“What is it, Anna?”
The girl breathed heavily and tried to speak between gulps of air. “Bar-bar says you must come. Right now!”
“Elizabeth?”
Anna nodded. “Her pains started only a few hours ago, but Bar-bar is already worried. She’s afraid to be alone with Elizabeth when the baby comes.”
Jakob stepped back to where he had left the horse and grabbed the bridle. “Both of you, quickly, get on.” He picked up Anna, though she tended toward lanky at thirteen, and lifted her to the horse. Christian saw his father squat slightly with intertwined fingers and knew he was meant to step into the makeshift stirrup and swing himself behind his sister. “Tell Mrs. Zimmerman it’s time.” Jakob slapped the horse’s rump as Anna took the reins.
As the horse began to trot, Christian looked over his shoulder at his father. He had never seen Jakob move as swiftly as he did now in the direction of the cabin.
“I want Elizabeth,” Lisbetli said quite distinctly and adamantly.
“I told you,” Jakob said, “the baby is coming. Elizabeth can’t play with you right now.”
“But I need her,” Lisbetli whined and went limp as a rag doll across his lap.
“She can’t play with you now.” Jakob sighed heavily. He was on the cabin’s small front porch with Anna, Christian, Maria, and Lisbetli. Barbara was inside with Mrs. Zimmerman. Bar-bar was sixteen now, old enough to learn something about birthing. How much longer would it be before she married and started birthing her own children? Several of the families had sons who must have noticed Barbara’s industrious nature. Perhaps one of them would soon show interest.
Christian sat on the bottom step scratching in the dirt with a stick. Jakob never had to remind him to work on his sums, because he was constantly recalculating the number of acres they planted and the expenses that had gone into the effort so far.
Maria stood up. “It’s too hard to do nothing. I’m going to talk to my beets. Call me when the baby gets here.”
Jakob let her stomp off. Her garden patch was within sight of the porch. His eyes moved to Anna, who looked blanched and withered. When the next scream came from inside the cabin, he and Anna flinched at the same time.
“Take Lisbetli and go feed the chickens.” Jakob gently dumped Lisbetli out of his lap and then shoved open the door and went inside.
Mrs. Zimmerman appeared from behind the curtain that separated Jakob and Elizabeth’s bed from the main living space of the cabin. She wiped her hands on a rag and shook her head slightly.
“What is it?” Jakob whispered.
“I don’t think the baby is turned right.” Mrs. Zimmerman kept her voice low. “It will take a long time to birth.”
“Is Elizabeth in danger?” Jakob’s heart pounded at the thought.
“They both are. You know that.”
“You must do something.”
“It is in God’s hands, Jakob.”
“You have been helping to birth babies for years,” Jakob said. “You must know something you can try.”
She shook her head. “I tried to turn a baby once.”
“Then do that.”
“It didn’t help, Jakob, and the poor woman …”
Jakob forced himself to breathe. “Birthing was so easy for Verona. It was always a time of joy. Now this.”
“Elizabeth is quite old to be having a baby for the first time.” Mrs. Zimmerman shook her head again. “You must trust God.”
“I cannot lose Elizabeth.”
“You must trust. It’s up to God.”
Jakob pushed past his old friend and neighbor, past the curtain, past Barbara. Elizabeth lifted her eyes to his and held out one arm. He grasped her hand and fell to his knees at the side of the bed.
“Jakob, the pain! Something’s wrong.”
“Rest.” He gripped her pallid hand in both of his as if in prayer. “Save your strength.”
“I love you, Jakob Byler. I want you to know that before—”
He cut her off. “Before nothing. The baby will turn. The baby will come. We will have many years together.”
She clenched his hand, her fingernails digging into him, and screamed.
A second scream, higher pitched, echoed—coming from behind Jakob. He turned to see Anna’s whitened face.
“Anna, what are you doing here?” Jakob scolded. “I told all of you to go feed the chickens.”
“This is all my fault!” Anna wailed and ran from the scene.
“Go to her, Jakob.” Elizabeth gasped and waited for the height of the pain to pass. “She is such a confused child.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
They heard the cabin door creak open and slam shut.
“Go,” Elizabeth said again. “Mrs. Zimmerman is here, and Barbara. I am not alone.”
“No, I cannot.”
“You must.” Elizabeth untangled her hand from his.
Jakob looked at Mrs. Zimmerman, who only shrugged. Finally, he strode across the cabin and out the door. Fortunately, Anna had not gone far. He found her huddled under the front porch.
He squatted. “Anna, come out of there. I’m too old to crawl under porches.”
At first he heard nothing, and then she scuffled across the dirt and into the light, hanging her tear-streaked, pale face.
“What is wrong, Anna? What is this nonsense about it being your fault?”
“It is. I did not want Elizabeth to come, and then I was so mean to her. And I did not want the new baby. I thought maybe she would leave if she did not have a baby.”
Jakob took a controlled breath. “You are old enough to remember when Maria and Lisbetli were born.”
She nodded.
“And neighbors have had new babies.” Jakob leaned forward and grabbed Anna by the elbows to pull her out and into his embrace. “Sometimes birthing is harder than other times. It’s not anybody’s fault.”
“But I thought such mean things!” Anna buried her face in his chest. “Before … before … I do not want Elizabeth to go away now because of me.”
Jakob stroked her head. “It’s not anybody’s fault. Why would God punish Elizabeth for your thoughts?”
“Is it in God’s hands?”
Jakob hesitated only slightly. “Yes it is.”
“Maam used to say everything was in God’s hands. But if that’s true, why did Maam die? She loved God.”
“You ask deep questions, Anna Byler. Perhaps it is not for us to understand God’s ways.”
Elizabeth screamed again, hideously. Anna gripped her father’s neck. Suddenly she felt to him as small as Lisbetli.
The cabin door opened.
“Daed!” Barbara called.
“I’m here.” Jakob stood so she could see him, pulling Anna to her feet as well.
“Mrs. Zimmerman is trying to turn the baby. It’s awful. I can’t stand it.”
“Stay here with Anna.” Jakob nudged Anna toward Barbara. “Let me go in.”
“I never want to have a baby,” Barbara said.
The shrieking stopped only long enough for Elizabeth to gulp and again gash the air with unearthly vehemence.
Christian took his younger sisters further from the house. He remembered when Lisbetli was born, and it did not sound like this.
And then came the aching silence during which anything could happen. Taking turns kicking a stone, Christian, Maria, and Lisbetli worked a jagged route back toward the cabin. At the porch, Christian caught Barbara’s eye, but she said nothing. The five Byler children huddled on the narrow front steps ascending the porch.
And then the baby cried.
Anna was the first on her feet and pushing the door open. They tumbled into the cabin in a rolling mass, stopping just short of the curtain.
Their father came around the curtain and grinned at them. “It’s a boy!”
“Can I hold him?” Anna, again, was the first.
“In due time,” Jakob said. “Elizabeth has been through an ordeal.”
Jakob r
eturned to Elizabeth and drew a clean damp rag across her face, pausing to cradle one cheek. Mrs. Zimmerman wiped off the baby, wrapped him in a towel, and laid him in Elizabeth’s arms before bundling up bloody rags in a sheet and moving away from the bed. Jakob straightened the bedding then pushed the curtain open to reveal Elizabeth propped up with the baby, swaddled in a small quilt, on her chest.
Anna took the first steps then halted.
“Come on, Anna,” Elizabeth said, “come and meet your baby brother.” She held out one arm.
Anna settled on the bed in the crook of Elizabeth’s arm, and Elizabeth transferred the bundle of red squall to the girl’s grasp.
“What’s his name?” Anna asked.
Elizabeth looked up at her husband. “I’d like to call him Jacob.”
Anna giggled. “It will be fun to have a little Jacobli in the house.”
Christian watched as Anna cooed at the baby and tentatively explored his features with one gentle finger. It wasn’t long before the other girls gathered around the bed as well, all of them anxious to meet their brother. Even Lisbetli climbed up on the bed and touched the baby’s wrinkled wrist.
A boy. A brother.
Christian was used to having sisters—four of them. But a brother. He had been the only son. He was the one who worked beside his father in the fields, who kept the supply lists, who knew the trees that marked the corners of their land.
This new baby was not even Amish, yet he bore their father’s name.
Thirty-Seven
Jamie never interrupted a meeting for anything less than urgent. Annie raised her eyes in question when Jamie slipped quietly into her office.
“Excuse me.” Annie nodded to the group gathered around her conference table.
Jamie whispered into Annie’s ear. “A Ruth Beiler is on the phone, and she says it’s an emergency. I tried to tell her you would return the call later, but she insists. She sounds like she’s been crying.”
“I’ll take it at your desk.” Annie stepped out of her office. She picked up Jamie’s phone and punched the flashing button. “Hello, Ruth?”
“I’m sorry to call,” Ruth said, “but it’s Rufus.”
“What happened?”
“Sophie sent a letter. No one has ever written, so I knew it had to be bad.”
“Ruth, tell me what happened.”
“Rufus was attacked. Three days ago. They took him to the hospital in Cañon City. Sophie said it was awful.”
“We’ll go to Cañon City.” Annie was the one who had to be calm. She knew that. “You and me. Can you get away?”
“I’m not working until day after tomorrow.”
“Good. I’m coming straight over.”
A pall settled on them in the car thirty minutes later.
“Will he even want to see me?” Ruth asked.
Or me? Annie thought. She said, “You should be there.”
“My mother might not think so.”
“I know your mother,” Annie said, “and whatever happened between you, I believe she loves you.”
“That doesn’t mean she’ll be glad to see me. You have to be Amish to understand.” Ruth looked down at her long brown skirt. “She’ll hate what I’m wearing. And Sophie will be in trouble for writing to me.”
“Surely under the circumstances they would all want you to know what happened.”
“You might think so.”
They didn’t speak for a long time after that. Annie followed the directions displayed by the navigation system in her dash. You have to be Amish to understand. The simple sentence tolled in Annie’s head. She was fond of the whole Beiler family and curious about her own family roots. But no, she was not Amish.
Finally, the hospital was in sight. Annie found street parking close to the main entrance.
“You’re coming in, aren’t you?” Ruth asked. “Rufus will want to see you, won’t he?”
Annie shrugged. “Not sure.”
“I need someone.” Ruth pleaded with those violet eyes that were just like Rufus’s. “Please come in.”
They walked through the sliding doors together and stopped at the information desk. Rufus was still listed as a patient on the floor just above them.
“Get off the elevator and turn right.” The woman wearing a pink smock pointed. “There’s a nice waiting room on the wing. They just redecorated.”
When the elevator doors opened on the second floor, Franey Beiler stopped her pacing down the center of the hall. Ruth stared into her mother’s sallow face. Everything in her heaved, and she barely avoided falling into a stagger. Annie hung back a little, moving just far enough to let the doors close behind her.
“You’ve come,” Franey said simply in Pennsylvania Dutch.
Ruth stared at her mother’s crossed arms, aching for them to open. She straightened her skirt and tugged at the sleeves of her pullover shirt as mother and daughter considered each other. She searched for a hint of forgiveness or understanding. Even a simple welcome would give her something to hold on to.
“He will be glad to see you.” Franey’s voice sounded haggard. Ruth wished her mother would reach out and hold her. Then she would know it was all right to reach back. If only she had thought to wear a prayer kapp. At least her hair was braided and pinned up.
Annie moved a little closer. “May I ask what happened?”
Franey pushed out her breath and moved her fingers to her temples. She switched to English. “Somebody hit him from behind then apparently pushed him down a flight of stairs. Tom found him, by God’s grace. We’re not sure how long he was there. Rufus doesn’t remember much. Yesterday they took out his spleen. Several ribs are broken and he has a concussion. He’s resting right now.”
Ruth opened her mouth to speak, but the knot in her throat refused the passage of air. She forced herself to swallow and found her voice. “Mamm, this is so much for you to bear.”
“If I hadn’t asked him to take preserves to town, he might not have been there at all.” Franey’s voice cracked.
“It’s not your fault, Mamm.”
“God’s will,” Franey muttered. She gestured into the waiting room. “It’s comfortable in here. Your father is sitting with Rufus now. We take turns.”
In the waiting room, a little boy in a straw hat looked up from a book. His face split into a grin. Jacob hurtled himself into Ruth’s arms, and she spun him around once. He was so much bigger than the last time she saw him. She soaked up the weight of him straddling her hip, the feel of his limber form fitting against her torso, the smell of his hair under her neck carrying the scent of home.
“I’m happy to see you, too, Annalise,” Jacob said, “but I haven’t seen Ruth in a really long time.”
Annie smiled. “I understand.”
“Did you bring her in your car?”
“Yes I did.”
“Danke.” He nestled his head under Ruth’s chin, knocking his hat off.
Ruth squeezed him and avoided her mother’s glance. If Mamm disapproved of Jacob’s enthusiasm, Ruth did not want to know.
Annie picked up the hat and reached for Jacob. “Why don’t we go look at your book together so your mom and sister can talk?”
Jacob let Annie take him out of Ruth’s arms and set him on the floor. She took his hand and led him to the far end of the waiting room. Ruth watched as they settled into a wide, stuffed chair together. Her cheeks burned, knowing her mother was looking at her. Finally, she turned to Franey.
“It’s good to see you, Mamm,” Ruth said in the easy language of her childhood.
“Dochder,” Franey answered. Daughter.
A simple word that might have reassured Ruth instead stung. She was a daughter who disappointed her mother deeply. Ruth doubted her mother meant anything but that simple truth.
A reminder of the choice she did not make. Could not make.
Franey chose a chair, and Ruth sat beside her. “Elijah Capp has spent many hours here waiting with us for news,” Franey said.
<
br /> Elijah? Here? Another sting.
“He had doubts, too, you know.”
“I do know.” Ruth could hardly get the words out.
“But he was baptized that day.”
Ruth had always supposed Elijah went through with his baptism. Even knowing his doubt and what it would mean that she did not follow, she let him do it. She had sealed both their fates that day.
They retreated into flaccid silence. Ruth sucked back her tears.
“Would you like me to take Jacob home?” Annie approached Ruth and Franey a few minutes later. She was no mother, or even a babysitter, but she could see the boy was getting wiggly.
“The girls are busy with the animals and canning.” Franey rotated her slumped shoulders. “Joel is in the fields. They have no time to look after him.”
“I’ll stay with him.”
Franey tilted her head and considered the offer. “He has some lessons he should be working on.”
“I can do that.”
“I don’t know when I’ll be home.” Franey clutched a used tissue in one hand. “It’s a long way to be going back and forth.”
“Take your time.”
Franey turned to her son. “You mind Annalise.”
Jacob nodded. “They won’t let me see Rufus. At least at home I can see Dolly.”
“Do your chores.”
He nodded again.
“Thank you, Annalise,” Franey said.
“I’d like to see Rufus,” Ruth said.
“I’ll take you now.” Franey stood to lead the way.
Annie caught Ruth’s eyes and hoped her smile spoke reassurance. If Ruth’s nervous state during the drive down was an indication, Rufus was not the most daunting mountain Ruth faced.
At the main doors on the first floor, Annie hesitated and swallowed hard. Her stomach burned. She was leaving the hospital without seeing Rufus for herself. She’d been in enough hospitals to picture what it must be like for Rufus. He was the man so many depended on, and now he was lying in a hospital bed minus a spleen.
This did not have to happen. If Rufus had fought back even a little bit when Karl Kramer had been slashing tires, this might never have happened.
Annie settled Jacob in the backseat and made sure his seat belt was fastened. In the driver’s seat, she adjusted the rearview mirror slightly so she could see him. “Have I ever told you that you have a great name?”
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