by Amy Lillard
But her breath caught as her side twinged again. This time harder, this time straight across. It went from left to right and felt like someone was tearing her in half.
Calm down, she told herself. She just needed to calm down. All this anxiety, all this panic, all this worry was doing nothing but upsetting the baby. Mammi Glick would tell her that she would give the poor child a birthmark worse than the mark of Cain if she wasn’t careful, if she didn’t stop worrying. So she tried again, pulling in a breath, shorter this time. It wasn’t pain-free, but at least it didn’t send fire across her body.
She turned onto her other side. Most of the pain was gone now, just a tight feeling and a lingering throb. It was hours till dawn and a few more until she would be able to let her family know that she was okay. Until then, there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. Until then she needed to get some rest. She needed to sleep. Staying awake and worrying was doing no one any good. And considering the look that Levi Yoder had given her before he closed the door . . . she knew she needed the night’s sleep to combat that. She needed to keep herself together. Keep her chin up. Keep her pride in place.
Pride goeth before a fall in a haughty spirit before destruction.
And where had her pride gotten her? Nowhere fast. And now it was as if she was daring those around her to censor her. Pride could do that.
She thought she’d been ready to be on her own, but these feelings showed her how much she still had to grow. How much she still had to learn.
Her next breath caught in her throat as the pain seared across her once again.
False labor, she told herself. Too much stress. Too much walking. Too much cold. But the pain didn’t begin and end as quickly as it had before. Something about it was different. She didn’t have time to determine exactly what it was before she felt the warm gush between her legs. Her waters had broken.
The baby was coming.
Chapter Fourteen
Levi jerked awake, unsure at first what had disturbed him. Wasn’t Puddles in the kitchen? Was she having her puppies? Or was it just the fact that Tillie Gingerich was upstairs in one of his guest rooms that made him feel something was off?
Or maybe he had been dreaming.
He lay back on his pillow and listened to the ice hitting the frosty window just as he had when he went to bed. It was a bad storm for sure. By now, most all the trees had to be encased in ice. Much more and the limbs would start breaking off. It would make for slow traveling tomorrow, if anyone could get out at all. And that meant another day of Tillie Gingerich and her rounded belly that reminded him of all that he had lost.
He closed his eyes again, exhaled, and tried to relax. Then he heard it.
Was it the wind? That low keening sound? The wind through the trees covered in ice, maybe. Or Puddles. As cold as it was, he needed to get up and check on the dog. He threw back the covers and lit the lantern he kept by his bed. Then he slipped into his housecoat and house shoes and made his way to the kitchen.
Puddles looked up at him with those adoring brown eyes as he entered the room. But she didn’t get up. Her belly was still swollen with pups and she thumped her tail against the floor as he came near. He reached down and scratched her behind the ears, and she licked his hand affectionately. “Good girl,” he crooned. She thumped her tail harder. Puddles was fine. Must’ve been the wind. Or the simple fact that Tillie Gingerich had wound him up to where he was hearing things.
One last pat to the dog’s head, and Levi shuffled back to his room. Yet before he could go inside, he heard it again, that low sound somewhere between the creak of his barn door and a strangled cry. But he could hear it better in the hallway, and it sent his pulse racing. Was he just being anxious? Or was there someone in trouble?
Tillie.
Somehow he knew. Something was wrong with Tillie.
His heart lodged in his throat as he ran up the stairs and down the hall to where she slept.
He raised his hand to knock on her door. But stopped. What if he was being overly anxious?
The sound came again, and this time it raised the hairs on his arms. It was coming from inside the room.
He knocked on the door, the sound unnaturally loud in the silent house. “Tillie?”
“Levi?” His name sounded as if it had been wrenched from between her clenched teeth.
Something was wrong. “I’m coming in.”
She made another noise; he couldn’t tell if it was consent or not. Whatever it was, she sounded like she was in trouble, and like she needed someone immediately.
He pushed into the room, his lantern casting shadows across it. He swept the light around the room, stopping when it reached the bed. Tillie was there, hunched up against the headboard. Her knees were raised, her arms wrapped around them. Even in the dim light he could see the beads of perspiration despite the chill in the house.
He stopped.
“The baby,” she panted. “The baby is coming.”
He had never seen anything like it in his life. His thoughts went in so many different directions, then finally he settled on the one that seemed most logical. He was halfway down the stairs before he remembered they were in the middle of a storm. He had to think this through a little more. He couldn’t get the horse out in this. He supposed he could run to his nearest neighbors’ and use the phone to call for an ambulance. Though he didn’t know if they could get out in times like this either.
“Levi!”
She needed him.
He turned and raced back up the stairs and into the room where Tillie labored. But he could hardly step foot into the room. It was too fully ingrained in him: this was women’s territory.
Yet there were no women around.
“I need,” she panted. “I need . . . you.” She reached out a hand toward him. He stepped into the room and could now see that tears were streaming down her face. Still she beckoned him to come closer.
Unsure of what to do, he hooked a hand under the desk chair and pulled it close to the bed.
Still her hand reached for him. He reached back, offering her his fingers. She clutched them in a deathlike grip, and he felt the bones pop. Then she leaned forward as if bearing down. Never in his life . . .
Was this right? Should he get help? Should he leave her? He just didn’t know. “I should get help,” he said.
“No. Don’t leave.” She let out a hard breath between each word and somehow managed to squeeze his fingers even tighter. “There’s no time.”
How did she know? He supposed that was just another of the mysteries of women.
“You’re going to have the baby now?” Again his thoughts tumbled around on top of one another. He couldn’t make head nor tail of any of them.
“Yes.” It was more of a soft hiss rather than a word. Then a strangled cry and she panted once more.
“I need to get help.”
She shook her head. “You have to stay. Please stay.”
All thoughts of what was right and what was wrong, of what was accepted as the man’s role in the Amish world, would have to be put aside. This was an emergency. A part of him still wanted to run down the stairs and go find help. A woman, any woman, would surely know better what to do than he. But there was no way she was letting go of his fingers, and he was almost certain the only way to escape her grip was to cut off his own hand. Or so it felt.
“I don’t know what to do.” He had to wait for another of her pains to subside before she answered. They seem to be coming closer and closer together. Wasn’t that the way of it? He had no idea. He’d never seen a baby being born. A colt, a calf, even lambs and kids—the goat kind—but never a human baby.
“Stay here,” she said on a long exhale.
“I don’t know what to do.” He could help birth just about any farm animal there was, but he didn’t know what to do with a baby.
“I do,” she managed before the next pain set in.
He had never felt so useless in his life. He wanted to help, but even
as he sat there and watched her labor, allowed her to squeeze his fingers as the pains came, he still wanted to do something more. Go get help. Take away the pain. Something, anything, to make it better. He could only sit and watch.
The labor seemed to take forever. But he knew that it was fast. Women didn’t talk about such matters in front of menfolk, but he knew that some women labored for days. It seemed as if Tillie was on some sort of express track to having her baby. He guessed that sometime before dawn the child would be born. The thought left his mouth dry, his heart thumping. Again he wanted to tell her that he didn’t know what to do, though at this point he didn’t think it mattered. Even if neither one of them knew what to do, the baby was still coming.
“Help . . . me,” she managed between her clenched teeth.
Something was wrong. Please God, no. Don’t let anything be wrong. Even in her tight grip, his hands started to shake.
“What do I need to do? Tell me what to do.”
“She’s coming,” Tillie said. “Help me.” She reached out her other hand and he took it in his own. She used her hold on him to raise herself up. “Get the cover.”
He looked down at their clasped hands. “Release me.”
She let go long enough for him to pull the sheet from the bottom of the bed. She braced her hands behind her, supporting herself, but once the sheet was to her knees, she reached for him once more.
She needed support, that much was certain. He managed to take both of her hands in one of his and arrange the pillows on the bed behind her back.
She gave him a grateful smile. “It’s almost time.”
“Jah.” That he knew as well.
Then suddenly her face changed, grew tense, and her breath caught. She squeezed his hand even tighter, using her hold on him to pull herself up a bit and bear down at the same time.
“She’s coming,” she panted. Lines of worry creased her face. Sweat plastered her hair to her cheeks. And he was so aware that there was a miracle happening right before him.
“Is it time to push?”
She gave him a tired laugh. “What do you think I’ve been doing?”
In the golden glow of the lantern light, their eyes met. And it was as if they both recognized this moment as a miracle. A miracle that only they were sharing. He extracted his hands from hers.
“Don’t leave me.” The weariness was replaced with fear.
“I’m not leaving. The baby is coming.” He needed something to wrap the child in. He glanced around the room. On the peg next to the door she had hung the towel she had dried her hair on. It wasn’t soft, but it was nearby. It would have to do. He grabbed it and in a heartbeat was back at her side.
“This is it,” Tillie said.
Her whole body tensed. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and bore down once again. Levi could only stand helpless and watch.
He looked beneath the sheet just as the tiny baby slid into the world. A feeling like nothing he had ever experienced before came over him.
Tillie lay back against the pillows with a sigh. Her eyes were still closed as she said, “Clean her mouth.”
He was frozen in place. He had the towel in his arms ready to scoop up the baby and wrap it in the fabric, but he could only stand and look at it. It was a girl, as she had claimed. A perfect baby girl who waved her fists and tried to breathe this new thing called air.
“I don’t know what to do.” How many times had he said that tonight?
“Just take your finger and run it around inside her mouth.”
How did she know to do that?
He did as she instructed and the baby sucked in a deep breath and squalled like he had never heard before. Her tiny fists shook in the air. Her body was slick and pink and covered in something white. He had no idea what it was, but he managed to wrap her as best he could in the towel. He placed her on Tillie’s stomach.
“How did you know it was a girl?”
“Scissors,” Tillie said. “We need scissors. Clean scissors. And two clamps. Shoelaces. Something.”
He looked around the room as if he would find them there. Then, with a shake of his head, he raced down the stairs. He was back in seconds with a pair of scissors, two clothespins, and a bottle of alcohol. He opened the scissors and used the alcohol to sterilize them and the clothespins as best he could. Then he looked to her for further instructions.
“Cut the cord,” she instructed. “You have to clamp it first.” She showed him where and he did as she said. He was reeling from the fact that she had just had the baby. She’d had the baby right there in his house. A perfect baby girl.
* * *
Tillie looked down at the child she held in her arms. She did it. They had done it. She could still hardly believe it.
So it was true what they said, what the English ladies had told her about childbirth. She had expected to feel uncomfortable with someone else in the room, even worse if that someone was a man, and doubly worse if it was Levi Yoder. She had been reluctant at first, but that had soon disappeared as she labored on. All modesty seemed to fly out of the window in the face of the health and well-being of her baby.
She touched the infant’s tiny little nose. Perfect nose. She shouldn’t think her baby was perfect, but she was. The tiny creature had come out whole. Ten fingers and ten toes and a sweet little mouth that was eager for her first meal.
The embarrassment had returned a bit when she had to ask Levi to leave so she could pass the afterbirth. Having a baby was a messy business. But worth it. So very worth it.
And she knew then that she was right not to believe the baby was a mistake. How could she?
When it was all said and done, she moved into the chair still holding the baby while Levi stripped the bed and stuffed the sheets into a garbage bag. They were beyond washing, and she promised to buy him some new ones. It was a small price to pay for all that he had done for her. But he waved away her offer as if it was meaningless. Perhaps it was for him as well. After all, birth was truly a miracle.
A small knock sounded on the door, and she moved to cover the baby’s head with the sheet. It was more than awkward. She had a maternity dress, but not a nursing one. And when the baby wanted to be fed, she had to basically strip down to nothing. That was okay, she supposed, for a while anyway. It was starting to turn light outside now, and hopefully soon she would be able to leave. So it would only be a time or two. Maybe just this once.
Levi stepped into the room. “I don’t mean to bother you, but I brought you something to wear.” He approached the bed slowly. “The shirt’s mine. I’m not sure where this skirt came from. It must’ve been something of Mary’s.” Though she could tell from his voice if it was Mary’s, she had never worn it. For some reason that made her feel a tiny bit better. “This way you can . . . feed the baby.”
They had gone back to a little more of the awkward stage.
Tillie smiled at him. “Danki,” she said.
He laid the clothes on the end of the bed. “The weather report is not very good.”
“The roads?”
He shook his head. “There are trees down. A few of the roads are closed. Everything is still covered in ice. Some of the city streets got sanded and salted during the early-morning hours, but the back roads are pretty much impassable.”
“So what do we do now?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I can go to the neighbors’ house about two miles down the road here. That’s my closest English neighbor. They have a phone. We can call for an ambulance or the fire department. Whoever we should call and tell them about the baby. I have a battery-operated radio in my workshop. I brought it in to see if there was any word about the storm. It seems there are a lot of accidents on the highway, so if it’s not an emergency . . .” He let his words trail off.
It wasn’t an emergency. She and the baby were fine. They had made it through the golden hour, that first sixty minutes after birth when things sometimes went wrong. That was not to say that somet
hing still couldn’t happen, but it didn’t seem likely at this point. There was no emergency.
She shook her head. “If no one’s coming, it seems a waste to have you tramp out in the ice and cold just to be told that no one can come.”
“I could call someone. Maybe your sister? The Mennonite one?”
Tillie nodded. “Or my nephew. They both have phones. We could tell them, but they wouldn’t be able to get word to the rest of my family.” Was it worth sending him out in the freezing weather just so two people wouldn’t worry when the remainder were probably beside themselves? A part of her wished he would go and tell Leah about the baby. But that was just the excitement that comes with birth. She wouldn’t ask that of Levi. She’d asked so much of him already.
“I don’t think it’s worth it,” she said.
He gave her a tentative smile, as if he could hear the sadness in her voice. He knew she had big news to share and no one to share with save him.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be a bit better. They’ll be able to clear the roads. Perhaps get cars back this way. Maybe the next day we can get the horses out.” But he shook his head. “I don’t know about you riding in a buggy so soon after.” He nodded toward the lump under the sheet that was the baby she held.
She wasn’t so sure about traveling by buggy right now either. Every part of her was sore, from the obvious parts all the way to her fingers and toes. Her hair was the only part of her that didn’t feel like it had been run through the mill. The thought sent a wistful smile to her lips. “Two days,” she said, confirming his news.
He nodded. “Maybe three. But after that we should be able to get you home.”
Chapter Fifteen
Levi sat at the kitchen table and watched the second hand tick away. Upstairs in the first room on the right lay a woman he barely knew and the baby she just had. The whole thing sounded crazy. Add in the ice storm outside and it was almost too much to believe. How had he managed to get in the position he was in right now?
The Lord works in mysterious ways. It was what Mamm was always saying.