The Amish Midwife's Hope

by Barbara Cameron

  Their server hurried over with their pie and coffee. “The manager said to tell you your meal is on us today, with thanks.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Rebecca said, but the woman was already hurrying off.

  “So, more money for yarn. What could be better?” Cassie asked as she started on her pie.

  Rebecca laughed and shook her head. “Leave it to you to think of that.”

  * * *

  The day after the wedding, Samuel watched Lizzie closely and tried to judge when it was a gut time to talk to her about Hannah.

  The moment came when she chose a favorite book about animal mudders for her bedtime story.

  They were propped up against the headboard of her bed, and Lizzie had just opened the book when he spoke up. “I didn’t know Jacob was worried about his mudder.”

  She stared up at him and frowned. “He didn’t tell me, either.” She bit her lip. “Daedi, will she be allrecht? Really?”

  He nodded. “Lots of mudders have their bopplin just fine. You saw that back in our town. What happened to your mamm happens to very few mudders.”

  “But then why did it happen?”

  He’d always tried to be honest with her but he’d also measured that with her age. How much could a kind understand? How much should she have to hear about how her mudder had died? So he chose his words carefully as he’d always done. What he said right after Ruth died had been simple: Mamm had gone to heaven. The boppli bruder she’d hoped for had gone with her. Nee, they weren’t coming back. When Lizzie got older, he’d tell her exactly what happened. But right now, she was a kind and she had a kind’s question.

  “I don’t know, Lizzie,” he said honestly. “I guess God wanted her to be with Him.”

  “Why?”

  The dreaded question. He’d asked it himself a thousand times and God hadn’t answered him.

  “I don’t know. Sometimes we don’t understand what God does. But He knows best.”

  “I miss her.”

  “I know, lieb. I do, too.”

  She turned the pages of the book but didn’t ask him to read the words or try to herself. He could almost hear her little mind working.

  “I had fun at the wedding.”

  “I did, too.”

  “There’s more, right?”

  “Ya.” Tuesdays and Thursdays after harvest was over. Like clockwork.

  “Will Rebecca sit with us again?”

  His dochder never asked easy questions.

  “I guess. If she wants to.”

  Lizzie yawned. “I hope so. And I hope she doesn’t have to leave to help a boppli be born.”

  Samuel smiled. Allrecht, she wasn’t the most unselfish little kind but she couldn’t be blamed. It was obvious how much she’d grown to like Rebecca.

  He had, too. And he wasn’t unselfish, either. He was feeling closer to Rebecca, caring for her for himself, not just because his dochder liked her.

  Lizzie had gone quiet and she’d stopped turning the pages of her book. He glanced down and saw that she’d fallen asleep.

  He slipped the book from her fingers and placed it on her bedside table, then got up carefully. He pulled the quilt up to her chin and bent to press a kiss on her forehead.

  After going downstairs, he poured himself a cup of coffee, but then, instead of drinking it, he found himself wandering around. Needing something to do, he went out to the barn for the last check of the day. Satisfied that the horses were settled in for the night, he walked back out and shut the barn doors. The moon was bright tonight, nearly full. Maybe that was what was making him feel restless. The moon had a powerful effect on the tides, on animals, and on crops. Sometimes he wondered how much effect it had on people.

  He sighed. Who was he kidding?

  He was feeling stirred up by the way he’d felt when he looked across the table and reacted to Rebecca as a man.

  It had been more than two years since Ruth had died. And he was a healthy man barely into his thirties, not some old widower.

  A chill wind raced through the trees, sending dried leaves showering down to skitter along the ground. He shivered and hurried back to the warmth of the kitchen and the coffee he’d rejected earlier. Rubbing his hands, he waited while he heated it on the stove, then sipped it, grateful for its warmth.

  Spying the box sitting on the counter, he decided to unpack it before he went to bed. When they’d moved in, he’d unpacked the dishes and glasses and silverware—the essentials—first. This box held the few decorative items Ruth had scattered around the kitchen in their home back in Indiana.

  Inside he found a cookie jar shaped like a fat cat. He set it on the counter. Maybe tomorrow he and Lizzie would make a batch of chocolate chip cookies and fill it. Next he unwrapped a pretty blue pottery jar Ruth had always liked to set in the middle of the table. She’d put a handful of pussy willows inside in the spring, wildflowers in the summer, or a few branches of bittersweet in the fall. Ruth was gut with the little touches that made a home. That was what women did, he supposed.

  He reached into the box to pull out a little red china hen that had survived the move. Ruth liked to tell Lizzie the story of how the little red hen had asked the other animals to help her raise wheat for bread. They had been too lazy to help so she kept on doing the work, and when finally she harvested the wheat and made the bread, the lazy ones had said they wanted to eat the bread but the red hen ate it all herself. Of course, Ruth had used the story to teach Lizzie the lesson that everyone needed to help so all could eat the bread. Because that’s what you did when you were part of a family, part of a church, part of a community.

  He set it on the kitchen counter and wondered how long it would take Lizzie to notice the next morning.

  The empty box joined two others in the corner of the room. He’d take them out to the barn tomorrow. They were the last of the things to be unpacked.

  These simple little touches made the room immediately feel more lived in, more his and Lizzie’s and less his onkel’s. But it could still use a few things. Like a new bread box since the one they’d brought had fallen to pieces when he unpacked it. Maybe a new teakettle.

  It wouldn’t look the same as the kitchen he and Lizzie had shared with his fraa back in Indiana. But that would be just fine. He’d wanted a new start here and that was what he was getting. Making a home. Living his life.

  As he climbed the stairs to his bedroom, his thoughts returned to Rebecca. Maybe he’d go see her tomorrow.

  Chapter Ten

  Amos was sitting on the bench when she came out of the quilt shop.

  He looked up at her, smiled, and folded the issue of The Budget he’d been reading. “You were in there a long time.”

  “A half hour. I said I’d be a half hour and that’s exactly how long I was in there.”

  “Did you buy out the store?” he teased. “Is there any yarn for the other ladies to buy?”

  Rebecca held up a single shopping bag. “This is hardly buying out the store. And I’ll have you know I bought material to make you a new Sunday shirt.” She eyed the bag sitting on the bench beside him. “What’s that?”

  He gave her an innocent look. “What’s what?”

  “That bag next to you.”

  “This bag?”

  “Ya, that bag.” She put her hands on her hips and stared him down.

  “Why, nothing much at all.”

  “I bet. What does a man need with another tool?”

  “What does a woman need with another ball of yarn?”

  Their gazes locked. And then they began laughing.

  “Come, let’s go home while we have a few dollars left in our pockets,” she said.

  She knew they had more than a few dollars in their pockets because they were both careful with money. If he’d bought a tool, that meant he needed it, and she trusted him not to overspend their budget. And he knew that even if she bought a lot of yarn, she used most of what she bought to knit a tiny cap for each boppli she delivered, and it mad
e her happy.

  Though the day was cold, he bought her an ice-cream cone—butter pecan, her favorite—and they enjoyed sharing the crowded sidewalks with the other locals and the tourists as they walked to their buggy.

  They didn’t often get afternoons together like this. But the harvest was in and she had no patients to see today. When he’d proposed a trip to town, she’d jumped at it. He took her to lunch at their favorite restaurant—the one they went to on their first date—and looked at her with those deep-blue eyes and asked her if she knew how much he loved her.

  She woke suddenly. She’d been dreaming. It had been a long time since she’d had a dream about Amos. She’d had so many after his death. She’d thought she was over them but maybe she still wasn’t completely over grieving.

  Her hand went to the pillow next to her. She hadn’t washed the pillowcase for a long time after Amos died so that she could still smell his scent on it. But that was long gone now.

  She rolled over and turned on the battery-powered lamp on the bedside table to check the time. Four a.m. She sighed. Her journal lay on the table. Writing in it had helped her so much since she was widowed. She picked it up and flipped to a fresh page and began writing.

  Dear Amos,

  I dreamed of you last night. I think it was because I went into town yesterday and a friend and I visited the yarn shop. I remember how you used to sit on the bench outside it. So silly how you men wouldn’t go inside. I remember how you and I went into town on a perfect fall day and had lunch in that restaurant where we had our first date.

  You asked me if I knew how much you loved me.

  Oh, I knew. How well I knew. I was so loved. And I loved you just as much, my mann. I loved you so much.

  I had hopes that we’d have many more years together. I don’t understand why we didn’t. I’ve asked God why we didn’t so many times. He hasn’t answered. I guess He never will. The bishop told me we’re supposed to take things on faith. Know that God has a plan for us that we may not understand but it’s for the best.

  So I’ll get up each day missing you and get through my day and do the work God has led me to and go to bed missing you. And try to sleep without you.

  I will love you always, Amos.

  Yours, Rebecca

  Yawning, she put the journal on the bedside table, turned off the light, and slid down in bed to try to sleep again.

  She woke to her alarm and realized she’d managed to sleep. Yawning, she got up and dressed. She winced at how tired she looked when she peered into the mirror to fix her hair and pin on a kapp. She needed coffee. Lots of coffee. Grabbing her cellphone, she went downstairs.

  Pink fingers of light were filtering into the kitchen as morning dawned—the promise of a new day. She stood watching it as the percolator bubbled and coffee scented the air. A day started with prayer and coffee. What could be better? she mused as she took a cup to the kitchen table and sat to say her morning prayers. When she finished, she took her first sip of coffee and closed her eyes in gratitude.

  A glance at her daily schedule showed she had a full day of seeing patients today. Not the best thing after a night of little sleep but she’d get through it. She wasn’t usually really hungry in the morning, but she needed to eat something. Her day would be busy. She put two cinnamon rolls she’d baked the day before in a low oven to warm.

  Her cellphone rang just as she closed the oven door.

  “Rebecca? It’s Leah—Leah Bontrager. I’m sorry to bother you so early but I’m having so much pain! I think there’s something wrong with the baby!” She broke off to sob.

  Rebecca heard Leah’s mann talking in the background.

  “Leah? Tell me where you’re hurting.”

  “My stomach. It’s been hurting for a couple hours. I’m— Rebecca, I’m so worried I’m losing the baby.”

  She flipped through her mental files. Leah was in her first trimester. “Are you having any bleeding?”

  “No. Just this awful pain. And I’m nauseous.”

  “Leah, put your mann on.”

  “Ya?” Mark greeted her anxiously.

  “Mark, I want you to make Leah lie down if she’s not already and keep her calm. I’ll be right over.”

  She hung up, grabbed her bag and her shawl and bonnet, and raced out the door. Then she ran back to turn off the oven and make sure the flame was off under the percolator.

  The Bontrager farm was just a half mile down the road. It would be faster to run than hitch up her buggy.

  Breathless, she burst into the kitchen door a few minutes later. “Mark?” she called out.

  “We’re in the living room!”

  Leah lay on the sofa, her pale face streaked with tears. She gave Rebecca a look of pure panic. “I don’t want to lose my boppli!”

  “Shhh, try to calm down. Show me where it hurts.”

  She indicated a spot on her lower abdomen and cried out when Rebecca pressed on it gently. “You had your appendix out a couple of years ago, didn’t you?”

  “Ya.”

  Then that eliminated the possibility that her appendix was causing the pain…It was the first question asked when a patient presented with abdominal pain, whether pregnant or not.

  Rebecca checked her pulse, then pulled her stethoscope out and tried to hide her own panic as she examined her patient. Mark paced agitatedly beside them.

  She set the stethoscope down and took Leah’s hand. “You need to go to the hospital and get checked out. We have to rule out an ectopic pregnancy. That’s when the embryo implants itself in the fallopian tubes instead of the uterus. It can be dangerous, Leah.”

  Mark stopped pacing and he stared at her, confused. “Can they move the boppli to the right place inside her?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “I’m afraid not. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I just want to figure out what’s happening.”

  “But we can’t afford—” Leah began.

  “If Rebecca says you need to go, you need to go,” Mark said firmly. He moved to take Rebecca’s place by his fraa’s side.

  Minutes later Rebecca watched as the ambulance drove off with Leah and Mark inside. She locked the front door, pulled on her shawl, and shivered as she began the walk home. Her heart felt heavy. She’d only had one patient with an ectopic pregnancy and wished desperately she was wrong. But it was a textbook case…

  Miserable, she didn’t hear the buggy until it pulled up next to her.

  * * *

  Samuel peered at the slight form walking on the right side of the road. There was something familiar about the woman in Amish garb. Then he saw the medical bag. He pulled up beside her. “Rebecca!”

  She turned and stared at him for a long moment.

  “Rebecca?”

  He saw her shake her head and then seem to recognize him. “Samuel.”

  “Get in.”

  “I don’t live far.”

  “I know where you live. Get in.”

  She climbed inside and it was then that he realized she’d been crying.

  He hated tears. He didn’t know any man who was comfortable with them. But he really, really wanted to run when he saw them.

  But it would be wrong for him to ignore them. “What’s happened?”

  “I just had to send a patient to the hospital. I’m worried about her. It’s— It doesn’t look gut.” She stared out the window. “There wasn’t anything I could do to help her.”

  “I’m schur you helped by being there.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “I’m not.” Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a tissue and wiped her eyes.

  He’d never seen her upset. But before he could think of anything else to say, they were at her house.

  “Danki for the lift.” She turned to slide from the buggy.

  Impulse made him reach out and touch her arm. Startled, she looked back.

  “I haven’t had coffee yet,” he said. “Have you?”

  “A few sips. Before I got the phone call.”
/>   “Let’s go for a cup.”

  “Go for a cup?” She stared at him as if she didn’t understand.

  He nodded. “Someplace close. I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

  “I’m fine,” she said feebly.

  But she looked miserable and her voice was flat, emotionless. He sensed she was holding all her emotions in as if she was afraid that if she let them out, she’d fall to pieces.

  “I can make coffee here. I really don’t want anyone to see me like this.” She wiped at her cheeks again. “They’d ask questions.”

  He hesitated. There were rules about single men and women being alone together. Then he told himself it didn’t matter. Right now she needed the privacy of her home to recover. And he felt certain she needed to have him be a freund.

  “Allrecht, we’ll have it here.”

  He followed her into the house and hoped no one would notice his buggy parked in her drive. But he was willing to risk it. She was hurting and he didn’t want to leave her alone.

  He took his jacket off and hung it on a peg by the door. She started a new pot of coffee and while it perked, she wrapped her shawl more closely around her shoulders. “I ran out in a hurry and grabbed this instead of my jacket. Mornings are chilly now.”

  “Ya. I went over to Hannah’s to check on a sick horse for her, then dropped the kinner off at schul. Jacob didn’t want to wear a jacket but Hannah insisted.”

  She opened the oven and pulled out cinnamon rolls. Placing the rolls on a plate, she set it on the table and poured two mugs of coffee. She sat at the table and wrapped her hands around her mug.

  Samuel saw her glance at the kitchen clock.

  “I have appointments starting in an hour,” she explained.

  “I’ll make schur I’m long gone by then.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s allrecht. I know you weren’t hinting I should drink my coffee quickly and get gone.” He stared down at his mug, then up at her. “I know I had a problem with you being a midwife at first, so we don’t talk about your work. But that isn’t fair to you. If something troubles you, I want you to feel you can talk to me.”

  “Being a midwife isn’t all about helping deliver happy, healthy bopplin,” she said. “I’m going to have these times when I feel a little down. That’s all.”