The Amish Midwife (37 page)

“Do you have a minute?” she asked.

I glanced at the clock. I had five. I nodded.

“Will was headed to the feed store, so I hitched a ride. I’ve been having nightmares. I know it’s because of Lydia, but I keep dreaming this baby dies. And that Rachael dies. And that Jonas dies.” I hadn’t met her husband yet. “I’m hardly sleeping, and I wake exhausted from my dreams.” It wasn’t unusual for women to think they were dreaming excessively. In reality they were waking excessively and remembering their dreams. Although I was sure the content of a pregnant woman’s dreams did tend to be bizarre, likely due to fluctuations in hormones.

I talked with her about exercise and showed her a few breathing techniques. Then I gave her a bottle of valerian tincture and told her to mix it with water or juice. “And talk about how you’re feeling with someone.”

She tilted her head as she took the bottle and looked confused.

“Or write it down. But you can’t keep it bottled up inside, Hannah. This has been a huge loss for all of you.”

“She had a premonition.” She sighed and shook her head. “I’m not saying I’ve had a premonition. I’m just saying I’m having nightmares.” She stepped toward the door. “But Lydia was afraid something bad was going to happen.”

I’d heard of that before, but usually there was nothing to it. “Hannah.” I wasn’t sure how to phrase my question. “Did Lydia have any miscarriages or stillbirths?”

She shook her head.

“Did she lose any other babies?”

“No.” She appeared absolutely sincere. “Why?”

“Oh, I’ve just been trying to figure out what happened that night.” I smiled and stepped toward the door after her. “I’ll see you Monday.” She’d just started her ninth month and so would have appointments on a weekly basis from now on.

“See you then. And thank you,” she replied.

Before closing the door behind her, I looked out, noticed Will waiting in the buggy, and gave him a wave. He waved back, a smile on his face, completely unaware that I had been in here snooping through his late wife’s medical records. Heat burning my cheeks, I hurried back into the office to refile Lydia’s chart.

I did pray for Hannah, and I also prayed I’d have a chance to talk with Will in person, alone, when I was at the Gundy and Kemp farm. Three days later I headed over there, surprised to find that just driving down the lane made my heart race. I knew Will had bought this farm from Burke Bauer, the man who
Mammi
claimed was my biological father. If that was true, then that meant this had once been my father’s home, my family’s land. Trying to wrap my head around that, I made my way past the greenhouses and parked beside the smaller residence. As I climbed out and grabbed my bag from the trunk, the back door to the big house opened and Will stepped onto the porch.

“Hello,” I called out.

He shaded his eyes against the morning sun and then smiled once he recognized me.

“Hannah has an appointment,” I said.

“
Ya
. She’s over here.” He started down the stairs. “She’s having a difficult time, thinking about Lydia and all.”

I nodded.

“Oh, that’s right. You already know. I took her by your place Friday.” He pulled his straw hat over his red hair. “Seems everyone is having a hard time.”

“How is Christy?”

“Quiet.” He was standing opposite of me on the walkway now.

“Is she depressed?”

“Maybe. But mostly she just seems worn out. Like it’s an effort for her to walk across the room, let alone do her chores.”

“Is she going to school?” I put my medical bag on the concrete at my feet.

“Some.”

“Have you taken her to the doctor?”

He shook his head. “No, but I was thinking I should.”

“That’s a good idea. Make sure you explain how Lydia died. Tell them that a cause hasn’t been determined, even though an autopsy was done.”

He bent down and picked up my bag, but before he turned back to the house, I asked if he would mind answering a few questions about Lydia.

He sighed. “Sure.”

“Did she go to the doctor about her high blood pressure after Marta told her she should?”

He shook his head. “And she never told me Marta said she should.” He placed both hands on the handle of the bag. “She hated doctors, hospitals, all of that. Her mother died young despite being under a doctor’s care. Then Lydia had a bad experience herself before we got married.” He paused. “We had to force her to go to the hospital when she was ready to have the twins. But when Marta told her she needed to go to the hospital during labor this last time, she refused. By the time Marta called the ambulance, it was too late.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“
Ya
. I know. So am I.” His brown eyes were kind. “And I’m really sorry for the mess Marta is in because of this.”

I took a deep breath. “Can I ask you one more question?”

He nodded.

“Can you tell me about Lydia’s first baby?”

“Christy?”

“No.” I hesitated. “The one before.”

“Who told you about him? Marta?” His voice was confused.

“No, I was doing some filing and ran across some old notations in her office.” I didn’t want to admit that I’d intentionally read through Lydia’s chart. Because I was part of the practice, I hadn’t exactly broken the law, but that still didn’t justify what I had done. If Will wanted to, he could file a grievance against me. But because he was Amish, I knew he wouldn’t, and I was taking advantage of that.

He glanced off toward the greenhouses and then back at me, his head tipped downward. “Ask Marta about it if you want to,” he said. “But just know this. I had no part in that first baby.”

My conversation with Will weighed heavily on me as I examined Hannah. When I was finished, I noted in her chart that she was fifty percent effaced, two centimeters dilated, and the baby was in a breech position. I showed her exercises to do to turn the baby and told her that if it didn’t, she would need to deliver at the hospital.

“Marta does breech home births,” she said, pushing herself up to a sitting position and then clumsily swinging her bare feet to the floor.

“I know, but I don’t,” I said, looking her straight in the eye. “Rest as
much as you can. It will be best if the baby waits another week or two. And do the exercises faithfully.”

Hannah said she had slept better the night before and that her mother and
grossmammi
had the girls over at her parents’ house for the day. “There’s always so much activity over there, so many hands to help. It tires all of them out.”

I thought of Ezra, and of Sally and John, and of Sally’s sister, Ruth. The girls were lucky to have so much going on. I had an appointment with Sally the next day. I couldn’t believe I’d been in Lancaster County a couple of days short of a month.

“How about Christy?”

“She went to school today. The first time this week.”

I asked Hannah if she was okay being alone, and she assured me she was. Her husband and Will would be in for lunch, and her mother would bring the girls back after their naps.

I left the house thinking about Lydia. Marta told me that the home had been built by Will, his father, and his brothers after Will and Lydia had married. She must have felt like a queen, albeit a queen with a secret. It looked like the Lantzes weren’t the only family in Lancaster County hiding the past.

But it seemed Marta was a common denominator in both.

The next afternoon, I finished up a delivery—baby number 262, seventh for me in Lancaster County, and the second child of a twenty-eight year old mother, living in Strasburg proper. The husband kept his carriage in the garage and the horse grazed the double lot next door. As I said goodbye, I focused on the image of the mother, two-year-old brother, and baby girl in my mind, all on the bed with the father lovingly standing watch, committing the scene to my memory. As I pulled out of the driveway though, I took a photo of the house with the open garage and horse nearby, getting a kick out of the townie Amish family.

I stopped by the old Gundy place and examined Sally on my way home. As I did, I realized that her baby and Hannah’s would be just a couple of months apart, cousins much closer in age than even Rachael and the twins.

Sally was doing fine and had lots of questions for me. Ruth stayed
outside. The weather was warm, and it seemed she was gardening, but I think mostly she was on the lookout for Ezra.

A few minutes later, as I headed back to Marta’s, Chuck called and I flipped my phone open to speakerphone. “The tests are back,” he said.

“What’s the verdict?” I so wanted to be Ada’s half sister, more than I’d ever wanted anything.

Chuck cleared his throat. “You think you’re the Amish girl’s cousin, right?”

“Well, I suspect we may be half sisters.”

“Oh.”

“Am I right?”

“Maybe you two should come in. We could talk in person, and the two of you can tell me about your family tree.”

I grimaced. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” I slowed as I approached a school, careful to keep my eyes on the road, not the phone in my lap.

“I can talk to you this afternoon,” Chuck said. “I’m here till four.”

I thanked him and told him I would get back to him with a time as soon as I could. I closed the phone, an odd apprehension gripping at the pit of my stomach. Turning off the road into the parking lot of a toyshop, I dialed Ada’s cell. She picked up on the third ring, her voice quiet.

I explained what was going on and asked if she could sneak up to the end of the lane and go to the hospital with me.

“I think so,” she said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. I’ll text you if I can’t make it.”

I waited for five minutes, afraid she couldn’t get away, but then there she was and out of breath, even though she’d only been walking.

“Are you okay?” I asked as she climbed into the car.

She nodded, but it took her a couple of moments until she was settled enough to speak. “I’m just tired, that’s all.”

Before pulling out onto the road, I called Chuck to let him know we were on our way. We met at his office, all three of us crowding into the cramped room. His desk was stacked with papers, and his bookcases were overflowing with books double-shelved and wedged in haphazardly. I hoped he had been more organized with our results. He sat down in his chair and reached for a small white board, propping it on his desk.

“Okay, so you thought you were cousins, right?”

I nodded. “Our mothers are sisters.”

He asked each of us the names of our moms and then started a family tree, working from the bottom up.

“And your fathers are?”

“Mine is Alexander,” Ada said.

Chuck drew a circle and wrote an
A
in the middle and then connected it to Klara’s name.

“And I’m not sure who mine is,” I said. “But the name Burke Bauer has been mentioned.” I didn’t want to just spring on Ada my hope that Alexander was my father. If he was, Chuck would soon tell us. If he wasn’t, there was no reason to mention it at all.

He drew a circle, added a B, and connected it to Giselle’s name. Then he turned his attention back to us.

“What can you tell me about prior generations?” Chuck asked. “Do you know if your family traces back to the original Amish settlers of Lancaster County?”

“Our mothers came here from Indiana about thirty-five years ago,” I said. “I don’t know a lot before that, but I think our maternal great-grandmother emigrated to the U.S. from Switzerland in the mid-1870s.”

“Okay.” Chuck looked back at the board. “What was her name?”

“Elsbeth,” I answered.

“And our grandmother is Frannie,” Ada said.

He added both names slowly. I couldn’t help but think he was stalling.

“So what’s up?” I asked as he finished.

He turned back toward us, gripping the marker tightly.

“This is a little awkward, but I’m sure it’s true.” He let go of the marker and it rolled across his desk, landing on the floor. He didn’t seem to notice. He clicked on the mouse in front of him, opening a document on his computer. “Cousins share an eighth of the same DNA, although it’s higher among families that intermarry. From analyzing the strands of hair—and by the way, the one you gave me wasn’t yours.” He was looking straight at me. “It’s hers.” He nodded toward Ada.

He started to go on, but I leaned forward in my chair and told him to wait a second. I was puzzled at how Ada’s hair could have ended up in my box, considering that my parents had whisked me away to Oregon
when I was still an infant and Ada hadn’t even been born yet. In fact, she wouldn’t come along for another two years.

“Are you sure?” I asked, thinking that the only way that the lock of hair could have been Ada’s was if it had been sent to us later. I had always been under the impression that our families had had no further contact once my adoption was final, but now I realized that wasn’t correct, that someone here must have been in touch with my parents and mailed a lock of Ada’s hair to Oregon after she was born.

“Positive.” He stared at the screen again. “Anyway, you share much more DNA than cousins.”

“Half siblings, right?” I was sure my voice was as elated as I felt, even though I was trying to be sensitive to Ada.

Chuck shook his head.

I sighed.

“Full siblings,” he said.

I lurched forward. “You’re kidding.”

Ada grabbed my hand.

“I’m not kidding. It’s not a fluke you look so much alike. You’re sisters.”