by Mary Davis
“Is Mutter going to be all right?” Deborah asked.
“I think so, with a little extra care and attention. I’d like to come by the house to give her the news myself and draw more blood from each of you to test for Graves’.”
“What about the baby? Will it be all right? Will it have Down syndrome like Sarah?” Not that that would change anything. The baby would still be born, but the family could be better prepared.
“That’s one of the tests I’ll request to have them run at the hospital. We want to keep mutter and baby as healthy as we can.”
* * *
The following day, Dr. Kathleen dropped by the house to give her diagnosis to Mutter. The whole family, as well as Amos, gathered in the living room.
Dr. Kathleen went around the room telling each person their blood type. She saved Mutter for last. “Your blood type is O positive. You might possibly have Graves’ disease. It’s not life-threatening. We just need to adjust some of your meals and habits. Also...you are pregnant, Teresa. Congratulations.”
Mutter beamed, unaware of the emotional turmoil this was causing her and would continue to cause. Not just for herself, but for the whole family.
Miriam’s voice held less enthusiasm than one normally would have. “I am so happy for you, Mutter and Vater.”
Joanna expressed her pleasure, too.
Sarah clapped her hands, but she didn’t likely understand she would have a baby sister or brother in a few months.
Naomi folded her arms and pouted. She would be receiving less attention in the future and wasn’t happy about it.
Kathleen continued, “I’m ordering further tests at the hospital.”
Mutter’s broad smile disappeared in a flash, and she shook her head. “Ne. I’m not going to the hospital. I don’t like doctors.” Fear etched the lines of her face.
Before anyone could think to stop her, Naomi said, “Kathleen’s a doctor. Doctor Kathleen.”
Mutter stared at Kathleen. Her eyebrows furrowed, and her lips twitched. “Ne. Kathleen is a friend and neighbor.” Her face relaxed, and her whole demeanor calmed.
Several relieved breaths exhaled around the room, including Deborah’s.
“That’s right,” Kathleen said. “I’m your friend, but because you’re older, your pregnancy needs to be monitored more closely to keep the baby healthy and safe.”
Mutter shook her head. “I won’t go to the hospital.”
Kathleen put a reassuring hand on Mutter’s arm. “I can go and be with you every step of the way.”
“Ne. I’m not going. I don’t like doctors.” Mutter stood and rushed into the kitchen.
Vater trailed after her on his crutches, followed by Hannah and Lydia.
Deborah had been excluded from too much of the family’s goings-on. She would not be left out again and joined them. Amos came as well and stood in the doorway.
It took cajoling and comforting from Vater, Hannah, Lydia and even Amos to calm Mutter and convince her to go to the hospital for tests.
Deborah knew so little about Mutter and her condition to be of any use. That would not be the case next time. She would learn all she could about her mutter’s condition to help her.
Chapter Thirteen
Deborah’s sisters and Mutter bustled around the kitchen, preparing lunch. Deborah took the opportunity to sneak into the living room, where her vater sat with his leg up.
He spoke before she could. “I have had enough of sitting around.” He rubbed his shoulder, the reason why he shouldn’t use his crutches too much. The use of them had already slowed his shoulder healing.
“I’m sure you have.” Deborah sat next to him and cast a glance toward the kitchen to make sure no one had decided to wander this way. She needed to speak quickly while she had him to herself. “Vater, I want to find natural alternatives to the prescription medications to keep Mutter’s anxiety under control when she goes to the hospital. I would like your permission to go to the library in town after lunch and do some research. I won’t use the computer myself. I’ll have one of the Englishers do it for me. I’ll see if I can check out a book about natural remedies, too.”
Vater put on his thinking face of thinned lips and squinted eyes and remained quiet for a moment. “Ja. That would be gut. Also, go to the bookstore and purchase a book on natural remedies so we always have something here. I’ll give you money. Amos will go with you. He can pick up my planting seeds and a few other things. Have Hannah make a list, as well. Don’t tell Mutter or the younger ones. Send Amos in here so I can tell him.”
A trip into town with just Amos. In spite of her worries about Mutter’s conditions, Deborah’s insides danced.
After lunch, she slipped outside unnoticed. Even with finally being included in the family secret, everyone overlooked her. This time she didn’t mind.
Amos had Floyd partially harnessed to the wagon.
Deborah set her shopping bag with Vater’s money and some of her own, along with a few more empty cloth shopping bags, on the floor of the wagon and helped. Soon, she sat on the seat next to Amos as they headed into town.
As the wagon lumbered down the road, she studied the man sitting next to her out of the corner of her eye. He seemed so comfortable at the reins. And why shouldn’t he be? He had been born and bred Amish. He’d grown up at the reins. It wasn’t that he looked comfortable so much as content. Ja, that was it. Content. Something Deborah had never been. Even from a young age, a restlessness had been inside her. She’d always yearned for more in life than rising early, working hard from sunup to sundown and going to bed at the end of the day. Though all gut, she sensed a different purpose for herself.
Dr. Kathleen had felt that pull, too. She’d gone out into the world, then had returned to help others. Deborah wanted that, too. But what purpose could she have? She didn’t want to be a doctor, or go to school for years.
She shifted on the seat. “Do you think Dr. Kathleen was wrong to go into the Englisher world and become a doctor?”
“She is doing great gut for our community, so I don’t see how that can be bad.”
“But she left for so long. Our people believe that when a child of the Amish goes out into the world, they are turned over to the devil. That if they died out there, they wouldn’t go to Heaven. Is that true?”
“I hope not.”
“Because of your cousin Jacob?”
He hesitated before he answered. “Him and others. I’m not sure I see where living here or out there or anywhere changes what’s in your heart. If you love Gott, you love Gott. He is not limited to one place or another but is everywhere.”
“I like that. Gott is not limited.”
“Ja. I like that, too. We shouldn’t put restrictions on Gott.” Amos pulled up in front of the library. “I’ll leave you here while I go to the feed and seed stores.”
Deborah climbed down. “About an hour?”
“Maybe a bit more.”
“Gut. That should be plenty of time.” She wanted to stay at his side and go everywhere he did. If she did that, there wouldn’t be enough time to get everything done and return before supper, so she headed inside the library.
Deborah had lost track of time, and over an hour later, she peered out the front window of the library. She’d searched through many natural-remedy books and checked out three. One of the librarians had searched on the computer and printed off several pages of information for her.
Amos stood on the sidewalk, talking with a man, and walked away from him. His cousin. The cousin who had been at the hospital the day Vater had gotten injured. The cousin who had come to the farm to talk to Amos. The cousin who had left the community. Deborah pushed open the door and trotted down the front walk to him. “Jacob, isn’t it?”
He turned with a start, guilt contorting his face. Like a child caught taking a cookie before supper.
“Ja.” He glanced around.
“I’m Deborah. I live on the farm your cousin Amos is working on.”
He swallowed hard. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Jacob—but you already know that. You know you could be shunned for speaking to me.”
“Only if someone sees and tells one of the church leaders. Then I will confess my wrongdoing, be forgiven and not be shunned.”
Chuckling, his body relaxed. “You like to live dangerously.”
“I wouldn’t call talking to you dangerous. Even if it were, I wouldn’t say I like danger.”
He smirked. “I’d say you like danger just a little bit.”
How had this conversation gotten off the topic of why she’d come over here to talk to Jacob in the first place? She best get it out before things got off track again. “Is Amos planning to leave the community?”
He froze in midbreath, and his words squeaked out. “What? Why do you ask that?”
“Because you left, and I keep seeing you talking to him.”
He hesitated. “We’re still cousins. He lets me know how my family’s doing.”
Though she believed him, she felt there was more to this. “Don’t make him leave.”
“I can’t make anyone do anything. It was nice talking to you.” He walked around an old blue pickup truck and climbed in. He waved as he drove off.
An uneasiness coiled around Deborah’s heart. Was Amos truly thinking about leaving? Was this why he’d said he hoped Gott was everywhere? Because he hoped Gott would be with him when he left?
The clomping of a horse’s hooves brought her back to the present. Amos smiled at her from inside the buggy.
Ne, he wouldn’t leave. Would he?
She climbed in.
“Discount store now?” Amos clicked out the side of his mouth and gave the reins a snap. Floyd plodded forward.
“Um.” She shook away the thought of his potential leaving. For now. “I think there’s a health-food store on the way. Can we stop? I want to get some things to try with Mutter.” At the store, she spoke to a helpful employee and bought a homeopathic book. She also purchased some natural remedies for Mutter. Afterward, she completed Hannah’s list at the discount store.
On the way out of town, Deborah pulled out the homeopathic book she purchased and flipped through the pages. How would she get Mutter to agree to take the remedies she’d purchased? Hannah would probably have a gut idea how best to approach the topic with her.
Amos leaned over and looked at the book. “Is all that safe for the baby?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“I don’t know. I just know there are some foods we don’t feed to young babies because their bodies can’t digest them until they’re older.”
Amos posed a gut question. “You’re right. Can we stop in at Dr. Kathleen’s, and I’ll ask her? I don’t want to risk Mutter or the baby.”
Once at the doctor’s office, the doctor scrutinized each of the remedies and searched in her own texts as well as thumbing through Deborah’s books. “You’ve chosen well. These remedies all seem safe.”
“Danki. I wanted to make sure before I gave Mutter anything.”
“It is always gut to be safe. Let me know how she does on each of these. Start them one at a time to make sure she doesn’t have a reaction. If she does, you’ll know it’s the newest one.”
“Danki.” Deborah tucked the remedies back into her cloth shopping bag with the books.
Dr. Kathleen gave Deborah a pointed look. “Have you thought about studying homeopathy? Natural remedies.”
“I don’t want to be away to learn such things. My family needs me to help with Mutter.”
“You wouldn’t have to leave. More and more studies are available online from home. I think you have a natural gift for it.”
Deborah had enjoyed the research and learning. “Do you think the church leaders would allow that?”
“Times are changing. Our Amish needs have changed. Amish don’t want to rely on Englishers, but we have to more and more. If we don’t want to be dependent on the outside world, then some of us need to get more education than eighth grade, for the gut of the whole community. We must become self-reliant in some of these higher education areas. Just think about it, Deborah.”
She would. She liked the idea of learning more about natural remedies and learning at home. She left with Amos. The encounter with Jacob niggled in her mind. Should she ask Amos outright if he was going to leave? She wasn’t sure she would like the answer. “Why do people abandon their Amish ways and go live in the Englisher world?”
“Um, uh... Why do you ask?”
“Oh, never mind.” She shouldn’t have said anything. She didn’t want to know.
He turned sideways in the seat. “You asked earlier about Dr. Kathleen’s actions. Now this. You aren’t thinking of leaving, are you? Because that would be a bad idea.”
Bad idea, indeed.
“Me? Ne. But people do it. Like your cousin and the bishop’s granddaughter. Why do they turn their backs on all the beliefs they were raised with? Do they not believe in Gott anymore?”
He faced forward again. “I suppose they must have reasons they think are important enough. Maybe they are disillusioned with this life. That Amish aren’t who they pretend to be. But as I said before, I believe Gott is everywhere.”
That hit her square in her guilty heart. She had been pretending to be both Amish and an Englisher for a year, and felt torn between the two. But would she ever seriously consider leaving? She doubted it. “Why did your cousin leave?”
“He felt the Englisher world held more opportunities for him.”
Was that what Amos was looking for? More opportunities? “What opportunities would be better than our Amish life?”
“I don’t know. I guess they’re just different.”
So far, he hadn’t given her an indication one way or the other if he planned to leave. “What about you? Is there anything that would draw you to escape into the Englisher world permanently?”
“I don’t know. I suppose if a person searched long enough, they could come up with something that made sense to them.”
Her heart sank. How much more noncommittal could he be? He was searching for a reason to leave. Why couldn’t he have said that nothing could ever make him leave?
Nothing.
At the farm, she left Amos in the barn to finish unhitching and caring for Floyd. She had returned in time to help prepare supper. The task had never appealed to her before, but now that her family included her, she liked the camaraderie and connection with her sisters and Mutter.
She pulled Hannah aside. “I checked out three books from the library and bought one at the health-food store on natural remedies.”
“We should ask Dr. Kathleen if these will be safe for the baby and for Mutter.”
“I stopped in on the way home. She said the ones I got would be fine.”
Hannah hugged her. “Danki. You have done such a gut job. I’m sorry I ever doubted you could be of help.”
Her sister’s praise wrapped around Deborah like a prewarmed quilt. “How could you have known when I was never here?”
Dr. Kathleen’s suggestion of learning more about natural remedies intrigued her and took root. She could not only help her mutter, but also others in her community. And somehow, she needed to convince Amos to stay.
The task of helping Sarah make biscuits fell to Deborah. And she had fun doing it. Sarah enjoyed most everything, unless she wanted her way and wasn’t getting it, but in general, her baby sister was a joy. Soon they would have another little one running around the house.
At the kitchen sink, Deborah washed flour off her hands and glanced out the window. When she saw a shiny black Porsche pull into the driveway, her heart seized. “Ne. Ne. Ne.” Hudson couldn’t be here. She’d never told him
where she lived.
“What’s wrong?” Mutter sat at the table, turning pages of a cookbook.
“Nothing.” Deborah shook water from her hands and grabbed a kitchen towel. “I’ll be right back.”
All of her sisters stared at her, but Hannah spoke. “Where are you going?”
“Outside. Be right back.” Deborah raced out of the house in hopes of stopping Hudson before he got out of his car. She needed him to turn around and leave before anyone saw him.
But Hudson did get out and had closed his car door by the time Deborah reached him. She opened the door. “How did you find me? Get back in. You have to leave right now.”
“It wasn’t easy.” Hudson closed the door again, leaned against it and pulled an envelope out of his inside jacket pocket. “Your latest wages. You never came to collect it.”
Deborah took it. “Thank you. Bye.”
He didn’t budge. “You’ve missed a couple of photo shoots. I had to come to see if you were all right. You’ve put me in quite a bind, Debo.”
She cringed at her modeling alias. It all seemed so silly now. How could she have ever thought that life was so wunderbar? This was as gut a time as any to tell him. “I’m fine. But I can’t model for you anymore. Please go.”
Hudson straightened, pushing away from the car. “You’re quitting?”
“Ja. My mutter is ill. I’m needed here. Now, please go before anyone sees you.”
He took her hand. “Debo, I can’t let you go.”
She pulled on her hand, but he held fast. “Don’t call me that. You have to let me go. You have plenty of other models.”
“No one like you.”
She shook her head. “I know your other models get you the shots you need. I liked believing I was special, but I know now that I’m not.”
He squeezed her hand. “You are special. You’re special to me. I didn’t keep using you on shoots just because you’re beautiful and a good model. I didn’t keep excusing your tardiness or not showing up because you’re irreplaceable as a model. I did those things because you’re irreplaceable to me. I care a lot about you. I hoped to come here to convince you to leave this simple life and be with me.”