The Amish Baby Finds a Home

by Barbara Cameron

  When she returned with a tray Emma was talking to a customer about a bolt of fabric. When Hannah set the tray down and walked over, Emma surprised her by handing John to her and taking the bolt of fabric to the cutting table. Hannah watched her chat with the customer as she cut the fabric and wrote up the charge slip. Then with a grin she handed the charge slip to Hannah, took John back, and walked over to sit and give him the bottle Hannah had warmed.

  “I hope you didn’t mind,” Emma said after Hannah finished ringing up the sale and said goodbye to the customer. “I miss working.”

  “Danki for helping.” She glanced at the other woman. “How long are you staying?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. It’ll depend on what Eli has to say.” She frowned. “And how long my money will hold out.” She bit her lip. “I went by to talk to my eldres but my dat shut the door in my face.”

  “Oh, Emma, I’m so sorry.”

  She shrugged. “I expected it.”

  But Hannah saw the sadness in her eyes.

  John finished his bottle and Emma put him on her shoulder and patted his back. He obediently burped and she laughed. The sadness in her eyes vanished. “I never have any trouble getting him to burp!”

  “Let me change him so you can drink your tea before it gets cold.”

  “Danki, I’ll let you.” She passed John over and sipped her tea while Hannah changed him and settled him in his crib for his nap. “Mmm, the cookies are gut.”

  Hannah felt some concern as she watched Emma eat. She hoped Emma had been eating properly. She couldn’t have had a lot of money saved up for the trip just working in a quilt shop. And she’d have had to take time off after John’s birth…Had the church community in Ohio helped pay the hospital bills?

  “Emma, where are you staying?”

  Emma bit her lip. “I found a room in a motel. I can’t afford to stay there long but maybe I won’t have to. Once I talk to Eli…” She trailed off. She took a deep breath and forced a smile. “It’s so nice you have a crib here,” she said as she watched John sleep.

  “My schweschder Linda brought it in when I first opened the shop and needed help but couldn’t afford to hire anyone even part-time. Her youngest is four now and she doesn’t need it, so she left it in case a customer took a class and couldn’t find a sitter.” Hannah smiled at John. “It was schur handy when John came along. My customers love saying hello to him. Especially the grossmudders.”

  Emma frowned. “I never meant for you or Gideon to take care of him.”

  “We were happy to,” Hannah said firmly. “He’s such a sweet boppli.”

  The bell over the door jingled and customers came in. Some browsed. Some bought. The morning passed quickly, and then Gideon was striding in with lunch. Hannah locked the door, turned the sign to Closed, and used her finger to push the big hand and little hand on the clock to show she’d be back in half an hour.

  They went into the back room, and Hannah and Gideon unpacked their lunch totes. Emma sighed happily as she unwrapped her sandwich.

  “I’ve missed the sandwiches from the coffee shop,” Emma said. Then her eyes filled with tears. “I’ve missed home.” She set the sub down and got up quickly. “Excuse me.” She rushed into the shop restroom and shut the door.

  Hannah looked at Gideon. Typical male. He sat there looking uncomfortable with a woman’s tears. “She’s had a tough time.”

  “Did you get a chance to talk much with her, or did you have too many customers come in? My shop was really busy this morning.”

  “Mine too but we did talk a little. She said she needed to speak with Eli.”

  “I see.”

  She nodded and started to say something but she stopped when she heard the restroom door open.

  Emma walked out looking calmer. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get emotional,” she said as she took her seat.

  Hannah reached over to pat her hand. “It’s allrecht.” Her gaze locked with Gideon’s as Emma began eating. Say something, she wanted to tell him.

  He must have gotten her silent message. “Emma, tell me how we can help you.”

  Hannah’s heart melted at his words. Ach, what a man.

  Chapter Seven

  Liz turned and glanced back when Gideon and Hannah climbed into her van that evening.

  “Oh, you don’t have the little guy with you,” she said, looking disappointed.

  “No, he’s with his mother.” Gideon waited for Hannah to get in then took his seat.

  “I was looking forward to seeing him again. Such a happy little baby.” She waited for them to fasten their seat belts, then checked for traffic before she pulled back out onto the road. “Well, I’ll get my baby fix when I see my grandbaby soon.”

  “Liz, I’m getting off at Hannah’s today.” Gideon turned to Hannah. “So nice of your mother to invite me for supper.”

  Hannah looked at him quizzically but didn’t say anything.

  “No problem,” Liz said. “I hope you both had a good day today?”

  “Business was good,” Gideon told her. “For Hannah as well.”

  She nodded. “That’s always nice to hear.” A few minutes later she picked up her other passengers and chatted with them.

  “Supper?” Hannah whispered.

  He jerked his head at the row of seats behind them and Hannah nodded, understanding. Gossip traveled fast on the Amish grapevine. They sat without speaking as Liz drove. When she stopped in front of Hannah’s home he felt a mixture of relief and apprehension.

  “Allrecht, tell me why you invited yourself to supper,” Hannah said as they walked up the steps. “Not that you’re not always wilkumm but…” She trailed off with a smile.

  “I saw the way your mudder looked at John this morning,” he told her. “And I heard her say she’d be waiting when you got home. I’m not letting you face her questions alone.”

  She lifted a brow. “Gideon, my mudder is not going to give me a hard time.”

  “Nee?”

  “Nee.”

  He stopped. “Wait. What if your dat is back?”

  “I told you last night that he’s not expected back until after supper. He’s been out of town.”

  “I just hope he didn’t come back early.”

  “Gideon!” She smacked his arm.

  “Hey, it was hard enough to think about facing your mudder.” He grinned to show her he was teasing.

  He opened the door and followed her inside.

  “Gideon! Nice to see you!” Mary said as they walked into the kitchen. She stood at the stove, a tall, slim woman in her late forties, stirring something in a pot that smelled heavenly.

  She looked past them. “Where is the boppli?”

  He shot Hannah a look then turned to her mudder. “John’s mudder came for him. It was gut of Hannah to watch him for her.” He took a deep breath. “Mary, please sit down. I’d like to talk to you about something important.”

  She turned the flame down under the pot and looked at them curiously. “Allrecht.” She took a seat at the table, while Hannah hung her bonnet and shawl on pegs and left her tote and purse on the bench under them.

  “We have a…situation,” he said slowly, searching for the words as he sank into a chair next to Mary. “I would ask that you keep what I tell you to yourself until it’s resolved.” When she nodded, he went on, “Up until a day ago my bruder and I weren’t aware that he fathered a kind. The mudder left town and returned recently to talk to him. Hannah was watching John while they did that.”

  Well, he supposed that wasn’t exactly accurate, but he didn’t want to make Emma look bad for leaving John at the shop.

  “I don’t want to tell you the name of the mudder,” he told her, thinking that was her next question. “I don’t know if she’s going to stay or go back to where she’s been living. I don’t want to see her be shunned by the community while she’s here for having a boppli outside marriage.”

  “I see.” Mary sat silent for a long moment. “Ya, she wo
uld be. What does your bruder intend to do?”

  He lifted his hands, let them fall. “I have no idea. I know what I’d like to see him do. I’d like to see him marry the mudder and claim the boppli, but I can’t make him.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Is that a bruise on your jaw?”

  “I…ran into something.”

  “Ya. I’m thinking it was a fist.” She studied him. “I’m well aware of how bruders get along sometimes, even when they’re as close as you and Eli.” She sighed and shook her head. “Well, I’ll pray for those young people. God has a plan for them and He knows best.”

  She rose, grabbed pot holders, and opened the oven just as the timer went off. She pulled out a roasting pan, nodding with satisfaction at the perfectly browned chicken. After she’d tossed the pot holders on the counter, she turned off the timer.

  “I don’t know why she sets the timer,” Hannah said. “She always knows when something’s done before it goes off.”

  Mary chuckled. “After you’ve cooked as long as I have, you’ll know, too.”

  Hannah washed her hands at the sink and took plates from the cupboard. She was just finishing setting the table when the kitchen door opened and her dat strode in.

  “His timing is also always perfect,” she told Gideon with a grin.

  “What?” he asked as he took off his hat and hung it on a peg by the door. Then he walked over to kiss his fraa’s cheek.

  “Welcome home.”

  “It’s gut to be back.” He sniffed. “Something smells wunderbaar.”

  “Roast chicken.”

  “That too,” he said and chuckled.

  Hannah walked over and hugged him. “Glad you’re back, Daed.”

  “Gut to see you, Gideon,” he said, smiling widely at him.

  Gideon stood up to shake Lester’s hand and greet him. “You too.” And he was very glad there were no questions about John as the man took his place at the head of the table. After the meal was blessed, plates were heaped with roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and peas. Gideon split a golden brown biscuit, inhaled the fragrant steam, then spread butter on it and bit in. Light as a cloud.

  He ate it in two bites and realized Hannah was watching him and grinning.

  “No one makes biscuits like you, Mary.”

  “Danki, Gideon.” She held out the basket filled with biscuits. “Have another.”

  He took it and looked away from Hannah. She was lucky to have a mudder who baked like this. His own mudder was gut at many things, but her biscuits didn’t always turn out like Mary’s.

  “So, Gideon, how is your bruder?” Lester asked him.

  Gideon nearly choked on a bite of chicken. “Doing well.”

  “And your mudder?”

  “Visiting a schweschder in Ohio. She should be back in a week or two.”

  Lester nodded and ladled more gravy on his potatoes. Gideon was grateful when the older man’s concentration on the meal prevented further questions. He scraped his plate clean and tried not to overdo it when Mary urged second helpings on him. Fortunately, he managed to save room for a slice of her lemon icebox pie.

  “Well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” he said as he and Hannah walked outside after dinner.

  “I told you my mudder wasn’t going to give me a hard time.”

  “Your dat didn’t say a thing.”

  “She probably didn’t talk to him today while he was working.”

  He frowned as he looked out at the fields as dusk fell. “It’s not going to be easy for Emma and Eli, whatever they do.”

  “Nee.” She sighed. “It’s up to them now. You can’t make your bruder do what you want,” she said quietly. “He may be your twin but the two of you are very different.”

  Gideon met her gaze. “Mamm said it felt like the two of us fought even before we were born.” He sighed deeply. “Seems like he always made things harder for himself. Something he said recently made me think he’s not happy.”

  “You don’t think he’d leave the community?”

  He looked at her again, and rubbed at the ache at the back of his neck with one hand. “I hope I’m worrying for nothing.”

  “You’re not your bruder’s keeper.”

  “Nee?”

  “Nee.”

  “Emma seems like a gut mudder,” he said in a quiet voice. “I watched her with John at lunch. I wasn’t schur if she wanted to keep him after she left him at my shop. Did she say anything to you about it?”

  Hannah frowned. “I don’t think she wants to let someone adopt him, if that’s what you mean.”

  “He’s familye. I wouldn’t want that.”

  He glanced at the front door to make schur no one was looking, then reached for her hand and squeezed it. “I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t helped me with John.” He hesitated then looked at her intently. “I intend on seeing to it that Eli takes responsibility,” he told her. “And if he doesn’t I—” He broke off and released Hannah’s hand as the door opened and Mary stuck her head out.

  “You two want some coffee?” she asked.

  Gideon set his hat on his head. “Nee, danki, Mary. I need to get home and make schur the evening chores were done.”

  “I’ll say a prayer for all to work out.” Her voice was quiet but kind.

  “Danki. Gut-n-owed.”

  * * *

  “So, Gideon seemed a little different tonight,” Mary said as she handed Hannah a plate she’d washed and rinsed clean.

  “Oh, how so?” Hannah took the plate, dried it, and put it in the cupboard.

  “I thought he looked a little nervous when he first came in.”

  Hannah couldn’t help it. She giggled. “He thought you were going to give him a hard time about John.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  “Mamm, you looked at him like he was the dat or something this morning.”

  “I did not.” She laid her hands on the lip of the sink. “Well, you have to admit that I had reason to be curious when I walk in the house and see my dochder leaving for work with a boppli I’d never seen.”

  Hannah grimaced. “That was a little awkward. But I couldn’t say much since I was rushing out the door to work and I didn’t know much myself at the time.” She dried another plate and put it in the cupboard. “Why didn’t you say anything to Daed? He didn’t bring it up at supper.”

  “I didn’t want to bother him at work. And I decided to wait to talk to you first.”

  Hannah gazed out the kitchen window. “Gideon said he was going to go home to talk to Eli. I wonder what is going to happen.”

  Mary finished the last dish and handed it to Hannah. She pulled the plug and watched the water drain in the sink then looked up at her dochder.

  “Gideon is definitely the more mature of the two bruders. They might be zwillingsbopplin but they couldn’t be more different in personality.” She put her arm around Hannah and hugged her. “There is only so much Gideon can do. He needs to trust God with this.” She kissed Hannah’s cheek. “You need to do that, too.”

  “I know.” She sighed.

  “I will say I’m glad you’re interested in Gideon, not Eli.”

  “Gideon and I are just friends.”

  Her mudder lifted a brow. “Ya?”

  “Ya.” She wasn’t ready to admit she hoped they were more.

  “Why don’t you sit in the living room with Daed while I finish?” Hannah said as she picked up the sponge and began wiping the countertops.

  “I think I’ll do just that.” Mary poured two mugs of coffee and left the room.

  Hannah finished cleaning up the kitchen then packed her lunch and put it in the refrigerator for the next day.

  She climbed the stairs to her bedroom but ended up walking on to the room she’d slept in last night. John had been with her for such a short time, but as she stripped the sheets from the crib to put them in the dirty clothes hamper she found herself missing him.

  She sat on the
bed and stared at the crib. One day when she was married she hoped she’d have a sohn like him and maybe a dochder. Well, several of each. She’d love a big familye…if she dared to dream of marrying Gideon she wondered if they would have zwillingbopplin. She’d heard that the more children you had the more likely you’d have them especially if either of you had them in the familye.

  Oh, she was getting ahead of herself. Hadn’t she just told her mudder she and Gideon were just friends? But of course she wasn’t being truthful with her mudder. She wanted Gideon to ask her to marry him this season. But such things were best kept private until a couple became engaged.

  She and Gideon had known each other all their lives, and had gone to the same schul. Then one evening they’d attended a singing with other young people from the church and it seemed she heard only his rich baritone. Their gazes had locked. After the singing was over he’d asked her if he could give her a ride home in his buggy.

  Maybe it was a maedel’s fancy that the moon beamed brighter that evening as he took the long way to her home. Honeysuckle scented the warm summer air, and he’d stopped the buggy when she cried out with delight at seeing fireflies dancing in a field beside the road. It had felt like such a magical night. And then he’d turned to her and asked if they could start seeing each other.

  Gideon had been the one to come to her house one evening after work to tell her that a shop a few doors down from his was closing and the space was up for rent. During one of their dates she’d confided her secret desire to open a quilt shop and he’d remembered. He’d insisted on going with her the next day to see the rental owner and helped guide her through all the sometimes-scary, sometimes-frustrating paperwork that was necessary.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” she’d cried the day she had to sign the lease.

  “You can do it,” he reassured her. “I’m here to help in any way I can.”

  And he had been. He’d looked over the lease for her and helped paint the ugly, discolored walls and built shelves and a few display tables. He’d helped in every way. Well, he’d refused to assist in decisions on stock, holding up his hands and saying he’d never so much as walked into a quilt shop and she’d do better to talk with other women about that.