Becoming Bea

by Leslie Gould

  “It was an easy mistake,” Nan said.

  I sucked in my breath as my face grew warm. I didn’t belong in a neonatal unit. There was no telling what harm I could do.

  “How about handing me the blanket?” Nan smiled.

  “Oh,” I answered, stepping forward again, this time very carefully, and handing it to her. I retreated back to my spot and stayed there, silently, until the baby was fed and it was time for us to leave.

  The next morning as I climbed the basement stairs with a basket full of wet wash to hang on the line, Bob burst through the back door. “Nan!” he called out.

  “She’s upstairs.” I’d reached the kitchen and paused as he hurried through.

  “Nan!” he yelled, rushing down the hall and then pounding up the stairs. “We can go get her. As soon as Doris arrives.”

  Another set of footsteps, not as heavy, came down the steps. I waited until Hope came down the hall. “I’ll help you hang the wash,” she said. “Before Nan and Bob leave.”

  She led the way back to the door. “We’d better hurry. Both babies are sleeping but they won’t be for long.”

  We stepped out into the bright morning. I hoped it was the beginning of a stretch of Indian summer as we began our task.

  Hope and I were only halfway through the basket when Bob opened their bedroom window. “Asher is awake.”

  “I’ll go,” Hope said.

  I continued to hang the sheets and towels until Doris’s van eased up the driveway. She stopped it and rolled down her window.

  “They’ll be right out,” I called out.

  Doris nodded and then said, “What a happy event, jah?”

  I nearly laughed at Doris using one of our expressions but stopped myself. “It is, indeed,” I answered.

  Bob opened the window again. “We’re coming,” he said.

  A moment later, as I hung the last of the spit rags, Hope opened the window. “Hurry. Kurt’s awake too.”

  I finished as Nan and Bob, who carried a baby car seat, hurried out the door, and then I rushed inside.

  Behind me, before I closed the door, Nan called out, “Get Cate if you need help.”

  I assured her we would. There was no way I planned to be responsible for more than I could handle.

  Hope met me in the upstairs hallway with a screaming Asher. “You take him.” She passed him to me before I could say I’d get Kurt.

  Asher let out another wail but then toned it down to a whimper. I followed Hope into the room, where she scooped up Kurt.

  “Are they hungry?” I asked over Kurt’s crying.

  “Shhhh,” she said to me—not the babies. “Don’t remind them.”

  Kurt wailed again, causing Asher to cry too.

  Hope wrinkled her nose. “Nan fed them about two hours ago.”

  Which in Boppli time was forever ago.

  “Let’s go get the bottles ready.” Hope led the way down the stairs to the kitchen. Once there, she said, “I’ll take Asher too while you work on the bottles.”

  I’d seen Nan hold both babies at once but not Hope.

  “You should sit.” I nodded toward the rocker.

  Kurt was screaming now. She sat down, and I slid Asher into her free arm. Hope began rocking back and forth, but Kurt kept crying. Asher began to scream.

  I took two bottles from the cupboard and then turned back around. “We should go get Cate.”

  “No,” she said. “She needs to work. We can do this.”

  Sunshine streamed through the windows of the kitchen, across the countertops and over the floor as I filled and heated the bottles, my nerves growing more and more taut as the crying and screaming continued. I couldn’t fathom how Hope stood it.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Hope said to me once again above the racket.

  At the moment, I couldn’t manage to agree. She didn’t notice.

  She continued on. “I’d been praying for a friend.”

  “Denki,” I said. The truth was, I hadn’t been praying for a friend. I hadn’t even known I needed one. How sweet of God to answer a request I didn’t even know to ask.

  As I removed the bottles from the pan of boiling water, I prayed that all would go well with the babies, and that I wouldn’t do anything stupid that would harm them. Then I said a prayer for the Englisch couple and for their little boy in the neonatal unit. Next I prayed for Mamm and Molly and Leon. Then I felt compelled to pray for the boys on their hunting trip. It’d been a long time since I’d prayed for Ben Rupp and even though I did it with some reluctance, I felt God’s nudge. I asked God to bring them home safely so they could finish Bob’s order and give the man some peace.

  Hope and I finally managed to get the babies fed and back to sleep, and soon after we heard a vehicle in the driveway from the kitchen, where we’d started fixing the noon meal. We hurried out the back door. Cate and Pete must have heard the van too because they stepped out the shop door at the same time.

  Doris shifted the van into park as Bob swung the side door open. First he opened the front passenger door and helped Nan down. And then he retrieved the car seat. Tucked inside was little Leah.

  Hope and I stayed back as Cate approached her Dat and baby sister, her hands clasped together. “Look at her, all big and pink.”

  The baby’s face was rosy, as if she’d cried herself to sleep. She was far from big, though, but it had probably been a week or more since Cate had seen her.

  “We need to get Nan and Leah upstairs,” Bob said as Doris drove the van away. “They’re both worn out.”

  Nan took Bob’s free arm as he passed the carrier to Pete.

  “We just put the boys down in your room,” I said to Nan.

  “That’s okay,” she said. “Did they eat?”

  “Jah,” Hope answered. “They took the bottles just fine.”

  “Denki.” Relief filled her voice.

  “We’ll bring up a tray of food for you,” I said. “We’re making chicken potpie.”

  She nodded, as if too tired to speak, but then she said, “Do you remember the Englisch couple we saw yesterday?”

  I nodded, fearing the worst.

  “Their little boy is better,” she said. “He’s going to make it.”

  “Praise God,” I said, surprising myself. I’d never said that out loud before. The intensity of my empathy surprised me.

  Nan reached for my hand and squeezed it. Hope and I followed the others into the house, but we stopped in the kitchen as the rest paraded upstairs. Pete came down right away, but we could hear the footsteps of the others overhead, and I imagined Bob helping Nan get situated in bed while Cate held the baby.

  Pete poured himself a cup of coffee and asked how long until dinner was ready.

  “A half hour,” I answered.

  “I’ll be back by then,” he said.

  Cate came down a few minutes later and headed out the door to the shop too. I added peas to the chicken potpie.

  Once the food was ready, I prepared a tray for Nan and started up the stairs. The bedroom door was wide open, but I knocked.

  Bob stood at the bassinets, staring down at his sons.

  I knocked again.

  Startled, he looked up and then smiled at me. “Come on in,” he said quietly.

  I did.

  “Nan’s asleep,” he said.

  I turned toward the bed. Leah slept in her bassinet, pushed to Nan’s side of the bed.

  “Put it on the table,” Bob said. “She may wake up in a few minutes, hungry.”

  I did as he instructed.

  “Listen closely for the boys,” he said. “When they wake up, give them bottles. Then keep them down in the playpen. We need to give Leah and Nan extra time together.”

  I nodded and headed for the door. Bob followed me. When we reached the living room Cate and Pete stood side by side. “Dat,” Cate said, “the three of us need to talk.”

  I kept going, toward the kitchen.

  “About?” Bob asked.

 
; “The business,” Cate said. “We need our crew back. If we don’t meet this order, we’ll be in the red this month. And lose a big account.”

  I stopped halfway down the hallway.

  “They won’t be back until Sunday,” Bob said.

  “We need to send for them,” Cate said. “They’ll come back if they know how desperate we are.”

  “I don’t think any of them have cell phones. Besides, they wouldn’t have service up there anyway.”

  “Send someone, then,” Cate said.

  “I have no idea where they are.”

  “Doris knows,” I said. “She drove them up there.”

  Chapter

  6

  That afternoon, the darkness caught me by surprise. The imminent time change would soon bring it even earlier. I lit the propane lamp and then concentrated on finishing supper.

  Cate held a fussy Asher, who began screaming even though he’d just taken a bottle. Kurt, who’d been asleep in the playpen, began crying too. Hope abandoned setting the table and scooped him up. Some households might have believed in letting a baby cry, but not this one. Honestly, most Amish parents I knew wouldn’t let a baby cry for long. By the time a child was a toddler, he or she started to learn to sit through services and obey, but caring for a baby meant meeting their needs in a timely manner.

  A few minutes later Nan came downstairs, carrying Leah, and settled in the rocking chair. She smiled at me as I dished up the roast and arranged carrots and potatoes around it.

  “It smells delicious,” Nan said over the racket of Asher’s crying. “The cookies too.”

  “Denki.” I’d made a quadruple batch of peanut and raisin oatmeal cookies, thinking the extra protein and calories would be good for Nan. I planned to freeze half of them.

  Kurt began to scream again, rivaling his brother’s cries. “Can you take him?” Hope asked as I positioned the serving fork on the platter. “I’ll set the table.”

  “Oh, I can do that,” I answered. “Why don’t you take Kurt down the hall? Away from Asher.”

  She didn’t look happy with the idea but rubbed his back as she walked out of the kitchen.

  “Bea,” Nan said softly, “why don’t you go give Hope a break?”

  My face grew warm. Did Nan think I hadn’t been pulling my weight? I’d been cooking for hours. But I didn’t question her. “All right,” I answered, turning to wash my hands.

  When I entered the sunroom, Hope seemed surprised to see me. “I’ll take a turn,” I said. “You set the table.”

  “Denki,” she said, relief flooding her voice. She quickly slid the crying baby into my arms. I held him faceup for a moment, watching him cry. His eyes were crunched closed. His mouth quivered as he worked up to a scream.

  I pulled his swaddled body close and lifted him to my shoulder, patting his back as I did. “There, there,” I cooed. “You’re all right.”

  Mamm often said how Molly and I had changed her life, how she had no inkling how much she would love being a mother, even though she’d been a teacher for years. I never gave her words much thought until now. But I couldn’t relate. Becoming a mother probably was the key to being enthralled with a newborn—because, though I was happy to help, learning to tolerate the babies was the most I could muster.

  Kurt shuddered, let out one more cry, and then snuggled against me and ceased his crying.

  Maybe someday I’d know what it was like to be consumed by love for a little one . . . What was I thinking? I’d never have any babies of my own. I’d need a husband for that.

  When Asher’s cries stopped too, I headed back to the kitchen. Cate and Hope put the last of the food on the table, while Nan rocked both Asher and Leah.

  Nan shifted her gaze from the two babies in her lap to the third one in my arms. “Ach, Beatrice, you’ve got a gift with the little ones.”

  I stopped myself from laughing at the absurdity of such a statement and touched the top of Kurt’s head with my chin as Bob and Pete came through the back door.

  Cate stopped at the table with the platter of meat and vegetables in her hands. “Did Doris call back?”

  “No,” Bob said.

  “Were you in the shop? Maybe she left a message.”

  Bob shook his head. “I checked.”

  “I’ll leave a message for Betsy after supper.” Cate positioned the platter in the middle of the table. “Maybe Ben told them where they were going.”

  When it came time to eat, Bob took Asher from Nan, but when he began to scream, Nan said to give him back to her. She rocked him, along with Leah, until he settled back down. I tried to put Kurt down in the playpen, but he began to cry too.

  “We’ll have to eat in shifts,” Nan said.

  “I’ve read that babies have to get used to crying,” Cate said. “It’s not good for them to be held all the time.”

  Bob shot Cate a look.

  “Jah,” Nan said, seemingly oblivious to the interaction between her husband and his daughter. “I’ve read that too. I’m just not ready to do it—not any more than we have to, at least.”

  By the time we all took turns juggling the babies, I was the last to finish eating. It was pitch-dark outside but felt cozy in the kitchen. Bob and Nan had taken the babies upstairs, while Cate and Pete had returned to the shop.

  As I ran the water for the dishes and Hope cleared the table, a vehicle came up the driveway, its lights shining bright.

  “Who could that be?” I said. Surely not a customer this late in the day.

  I peered out the window. It was the van. “Doris is here,” I announced.

  “With the hunters?” Hope put down the bowl of applesauce on the counter and headed toward the door.

  “No,” I replied to Hope. “She couldn’t have gotten Bob’s message, gone to the mountains, and been back already.”

  “Oh.” Hope opened the door anyway. “Cate’s coming out of the shop to talk to her.” Still Hope waited. Finally she said, “I can’t hear what they’re saying.” She shut the door and returned to the counter, picking up the bowl.

  I nudged her with my elbow. “Martin will be home soon enough.”

  She nudged me back. “So will Ben.”

  I froze. “What?”

  She laughed.

  I turned toward her. “Who said anything about Ben?”

  Hope blushed. “Mervin did. And Hannah. And even Martin . . .”

  “They don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  She nodded. “Jah, they do.”

  “Hope,” I said, “they’re making it up.”

  She shrugged. “Martin said the two of you courted for—”

  “One singing. Okay . . . two,” I said.

  “What happened?”

  I paused and then said, “You’d have to ask Ben.”

  Cate came in and said Doris would go up in the mountains the next day to bring the boys home. Then she yawned. “Are you two okay cleaning up?”

  We nodded in unison.

  “Good.” She yawned again. “I’m really tired. I’m going to go to bed.”

  That’s when it dawned on me that she’d probably been getting up at night to help with the boys. And now there were three Bopplis to feed.

  “Get your rest,” I said. “You don’t want to get that flu that’s been going on. We’ll get up with the Bopplis.”

  She didn’t reply directly to me. Instead she said, “Hopefully, they’re asleep, and Nan and Dat are going to bed too. Dat’s too old to be getting so little sleep—it’s taking a toll on our business.”

  I couldn’t imagine Bob lacking energy to do anything. He’d always been a whirlwind of activity with his businesses and caring for people in our district. But I could see the current situation was hard on him.

  When Hope and I finished the dishes, I turned the lamp down, leaving just enough light for Pete when he came in from the shop, and then we traipsed upstairs. I slowed at Nan and Bob’s door, not wanting to make any noise, but Hope bumped into me and began to gigg
le. I put my hand over my mouth to encourage her to be quiet, but she giggled even louder so I grabbed her hand and pulled her down the dark hallway to our room.

  Her laugh was contagious and by the time we collapsed on our beds I was laughing too, as quietly as I could—until I heard a baby cry. I stopped to listen.

  Hope stopped too, a stricken look on her face. The giggles welled up in me again and I dove under the quilt, pulling my pillow over my head. Maybe if we didn’t look at each other we wouldn’t laugh.

  It wasn’t that I thought Bob and Nan would be angry with us, although they’d have every right to be. It was that I truly wanted the babies to sleep so their parents could too. Cate was right. Nan and Bob were awfully old to be taking care of three newborns—which was the whole reason for hiring Hope and me, plus the sheer workload of running a home.

  I listened as best I could with my head covered but didn’t hear any more crying. Finally I poked my head out. Hope sat on the floor with her pillow in her lap. My eyes had adjusted enough to know she was staring at me. When our eyes met, she broke out into a wide grin—but that was all. The giggles seemed to be over. As Hope headed to the bathroom, I took off my Kapp, unpinned my bun, and started brushing my hair. As I did, my thoughts turned to friendship.

  Molly and I had had separate rooms our whole lives, except after Dat died I moved into hers for a short while. We’d shared a camaraderie then unlike any other time, but it was short-lived.

  Molly had other friends—mainly Hannah, but also many more that she spent time with. She never needed me. Besides, we couldn’t have been more different.

  The question wasn’t why Molly and I weren’t closer. It was, why didn’t I have friends of my own?

  I had acquaintances, sure. Girls from school. Girls who lived in our district that I attended services with. But never a best friend.

  Molly said it was because I was distant. And too focused on myself. She said if I didn’t spend so much time writing in my journal maybe I’d notice other people.

  But now I had Hope.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” she said, stepping back into the room in her nightgown, her dress in her arms.

  I continued brushing. “Oh, goodness,” I said. “I was counting my blessings.”

  She smiled as she hung her dress. “I’ve been doing the same. My third oldest sister pressured my Dat into sending me down here. I’m so thankful she did. She said I needed to get out of the house more or I’d never marry.”