinking if I said “nothing” it would give her even more reason not to give me any information either. “I just want to know my story,” I said. “Why I was given up.” I couldn’t make out the expression on Klara’s face as she marched away from me. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask,” I called out, my voice rising.

Shadows leaped around the yard as we reached the front, and Klara suddenly stopped and spun around to face me. “What do you want from me? Ada is sick. I can’t afford to live in the past. What’s happened has happened.”

“So, it’s pretty much forgive and forget in your opinion too?” My heart raced again.

“Is that what Marta told you?”

I didn’t answer as I walked around her to the brick path.

“Don’t come back,” she said. “You’ve done enough damage as it is.”

Oh, I’d be back all right. I kept walking until I heard the front door slam. Then I turned around. The curtain in the upstairs window fluttered again. I waved. Seething inside and rehearsing what I would say to Ella, I marched up the lane.

But when I reached the car, she wasn’t there. I called out her name, but she didn’t answer. I phoned her cell, but she didn’t pick up. My anger began to turn to panic. Maybe I’d been too trusting to leave her. Maybe someone had taken her.

I started the car. As I reached the highway, a motorcycle roared by. On the back was Ella.

I
turned right and followed. Of course it was Ezra on the front of the bike. I kept my distance, not wanting to cause him to wreck, but I blinked my bright lights to get his attention.

Ella wore a helmet and a leather jacket. I presumed both were Ezra’s because his head was bare and he wore only a T-shirt. Ella’s dress fluttered free around her legs, and she leaned against Ezra’s back, her cheek on his shoulder. “Please don’t wreck,” I whispered. I’d seen far too many motorcycle accidents during my ER rotation.

I honked as we neared the willow trees and flashed my lights again. Finally, Ezra pulled over. By the time I stopped, both were laughing. Ella climbed from the motorcycle, smoothing her dress down, and then whipped the helmet off her head, her long auburn hair falling loose. She retrieved a handful of bobby pins and her cap from her apron pocket.

Ezra gave me a sheepish grin as I climbed out of my car. “We’re old friends,” he said.

“So I heard.” I hoped I looked like the gruff older cousin, ready to bust the kid. I turned to Ella. “We need to get going. Give Ezra his jacket.”

She obliged and then gave him a flirty wave as well.

“See you Sat—”

“Thanks!” she called out, obviously trying to drown out his words.

He winked.

I knew then they thought I was ancient, unable to interpret their not so subtle communication. I decided not to drill her about going on the motorcycle ride. It wasn’t my place. When we passed Klara’s she asked me how it went. I answered her vaguely, not giving many details.

“I was so nervous waiting for you,” she said. “When I heard Ezra’s motorcycle, I ran out to the road.”

Likely story
. I was sure she would have ran toward the sound of Ezra’s motorcycle no matter what else was going on. “So,” I said, “that first day when I met you and you thought I was someone else—”

She squirmed a little.

“Who did you think I was?”

By the light of the full moon, I saw her roll her eyes. I stayed quiet.

Finally she said, “Ada.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugged. “Zed thought so too.”

“Ella—”

“I didn’t know you then, Lexie.” She paused. “And I thought Mom would be mad.”

“Why?”

“I grew up with her telling me I talked too much, that I didn’t have any boundaries. All of that. She expected me to be this nice little girl. But I’m not nice. And I’m not Amish.”

I wanted to laugh. She was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. And her life didn’t seem that different from the Amish.

“I’m sorry,” she said, turning toward me. “So you and Ada are cousins. You already knew that, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But you two look more alike than most cousins—for example, more alike than you and I do.”

“Genetics,” I said. “It could happen.” But I wasn’t sure. Maybe we were just cousins who happened to share a number of dominant genes, but I suspected that we were even more, that we were half sisters instead.

“Are you going to stay?” Ella turned up the heat in the car.

“I probably should…at least until Saturday,” I answered, giving her a sideways glance.

“Don’t tell Mom.”

“What do you have planned?”

“Volleyball and a sing.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Honest,” Ella said. “That’s what Amish kids do.”

“Even ones on their
rumschpringe
?”

“Ya,”
she answered. “Even those. Besides,” she said. “Saturday is my sixteenth birthday.”

Marta stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes when we arrived. She’d made a broccoli-and-rice casserole for dinner that Ella and I ate as we told her about Esther’s delivery. Next I told her about checking on Peggy and little Thomas.

Ella shot me a look but she didn’t need to. I had no desire to tell Marta about my stop at Klara’s. I still felt as though I’d been gutted alive. Besides, what if Marta and Klara formed an alliance and ganged up on me? I couldn’t handle them one-on-one, let alone two-on-one.

Worse, I was still feeling guilty about my own behavior from earlier, when I had so stubbornly forced Marta’s hand once I knew we had a patient in labor. Though I deserved to get all of the information she had given me thus far—and plenty more, for that matter—I still didn’t like the way I had gone about it, and something in me wanted to make amends.

“Would it help if I stayed another week?” I asked Marta. “I can call the agency tomorrow. If I use the extended-stay hotel, I don’t need to find a place to live.” I had to go back and see Ada and soon. Once I left Lancaster County, I didn’t know how long it would be before I could return.

She did that funny little lip purse I’d seen so many times. Finally she said, “I don’t want to put you out.”

I stood and picked up my plate, carrying it to the sink. “Think about it.”

“Maybe just until I find someone else. It should only take a few days.”

“Just until then,” I said, suddenly exhausted. I quietly washed my dishes and put them in the rack, hoping Sean would be free for lunch the next day.

P
lease let me go.” Zed’s voice carried up the staircase the next morning.

I couldn’t make out Marta’s answer, but as I started down the steps, I heard, “Ella isn’t going either. You’ll both be at school.”

“But it would be a good civics lesson.” Zed was as close to whining as I’d heard him. I stopped on the last step.

“The answer is no.” Marta handed him his backpack. “Ella,” she called into the kitchen. “You need to get moving.”

She came out in a moment, her coat already on. She kissed her mother on the cheek but didn’t say a word. A second later she led the way out of the house with Zed tagging along behind.

“I’d like to go,” I said. There were no prenatal appointments scheduled for the morning.

She shook her head without looking at me.

“You need someone with you, Marta. I’ll take notes in case you forget what was said.”

She frowned. “Believe me, I think I’ll remember.” The arraignment was scheduled for ten, but Marta was required to turn herself in by nine.

I left the house an hour after she did. The morning was the warmest yet since I’d been in Pennsylvania, and the trees along the road were
beginning to bud, making me wonder if the leaves on the hazelnut trees back home were unfolding. It would be time to spray soon.

A crowd was gathered outside the courthouse again—both Amish and Mennonite, both men and women and several babies and young children. I didn’t see any buggies and assumed the Amish had hired drivers to bring them into town. I found a parking place a couple of blocks away and hurried to the courthouse. The crowd must have gone inside because the sidewalk was clear. I stepped through the double doors and passed through the security checkpoint, and then I ascended the stairs to the courtroom. The wooden benches on both sides were filled with Marta’s supporters.

“Lexie!” David sat in the middle of the room and motioned to me. I joined him, asking about Esther, Caroline, and Simon, a little surprised that he would leave them all alone so soon. He assured me that Esther had insisted he come to support Marta.