The Covenant

by Beverly Lewis

He regarded her curiously. “Well, now, I ’spect I have. We all have. There’s nobody perfect, least that I know of.”

  She wasn’t about to spill the beans on herself, lest Dat and Mamma would hear of her pregnancy secondhand. Of course, now, if she asked Dawdi to keep things in strictest confidence, he would. But wasn’t that an awful burden to put on a man of his age, after all?

  So she lost her courage and failed to share openly. He seemed to sense her need of comfort and amusement and recounted one story after another— mostly telling on himself as a youngster and into his teens.

  Then his voice grew awful soft. “Listen here to me, Sadie. I want you to remember this saying as long as you live.” He stopped talking to light his pipe, puffing on it just so to get the tobacco to ignite. When he was satisfied, pipe in hand, a thin puff of smoke spewed forth from his lips. “I care not to be judge of right and wrong in men,” he said with a tender smile. “I’ve often lost the way myself and may get lost again.”

  Lost the way . . .

  Well, she knew all about such things, dark and forbidden forest or no. Each time she had been with Derry Schwartz, she promised herself it would be the last, yet she longed to see him again and again. Such a feeble pact, one she hadn’t been able to keep, loving him so.

  But now part of her loathed him, and another part of her wondered how she could ever forget him, having conceived his baby. Could she ever truly release him from her heart?

  “You know you’re always welcome to talk to old Dawdi,” her grandfather said, bringing her out of her musings.

  “I’m awful glad of that,” Sadie said, reaching for his wrinkled hand and holding it for a moment. But deep within, she knew this might be one of the last nights she’d have as an expectant mother. Very soon her baby would be nestled in her arms . . . and to think she’d kept it a secret so well from everyone, carefully sewing her dress seams thinner every time. Here lately, making her dress patterns a bit fuller through the waist was all she’d had to do.

  Off and on all day she’d had the strongest cramping, almost made her want to bend over, the pain was so bad at times. The library book she’d nearly memorized hadn’t mentioned a thing about the baby coming this way—not when she was only at the end of her seventh month of pregnancy, far as she could tell.

  When the light bleeding started, getting heavier as the day wore on, she panicked and wondered what was happening to her. Was she going to lose her baby?

  “Leah,” she began long after supper, when they were preparing to dress for bed, “something’s happening too soon, I fear. . . .”

  “What do you mean?” Leah asked.

  “I think the baby might be coming early.”

  “Well, then, I say it’s time to tell Mamma!”

  “No, no, not just yet,” Sadie replied in lowered tones. “I need a doctor first.”

  Leah squinted at her, a fearful look on her face. “I can hitch up the horse right quick and take you to the midwife.”

  But that would be much too far away, and she didn’t think she could bear all the jostling in the buggy. The nearest doctor was Derry’s father, Sadie knew, but his clinic was the last place she wanted to be. “What about Aunt Lizzie? Maybe she can help,” Sadie said. “You could tell Mamma we’re going there to spend the night . . . for fun.”

  “That would be a lie,” Leah said.

  “It’s the best way for now.”

  Leah winced but then agreed. “Jah, I ’spose, but what will you do when the baby does come? You won’t be able to hide the truth then. You’re not thinking clearly, Sadie.”

  Her sister was right about all that, but Sadie had no energy to argue. “I need help,” she whispered, feeling ever so faint. “Just please get me to Lizzie’s.”

  “Can you walk all the way up there, do you think?”

  “If you’re with me, jah, I believe I can.”

  “Then go slip on your woolen shawl. It’s a bit nippy out,” Leah said. “I’ll poke my head in and tell Mamma we’re headed to Aunt Lizzie’s overnight. She won’t mind one bit—may not even suspect a thing.”

  Sadie still had no idea what on earth would happen after she did give birth, if that’s what was about to happen tonight. If the baby lived . . . goodness’ sake, this was much too early!

  And, ach . . . Aunt Lizzie would suddenly know everything. No getting around it now. Still, come to think of it, maybe this way was for the best. Lizzie could help break the startling news to both Dat and Mamma when the time came, when Sadie was ready to bring her baby home.

  She leaned hard on Leah, making her way up the long hill to Lizzie’s log house—step by painful step—ever so glad her sister was near.

  Lizzie bolted out of bed, hearing the pounding on the back door. She hurried to see who was coming to visit her after dark.

  “For goodness’ sake,” she whispered, seeing Leah nearly holding Sadie up, both girls’ faces wet with tears. “Dummle—hurry! Come in . . . come in.”

  She and Leah helped Sadie into the spare room. There they got Sadie settled, limp and pale as she was. Sizing up the situation, Lizzie could see that Sadie was definitely in the family way, just as she’d suspected for some weeks now. “How early is your baby, do you think?” she asked.

  But Sadie wasn’t responding except with occasional moans, so Leah did her best to fill in the details. My, oh my, Sadie needed help fast!

  Lizzie hesitated to have anyone but an Amish midwife come to her house. Yet there was so little time, and the closest one lived three miles away.

  Dear Lord, please help me know what to do, she prayed.

  Sadie’s face was turning a chalky gray, and she was all bunched up on the bed. Lizzie had no choice. An Englisher, Dr. Schwartz, would have to deliver this baby.

  Turning to Leah, she said, “We can’t do this alone.” Lizzie gave directions to the medical clinic. “Run, fetch one of the horses—forget hitchin’ up the buggy.” Then guiding Leah into the doorway out of Sadie’s hearing, she said, “You must ride the horse to the doctor’s home . . . ride for your sister’s and her baby’s life!”

  Frightened nearly to death, Leah ran all the way down the hill to the barn. She was glad that she, Smithy Gid, and Adah had once ridden bareback on their fathers’ driving horses, years ago when they were but youngsters; otherwise, she wasn’t so sure Aunt Lizzie’s idea would’ve been such a wise thing. And, too, she knew it was not acceptable for horses to be used for such a purpose. But for an emergency—which by the look on Lizzie’s face this surely was—she would obey her aunt and disregard the bishop’s ruling about horseback riding. If her dear sister died tonight, Leah could never forgive herself if she chose to follow the letter of the law.

  So she rode, clinging to the horse’s neck and mane, her waist-length braids flying through the dreary night. Up Georgetown Road, past the woods on the knoll, to the home and clinic of the doctor Lizzie had suggested.

  Henry’s drowsiness fell away remarkably fast with the arrival of the stranger at his door. Without much ado, the Amish girl, calling herself Leah Ebersol, described a desperate situation—her teenage sister was in premature labor a half mile away.

  With no time to waste, he grabbed his coat and hat and rushed outside. Meanwhile, the girl had tied up her horse in their backyard, promising rather apologetically to return for it later.

  The drive took only a few minutes, and the young woman sat in the front seat and gripped the door handle. In spite of her great anxiety, Leah offered clear directions as to where to turn to get to the “mule road that leads to my aunt’s cabin.”

  Getting out of the car, Henry hurried up the steps to a little log house, following Leah, whose gentle yet frightened eyes and faltering voice exposed her innocence to the whole ordeal of childbirth. He intended to do his best to save the lives of both her sister and the coming baby.

  Quickly she led him to the room where her sister was writhing in pain. He set to work, evaluating the situation, noting the intense struggle on the part of the yo
ung mother, whose face was covered with beads of perspiration.

  He spoke calmly to her, introducing himself. “I’ve come to deliver your baby, miss. If you do as I say, things will go more smoothly. Do you understand?”

  She looked up at him and nodded weakly. At that moment he recognized her as the same young woman who had come looking for Derek one autumn night, the one who had then quarreled with his son and fled on foot. Whom he had seen at the Mast wedding, in fact. He saw the glint of recognition in her tearful eyes. She said her name was Sadie Ebersol, that she was unmarried, and that her parents did not yet know of her pregnancy.

  Could this be Derek’s child I’ve come to deliver? Henry wondered, the thought filling his soul with anguish.

  No time to ponder the possibility. Instead, drawing on his medical expertise, he moved ahead with the task at hand. In the hallway, he heard the younger sister, Leah, call to someone in the kitchen, followed by the muffle of footsteps and a teapot whistling loudly. He checked his watch, timing the contractions, helping Sadie know how to breathe.

  Seemingly terrified, Sadie fought the birth spasms every step of the way. Considering the circumstances, he was concerned that this delivery might be unlike any he had performed in recent years.

  When the baby finally did come, Sadie lifted her damp head off the pillow, and in an exhausted whisper asked, “Do I have a son?”

  “Yes, a boy, but . . .” Henry could not get him to cry even after repeated smacks on the behind.

  He paused, holding the infant in his arms, his mind racing. “I’m terribly sorry, Sadie, but . . . your baby is blue,” he whispered. “No breath in him.”

  At this news, the young woman began to weep inconsolably. She called out to her sister, who came rushing into the bedroom. “He’s dead, my dear baby’s dead!” Sadie sobbed.

  In the midst of the commotion, an older woman appeared in the doorway. Henry’s gaze held hers for an instant. Her soft hazel-brown eyes seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place her. Perhaps she had been one of his patients or someone he’d met along the road at a vegetable-and-fruit stand.

  “You’ll handle things for my niece, then?” The woman joined Leah at Sadie’s bedside, where the two attempted to console the grief-stricken mother.

  He looked down at the shriveled baby in his hands, a lump in his throat. “I’ll take care of the remains . . . for you.”

  “Oh, thank you, Doctor,” Sadie’s sister spoke up.

  Moving toward the bed, he offered, “I would be happy to look in on you tomorrow, Sadie. Make sure you’re feeling better.”

  “That’s kind of you,” the girls’ aunt replied, “but I’ll see to her myself.”

  Then, from beneath the long sleeve of her nightgown, Sadie slowly drew out a tiny white handkerchief with an embroidered butterfly on the corner. Her fingers trembled as she opened it and gently laid it over the baby’s face. “Fly away, my little one . . . rest in peace,” she whispered.

  Henry quietly extended his condolences again and headed for the door, the tiny, dead boy wrapped securely in the warmth of his coat, the bloody face covered with Sadie’s handkerchief.

  He placed the infant on the front seat of his car, keenly aware that he had most likely delivered his own stillborn grandson.

  Mixed emotions swept over him, and he felt a sudden and inexplicable sense of loss. This was the little lad he would never have a chance to know, to play with, to watch grow into manhood. His own flesh and blood, though conceived in sin. His son’s firstborn.

  And yet . . . what would have happened if this boy had lived? Most assuredly Henry’s reputation and that of his family would be tainted forever. If not destroyed.

  He despised himself for his divided feelings and reached over and gently placed his hand on the dead babe’s stomach. “Your mother’s name is Sadie Ebersol,” he said softly. The young Amishwoman’s name would haunt him for years to come.

  “And your father’s name is . . .”

  He thought of Derek. He and Lorraine had been excited by a recent letter, as they had not heard much since their boy’s enlistment. Derek’s note had been full of complaints about KP and acclimating to army life at Fort Benning, Georgia. He never inquired of either of them—of the home fires burning. And certainly not of the Amish girl he’d left behind. . . .

  Lost in thought, Henry was aware of a faint whimper. Was it his imagination, or had the handkerchief over the infant’s face fluttered slightly? And if so . . .

  His hand still on the child’s stomach, he felt the sudden rise and fall of the little chest. Then the infant’s soft cry turned to a full-blown wail, as vigorous as any healthy newborn’s.

  What’s this?

  Evidently, he had accepted the child’s death far too quickly. Medical journals documented rare cases such as this, infants who revived miraculously on their own.

  Henry’s pulse raced. Pushing the speed limit, he wasn’t taking any chances. He must get Sadie’s baby to the clinic—to an incubator. He tore into the driveway, then scooped up the infant, breathlessly carrying him inside.

  Under the heat lamp, he washed its small face and body. Then he diapered him and wrapped the newborn preemie in a receiving blanket and settled him into an incubator. Even though the babe was breathing normally now, most likely he would be disabled either mentally or developmentally, having been deprived of oxygen at his birth—too tiny at the present to generate his own body heat. Later, he would even have to be taught to suckle for nourishment.

  Henry hovered near, gazing into the now pink face of this child. Unmistakably evident—he recognized Derek’s tuft of dark hair and the set of his eyes. This was his grandson!

  Bewildered and torn, Henry took the soiled handkerchief—the one Sadie had placed over the infant’s face—and rinsed it in cold water. Down the road, a grieving young mother wept in the night, totally unaware that her child was indeed alive.

  He had the power to take her sorrow and replace it with joy, but in so doing he would bring shame to his own family’s good name. Shame to her family’s name, as well. What was he to do?

  Back and forth he walked between the waiting room, his private office, and the infant nursery, muttering to himself, trying on every imaginable option. The right choice, of course, was to return the baby to its mother. Or he could simply arrange for an adoption, indeed saving Sadie’s skin, who wanted to keep her Old Order Amish parents in the dark, for obvious reasons. Yet if he did so, he might never see his grandson again.

  Long into the night Henry labored over a decision, rationalizing away all common sense.

  Leah felt weak with fatigue, drained of emotion. Still, she sat near Sadie in Aunt Lizzie’s spare bed for several hours. She stroked Sadie’s hair while she slept, exhausted from the pangs of childbirth, with nothing to show for her agonizing struggle.

  Aunt Lizzie, asleep in the cane-backed chair nearby, had agreed that the girls should stay the night, as they often did. Leah was especially glad they’d cleared it with Mamma before ever leaving the house.

  Meanwhile, Sadie rested fitfully, making sad, tearful sounds in her sleep. Leah didn’t feel so well herself, though her wooziness came from spending half the night awake, either tending to Sadie after the doctor left or holding her and weeping along with her.

  But then, once her sister fell into deeper slumber, Leah rose and walked back over to the clinic to leave the doctor’s payment Lizzie had thrust in her hand. And she’d retrieved her horse at the same time, leading him back down the road to home long before dawn. Mindful of the bishop’s decree, she’d hoped and prayed she might never have to break the church’s rules for another emergency. Never again in her life.

  Now, unable to rest or sit down, Leah walked the floor from one end of the cabin to the other, praying silently, asking God how this dreadful thing could have happened. But she felt she knew . . . would never tell her sister, though. The wretched sin of King David had been punished in a similar way. Why should Sadie’s transgression
be any different . . . or ignored by the Holy One? Surely, this was what the Lord God heavenly Father had allowed to befall her on this unbearable night. Divine chastisement.

  Sadie had received just reward for disobedience. And Leah felt responsible for having kept quiet about her sister’s sins.

  Aunt Lizzie was more than a little reluctant about Sadie’s plea not to tell Mamma. Truth was, Lizzie made an awful fuss, insisting that Mamma be told. Right then, Leah began siding with Sadie, begging Lizzie to leave things be. “What’s done is done, and nothing good can ever come from Mamma and Dat knowing,” she said.

  At long last their aunt agreed never to utter a word of what had happened. Not unless Sadie spoke of it first.

  So the three of them embraced the dark secret while a heavy mist hung low to the ground outside, like a veil that would vanish at first light.

  Soon as possible, Leah would have to tell Jonas that as much as she liked the idea of living in Ohio, being a mother’s helper—while Jonas learned the carpentry trade in the Midwest—she simply couldn’t see her way clear to leave Sadie. Not now. Sadly, she resigned herself to a courtship by mail. There was no other way.

  Sisters came first, after all . . . even before a beau. Mamma had drilled this into all the girls, growing up. You stuck by family, no matter.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Faithfully, Leah looked after Sadie in the days that followed, once Aunt Lizzie gave the go-ahead for Sadie to return home. Every so often Leah noticed Mamma eyeing Sadie curiously as they worked together in the kitchen, yet their mother did not question the sudden overnight stay. Nor the paleness of Sadie’s face and her gaunt figure.

  Soon Mamma’s attention turned to her coming child, and Sadie began to regain strength, resuming all her daily chores.

  Best of all, the girls had a cheerful time making a place for their new sibling in one corner of Dat and Mamma’s big bedroom. What a flurry of sewing and whatnot went on. Sadie joined in, too, making a lightweight baby afghan for the spring and summer months, when the new babe would still be tiny and in need of an occasional wrap.