Meek and Mild (41 page)

F
ive days might have been five years. When her mother turned her back in the kitchen, Hannah lifted her blue eyes to Clara. When Clara opened her eyes at the close of a silent prayer before a meal with the family, she saw Hannah’s wide orbs fixed on her. During family devotions, as their father read from the Bible and Hannah sat tucked in between her mother and Josiah, the sisters watched each other.

At church the past Sunday, Hannah had been the one to be brave. During the meal, she took her plate and sat down next to Clara before her mother settled at a table. Rhoda looked at the two of them, Clara avoiding her stepmother’s eyes and Hannah staring into them with a dare.

I’m not moving
, her posture said.
Don’t try to make me
.

With Mari and Josiah, Rhoda moved to the next table, where she could watch Clara and Hannah.

It was something, Clara thought. In the safety of a hundred people having lunch together in the meetinghouse, she could at least converse with her sister.

Clara peppered Hannah with questions about school and her friends, all the while thinking how unfair it was to expect a six-year-old to understand the shift between her mother and her big sister, two people she loved and trusted. Hannah chattered, spilling overdue news of who was in her class this year and what she did when they went outside at lunchtime. Several times she said, “Priscilla used to…” or “I wish Priscilla could…” When they had finished eating, Hannah leaned against Clara, spreading an awkward embrace around her and whispering into her ear.

“I want it to be like before,” Hannah said, wiggling her way into Clara’s lap even though her parents would have said she was too old for that.

Clara welcomed her, inhaling the scrubbed scent of her hair, washed just last night, and snuggling the pliant form that squirmed to fit against Clara’s.

But Hannah had gone too far. Rhoda approached with firm instructions for Hannah to stack dishes. Clara nudged the girl off her lap, but not before kissing one smooth cheek.

Now, on Tuesday morning, Clara watched all three of her young siblings make their best effort to sit still and appear attentive for the morning devotions before school.

After he dismissed the family with a blessing, Hiram asked Clara to stay behind. Her mind sifted her actions in the last few days, and she gripped the edges of her apron as if to lift it and catch whatever accusation would fall out.

“I was harsh,” he said. “The sermon on Sunday convicted me that I must ask your forgiveness.”

This was her old
daed
, the one who was quick to admit he was wrong when she was little and he was never certain of his parenting decisions.

“Please forgive me,” he said. “You have not forgotten your place. You will always have a place here.”

Clara’s chest tightened, and she reminded herself to breathe out.

“I loved your mother very much,” Hiram said.

Though Clara had only the whisper of memories of her mother, she had always known Hiram loved Catherine. Why else would he have been huddled in grief for most of Clara’s childhood?

“Martha and Catherine were closer than any other two sisters I have ever known,” Hiram said. “There was nothing complicated about the decision to let you grow up knowing your mother’s family. I would never have kept you from them.”

“I know,
Daed
,” Clara said. “I know there are some who think you should never have let me cross the border. I’m grateful you did.”

He waved away the remark and stood up to put the family’s Bible in its place on the shelf.

“Rhoda also has many qualities that make me cherish her,” he said. “I have to think of her happiness.”

“I know.” Clara’s gaze went to her lap.

“Your brother and sisters deserve to grow up in peace.”

She felt his eyes on her and looked up into his face. “I know that, too.”

Clara’s heart closed around all the unanswered questions swirling in this conversation.
Do you think I am bad for the
kinner?
Don’t you see Rhoda has her own form of
meidung?

“I’m going to muck stalls today.” Hiram patted Clara’s shoulder as he passed.

“I’ll help,” she said.

“There’s no need for that.”

“I want to.”

“I can manage. You enjoy your day.”

Oh Daed. Not you, too!

The sound of a racing buggy was not an easy one to ignore, even if Fannie was half asleep on the davenport on Tuesday afternoon.

“Who’s coming?” Sadie popped up from the floor where she was playing with two faceless dolls and peered out the front window.

Fannie was on her feet as well. The pounding of the horse’s hooves and the rattle of the hitch and buggy screamed urgency.

“It’s the gray horse,” Sadie announced.

Gray horse.

“
Onkel
Abe’s horse?” Fannie crossed the room to open the front door.

Lizzie pulled hard on the reins and jumped out of the buggy.

“What is it?” Fannie’s heart thudded.

“You’d better come,” Lizzie said, breathless.

“
Mamm?
”

Lizzie nodded. “The babe is coming. It’s been all day and still she labors.”

“No one told me.”

“She thought it would be better if we sent word after the baby arrived. That was…before.”

“Before what?” Sadie pulled on her mother’s sleeve.

“Get your shoes and your cloak,” Fannie snapped.

“Are we going to see
Grossmuder
?” Excitement put a squeal in Sadie’s voice and widened her eyes.

“We’ll find
Daed
.” Fannie glanced at Lizzie, who nodded. “You can stay with him.”

“I want to see the baby!”

Sadie was rarely petulant, but Fannie took no risk. “You will stay with
Daed
and you will not complain. Get your shoes.”

Fannie fastened a cloak around her neck and snatched up her daughter, shoes still in hand, and ran toward Lizzie’s buggy.

“Where is Elam?” Lizzie started the horse moving.

“I’m not sure.” Fannie was at least certain Elam had not left the farm, but they said so little to each other these days. She made her best guess. “Take the wide trail that goes to the north field.”

Lizzie drove while Fannie shoved Sadie’s feet into her shoes and fastened them. Only then did she see that her daughter’s cloak had not made it into the buggy. Mid-November was no time for a child to be out in a field without warmth. Fannie removed her own cloak and wrapped Sadie in it.

“There!” Sadie pointed. “There’s
Daed
.”

Fannie expelled relief and gratitude for her daughter’s sharp eyesight. Lizzie raced the wagon toward Elam.

“I have to go to my
mamm
,” Fannie said as she nudged Sadie out of the buggy.

“The baby’s coming!” Sadie said.

Fannie fastened her eyes on Elam’s. Their words may have dissipated over the weeks, but the understanding in his eyes had not. He knew she could not take a five-year-old into a difficult birth. As Lizzie started driving again, Fannie twisted in the buggy to see Elam rearrange the oversized cloak on the girl. Fannie shivered in the wintry air—and with a good dose of trepidation. The distance was only a mile and a half, but Fannie could think of a dozen things that could go wrong—a broken axle, the horse gone lame, a fallen tree blocking the road.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

Lizzie grimaced. “The midwife says the baby is not turned right. And it’s taking a long time for a woman who has birthed five other children. When Martha started asking for you, the midwife said not to waste any time.”

Fannie burst into the house while Lizzie tended to the buggy. Her father interrupted his pacing in the front room long enough to acknowledge her presence. Fannie touched his shoulder on her way past.

In the bedroom, on the same bed where Fannie was born nearly twenty-five years earlier, Martha writhed.

“She’s so white,” Fannie said to the midwife as she moved to the bed to clasp her mother’s hand.

“Fannie,” Martha whispered.

“I’m here.”

“My precious daughter.”

Fannie looked at the midwife, waiting for words of reassurance that the baby had turned or labor was progressing—something. But the midwife’s face told nothing.

Fannie wanted Clara.

She went to the shelf where she knew her mother kept notepaper and pencils and scribbled a note. With a glance at her mother, Fannie strode into the front room. Two of her brothers had joined their father, and Lizzie was just coming in the front door.

“I need someone to take a message to Clara,” Fannie said.

The boys looked at each other. Her father shook his head. He wouldn’t leave now. None of them would.

“I’ll go up to the main road,” Lizzie said. “There will be somebody heading north.”

“Give me the note,” her father said. He turned it over and sketched a map, circling an
X
to mark the destination for its delivery.

Clara’s eyes blurred as she read the note for the second time. An
English
boy brought it, shoving it awkwardly into her hand and mounting a sagging mare. Watching the animal’s ponderous, slow progress back toward the road made Clara wonder just how long ago the boy took possession of Fannie’s frantic scrawl on the Maryland side of the border.

Mamm in labor
, it said.
Baby taking too long. Come
.

Clara put fingers to both temples. Her father had taken two horses to the blacksmith to be shoed. Rhoda had taken the buggy with a third into Springs before picking up the children from school on her way home. The fourth had a troublesome fetlock, and Hiram had told the family not to use it under any circumstance.

He could not have foreseen this circumstance, Clara thought. But she could not risk causing the horse to go permanently lame.

Please, God
.

It would take at least ninety minutes to travel on foot to the Hostetler farm. If she ran most of the way, she might shave time, but running in thick shoes and long layered skirts under a woolen cloak would not make for good speed.

What choice did she have? Clara pulled the front door closed behind her, gripped her skirts to raise the hem, and established a stride at the maximum length her legs would permit. Anxiety fueled speed, and for the first mile she forced breaths.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Faster. Deeper.

Dread dredged her depths, burning her stomach and lungs.

Martha’s last baby had been so long ago, and she had looked so unwell the last few weeks.

And the dream, with Martha grief stricken while a baby’s cry faded away.

And Martha’s sister had died birthing a baby at a much younger age. The absence of Clara’s mother from her life stabbed her afresh. She had been too little to know what was happening to Catherine Kuhn, too little to know that the life flashed out of her mother’s body, too little to know she missed her chance to say good-bye.

But Clara was not little now. She knew the danger Martha faced. Bending over and putting her hands on her knees, she paused to properly empty and refill her lungs several times.

Please, God. Please. Show me Your way in this
.

Terrified that she was racing to say good-bye to her aunt, her mother’s only sister, Clara resumed her trot for another half mile.

An automobile engine roared behind her, and the driver sounded the horn. Annoyed, Clara moved even farther to the side of the road. The horn sounded again.

“Clara!”

She stopped running again and spun around. “Andrew!”

He pulled up beside her, grinning. “Feel like a ride?”

“Maryland,” she said, gasping. “Will you take me to my aunt’s?”

His face sobered. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t have time to explain. I know what Mose said, but I have to be there
now
. Will you take me?”

“Get in.” Andrew leaned over to open the passenger side.