The Amish Midwife (46 page)

Her words made sense. To the Amish, it always came down to repenting, which Lydia had obviously done. Once forgiven was indeed once forgotten. Marta had thought her big secret was safe until the moment I appeared on her doorstep and demanded to know the truth and started to ask questions about the entire family. No wonder she had been so mean to me. She’d been fighting for her very life.

Putting a hand to my mouth, I shook my head slowly, from side to side. “I am so sorry Marta. If only I had known…”

She held up a hand to stop me.

“Don’t say you’re sorry, Lexie, I’m the one who needs to apologize. And I do. I apologize for the way I’ve treated you this whole time. You weren’t wrong in coming here, not at all. It’s just that, for me, it was bad timing. Really bad timing.”

I admitted to her that timing never had been my strong suit, and we
shared a smile. Marta slid her hands into her pockets, her shoulders visibly relaxed. She gestured toward the house with a tilt of her head, and we both began walking again.

“For what it’s worth,” she said as we went, “I’m actually glad about what happened this afternoon over at
Mammi
’s, especially because Zed was there to hear it. If he ever wants to know the truth about his parentage, he’ll have an easier time of it because of you. Because of what he saw today. I thank you for that.”

I nodded, soothed by Marta’s apology and her thanks, both from the woman I had thought incapable of either. How very wrong I had been.

We walked together in companionable silence, my aunt and I, but as we reached the driveway to the cottage, I hesitated, still concerned about the secret she had confided in me.

“If we learned anything today,” I said carefully, “it’s how destructive secrets can be.”

Marta nodded, her eyes narrowing as she waited to see where I was going.

“Even though your case has been dismissed, Marta, I think you need to share this information with Connie so she can tell the DA. That may not be the safest or the smartest move, but it’s definitely the right one.”

She exhaled slowly, lowering her head. She looked so sad that I added, “I think there’s a very good chance that he’ll see the situation in its entirety and let the matter go. But if you don’t bring this to his attention one way or another, you’re always going to know that you hid a part of the truth, and it’s going to eat away at you like a cancer.”

Marta blinked, sending twin tears down her ruddy cheeks. As she wiped them away, she gave a sardonic laugh. “This from the woman who made Ella tell me about her drunken episode with Ezra. I guess I should have expected the same standards to apply.”

“They’re not my standards, Marta. They’re God’s.”

Again she nodded, and I could tell from her expression that she would do as I was urging. Before either of us spoke, my cell phone began vibrating in my pocket.

“Think about it,” I said. “We can talk later.”

She nodded, gave me a quick hug, and told me to go ahead and take the call. I pulled out my phone to see Ada’s name on the screen. Marta went on inside as I answered.

Her voice was raw and I asked how she was doing. “So-so,” she said. “
Mamm, Daed
, and I have been talking all afternoon. That’s been good.” She asked if I could come over the next morning. It was Sunday, but it was their week off from services. They were all asking for me to visit.

I said James and I would stop by.

Then she said, “
Mamm
wants to talk with you.”

I swallowed hard, not at all sure that
I
wanted to talk to
her
. But then Klara was on the phone and I had no choice. “Lexie,” she said. Her voice was soft and timid, not the way she spoke in person at all. “I wanted to say that I am sorry for how things were handled, for my part in all of it.”

I could find neither voice nor words to reply. As I stood there with my mouth hanging open, she spoke again.

“I understand if this sounds like too little, too late. I will pray for your forgiveness, and perhaps in time God will grant that prayer and soften your heart.”

Cheeks flushing with sudden humility, I swallowed hard and managed a small “thank you” in reply.

“I also wanted you to know I have Giselle’s address. She lives in Switzerland. I’ll give it to you tomorrow.”

Before I could respond, Ada was back on the phone, saying goodbye and that she would see me the next day. After I hung up, I went over Klara’s words in my brain. Though it would probably take some time, I would make an effort to forgive her. She was my aunt, after all, and that was the Amish way.

James rested on the sofa, and Zed was on the computer when I walked into the cottage. Marta stood behind her son. She looked alarmed as she turned toward me. “Zed has an email from Switzerland.”

“Did the man talk to Giselle?” I asked, hurrying to her side with James following me from the living room.

“No. Well, probably.” She pointed to the screen. The email was written in English. “Read it,” she said, stepping back. James stood beside me.

Dear Zed
,

Thank you for inquiring after me. It is good to have word of home and information about my daughters. I am pleased they have met again after all these years. I am quite happy living in Switzerland and have found a measure of rest and peace. I think of my mother and sisters, and my daughters, often. I will think of my niece and nephew too, now that I know they exist
.

I have no plans to travel to the United States. However if my daughters would like to contact me, or even come and see me, they are welcome to do so
.

Sincerely
,

Aunt Giselle

I
took three copies of the email the next day. One for my aunt, one for my sister, and one for my grandmother. I also took the carved box, the century-plus letter, and the locks of hair. The photo of Dad and my baby quilt were safely packed inside my suitcase. James drove his rental—I’d already returned the borrowed Datsun—and I directed him to Klara’s.

From the road, I could see buggies parked in front of the house as James and I turned down the lane. There were extra horses in the field, eight or nine at least, and streamers were strung across the railing of the balcony of the house.

“It looks like a party,” he said. I couldn’t imagine.

He parked behind a buggy and I climbed from the car, my Coach bag over my shoulder and the other things in my hands. Marta’s car was parked over to the side.

I spotted Will and his girls first in the side yard. He and Christy were batting a volleyball back and forth over a net, and the twins were twirling around his legs. Rachael came around the corner with a bratwurst in her hand.

“Lexie!” she called out and then ran toward me.

Will looked up and smiled. “Everyone is in the backyard.”

“Everyone?” I asked, astonished.

James had to introduce himself to Will and the girls as I was in a daze. I floated around the corner of the house. Alice was there, sitting beside
Mammi
. Someone had moved my grandmother’s recliner outside. Hannah was holding Elizabeth Alice. Esther was holding Caroline and sitting beside Marta, and Zed was playing with Simon. Ella and Ezra stood at the edge of the yard, laughing, next to a long table covered with food. John and Sally, who was well into her seventh month, sat together, and Ruth was off to the side, pretending to listen to her sister but keeping an eye on Ezra all the while.

Alexander stood beside the barbecue grill as smoke swirled out from under the lid. Beyond him was Klara, her arms wide.

“Wilkom,”
she said as she hugged me.

After only a moment’s hesitation, I found myself hugging her in return. I had expected the process of forgiveness to take a while, but already my resentment seemed to be floating off to the sky and dissipating away, just like the nearby smoke. Surely, God was doing a mighty work in me.

For the next several hours, James and I both immersed ourselves into the gathering—devouring the food, enjoying the people, soaking in the warm afternoon sun. I relished the relationships we were forging here, and already I wondered when we might come back for a visit. At one point, I looked out across the yard at the babies and children and adults young and old, and my heart was so full I thought it might burst. Heaven had to be something like this, I thought, but with Mama and Dad and the folks from back home and even Giselle as well. Wrapping my arms around myself, I simply took it in, uttering a silent prayer of thanks to God, who had finally led me here, had finally led me home.

Thinking of home, I made a point of texting Sophie and apologizing for the angry words I had sent her the day before. Of course, I still wished she had told me all that she had known about my past, but what’s done was done. In keeping silent, she had simply been respecting my father’s wishes, not willfully attempting to deceive me.

After a few moments came her reply:
Thank you for this grace. Now come HOME, Lexie. We miss you!
Smiling, I wrote back
Will do, miss you too
, and put away my phone.

As the shadows began to grow long on the lawn, I managed to steal a
quiet moment with Ada so that we could talk. We sat in the car, which was parked in the driveway, a rousing game of volleyball taking place off to one side of the yard. At the cottage earlier, I had carefully halved the locks of hair, turning the two into four. Though I would keep a set for myself, I gave Ada an envelope containing the other set now, along with copies of Giselle’s email and of the old letter. Ada was fascinated by the wooden box, and as she ran her delicate hands over the surface, she asked me if I planned to go to Switzerland.

I shook my head. “Maybe someday. For now, I just plan to go home.” James and I had tickets for the evening flight from Harrisburg to Portland, and our packed bags were already in the car. I was going back to my job, my house, my orchard. I’d called the Realtor the night before and told her I wasn’t interested in selling after all.

Ada nodded, handed me back the box, and glanced at her copy of the email from Giselle, the one she had insisted I read to her last night over the phone several times.

“You seem so settled,” she told me, folding up the letter and sliding it into her pocket along with the envelope that held the locks of hair. As her eyes met mine, I realized that for her the opposite was true. She seemed less settled than she had since we’d met.

“I found closure here,” I told her, sounding a lot like James. “The end of a long journey to the truth.”

Again she nodded, and I realized that although my journey may have ended, hers had in a sense just begun. After all, I’d spent a lifetime wanting answers, but she hadn’t even known there were any questions until just a few days ago. She and her parents seemed well on their way to making peace and dealing with the past, which was important. But now I recognized something in Ada’s expression that I had seen in my own mirror countless times before, a hunger for understanding, a need to connect with her true past.

“You want to go to Switzerland.” I meant it to be a question but it came out more like a statement.

“Ya,”
she answered dreamily, a faraway look in her eyes. Then, as if remembering herself, she blushed prettily and added, “But of course I… It’s not possible.”

Glancing around at her large, extended family, I tried to find the right
words to say. Though I deeply respected Ada’s Amish heritage, I wanted to remind her that she had a choice, that she was free in this life to do whatever she wanted, regardless of how far away it might take her.

Unable to come up with the words after all, instead I reached into the backseat and pulled out the Coach bag, which I had emptied that morning. “For you,” I said, handing it to her.

Stunned, she shook her head, again looking around at her Amish surroundings. “I’m sorry, I cannot accept it. It wouldn’t be fitting.”

I understood her resistance, knowing that the purse was far too “fancy” for one who lived Plain.

“Maybe not around here. But I have to tell you, Ada, it makes a great travel bag. Might be the perfect accessory for a trip to Europe.”

The blush in her cheeks spread to cover her whole face. “It is very beautiful.” She reached out a finger and traced it along the handle. “But what about you? You have travels too,
ya
?”

I smiled.

“My big adventure is over for now,” I told my sister, again holding it up for her to take. “But something tells me yours has just begun.”

Later, back outside, I couldn’t help but linger at
Mammi
’s chair, even though I knew our time was nearly up and James and I needed to head to the airport. I had no doubt I would see most of these people again, but
Mammi
was old and in poor health, and I couldn’t help but be aware that this might be our final visit. That made our time together now bittersweet, our parting that much more difficult.

“You will write to me of your home out there in Oregon, yes?” she asked, taking both of my hands in hers as I knelt beside her. “I would love to hear from you now and then, to know you are doing well.”