The Amish Midwife (17 page)

I held up my head. “I’m fine. Just caught off guard, that’s all.” I gathered up my things and followed Hannah into the kitchen.

“How about a cookie?” Alice asked.

I sat down beside Rachael at the table. Soon a plate with a cookie on it for me and glasses of milk for the girls appeared. The three little girls all exclaimed,
“Danke, Grossmammi!”
in unison.

My thoughts returned to the Gundy family. Even as they were all still mourning the death of a mother and infant son, there would be two new babies in the family soon: first Hannah’s and then Sally’s. I imagined upcoming holiday dinners around the very table where I sat. The laughter. The teasing. The good food. The devotion to one another. The extended family all together, from the great-grandmother to the smallest little one. In a word, I was jealous.

Marta, Hannah, and Alice moved away from the table. “How is Will?” Marta asked quietly.

I couldn’t hear Hannah and Alice’s response because Rachael chattered away, mostly in words I couldn’t understand, and the twins responded over and over with,
“Ya, ya.”

But then the girls quieted for a moment.

“He wants to see you,” Hannah said. That I heard quite clearly. “But the district attorney told him not to. It’s forbidden.”

Marta nodded. “So I’ve heard.” She walked to the back door and lifted her coat off a peg. “Well, Hannah, you’ll have another appointment in two weeks and then after that every week until the baby arrives.”

She smiled. “I will be ready. So will Rachael.”

The girl turned toward her mother and smiled at the sound of her name.

I told the little ones goodbye and thanked Alice for the cookie. Rachael climbed down from the bench and scurried across the tile floor, taking my hand. “Come again?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” I said.

Hannah stood beside her grandmother, looking the picture of perfect contentment. Yet I knew she must still be full of grief. Her sister-in-law had died just before Dad did, less than two months before. But her grief was unexpected, doubly so. I envied her contentment, her acceptance. And envied her
grossmammi
standing so stoically beside her, helping her with her daughter and nieces.

I imagined all of them planting the impatiens after we left. I had the urge to ask if I could stay and help, but it was interrupted by the back door flying open. A tall man with the Gundy red hair and a full beard stood in front of Marta. He looked more like Ezra than John, but he was much larger than both of the younger men.

He took off his straw hat and looked down on Marta. “I hoped I’d see you.”

“Will,” Marta said. “How are you?”

“My soul is well. My heart…well, you know.”

She nodded and reached for his hand. “I know the DA told you not to talk with me—”

“And I won’t. Not about the case.” He clucked his tongue. “Although I do not understand this. I asked the detective to leave well enough alone, including burying her in peace without an autopsy, but he said it’s the state that is bringing charges, not me. I told him you told us to go to the hospital and that I listened to Lydia when she refused. It was my fault as much as hers, but certainly not yours.”

“Don’t talk that way,” Marta said. “Just tell the grand jury what happened.”

“That’s just it,” Will answered. “Some things in life happen, they can’t be changed.”

I couldn’t help but question Will’s philosophy. If people acted in responsible ways, most tragedies could be averted. Not all, of course, but most.

Rachael stood to the side watching her uncle, while the twins had turned around on the bench and were balancing on their knees.

When Will exclaimed, “Where are my girls?” all three came running as if they had been waiting for his cue, giggling as they did. He swept them into his arms and then asked, “Where’s Christy?”

“Resting,” Rachael answered. “
Grossmammi
said for us not to bother her.”

He peered over the three blond heads at his grandmother.

Alice shrugged. “She’s having another hard day, that’s all.”

He nodded and then squeezed the girls until they squealed. “I still have my joy,” he said to Marta. “God is still
gut
.”

“Ya,”
she answered, but I thought I detected a hint of bitterness in her voice.

“Speaking of, how is Klara and Alexander’s only joy? I heard she was ill again.”

“I hadn’t heard,” Marta said. “I’ll have to ask Klara.” Marta started toward the back door, but Will kept talking.

“Who is this?” He was looking at me now.

“My assistant,” Marta answered, her hand on the doorknob.

I stepped forward and extended my hand. “Lexie Jaeger.”

“I’m pleased to meet you.” His shake was firm. “So you’re a relative of Marta’s?”

My eyes popped wide. Why would he assume that?

Marta answered quickly. “She’s from Oregon.”

“W-why do you say that?” I stammered at the same time.

He shifted the girls higher in his arms and they squealed again. “Well, for being
Englisch
you look like—”

Marta interrupted him. “We need to go.”

“Like who?” My voice was loud.

Will glanced at Marta and then at me. He opened his mouth, but then Alice swooped into our half circle and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Marta needs to get home,” she said. The next moment we were out the door.

In the car, I tried to get Marta to talk. “Whom do I look like?” I asked.

“Will was just making conversation.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Ella mistook me for someone else the first time she saw me.”

“Well, I’ve said this before. She’s a fanciful girl.” She backed the car around and started toward the highway.

“What is Klara and Alexander’s child’s name?” I asked.

She didn’t answer me.

“Marta?”

“Ada,” she finally said. “Her name is Ada.”

I asked why Will referred to her as Klara and Alexander’s only joy.

“She’s their only child,” Marta said.

“Klara couldn’t have any more?”

“Something like that,” she answered. She turned onto the highway in the opposite direction of her home and said she needed to stop by the store. She seemed distracted, more than usual. I had my nose to the window, taking in the countryside. We passed a farmhouse that was just a few
feet from the road and then a stucco schoolhouse with a bell in the tower. The children had all gone home. “Did you see Christy?” I asked, still looking out the window.

Marta shook her head. “Alice said she’s having a hard time, but she needs to accept that her mother is gone and move on.”

My back stiffened. What did Marta know about losing a mother? Hers was still alive and well, while Christy’s and mine had been taken from us far too soon. In many ways, I knew the child would never get over such a fundamental loss. Certainly, I hadn’t.

“What’s wrong with Ada?” I asked, trying to keep the anger from my voice.

“She has hereditary spherocytosis.”

“Pardon?”

“Abnormally shaped blood cells. It causes hemolytic anemia.”

That I had heard of. Not great, but at least it wasn’t life threatening. “So she has transfusions? For treatment, right? And she has to be careful not to rupture her spleen?”

Marta nodded.

“Did they catch it when she was little?”

“Not until she was twenty. She’d always been sickly, but it took them a while to figure out what it was.”

“Does anyone else in the family have it?” I asked.

“Not that we know of.”

We rode in silence for a few minutes, me thinking about what all might be in my genes that I had no idea about and then about the past that I had no idea about, either. I wanted Marta to bring up Amielbach without being asked, but I knew the chances of that were thin. Finally I said, “It’s time to pay the piper.”

“Later, when we are home.”

“Might be better to talk here in the car, where the kids can’t eavesdrop.”

She didn’t respond to that as she slowed for a carriage just ahead. Two little boys, preschool age, peeked over the back end of it. Both wore black hats, and one held a baseball in his hand. I turned my attention to the fields. A lane appeared, then a silo, and then a barn. For some reason, my pulse quickened. Then I saw the house, off to the side in a stand of pine trees.

“Stop,” I said, rolling down the window and reaching for my camera in the pocket of my jacket.

The house wasn’t anything spectacular. It certainly wasn’t Amielbach. It was white, like so many other Old Order Amish houses, but it had a balcony on the second floor. A balcony that somehow seemed familiar.

Marta appeared not to have heard me.

“Please stop!” I said, this time louder.

Instead she pulled around the horse and carriage and sped away.

I
t was no surprise that Marta marched in the direction of her office as soon as she parked her car, leaving the gallon of milk and the bag of apples on the backseat.

I got out and slammed the passenger door like a teenager. I’d been ranting ever since she refused to stop at the house with the balcony. She’d been ignoring me, as she would a teenager, even as I had stormed along beside her through the grocery store.

Now I stood next to the car and yelled again. “You promised you’d give me the information!”

“I will,” she called over her shoulder. “In a minute.”

I stomped up the three steps to the cottage. I didn’t need James’s help to figure out that Marta was heavily into avoidance. I could come up with that on my own.

Once I reached my alcove, I dialed his number and then let it ring until it went into voice mail. I hit “end.” It was mid afternoon back home. He probably had a class. I sent him a text and asked him to give me a call when he had a chance.

A minute later he replied:
With study group. Will call later
.

I spread out on my tiny bed.

If Marta were related to me, did I really want to know anything more about this family? What if everyone was as coldhearted as she?

I closed my eyes for a couple of minutes and was close to dozing off when I heard Ella’s bedroom door open and footsteps in the hall. When she said “Oops” my eyes flew open. Ella was darting away from the alcove with Zed behind her.

“Come back!” I ordered, stumbling off the bed to the floor.

“I’ll be right there.” I could hear Ella’s steps in the hall.

I looked to my right. Her doorway was about ready to swallow her with Zed next in line.

“Ella!”

She stopped. Maybe my voice reminded her of her mother’s.

“Come back here.”

Zed turned first. As Ella swiveled around, I saw the carved box in her hands.

“We just wanted to get a better look.” Her voice was as meek as her expression.

“That’s fine, but there’s no reason to be so secretive about it.” I reached for the box and opened it. The locks of hair and letter were still inside.

Zed stood with his arms crossed over his checked shirt, his head downcast.

“How about you?” I asked. “Have you seen the house before?”

He shook his head.

“I remember where I saw a picture of that house,” Ella said. “It’s in the family Bible.”

“Here?” I glanced toward Marta’s room. Is that where she would keep it? Had a clue been that close to me all this time?

Ella shook her head. “I was snooping. It was a couple of years ago at Aunt Klara’s, and I was looking for a puzzle to do with
Mammi
. The Bible was behind a stack of games.”

I titled my head, imagining Amish children sitting around playing games and doing puzzles with their grandparents, touched by the sweet image.

“I started to thumb through it—the pages were really thin—and found a loose piece of paper with a picture of the house.” Her eyes grew wide with the memory.

“Was there anything else in the Bible? A list of births and deaths?”

Ella wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know, but that was what I was wondering the other day when I told you I would help you find your birth family. The day I found the drawing of the house, Aunt Klara came into the room, so I had to put away the Bible and pick out a puzzle, pronto.”

I sat back down on the bed. “Tell me about Ada.”

Ella’s face reddened as she glanced at Zed. He shrugged.

“Your mom said she’s your cousin. Klara’s daughter,” I said.

Ella nodded.

“And she looks like me.”

“Mom told you that?” Ella sounded dumbfounded.

I frowned. “No. Will Gundy did.”

“Oh,” Ella said.

“Is it true?”

“Kind of. Maybe. A little, anyway.” She shrugged. “I’d need to see the two of you together…” Her voice trailed off.

I leaned forward. “Please take me to your aunt’s house.”

Now it was Zed’s turn to look unnerved.

Ella made a face and then said slowly, “Well, I don’t think I should. But maybe I could go…” Her brows tightened. “Maybe you could drop me off, and I could say I’m doing a family history project for school and need to ask
Mammi
some questions.” She turned toward her brother. “Remember those projects? In the fourth grade? But Mom wouldn’t give me any information so I made it all up, and you just copied mine when it was your turn?”