The Amish Midwife

TWENTY-EIGHT


Ada and I sat in the parking garage, the motor running, me incapable of putting the car into reverse.

“Mamm must be your mother too,” she said.

“Klara? If so, then why would she give me up? Why list Giselle as my mother in the family Bible?”

Ada turned toward me, tucking her feet up on the seat. “You were conceived before my parents were married, right?”

“That’s what the dates in the Bible spell out.”

“So, you know.” She grinned sheepishly. “They were embarrassed.”

Embarrassed, perhaps, but enough to get rid of a baby? It seemed to me that just wasn’t done in the Amish community. I thought of Peggy keeping her oldest daughter and then marrying someone else. I thought of the handful of Marta’s patients I had seen in the last month who were several months further into their pregnancies than they were into their marriages. They weren’t proud of it, of course, but they didn’t seem all that ashamed of it either. Overall, I had received the impression that the Amish didn’t make a big deal out of it as long as the couple confessed and repented and, in most cases, went ahead and got married.

But maybe I was different. Maybe I cried a lot and was a pain to take care of. Was that why Klara had given me up?

I shook my head. I was back in fantasyland. No one gave a baby up because she cried too much. No, I had a strong feeling the truth was the opposite of the conclusion Ada had drawn. She thought this meant my mother was Klara, but I felt sure it meant that her mother was Giselle. I tried suggesting that to her, as tactfully as possible.

“That’s ridiculous. My parents were married for two years before I was even born.” She just wasn’t getting it.

I sighed. Did I have to spell it out to her? “What if your dad had a thing for Giselle?”

Ada shook her head. “He adores Mamm. He always has.”

I bit my tongue to keep from saying it seemed to me that, more than anything, he was afraid of Klara. But Ada was entitled to see things as she wanted. With an effort I managed to back out of my parking place and circle down to the street. “Whatever the real truth is, someone is lying to us.”

Ada nodded. “But I’m sure there’s a good reason.”

I didn’t respond. Maybe Sean had been right all along about Amish women being brainwashed. Ada seemed to curl up into herself as I silently drove. Finally, as I turned off the main highway onto the country road, she said, “I’ve always felt that Mamm and Daed were keeping something from me, but I thought it was about my illness, that it was more serious than they said.” She paused a moment and then kept talking. “And there’s been a lot of tension between them since, actually since before you came around the first time. Marta stopped by a few weeks before you did. They argued that night.”

I slowed as I drove, not wanting to reach the farm. Ada began to shiver and I turned up the heat.

“I always wanted a sister,” she said. “I used to pray for one every night.”

“Me too,” I whispered.

She touched my fingers on the steering wheel and then her hand fell back into her lap as I turned down the lane. I wasn’t going to make her walk. She wasn’t strong enough. And I needed to face my fears.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“Confront Klara,” I answered.

“No,” Ada said. “I’ll talk to her. She’ll tell me, I promise.”

As I parked the car, Alexander hurried across the field toward us and Ada opened the passenger door. “I’ll call you tonight and let you know how things go,” she said. She took a step away but then she started to fall, in a gentle swoon. For a moment I wasn’t sure what was happening, but then her head thudded against the open car door.

“Ada!”

I was aware of Alexander running toward us as I tore around the side of the car, rolling Ada onto her side. She was unconscious. My hands flew to her carotid. She was breathing.

“Ada!” Blood oozed from the side of her head. “Ada,” I said again.

She still didn’t respond. I dug my cell from my pocket and called 911 as I rolled her to her back. She could have a head injury or a neck injury. And her blood count could be dangerously low. That could be why she’d fainted in the first place.

Before I hung up the phone, Alexander was on his knees beside her, wanting to carry her inside. “No,” I instructed. “Get a pile of blankets. And tell Klara what happened.”

“I’ll stay with Mammi,” I said as Klara crawled into the back of the ambulance.

“You should go. You know what questions to ask,” Alexander replied.

I shook my head and told him to use Ada’s cell phone. “Call me. I’ll talk to the doctors if you need me to. I’m in her contacts under L.”

From inside the back of the ambulance, Klara fished out Ada’s cell phone from her pocket and handed it to her husband. Alexander took it from her, still looking ambivalent.

“You’re her father. You need to be with her,” I insisted, a lump rising in my throat.

He nodded, sliding the phone into his own pocket as one of the EMTs directed him to sit up front.

“Thank you.” I wasn’t sure if Alexander was talking to the EMT or me.

I watched as the ambulance pulled away and then hurried to the daadi haus. As I walked in, Mammi said, “Ada, what’s going on? I heard sirens.”

“It’s me. Lex—Alexandra,” I said, stepping in front of her.

“Alexandra? What’s happened?” She was much more lucid than when I’d seen her before.

I explained that Ada had fallen and Klara and Alexander were going with her to the hospital.

Mammi began to cry and said, “Oh, dear, oh dear,” over and over again.

“She’ll be all right,” I said, hoping I was telling the truth.

“Why were you here when Ada fell?” Mammi asked, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue I handed her.

I hesitated but then decided I had nothing to lose. “I took Ada to the hospital. We had a test done… to see how we’re related.”

Mammi’s eyes overflowed with tears.

“There’s no reason to cry,” I said, patting her arm.

“I’m afraid there is.”

I sat down in the chair beside her.

“Alexandra,” she said. Something in her tone made me want to cry too. So much sorrow. So much regret. She looked at me with large, damp eyes.

Now I wanted to curl up on the floor and sob. Instead I smiled at her, hoping to encourage her to keep talking.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I nodded.

“It wasn’t my idea. It was Klara’s. Well, Giselle’s, since Klara wouldn’t take you too.” She began to cry again.

“Mammi.” I hoped my voice was gentle even though I felt anything but. What was she telling me?

“I felt guilty from the start. That’s why I wanted you to have the box and the letter. I wanted you to know where you came from. I wanted you to come back some day.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I have the box. Where is Giselle now?”

“She wanted to go to Amielbach, but I had to sell it.”

“Did she go to Switzerland anyway?”

“Yes, but I haven’t heard from her for years. She may not even be there anymore.”

Mammi began to moan about how much she missed her little girl, despite the fact that Giselle would be forty-five by now, no longer a little girl by anyone’s definition.

Afraid that Mammi might need some of her medication, I got up and searched for the pillbox, which I found in the kitchen on the windowsill. There was only one tranquilizer for each day for the rest of the week, and something new as well: an antidepressant. I was pleased, as it looked as though Ada had passed on my advice. She probably hadn’t been on them long enough to experience the full effect yet, but she was already more coherent. Soon the depression would begin to lift as well. I could understand that Klara wouldn’t want to listen to Mammi’s laments all day long, but maybe in time a balance could be found between keeping the hysteria and grief at bay and being able to enjoy the world around her.

Returning to the main room, I gave her today’s dose with a glass of water and sat down as she swallowed the pills.

“Tell me what my mother was like when she was young,” I said, trying to distract Mammi from her tears. “Was she pretty?”

Mammi sniffled, nodding.

“Prettiest girl in Lancaster County. You would think that would be a blessing, but…” She shook her head as her voice trailed off, and I waited silently, willing her to continue. “Once my brother died, we were having trouble making ends meet,” she finally went on, “so Giselle took a job over at the nursery, in the greenhouses. She liked the work itself, but her beauty turned out to be such a distraction to the others—many men were employed there, you know—that they finally had to move her into the main office instead. I thought things would be better after that, because only women worked in there.” She barked out a noise that sounded like a sob mixed with a laugh. “I forgot about the one exception. Little did I know that by moving from the greenhouse to the office, my baby had gone from the frying pan into the fire.”

I sat back, apprehension rippling through my stomach, wondering where Mammi was going with this.

“Giselle’s boss,” she explained, waiting for me to catch on. “The head of the company.”

“Burke Bauer,” I whispered, and Mammi nodded.

“It is no great mystery to see how they must have…how it all came to be. After having been surrounded by overeager boys for so long, Giselle would have been relieved to find herself in the company of a man, of someone far more mature, especially a successful authority figure that everyone seemed to respect. Once that man admitted to Giselle that he had fallen in love with her, the fact that he just happened to be married was beside the point as far as she was concerned. I am so ashamed for my daughter, but what can I say? She was a child on rumschpringe, so naive, so self-oriented. So ready to sew her wild oats, regardless of the consequences.”

I thought about her choice of words, wondering if that’s all I had been: a consequence.

“Bauer was indeed handsome,” Mammi said, dabbing at her eyes. “And also rich and generous and charming. But I never understood the hold he had over Giselle. He was like a drug to her.”

“Do you think she really loved him?”

“Oh yes. Desperately so.”

“So Giselle and Burke had an affair,” I said flatly, wishing she would get to the point, wondering where Alexander fit into this story. The same man had fathered Ada and I both. But which man? Burke Bauer, as Mammi believed? Or Alexander, the one I was named for, the one I wanted it to be, the one who had said of Ada, With everything I am, I am her father.

My heart sinking, I knew now that he had been speaking figuratively. He was her father in exactly the same way that Dad was my father. With everything he was. Except his blood.

“Of course, I knew nothing of this at the time,” Mammi continued. “No one did. They were very careful, very discreet. Later, there were rumors, of course, that Giselle was involved with someone older, someone who was married. But even her sisters did not know who it was, or even if it was true. The only one who was fully aware of their relationship was Alexander. And that was all thanks to me.” Mammi’s eyes suddenly filled with fresh tears.

“What do you mean?”

At my question, Mammi seemed startled, as if she had just remembered who she was talking to or what she was saying. She put a hand to her mouth as more tears began to course down her cheeks.

“Oh, Alexandra, I have already said too much,” she wailed. “Do not ask me anymore. If I had not…it is just that…really, everything was my fault, all my fault.”

At that, she began to sob in earnest.

I wanted to press her to continue regardless, but she was growing more hysterical by the minute. Finally, I had no choice but to drop it, soothing her with comforting tones and rubbing her arm until she calmed down enough to fall asleep.

An hour later, my phone rang and Ada’s name popped up on the screen. It was Alexander. “She’s conscious,” he said. “They’re doing tests to see if she has a brain injury. And they’ve already given her a transfusion. Her count was low again.”

He went on to say that Klara had left a message at the Gundys’, and Alice had called back, saying she would be over shortly. She would give Mammi her supper and spend the night; I was free to go. I asked if he wanted me to come to the hospital and he declined, saying it was kind of me to offer but they were fine. I could only imagine how much Klara didn’t want me there.

I felt icy cold with loneliness as I watched Mammi sleep. I had a sister, but would I be able to have a relationship with her? I had pieces of my past, but would I ever have the whole story?

Alice was all business when she arrived. “When did Frannie eat last?” she asked.

“Lunch, I assume,” I said. It was past seven. “I upset her,” I said, lowering my voice. “I was asking her some questions about the—family.”

Alice didn’t respond as she took a jar of soup out of her basket. “Would you like some?” she asked as she stepped into the kitchen.

I declined, saying I needed to go. I’d heard the Amish were gossipy, but I certainly hadn’t witnessed that. What I wouldn’t give for a good dish on the Lantz family.

As I pulled out onto the highway, hungry, tired, and mad, all my frustration was headed in one direction, the only avenue open to me right now: Marta.