The girl’s face slowly relaxed and her mother stopped massaging her back. “They are closer together now,” the mother said.
Sarah pointed to the girl in the bed. The girl wore a fleecy cream nightgown that seemed to swallow her up in its folds. “This is Mary, and this is her mamm, Eva.”
Mary, still panting from the last contraction, managed a smile. “Denki for coming, Lia.”
An assortment of towels and blankets was draped over a chair, and another empty chair at the foot of the bed waited for Sarah.
Sarah stood at the side of the bed opposite Eva and rubbed her hand up and down Mary’s arm. “The baby is posterior,” she told Lia.
Lia nodded. She had read that section at least three times.
“So, we put her on her side to see if the baby won’t turn before delivery,” Sarah said.
“Will he be okay?” Mary asked.
“Jah, do not worry yourself one bit. They come out a might bit easier when they are facedown, so I like to see if they will turn. But he’ll come out fine either way.”
Mary began panting furiously. “Another one is coming.”
Her mother dug her fists into Mary’s back as Mary groaned.
“Remember your breathing,” Sarah said. “Think of it as the path through the contraction. Follow that path until the pain fades.”
Mary immediately relaxed her shoulders and slowed down her breathing. Sarah pulled the covers up to the bottom of Mary’s abdomen and gently lifted her nightgown. She put the stethoscope that hung around her neck to her ears and touched the listening end on Mary’s stomach. “The heartbeat is strong. You’re doing well.”
Sarah directed Lia to warm up two receiving blankets by putting them into a specially shaped pan with tiny holes in the bottom on the cookstove over another pan that contained boiling water. The blankets were steamy warm in less than half an hour.
Even though it was warm inside the cabin, Lia kept the fire in the stove burning with the blanket warmer and two additional pans of boiling water on the surface. She opened the windows in the cabin to keep the fresh air circulating and took turns rubbing Mary’s back.
After an hour, Sarah checked Mary’s progress. “The head is an inch away. You might have this baby by dinnertime, Lord willing.”
“Is it turned?” Mary asked.
“Still faceup. Even if he turns, the baby will have a cone-shaped head from being squeezed into the birth canal that long. But don’t be alarmed. The baby’s head will turn out nice and round in a day or two.”
Lia loved Sarah’s no-nonsense way of reporting the facts without causing Mary anxiety or concern. Sarah’s talent of making things sound routine and matter-of-fact surely comforted worried mothers. Mary knew exactly what to expect without thinking anything was dire or out of the ordinary. Could Lia ever develop that sort of calm in serious situations?
After another hour of endless waiting and helping Mary get through her contractions, everything seemed to happen at once.
“I’ve got to push!” Mary moaned.
Sarah slid her quickly into position to the foot of the bed. “Lia, hold her leg like this.”
Lia saw a little crown of dark hair as Mary pushed with all her might. Seven agonizing contractions, seven gut-splitting pushes, and the baby seemed to leap from his mother’s womb.
“It’s a boy!” Sarah announced as Mary sighed in blessed relief.
The baby screamed as if his feelings had been hurt beyond repair. His dark hair was matted with moisture and he did indeed appear with a cone head, but he also had a chubby round face and perfectly formed fingers. Tears sprang to Lia’s eyes. There was nothing sweeter than a newborn buplie.
She took a towel from the back of the chair and quickly rubbed the moisture from the wailing baby as Sarah tied a piece of twine around the cord and cut it. Lia retrieved one of the warm blankets from the cookstove, took the baby from Sarah, and laid him on his mother’s chest. As soon as she covered his little body with the warm blanket, he cuddled up against his mother and fell asleep.
“Oh, look at him,” Lia cooed. “He is the most beautiful thing in the whole world.”
Mary moved her arms around his tiny body. “Is he all right? He’s not crying. Is he okay?”
Lia tried to copy Sarah’s calm reassurances. “He is wonderful gute. He’s had a long trip, and he is just happy to fall asleep in his mama’s arms.”
Mary rubbed her finger up and down the baby’s cheek. “Luke Matthew,” she said.
“Only a little tearing,” Sarah said as she opened a sterile plastic bag and took out a special needle and thread.
Mary and Eva fussed over the baby while Lia helped Sarah clean up. Sarah periodically checked Mary and the baby while Lia gathered laundry and wiped down the floor.
“I will give the baby a sponge bath,” Sarah said, “while Lia changes the sheets. Once we’re all cleaned up, the new papa can come see his baby.”
Mary moved to a chair while Lia changed her bedclothes and then helped her change into a clean nightgown. Mary returned to bed, and Sarah placed baby Luke, swaddled tightly, in his mother’s arms. Lia’s heart swelled to fill the cabin.
Although Mary had dark circles under her eyes and looked too exhausted to raise her head, she didn’t stop smiling as she tucked her finger into Luke’s tiny fist. “Could we fetch Matthew now?”
“I’ll go,” said Eva. “He’s been outside all morning, like as not hoeing the garden to pieces so’s there ain’t one clod of dirt.”
Eva soon returned with a fresh-faced young man who didn’t look any older than Mary. He had a husky build with a good attempt at a beard growing from his chin. He took one look at his wife and rushed to her side. “Mary, I was praying the whole time.”
Sarah nudged Lia’s elbow and led her outside. “Always gute to let them have some time alone, if you can.” She pulled a small round watch from her pocket and studied it. “Just the time I expected. You did well today. I could tell you was nervous, but you kept your head. That’s the most important thing. The mothers mustn’t be frightened more than they already are.”
“Sarah, you are a wonderful-gute midwife. No mother would fear anything with you there.”
Sarah waved off the compliment. “I don’t get ruffled hardly. My kids’ll tell you that much. When Joe cut his finger clean off last fall, I packed his whole hand in ice and put his finger in a cooler and took him to the hospital. No use to panic. Panic only causes mistakes. And Joe would have been a whole sight more afraid if I was afraid. They sewed his finger back on, no harm done.”
Sarah pulled out her watch again as they saw Moses’s buggy bounce up the dirt road. “Ten minutes late.” She folded her arms. “Arlene Bontrager might deliver in two weeks. I’ll send for you.”
Lia felt as if she could float with the clouds. “Thank you, Sarah. I would be so thrilled.”
“Read the rest of that book. You still have much to learn.” She waved and moved toward the cabin. “I’ll let you cut the cord next time and listen to the heartbeat.”
“Do you want me to help you finish cleaning up?”
“Nae, not much left and you don’t want to keep Moses waiting. He’s spent enough of his day driving you places.” Sarah furrowed her brow. “Ask Mammi if I can come by on Saturday at dinnertime. Twelve thirty. I’ll bring sandwiches. And make sure that girl is away so we can talk about her.”
“That girl? You mean my sister?”
“Jah, that one. Can you arrange it?”
Lia stifled a smile at Sarah’s plain-spokenness. “I will do my best.”
Sarah pinned Lia with a stern eye. “It’s no use me coming all the way out there if that girl is to home. Make sure she ain’t.”
“I will.”
The cabin door gave an ear-piercing groan as Sarah opened it. “And tell Moses he owes me a visit. The boys have been asking for him.”
Lia stood at the front of the cabin waiting for Moses. His pounding heart rushed way out ahead of the buggy. Af
ter the morning spent with Rachel, he was astonished at how eager he felt to see Lia.
Her smile could have melted the ice on White Clay Lake in the dead of winter. Her cheeks glowed, and her brown eyes seemed to possess their own fire. Moses’s chest ached with the desire to see her this happy every day. She deserved to be happy.
He motioned for her to come, and she darted around the horse and hopped into the buggy. “Do you need to water the horse?” she said.
“Nae. We stopped a mile back. I thought I might be early. How did it go?”
Lia put her palm to her cheek. “Am I flushed? I feel flushed.”
Moses tore his gaze away from her to turn the horse. “You are glowing.”
She picked up her book that sat on the seat between them and clutched it to her chest. “It was a miracle, Moses. I felt confident enough to be a help to Sarah. And she said I was.”
Her excitement only succeeded in lending heightened color to her cheeks and brightness to her eyes. Moses couldn’t look away. “Well, Sarah doesn’t sugarcoat her praise, you can be sure of that.”
“Are we taking a different way home?”
Moses snapped his head around. In his distraction he’d barely noticed the reins, and the horse had taken it upon himself to trot down a side path that led deeper into the woods. “Oops, I wasn’t paying attention.” The woods grew thicker the farther they went. “I don’t see a place to turn around.”
“There is bound to be a wide spot sooner or later.”
Moses scanned the muddy lane ahead. “Either that or we will end up in Canada.”
“I hear Canada is lovely this time of year.”
“Okay, we will keep going while you tell me about your morning.”
Lia blushed and looked away. “You don’t have to hear my stories.”
“You’re my prisoner until you decide to get out of this buggy and walk. You might as well talk.”
She grinned, and Moses caught a glimpse of those white teeth. “Mary was very brave. My book says some mothers scream and holler and call the midwife all sorts of names.”
“It must be unbearable pain.”
“After seeing it, I can imagine it would be.”
“I don’t know them,” Moses said. “Are they Swartzentruber?”
“Jah.”
The Swartzentruber sect had broken off from the Old Order Amish almost a hundred years ago. Their lifestyle was primitive with no indoor plumbing, more conservative dress, and stricter rules for traveling. Most Swartzentrubers kept to themselves, but some made no bones about their contempt for less conservative Amish. Because of the strictness of their church, their youth tended to be extremely wild during rumschpringe. Or at least that was Moses’s observation. He didn’t know many Swartzentruber.
“The cabin was cozy, but they live so far from anyone,” Lia said. “I would miss not having neighbors.”
Moses trained his eyes out the front window. “We seem to be curving west. I don’t know that this path leads anywhere. It probably goes for another three miles and ends at a tall, thick pine in the middle of the road. I might have to get out and walk Sammy backward.”
Moses stopped the buggy where a stream crossed the overgrown path. “I think this is the stream I saw from the road coming in. I’ll have a look around while Sammy gets a sip of water.”
He jumped out of the buggy and Lia followed. Trees grew thick on either side of the narrow path. Birds and crickets and a thousand other creatures filled the woods with sound, a hum of life that Moses found comforting.
Moses hiked farther down the path to see if it promised to lead them home. No sign of a better road or even a place to turn around. He turned back.
Lia had taken the blanket out of his buggy and spread it on the ground next to the stream. She held out a brown paper sack. “I forgot that I brought my dinner and left it in your buggy. Do you want to share? It’s a nice spot for a picnic.”
“What did you bring?”
“Peanut butter and honey sandwich, apple, Anna’s ginger snaps.”
“Milk?” Moses asked. Couldn’t eat Mammi’s ginger snaps without soaking them first.
“No milk.”
Moses couldn’t suppress a smile. Lia looked so pretty standing there in the filtered sunlight of midday. “We might have to save the sandwich to leave a trail of bread crumbs in case we are lost for weeks in the wilderness.”
Lia laughed and sat down on the blanket. “I have a gute sense of direction. We won’t get lost.”
Sharing a meal with Lia without being pestered by her little sister was too tempting an offer to pass up. Lia didn’t expect a proposal. She didn’t even want a proposal.
Moses felt a catch in his breath. That thought didn’t make him happy today.
She gazed at him and cocked an eyebrow. “Annoyed?”
Moses wiped the frown from his face. He would have to stop betraying that particular emotion.
“Annoyed that I can’t find a way out of the woods.”
He sat next to her, and she handed him half the sandwich. “You’ll think better on a full stomach.”
“I feel bad eating half your lunch. It could be days before we eat again.”
Lia giggled. “If this is my last meal, I’m going to enjoy it.” She took a big bite of her sandwich.
“Delicious,” Moses said. “You are a very gute cook.”
Lia leaned back on her hand. “Even though we’re lost, I’m so happy. I have you to thank for a wonderful-gute day.”
“Don’t look at me. Sarah wouldn’t have agreed to it if she didn’t like you. I knew she would.” Moses couldn’t imagine anyone not liking Lia at first meeting.
Her piercing gaze made his heart do a little jig beneath his rib cage. “Do you have a pocketknife?” she said. “I will slice this apple.”
Moses handed her his knife. Warmth spread up his arm when her skin touched his. He squeezed his fingers into a fist. What a childish, teenage reaction!
Lia cut a wedge out of the apple and handed it to him. “Did you take Rachel back to Huckleberry Hill?”
Moses cringed. He didn’t want to talk about Rachel. He might say something he regretted right in front of her sister.
Lia studied his face. “Would you rather I not ask how things are going with Rachel?”
“Things are not going with Rachel.”
She lowered her eyes and concentrated on slicing the apple. “If you want a chance with her, make her believe she is chasing you. She likes that.”
Her words stung more than Moses cared to admit. “Are you saying you want me to court her?”
Lia would not meet his eyes. “Dat said it is my responsibility.”
“To marry me off to Rachel?”
“Anna and Felty want you to marry her.”
Moses wanted to protest, but after Mammi had insisted that Rachel come along today, he wasn’t so sure. He took the apple from Lia’s hand and laid it on the blanket. Then he placed both hands on Lia’s arms. She opened wide her eyes and pressed her lips together. He had her attention. “Lia, you have always been honest with me. Do you want me to marry Rachel?”
“If you want to marry Rachel, I won’t interfere.”
“That’s not what I asked. Do you want me to marry Rachel?”
She picked up one of Mammi’s ginger snaps and rolled it in her open hand like a pebble. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“Apparently it doesn’t matter what I want either. And why won’t you answer my question?”
“Before I do, you must be honest with me. Do you want to marry Rachel?”
Moses took off his hat and shoved his fingers through his hair. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I have no interest in your sister.”
Lia sighed as if she had been holding her breath for an hour. “Really?”
“I told her so this morning.”
“What did she say?”
Moses growled under his breath. “She didn’t believe me.”
Lia’s face ex
ploded into a grin and she laughed—deep, throaty laughs that soon produced tears.
In puzzled amusement, Moses watched her until she calmed down enough to speak. “Rachel has never been rejected in her life. She thought you were teasing.”
“Are you angry that I don’t want to marry her?”
Lia wiped her eyes and let out a leftover giggle. “No. Of course not.”
Moses thought that he had never heard better news in his life.
She knit her brows together. “But I am surprised. Rachel is pretty. I was certain you would be interested.”
Moses shook his head. “Jah, she is pretty. But do you think I am that foolish, to want a pretty wife and nothing else? The Lord doesn’t see as man sees. He looks on the heart.”
“Dat quotes that scripture often. It is his way of reminding me that since I am plain, I had better be nice.”
Moses felt the indignation rise up in him like a boiling saucepan of jelly. “You’re not plain.”
“Rachel is the pretty one.”
This time Moses took her hand and squeezed it so she would understand how wrong she was. He ignored the sensation of warmth pulsing through his veins. She lowered her eyes and stared at his fingers intertwined with hers. “Lia, you are like one of the angels of heaven the way you take care of my grandparents. I am very grateful. But don’t believe for one minute that you are not pretty.”
She started to protest, but he cut her off. “Prettier than Rachel.”
“You are just being silly now.”
“Nae,” Moses protested. “I’ve been places with you. I see how boys stare at you, wishing they were taller or wishing they knew who you were. You are lovely, and I won’t let go of your hand until you admit it.”
He shouldn’t have made such a threat. The sensation of her hand in his traveled up his arm and tingled at his lips. He couldn’t muster any rational thought as the desire to kiss her ambushed him and made his head spin.
Her irresistible lips curled slightly. “You’ll never make me believe it, even if you hold my hand until it falls off.”
Huckleberry Hill Page 11
