The Amish Midwife (13 page)

“Hello, Simon!” she gushed to the boy.

The woman greeted Marta with a kiss, and then she took my hand that wasn’t lugging Marta’s medical kit and kissed my cheek as well, her belly bumping against me. “Welcome,” she said.

Marta introduced me to mother and child both, bouncing the little boy in her arms. I took his hand and shook it, and he smiled but then turned his face away, rubbing it against Marta’s shoulder.

“We go to the same church as Marta and her family,” Esther said. “Simon is quite fond of Ella and Zed too.” Except for her bulging midsection, Esther was thin, wearing sweatpants, a long-sleeve cotton T-shirt, and slippers. She was tall, her hair cropped close to her head.

Simon began to squirm and Marta lowered him to the floor. He scurried across the floor to a desk, the orange tucked under one arm, and reached up to a keyboard with his other hand. Esther hurried behind him and gently pulled him away and pushed the desk chair into place, scooting back the keyboard as she did. “He likes to help me with my work,” she said, laughing. “I edit research papers, that sort of thing.” She shrugged, as if to say at least it pays the bills.

I placed the medical bag beside the couch. “How long have you lived in Lancaster?”

“Two years now. We go home in May.”

“And home is?”

“Ethiopia,” Esther answered. “That’s where we first met Marta and Ella and Zed.”

I glanced at Marta, who explained, “We were on a mission trip with our church. I helped at a clinic, and Ella and Zed cared for children in an orphanage.”

I knew my eyes grew wide. I couldn’t imagine Marta in Africa, her children in tow.

“The church has been sponsoring us here,” Esther added. “It’s just a few blocks away.”

Marta directed the conversation to the pregnancy, and she pulled her tape measure out of the bag and gave it to Simon. He began to measure his mother’s belly, crosswise. “Let me help,” I said with a laugh.

Esther asked me where I was from and was fascinated to hear about Oregon. She was pleased to find out that I’d grown up in a Christian home and said how blessed I was. She hadn’t come to know the Lord until she was eighteen.

As we were getting ready to leave, Esther asked Marta to pray for the baby and the labor. All of us, including Simon, bowed our heads and Marta said a sweet prayer, asking the Lord to strengthen Esther for her delivery and to protect her and the baby. After she finished Esther hugged her, clearly touched.

Next she hugged me. “Will I see you again?” she asked as we started down the steps.

“No,” Marta said, answering for me. “Lexie is going to Philadelphia to work at a hospital.”

I wished Esther well.

“I thought you were a midwife to the Amish,” I said once we had settled back in the car.

“I am.”

“But not exclusively?”

“Of course not. Amish. Mennonite. I had a Pakistani mom last year. And a few
Englisch
too.”

“
Englisch
?” I asked, trying not to mock her accent on the word.

“That’s what the Amish call the non-Amish. People use my services for lots of reasons. Maybe they don’t have insurance and can’t afford hospitals. Maybe they just want a home birth. It varies.”

Just like Sophie’s practice back home.

“How about your church? Is it Old Order or General Conference?”

Marta sighed. “It’s somewhere in between.” Then she said, “I need to make a stop on my way home. I hope you don’t mind.”

I shrugged, surprised she had bothered to ask.

A few minutes later, we were in the heart of downtown Lancaster. Marta parked in front of the courthouse, which was a relatively new big brick building with daffodils blooming in planters along the entrance. We got out of the car, and I followed her across the street to an old brick building that had a sign by the door that read “Attorneys at Law.” I expected Marta to send me back to the car, but she didn’t, so I followed her into the building and through a foyer with a marble floor and then up a staircase. I was thinking that the lawyer was probably more than Marta could afford, but by the time we reached her office on the third floor next to the janitor’s closet, I’d changed my mind. Marta knocked on the door that had
Connie Stanton, Attorney
etched into the glass. After a long couple of minutes, the door swung open and an older woman stood in front of us. She had salt-and-pepper hair swept into a messy French roll and was wearing a wrinkled navy suit.

“Oh, Marta,” she said as if coming out of a daze. “It’s you.” She gestured for us to come into her office. There was no waiting room, just her desk and four folding chairs. Marta and I sat while the woman stood behind her desk. “What can I help you with?” she asked.

“The order. You were going to see about having it waived,” Marta said.

“Well.” Connie pawed through a stack of papers on her cluttered desk
as she spoke. “I made a few phone calls.” She picked up a document. “The judge won’t lift it. I’m going to file a formal appeal, but don’t hold your breath.”

“But I’ve done nothing wrong,” Marta said.

“Yes, yes. And that’s what the grand jury will realize next week.” Connie slipped on a pair of reading glasses and looked at the paper in her hand. She hadn’t made eye contact with Marta since we’d arrived. “In the meantime, you absolutely cannot practice. If you do, you’ll be in contempt of court.”

“What exactly does not practicing mean?” I asked, glancing at Marta.

The attorney took off her reading glasses and looked at me and then at Marta. “Whom did you say this is?”

“A colleague.”

“Oh. Well, not practicing means not practicing. No exams. No deliveries. No postpartum care. Nada.”

I glanced at Marta. She was rubbing her forehead with her fingertips.

“I will call if I can get the judge to lift the order,” Connie said. “In the meantime, no practicing. Have your colleague do all of the care—and I mean all of it. This is a small community, and you know how people talk.”

Marta slumped against her chair.

“We should meet again soon. The DA is waiting for the autopsy report before the grand jury meets. By the way, you have the right to testify when they do.”

“What would be the point?” Marta asked.

Connie put on her reading glasses again and pulled out a notebook.

“Exactly. I don’t think it would do any good. I think the testimony from Lydia’s husband will be far more convincing. Especially if the grand jury started asking you a lot of questions.” She opened a notebook. “Let’s see…Friday afternoon is open. Four o’clock. Come see me then.”

Marta nodded and stood. I joined her. I said, “Nice to meet you,” to the attorney as I followed Marta out the door. She was silent as we descended the staircase. When we reached the sidewalk, I asked her how she found Connie Stanton. The woman hadn’t impressed me at all.

“One of the men in my congregation arranged it. She’s representing me for free.”

“Oh,” was all I could manage. Things didn’t look good for Marta. Not at all.

As she pulled onto the street and then made a quick turn, I silently rehearsed ways to use this situation to my advantage, to force her to tell me what she knew about my birth family. I could threaten to tell the judge that, technically, she’d practiced both last night and this morning. I could go to the local newspaper about her case. I could report her to the state of Pennsylvania.

When we stopped at a red light, I was distracted from such thoughts when, much to my surprise, a man on the street pointed at us and laughed. The woman with him lifted her camera to her face.

“What’s up with them?” I asked.

“They think I’m Amish and find it funny that I’m driving a car.”

“Does this happen a lot?”

“Often enough. Some tourists eventually figure out that there’s a difference between the ways Amish and Mennonites dress—like the shape of the head covering, the fabric of the dresses—but obviously not these two.”

Soon we were passing the row houses again in downtown Lancaster, the clusters of men gathered in front of convenient stores, the old women sitting and smoking on their stoops.

“Thank you for helping me this afternoon. I appreciate it.” Marta’s words hung in the air between us. When she glanced my way, I thought I could detect a small crack in her armor, a little hint of vulnerability in her expression. “Obviously, though,” she added, “I still need your help.”

“Obviously.”

“I know your job in Philadelphia will be starting soon.” When I didn’t reply, she added, “I’d like you to stay. If you won’t, can you at least do the prenatal appointments this afternoon while I make some phone calls to try to find someone else?”

Avoiding her question for the moment, I asked why some of her prenatal visits were in homes and some in her office.

“It all depends. I’ll go to the home if it’s a hardship for the mother to come to me. Or if it’s a family I’ve worked with for years. Otherwise, I encourage the women to come to the office.” She drove in silence for a few more minutes and then said, “I can’t pay much—not what you’re worth. And I can’t give you the information you think you want. You’ll understand someday—probably when you’re older—that some things in life are really better left alone.”

“The people who say that are usually the ones who already have the information they need.”

“Be that as it may…” she replied, her voice trailing off.

And with that, we had reached an impasse. Though I was no longer concocting schemes in my head for forcing her hand, there was no way I would do this without the promise of something tangible in return.

“How about an exchange? I’ll give you one day of help if you’ll answer one question, a new one,” I said. And before she could object, I added, “One that it
is
your place to say.”

She waited, unwilling to make that deal until the question itself had been thrown out on the table. Fine. Turning in my seat, I studied her face for a long moment and then spoke.

“Marta, have you ever seen me before? In person?”

“What? Of course. Just yesterday—”

“I’m talking about
before
. When I was a baby, a newborn. Before I was sent away from my birth family, clear to the other side of the country. Did you ever see me? Did you ever touch my curls or let me wrap my tiny fingers around one of yours or look deep into my eyes and wonder who I might grow up to be?”

She didn’t answer at first, but the agony that began to contort her features told me what I wanted to know. I had already guessed her age and done the math, realizing that she had been a preteen when I was born—old enough to fall in love with the infant of a sibling or a cousin or a neighbor. Old enough to remember, all these years later, when that infant had been whisked away, never to return.

“Right now I’m not asking you the name of my mother or father,” I persisted. “I’m not asking you to spill someone else’s deep, dark secrets. All I’m asking is for you to tell me about
you
. When you were a little girl. Did you ever see me in person?”

Though we were nearly back to the house by that point, Marta surprised me by putting on her blinker and pulling over to the side of the road. After the car bumped to a halt she put it in park, buried her face in her hands, and quietly wept. Between her problems with work and my persistence in my quest, I realized the poor thing was practically at the breaking point. As tough as she seemed, I had to wonder if she was in
danger of being pushed too far, if in fact my presence here had already put more on her than she was capable of handling right now.

A part of me wanted to reach out to her, to pat her on the shoulder, to tell her never mind, that it was okay, that I would stay and help regardless. But instead I sat perfectly still and waited to see what would happen next. Finally, she dug a tissue from her pocket, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. When she had managed to pull herself together, she sat back against the seat and looked off into the distance, sorrow radiating from her red, swollen eyes.

“The first time I held you, I counted your toes,” she whispered, which brought on a fresh round of sobs.

The first time I held you, I counted your toes
.

As she sat next to me and cried, I blinked away tears of my own and tried to let her words sink in. She had known me. She remembered. It wasn’t much, but it was a piece of my story.

Heart suddenly surging with joy, I waited for more, but after she pulled herself together again, she put the car in drive and eased back onto the road. Obviously, that was all she was going to give me for now. I decided that was okay. If nothing else was forthcoming from her right away, I could always try more deliberately later with Ella.

“Thank you for telling me that,” I said, reaching out to give her arm a squeeze. “In exchange, I believe you just earned yourself one day’s worth of midwifery.”

The next afternoon, after I finished the last prenatal appointment of the day, I filed the folder into the metal cabinet and then turned my attention to Marta’s desk. There were a couple of handouts on nutrition and exercise that clients hadn’t taken with them. I filed those too and then locked the cabinet, slipping the key into the pocket of my jeans.

It had rained all afternoon, but as I closed the door to the little office the drops stopped, and a few rays of sunshine streamed down through the pine trees. Marta had instructed me to tell all of her clients that she was taking the day off; that was all I was to say—nothing more and nothing less. It was clear, both yesterday afternoon and today, from the responses of the women, that Marta had never taken a day off before.

I turned the knob to the front door of the cottage, eased the door open slowly, and stepped inside.

“Loser.” Ella stood in the archway to the dining room, her left hand making an “L” with her thumb and index finger, scowling at Zed, who sat at the desk, his hands on the keyboard of the computer. “You can’t do this to me. I have homework to do!”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Zed didn’t look at her as he spoke but kept his gaze ahead on the screen and his hands on the keyboard.

“I think you’re instant messaging.”

He turned toward her, his face red. “Yeah, I am, about
homework
.” He flicked his bangs away from his forehead.