The Amish Midwife

TWENTY-TWO


I didn’t say anything to Ada about my suspicion that her father might be mine as well. Her life seemed far too sheltered for her to learn something like that from me. “Yep, cousins it is,” I said, smiling at her in the mirror.

Funny thing was, even though I was trying so hard, my face looked sad while hers was full of joy.

“Another cousin! Closer to my age.” She turned toward me, put her hands on my shoulders, and jumped up and down. I didn’t remember anyone ever showing me they were that happy to know who I was. I’m sure Mama and Dad were, way back when I was a baby, and they might have jumped up and down on the inside, but I was pretty sure no one had ever acted about me the way Ada was now. “First cousins? Right? You think we’re that close?” She stopped jumping but one hand stayed on my shoulder.

“Yep,” I answered, repeating quietly, “that close.” I braced myself for her to ask who my birth mother was.

“Wait until I tell Mamm and Daed. I don’t think they realized it when you stopped by the other day.” She started pinning her hair back into place. “They’ve been so worried about other things…”

I found a ponytail fastener in my pocket and wound it around my hair, pulling it through for a half loop and landing it high on the back of my head, even though I’d had it down before.

“So you’re from Oregon, right? Why are you working with Aunt Marta?”

I made a face as I wondered how much Ada knew. It didn’t sound like much. Probably not even that Marta had been arrested, much less that Klara had paid her bail. “Marta just…needed an assistant for a while. Her partner retired.” It wasn’t a lie. Not exactly.

“And how did you end up in Oregon?” Ada secured her cap and led the way out of the bathroom, her steps quick and purposeful.

I followed. “That’s where my parents—my adoptive parents—lived.”

She spun back toward me in the kitchen. “And they were okay with you coming out here?”

“Well, they would have been, I’m sure, but they have both passed on. My mother when I was eight, and my father just recently.”

“Oh, Lexie.” Ada surprised me with a half hug. “I’m so sorry.” Her hand felt warm against my back, and she smelled fresh, like line-dried clothes and the spiciness of spring.

Emotion overcame me and I struggled not to cry.

“I don’t know what I would do if I lost my father.” She pulled away and looked me in the eye. “What a lot for you to handle on your own.”

I nodded, trying to anticipate what I would say if she asked about my birth parents, but the question didn’t seem to be on her mind.

She gestured toward the yard. “I need to get back to work. Come with me.”

I nodded again and followed her to the back porch, where she quickly slipped her shoes back on. She wasn’t as passive as she’d seemed the other night. She actually seemed quite capable. She grabbed the hoe and marched toward the garden.

“We did most of the planting last week but didn’t have time to finish. I’m working on the beans.” She stepped onto the soft soil, sinking down a little. “Do you like to garden?”

I said yes, but that wasn’t really the truth. Obviously she did, and for some reason I wanted something more in common with her than our looks. The morning had been cold, but now the sun was shining brightly. I pushed up the sleeves of my sweatshirt as I spoke, and in no time I was telling her about the hazelnut orchard, the pruning with Dad, and the burning of the branches in the winter.

There was something about her, maybe the way she held her head as she listened, even though she was hoeing, that made me keep talking in a way I hadn’t talked to anyone for months. I rattled on about my parents’ farm in Oregon, the town of Aurora, the people at church, and my work at the hospital. All the while she nodded and listened, but when I mentioned I was a nurse, she stopped hoeing.

“Oh, I notice the nurses the most when I’m at the hospital. I can see why you went into that.”

I realized I’d been dominating the conversation like a bore. “How are you feeling? Will Gundy said that you’ve been ill.”

“Will said that?” Her eyes lit up and she leaned against the hoe. “He was in the eighth grade when I started school. He was so nice to me. He was nice to everyone.” She smiled. “How are his girls?”

“People seem to be a little worried about Christy, but the twins seem good.” I smiled at the thought of them.

Ada looked beyond me for a moment. I turned my head. A buggy traveled along in the distance on the road and then passed behind the trees that lined the field. “Is that your parents?” I asked.

She shook her head. “But they should be home soon.”

I didn’t have much more time. “Tell me about you. About your health. What you—” I was going to say “want out of life,” but then I realized that was a foolish thing to ask a young Amish woman. I hoped she wanted what was her only option—a husband and children.

“I’m doing okay,” she said. “I had to have a transfusion last week, so I’m better now.” She seemed to be uncomfortable talking about herself.

I took off my sweatshirt, tied it around my waist, and reached for the hoe, asking if I could take a turn. She handed it to me and I took over, angling the hoe so the corner scraped a row an inch deep, ready for the seeds, as my tennis shoes sank into the loamy soil. “How often do you have to have transfusions?”

“Oh, it depends. Sometimes not for a year or two. Sometimes every couple of months.” She glanced off into the distance toward the road again as another buggy became visible for a moment and then passed on by. “I was supposed to teach school last year…” She pointed in the direction of the schoolhouse that was, if I remembered right, about two miles away. “But then I had a bad spell starting last August. I’m just starting to get my strength back.”

“Will you teach this coming fall?” I finished the row as I talked.

“I hope so,” she said. “If the board will allow it. Between my health and my age, they may not want me to.”

“Your age?”

She shrugged. “At twenty-four I should have joined the church by now. Some of the board members have questioned my commitment to the faith.”

I was curious as to why she hadn’t joined the church, but before I could figure out a polite way to ask, she continued.

“Christy Gundy is a student at the school—she’s in the sixth grade. In a few more years Rachael Kemp will go there and then the Gundy twins.” She smiled.

I hadn’t been jealous of Ada until that moment—but in that instant I started to see what she had that I didn’t, and it wasn’t Klara and Alexander. It was a belonging to something bigger. Something permanent. Something beyond her parents and her family. She belonged to people who knew her as a baby and would do anything to help her. And they weren’t all old, not like I had back home. They were young people and old people and in between people and probably more people than could easily be counted. Someday, when she married, hundreds would attend. If I ever married, there wouldn’t be any more than had been at Dad’s funeral.

I became aware of Ada speaking again. “I really want to teach,” she said. “More than anything.”

“Why haven’t you joined the church yet?”

She shook her head. “I was going to when I was twenty. But then I got really sick and they finally figured out what was wrong with me. So that postponed everything.” She sighed and then lowered her voice. “And I’d really like to travel.” When she resumed speaking her voice was even softer. “Sometimes I think I’d like to get more schooling too.”

I nodded my head and bit my tongue, but what I was thinking was, You go, girl!

She was kicking the dirt from her black Reeboks onto the grass. I wondered what the chances of her being able to teach—or travel—were.

“I should leave,” I said.

She nodded.

“But can I come back sometime?”

“Anytime…”

“Ada,” I said softly. “I don’t know if you noticed the other night, but your mother doesn’t want me around.”

“Oh, I think she will. Once she knows who you are.”

I shook my head.

“I’ll talk to her.”

“Okay.” I wrinkled my nose. I didn’t want to put her in a bad position but… “In the meantime, until things get straightened out, could I come see Mammi sometime when your mom’s not here?”

Ada had her eyes on the road again. Either she was worried about her parents coming home and finding me or else she was looking for someone else. She met my gaze. “Mamm quilts on Wednesday mornings at nine. You can come then.”

“I will see you then,” I said, handing her the hoe. “Thank you.”

She hugged me with one arm, the other still on the hoe, and looked me in the eye. “Come sooner if you can.”

I nodded but knew I wouldn’t. As I drove up the lane, a buggy turned down it. Of course I expected Klara and Alexander with Mammi tucked into the backseat, but it wasn’t them. It was Will Gundy, alone. I pulled over as far as I could onto the edge of the field. He waved as he passed me. He was grinning, and he looked more like his brother Ezra than I’d remembered.

I stepped into Marta’s office to file Susan Eicher’s chart and found my aunt scrubbing the walls, even though I was pretty sure she’d sanitized the place, top to bottom, just the week before.

I explained that Susan needed more support. “No problem,” Marta said. “I’ll get a message to her bishop. His wife will organize some meals and help around the house.”

I inhaled, impressed at how simple that had been. Then I told her I’d come from Ada’s. “I’m really curious about Alexander.”

Marta wrung out the sponge. “We already had that discussion.”

“Then why do Ada and I look so much a like?”

“You tell me. You’ve studied genetics more than I have.”

Genetics. Marta was short and squat. Klara was tall. So was Mammi, or so I’d been told all those years. Zed and I, cousins with no shared genetics, looked more alike than Ella and I did, who were blood relatives. But there was something more with Ada. Something closer, I was sure. She had to be my half sister.

I sat down at Marta’s desk. I’d try another subject. “So, were you surprised Klara paid your bail?”

She shook her head. “It’s what Mamm, if she were able, would have done.” She started scrubbing again, moving her arms up and down, both hands on the sponge. Maybe the motion opened up the synapses in her brain to her speaking ability. “Klara and I were close when we were little.” She sighed. “We were close when we lived in Indiana, especially after our father died. She was like a surrogate mother because Mamm had to work so hard. Then, when we moved here, it was Klara who looked out for me…”

She said they had a dairy farm in Indiana, but their father wasn’t much of a businessman and mismanaged his profits. “He was a mean man. My memories are of him yelling at or whipping Giselle. She couldn’t do anything to please him.”

I shivered, trying not to picture it.

“Anyway, our father was killed when the hitch on the wagon broke and his horses dragged him to death.” The family lost the farm after that, and Mammi decided they should move to Lancaster County, to live with her much older brother who was a widower. He needed someone to look after him; they needed a home to live in. The arrangement worked well for few years—until he died.

“So, you can see, we had to take care of each other,” Marta said. “Klara was a good big sister to me.”

“And what about Giselle?”

Marta stopped scrubbing for a moment and then started again, with more vigor. “At one time,” she said, “Klara and Giselle were the best of friends.”

I let that sink in for a moment and then asked where she thought Klara got the money for Marta’s bail.

“I have no idea,” she answered. “It’s not my business.”

My guess was that it was from the sale of Amielbach, but maybe Klara and Alexander had saved that much over the years.

“Did the house that Klara lives in belong to your uncle?”

“It belonged to his deceased wife’s family,” she answered. “Mamm rented it for a few years and then bought it.”

That would explain why she sold the property in Switzerland. But surely it was worth far more than a farm in Lancaster County.

Marta dropped the sponge into the bucket. “I need to go check on Zed’s homework and start dinner,” she said. “I hope I’ve given you enough information to satisfy your curiosity.” With that she picked up the bucket and hurried through the door.

I shook my head. I had a feeling she had given me the information on purpose. Nothing Marta did was by accident.

The night in jail seemed to have been a wake-up call to Marta. She was much more attentive to her children, hovering over Zed’s homework and grilling Ella about her plans for the weekend. She heated the casserole Alice dropped by the day before and made a salad from a bag of vegetables from a church family. I wondered if, as she worked, she thought what life might be like for her children if she was found guilty and sentenced.

It wasn’t until after dinner that Marta finally went upstairs and I had a chance to ask Zed if he’d had another email from the man in Switzerland. He hadn’t. I decided to go to the coffee shop and check my email and the adoption registry. As I drove, I had the urge to call James and tell him about Ada, but he was away at the group home retreat. When I pulled into the parking lot and turned off the car, I sent Sean a text, asking what he was up to.

He immediately replied. Getting off work in half an hour. Want to meet at the hospital?

We figured out the details through a couple more texts, and then I logged onto my computer while still sitting in my borrowed Datsun, not bothering to go inside the coffee shop at all. There was still nothing on the adoption registry. I closed my laptop, discouraged.

A half hour later, on the dot, Sean walked out to the hospital parking lot, and I rolled down the window of my car.

“I hope this isn’t too forward,” he said, bending down as he talked, “but want to come out to my house? I have a slow cooker full of pulled pork and was going to make a sandwich.”

I didn’t bother to tell him I’d already had dinner. “Sounds fine,” I said. “I’ll follow you.”

He headed northeast out of town, a direction I hadn’t been yet. On the outskirts of the city, he turned off the main road. I realized he could be taking me anywhere and then smiled. My intuition was pretty good. Sean Benson wasn’t a serial killer posing as a doctor. He pulled into a driveway and I followed, easing alongside a row of thick, neatly pruned shrubs that divided his property from the house next door. I parked behind him, climbed from the car, and paused to take a quick look around. His yard was immaculate, illuminated by ground lights. The grass was thick and edged, the flower beds filled with tulips. The house itself wasn’t huge, but it was by no means small.

He smiled and led the way up a brick path to the front door. “I bought this place two years ago.” He turned his key in the lock and pushed the door open. “But it looks like I’m going to have to sell it now.”

“You got the job?” I practically stumbled over the stoop into an entryway as I spoke.

He caught my elbow, laughing. “I got the job—at least that’s what the HR person on the phone told me today. I haven’t seen the contract yet.” He took my coat and turned toward the closet. The space was illuminated by dim overhead light.

“When do you start?”

“June first.”

I’d be more than settled in Philadelphia by then. In fact, at that point I’d only have three months left until I would be heading back to Oregon. But Baltimore was only a couple of hours from Philly. I imagined coordinating our days off and meeting in New York. Maybe even Boston. Maybe he would take me up to meet his folks…

He flicked on a switch as we stepped into a large living room. Taupe leather furniture—a sectional and easy chair—sat atop a white rug that graced a hardwood floor. The ceilings were high and boxed and an open staircase led to the second floor.

“What a great house,” I said.

“Thanks. The kitchen’s this way.”

I followed him through a formal dining room with a modern high table and six chairs and then through a swinging door into the kitchen. It had totally been updated with granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances.

“Did it come this way?” I stood in the middle of the kitchen, turning slowly.

Sean shook his head. “I hired a decorator. She did a great job, huh?”

I nodded. He gave his attention to a black slow cooker in the corner on the other side of the double stove. The pork smelled delicious.

I glanced around the kitchen again. There was no clutter. And there hadn’t been in the living room or dining room either. There were no stacks of books. No papers. No magazines. No projects.

Plus he could cook.

“Want a tour before we eat?”

I nodded, feeling as if I couldn’t speak, wondering just how much money Sean Benson made a year.

Off the kitchen was his office. He explained that it had been a sleeping porch but he’d had it enclosed. The room was as big as my living room and dining room combined, and housed a sprawling desk with computer, a wall of bookcases, and an entertainment cabinet. He didn’t open it but I guessed there was a big-screen TV and stereo system inside.

He flicked a switch, opened a sliding door, and stepped onto a patio. I followed. The backyard was illuminated too and covered with rose bushes. They weren’t blooming yet—some were hardly leafed out—but I could imagine the beauty of the blossoms and the scent in the late spring and summer.

“My mother thought roses a waste of time,” Sean said. “When I was little, I vowed to have a garden of them when I was grown.”

“Did you put all of this in?” I asked, impressed.

“I hired someone to do the work.”

Of course he did. It would have taken months and months otherwise.

“I’ll take a few with me,” he said. “But I’ll most likely get an apartment or a condo in Baltimore. C’est la vie.” He smiled but there was sorrow in his eyes.

“When will you put your place on the market?” I asked, thinking about Dad’s property back home.

“Today.” He stepped back into his office.

“That soon?” I laughed. There was nothing passive about Dr. Benson.

“They’re putting up the sign tomorrow.”

He showed me the downstairs bath and a small guestroom down the hall and then we ended up back in the kitchen. He didn’t say anything about not showing me the upstairs and I didn’t ask. I imagined a huge master suite with a Jacuzzi tub, like something I’d see on HGTV.

He had coleslaw and chips to go with the sandwiches, and in no time we were sitting in a little nook off the kitchen, eating as Sean talked about the ins and outs of restoring an old house. I thought, although the new job sounded really cool, that it was a shame he had to sell his first home and said so.

He shrugged. “I knew I wouldn’t be here long.”

“Still,” I said. “It has to be hard.” I could so easily imagine living in this house. It was clean and comfortable and seemed easy to manage. Everything I wanted in a home. In a life, to be honest.

“Oh, well,” he said. “There’s no reason to get too attached to things. I won’t live in Baltimore long either. I’m not planning on putting roots down until I know where I want to settle for good.”

I admired his confidence—a lot.

“How about you?” he said. “After Philadelphia, where do you want to go?”

Even though I knew I planned to go back to Oregon, I said, “I’m not sure.”

“How about med school? At Johns Hopkins.” His eyes were lively. “I could write you a recommendation.”

“Med school? Why would I—” my phone beeped and I glanced at the screen—“do that?” It was Marta. I had a client in labor.

“Because you would make a great OB doc.”

“How do you know?” I texted Marta back as I spoke, saying I was on my way.

“I can tell,” he said.

“Well, right now I have a baby to deliver. Sorry to eat and run.” I stood.

“See, working in a hospital would be easier. You’d be scheduled to work or you would be off—you wouldn’t be at the mercy of nature.”

“I’m rather fond of nature,” I joked, following him into the dining room. We were silent through the dining room and living room.

“Hey,” he said, retrieving my coat in the entryway and then holding it for me to slip into. “Text me when you’re safely done, okay? Even if it’s the middle of the night. I’ll worry otherwise.”

Touched I reached for his hand and squeezed it. For a moment I wanted him to kiss me, but then I waffled and stepped back quickly. “Sorry to rush off.”

“Thanks for coming,” he said, opening the door. “Let’s try it again. I’ll fix a real meal. And perhaps you’ll be able to stay for the whole thing.” He smiled, but I could tell he was tired. I nodded and hurried to my car. The light rain had turned cold.