The Amish Midwife

by Mindy Starns Clark

  He jumped back a step as I barreled out of the room, asking, “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

  I came to a halt and apologized. “Nowhere, really, except maybe a few hours of sleep.” Marta hadn’t said anything about prenatal appointments. And besides, she’d probably lassoed another midwife in to help her by now. I was anxious to get back so she could honor her part of our bargain.

  “Do they allow sleeping in Oregon?” he asked with a laugh. “Cuz they really don’t here.” He walked beside me as I headed down the hall.

  “Just the minimum,” I responded. “Whatever that is.” It wasn’t a witty comeback, not at all, but I was trying.

  “How about some breakfast?”

  “Hmm. Food. Do they allow that here in Pennsylvania?”

  He laughed. “Just the minimum.” Then he whispered. “And it’s not that good.”

  The food turned out to be fine. Scrambled eggs and sausage. A croissant. And a cup of black coffee to get me back to Marta’s safe and sound.

  “So, you’re an Amish midwife,” he said as he spread blackberry jam on a slice of whole wheat toast.

  “No—well, tonight I was.” I rolled my eyes. “Or wasn’t.” I started to smile. “Actually, you were the midwife tonight.”

  “Touché,” he said. “My mother would be so proud.”

  “Oh?”

  “She and my dad live in the backwoods of Vermont. That’s one of the things she’s tried to lure me home with—that I could open a birth clinic and do home deliveries.” He laughed. “She doesn’t get it.”

  We chatted more about the hospital and births. He had done his undergrad work at Columbia, his medical training at Chicago Medical School, and his residency at George Washington University. He’d been at Lancaster General for two years and had just applied to Johns Hopkins. I tried to do the math to figure out how old he was; four plus four plus two plus two equaled at least thirty.

  When I told him I’d gone to Oregon Health Sciences University, he said he’d applied there for medical school. “It’s a good place,” he said.

  I nodded. It was. I’d been well trained.

  “So, how did you end up helping an Amish midwife who’s in trouble with the law?”

  “She’s actually a Mennonite midwife. I mean, she mostly works with the Amish, but she’s Mennonite herself.”

  “Same difference,” he said, dismissing the whole lot of them with a simple wave of his hand.

  “Not exactly,” I replied, feeling strangely offended, though I wasn’t sure why.

  We ate in silence for a few moments as I wondered if Sean was a man of faith. As much as I’d distanced myself from God through the years, I still wanted—someday—a guy who believed. Like James. I winced. I couldn’t get around the fact that it was important to me.

  “My parents might as well have been Amish,” Sean said, gently shaking his head as he spoke. “Bless them, but they were—are—off their rockers. I mean, I believe in God and all of that, don’t get me wrong, but they totally ingested the Sermon on the Mount, which meant we never had any money. Every time they saved up a few bucks they would give it to ‘someone in need.’” He did the quotation gesture with his fingers. “They have been taken so many times I couldn’t begin to keep track. Someone would be skipping off with their life savings of seven hundred bucks while we kids would wonder where dinner was coming from.”

  “How many kids?”

  “Six,” he replied. “I’m the oldest. I always helped with the younger ones. Mom homeschooled all of us. She still does the last two.”

  “Looks like it worked.”

  He hooted. “I basically educated myself. It was a miracle I made it into college, let alone med school.”

  My phone beeped as he finished talking, and I checked my text message.

  It was from Marta. “Looks like I have a prenatal visit at eight.” The time on the text read 7:30. I exhaled. “I’d better get going.” I stood. “Thank you for breakfast.”

  Sean took my tray. “I guess I won’t be seeing you around.”

  “Not if all goes well.”

  “How long are you here?”

  “I’m not sure. I need to go to Harrisburg briefly, and then I start my position in Philadelphia…” My voice trailed off. Was he going to ask for my number?

  “So,” he said, beaming at me, “we could see each other again.”

  “Um, maybe.” I was caught off guard by his full-face smile. “I really have no idea what my schedule is going to look like for the next couple of days, though.” I tried to push all thoughts of James from my mind.

  He held up his iPhone. “Give me your number, and I’ll give you a call.” His voice was playful.

  Without really thinking it through, on impulse I recited my number, which he quickly keyed into his phone.

  “I’ll call day after tomorrow,” he said. “After I’ve had a chance to catch a nap.” He winked as we said goodbye.

  The thing was, I didn’t think I’d still be in Lancaster County the day after tomorrow. But then again, maybe I would. If I wasn’t, would Sean come to Philadelphia to see me?

  More importantly, would I be glad if he did?

  ELEVEN

  I had three prenatal appointments in Marta’s office that morning and finished up at eleven. When I entered the cottage, Marta sat at the dining room table with a cordless phone in her hand and an open file in front of her. Without saying hello she said, “We need to check on Barbie and her baby on our way to a four o’clock appointment at the Kemp home.”

  “First I want the information that’s coming to me, and then I’m going to sleep for a couple of hours,” I answered and then clenched my teeth. The woman was a slave driver, and I was complicit.

  “How about some food?” Was that a glimpse of humanity Marta just displayed?

  “Thanks, but I’m not hungry,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes and wondering if our conversation should wait until later, when I wasn’t too exhausted to take in whatever she had decided to tell me about Amielbach.

  “My word is good, Lexie,” she said evenly, as if reading my mind. “Take your nap now. We’ll talk later.”

  Trusting her on that one, I used the last speck of energy I possessed to get myself up the stairs and into bed.

  Later that afternoon Marta insisted on driving me to the appointments. I reminded her of what her attorney said, and she answered, “That’s ridiculous. My being on the property doesn’t constitute practicing.” She added that if she didn’t go with me, I’d never find the Kemps’ farm.

  The visit to Barbie’s was quick and uneventful. Everything was going well. Her sisters were back for the day, the baby was nursing, and Barbie was resting as much as she could. The entire appointment took all of fifteen minutes, and then we were on our way to the next visit. Marta sped along the country roads, deftly navigating the twists and turns, slowing for buggies and scooters, and accelerating on the straight stretches when she could.

  Finally she turned onto a narrow lane. The house was back from the road past a row of nine greenhouses. I counted each one. Outside of the last one, Amish men were loading flats of plants onto trucks.

  “Who drives the trucks?” I asked.

  “Englisch,” Marta answered. “The Gundys hire them.”

  “Gundys? I thought we were going to the Kemps’.”

  “Hannah Kemp used to be a Gundy.”

  “Is she related to Sally Gundy?”

  “They’re sisters-in-law.”

  “So she’s Ezra’s sister?”

  Marta nodded. I knew the whole county had to be related, and I also knew it was probably a hopeless cause to even keep the relationships between the few ladies I’d cared for so far straight.

  Mennonites love to know whom you’re related to. At large gatherings, people will ask who your grandparents were—mine had lived in Kansas and were all deceased—what your mother’s maiden name was, all of that. I hated those questions. Sometimes I would hear people whisper, “She�
�s Paul and Clarissa Jaeger’s adopted daughter.” Adopted. It always sounded like a dirty word.

  In high school I noticed that if an adopted person committed a crime, the article in the paper would often identify them as adopted, but I never saw people who did something good identified so. I began to wonder if maybe adoptees never did anything good until I came across an article on adoption that included famous people, such as Aristotle, Edgar Allen Poe, and Faith Hill.

  “Do the Amish adopt much?” I asked Marta.

  “Not particularly,” she answered, her eyes on the lane ahead of us. We were nearing two houses.

  “How about the Mennonites?”

  “It happens,” she answered. “But it’s not common.”

  “Is Zed curious about his birth family?”

  Her mouth twisted to the side. “Ella never should have revealed to you that Zed is adopted. That’s our family’s private matter.” She parked beside a carriage and opened her door quickly.

  We walked past the newer house, which was quite large, toward the smaller house that looked as if it were a century or two old. A pink Big Wheel was parked on the sidewalk by the back door of the smaller house, and a purple ball had been abandoned in the flower bed. Marta knocked, but no one answered. A door to the house across the driveway banged and a woman appeared.

  “Marta!” she called out. It was Alice from two days before. “Hannah’s over here.” Three little girls slipped past; the twins who had been with Alice before and a girl with auburn hair. She appeared to be about five years old. All three were dressed in maroon frocks with white aprons. None of them wore a cap, though their hair was neatly twisted into buns at the back. Their chubby feet were bare.

  I followed Marta to the big house, climbing the stairs to the wraparound porch after her. The slats had been freshly painted and baskets of red germaniums hung from hooks spaced evenly along the ceiling. Flats of impatiens were spread on the lawn along the flower bed, waiting to be planted.

  Alice held open the door and herded the little girls back into the house. “They just got up from their naps,” she said. “I was getting them a snack.” I followed Marta into a big kitchen with a large, rustic table in the middle. The three girls climbed side by side onto the far bench. Each had a cookie in her hand. All three looked past Marta and at me with their big eyes.

  “We always wear dresses,” the oldest one stated, pointing at my jeans.

  Alice said, “Shhh.”

  “Sometimes I wear a dress.” I stopped in front of the girls. “To church and things like that.”

  “I know,” the older girl said. “You are Englisch. That is what you all do.”

  “Never mind Rachael. She likes to practice her English.”

  I must have looked puzzled.

  Alice responded, “The children learn Pennsylvania Dutch at home. It isn’t until school, usually, that they learn English.”

  “Ezra teaches me,” the little girl said and then laughed. She was obviously quite precocious. “Yesterday I learned that the word for kind is ‘child.’ And kinder means ‘children.’”

  My heart swooned at the words, two that I remembered from my year of German. But they meant more to me now. They held the English words “kin” and “kind,” yet they meant “child” and “children.”

  “That Ezra.” Alice shook her head. “He’s going to be the death of us all.”

  A pregnant young woman with hair the same bright shade as Ezra’s, whom I presumed to be Hannah, stepped into the archway between the dining room and living room. She wore a maroon dress and stockings but no shoes. “Hello,” she said to Marta. “I’m glad you found me over here.”

  Marta nodded. “How are you, Hannah?”

  “Gut. It’s best for Rachael and me to spend most of our time here with the twins, Christy, and Mammi. For all of us.”

  Marta nodded again and then introduced me. “Lexie will be working with you today while I stay in the kitchen with Alice and the girls.”

  Hannah had a questioning look on her face but didn’t say anything. “I was resting in the spare bedroom,” she said. “Follow me.”

  I went through the relationships of the Gundy/Kemp family, at least what I knew so far, as I followed Hannah down the hall. Alice was Nancy’s mother. Nancy’s husband was Benjamin. Their children were Will, Hannah, John, and Ezra. John was married to Sally. Hannah was married to—

  “What’s your husband’s name?” I asked as she stopped and motioned me through a door.

  “Jonas.”

  I stepped into a bedroom. “And he works with your dad too?”

  “More for my brother Will. In the greenhouses.”

  The room had a single bed in it and a bureau, with no pictures on the wall. “Do you plan to deliver your baby in here?” I asked.

  “Oh no,” Hannah said. “This is Will’s house. Our home is next door.”

  I continued with the family tree as I pulled the measuring tape and blood pressure cuff from the bag. Rachael belonged to Hannah and Jonas. Christy and the twins to Will and… whom?

  The little girls bumped against the door and then entered the room, giggling as they climbed up onto the bed.

  “This is Melanie and Matty,” Hannah said.

  “Mel and Mat,” Rachael interjected.

  I explained to the children that I was going to measure Hannah to see how big the baby was, though I realized about halfway through that the twins couldn’t understand a word I was saying.

  “Mel and Mat’s mamm had a boppli inside her,” Rachael said matter-of-factly. “But he died. Ya, Mamm?”

  Hannah nodded solemnly.

  “And so did their mamm.” Rachael’s eyes were downcast.

  I looked at Hannah, hoping she would explain what the child was talking about, but her face was stone still.

  Mulling that over, I ran the tape measure up her belly and recorded the number in her chart. Next I wrapped the blood pressure cuff around her arm. The little girls watched closely as I squeezed the bulb.

  “What’s boppli in English?” I asked Rachael.

  She sat back on her heels. “Doll?” she asked her mother.

  “Baby,” Hannah answered. Rachael nodded and smiled.

  Baby. I took Hannah’s blood pressure and recorded it also in her chart. The twins’ mother had died and so had her baby. At first, I thought Rachael meant the baby was stillborn and then the mother died later. But maybe not.

  Maybe… I looked at Hannah, an icy coldness washing over me as comprehension crept into my brain.

  “Rachael, you three run along now,” Hannah said, sitting up. “We’ll be in shortly.”

  The child whispered to Mel and Mat in Pennsylvania Dutch, and they left the room.

  “Was the woman Rachael was just talking about Marta’s patient?” I whispered as soon as they were out of hearing range.

  She nodded. “You didn’t know?”

  “The patient who died recently?”

  She nodded again. Afraid my knees would give out, I lowered myself to the edge of the bed, wanting to put my hands to my face.

  The woman Rachael was talking about was the patient Marta was charged with killing. I never would have guessed by how all of them acted. What other secrets could these people keep?

  “Are you okay?” Hannah’s voice was full of compassion.

  I held up my head. “I’m fine. Just caught off guard, that’s all.” I gathered up my things and followed Hannah into the kitchen.

  “How about a cookie?” Alice asked.

  I sat down beside Rachael at the table. Soon a plate with a cookie on it for me and glasses of milk for the girls appeared. The three little girls all exclaimed, “Danke, Grossmammi!” in unison.

  My thoughts returned to the Gundy family. Even as they were all still mourning the death of a mother and infant son, there would be two new babies in the family soon: first Hannah’s and then Sally’s. I imagined upcoming holiday dinners around the very table where I sat. The laughter. The teasing. The good
food. The devotion to one another. The extended family all together, from the great-grandmother to the smallest little one. In a word, I was jealous.

  Marta, Hannah, and Alice moved away from the table. “How is Will?” Marta asked quietly.

  I couldn’t hear Hannah and Alice’s response because Rachael chattered away, mostly in words I couldn’t understand, and the twins responded over and over with, “Ya, ya.”

  But then the girls quieted for a moment.

  “He wants to see you,” Hannah said. That I heard quite clearly. “But the district attorney told him not to. It’s forbidden.”

  Marta nodded. “So I’ve heard.” She walked to the back door and lifted her coat off a peg. “Well, Hannah, you’ll have another appointment in two weeks and then after that every week until the baby arrives.”

  She smiled. “I will be ready. So will Rachael.”

  The girl turned toward her mother and smiled at the sound of her name.

  I told the little ones goodbye and thanked Alice for the cookie. Rachael climbed down from the bench and scurried across the tile floor, taking my hand. “Come again?” she asked.

  “Perhaps,” I said.

  Hannah stood beside her grandmother, looking the picture of perfect contentment. Yet I knew she must still be full of grief. Her sister-in-law had died just before Dad did, less than two months before. But her grief was unexpected, doubly so. I envied her contentment, her acceptance. And envied her grossmammi standing so stoically beside her, helping her with her daughter and nieces.

  I imagined all of them planting the impatiens after we left. I had the urge to ask if I could stay and help, but it was interrupted by the back door flying open. A tall man with the Gundy red hair and a full beard stood in front of Marta. He looked more like Ezra than John, but he was much larger than both of the younger men.

  He took off his straw hat and looked down on Marta. “I hoped I’d see you.”