A Marriage of the Heart (22 page)

Anna sank to her heels with a shiver and pulled her bag back on her lap. “So, where’s Mary?”

“I haven’t abandoned her, if that’s what you’re worried about. I want to keep the flu away from her—her husband has it. So she’s comfortable in a bedroom on the third floor. One of us goes up to check on her every few minutes.”

Anna was already on her feet. “I’ll just have a look.”

“You’re going to freeze to death, Anna,” Asa pointed out. “Your clothes are soaked.”

Anna glanced down at her blouse and skirt, which clung stubbornly to every curve she had, and sighed. First, she’d lost her temper in front of the only man who’d ever given her a second glance, and now her generous shape was portioned out in bland revelation by the light she’d turned up herself.

“I’m fine,” she said.

Grossmuder
Stolis rose to her feet and looked at her daughters. “Esther, Miriam, take Anna Stolis upstairs and get her
some dry clothes—though I doubt anything you have will fit, you’re both thin as beans.”

Anna’s eyes widened at the veiled insult and she cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry.” Mrs. Stolis laughed. “I’ve always fancied beans”—she gave Anna’s waist a quick pinch—“and fresh bread. Go on now, girls.”

Anna grimaced at another stifled laugh from Asa, picked up her bag, and followed the two bewildered sisters out of the room.

The two women, clearly overwhelmed at the abrupt change in events, could do nothing more than lay out clothes for Anna and then they hastily left her alone. She changed quickly, caught up her bag, and went onto the landing to continue up the stairs to the third floor.

She peered down a long narrow hallway of doors and saw the sliver of light from beneath one at the far end. She went and knocked, not knowing what to expect, and a cheerful woman’s voice bade her to come in.

Chapter Five

She opened the door and was amazed to see a lovely, fresh-faced woman, gowned and
kapped
, sitting up in a beautiful bed, reading a magazine.

“Mary?”

“
Jah,
are you
Frau
Ruth’s niece? She told me about you on my last visit with her. She’s very proud of you.”

Anna came into the room and closed the door. “
Jah
, I’m Anna.
Danki
. How are you?” She recalled that Aunt Ruth had said Mary proclaimed herself to be “healthy as a horse.”

The woman in the bed cast her an easy smile. “I’m wonderful. Do you want to check my pulse and blood pressure? Ruth always does.”

Anna nodded, feeling a little dazed. Perhaps she had dragged Asa on a fool’s errand, for no woman in labor had ever looked so serene.

Mary’s pulse and pressure were excellent. “Any contractions or pain?” she asked, feeling like she already knew the answer. Mrs. Stolis must have been mistaken about the labor.

Mary laid her magazine, which Anna noted was an
Englisch
publication on labor and delivery, on the full mound of her stomach and nodded. “Every five minutes, regular as can be. I should be ready to push soon.”

Anna looked around the bedroom, feeling out of her depth. She noted the elaborately carved cradle that stood ready nearby.

“My husband, Luke, carved that at the shop. After we lost our last baby, he wanted to ‘make all things new’ for this one’s arrival.”

“It’s beautiful,” Anna said as she drew out her stethoscope. She didn’t want to have to listen for the heartbeat; it was possible that there were no visible signs of pain because the baby had already been lost in utero. Yet she had no choice. She avoided Mary’s gentle smile as she moved aside the quilts and bent her head.

She nearly sagged with relief against the bed when she heard the heartbeat, strong and steady, and saw the now visible contractions that tightened Mary’s belly.

“Everything’s fine,” Mary told her before she could say anything, and Anna nodded.

“Forgive me, Mary, please, but how . . . do you know? You should be in some pain at this point, if not a lot.”

Mary smiled again and reached beneath the pile of white pillows at her back and drew out a folded piece of paper. “It’s simple, really. For this pregnancy, I saw that there were four of us involved, right from the beginning. Luke agreed with me.”

“Four?” Anna wondered if it were possible that her patient carried twins and Ruth had missed it.

“
Jah
, Luke, myself, the baby, and
Derr Herr
.” She handed Anna the piece of paper.

Anna bent her head to read. “’And he that sat upon the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.”’ Revelation 21:5.”

Anna lifted her gaze back to Mary’s.

“I chose to embrace this verse with Luke and the baby and to make it the theme verse—the quilt pattern, if you will—of
this pregnancy. I know that there is newness even in death, of course, but this time I believe that
Derr Herr
has a different plan.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Our Lord is beautiful. Now it’s time to push,” Mary said with little ceremony.

Anna drew on her gloves, mask, and gown with haste, but had little time to prepare anything else as Mary urged her to hurry.

Two brief pushes later, a wide-eyed baby boy emerged with perfect breathing and excellent color. Anna had to blink back tears as she laid the baby on his mother’s stomach and cut the cord. She’d never felt so humbled by the presence of new life or by the faith of a mother.

She performed her aftercare quietly as she listened to the soft murmurs of love and the prayers of thanksgiving that echoed from mother to child. When both mother and baby were clean and dry, Anna felt enveloped in a peace that would have allowed her to sleep standing upright if she didn’t have paperwork to fill out.

She leaned against a bureau and noticed that the sun was beginning to send luminous streaks of light across the window. At some point it had stopped snowing. It was Second Christmas morn.

“What will you call him, Mary?” she asked with pen poised.

“Luke and I decided a long time ago: Christian. Christian Luke Stolis.”

Anna nodded and once again felt choked by tears. She
wrote down the time of birth, then glanced once more at her watch, amazed that only forty-five minutes had gone by since she’d first come upstairs. She hoped Mrs. Stolis wouldn’t visit soon and disrupt the peace. It seemed as though Mary could read her thoughts when she asked brightly if Anna had met her mother-in-law.

“Yes—for just a few minutes.”

Mary laughed. “She’s got everyone fooled but me; I know she loves me, though I have tried to encourage her to stop terrorizing everyone else.”

Anna gave her a weak smile. “Maybe you’ll find you’ve had some success with that.”

With the advent of morning and the new baby in the house—in addition to a cheerful, if not tart, elder Mrs. Stolis—the feeling of Second Christmas permeated the air with warmth and goodwill. Several of the flu victims returned from their beds feeling much better and came to eat an abundant breakfast around the large wooden table. Luke Stolis arrived first and couldn’t thank Anna and Asa enough, though he’d yet to see his new son; Anna had given orders that he wait at least twenty-four hours after his symptoms had subsided.

Anna accepted a place at the table, refreshed as always by the new day, though she hadn’t slept at all. And though she didn’t study him directly, she was conscious that someone had given Asa clean clothes, because the aqua green shirt he now wore so matched his good looks. But it was only when she lifted her head to look at him across her breakfast plate that she
noticed the flush on his handsome face. He returned her smile, but his cheeks were red and his dark eyes held the glazed, distant look she’d come to associate with illness in her practice. He coughed once, into his sleeve, then stared with disinterest at his plate of food.

Anna rose from the table. She had no desire to let the household know that there was another case of flu among them until she was quite sure. “Mrs. Stolis, I need to get my midwifery bag back in order, and there are some small chores that Asa might help me with. Do you have an extra room where I can lay all of my supplies out?”

“
Jah,
certainly. Go upstairs to the second floor and turn left. Use any of those rooms; they’re all empty. I kept the flu victims on the right wing. If you need to be long, someone can build you a fire.”

“I’ll do it.
Danki
.”

Anna was sure that only she noticed how abruptly Asa’s color changed to pallor when he got to his feet. And by the time they mounted the narrow, darkened back staircase, he leaned on her, and she struggled to get him over the top step and down the hallway.

She chose the first door that she came to and opened it, revealing a large room with a carved bed and pristine patchwork quilt. There was an abundance of pillows, too, she was glad to see. But it was chilly, and she hurried to help Asa to the bed, pulling the quilt and bedclothes down with one hand.

“Asa,” she whispered. “Lie down; you’ll feel better.”

“Just for a minute,” he mumbled. “I’ll make the fire first.”

“But it’s already so hot in here.” She improvised, knowing
his fever would deter him until she could get the blaze going herself.

“Okay.”

She pushed him onto his back and he closed his eyes, sinking against the pillows while she tugged and tucked all the bedclothes tightly around him. He opened his eyes to stare up at her.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, then choked on a cough.

“And you’re so sick,” she returned, ignoring the stabbing emotion that threaded across her chest at his words.

“
Narrisch
for you, Doc,” he said as he smiled, then closed his eyes until his breathing deepened and leveled off to a nasty rasp in sleep.

Anna swallowed and went to the fireplace, kindling the heat, while his words warmed her mind.

Asa knew that he was sick, very sick. He couldn’t remember feeling this awful since he was a kid. He also knew that whether he was dreaming or not, Anna Stolis was taking care of him. He wanted to believe it was real when she softly urged him to swallow from a spoon or stroked his hair back from his forehead with a damp cloth. He wanted to know that it was her who trailed the coolness down his neck to the width of his shoulders. But he couldn’t quite make his way through the haze in his brain to know if she was really there, so he let his mind settle for sweetly tangled, tantalizing dreams.

He cast a line into the deep pool of his favorite fishing spot and relaxed against the tall oak that grew broad enough
to support his back. The heat of the summer day had yet to relent, and he reached a long arm down to scoop water from the running creek. He drank with eagerness from his cupped palm. When he lifted his head, he was amazed to see a woman wading in the creek toward him. It was the midwife—Anna—and her bare feet shone slender and white through the clear water as she lifted her dark skirt to her ankles and clambered across the damp rocks. He tried to speak, but his voice caught and he had a hard time managing his breathing as she came closer.

He wanted to tell her a thousand things: about the rock candy he used to make with his
mamm
, and learning to chop firewood, and how his coat itched during Meeting. He wanted to share with her what it was like when he’d found a motherless litter of kittens and took care of them in secret for fear he’d be laughed at by his brothers. And what he thought of her—her beauty and intelligence and strength—and her willingness to risk so much for others. It made his throat ache to think of it, but just then she lost her footing on the stones. He dropped his line and scrambled down the bank as she began to fall forward, reaching to catch her.