Esther sighed and wiped her hands on a dish towel. First crisis averted. Lord willing, there would never be a second crisis. Unfortunately, she had an inkling her life was going to be one crisis after another until Ivy came back. “I’m sorry I got griddlich.”
His smile made her feel better. “It’s okay you got cranky. The sound of a baby crying is the most stressful noise in the world. People will do just about anything to stop it.”
“How do you know so much about babies?” She cleared her throat. “Do you have children?” She didn’t want him to have children, because that would mean he was married, but why she cared about that, she couldn’t really say.
“Nae. I’m not married.” Esther worked very hard to refrain from clapping her hands. “I have eleven bruderen and schwesteren,” he said. “I’m the oldest, and my youngest sister, Lydiann, is two. The good news is she was potty trained last month, so no more diapers for either of us. I’ve changed plenty of diapers in my life, though I’ve always tried to get out of it. My sister Mary Jane is much better at diapers and children. She has two of her own.”
Winnie reached up and wrapped her fingers around one of the stranger’s suspenders. She kicked her tiny feet and gazed at him as if she hadn’t recently been a total emotional wreck. She really was a darling little thing. Too bad her mother was a ninny.
The stranger glanced at Esther as if he didn’t want to pry but felt compelled to anyway. “So Winnie is living out of a suitcase, you’ve never changed a diaper before, and you have a piece of chalk behind your ear.”
Esther pursed her lips. Her life sounded quite strange when he put it like that. “Ach. You never know when you’re going to need a piece of chalk.”
His grin overspread his whole face. “I mostly never think about chalk.”
“I always put chalk or a pencil behind my ear just in case I need to mark a pattern or a piece of fabric. Then I don’t have to stop what I’m doing to search for something to write with.” A quilter always needed chalk. Sometimes Esther walked around town with chalk dust on her cheek and got strange looks from her neighbors.
He nodded. “That’s right. You’re a quilter.”
How did he know that? “The suitcase and diaper problem came last night.” She walked around the table and retrieved Ivy’s letter from her potted plant. She sat across the table from the stranger and unwrapped the letter. It crumbled to shreds when she pulled at it. He raised his eyebrows. She smiled sheepishly. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so enthusiastic about tearing it up. “It’s from my schwester.”
“She sent you a ball of confetti?”
Her face got warm. Why had she let her temper run away with her? “It used to be a letter. She left it for me this morning.”
“It looks as if you didn’t like what it said.”
“My schwester hasn’t been in my life for many years.”
He pulled the bottle from Winnie’s mouth and set it on the table. Then he lifted Winnie to his shoulder and patted her back. Winnie smacked her lips and let out a half-hearted whimper. “About halfway through feeding a baby, you need to burp them.”
“Good to know.” Esther fingered the pieces of Ivy’s letter. “My sister probably found out I had money. She was extra motivated to find me.”
“Okay?” he said.
She shook her head. “I don’t have a lot of money. But my sister is destitute, so to her, I’m rich. None of my bruderen would have taken her in, though I’m sure she wouldn’t have wanted to live with any of them.”
He scrunched his lips to one side of his face. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m sorry. I’m just so angry I could spit, but I won’t, because it’s rude.” She smoothed out all the pieces of her sister’s letter and laid them in order like she was putting together a puzzle. “I have four older bruderen. I am the oldest daughter, and Ivy is the youngest in the family. She is four years younger than I am, and my parents spoiled her rotten.” Esther glanced at Winnie. “I’m not blaming them for how she turned out. From what I’ve seen this morning, being a parent must be well-nigh impossible.”
His lips twitched. She’d seen that expression several times already—a mixture of amusement and lightheartedness that she found quite attractive, as if nothing ever upset him or made him lose his temper. He’d probably never tear up a letter from his sister, let alone throw it across the room. “Maybe you should save your judgment until you’ve had a little more time to settle in,” he said.
“I don’t think so.”
Winnie let out a gute burp, and the stranger moved her to his other shoulder. He obviously knew what he was doing. If Esther had enough money, she’d hire him as a full-time mother’s helper. Esther took a deep breath. She wouldn’t need to do that, because Ivy was definitely coming back. Soon.
Esther looked at the shreds of Ivy’s letter. Maybe she should try to put it back together to look for clues to Ivy’s return. She retrieved the tape from the gadget drawer and sat back down at the table. “When Ivy was eighteen, she jumped the fence and ran away with an Englisch boy.”
“That must have been hard for your family.”
Esther squared her shoulders so the weight of her memories wouldn’t knock her over. She tried never to think about the months before and after Ivy left home. Ivy had hurt Esther and Mamm and Dat in so many ways it was hard to count them all. In the last eight years, it had been easier to forget Ivy even existed.
Esther pulled a short piece of tape from the roll and taped the first two strips of paper together. The stranger watched her with interest. “I’ve seen Ivy twice in the last eight years. We rarely heard from her. She didn’t even know Mamm had died until six months after the funeral.”
“I’m sorry about your mamm.”
Esther nodded. “Denki.”
“Maybe your schwester was ashamed to come home. That happens sometimes.”
Esther shrugged. “Maybe. But last night she showed up on my porch as if she’d never been gone. I don’t know how she got here, but it was just her and Winter, with no blanket for the baby and no coat for herself. I don’t know what she was thinking. April is still cold in Colorado.”
“Maybe she came from somewhere warm.”
There he went again, giving Ivy the benefit of the doubt, even though she didn’t deserve it. Esther pressed her lips together, a little ashamed of herself. Maybe she was too determined to think badly of Ivy. “She had a black eye and a bruise on her wrist.”
“Ach.”
“Poor Ivy. She never thought she deserved better.”
“So you let her stay the night,” he said.
Esther nodded, the anger bubbling up again like a pot of caramel on the stove. “I woke up this morning and found this note on the kitchen counter.” She finished taping the last piece and smoothed the creases. “Dear Esther,” she read, glancing at him in irritation. “Jordan texted me last night, and he is really, really sorry. I don’t think I’ve given our love enough of a chance. I need to know if this is going to work, and I can’t work on our relationship if there’s always a baby between us. I just need to leave Winter here for a few months while I figure it out. Jordan loves me. This is real, Esther.”
The stranger’s eyes were as round as pincushions. “Ach, du lieva,” he said.
Esther huffed out a breath. “Jah. That’s what I said.” Along with some other bad words she’d learned from the TV in the hospital waiting room. She had spent a lot of time there when Dat was sick. “It gets worse,” she said. She scanned the letter to find where she’d left off and continued reading. “I knew you’d say no, so I left without telling you. You’re going to be mad, but please try to think about my feelings and what’s best for me instead of always thinking about yourself.”
“Ach, du lieva,” he repeated.
Esther couldn’t stand it anymore. She ripped up the letter again, wadded it into a ball, and threw it across the kitchen. It landed in the sink. There were just so many reasons to be m
ad, and there wasn’t enough paper in the whole world to make her feel better.
“What are you going to do?” he said quietly.
“How long can you stay?” she said, only half joking. Well, maybe more than half. He could never really stay, and she would never really ask him. But for sure and certain it was a tempting thought.
He laughed but then stopped himself and studied her face as if to determine if she was serious. “I have another appointment in twenty minutes.”
“Don’t worry. I would never actually ask such a thing of anyone. But I truly have no idea what to do. Maybe my schwester will come to her senses and be back before supper.” Esther groaned, draped herself across the table, and thumped her forehead against the wood. “Or maybe she’ll be gone for another eight years.”
“It won’t be that bad. This Jordan guy doesn’t sound like he’s going to last very long.”
“You’d be surprised how dedicated my schwester is to a lost cause. She once had a pet worm that she fed for weeks after it died. Mamm finally made her throw it away.”
The stranger pulled the bottle from Winter’s mouth, set it on the table, and stood up. “I’m wonderful sorry, but I have to go.”
“Of . . . of course. I understand.” With a look of regret and maybe a little doubt, he gave Winter a few more pats on the back and handed her to Esther. Esther cradled Winter against her chest like she’d seen him do, but it didn’t feel natural.
“Give her a few more burps. In an hour or so she’ll need to go down for a nap. Then she’ll want another bottle and a diaper change. If all else fails, feed her. Babies need to eat a lot.”
Esther nodded as the panic rose like bile in her throat, but she wasn’t going to beg him to stay. It wouldn’t be dignified.
Winnie drooled all over Esther’s shoulder.
Nope. She wasn’t going to ask him to stay, not even with drool dripping down her sleeve. He walked to the entryway and glanced in the front room. “Nice quilt,” he said.
Esther gazed longingly at the small quilt she had on frames in the front room. It was a special order from someone over the Internet, the long neck of a mother giraffe going from the top of the quilt to almost the bottom, where she licked the top of her baby’s head. It was a darling quilt, and she’d finished the top just yesterday. Now it was highly unlikely she’d ever finish quilting it. She couldn’t give anything but her full attention to the baby.
The stranger gave Esther a very sorry look. “There’s nothing to worry about. You’ll do just fine.”
That was a bald-faced lie, but Esther was too polite to accuse him. He’d already changed a diaper and fed Winter. She could at least give him a pleasant send-off. “Denki for your help. I couldn’t have done it without you.” She managed to say it without bursting into tears.
“Maybe Ivy is already on her way back.”
“Maybe,” she said, not believing it for one minute, and annoyed with him for trying to make her feel better right before he abandoned her. If she hadn’t had her hands full of baby, she would have pulled her chalk from behind her ear and chucked it at him. You never knew when you were going to need a piece of chalk.
With one last awkward nod, he escaped. Only after he shut the door behind him did Esther realize she had no idea how she was supposed to “put the baby down for a nap.” She could have kicked herself for not asking him before he left.
And . . . why had he come? She had no clue about that either. She hadn’t even asked him his name, and he hadn’t offered it. Maybe he hadn’t wanted her to know who he was. He’d be a lot harder to track down that way. If she couldn’t find him, she wouldn’t be able to rope him into changing more diapers.
Esther ground her teeth together. She should have at least asked his name.
Winter immediately started fussing, as if she realized just whom she’d been left with. Esther bounced her up and down the way she’d seen every mother deal with a baby when it got squirmy. “Hush now,” she said. “It’s going to be okay, Winnie. Do you mind if I call you Winnie? It’s so much less embarrassing than Winter.”
Winnie pursed her little lips and squinted like she was thinking about it very hard. Then she opened her mouth as if she was about to cry and threw up all over Esther.
Chapter Two
Winnie squeaked in her sleep, and Esther woke with a start. She looked at the clock with blurry eyes and tried to make it come into focus by sheer force of will. She finally gave up trying to determine the time. It was light outside, so it must have been morning, but for all she knew, it could have been anywhere between six and ten a.m.
Winnie hadn’t taken a nap yesterday, and more than once Esther had scolded herself for forgetting to ask the stranger how to give a baby a nap. After Winnie threw up all over Esther’s dress, Esther laid Winnie on her bed, changed clothes, and put her soiled dress in her bathroom sink to soak. As she was filling the sink with water, Winnie rolled off the bed, bonked her head, and screamed as if someone had stolen all her toys. Esther felt horrible about it, but how was she supposed to know that Winnie had learned how to roll over? Babies weren’t supposed to roll over until they were like a year old or something, right? She needed some sort of chart to tell her all the things Winnie could and could not do so she’d be prepared for next time.
Poor Winnie got a red mark on her head, and Esther spent half an hour mopping up water because she’d been so upset about Winnie that she’d forgotten to turn off the faucet and the water had overflowed all over her bathroom floor. After turning off the water, Esther had pulled the beautiful, intricate quilt off her bed, laid it on the floor, and sat Winnie on top of it. Unfortunately, Winnie did not know how to sit yet. Fortunately, Esther caught her before she face-planted into the quilt and broke her nose. She laid Winnie on her back and kept one eye on her as she mopped up the floor, all the while feeling bad about Winnie’s head and ferociously angry at Ivy.
When Winnie started crying again, Esther made her another bottle and fed her until she fell asleep. But when she tried to lay Winnie in her portable crib, she woke up immediately. Seven times Winnie nodded off to sleep as Esther fed her but woke up as soon as Esther tried to lay her down.
Esther ended up holding the bottle in Winnie’s mouth while Winnie slept on her lap for a total of twenty minutes. It had to be the shortest nap in the history of naps. Winnie spent most of the rest of the day crying and fussing and occasionally nodding off to sleep in Esther’s arms, and Esther spent most of the rest of the day holding Winnie and wishing that nice stranger with the curly hair and interesting eyes would come back and save her.
Unfortunately, he didn’t return to save her from the “diaper incident.” At about three in the afternoon, Winnie flared her nostrils, crinkled her lips, and made some sort of suspicious noise in her pants. At 3:05, she started to stink. At 3:10, Esther couldn’t ignore it any longer.
It took her ten minutes and the entire package of baby wipes, and the quilt on the bed in the extra room would have to be washed, but at the end of it, the baby was freshly diapered and actually seemed happier that her bowels were empty.
Late last night, Winnie had finally fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion. She hadn’t even stirred when Esther put her in her portable crib. Esther had walked out of the room, extinguished her propane lantern, and fallen into bed in her clothes. And her apron. And her kapp. She’d never gone to bed in her kapp before.
In the other room, Winnie squeaked again, and Esther rolled over and slid the pillow over her head. Every muscle in her body ached, and there was a sharp pain right between her shoulder blades. She had never hated her sister so much as she did in that moment.
That was an uncharitable thought. She didn’t hate her sister. She could never hate the person who had played dolls with her and held her hand when they walked to church. She could never hate the girl who had sneaked a flashlight under the covers so they could talk and giggle late into the night while her parents were asleep. Esther didn’t hate Ivy, but she was sure goin
g to give Ivy what for when she came back. If she came back. Esther couldn’t bear the thought, but it was a real possibility she’d seen the last of her sister.
She took a deep breath and sat up in bed. Winnie might have been awake, but she wasn’t crying yet. Maybe Esther would have time to go to the bathroom. The bathroom! That was what that stranger had come for yesterday. But how did he know the toilet in the spare bathroom wasn’t working? It was just another mystery to add to his coming. Maybe he was an angel sent by Derr Herr to help Esther out. In her sleep-deprived state, she could almost believe it. He was handsome and kind enough to be an angel. But did angels know how to change diapers? It seemed like angels would be concerned with more important things. Of course, to a baby, a clean diaper might be the most important thing in the world. It was all about perspective.
Esther used the bathroom and splashed her face with cold water. She didn’t think she could survive another day like yesterday. Dread grew in her chest like mold. How many more days of this did she have? She took a peek into the spare bedroom. Winnie squirmed in her portable crib, but she wasn’t crying. It was best to leave her there until absolutely necessary. What was that saying about not borrowing trouble?
Esther jumped out of her skin when someone knocked loudly and repeatedly on the door. Winnie let out a startled screech and began crying. Esther marched to the door. If it wasn’t that stranger here to save her, she was going to give the loud knocker a piece of her mind. Didn’t they know a baby was trying to sleep?
Esther opened the door so forcefully she fanned up a breeze. It wasn’t the stranger and it wasn’t an angel, but it looked to be something just as good. Or better. Three smiling Amish women stood on her porch with their arms full of what looked like supplies. Baby supplies. Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe she’d died last night and gone to heaven.
The Amish Quiltmaker's Unexpected Baby Page 2