The Amish Midwife's Hope

by Barbara Cameron

  The front door opened the minute the van pulled up in front of Hannah’s house. Jacob and Lizzie stood in the doorway.

  “Where’s Mamm?” Jacob asked anxiously. “You said they were both allrecht when you left.”

  “They are,” he reassured him as he walked inside, shut the door, and took off his coat and hat. “Remember I told you they’d be at the hospital for a day or two.”

  His bottom lip quivered. “I wanted you to bring them home.”

  He put his arm around the boy. “I know. And I’m schur she wants to be home right now, too. But she has to stay for a bit. A day or two at least.”

  He realized he hadn’t thought to ask, because he’d been so worried. “But I brought you pictures of your new schweschder.” He pulled out his cellphone and showed Jacob the photos of Hannah holding the boppli. “This is Sarah Ann. Your mudder named her after your grossmudder Sarah.”

  “She’s so little!” Jacob said. “And why is her face so red?”

  “She’s seven pounds, seven ounces,” Samuel said. “You were around that size if I remember correctly. And bopplin just look that way at first.”

  “I think she’s pretty,” Lizzie told them. “We’ll take her if you don’t want her. Won’t we, Daedi?”

  He chuckled. “Ya, but it doesn’t work that way, Lizzie. And Jacob wants his schweschder, don’t you?”

  “Ya.”

  Barbie bustled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “How’s Hannah?”

  “Wunderbaar. We really appreciate your coming over to watch the kinner.”

  “Happy to do it.” She looked at the phone in his hand. “You got pictures?”

  He covered a yawn as he showed them to her.

  “You need a nap.”

  Lizzie giggled. “Daedi never takes a nap.”

  “He’s been up all night with your aenti. He needs a nap,” she said firmly as she gave him a stern look. “You go on upstairs and lie down for a few hours. The kinner and I are going to bake some Christmas cookies.”

  “Yay! Christmas cookies! Go, Daedi. Go take a nap now!” Giggling, Lizzie pushed him toward the stairs.

  “You’ve done enough, Barbie,” he protested. “You need to get back home to your own familye.”

  She shook her head and grinned. “My mann and our kinner are busy with Christmas secrets. I’ve been told to stay over here as long as I’m needed.”

  When he had to fight back another yawn, he gave in. “Allrecht, I’m going.”

  “Barbie? What do you think your kinner are making for you for Christmas?” he heard Lizzie asking as he started up the stairs to the bedrooms.

  “Why, I have no idea at all,” she told her. “What are you making for your dat?”

  He couldn’t hear whatever she said as he reached the second level and headed toward the room Lizzie stayed in when she visited Hannah. Lizzie came rushing in just as he lay down on the bed.

  “Close your eyes,” she ordered.

  “I am. I said I’d take a nap.”

  “Close your eyes now,” she insisted.

  He closed them and heard the closet door open, then a rustling, followed by the door shutting and her footsteps leaving the room. He grinned. Christmas secrets? he wondered for a second before sleep overtook him.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Rebecca climbed into the van and buckled her seat belt. “Hello, Dorothy,” she said to the driver. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You, too. I’m glad to hear that Hannah had her baby safely yesterday. That storm was a whopper.” She pulled out into traffic and focused her attention on the road.

  Rebecca glanced at Samuel. “Thanks for asking me to come along.”

  Samuel nodded. “I know Hannah will want to see you.”

  She turned to the kinner. “Hi, Lizzie. Hi, Jacob. Are you excited about seeing your new schweschder?”

  He nodded. “I made Mamm a card. And Onkel Samuel said we could visit the hospital gift shop and buy her some flowers.”

  She glanced at Samuel. “Did you get any rest?”

  Lizzie giggled. “Barbie made him take a nap.”

  She chuckled. “She’s a force of nature.” But she wondered if he had really been able to sleep. He looked exhausted.

  “We made Christmas cookies while he snoozed. I brought some for Mamm.” Jacob held a plastic container carefully on his lap.

  “She’ll love the card and the cookies. But you know what she’ll like the most?”

  “The cookies?”

  She smiled at him. “Nee. She’ll love seeing you the most.”

  Jacob ducked his head shyly but she saw him grin. They rode along in silence as Christmas music played softly on the car radio. Rebecca wondered if it was her imagination that Samuel was unusually quiet. He just stared out the window and didn’t join in the conversation. Then she frowned as she noticed that his jaw was clenched and his knuckles on the hand lying on the seat between him and Jacob were white.

  He glanced at her and she opened her mouth to ask if he was allrecht, but she was taken aback by how aloof and cool his expression had become. Uneasy, she went back over the conversation they’d had since she got in the van and wondered what was upsetting him.

  “Here we are,” Dorothy announced when she pulled up to the entrance of the hospital. “Feels like the snow’s making every trip take twice as long as usual today.”

  Rebecca unbuckled her seat belt, climbed out, and stood with the kinner while they waited for Samuel to pay Dorothy.

  He turned and frowned at them. “What are you waiting for? Get inside. It’s cold out here.” He handed Dorothy some bills and they discussed what time she’d return to pick them up.

  Rebecca smiled brightly. “Sounds like someone didn’t get enough of a nap. Let’s go inside and get warm.”

  They went ahead and Samuel joined them in the lobby. “Let’s go. Hannah is waiting for us.”

  “But you said we could get her some flowers from the gift shop,” Jacob protested.

  “Right.” He glanced around.

  “Follow me,” Rebecca said. “I’ve visited it.”

  Jacob spent long minutes examining every vase of flowers in the refrigerated case. Finally he chose a ceramic baby bootie filled with pink carnations and roses. He held out a fistful of crumpled dollars to Samuel. “Is this enough?”

  “I can pay for it,” Samuel told him.

  “I want to pay,” Jacob insisted. “I’ve been saving up to buy Mamm something pretty.”

  Rebecca watched Samuel pretend to count the money. “Ya, it’s enough. I’ll go pay for it and join you in the lobby.”

  She could see that what Jacob gave him was far less than what the flowers cost. Samuel had such a sweet heart, she couldn’t help thinking. But clearly something was troubling him.

  When he joined them, he carried the arrangement Jacob wanted in one hand and a vase of white flowers in the other. “I decided I should get Hannah something, too. These allrecht?” he asked Rebecca.

  “They’re perfect,” she told him. “These little flowers are called baby’s breath.”

  “Well, gut,” he said. “Let’s go, then.”

  Was it her imagination that he didn’t meet her eyes?

  They rode up on the elevator. Jacob was wide-eyed.

  “Have you never been on an elevator?” she asked him.

  He shook his head and clutched the plastic container of cookies in his hands. He looked relieved when the doors slid open.

  Hannah smiled when they walked in and held out one arm to hug her sohn, but Rebecca thought she looked tired and wan.

  “This is Sarah Ann,” she said, pulling the edge of the blanket back so that he and Lizzie could see her face.

  “Onkel Samuel showed me the picture he took of her,” he said, touching her hand. “She doesn’t look so red anymore. But she’s so little.”

  “I told him he was about the same size when he was born,” Samuel said as he put both flower arrangements on the bed
side table.

  “Bopplin are always little,” Lizzie said with great authority.

  “And I’m grateful,” Hannah murmured, and Rebecca chuckled.

  Jacob held out the container he carried. “I brought you a card and some Christmas cookies Barbie and Lizzie and I made today. And I paid for those flowers all by myself.”

  “The flowers are very pretty,” she told him. “But I want to see the card. Here, sit on the bed and hold Sarah Ann and I’ll open it.”

  He climbed up on the bed and held out his arms. Rebecca saw Hannah wince as she started to put the boppli into his arms, and she moved quickly beside them. “Let me help.”

  “Danki.”

  Jacob stared at Sarah Ann, awed. Then he looked at his mudder. “Aren’t you gonna open your card?”

  She did so and a sprinkle of glitter fell from the construction paper card. “Oh, Jacob, it’s so pretty. Danki.” She looked at him and started crying.

  “Mamm?” Jacob’s voice wobbled with worry.

  “Sometimes mudders cry when they’re happy,” Rebecca assured him and patted his back.

  “I’m very happy,” Hannah told him. She looked up at Rebecca. “And a little weepy,” she confided quietly.

  “You’ve been through a lot. We shouldn’t stay long. You need rest.”

  “Onkel Samuel, do you want to hold Sarah Ann?” Jacob asked him.

  “Uh, schur,” he said and took the boppli from him.

  “I want to hold her!” Lizzie said.

  “Sit on the chair and you can hold her.”

  He looked so natural holding the boppli, thought Rebecca. He held her comfortably, not at all awkward with her like some men. Well, of course he would. He was a dat, she reminded herself.

  Then he bent down and transferred Sarah Ann to Lizzie’s arms and knelt to keep a steadying hand on her.

  Rebecca felt tears well into her eyes. How precious they looked.

  “Rebecca?”

  She blinked and looked at Hannah, knowing her heart was showing.

  Hannah smiled. “Ya, I am so happy,” she whispered so that only the two of them heard.

  “Time to give Sarah Ann back to her mudder,” Samuel told Lizzie. “You can hold her some more when she comes home.”

  Lizzie sighed. “I love her.”

  “She’s sleeping,” Samuel told Hannah. “Shall I put her in her bed?”

  “Ya, danki.”

  Samuel laid her carefully in her bed and then went to stand at the window and stare out. Something about his posture made Rebecca frown.

  “You didn’t give Mamm your gift,” Jacob reminded her.

  “I brought you a quilt I made for Sarah Ann,” Rebecca said, handing Hannah the bag she carried.

  Hannah took it out and spread it on her lap. “It’s beautiful. Danki.”

  Rebecca folded it up and put it back in the bag. “We should go so you can get some rest. When are they going to let you go home?”

  “Not for another day or two.” She frowned. “Can you talk them into discharging me sooner?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “You need to listen to what the doctor says. It was surgery, after all. But I’ll come visit you again tomorrow if you want me to and see how you’re doing.”

  “Ya, please do. Samuel?”

  Rebecca glanced over to where he stood staring out the window. Brooding, really, she thought.

  “Samuel!” Hannah said again.

  He looked over at her. “What?”

  “Will you come see me tomorrow, too?”

  “Of course.” He glanced at the clock on the wall. “We should go. I told our driver to come back in an hour and a half.”

  They said their goodbyes and walked out of the room. As they rode downstairs in the elevator, she turned to Samuel.

  “Hannah’s doing very well.”

  He frowned and started to say something, but then he looked at the kinner and simply nodded and closed his mouth in a grim smile.

  “I want her to come home now,” Jacob said, and his bottom lip trembled. “I want my daed.”

  Rebecca gathered him in her arms and hugged him. “I know. And she wants to come home. You heard her. But she’ll be home soon. I promise.”

  She looked up at Samuel, and her heart rose in her throat when she saw his frown.

  * * *

  Samuel was finishing his chores the next afternoon when he heard his cellphone ping with an incoming text. He frowned when he read it.

  No need to pick me up. I visited Hannah this morning.

  Is she allrecht? he texted back.

  Fine. Just wanted some company. I have some home visits to make so I won’t join you later.

  He put the phone back on the top of the stall and finished feeding the horses. Maybe it was just as well. But they did need to talk. Soon. He’d tossed and turned all night thinking about what had happened to Hannah. It had brought back memories of the night he’d lost Ruth…

  Hannah looked a little bit better when he visited that evening.

  “I’m so glad you could come,” she told Lizzie as she hugged her. “And Jacob, Sarah Ann told me she’s been waiting all day for you.”

  “Bopplin can’t talk.” But he grinned.

  “She’s so pretty,” Lizzie said as she stood by the bed staring down at the boppli. “So pretty.” She looked up at Hannah. “I asked Daedi if I could hold her again. He said I had to ask you.”

  “Of course,” Hannah said. “Climb up on the bed and I’ll give her to you.” She turned to Jacob. “You don’t mind if she goes first, do you, Jacob?”

  He shook his head. “Nee. Be real careful, though.”

  Lizzie nodded solemnly. “I will.” She climbed up on the bed and smiled when Hannah laid the boppli in her arms. “Hello, Sarah Ann. I’m Lizzie, remember?”

  Jacob hung over the foot of the bed and watched her. Samuel was proud of how patient he was being about waiting his turn.

  “So, Rebecca texted me that she visited you earlier,” he said casually as he took a seat on the chair beside the bed.

  Hannah nodded. “I was having a lot of pain and my blood pressure was up a bit. She came and talked to me and said I shouldn’t be afraid to take the pain medicine when I need it. While she was here, the doctor came and told me I can’t go home tomorrow.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I wanted you to come home,” Jacob said and his mouth trembled.

  “I know.” She stroked his hair. “But Rebecca let me use her cellphone to call your dat. He hopes to be home soon. Your grossmudder is feeling better.”

  “Did you hear that, Lizzie? My daed will be home soon. It’s gonna be the best Christmas ever this year.”

  “Lizzie, it’s time to let Jacob hold his schweschder,” Samuel told her. He rose and walked over to take the boppli from her and waited for Jacob to sit. Then he put Sarah Ann in his arms.

  Samuel took his seat again and smiled when Lizzie climbed into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her. “It seems like just yesterday that you were that little and I was holding you.”

  “Time goes so fast,” Hannah agreed. “And seasons pass so quickly,” she said meaningfully. “I was just thinking that when Rebecca was here earlier.”

  He shot her a warning glance. She just smiled back at him.

  The text from their driver seemed to come all too soon, but the kinner didn’t argue. The boppli was returned to her bed.

  “Perfect timing,” Hannah said dryly. “Everyone disappears when a diaper needs to be changed.”

  Samuel chuckled as the kinner hugged her and said goodbye.

  “Thank Rebecca for me for coming this morning,” Hannah said.

  “I will. I won’t see her until tomorrow.”

  “I know. Gut nacht, Samuel.”

  “Gut nacht. I hope Sarah Ann lets you get some sleep tonight.”

  “Me, too.”

  Samuel glanced at Rebecca’s house as they passed it on the way home. He really needed to talk to her, but he h
ad to take care of the kinner tonight and didn’t want to ask Barbie to watch them. She’d done enough…so he’d wait until tomorrow while they were in schul.

  The night felt longer than usual without seeing Rebecca. He knew he could call her but he was too afraid he’d blurt out how he felt, and that wasn’t fair to do over the phone.

  So he busied himself washing the supper dishes he’d left in the sink so they could visit Hannah. And then there were lunches to pack and baths to oversee and bedtime stories and then a last check of the horses. Thank goodness his neighbor had offered to take care of his horses in the evenings while he was at Hannah’s.

  The next day he was back at his house as soon as the kinner were off to schul. He worked quickly to muck the stalls and feed the horses so he could go see Rebecca.

  The barn door slid open just as he was walking toward it. He stared at Rebecca. “I was coming to see you.”

  “Were you?” She stood there unsmiling.

  “We need to talk.”

  She nodded and preceded him out of the barn and into the house. He shed his coat and hat and, after washing his hands, filled the percolator and set it on the stove.

  When he turned, he saw that she still stood by the door and hadn’t taken off her coat.

  “I know something’s bothering you,” she said. “So why don’t you just say it?”

  He shoved his hands in his hair and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I just can’t do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Watching what Hannah just went through—we could have lost her just like I lost Ruth. I can’t…I can’t go through that again, Rebecca. I can’t. I love you too much.”

  “Oh, so you love me so much you think it’s okay to walk away just in case I might die?” she snapped.

  “It’s too big a risk. You of all people know how much it hurts.”

  “Ya, I know how it hurts. But I know I’m not going to close off my heart again because I might lose the person I love. That hurts, too, Samuel.” She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m sorry you lost Ruth, but it’s skewed everything for you if you think every woman has a problem delivering a boppli safely.”

  She marched over to the stove and turned off the gas flame under the percolator. “Come with me.”

  “Rebecca!”