The Amish Midwife

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “How long were they gone?” Ada asked, impatient now to hear about the circumstances of her own birth.

  “More than a year, maybe thirteen, fourteen months. By the time they came back, Alexandra had really grown. She was a toddler. And Giselle was a different person. More mature. Almost repentant. Dedicated to caring for Alexandra. She never spoke much of the time she had been away, but the relationship must have run its course because eventually I realized that it was truly over. I also realized that, once again, she had managed to get herself pregnant.”

  “Bauer’s son was just a year younger than I was, and he and I had become friends by then,” Marta interjected, “so I was able to find out more of the inside scoop from his point of view. Giselle didn’t want us to know any of it, but Mammi and I were both glad to hear that Bauer was trying to put his real family back together again. We were especially relieved when his wife finally forgave him. As for the son, he tried to give his dad a chance too, but he was quite emotionally fragile, and the wound of his father’s betrayal ran deep. We never talked about my sister’s new pregnancy. That would have just made things a thousand times worse.”

  I sat back, realizing that was a period of my life that I would never really know about. Given that I had been in the care of both mother and father, at least for a short time, I supposed I had been kept safe and warm. On the other hand, the sudden appearance and disappearance of my birth father from my life could only have served as the first chink in my many abandonment issues.

  “So Giselle came back pregnant with me,” Ada said, clearly impatient for Mammi to get on with the rest of the story.

  “Yes. She was also depressed and overwhelmed and very afraid of being a single mother of two children. She and her sister eventually found a sort of peace, and by the time Giselle was in her ninth month Klara offered to take the baby and raise it as her own. If she and Alexander could not conceive a child, which was becoming more and more apparent, well, then at least it seemed God was providing another way. When the baby was born, we all knew it was the right choice.”

  “Lexie, I already told you that you were with me when Ada was born,” Marta said. “I was the one who snipped the lock of your mother’s hair and then your sister’s. I tried to cut a lock of yours too, but you wouldn’t let me.” She smiled. “I tied the strands with black ribbon and gave them both to Mammi. Then Klara came and took the baby.”

  We all turned and looked at Klara then. She was tightly gripping her husband’s hand, her face flushed and eyes still fixed firmly on the floor.

  “What was the condition?” I asked suddenly, my voice sounding pinched and foreign to me. When no one replied, I added, “The condition, Klara. You said earlier that when Giselle got pregnant the second time, you agreed to take the child, on one condition.”

  Finally, Klara met my eyes with her own.

  “I was still afraid that Alexander had fathered you,” she said, the desperation clear in her voice.

  “Of course you were,” I retorted sharply. “But, given the timing, there was no way he could be the father of this new one. So you decided to take it and raise it as your own. What was your condition? Go ahead. We all want to hear it.”

  After a long moment of silence, Klara whispered, “That Giselle go away forever and take you with her.”

  My mind reeled.

  “I begged Klara not to hold her to it,” Mammi cried. “I told her that even if Alexander was the father—which I knew he was not—she must forgive and forget. I reminded her that we believe in delayed justice, in demut. I said if her suspicions were true then God would judge Giselle and Alexander someday. God would. Not us.”

  I felt myself slipping into that cold, icy place, until James reached for me, bringing me back. I thought of Ada beside me, aware that she was holding on to me too. I squeezed her hand.

  Mammi again took up the story from there.

  “Klara would not listen to me. The most she was willing to offer was a bit more time. She said Giselle could stay until she had her strength back, perhaps until she had lined up a job somewhere else, an alternate plan. But then she would have to take Alexandra and go.”

  “Only that took longer, way longer, than it should have,” Marta added. “After a few months, Klara thought Giselle was just faking, but Mammi and I knew that she really was unwell. She spent much of her days in bed, rising only to care for you and play with you and read to you, but she didn’t interact with anyone else. She grew thin, too thin. We all knew she wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. She could barely take care of herself, much less a toddler.”

  “As time went on,” Mammi said, “I knew I had to do something drastic. For years I had been talking about selling Amielbach, but Giselle had always convinced me not to. She was determined to travel there someday. Out of all three girls, she had always been the most adventurous, and I liked the idea of a child of mine returning to our ancestral home. But it slowly became obvious that Giselle could not even walk down the street, much less travel to another country, so I decided to look for a buyer. I had an idea, one that would give me some leverage. As difficult as it was, I sold Amielbach and then I told Klara that if she would let you and Giselle stay with us, I would use the money to buy this place for her and Alexander. I said they could farm the land, and we could put up a smaller house on the property for Giselle and Alexandra, so they would not always be underfoot. Klara was not thrilled with my offer, but even she could see that Giselle needed help.”

  “You had it all worked out,” I muttered, looking from Mammi to Klara. “So why was I given away?”

  Mammi let out a sob as Ada placed a comforting hand on my arm.

  “I needed time to make up my mind,” Klara said defensively.

  “While we were waiting for her verdict,” Mammi sobbed, “the unthinkable happened.”

  She seemed too overcome with emotion to continue, so Marta picked up where her mother left off.

  “Giselle had grown worse by then,” Marta said. “I mean, she almost never got out of bed anymore, and she stopped speaking, even to you, Lexie. One afternoon I was outside in the garden, harvesting the last of the potatoes. You were supposed to be asleep, napping in the bed with Giselle. I was so busy with the stupid potatoes, I don’t know how I knew to look up at that moment, but I did. Maybe it was God, telling me that something was wrong.”

  I leaned forward, listening intently.

  “From where I was working,” she continued, “I could see the creek, and something felt off about it, you know? The water was icy cold, but it hadn’t frozen over yet, and at first I just thought that maybe I had seen a fish pop up at the surface or something. Whatever it was, I put down the hoe and went over to take a closer look. On the muddy bank were tiny footprints, and that’s when I knew that while Giselle slept, you had woken up, wandered off, and ended up toddling right down to the creek’s edge. I started screaming, and then I heard you cry. You were under a willow tree, clinging to a low branch. Your bare foot was wedged between two rocks, and the water was swirling up to your chin.”

  “I heard her screams from the house,” Mammi moaned. “When I hurried out to the yard, Marta was splashing out of the creek, carrying you in her arms.”

  I shuddered, looking at my aunt and realizing that I owed her my very life. I may have saved her from jail, but she had saved me from death.

  “As horrible as that was, at least the incident seemed to snap Giselle from her stupor,” Mammi continued. “In truth, it was a real shock for all of us. After that, Giselle knew she had to leave, not just her home but her child. In the condition she was in, she was not a fit mother. That night, she packed a bag, wrote us all a note, and left. In it, she asked Klara to raise you as well.”

  Klara bent forward, putting her face in her hands.

  “Mamm?” Ada whispered.

  “But you wouldn’t do it, would you?” I asked Klara, my voice sounding strangely calm. “Even with Giselle gone for good, you wouldn’t take me.”

  Kla
ra didn’t answer, so Mammi spoke for her.

  “No, she would not. And she did not want me to, either. In fact she forbade me to. She said she wanted Alexandra as far away from here as humanly possible. You were only two years old, but to Klara you were the enemy.” Mammi’s face turned toward the window. “I thought of an old friend, an Englisch woman who had moved clear across the country, to Oregon. That seemed pretty far.” Mammi’s eyes were back on me now. “I wrote to my friend and asked if there were any Plain communities there, if she might know of some childless couple who was good, who was loving and kind, that God could bless with a beautiful two-year-old girl. She did. Of course, we worked with a lawyer and did it all legally. And that is how you ended up with your parents, Alexandra.”

  And that is how you ended up with your parents. Her words ricocheted inside my head, the words I had waited a lifetime to hear.

  James placed a warm hand on my arm and spoke.

  “I know this is difficult for you, Lex, but can’t you see how God was in all of this? Just like with Joseph, He wrought good from bad.”

  And that is how you ended up with your parents. Because God wrought good from bad. Because He was watching over me, had been watching over me all along.

  “I remember the day you left,” Marta said suddenly. “Mammi hired a driver to go to Philadelphia, to the airport. You were two, wearing your little Amish dress, apron, and cap and holding the folded quilt Mammi had made for you. I stood on the balcony and watched you go.”

  I gasped.

  Marta kept talking through tears. “You turned and blew me a kiss, as if you were leaving on a short trip. As if you would soon return.”

  I was that little girl again, looking back at the house, the balcony. My mother was gone. I was blowing my teenage aunt a kiss. I had no idea what was ahead of me.

  I leaped to my feet, knocking against James.

  “Lexie?” He was scrambling to follow me.

  I stumbled through the room, nearly tripping over Zed’s outstretched foot, brushing past Alexander. I fumbled for the knob and pushed through the door.

  “Lexie!” James was behind me. I started to run, around the back of Klara’s house. There was the creek—the icy waters of my waking nightmares. The back door was ajar and I dashed inside, tearing through the kitchen and into the dining room, around to the open staircase. Up I went, taking the steps two at a time. On the landing, I turned. There was the room with the balcony, the door open. Ada’s room, I presumed. I stepped inside. A quilt, bigger than mine but the same pattern, was spread across the double bed. Dresses and caps hung on pegs along the wall. I stepped to the French doors at the balcony and pushed them open, taking the short step to the iron railing and gripping it tightly through the vines that had wound around it.

  Below, a pink dogwood tree bloomed to the side of the house. The cows had crowded around the white fence and one looked up at me. I turned my head toward the stand of trees, catching the scent of pine. Beyond them, the steel blades of a windmill, that wasn’t visible from the road, spun in the breeze.

  I thought of how Mama and I used to sit in the shadow of our own windmill, how sometimes Dad would join us. I thought of how they gained my trust. Soothed my sorrow. Accepted me as I was, not knowing what my past had been. There was no way they could have guessed.

  Tears stung my eyes.

  I had the missing pieces. I had the truth. I had my story.

  “Lexie?” James stood in the doorway. Behind him were Ella and then Marta. In a moment they were crowded around me, hugging me. Holding me.

  THIRTY-ONE

  By the time we were ready to go, I was so weary I asked James to drive.

  “Sure, but you’ll have to navigate,” he said, taking the keys from my hand as he walked to the passenger door, unlocked it, and held it open for me. “Or maybe Zed can point the way.”

  Zed hesitated, gesturing toward Marta’s car. “I thought I would ride back with Mom.”

  “No problem. Go ahead,” I said tiredly. “James can just follow you guys.”

  Nearly collapsing onto the seat with exhaustion, I closed my eyes and leaned back against the headrest. James started up the car, and for a while we drove along in silence. I was grateful that he seemed to sense my need for a little space and quiet. I so appreciated all he had done today, but my head was spinning and my heart was too full for mere words. Would I ever be able to process everything I had learned? Would I ever be able to thank James for his part in making it happen?

  The silence continued, but finally I forced my eyes open and looked around to get my bearings. We were just another few minutes from Marta’s home. I knew that despite his enormous self-control, James was desperate to talk, to probe my psyche. I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder and gave it a loving squeeze.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Go ahead what?” he asked, glancing my way.

  “Go ahead and talk. I know you’re dying to ask me some deep, psychological questions.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because your silence is so loud it’s practically shouting.”

  We both laughed.

  “Fine,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Overwhelmed. Confused. Exhausted.”

  “Good. And?”

  I looked away, a single tear sliding down my cheek before I wiped it away.

  “Complete,” I added. “Very, incredibly, strangely complete.”

  He reached out and took my hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “It’s no wonder. You wanted your story, Lex. Now you have it.”

  Nodding, I squeezed his hand even more tightly in return.

  “You do have your story now, right?” he added. “I mean, you’re not planning to go traipsing across Europe in search of Giselle or anything, are you?”

  I smiled. Oddly enough, though I wouldn’t rule out a visit with my birth mother in the future, I had no burning desire to find her any time soon. I had finally gotten the truth. For now, that felt sufficient.

  “What about you, James?” I asked, releasing his hand and shifting in my seat. “Now that you know the whole ugly truth about my birth family, are you sure you still want me?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “It’s just that now that I’ve heard my story, well, what can I say but it makes families in country western songs look functional. After all we learned today, I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to hit the hills running.”

  James shook his head sadly and reached out to again take my hand. “There is no shame in this, Lex. God ordained the days of your life, just like it says in Psalm 139. The story you so desperately wanted to hear was written by Him.”

  “Surely, this wasn’t His will.”

  “He allowed you to be created in the first place.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. For as easy as it was for some people to get pregnant, each baby was still a miracle.

  “He knew your numbers,” James added.

  “My numbers?”

  James nodded. “God ordained that you would be with your birth mother for two years, and with your mama until your were eight, and He knew that you would have your father until you were twenty-six.”

  Tears again threatened at the back of my eyes. James was right. God knew my numbers. I didn’t want to think about what else He knew, but that was for another day. Giselle and Burke Bauer and everyone else in the broken world we lived in had free will. If they used it in all the wrong ways, well, as Mammi had said, ultimately that was between them and God.

  James slowed to steer around a large pothole and then sped up and kept going. “Look at you and Ada. Look at what God redeemed there.”

  I was quiet for a long moment, taking that in and thinking of all of the many things in this situation He had redeemed. Praying silently, I thanked God for His redemptive powers, for bringing me to Ada, for breaking the silence of my birth family. Glancing at the man beside me, my heart surged with joy and I added one last thank you.

/>   Once I was blind but now I see.

  I turned my attention forward, watching Marta’s car lead the way home in front of us. As settled as I was feeling on the inside, I knew there was one more element of this puzzle that was still missing.

  “I know I have my story now,” I said. “But Marta has another secret. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do.”

  “Maybe it’s not exactly a secret. Maybe it’s just something she wants to keep private.”

  “Maybe. But it still bugs me.”

  James flashed me a grin.

  “You’re impossible, you know that?”

  “I know,” I replied, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “But you love me anyway.”

  “That I do. That I surely, totally do.”

  Settling back in my seat, I looked at James. As he slowed the car and put on the blinker to turn into Marta’s drive, the word “kindred” came to mind. My adoptive parents might have passed away, but at least now I did have kin, even if I’d had to go out and find them myself. More importantly, I had a true kindred spirit, someone who really cared about me. Someone who was connected to me by choice. His choice. And mine.

  James went in the house while I stayed out in the yard and spent fifteen minutes on the phone with Sean. Awkwardly bowing out of his life, I explained that I was returning to Oregon, but I was grateful for all of his help while I was in Lancaster County. He was very gracious and we both wished the other happiness as we said goodbye.

  “We could’ve had a blast, you know,” he told me before hanging up.

  Sliding the phone into my pocket, I smiled, knowing that with James I was getting more than just a blast. I was getting a lifetime with the man I truly loved, the one God intended for me.

  Later, just before sunset, Marta seemed surprised when I asked her to go for a walk with me. As we headed down to the covered bridge, the sky streaked with gold and purple, I told her I thought there was something more to the story.

  “No, you have it all,” she said, sounding earnest.

  “I don’t mean my part of the story. I mean the whole story. I mean there’s something more you haven’t told me.” She was silent as we crossed to the other side of the road, so I added, “I said as much to James, but he said I should let it be, that if you want to keep something private it’s probably none of my business anyway.”