The Amish Midwife

NINETEEN


Please let me go.” Zed’s voice carried up the staircase the next morning.

I couldn’t make out Marta’s answer, but as I started down the steps, I heard, “Ella isn’t going either. You’ll both be at school.”

“But it would be a good civics lesson.” Zed was as close to whining as I’d heard him. I stopped on the last step.

“The answer is no.” Marta handed him his backpack. “Ella,” she called into the kitchen. “You need to get moving.”

She came out in a moment, her coat already on. She kissed her mother on the cheek but didn’t say a word. A second later she led the way out of the house with Zed tagging along behind.

“I’d like to go,” I said. There were no prenatal appointments scheduled for the morning.

She shook her head without looking at me.

“You need someone with you, Marta. I’ll take notes in case you forget what was said.”

She frowned. “Believe me, I think I’ll remember.” The arraignment was scheduled for ten, but Marta was required to turn herself in by nine.

I left the house an hour after she did. The morning was the warmest yet since I’d been in Pennsylvania, and the trees along the road were beginning to bud, making me wonder if the leaves on the hazelnut trees back home were unfolding. It would be time to spray soon.

A crowd was gathered outside the courthouse again—both Amish and Mennonite, both men and women and several babies and young children. I didn’t see any buggies and assumed the Amish had hired drivers to bring them into town. I found a parking place a couple of blocks away and hurried to the courthouse. The crowd must have gone inside because the sidewalk was clear. I stepped through the double doors and passed through the security checkpoint, and then I ascended the stairs to the courtroom. The wooden benches on both sides were filled with Marta’s supporters.

“Lexie!” David sat in the middle of the room and motioned to me. I joined him, asking about Esther, Caroline, and Simon, a little surprised that he would leave them all alone so soon. He assured me that Esther had insisted he come to support Marta.

Speaking of support, I began scanning the crowd, wondering if Klara would show up for her little sister, but none of the faces under the caps belonged to her. One, in the back row, belonged to Alice, though. She nodded at me and smiled. Will Gundy wasn’t in the room.

A few minutes later Marta and Connie Stanton entered and sat on the front right side of the room. Moments later a man, whom I assumed was the DA, entered. And then we all rose as the bailiff announced the judge, an old man with a full head of snow-white hair that contrasted dramatically with his black robe.

I had told Marta I would take notes, but I was so mesmerized by the proceedings that I hardly wrote anything down on the pad of paper I’d brought. The DA read the charges of two counts of involuntary manslaughter and one count of practicing without a license. He said that Marta Bayer had played God that night with the life of Lydia Gundy and her unborn son, and that if Marta had acted responsibly both would be alive today. Then the judge asked for the plea and Marta responded, clearly, “Not guilty.” The judge addressed her, saying that the charges were serious and reminding her that both a mother and baby were dead under her watch. “Three children are without a mother and little brother, and a husband is without his wife and son,” he said. “This is a lifelong sentence for them.”

Marta’s head, from the back, did not budge. Nor did her shoulders. Tears filled my eyes. Would two more children—teenagers with no father—end up without their mother too?

The judge said that a pretrial hearing would be scheduled for two weeks. “In the meantime, you will be held in the Lancaster County jail,” he said to Marta. “Bail is posted at five hundred thousand dollars.” Even though I hardly watched TV, I’d seen enough crime shows to know that meant Marta would have to come up with fifty thousand to get out. I also knew she didn’t have that kind of money. I looked around the room. Chances were that no one in the courtroom did, either. I was sure there were plenty of Amish and Mennonites who were land rich, but they probably didn’t have fifty thousand dollars in cash available to cough up at a moment’s notice. A murmur rose through the courtroom, and the judge hit his gavel on the desk.

After the judge dismissed the court, Marta turned around, searching the crowd. I stepped out into the aisle and she motioned to me with just a nod of her head. Connie Stanton stood beside her, gathering her files and papers. I stepped around people filling the aisle and made my way against the stream to the divider.

“Tell Ella and Zed what happened.” Marta’s voice was calm.

“I will.”

“I don’t know when I’ll be home…” She blinked quickly. “I never thought this would happen, but just in case I had made arrangements a few days ago for the children to go to Esther and David’s. Though now that the baby’s come…”

“No, they can’t be there. I’ll stay. The kids can remain at home, and I’ll stay with them.”

“It’s too much to ask of you—”

“I can keep up with your appointments and deliveries as well.”

“What about Philadelphia?”

I shrugged. “I’ll tell the agency I’ve been delayed.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s a family emergency,” I added, stressing the word “family” and wanting her to hear me.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and from the look in her eyes, I knew she had.

The bailiff came toward her, and then it was time for her to go.

I followed the crowd to the back of the room, turning before I exited. The bailiff led Marta past the judge’s bench to a door, where he punched in a code. A second later he opened the door and she slipped through.

On the sidewalk in front of the courthouse groups of Amish and Mennonites mingled. I stood for a moment, feeling awkward and alone. I searched for David, but he must have already left.

“Lexie.” It was Alice, motioning for me to join her. I did and she introduced me to a couple of other Amish women as Marta’s helper. I asked how Hannah was, and Alice said, “Tired. She’s been resting. In fact, I should get going to help her with the girls. But first I’ll tell Will what happened.” She took a deep breath. “Something must be done about this.” Alice gave me a half hug and slipped away into the crowd and then down the sidewalk. A moment later she climbed into the front seat of a van.

My steps were heavy as I walked around the corner toward my car. I needed to take a look at the schedule and sort through who was due when. Delivering babies was such a juggle between prenatal appointments, deliveries, and follow-up care. With Marta doing the scheduling and canceling of appointments, I’d been spared the stress of all of that. Now I would need Ella’s help. I hoped she would know whom to call if a mother didn’t have a phone or didn’t check her messages very often.

While I was still in town, I went to Esther’s house to check on her and Caroline. I also wanted to let her know I would be staying with Ella and Zed at the cottage, so they wouldn’t have to move in here temporarily after all. I gave Esther the bare bones of the hearing, knowing David would fill her in more fully when he got home later.

As I examined little Caroline, Esther talked about how the baby wanted to sleep all the time. I suggested that she unwrap her when it was feeding time—that perhaps being so warm and cozy made it hard for her to stay awake. Simon was still out of sorts and wouldn’t let me come near him. When I left, Esther was sitting on the couch with both the baby and Simon on her lap.

As I reached my car, my phone beeped with a text from Sean. He was available for lunch. We ate at a Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Lancaster. The family who owned the place was friendly, and in conversation we learned that they had fled from New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Sean and I each had a bowl of beef noodle soup, the perfect lunch for a drizzly day.

He was concerned about Marta, and I gave him a play-by-play of the arraignment. When I told him how high the bail was, he whistled in response but said he wouldn’t be surprised if someone posted it. “There are many Amish who are much wealthier than they appear.”

When everyone looked pretty much the same, it was hard to tell.

“The DA must think Marta was negligent in not calling 911 sooner.” I twirled noodles around my chopsticks.

“What was Lydia’s blood pressure?”

I told him and he agreed it was high. I also explained the preeclampsia angle.

He leaned back in his chair. “Does Marta carry oxygen with her?”

“Yes. Two tanks.” I now carried one of them in my car. “And I’m sure she used it. Why wouldn’t she have?”

I thought about how Lydia might have died as I put down my chopsticks and picked up the plastic spoon. I’d heard of people dying in their sleep before, even young people, and the autopsy not turning up a cause. “Do you think her attorney can get the charges reduced to practicing without a license?” That was a really weird thing about Pennsylvania. The state didn’t issue licenses for lay-midwives—most were licensed through national organizations. But if things went wrong the state had no qualms in prosecuting midwives for practicing without a state license, even though they couldn’t get one.

“Probably not.” He paused for a moment and then speculated. “There must be evidence in the chart that she should have called 911 sooner or referred Lydia to a physician.”

I nodded. Surely the DA had subpoenaed the chart at the beginning of the case. Though I had just recently met my aunt, I knew in my heart there was no way Marta would have altered her charting afterward.

As I drove away from the restaurant, I thought of all the other things I would need to do. Ella cooked, but I would have to do the grocery shopping. Maybe pay the bills, which meant I should take a look at Marta’s books to see if they were balanced. I would visit Marta in jail by tomorrow or the next day to get the information to help me keep her home and practice afloat.

When I reached Marta’s, I pored over the schedule. The next two weeks were filled with both office visits and home visits. I would fit in postpartum and well-baby checkups as needed. As a nurse-midwife working in a hospital, I didn’t do well-baby checkups. Pediatricians did. With home births, after the one-week checkup, the baby went to a pediatrician and then later all of the vaccinations, which it seemed the majority of the Amish opted to do, were started.

I had five mothers due in the next two weeks. I would commit to staying in Lancaster County that long, until I could talk to Ada and until the change of plea, unless one of the other midwives Marta had asked to help her came through.

I figured Marta had a ninety percent chance, maybe a ninety-nine percent chance, of not keeping her business. If she plea-bargained and pled guilty to practicing without a license, I assumed that if she kept practicing, she’d be arrested again. If she didn’t plea-bargain and the matter went to trial, she would probably end up serving a sentence or at least being on probation. She wouldn’t be able to practice then, either.

Helping out a little longer wasn’t going to make a difference in the long run, but maybe it would help Ella and Zed in the short run. I also thought it important not to abandon those five mothers here at the very end of their pregnancies.

My last appointment for that afternoon was, thankfully, at two. I would be finished before Ella and Zed arrived home from school and able to talk with them about their mother. I closed the appointment book and stood. It shouldn’t be me, someone they hardly knew, doing the telling. It should be family. It should be Klara.

The afternoon went by quickly, too quickly. In no time at all the last mother left and I had the office cleaned and ready for the next round of appointments.

I waited in the cottage for the kids. I was afraid if I met them at the bus they would think something tragic had happened. With ten minutes to kill, I decided to call Sophie. She picked up on the second ring. I told her what had happened with Marta. She didn’t seem surprised. She thanked me for being willing to stay longer for the sake of Ella and Zed.

Then she told me all the church members said to tell me hello. They’d had their weekly Bible study the night before and had prayed for me. Sophie also said Mrs. Glick inquired about when I would be back.

I smiled, wondering who would have told me if my dad had landed in jail. It wouldn’t have been some stranger. It would have been Sophie. Or Mrs. Glick.

“Have you talked to James?” Sophie asked.

“A little.” I sat down on the sofa beside the cold woodstove.

“He said you’ve made a doctor friend.”

I sat up straight. “He did? He called you?”

“Just to check in,” Sophie said.

Right.

“Was he upset?” I’d mentioned to James that I’d met Sean at the hospital and had breakfast with him, but I hadn’t told him about the other meals we’d shared.

“No.” Sophie paused. “Just matter of fact.”

“Oh.” Had I wanted him to be upset? “Sean’s not really a friend. More like an acquaintance. He’s an OB doc at Lancaster General.” My face grew warm, and I admitted to myself that I was lying. I quickly changed the subject to well-baby checkups, going over the details to make sure I was covering all the bases. They weren’t complex, but I wanted to make sure I was doing what I needed. Then I asked her if the hazelnut trees had leafed out.

“You should ask James. He was working in the orchard last Sunday evening.”

That caught me off guard, and I started to ask about the caretaker I’d hired, but then I heard the kids coming up the steps, and I told Sophie I needed to go. We hung up quickly.

Zed was the first one through the door. “Where’s Mom?” he asked, searching the living room and then stepping toward the dining room. Her car wasn’t parked outside, so he knew she wasn’t home. I hadn’t thought about retrieving it.

“She’s not here,” I called out to Zed as he hurried toward the kitchen.

Ella came through the door and the screen slammed behind her. “What happened today?”

“Both of you sit down,” I said. They both stared at me, not moving. I stood. “Your mom’s been charged with negligent homicide,” I said. “Bail was set.”

“Where is she?” Zed’s voice had a frantic edge to it.

“In jail.”

Ella stepped around to the sofa and sat down, hard, her head falling into her hands. “How much is the bail?”

“Fifty thousand dollars needs to be posted to get her out.”

Neither Ella nor Zed spoke.

“I’ll go see her tomorrow.” I needed to call to find out when visiting hours were. “I’ll see if you two can go too.”

Still both were silent, and after a moment Zed stepped into the dining room. The whir of the computer started a moment later.

“You’d better talk to Mom before you take us to see her. She might not like it,” Ella said through her fingers.

“Okay.” I hadn’t thought of that. I sat down on the other end of the sofa. “Things will work out.”

Ella took her hands away from her face. “How can you know that?” Tears filled her eyes. “You have no idea if they’ll work out or not. And if they don’t, what will Zed and I do? Become wards of the state?”

“Ella—”

She jumped to her feet, flinging a couch pillow against the sofa.

“Ella.” I stood, stepping toward her, but she flew to the staircase, her coat still on, and disappeared up the steps. I waited for the slam of her door but it didn’t come.