“Ya, Mamm.” The girl exhaled—the sigh of exasperated big sisters heard round the world—and then took her little brother’s hand.
“Danke.”
I followed Marta and Barbara down the hall until Marta pointed toward the bathroom and I stepped in, taking off my jacket and pushing up the sleeves of my shirt. The bathroom had granite countertops. Add that to the stove and refrigerator in the kitchen. There were no outlets or switches and no light fixture above my head. I scrubbed at the sink, using handmade soap.
By the time I reached the bedroom, my hands held high, ready for a pair of gloves, Marta was praying silently with Barbara, who was on the bed. I stopped in the doorway until Marta whispered, “Amen.” Then she told Barbara I would actually catch the baby.
“Oh, Marta, what is going on?”
“It’s just a requirement for a short time. That’s all.”
Barbara would have done fine with neither Marta nor me there. In fact, baby number 256, or baby number one in Pennsylvania, came so quickly that Barbara’s husband didn’t arrive in time for the birth, only to cut the cord. “Well, Barbie,” he sighed, bending to kiss her after he was done. “That’s what happens when the baby decides to come at milking time.” He was a big man with a scraggly beard and square fingernails.
Two hours later we had completely cleaned up, including starting a cold soak of sheets, towels, and baby blankets in the utility sink. Marta and I left just as two of Barbara’s sisters arrived. They said they would start the laundry in the pneumatic washing machine and hang it out to dry before they went home. I didn’t ask anyone to email me a photo, nor did I ask if I could take one. I took one last, long look at the baby, committing the image of his perfectly round face and dark hair to my memory.
Sleep deprivation and culture shock—including an Amish woman with the nickname Barbie, a bathroom nicer than mine, and appliances—caught up with me, and I dozed on the way back to Marta’s cottage. When she pulled into the driveway I opened my eyes, feeling woozy.
“You can stay here tonight,” she said. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
I pulled my suitcase from my trunk as she marched to her office, her black cape flapping behind her.
I knocked softly on the cottage door and then louder. No one answered. Maybe the kids had gone somewhere or were already in bed. I grasped the knob just as the door flew open, yanking me inside. The girl stood in front of me, a wooden spoon in one hand. She had an apron on now, and her head covering had come unpinned on one side and was a little askew.
“Your mom said I could spend the night,” I said.
She stepped aside and motioned me in, but instead of saying anything to me she yelled, “Zed, get off the computer and tidy up your room.”
I stood in a small living room with a woodstove, a sofa, and a single wingback chair.
A groan came from off to my right—the dining area. “Can’t she sleep in your room?” Zed sat at a desk, his eyes fixed on a screen.
“No!”
“How about the alcove?” Clearly Zed was trying to come up with a workable solution that didn’t involve him having to get up from the computer.
The girl looked me up and down. “How tired are you?”
“Exhausted,” I answered.
“Follow me.”
She led the way up a narrow open staircase, and I followed, lugging my suitcase, which housed my small travel collection of worldly possessions, up each step. My Coach bag kept falling off my shoulder and down my arm, banging against my knee. When the girl reached the top of the landing, she pointed to the right. “That’s Mom’s room.” The door was closed. “Here’s the bathroom.” She pointed across the hall and then to the left. “And my room.” Her door was closed too. “You can sleep here.” She turned and behind her was a little alcove with a single bed.
“Thank you.” I stepped around her and wedged my suitcase into the little space next to the wall, wondering if it would be better if I found a hotel. Or a bed-and-breakfast in Strasburg. But then I’d have even fewer opportunities to get information out of Marta.
“Do you have anything else in your car that you need?” the girl asked.
I started to shake my head but stopped. “Well, there is a carry-on bag in the trunk. Maybe I shouldn’t leave it out there.” I doubted if crime was much of a problem in the area, but I didn’t want to risk it.
The girl held out her hand. “I’ll go get it for you.”
I handed her my keys and collapsed on the bed. When she returned she cleared her throat, and I forced my eyes open.
“I’m Ella.” She stood over me, the box in her hand.
I smiled. She looked like an Ella. “I’m Lexie,” I answered.
“I know. You said that when you first got here.”
“You’re right,” I answered, propping myself up on my elbow.
“It fell out of the bag.” She held the wooden box out to me. “I’ve seen this house before.”
“Where?” I asked, sitting up all the way and taking the box.
She placed the bag on the end of the bed and tilted her head. “I’m trying to remember.” She wrinkled her cute little nose. “It’s not coming to me, but it will.” She turned to go and then said over her shoulder, “We’ll eat in fifteen minutes.”
“Wait. I have a question.”
She stopped.
“At the Amish birth tonight, the family had a stove and a fridge.”
“So?”
“I thought the Amish didn’t use electricity.”
“They use other kinds of power,” she said. “Those were probably propane.”
“Oh.” I vaguely recalled that the Mennonites in Kansas related to Mama didn’t use electricity. I’d been thankful growing up that we weren’t part of that group. But I didn’t remember that they used other sources of power. I reclined back on the bed, my arm draped over the box.
When I awoke the next morning, I still had my jacket on and my baby quilt was tucked under my chin. The box was gone.
EIGHT
According to my nearly dead cell phone, it was eight thirty. I’d had a text from James late last night asking if I had arrived, but I hadn’t heard the message alert, let alone replied. I answered now with a quick Yep, realizing as I hit “send” that it was only five thirty in Oregon, and it would be a while before he got it.
I slipped out of bed, noting that the house was completely quiet, and searched the little alcove for the box and then retreated to the first floor. It was immaculate. Not a dirty dish in the sink. Not a book or a pair of shoes or a stack of papers anywhere. There was a note in block letters on the table. Oatmeal in the cupboard, milk in the fridge. Have a good day! Love, Ella. And at the bottom of the note, in different handwriting: Prenatal @ 10 a.m. Be ready by 9:15. It wasn’t signed, but I was sure it was from Marta. For a woman who didn’t want to talk with me when I arrived, she certainly seemed to be taking me for granted now. Fortunately for her I was desperate enough for answers to put up with her brusqueness.
I searched the kitchen for coffee but couldn’t find a drop or bag or bean. I did find tea bags and made the strongest cup of tea I could manage. I drank it as I walked through the cottage, searching for my box. Zed’s room was off the kitchen, but I didn’t go in. Back upstairs, Ella’s door was open a crack and I pushed it gently. She had a twin bed with a solid blue cover, a straight-back chair, a small desk, and a dresser. The walls were bare. At the far end was a row of pegs with dresses and a coat hanging on them. The box wasn’t anywhere visible. Maybe Marta had taken it.
I eased open her door. The sunlight came in through the window over the bed, which was covered with a plump comforter and a simple quilt folded at the end. A kerosene lamp sat on the table beside the bed. The walls were completely bare, and there were no knickknacks or photos on the dresser, but there was a photo by her bed of what appeared to be a much younger Marta and a handsome early twenties-age man with blond hair.
“What do you need?”
I spun around.
Marta faced me. She wore the same dress as yesterday and the same head covering.
My face reddened and I stuttered. “I had a box with me last night.” I took a deep breath. “It’s gone.”
“No. It’s under your bed. I put there for safekeeping.” She reached around me and pulled the door to her room shut.
“Oh.” I stepped toward the alcove. “Thank you.”
“We’ll leave in fifteen minutes,” she said.
“I’ll get a quick shower and be ready.”
As she descended the stairs, I knelt down and with my hand searched the area under the bed. The box was there. Perfectly safe.
“Sally Gundy is a new mom,” Marta said. We were in her car again, making our way along a country road. “Her family is in Ohio, but she and her husband live here with his kin on their property.”
Kin. I shivered from my still damp hair. “How far along is she?” I held my camera in my hand.
“Six months.”
“Any complications?”
Marta shook her head.
We rode in silence past a one-room schoolhouse. A group of children played baseball in the yard, including girls in their dresses. “Is that an elementary school?” I asked, snapping a photo of the children’s backs as we passed by.
“It goes through the eighth grade,” Marta answered.
“Are there Mennonite schools?”
“Yes.”
“Do Ella and Zed go to one?”
Marta glanced at me quickly and then back at the road. “No. They attend public schools.”
“How old are they?”
“Almost sixteen and thirteen.” These terse answers weren’t going to get me anywhere close to the information I really wanted.
“Ella seems quite capable,” I said.
“She’s had to be.”
I’d already noted Marta didn’t wear a wedding ring, though that didn’t necessarily mean much. Most Mennonites back home didn’t wear wedding rings, so maybe the ones around here didn’t either. Regardless, I could see no reason to believe she had a husband, not even one who was away on business or something. Other than the photo in the bedroom, there were no signs of a man having been around at all, and there had been no mention by the kids of a father, past or present. It was pretty clear Marta was a single mother.
She turned onto a narrow lane. A moment later a compound of buildings appeared in front of us. Two of them were houses, and then there was a large warehouse behind them and some other outbuildings, including a barn. At least ten carriages were parked along the side of the warehouse in a row, and in the adjacent pasture a large group of horses grazed. Lined along the warehouse were sections of picket fences and planters shaped like wheelbarrows, and one even had a wooden windmill attached to it.
I slipped my camera into my bag and followed Marta across the lawn toward the smaller house. An older woman on the porch of the larger house called out, and Marta waved and said, “How are you this morning, Alice?”
“Gut,” the woman answered. Her hair had the blondish-white look of an aging redhead, and she wore a freshly starched cap. Two little girls, likely twins, slipped out the screen door onto the porch. They both wore miniature caps with thin brown braids poking out from underneath.
“Mammi,” one of them cried happily. The older woman turned and scooped up the child into her arms, and then she faced us again and smiled.
In the distance the sound of a saw hummed. A sliding door to the warehouse was open, and a cloud of sawdust billowed out.
Marta picked up her pace as she marched across the lawn. “Sally and her husband, John, live out here in the smaller house,” she explained, “though it’s going to get a bit tight once the baby comes.”
“Is that John’s mother?” I asked, nodding my head back toward the big house.
“No. His grossmammi.” Marta exhaled. “Grandmother, I mean.”
I glanced back to see the older woman now sitting on the steps, an apple-cheeked twin on each side of her. Another woman appeared at the back door and called out toward the warehouse. “Ezra Gundy!”
The sawing stopped, and the cloud of sawdust began to dissipate.
“Ezra!” the woman yelled again, louder this time. “You didn’t finish your chores!”
“That’s Nancy,” Marta whispered.
Nancy was noticeably shorter than Alice, her hair reddish with streaks of gray. A second later, when a young man strode through the open door of the warehouse, she put her hands on her hips and scowled.
The teen wasn’t wearing a hat, and his bright red hair seemed to be trimmed into stylish layers, not cut in a bowl shape like the other Amish males I’d seen, both young and old. At least his outfit of black trousers, a forest green shirt, and suspenders seemed Amish enough.
As I watched, Nancy marched down the back steps and strode briskly across the yard, her dress flapping in the breeze behind her as she went. When she reached the boy, she spoke in hushed, stern tones. Though I didn’t know either of them, I had to stifle a smile. My father had been slow to anger, but I always knew I was in for it when he summoned me using both first and last name.
“Come on.” Marta grabbed my arm, and we hurried up the steps of the little house.
Inside, two young women with dark hair and pale blue eyes, both in full Amish garb, greeted us. The older one was about nineteen, and Marta introduced her as Sally, the patient we had come to see, though the bulge at her belly barely showed in her loose-fitting dress. Sally offered to make tea, which we declined, and the younger one offered to take our coats. She looked a lot like Sally, so I wasn’t surprised when she was introduced as the younger sister, Ruth.
As Ruth hung our coats on pegs near the door, Sally gestured toward the living room, where sunshine poured down through skylights, illuminating the small sitting area. Marta and I sat side by side on a couch that had been covered with a bedspread and tucked in at the cushions. Sally and Ruth joined us on nearby chairs. Looking again at the younger one, who seemed to be about the age of a high school freshman, I asked if she had the day off.
“Off?”
“From school.”
She covered her mouth with her hand and giggled.
“Ruth is fifteen,” Sally explained. “She’s been out of school for nearly two years now.”
My surprise must have shown on my face, because beside me Marta clicked her tongue scornfully and said, “You don’t know much about the Amish, do you?”
Sally smiled. “We only go through the eighth grade.”
I couldn’t help but bristle. “No need for girls to be educated?”
“Not just the girls,” Marta said. “The boys too.”
“But why?”
“It’s about pride, mostly, which they feel often tends to go hand in hand with being overeducated,” Marta explained.
“Ya,” Sally agreed, nodding. “The eighth grade is sufficient.”
“But there’s still so much to learn!”
Sally shrugged. “The learning doesn’t end, just the schooling. We’re always learning. From our parents, the community, maybe even as an apprentice or through a correspondence course. In many different ways. Even from siblings.” She looked over at her sister and winked. “Right, Ruth?”
The girl giggled again, nodding. She was just so young!
“Are you studying a trade?” I asked her.
Ruth smiled behind her hand and glanced at her older sister.
“Ruth is spending the spring and summer working with me.” Sally sat straight.
“Like a mother’s helper?”
Ruth nodded.
A shout from the yard caught her attention, and she stood and drifted toward the window.
“What is going on?” Sally asked, also standing.
“Ezra is in trouble again,” the girl said, moving to the side of the window, a twinkle in her eye.
Sally sat back down. “I am afraid that Ezra’s behavior has been quite amusing for my sister.�
�
“I imagine so,” Marta said, and then she turned the conversation away from Ezra and onto Sally’s pregnancy, asking first about her diet. I couldn’t fathom diet was a problem for most Amish women.
Sally was six months along and planned to give birth here in the Daadi Haus. Her mother would come from Ohio after the baby was born and stay a few days, but she had seven children who were still at home and could only spare a short time. That was one of the reasons Ruth had come to stay.
“Will you be delivering my baby?” Sally asked Marta.
“Of course.”
“But I heard you weren’t able to deliver Barbara’s last night—”
“Oh, that was a minor complication. And Lexie was able to help me with that.”
Sally stood. “Well, God provided, didn’t He?” She called Ruth away from the window and asked her to go tell John that Marta had arrived. Then to Marta she said, “He wants to listen to the baby’s heart too.” We followed her down the hall as the front door banged shut. “I already ordered the birth kit you recommended. It arrived last week.” Sally was so small that from behind she looked about the same age as Ruth.
It seemed as if the little house had recently been remodeled, and the scent of fresh paint lingered. The simple molding was all new and unmarred, but as we turned into the bedroom it was obvious that all the furniture was hand-me-downs. An antique bed, barely a double, nearly filled the small room. On the nightstand was a cardboard box, most likely the birthing kit. It would contain a plastic sheet, bed pads, a delivery towel, and other items. Some of Sophie’s clients ordered kits for each of their births, while others gathered the items themselves. I was sure it was the same with the Amish.
As I took Sally’s blood pressure, a young man bounded into the room, his hat in his hand. His hair wasn’t as bright as Ezra’s, but it was definitely red, as was his sparsely grown beard. His brown eyes were cast down, and he nodded shyly to Marta and barely met my eyes as I was introduced. He sat on the edge of the bed beside Sally as she stretched out on the bed. I recorded her blood pressure in her chart. It was 110/80. Perfect.
The Amish Midwife Page 8