“Mack.”
“And the other one?”
“Donald.”
She chuckled. “You’re joking.”
“I didn’t name them. That’s what they were called when I bought them.” His dry tone said he didn’t find it funny.
“Someone had a good sense of humor,” she finished lamely.
“I asked you a question earlier.”
He was angry and bitter. She couldn’t blame him. She had been angry at Annie, too. She still had a hard time believing her sister had done such a terrible thing. Now Annie was gone before she could explain. Maisie sighed deeply. “I didn’t know my sister had plans to leave you.”
“Do you know why she left?”
“I don’t.” It was the truth. All Maisie had was a vague suspicion—that Annie had left to be with another man. Telling Nathan would only heap more pain on a man who was already hurting, and maybe plant a seed of doubt that the children weren’t his. Maisie couldn’t do that to him. Like her, the children were all he had left of his love for Annie.
“How did she know to send you here?” he asked.
“She left a message with her cell-phone number on the answering machine at the phone shack of our bishop. You had told him you were moving to New Covenant. You had given him the name of the man you planned to work for so he could contact you in case Annie came back to our community. He told me and I called her.”
“What did she say? Did she explain herself? Did she know the harm she caused? I couldn’t even stay in Seymour.”
“She said she would explain everything when she saw me in person. I’m sorry some people in Seymour were unfair to you.”
“Unfair?” The single word was almost a snarl. “They thought I killed my wife. They sent the sheriff to search my property with dogs. They didn’t believe the note she left had been written by her.”
Maisie flinched away from his anger. “None of the Amish community thought that, Nathan. We were all shocked to learn of her disappearance, especially me and Daed. It was only some of Annie’s Englisch friends who suspected foul play.” The Porters, the influential family both she and Annie had once worked for. Wealthy people who didn’t understand Amish ways even though they hired them. Maisie had married and stopped working in their home, but Annie stayed another four years, until the oldest son and his children moved away after his wife’s death. Then Annie abruptly married Nathan.
“The Porters were the same people who stopped buying the lumber I cut. They stopped others from buying from me or hiring me to clear land. I couldn’t make a living.”
“Edward Porter and his wife loved Annie like a daughter. She was more than a nanny to their grandchildren. She took care of their daughter-in-law while she was dying.”
“And I loved Annie like a wife!” he shouted.
Maisie stayed silent. Finally, he drew a deep breath. “You said the hospital told you that she had passed away. How?”
“As I said, I had Annie’s cell-phone number. We exchanged a few phone calls while I was preparing to travel here. She wouldn’t talk about the past, only about how she hoped to make up for the pain she had caused everyone. She was excited about having twins. She wanted daughters. She said they would be as close as she and I had been.” Only they hadn’t been close enough.
“Did she have names picked out?” His voice broke and he bowed his head. It was too dark to see his face, but she knew he was crying.
Maisie laid a hand on his arm, fighting back her own tears. “She wanted you to name them. I know you loved her, Nathan. I know you love her children. You will give them the life she wanted for them. Gott will show you the way. Trust Him. Draw strength from His love.”
Nathan straightened and pulled away from her hand. “Gott hasn’t done much for me lately. Go on with your story.”
There was an edge to his voice now. Was he angry with God, as well as Annie? Maisie couldn’t have made it through the last two days without God’s comfort and the thought of holding Annie’s babies.
Nathan needed God. He would come to see that when his grief wasn’t so sharp.
“I hadn’t talked to my sister for over a week so I called Annie from a bus stop in Pennsylvania yesterday to let her know I was on my way. A woman who said she worked at the hospital in Portland answered the phone. She told me Annie had...died of complications following childbirth, but the babies were fine and with you. Apparently Annie was able to tell them how to contact your bishop and have him deliver a message.”
Nathan sighed heavily. “She must have been the same woman who tried to give me the phone along with Annie’s things when I picked up the babies. I had no use for a phone. I told her to keep it. She said she would hold on to it for a while in case anyone tried to contact Annie then she would donate it to a charity. I didn’t care what she did with it.”
“I’m grateful she answered even though the news she delivered was heartbreaking.”
“If I’d known you were coming, I could have delayed the burial.”
“I would like to visit her grave soon. To say my goodbyes.”
“I’ll take you tomorrow. Then I’ll take you into town and get you a bus ticket home.”
Startled, she shook her head. “Nee, I’m here to care for my sister’s babies. I already love them. I did from the moment I learned they were coming.”
“I can take care of them. I want you to leave.”
“Nathan, be reasonable. You need help.”
He faced her with his arms crossed over his chest. The moon came out from behind the clouds, bathing his face in its cold light. “It can’t be you.”
“Why not?”
“Because every time I look at you...I see Annie. I don’t want you here.”
The bitterness in his clipped words left Maisie speechless. He walked away into the darkness.
“But they’re all I have left of her,” she whispered as a deep ache filled her chest. “Please don’t make me leave them.”
She felt Buddy lick her fingers. He whined as if he knew she had been hurt by Nathan’s words. She dropped down to hold the big dog close and draw some comfort against the yawning hole of new grief she saw opening before her. How could she change Nathan’s mind?
Chapter Two
The impatient whinny of a horse pulled Nathan out of a sound sleep. The call was repeated by a second horse, then a third. He opened his eyes and stared at the bare wooden timbers over his head. Why was he in the barn?
He sat up and rubbed his face. Memories of the past week came flooding back and hit him like a falling tree. Annie was dead. He had her babies to care for.
The babies! He’d left them alone! Panic pushed him to his feet. He yanked open the outside door.
The front entrance of his cabin was open across the way. He heard the voice of a woman singing a familiar Amish hymn. His racing heart slowed as disjointed images from the previous night took shape in his mind.
The babies weren’t alone. Annie’s sister was with them. Maisie. Annie’s twin. The need to rush and check on his children ebbed away. Seeing them meant seeing Maisie. That painful moment could wait a while longer, but he couldn’t put it off forever.
He should have been kinder to Maisie last night. She’d lost her husband in a farming accident before he had married Annie. Maisie knew what it was to lose a spouse. She had moved in with her ailing father on his small farm afterward. Nathan never felt that she’d approved of her sister’s choice in marrying a logger with no land or expectations. He could have built a good life in Seymour. If only Annie had stayed.
He raked his hands through his hair. His first uninterrupted night of sleep in nearly a week should have left him refreshed, but it would take more than a single night to get caught up. He yawned, closed his eyes and leaned his head against the doorjamb. He wasn’t ready to face the day. Or his new responsibilities as a parent.
One of his horses whinnied again. Judging by the height of the sun breaking over the wooded hills to the east, their morning grain was long overdue. He crossed the small room where he had lived last winter. It contained a narrow bed, a table, one chair and a wood-burning potbellied stove. He opened the connecting door that led into his barn. Constructed of logs, the building was small but snug enough to keep his animals comfortable during Maine’s long, cold winters. It needed some improvements for sure. He had planned to work on those this summer, but the arrival of the babies had put everything on hold, including his paying job.
Donald and Mack, his caramel-brown Belgians with cream-colored manes, both had their heads over the stall gates gazing in his direction with their ears forward. They knew his arrival meant their grain was imminent. Sassy, his black buggy horse, whickered softly. She was always happy to see him even if he wasn’t dishing out food. He stopped to scratch her around the ears. She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand.
“Sorry I’m late again, Sass. I’ll figure this out. I promise.”
Figure out how to manage his small farm, his logging job and two fussy babies? Sure, he could do that. But first he had to put Maisie on a bus back to Missouri. He didn’t need another distraction in his chaotic life.
He fed the horses, his milk cow and her new calf, the pigs, chickens and the ducks, then he cleaned the stalls he had neglected for the past week and gathered the eggs. When he had first arrived at this property he had dammed the small stream that cut through the corner of his pasture to form a pond, where all of the livestock could drink so he didn’t have to haul water except during the worst winter months, when it was frozen over.
He had hoped to be able to harvest enough ice from it to fill his icehouse without making the four-mile trip down to the pond at the bishop’s place. Instead, heavy spring rains and the runoff from a section of clear-cut forest above him had resulted in a massive amount of silt flowing in. It was little more than a big mudhole now, but his animals could still drink from the deep end. He had planned to drain it and dredge it out, but that would have to wait, along with the other improvements he had hoped to make this summer.
He washed up at the pump outside the cabin and then stared at the open front door. Maisie was still singing. Annie had had a beautiful voice. Maisie’s was slightly off-key, but not unpleasant. He didn’t hear either baby. The cat was sunning himself on the porch railing while Buddy sprawled across the doorway thumping his tail against the floorboards and licking his chops. The amazing aroma of fresh-baked bread and bacon drifted out and made Nathan’s mouth water. His empty stomach gurgled.
There was no point in putting off this meeting any longer. He climbed to the porch and stepped over Buddy to enter the cabin. Maisie stopped singing. She gave him a tentative smile. He had to look away.
“Guder mariye,” he mumbled a greeting in Pennsylvania Dutch, the language the Amish spoke among themselves.
“Goot morning to you, too. I hope you got some sleep,” she said after an awkward pause.
“I did. What about you?”
Her laugh seemed forced. “I managed. They took turns fussing. As soon as I would get one quiet, the other would wake up wanting attention.”
“I noticed that about them.” Their baskets were propped on the couch. He stepped over to look at them. They were both asleep. The cabin had rarely been this quiet since their arrival.
Maisie walked up beside him. “Aren’t they the most beautiful babies you have ever seen?”
He slanted a glance at her face. Her expression was a mixture of happiness and heart-rending sorrow as she gazed at his children. He almost laid his hand on her shoulder to comfort her but thought better of it.
“I’ll get Sassy hitched to the buggy. The trip to Fort Craig takes about an hour.”
“I was hoping you would reconsider, Nathan.”
He hardened his heart against her pleading look. “I haven’t.”
She sighed and turned away from him. “Then have some breakfast before your dog snitches more of it. He’s not very well trained. He took three strips of bacon off the plate on the counter before I could stop him.” She scowled at Buddy, who was doing his best to look innocent.
“He’s a stray. I reckon he still worries about where his next meal is coming from.”
“I know the feeling,” she muttered.
Nathan frowned at her. “What?”
“Nothing. Sit down. Kaffi?”
“Sure.”
He took a seat and pulled a slice of warm bread from the plate in the center of the table. The butter melted as he spread it. Maisie filled his white mug with piping-hot coffee, then put the pot back on the stove and brought a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs to the table. She sat down across from him. He kept his eyes closed, said a silent blessing, then picked up his fork.
The eggs were perfectly done and fluffy. The bacon was exactly the way he liked it—not too crisp. The bread was moist and delicious. He took a tentative sip from his mug. It was the best coffee he’d had in months.
He remembered the first breakfast Annie had made for him the day after their wedding. The bacon was burned, the eggs runny and the coffee weak. None of that mattered when she smiled at him. He would have happily eaten charcoal.
He grinned at the recollection. “Remember when—” He looked up and it hit him that it wasn’t Annie across from him.
Maisie tipped her head to the side. “Remember what?”
“Never mind.” He choked down the rest of the meal and shoved back from the table. He had to get out of the house so he could breathe. He had his hand on the doorknob when Maisie spoke.
“Nathan, wait. Please. Don’t make me leave. I’m begging you. Let me care for my sister’s babies. They are the only family I have left.”
He stood stock-still. “Jacob is gone?”
“Ja. Daed passed away three months ago.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I liked your father.”
“He liked you, too,” she said softly. “I don’t have family to go back to in Missouri. I had to sell the farm to pay our debts.”
He couldn’t let sympathy for her loss soften his resolve. He didn’t want her here. “You have friends, the members of your church. They’ll take care of you.”
“I know, but they aren’t family.”
“I’m sorry. I won’t change my mind.” The thought of seeing Annie every time he looked at Maisie was more than he could bear. “Be ready to leave in five minutes.” He didn’t look at her again. His mind was made up.
He hitched Sassy and drove his buggy to the front door. Maisie came out with the twins. He helped settle their baskets on the front seat. She went back inside and returned with her suitcase and a brown paper bag. He stowed her suitcase in the back and nodded toward the bag. “What’s that?”
“Formula, diapers, burp rags, clean clothes in case they spit up. You said it was an hour trip so two hours there and back. I’m sure they’ll need to be fed and changed before you get them home.”
“Right.”
She had brought all the things he should have thought of but hadn’t. He opened the passenger-side door and helped her in. He closed the door and one of the babies started to fuss. She spoke quietly and gently rocked the basket. The baby settled.
He knew she’d never had children of her own. She and Annie had been the only kinder in their family. How did Maisie know so much about taking care of infants? Were women born knowing what to do?
&nb
sp; He rubbed his palms on his pant legs. He might not know everything about caring for babies, but he would figure it out. The same way he solved every problem in his life. By trial and error. And by never making the same mistake twice.
“You will stop at the cemetery so I can say my goodbye?” she asked hesitantly.
He had forgotten her request. He glanced toward the small rise behind the house. “She’s here.”
Maisie’s eyes filled with tears as she pressed her fingers to her lips. “Where?”
“I’ll show you.”
She got out. He took the baby’s baskets in each hand. “This way.”
He walked up the hill carrying his sleeping infants to a small clearing, where a simple white cross and a mound of dirt marked Annie’s final resting place. Maisie sank to the grass beside the grave and laid her hands on the freshly turned earth. She sat in silence with her head bowed.
The morning sun beat down on Nathan’s shoulders as he stood behind her. It must have been ten minutes before she sat back and folded her hands in her lap. It struck him that Maisie had always been quieter than Annie, who never could sit still. Maisie had a sereneness about her that Annie had lacked. He found it comforting.
* * *
Maisie glanced around and smiled sadly. “It’s a lovely spot. It overlooks the cabin. That was a nice thought.”
“I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”
She gazed up at him. His figure against the blue sky was blurred by her unshed tears. “I wish you’d let me stay. Annie wanted me here. She knew how much work two babies could be.”
“I’ll manage.” He avoided looking at her.
She got to her feet and dusted off her hands. “Of course you will. My daed used to say you were a problem solver. A man who would think on something before he acted.”
He finally glanced at her. “What did your daed say about Annie leaving me?”
Maisie bowed her head. “He was ashamed, hurt, confused. He rarely spoke about it.”
Nathan stared into the distance. “Did he think I drove her away?”
An Amish Mother for His Twins Page 2