Levi studied Esther’s face, trying to discern the reason for her sudden change of mood when Cathy had dropped them off. It was plain Cathy didn’t hand out compliments often, but she had reassured Esther that she was a gute mother. What had made Esther so upset? Levi didn’t like it. Esther should always be smiling. “Do you want me to fill the tub?”
She eyed him hopefully. “You don’t mind?”
“Of course not.” It didn’t matter that he had another job at one. He’d stay as long as Esther needed him.
“Only fill it about four inches deep. I have a ruler in the drawer by the stove. And get the kitchen thermometer and make sure the water is no warmer than one hundred degrees.”
Levi chuckled. He couldn’t help himself.
She cracked a smile. “Don’t even think about it.”
“About what?”
“About teasing me over the way I bathe my baby.”
He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I’m not even thinking about it.”
Levi filled the tub and measured the temperature of the water. Ninety-nine degrees. You couldn’t get much closer than that. He opted to estimate the depth of the water. It looked about right—enough to get Winnie wet but not enough to reach her mouth if she turned her head.
Esther came into the bathroom with Winnie in one arm and a tub of oatmeal in the other. She looked in the tub. “Did you test the temperature?”
Levi held up the kitchen thermometer. “I did.”
“How deep is it? I don’t see a ruler.”
“I lay a lot of tile. I know what four inches looks like.”
Esther didn’t look convinced, but she must have decided to let it go. She handed Levi the oatmeal, laid Winnie on the bath mat, and got her undressed while Levi sat on the toilet and watched. Esther lifted Winnie’s arms up over her head. There were two more spots under her right arm. Esther glanced at Levi. “Ach. Poor little thing.”
“How much oatmeal should I pour in the tub?” Levi said.
Esther squished her eyebrows together. “I have no idea. Pour a cup or so in there, and we’ll see what it looks like. We don’t want oatmeal soup.”
Levi poured some oatmeal in the tub and stirred it around. “This looks okay, don’t you think?”
“Jah. That should do the trick.”
Levi watched while Esther gave Winnie a bath, then handed her a towel when she pulled Winnie out. Winnie fussed and whined. For sure and certain, she wasn’t her usual cheerful self. And neither was Esther. Lord willing, the calamine lotion would help Winnie feel more comfortable. Levi had no idea what to do for Esther.
They took Winnie into the spare bedroom and got her dressed. Then Levi held her while Esther made her a bottle, using the kitchen thermometer, of course. Levi sat at the table and fed Winnie while Esther cleaned up the tub and bathroom. By the time she finished, Winnie had fallen asleep. Levi burped her and laid her in her portable crib.
When he came back into the kitchen, Esther was making a pot of coffee. “I hoped Cathy would be here before Winnie went down for a nap so we could put some lotion on those chicken pox.”
“If she gets too uncomfortable, she’ll wake up. By then Cathy should be here.”
“Denki for being here. I know you have other places to go.”
“I couldn’t leave. I wanted to make sure Winnie was okay.” She handed him a cup of kaffee, and her fingers brushed against his. The touch sent a bolt of electricity up his arm. He ignored the sensation. There were much more important things to think about. “I know it’s easier said than done, but try not to worry. Cathy is right. You really are a gute mother, even if you don’t believe it.”
She sat down at the table and took a sip of kaffee. “Denki,” she said, without arguing or contradicting him. Was she even paying attention to what he said?
“Did Cathy upset you? I know Winnie gave you a scare, but you didn’t seem truly upset until Cathy said something about you being a gute mother.”
Esther sighed. “She said she hopes Ivy gets a mother’s heart before she comes back.”
“I suppose we all hope that. Did it offend you that Cathy said Ivy is a bad mother?”
“Nae. Ivy is a very bad mother. We can all agree on that. It upset me that she said Ivy might come back.”
Levi’s stomach felt as if he’d swallowed a bucket of cement. “Ach. I didn’t think about that.”
Esther set her mug on the table and wrapped her arms around herself as if trying to ward off the cold. “I’m afraid, Levi.”
He’d never heard such uncertainty in her voice. “Afraid of Ivy coming back?”
She nodded. “I’m afraid, and I’m angry at Ivy for making me feel this way. A few weeks ago, I would have liked nothing better than for Ivy to take Winnie away and disappear. But now I don’t want Ivy to come back. Winnie is gaining weight. She’s on a schedule. She gets someone’s full attention every waking hour. Winnie has a stable home.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “You know how bad I am with babies.”
“You are not.”
Her lips curled slightly before drooping again. “You know how bad I am with babies, but at least I’m caring for her. I get up with her in the middle of the night. I read her books and take her on walks. I’m not the best mater, but I’m so much better than Ivy would be.”
“Of course you are.”
“But it’s more than that. At first Winnie was a duty, a nuisance, a responsibility I didn’t ask for and certainly didn’t want. Now I can’t think of life without her. It’s like she’s part of me. I love her like she was my own baby, Levi. What would I do if Ivy came back and took Winnie away? I wouldn’t be able to bear it. The sadness would crush me.”
Levi fingered the handle of his mug, and his heart grew heavier. “You called her ‘my baby’ today.”
“I . . . I feel that she is my baby. I’ve lost sleep for her and cried over her and changed her diapers and done her laundry. I’ve been so tired I thought I might fall over and so worried I thought I might get an ulcer. But I’ve also never smiled harder in my life, and hearing Winnie laugh is the best part of my day.”
“Maybe Ivy is gone for good,” Levi said, hoping more than believing it.
“She could be gone for a very long time, but when she runs out of money or her boyfriend loses interest, she’ll be back. She knows where I keep my money now. If she’s in trouble, it would be too tempting to come back.”
“You really should stop keeping valuables in the fridge.”
Esther’s lips curled sheepishly. “I wouldn’t know where else to keep them.”
“But if she came back, do you really think she’d take Winnie away? Ivy might need money or a place to stay, but I doubt she’d come back to get Winnie. If she was capable of leaving her baby in the first place, chances are she won’t be coming back to get the baby.”
Esther didn’t seem convinced. “I suppose that is true. But if Ivy discovers how much I care for Winnie, she could hold it over my head and use it against me every time she needs more money or a place to stay or a favor. I’d be trapped. I’d do anything to keep Ivy from taking my baby.”
Levi finished off his kaffee and pretended he hadn’t noticed that she’d called Winnie “my baby” again. “It was bound to happen. Any person with half a heart would have grown attached to Winnie, except for her own mother, maybe.”
She nodded. “It couldn’t be helped. Given another chance and another choice, I’d do the same thing again, except maybe I would have bought a different diaper bag. Winnie’s needs more pockets.”
“Do you think if Ivy comes back she’ll want to take Winnie away?”
Esther exhaled a deep breath. “I don’t know. Maybe. If Ivy senses how much I love Winnie, she might take her just to spite me.”
Levi furrowed his brow. “Is she really that cruel?”
Esther closed her eyes as if to shut out a painful emotion. “I . . . don’t . . . I don’t know Ivy anymore. She’s been gone all of her adult life
. Ivy was always selfish growing up. Mamm and Dat coddled her. It was almost as if they felt sorry for her, though I don’t understand why. Mamm would let her stay home from school for barely any reason at all, like when she said she had a headache or a stomachache. Once she scraped her knee on the sidewalk, and Mamm let her skip school because there was blood. Ivy hated school. She wasn’t gute at math or reading or spelling. She made up any excuse she could think of to stay home, and Mamm let her.”
“My bruder Henry hates school. He often works himself up to a stomachache in the mornings, but Mamm makes him go anyway.”
“I don’t think my parents did her any favors letting her stay home. She was always behind the other kinner her age.”
Levi curled one side of his mouth. “I’ll bet you were gute at everything in school.”
She took a sip of her kaffee and peered at him over the edge of her cup. “Boys don’t like smart girls.” She hadn’t denied that she was probably the smartest one in school, but to her, it wasn’t something to celebrate.
Levi propped his chin in his hand. “Esther, I know we Amish value humility, but your intelligence isn’t something to be ashamed of.”
She gave him a wry smile. “You’re assuming I’m all that smart. I’m not.”
“Ach, now you’re teasing me. I’m pretty sure you could whip me in a spelling bee or the multiplication tables. And I’m not even going to mention how fast you learn things. Four weeks ago you didn’t know how to use a power drill. Now I can’t keep up.”
Esther laughed. “Now who’s teasing?”
He held up his hands in protest. “Not me.” They smiled at each other. “So Ivy didn’t like school.”
“She didn’t like housework either, so I did a lot of the cooking and cleaning with my mamm. I guess it was easier for Mamm to just let Ivy out of the work instead of listening to her whine.” Esther finished her kaffee. “Ivy was pretty. She went to school more in seventh and eighth grade because she got lots of attention from the boys. She loved to flirt.”
“It wonders me if she felt unworthy. Or unlovable, maybe. People often seek attention to fill up something they’re missing on the inside.”
Esther frowned and studied his face. “I’ve never thought of that, but it’s hard to understand why she’d feel that way. She was the joy of Mamm’s heart. She was Dat’s little angel.”
“Maybe Ivy has forgotten the power of family ties. She’s been away so long.”
“Jah. She’s forgotten everything gute about her family and community.”
Levi shook his head. “I pity her. She’s fallen very far to abandon a baby who could have given her so much happiness. She doesn’t have anybody to love. There isn’t really anybody who loves her. It must be a very lonely existence.”
“Jah,” Esther said, tracing her finger along the crack in the tabletop. “You’re right. Lonely and hopeless. I feel sorry for her too, but I’m also afraid. Ivy hates me. She’ll do anything to hurt me.”
“How do you mean?”
“She left Winnie with me. Believe me, she knew that was going to hurt. But that’s not the worst of it. As soon as Ivy turned sixteen and started rumschpringe, she tried to steal every boy I ever liked.”
“What did you do?”
“Ivy was a hundred times prettier than I was. If she took an interest in any boy, he’d follow her around like a puppy and forget I existed. Then when he stopped being interested in me, she stopped being interested in him. It was like a game to her: see how many of Esther’s suitors she could steal. She probably kept a tally.”
“That’s terrible,” Levi said, suddenly ashamed at how annoyed he had always been with his brother Ben. Ben was rebellious and careless, but he’d never do anything to hurt one of his siblings. He wasn’t an upstanding young man, but he was a reasonably gute bruder.
Esther looked stricken by the memory. “I quit going to gatherings. Ivy was like a vulture with my friends and the boys who seemed interested in me. I pretended I didn’t care. I pretended I didn’t have my eye on anyone.”
Levi pressed his lips together. That was why Esther had never married. Ivy had made sure of it. Levi suddenly felt very ashamed of himself. When he’d first met Esther, he told himself he couldn’t be interested in a girl who had been passed over by other boys. But she hadn’t been passed over at all. She’d been pushed out of the way. “I’m sorry,” he said. Esther didn’t even suspect how many things he was apologizing for.
She sighed and studied his face. “There’s more, and I’m wonderful embarrassed to admit to it. Despite all of Ivy’s efforts, I found a boy who wanted to marry me.”
“I don’t think that would have been too hard,” Levi muttered. There were probably a dozen boys who would have married Esther at the drop of a hat.
“Menno Hertzler. He actually came over to our house to court me while Ivy was at gatherings. We got published after a year. It caught Ivy completely by surprise.”
“So she didn’t have time to steal him,” Levi said doubtfully. Esther wasn’t married, so things obviously hadn’t worked out with Menno.
“Three days before the wedding, I caught Ivy and Menno kissing in our barn.”
Levi’s heart lurched. “Ach.”
Esther cracked a smile. “That’s what I thought. But I was glad it happened. Much better to discover Menno’s unfaithfulness before the wedding than after. I suppose I should have thanked Ivy for saving me from disaster.”
“Saving you?”
“I don’t want a husband who can’t resist temptation. If he was that weak, he wasn’t worthy of me.”
Levi nodded. “You’re right. Ivy behaved badly, but it was how she always behaved. Menno could easily have run the other way, like Joseph of Egypt.”
“That’s what I thought,” Esther said. “I was ferociously angry at Ivy, but I was also grateful after I had some time to think about it. Still, it stung like a thousand wasps.”
“Of course it did.”
Esther huffed out a breath. “When I found Menno and Ivy together, Menno didn’t apologize. He tried to blame his lack of control on Ivy. I canceled the wedding, of course. Menno and I were both horribly embarrassed. I was heartbroken. Menno was angry—at me, mostly, for embarrassing him—another reason I’m glad I didn’t marry him. I can’t abide a man who won’t take responsibility for his own actions.”
“Me neither,” Levi said.
“After I broke things off, Menno covered his own embarrassment by telling everyone I was cold and unfeeling, that I had laughed at him when I called off the wedding. You can imagine how many boys wanted to drive me home after that.”
Levi frowned. “Why didn’t you set them straight? Tell them the truth about Menno and Ivy?”
“What did it matter? People will believe what they want to believe, and I didn’t care what the boys in the gmayna thought of me anymore. Menno broke my heart. I never wanted to feel that way again, and I wasn’t about to give another boy my love. Boys are deceitful and selfish and fickle. I gave up any thoughts of marriage.”
Levi cupped his fingers around his neck in frustration. “Not all boys are like that.”
She looked down at her hands. “I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s not fair to lump you in with everyone else, but it’s hard to have much faith anymore. My parents always supported and believed in me, but my bruderen blamed me for the broken engagement. For sure and certain they were mostly irritated because they thought they’d get stuck with taking care of me when Mamm and Dat died. But then they were angry when Dat left me the property, even though it meant I’d be able to take care of myself. I’m a constant annoyance to them.”
Levi couldn’t blame Esther for feeling the way she did about men. She had felt betrayed and unloved by the ones she should have been able to trust. “What did Ivy do? Was she upset you caught her?”
Esther cocked an eyebrow in his direction. “What do you think?”
Levi heaved a sigh. “She probably thought it was funny.”
“She wasn’t sorry. She and Menno had been meeting secretly ever since I got engaged, and she told me I should be grateful to know what kind of boy Menno was. I should have forgiven her right off, but I couldn’t. I was so hurt.”
“I don’t think less of you for that,” Levi said. “I wouldn’t have been able to forgive her either.”
Esther looked down at her hands again. “I shouldn’t have been so . . . I was so angry, I refused to talk to her for a month. It surprised me how deeply hurt she was by my silence. But I’d had enough. She had done something to purposefully hurt me, and I never wanted to trust or confide in her again.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “Oy, anyhow. You might as well know the rest. It’s my fault she jumped the fence. Dat yelled at her after she ruined my wedding, Mamm was too sad to do anything, and I wouldn’t talk to her. The other girls in the gmayna were mad at her too. She must have felt like she hadn’t a friend in the world. She took off with some Englischer, and we didn’t hear from her for months. We wouldn’t have lost her if I’d shown her some Christian charity.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Esther. Ivy chose to hurt you. Ivy chose to leave.”
“She was barely eighteen. Maybe she was so ashamed that she thought it would be better for everybody if she just disappeared. Maybe she didn’t think she deserved my love and left to find love somewhere else.”
Levi leaned forward. “Is that what she really thought?”
A tiny sob escaped her lips. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it so much, I just don’t know anymore. All I know is that if I had been a better sister, she might not have left at all.”
Levi nodded his head slowly. “You can never go back, and looking in that direction will get you nothing but a sore neck. Ivy is responsible for her own choices, and she made the choice to pout for eight years.”
Esther curled one side of her mouth. “It does feel like an eight-year temper tantrum.”
“You gave her the silent treatment for a month. She’s given it to you for almost eight years.”
The Amish Quiltmaker's Unexpected Baby Page 13
