She walked over to him and thrust her face uncomfortably close to his. "Jacob, don't be joking about something like that with an overdue pregnant woman."
Jacob backed up. "I wouldn't joke about that. I meant it."
"You have the time to babysit my five little monsters? Well, four. One of them went to town with his dat."
"Four, five," Jacob said, shrugging. "Doesn't matter. I'll watch them." He frowned when he saw her trying to suppress a smile. "What?"
"You'd be surprised," she told him dryly. "But I'm going to take you up on your offer. You won't think it's so easy after you do it."
Now she was making him uneasy. "I never said it would be easy. I learned never to say that anything you or any other woman does is easy."
"So, is the coffee cake safe to eat?" she asked, breaking off a piece and trying it.
"Well, that's pretty good."
She pulled a roll of aluminum foil from a kitchen drawer and covered the top of the pan with it. "This is dessert. No one gets it until after supper."
"We can't have some now?" Mary asked. She gave Jacob a winsome smile. "It's hours and hours until supper."
"And we're starving," her six-year-old brother added.
"You had cookies and milk and fruit when you came home from schul," his mother reminded them.
"Hours ago," John said with a nod.
"Ignore them," Rebecca told Jacob. "They're little eating machines."
"Kinner get hungry," he said, shrugging. "I remember those days."
"You still eat like them." She waved a hand at the oven. "Supper will be ready in an hour." She sighed. "Nap. I can't remember what a nap feels like."
Jacob kissed her cheek and then gently pushed her toward the stairs. "It means sleep. Now go. No worrying about anything."
"You've never taken care of them. You've never taken care of a single kind."
"No playing with scissors," he whispered in her ear. "No running screaming around the house. No fighting. And definitely no more snacks, especially coffee cake."
"How bad can it go?" he heard her say as she left the room. "I'll be right upstairs if you need me," she called over her shoulder to him.
"We won't need you," he said. "Right?" he asked his nieces and nephews.
"Right!" they chorused.
"It's babyish to take a nap," John said once she left the room. "I haven't taken a nap in years."
Probably why she needs one, Jacob couldn't help thinking. While they were behaving now—were, in fact good kinner— he wasn't so naïve that he thought they were angels.
But it was just an hour. What could go wrong in an hour? And maybe this was a way to see how he'd be as a father. It was a logical step after thinking of Mary Katherine as his choice of fraa, his wife, after all. He was going to find a way to convince her that she belonged here.
That she belonged with him.
10
Shh!" Jacob hissed at his nieces and nephews. "We have to be quiet so your mamm can get some rest."
Everyone quieted down again. For about five minutes.
He was exhausted. Homework had been done twenty minutes ago, and after the kinner finished, they had run around the house like little wild things while he raced after them trying to stop them. Then there had been the begging for snacks, which he'd had to turn down. A contest to see who could do the most jumping jacks was next. And on it went.
He got them quiet, sank into a chair, exhausted, and heard the telltale creak on the stairs that told him Rebecca was coming down.
"Now you've done it," he muttered and looked up to see his sister shaking her head at him. "Sorry."
"For what? I slept like a log." She bent down to kiss his cheek. Then she turned to her children. "No thanks to you monsters. I can see by the way your onkel looks so tired that you ran him ragged."
They had the grace to look penitent. "Sorry, Onkel Jacob," they said as one.
The youngest tugged at his hand. "Sowwy," she said, looking up at him with big blue eyes.
Jacob reached down to pick her up. "I forgive you."
She grinned and kissed his cheek.
There was a faint noise that sounded like water being spilled. Jacob pulled his gaze away from his youngest niece and couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"Mamm! You're going potty!" one of the kinner cried.
Rebecca sighed as she stared at the puddle at her feet. "I just mopped this floor yesterday." She looked up at Jacob. "My water broke."
Jacob stood and set Lizzie down. "You're having the baby. Rebecca, you're having the baby."
She laughed and patted his cheek. "It's okay. Yes, I know, I'm having the baby. But don't look so scared. It's not going to plop out onto the floor any second."
"I don't know anything about having a baby."
"Maybe you better sit down before you fall down," she suggested, laughing.
He sat.
"Mary, go get the mop. Luke, run down the street and get your grossmudder."
Jacob watched his sister take charge and became ashamed of his behavior. He took her by the shoulders and eased her into the chair he'd been sitting in. "Should we call 911?"
"Why?"
"To take you to the hospital."
She waved her hand at him and tried to rise from the chair, but he kept his hands on her shoulders, preventing her from standing. "No, silly. I have my boppli at home, remember?"
"But—"
"When Mamm gets here, I'll have her call the midwife. And don't worry, she'll stay in the room with me, so you don't have to worry about helping deliver a boppli."
He crouched down and held her hands. "Are you okay?"
Shrugging, she nodded. "I wondered a couple of times today if I was having back labor. Figured I'd find out soon enough if it wasn't. Now, don't worry. I have very easy deliveries."
The oven timer buzzed. Jacob turned it off and used potholders to get the roast out and place it on top of the stove. He inhaled the delicious aroma and turned back to Rebecca, frowning as he watched her rub her swollen abdomen.
"Should I make you something to eat?" he asked her, feeling clueless.
She shook her head. "Can't eat now that I'm in labor."
The front door opened. "Mamm? Grossmudder isn't home."
Rebecca waved a hand at the refrigerator. "Jacob, the midwife's number is there under the magnet. She needs to be called."
"Schur. First, let's get you up to bed." He held out his hand and helped her to her feet.
"The kinner need supper," she protested.
There was something he could do to help. He could feed his sister's children. He didn't have to feel helpless.
"I'll do it. After you lie down." He turned to the children. "I'll be right back."
"My labors have been getting shorter," she told him as he helped her up the stairs, his arm around her waist. "I figure if I have another couple kinner, it'll take no time at all to deliver."
He felt faintly sick. "Rebecca?"
"Ya?"
"Shut up. You're scaring me."
She laughed and walked into her room, sinking down on the bed. "One thing you can do for me."
"Anything but deliver a boppli."
"Help me with my shoes?"
"Of course."
"I haven't seen my ankles in months," she told him as he drew off her shoes and covered her with a quilt.
"They're still there."
"Ha ha."
When he walked back into the kitchen, he warned the children to stay away from the stove—and the coffee cake—and went to call the midwife. She promised she'd be right over.
He got the children to wash their hands, then with questioning found out their supper routine. One child set the table, another poured glasses of water, a third helped fill a basket with bread and set out butter and spreads. The littlest put a paper napkin on each plate and then climbed into her seat and waited patiently.
The midwife walked in, said a quick hello to everyone, then hurried up the stairs.
Jacob carved the roast and placed it on a serving plate, spooning potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and celery around it. He sat in his brother-in-law's seat, and they said a prayer in thanksgiving for their meal. Then he suggested that they all pray for their mamm and the boppli.
"They're going to be allrecht, aren't they, Onkel Jacob?"
He nodded. "God is always watching over us." He prayed silently that all would be well.
There was no loud talking like before as the children passed bowls and filled plates and began eating. Jacob helped Lizzie put a small amount of everything on her plate. None of the children whined about eating something they didn't like. He knew his sister insisted eating what was served was part of being grateful for God's bounty.
The plates cleared, the children looked expectantly at the coffee cake that had been promised for dessert.
"Maybe you should wait and have it in the morning for breakfast," he suggested tongue-in-cheek.
"We want it now," Luke said. "Please," he added as an afterthought.
"But it's to eat with coffee," he teased them.
"I like coffee," Lizzie piped up so loud her mother probably heard her upstairs.
They all laughed. "You don't drink coffee," Jacob told her.
"But I'd like it," she said in a hopeful voice.
Jacob got a knife and cut the cake into small squares, secretly pleased that he'd made something they were looking forward to.
The cake was immediately stuffed into mouths and crumbles of cinnamon sugar decorated their faces.
"It's very good," Luke said, and each of them nodded.
They looked eagerly at the pan. He glanced at it. There was enough left for another small serving for each of them. None for their mother, but she was rather busy right now.
"Okay, one more piece," he said, cutting squares. "I guess we can consider it a kind of birthday celebration, since a new bruder or schwesder is arriving tonight."
The front door opened just then, and his brother-in-law and oldest nephew rushed into the room.
"Am I in time?" Saul asked, sounding out of breath.
"I don't know," Jacob told him, wiping cinnamon sugar off Lizzie's chin. "The midwife's in with her. I'm just grateful I didn't have to go in there." He shuddered.
"I'd better get upstairs." Saul took the stairs two at a time.
Jacob fixed a plate for his oldest nephew and settled him at the table to eat it. He wrapped another plate for Saul and put it in the refrigerator. The table was cleared, and the two oldest girls washed the dishes. Jacob swept the floor and then took out the trash.
"What next?" he asked.
"Baths. I help Mamm with giving baths," his oldest niece said.
His sister's house ran like a well-oiled machine, Jacob couldn't help thinking.
He glanced at the staircase. His brother-in-law's question made him wonder if he should have asked if the midwife needed anything. Dragging his feet a little—he was a single mann, after all, so how could anyone expect him to think of such a thing?—he went up the stairs and knocked on the master bedroom door.
The midwife opened the door. Jacob remembered that his mother had told him she had delivered him and all his siblings.
"Can I get you anything?" he asked her. "Do Rebecca or Saul need anything?"
"Why, what a sweet boy you are," she said, beaming. She rubbed at her forehead with the back of her hand. "I was just about to come down for a cup of tea while Saul sits with Rebecca."
She walked downstairs with him and sat at the big table while he fixed her a cup of tea and placed the last piece of coffee cake before her.
"I can fix you a sandwich if you're hungry."
"Nee, I'm fine. So you're taking care of the kinner, are you?"
"They about did me in," he admitted with a grin. "But please don't tell Rebecca. She'd never let me hear the end of it."
"You're just not used to it," she told him as she sipped her tea. "Once you have your own, it'll be easier."
The front door opened, then closed. "I'm here!" his mother called out. She rushed into the kitchen. "I came as soon as I heard."
"Where have—" Jacob started to ask, and then he caught himself. "You weren't home."
His mother nodded. "Has she had the kind yet?"
The midwife shook her head. "I think it'll be another hour or so."
"You're usually right. I'll go on up."
The midwife followed her a short while later, and Jacob listened to the quiet. It was a different kind of quiet than at his house, he mused and smiled at such a fanciful thought.
He glanced at the clock. Time had flown. It was after ten. When he'd first realized that he'd need to stay until Saul got home, he'd unhitched his buggy and put his horse into an empty stall in the barn. Luke had gone out and fed him after supper. The best thing would be to sleep on the sofa. Travel at night in a buggy wasn't the safest thing, and besides, he suspected that if Rebecca's labor went much later, his brother-in-law might appreciate him getting the kinner ready for schul tomorrow morning.
So he locked up and returned to the kitchen and fixed a new pot of coffee. He sat at the table and listened to it percolate on the stove and soon found the rhythmic sound was lulling him to sleep. Telling himself he'd just rest his eyes for a moment, he put his head down on his arms on the table and waited for the coffee to brew.
Jacob woke to a sound he couldn't identify for a moment. The coffee had stopped perking, and it was twenty minutes later than when he'd last looked at the clock. He listened and then he heard it again.
The thin, reedy sound of a newborn echoed down the stairs. He'd never been this near to a baby being born . . . a few times he'd held a niece or nephew a few hours after birth. But he'd never been in the same house, heard the first cries. The sound filled him with awe.
He thanked God for the sound of new life entering the world, one he had a blood connection with. One day this new kind would play with his other nieces and nephews, exhaust him with playing as the kinner had done tonight. Maybe play with one of his own kinner on his farm.
He sat back and praised His creation.
The minutes ticked by like hours.
The directions had said the test would only take a few minutes, but time seemed to stretch out. Finally, the bathroom door opened.
"It's negative." Jamie sagged against the doorjamb.
Mary Katherine let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Are you okay?"
Jamie pushed her hair back from her forehead. "Yeah." She straightened and walked to the kitchen. "I need something to drink."
Mary Katherine hoped she didn't mean alcohol. When Jamie pulled a diet soda from the refrigerator, she was relieved.
"Want one?"
She shook her head. "I don't understand why you were throwing up."
"Must be stress," Jamie said. She took a long swallow of the soda. "My stomach's never handled it well. I guess I jumped to conclusions." She gave a short laugh. "Well, I wouldn't have if I hadn't let Robert talk me into bed that last night when he came over."
Sinking into a chair at the tiny kitchen table, she ran the cold can of soda across her forehead. "I might not have shown much intelligence in dating that guy, but I've learned my lesson. I'm not going through that kind of scare again."
"I wish you wouldn't talk like that," Mary Katherine said quietly. "It bothers me when you say you don't think you're smart. You're in college—"
"And not doing so well right now."
"Well, if it was easy, everyone would go."
Jamie's eyes widened. "Wow. You don't mince words, do you?"
Mary Katherine shrugged. "I don't know how to play games with words. I'm Plain, remember?"
"You know, we wouldn't have become friends if we didn't have a lot in common." Jamie traced the condensation on the can with her finger. She laughed. "I mean, I know we come from two different worlds, you with your kapp and uptight hair and me with my purple streaks in my hair and clothes that are unusual for
the most extreme Englisch person. But we share one thing, don't we?"
"What?"
"We've both had to struggle with self-esteem." She stared sadly at Mary Katherine.
"My self-esteem is fine." Mary Katherine stood.
"Uh-huh. Sure." Jamie yawned. "I am so beat."
"Maybe you can get some sleep tonight."
Jamie put her half-finished can of soda in the refrigerator and turned off the kitchen light. "Listen, since my roommate moved out, why don't you sleep in her room instead of on the sofa? There's some clean sheets in the bathroom closet."
"The sofa was fine last time."
"The bed'll be better this time," Jamie said over her shoulder. Then she turned and hugged Mary Katherine, surprising her. "Thanks for being such a good friend."
Mary Katherine shrugged. "No biggie," she said, using one of Jamie's favorite expressions.
"It's a very big deal." Jamie stood back. "Listen, I was wondering if I could go with you to church this week? It's a church Sunday, right? I mean, you keep saying I'm welcome to come."
"You are."
Jamie walked over to the mirror that hung on the wall near the front door. She fluffed at the purple streaks. "I'll tone this down a little. Wouldn't want to give your bishop a stroke if he stops by."
She might be restless and unsure if she wanted to stay in her community sometimes, but in her worst moments, Mary Katherine didn't wish a stroke on anyone. "Danki," she said with a straight face. "You wouldn't want that on your conscience."
Everyone was polite. It wasn't the first time an Englischer guest had shown up at church, after all.
But Mary Katherine noticed how many glances were directed toward her friend. She hid her smile as she watched the little girl who looked to be about four who was sitting on her mother's lap a few seats away. The child's eyes were wide as she sucked on her thumb and stared at Jamie.
"Imagine if I hadn't covered up the purple," Jamie whispered before the service started.
"I think she's fascinated because your hair is so curly," Mary Katherine whispered.
Jamie shifted, looking like she was already uncomfortable. "I didn't count on the seats being this hard."
"Aren't they the same everywhere?"
Her Restless Heart Page 12
