The Amish Midwife

TWELVE


It 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?”

He nodded solemnly. I remembered those sorts of projects. They were the kind that made an adopted kid feel like a freak. I’d always get a stomachache on the days I presented. I’d felt like a poser.

“What do you think?” Ella asked. “It might be a way to see if there’s more info in the Bible.”

“Sounds good,” I said, even though I really wanted a look at Ada myself. Patience had never been a virtue for me—except when it came to labor and delivery. “What about your mom?”

“She has a meeting tomorrow afternoon with her lawyer. At least that’s what she said this morning.”

I agreed to the plan, although I did feel bad that I was encouraging both children—Zed by association—to go behind their mother’s back. Then again, I didn’t feel bad enough to give up hope of finally getting some information—especially if Marta was going to keep blowing me off.

I slipped the box under my bed and closed my eyes as Ella and Zed scurried down the stairs. I dozed and then woke to Marta standing over me. It was dark outside and I could barely make out her form.

“Amielbach is a property in Switzerland,” she said. “It was in my mother’s family until a number of years ago.” She spoke as if she were reading from a script or had rehearsed, over and over, what to say. “I have no other information about it.”

I sat upright, coming out of my fog. “Was the property sold?”

“Yes.” Her voice still sounded robotic.

“By?”

“My mother, I presume.”

“When?”

She stepped backward. “I don’t know, exactly.”

“How about approximately?”

“More than twenty years ago.”

I was sitting on the end of the bed now. “Why?”

She stepped back again. “That’s all the information I have.” She turned. In a couple of steps she was descending the stairs.

“Marta!” I was scrambling after her. “Please.” By the time I reached the staircase she had disappeared. In a minute I was in the living room and then the dining room. Marta sat at the table next to Zed, his algebra book between them.

“Yes?” she said, without looking up.

I stopped. I didn’t want to risk my plan with Ella and Zed for the next day by pushing Marta further. And she had upheld her end of the bargain. “I was wondering if there’s anything leftover from dinner,” I said. “I must have slept through.”

James didn’t phone me back, but when I awoke the next morning I had a text from him, apologizing for not calling. I texted him, saying I’d delivered one baby already and was present for another birth at the hospital. I included that I’d had breakfast with an OB doc and it was fun to hear about the baby business in Pennsylvania. Then I asked him to call late that afternoon his time, and I would update him about my adoption search. I was hoping to have more information after Ella visited Klara’s house.

I spent the day seeing patients in Marta’s office. When the last one left, I finished my charting and anticipated taking Ella out to Klara’s. As I closed the cabinet, the front door opened and Marta stepped inside, her cape around her shoulders and what looked like a homeopathic bottle in her hand. “Could you take this to Esther?” she asked. “I’m late for a meeting.”

I twirled a strand of hair. Esther’s wasn’t that far from her lawyer’s office. Had she gotten wind of what Ella and I planned to do?

“And could you take Zed and Ella with you? It would do them good to see Simon.”

I took the bottle. It was tincture of valerian, a sleeping herb. It wouldn’t take that much longer to go by Esther’s, at least I didn’t think it would. My geography of Lancaster County still wasn’t very good. And it gave us an excuse to be out. I agreed, not that Marta had any doubt I would. She was almost out the door without so much as a “thank you” when she stopped and turned around.

“What else?” I asked, waiting for yet another demand from this difficult woman.

Instead, I was surprised when she took a step toward me, her cheeks flushing a bright pink, and spoke. “Nothing. I just wanted… I… Thank you. Not only for bringing that to Esther, but for everything. I know I haven’t said it much since you got here, but thank you.”

Could it be that under the hard Marta shell beat the heart of a real live person?

“I hope you understand that you have come here at the single most difficult point in my life,” she continued. “I know I tend to be short with people and dismissive and brusque, but this homicide charge is just so very scary and stressful… I’ve been far worse with all of that than usual…” As she struggled for the right words, I couldn’t believe the effect of what she’d already said had on me. Like a warm, soothing balm washing over a wound, her words of thanks and apology had been needed by me more than I realized.

“You’re welcome, and you’re forgiven,” I told her, holding up one hand as if to assure her that she’d said enough and didn’t need to go on. “Thanks for telling me.”

She nodded, but before she turned to go, she gave me a slight smile. “I wish you could know me when I wasn’t in the midst of absolute disaster. I’m really not a bad person.”

I chuckled. “I wish you could know me when I’m not in the midst of a desperate search. I’m not so bad either.”

We shared a smile, and then she gave a single nod and turned to go. As the door slowly closed behind her, my own smile lingered for a bit. But as it faded, I began to feel guilty, as though I were the one who owed her an apology now. Here I was about to involve her children in my own schemes, behind her back, just as the woman had decided to offer me an olive branch.

Timing never had been my strong suit.

A half hour later, Esther greeted us and ushered us into her row house. Tantalizing spices greeted us. “I’m making stew,” she said. “Can you stay for dinner?”

I politely declined, and Ella added that we had another errand to run.

Simon was on the couch, covered with a crocheted afghan, and was just waking. He smiled at Zed and then rubbed his eyes with his chubby hands.

“Hi, bud,” Zed said, kneeling down beside him.

Simon scrambled to his knees and held up his arms. Zed lifted him and then held him, a little awkwardly.

“Ah,” Ella said. “Why do you want Zed to hold you? What about me?”

Simon giggled and dove toward Ella. She caught him and settled him on her hip like a pro.

I gave Esther the valerian and asked how she was doing. We chatted a little about her insomnia. In my practice, we recommended that women exercise during the day and drink chamomile tea at night. Rarely did we prescribe sleep aids, although every once in a while we did. A few times I had suggested that a woman look into valerian—something I knew from working with Sophie—but I always left it entirely up to the patient. I’d never think to give one of them a bottle of the stuff—it just wasn’t done in the professional world of nurse-midwifery.

“We should get going,” Ella said, tugging on my sleeve like a little kid. Simon was pulling on the strings of her cap, yanking it from side to side, but the straight pins held it in place.

Simon and Esther gave everyone a hug, including me.

“Where’s David?” Zed asked.

“Downtown,” Esther answered, her eyes a little downcast. Zed left it at that.

In the car, though, Ella said, “I know where David is.”

I wasn’t really interested, but Zed asked where as I started the engine.

“The courthouse.”

Now I was interested.

“He and a bunch of other people from church are there in support of Mom.”

“Can we drive by?” Zed asked from the backseat.

“But not get out?” I didn’t think Marta would want her children involved in any protests, and I certainly didn’t want to be.

Ella nodded. “No one will recognize your car if we just pass by.”

“Duck if you see your mom. If she’s at her lawyer’s office, it’s just across the street.”

I eased out of the alleyway and turned onto Queen Street. A few minutes later I cut over to Duke. Ahead a group of people stood perfectly still on the sidewalk. There were no signs. No one was marching. I drove by slowly. There were people in regular clothes, women in Mennonite dresses and caps, and a group of Amish women and men. There were a handful of African women wearing colorful skirts and blouses and one African man, whom I assumed was David. There was a woman in a sari, and I wondered if she was Marta’s patient from Pakistan. We didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing us. Every head was bowed.

I shivered. They weren’t protesting. They were praying.

Zed’s voice was nearly a whisper in the back seat. “Cool.”

I glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

He was looking out the back window. But then he ducked. “There’s Mom!” His voice was louder now.

“What’s she doing?” Ella spun around.

“Getting in her car. On the other side of the street.”

“She’s not going over to the group?”

“Nope.” Zed turned back around and slumped down.

“She’s such a case.” Ella turned back around.

“Maybe she did earlier,” I said, surprised I was defending Marta.

Ella shook her head. “We just learned about social misfits in school.” She groaned. “I think Mom’s one.”

“No, she’s not,” I countered. “She’s great with her clients.”

“That’s it,” Ella said. “That’s the only time she’s normal. And now that’s all messed up too.”

I tapped the steering wheel with my thumbs. I remember being embarrassed by Dad in high school. Not only of his old-fashioned clothes, but of what he said, even if it was perfectly normal, even if it was pithy and insightful. Being embarrassed by parents was part of growing up.

I changed lanes and turned onto Walnut Street to head back out to the country. But Ella was right. Marta was a misfit. If I were James, I would be sympathetic and wonder what had made her that way. But I wasn’t James.

My cell, which rested in the cup holder of my rental, began to vibrate. Ella picked it up. “Ooh,” she said. “A text from—” she grinned at me. “Sean.”

“Don’t open it.” I smiled back and held out my hand for the phone. I would read it while Zed and I waited.

Fifteen minutes later I realized we were close to the Kemp and Gundy farm. “Are we almost there?”

Ella nodded.

“Is it down a lane?”

“How did you know?”

Most of the houses were within a few yards of the road. Very few were down a lane.

“Does it have a balcony?”

She nodded again and turned toward me.

“I saw a house after your mom and I visited Hannah Kemp that—” That what? “Creeped me out,” I said.

“It’s not creepy,” Ella said. “Not at all. I’ve always really liked it.”

She was right. The house hadn’t been creepy. That was how I’d felt. “Won’t your Aunt Klara think it odd if you just show up?” I asked. “Won’t she ask how you got here?”

Ella shook her head. “She’ll think Mom dropped me off. She used to do that sometimes so I could see Mammi while Mom visited a patient.”

We drove in silence for a minute except for Zed tapping the window. Then Ella said, “Turn at the next right and then stop.”

She didn’t give me enough warning, and I had to turn sharply into the lane. I slammed on the brakes when I saw the house again. A door, flanked by windows, in the middle of the second floor led to the balcony that spanned the front of the house. A wrought iron railing, covered with vines, surrounded the balcony. Some people claim to have infant memories, but I thought them ridiculous. Besides, I’d been born in Montgomery County. I’d most likely never been to Lancaster County before in my life until I arrived four days ago. Even if I had, no newborn would remember a house. Maybe a scent or being frightened, but a house was too big for an infant to even see.

“You should drive down the road a little. I’ll text you and then you can meet back here.”

I nodded. I wasn’t used to being bossed around by a fifteen-year-old, but I wasn’t going to argue with anything she said. As I stared at the house, I felt isolated, rejected, damaged—and cold. I wanted to speed back to Marta’s, pack my things, and flee.

I gripped the steering wheel as I watched Ella hurry up the lane in the late afternoon light. She wore a green print dress and a black sweater. She practically skipped along. She had a confidence I envied. Ahead, I noticed a smaller house, a daadi haus, behind the main one. Clothes were on the line. I was learning that Monday wasn’t the only wash day for the Amish. Just like for the rest of us, it could be a daily chore.

In my long moment of angst I forgot Zed was with me, but then he scrambled out of the back and into the coveted shotgun seat. “There’s a turnout up the road a ways, by some willows.”

I was happy to back out of the lane, away from the house. For now.

In no time I parked under the trees, digging my camera out of my bag. I liked the way the light wafted through the budding branches, the switches all wispy with the tender shoots. “I’m going to take some pictures,” I said to Zed.

In a moment he was out of the car too, and as I pointed the camera up into the golden-green heart of the tree, he settled in the crook of the trunk where it had split in two.

“What kind of camera is it?” he asked.

When I told him the make and model, he said he had seen some great reviews for it online.

“What kind do you have?”

When he didn’t answer, I lowered the camera and turned toward him. I asked again.

He shrugged. “I don’t. But if I did, I think I’d go with an EVF rather than a pentaprism. No offense.”

I stifled a smile, thinking it was hard to be offended when I didn’t even know what he was talking about.

“Does your mom have a camera?”

He shook his head.

“I don’t get it. Mennonites take pictures.”

“We don’t.”

I snapped his photo. He smiled, his brown eyes barely showing under his bangs. He was a natural, putting his hands in his pockets and turning his head toward me with a slight hint of a smile. I took another photo.

“Can I try it?” He hopped down.

“Sure.” I handed it to him and looped the strap over his neck. He took a couple of shots of the underside of the tree canopy and then a couple of me. I hammed it up, leaning against the trunk as if posing for a portrait.

“How do I look at what I’ve taken?” he asked, and I realized that for all of his big words, he possessed mere knowledge, not practical experience.

I clicked the view button and showed him how to flip through the photos. He kept going past his and on to the ones I’d taken of Lancaster County. “Wow.”

I looked over his shoulder. He’d landed on a photo of the back of an Amish man plowing his field, the hooves and backs of his four mules partially blurred with the movement. I’d taken it with my zoom a good hundred yards away.

I couldn’t fathom living life without a camera. “How about when you went to Ethiopia? Didn’t you have a camera then?”

He shook his head. “But I remember everything and I wrote it all down. All about the people, the little kids, the food, the cities, the countryside, the colors, the textures. I won’t ever forget it.”

Was that why I took photos? Because I didn’t want to forget? Did I feel forgotten because there weren’t any photos of me as a baby?

“What do you want to do when you grow up?”

He shrugged and handed the camera back to me.

“Come on, Zed.” I draped the strap around my neck. “I bet you’re the kind of kid who knows.”

He smiled.

“Out with it,” I teased.

He looked down at his shoes. “Well, I kind of want to make movies.”

“Movies?” I tried not to sound surprised, certain if cameras were on Marta’s list of “the forbidden” that movies would be too. “Have you ever seen a movie?”

He blushed. “I’ve seen clips online. And I saw Shrek at a friend’s house when I was little.”

I kept myself from smiling. “What kind of movies do you want to make?”

“Movies about people. I have an idea for one set in Ethiopia, about a kid in a camp—”

My cell began to vibrate in my pocket. I remembered I hadn’t read the one from Sean. I dug out my phone. The immediate one was from Ella: Come get me!

“Let’s go.” I clicked to the text I’d missed from Sean as I hurried to the car. Dinner tonight? My heart jumped. I’d have to deal with that one later.

I thanked Zed for coming along as we waited for Ella. He smiled but didn’t say anything. She was coming up the lane, practically running. Behind her a woman operated the pulley that the wash line was attached to. Dresses and pants lurched forward and then back, like puppets in a show. I wondered if the woman could see us because we could see her, but she appeared to be focused exclusively on the laundry in front of her and didn’t turn her face in our direction.

Ella did run the last hundred feet to the car, glancing over her shoulder one last time as she opened the door.

She was barely out of breath. I backed out of the lane.

“It’s the same mansion as the one on the box,” she said. “It’s an illustration with the date 1873 in the corner.”

“What about the Bible?” I asked, turning onto the highway.

“I found it in the same place, behind the puzzles. Aunt Klara went out to check on Mammi to see if I could visit.” She paused.

“And?” I didn’t mean to sound impatient.

“In front were all sorts of names and the dates for births and deaths.” She turned toward the backseat. “Our names are in there, Zed, and our births.” She giggled. “And Ada’s.”

“And?” Now I did mean to sound impatient.

“A girl named Alexandra.”

“When was she born?” I felt as if I were underwater again and my voice was garbled, the words coming out as bubbles, bobbing to the surface.

I could barely hear Ella as she gave the birth date, the very same as mine.