The Englisch Daughter

by Cindy Woodsmall

  Should he refuse to fight?

  How could he? His brother needed this of him, and he’d agreed to do it.

  Fifteen

  A newborn’s cry pierced Roy’s haze of sleep, stirring a need to get to Simeon. The little guy didn’t cry very much, and it was strange that Jemima hadn’t tended to him already.

  Wait, that wasn’t right. The painful throbbing of his arm jolted him to reality. Simeon wasn’t a newborn anymore. Which meant…Heidi? A wave of relief the size of a pond washed over him. He was home, and Heidi was in the house.

  Then a second wave, the size of an ocean, hit: Jemima.

  He sat up and pushed the quilt back, every part of his body reminding him exactly what had happened. The crash. Staggering home. Jemima learning about Heidi. Doc Grant tending to his injuries.

  So where was Jemima? He paused to pray for her, for them, but it did nothing for the anxiety he felt.

  “Jem?” His voice came out in a hoarse crackle. There was no way she could hear him above Heidi’s cries. How could they help the little girl feel better? She seemed to always be crying. He swung his legs to the side of the bed and stood, feeling as if he were a hundred years old.

  Following the sound of the wailing, he walked to the guest room, his arm and battered body aching more with each step. When he got there, he saw that someone had set up Heidi’s bassinet in the center of the room. But the baby was in his wife’s arms.

  “Ah, zsh…zsh…zsh.” Jemima was standing in front of the window and making long shushing sounds near the infant’s ear. Jemima was such a seasoned pro at this. Heidi was wrapped in the pink swaddle blanket he’d brought to Tiffany’s a few weeks ago. Someone must have found that too. Had Jemima been in Tiffany’s house? Jemima shifted Heidi higher on her shoulder and patted her back.

  He leaned against the doorframe on his good arm. The sight of his beautiful wife holding his child by another woman made him feel sick. He was relieved for Heidi’s sake, but deep sadness mingled with his guilt.

  Did Jemima hate him? Heidi belonged to the woman who’d turned Jemima’s life upside down, yet Jemima was more tender and caring toward the newborn than Heidi’s birth mother had ever been.

  Heidi let out a huge burp and then a sigh as she snuggled against Jemima’s shoulder, finally stopping her cries.

  Jemima released a big breath too. “Now go to sleep, for Pete’s sake.” She turned from the window and noticed Roy. The pain that filled her face made him physically hurt.

  He smiled at her. “Denki.”

  She regarded him for a moment before turning away to face the window again, still patting Heidi’s back. He never imagined seeing that kind of hurt in her eyes. How could he be the cause of that wound in his beloved?

  What could he say? He stood a little straighter. “Jem…this whole situation. It’s not how it looks.”

  She turned just enough to shoot him a look over her shoulder. “My holding this baby isn’t how it looks either.” Her voice was eerily calm. He’d heard this tone before. To anyone else Jemima would appear serene, but Roy knew there was a volcano of feelings boiling below the surface.

  Carolyn’s giggle floated through the air, followed by a happy squeal from Simeon.

  “Are the children okay?” he asked. “Do I need to go down there with them?”

  “Oh?” She turned, fury in her eyes. “So now you think about the children you had with me. Of course they’re safe.” She walked a few more steps away from him. “It’s a school day and about ten in the morning, so Laura isn’t home. I told Carolyn there were two cookies for her if she watched and played nicely with her brothers in the gated play area in the living room. I was planning to come to your room after I got this child to sleep. We need to talk.”

  Roy swallowed the lump in his throat. He’d known this moment was coming. Would she believe him? Could they work past her rage and distrust? Or would her hurt turn to hate, causing her to live out her days detesting him?

  She crossed the room and stood directly in front of him. “Tell me everything.” She sounded threatening, as if she were giving a mean stray dog a final warning to get off the property before she called the authorities or got the shotgun. “Everything.”

  He nodded. “Ya, I will.” Where to start? “Last year after the accident—”

  The sound of buggy wheels on the gravel driveway startled both of them.

  Jemima shifted the now sleeping Heidi to a cradle position and placed her into the crook of Roy’s good arm. “Stay here. I’ll find out who it is.” She pointed at the baby. “No one is to know about her. Understand? I don’t care what has to be said. No one is to know she’s yours. You’ll find a good home for her immediately, and then she’s gone from this house.”

  That statement was completely at odds with the tranquil scene he’d witnessed earlier as she was calming Heidi. He blinked a few times. “Find a good home” was something a person said about a horse or a dog, not a child. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. You’ll let another family raise her. After she’s gone, our home goes back to normal. You owe me and our children that much.” She stepped around him and closed the door behind her as she left.

  Roy looked at the sleeping child in his arms. She pursed her tiny pink lips, occasionally sucking on a phantom bottle. Like every infant, she was pure innocence. Was she not as valuable in God’s eyes as any other child?

  She’s valuable beyond measure.

  The words stole his breath. It was as if God was speaking to Roy just as He had after Laura was born. Roy snuggled Heidi tighter to his chest. No. They didn’t allow strangers even to babysit their children for a few hours. The person had to be very familiar to them, usually with years of known diligence and gentleness. How in the world could he give her up now that she was safe in his arms? He couldn’t.

  Sixteen

  Jemima drove the rig down the road toward home. She’d taken Laura to school by herself, hoping to have a few moments of solitude. Heidi had been in her home two nights, really long, tough nights and one full day. Hurt and rage simmered in Jemima continually, and she was desperate for some type of relief.

  Yesterday around this same time, she’d been upstairs listening as Roy began telling what caused Tiffany to carry his child. But his Daed had arrived, and she’d had to hurry outside and cover for Roy. It hadn’t been easy to keep him from going inside to see Roy, but she’d managed it. By the time she walked back inside, both babies were crying, and Carolyn and Nevin were both clingy, as if the two crying babies had shaken their world.

  Jemima never got to hear Roy’s tale—not that she wanted to, but it seemed necessary. She hoped something inside the story would give her relief from wanting to emotionally destroy Roy. She struggled day and night, wondering exactly what had taken place between her husband and Tiffany. Did he love Tiffany?

  Clearly the woman had conceived Heidi while Jemima was an hour away by car, staying at her mother’s with complications from a pregnancy. Is that all it took for her husband to be unfaithful—for Jemima to be away from home?

  She pulled onto the driveway and stopped the rig in front of the carriage house. The conflict inside her chest felt as if it were going to tear her in two. She couldn’t stop loving her husband, but at the same time, she couldn’t shake the utter repulsion she felt because of his actions. Creating a baby with another woman!

  “Hey, Jemima.” Chris came out of the stables and hurried toward her. “I’ll unhitch the horse and take care of it.”

  “Denki.” She got out of the carriage, looking closely at Chris. She’d seen him when he and Abigail brought the baby home day before yesterday, but she hadn’t seen him at breakfast. His face was more bruised today.

  “Lunch will be ready at noon.”

  “We appreciate it, Jemima.”

  “It’s the least I can do.” She started toward the house a
nd paused. “Any word from the vet?”

  “Ya. Houdini tested positive on the EHV-1. But he’s the only one who’s shown any signs so far. The horses need to remain separated for twenty-eight days after the last horse shows symptoms. Since Abigail insisted we separate them the day Houdini showed symptoms, we have reason to hope no other horse has been exposed to it. And we’re smoothing out the system of taking care of them, so in another week it won’t be such a burden to tend to them.”

  “That’s good and encouraging. Denki, Chris.” It was embarrassing to chat with someone she barely knew while he knew the worst secrets between her and her husband. She nodded and went toward the house.

  She and Roy still hadn’t talked. By the time the children were tucked into bed, Roy was too drowsy from the pain meds to say anything coherent. He fell asleep mumbling that he was sorry. Her rage stayed just beneath the surface, even when she was nursing Simeon or bathing Nevin or praying with her girls. The fact that Heidi rarely slept only added to Jemima’s inability to feel anything except fury.

  She went up the steps and paused just outside the front door, her hand hovering over the knob. There were a number of unpleasant chores she’d rather do than go inside and have to be reasonably nice to Roy. But her three younger kids were inside too, and they needed her.

  She swallowed and opened the door.

  “Vroom!” Nevin’s sweet voice echoed through the house, followed by Simeon’s happy squeal.

  Jemima hung her coat on the peg by the door and then walked through the home until she came to the gated play area. Roy was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall for support. Nevin shoved a toy truck toward his father, who caught it before it whacked him in the leg. In one smooth motion he turned it around and rolled it back to the toddler. Simeon was nearby on his hands and knees, looking like he really wanted to crawl toward the rolling thing. Any day now he’d be able to, and then he’d be on the move too. Roy tried to meet her eyes, but Jemima couldn’t stand to look at him.

  “Mamm!” Carolyn jumped up from her spot on the floor and bounced to her feet. “Kumm guck. Zwee Bobbelis. Zwee!” She held up two fingers while pointing toward a soft blanket on the other side of Roy, protected from the rolling toy truck by Roy’s legs. In the center of the blanket was Tiffany’s baby girl. The infant wasn’t currently crying, which was rare.

  “Ya.” What could Jemima say to her daughter? She couldn’t explain the situation. “Two babies.”

  Carolyn grinned. “Friend Bobbeli!”

  A friend’s baby—the lie Roy had given their daughter, no doubt. However, Jemima was grateful she didn’t have to explain to her five-year-old why they had another baby in the house. The pacifier worked its way out of Heidi’s mouth and she immediately started crying. Carolyn skipped back to Heidi and replaced it.

  A corner of Roy’s lips turned up in a half smile. “She’s put that back about a hundred times so far this morning.”

  Carolyn gently rubbed the infant’s stomach and said in Pennsylvania Dutch that she was good at taking care of her babies, a phrase she often used to refer to her younger brothers.

  A cold rage filled Jemima’s core, and she had to bite her tongue not to say anything. Her daughter, who wanted a little sister so badly, was loving on that woman’s baby. Jemima stepped over the gate, leaned down, and picked up the baby, saying in Pennsylvania Dutch, “Nap time for the baby. I’ll put her in her crib.” As angry as Jemima was, she handled the baby with care. She’d happily pick up Roy and chuck him outside, broken arm and all, but the baby was one of God’s own. She turned to Carolyn and asked if she would play with her brothers for a few minutes while Jemima got the baby to bed, and she promised to make her something yummy afterward.

  Carolyn’s eyes lit up. “Ya, Mamm.” She crawled over and intercepted the toy truck as it came Roy’s way.

  Again Jemima could feel his eyes on her. She barely looked at him and gestured with her head toward the guest room where the bassinet was. He nodded and then used his good arm to help himself to his feet. They both walked into the guest room, and Jemima wasted no time putting the baby in the bassinet.

  Roy sat on the guest bed, where he’d slept last night, where he might sleep for years to come. He’d made the bed, but the quilt was slightly rumpled, likely due to his having the use of only one arm.

  Jemima took a few steps back and crossed her arms. Being in the same room with him was bad enough. She couldn’t bring herself to sit next to him. “I want to hear everything.”

  “I know you do. You deserve that.”

  Deserve? Jemima had to fight with herself to keep from yelling at him before he even began. “Go on.”

  He fiddled with the pattern on the quilt. “Last year was hard, Jem, on all of us.”

  “Spare me the descriptions of how hard life was and get to the point, Roy.”

  “After the accident, not long after Laura was released from the hospital and while you and the children were staying at your Mamm’s, I…Something happened at Tiffany’s house.”

  “You think?” Her voice sounded nothing like her, and she wondered who she was becoming.

  “But I need to back up a tad first. After the horse-and-buggy wreck, while you and the children were staying with your Mamm, I hurt all the time from the injuries, and I got hooked on pain meds.”

  Her heart lurched and she audibly gasped. He’d become addicted to pain meds while she was gone? How had she not known that? But anger raged. “I don’t want your excuses.”

  “I didn’t mean…” He took a deep breath. “One evening Tiffany kept calling my cell, desperate for me to come and fix a broken pipe. She had friends over, and the plumbing in the only bathroom wasn’t working. My head was spinning, maybe from exhaustion but probably from the pain meds I was popping like candy to get through the day. I guess I’d taken too many of them. I remember seeing her friends, and I remember going into the bathroom to work on the pipe. I think I fixed it. Tiffany was talking to me, maybe in the bathroom. I don’t really know, but I just wanted to come home.”

  She gave him a good thirty seconds to find his voice, but he still didn’t speak up. “I’m waiting.”

  He cleared his throat and nodded. “We talked for a minute, and I was surprised when we kissed. I remember backing away, saying I needed to go home. That’s all I really remember. Nothing felt real for some reason. Most everything seemed black and was spinning.” Roy closed his eyes. “I…woke up in her bed, half-dressed. Her friends were long gone.”

  No memory at all? Was that true or just another lie?

  “Then after that forgetful night, you came home to me as if nothing had happened,” Jemima spewed.

  “I came home. You and the children were still at your Mamm’s, and you were on full bed rest.”

  “Were you lonely while I was carrying our fourth child, or just bored with me?”

  Roy hit the bedspread with his fist. “Don’t do that, Jemima. I wanted to tell you immediately! But you were pregnant with Simeon. Remember your blood-pressure issue? The doctor had told me that if it got too high, it would put your life and Simeon’s at risk. The very least of the consequences would have been your having him by C-section, which would make any future births more complicated.”

  Future births. That was never going to happen! But she didn’t say that out loud. “So you went back to your routine life after sleeping with her just once. Are you sure you didn’t return to her bed again?”

  “I swear to you, Jemima. I came off the pain pills so I’d never lose another night like that. I never would’ve been with her if I was in my right mind.”

  Was that the truth? He’d dated Tiffany when he was a teen in his rumschpringe. “She always wanted you, and you stopped seeing her to chase after me. We chose to confide in each other all of who we were. I knew you. I was your confidante, not her. Now you’ve humiliated me by keeping thi
s secret with her. She knew about me, about our children. I was the only one in the dark.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Saying you’re sorry after circumstances forced you to tell me the truth means less than nothing. So then what happened?”

  “Weeks later she texted me saying she was pregnant. For the same reasons, I still couldn’t tell you. I had to protect you and our child.”

  “And what about after Simeon was born? You couldn’t tell me then? He’s eight months old! You’ve had forever with both of us being healthy and stable to divulge this secret.”

  “I know.” Roy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I thought it would be easier on you if you didn’t know. I thought I could get Tiffany and Heidi set up and then things would go back to normal.”

  “Normal?” she shrieked. “Normal? You wanted us all to live a lie for the rest of our lives. How is that normal?” She had to fight to keep from screaming at him. Carolyn didn’t need to hear her Mamm yelling at her Daed.

  His shoulders slumped. “I didn’t want you to have to go through any of this, to doubt what I’m telling you, to feel betrayed by something I can’t recall.” He paused. “You of all people didn’t deserve to pay for this in any way—”

  “Whoa!” Jemima held up one hand. “Speaking of paying, were my savings, Abigail’s and mine, used for taking care of Tiffany and”—she pointed—“that baby?”

  “Some was used for covering the medical bills for Laura, just like I told you, but having a baby the Englisch way is expensive, especially without their insurance.”

  Emotions pounded her, and her thoughts ran wild, each one adding fire to the others. “Only the best hospital for your illegitimate daughter to be born in.”

  Roy dragged his hand down his face. “I was doing my best to take care of her, just like I would any of my kids. She shouldn’t have to pay for the mistakes of an unloving mother and a father who never meant to be with that woman, much less create a baby.”