The Amish Midwife's Courtship

by Cheryl Williford

  Would she regret turning him down? She glanced at her built-up shoe. Isaac was temporarily disabled, and it was evident he didn’t want her as a frau. He needed someone strong to help build his bike shop into the success he dreamed of. There were plenty of young girls looking for someone to court and wed. Someone would catch his eye one day soon.

  She threw her leg over her bike and began to pedal. So what if she’d have to live her life single and alone? It was better than marrying without love. The image of Isaac walking alone across the park came back to haunt her. Did he feel lonely, too?

  Chapter Eight

  Isaac woke from a restless night, his breathing labored and his hair damp with sweat. The recurring nightmare that disturbed his sleep still tormented him.

  He had been driving. Headlights sped toward him. He fought to swerve, his fingers gripped the truck’s steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. But the crash still came. The sound of metal tearing metal cut through his brain. Pain was everywhere. Thomas lay on the ground. Isaac stifled a shout and pulled himself out of the black fog.

  With the back of his hand, he wiped sweat off his brow and threw back the covers, the ache in his leg forcing him to slowly maneuver out of the bed. He limped to the window.

  Somewhere in the house Molly sang a familiar worship song, her voice sweet and low.

  He had wanted to get out of the house early this morning, before she woke and started her day. He needed time to think about their pretend courtship. He owed her a big favor, but it wasn’t like him to break form and lie. He didn’t think it was Molly’s way, either.

  What if they fell in love after spending time together? Stranger things had happened. They could never have a future together. Not after the choices he had made. When she found out about the accident, Thomas’s death...she wouldn’t want him. He had to face that there may never be a real courting or marriage for him. He didn’t deserve the joy of being a husband and father.

  He ran his hands though his hair, his frustration growing. He knew so little about Englischer laws. Would he go to prison if the Englischer police found out he’d been driving Thomas’s truck that night?

  The Amish had their own laws and ways of handling legal situations. The power of his community, the rules his bishop laid down, was all Isaac knew. When his daed directed him to speak up to the bishop and elders, he’d confessed his sin to them. They’d prayed for his forgiveness from Gott. Wasn’t that how he’d always done things? Hold firm to his Amish ways? So why was he still feeling so guilty? Would he ever feel forgiven, be able to live a normal life?

  He had no money, no home. There was only his business, and it might never be a moneymaker. He lived hand-to-mouth and wasn’t about to ask any woman to live that way, too.

  Especially Molly.

  He quickly showered, dressed and sneaked out the kitchen door, his hair still wet, his cane in hand. The pavement was damp from an early-morning rain shower. He wiped down the seat of his golf cart and backed out of the driveway, not looking back.

  * * *

  Molly’s hand smoothed out the crumpled quilt and then punched her pillows into fluffy mounds. She’d slept poorly, her eyes stinging with grit from too little sleep after spending two hours of her night with a first-time mother’s false alarm. Outside her window Isaac’s new golf cart started up. She turned from her bed, her attention pulled toward the noise of the cart engine. She pulled back her bedroom curtain and watched as he drove down the drive and onto the street, headed toward town.

  “Ach!” She’d wanted to talk to him while her mamm wasn’t around. They had to come to a clear understanding before she spoke to her mother.

  Glad for a day off from the café, she began to ready the rooms for guests coming the next day. The kitchen always took the longest to clean and required the most work. She started by cleaning the oven and then wiped down all the wooden cabinets with linseed oil and a soft cloth.

  “You look busy,” Ulla said, coming through the back door a few moments later. She flung a thrift-store bag in the middle of the kitchen table.

  “Was tut Sie bier?” Molly asked, glancing at the store bag and then her mamm. She flashed her a scowl. The table had been freshly scrubbed a moment before, and now it would need to be cleaned again.

  Ulla pulled out a pair of cutoff jeans and a large man’s T-shirt from one of the bags and held the trousers up against her body, muttering unintelligible words that clearly had something to do with them possibly not fitting her ample hips. Ulla glanced up. “I live here, bensel. Where else would I be?”

  “I thought you were spending the day fishing with Chicken John.” Molly smirked as her mamm winced at the man’s community nickname. Ulla flushed rosy pink, something Molly hadn’t seen her do in a long time.

  “I’ve told you before. Stop calling him that, especially to his face. There’s nothing wrong with him owning a chicken farm. It’s a respectable occupation, and you like eating the eggs his chickens lay well enough.” Ulla reached for a glass from the overhead cabinet next to the sink and turned on the tap.

  Molly couldn’t help but notice her mamm’s flush had crept all the way down to her neck when she turned around to scold her.

  “Are you stringing Chicken John along for his money?”

  “What a thing to say to your mamm. Of course I’m not. I truly like him. He’s good to me, and kind spirited.” Ulla took a sip of water and then added, “I know you’ll probably find this hard to believe, but he seems to like me, too.”

  “Is there an announcement coming soon?” Molly almost laughed out loud when her mamm swallowed down the wrong pipe and sputtered. “You’ve gotten very rude since you began working at that café. Perhaps it’s time I pay a visit and speak to your boss about manners.”

  A mental image of her mother and Willa Mae going toe-to-toe in front of a café full of gossipy customers put a grin back on her face. “That’s a good idea. Maybe you could bring Chicken John with you and then have a meal on me.”

  “Ya, a real smart-mouth, just as I said, and in mei haus. I’ve known John for years. He’s been like a bruder to me. There’s nothing more to say.” Ulla snatched her bags off the table and stomped past, her bedroom door slamming with a resounding bang a few seconds later.

  Molly smiled as she hurried to answer the front doorbell.

  His bowl-cut gray hair shoved under a navy blue baseball cap, Chicken John stood on the doorstep, his small body swallowed up by a checked, long-sleeved fishing shirt. Pale, skinny legs protruded from his baggy work pants rolled all the way to his knobby knees.

  Molly held back a titter of laughter. “Looks like you’re ready for a sunny day of fishing.”

  “Ya. Seems your mamm has no intentions of coming home until we catch our dinner.” He grinned and then glanced around Molly. “Your mamm’s not ready yet?”

  “She’s dressing now. Would you like to come in?”

  “Nee, not like this.” He looked down at his worn fishing boots covered in sand and shrugged. “I smell of fish bait and the old boat. Maybe next time.”

  Dressed in a plain dress, with jeans that covered her legs, Ulla rushed past Molly, her tennis shoes squeaking on the hardwood floors as she headed toward the door. “It makes me to wonder why you’ve become so foolhardy of late, Molly. Perhaps there’s more for us to talk about when I get home.”

  Molly shut the door and leaned against it.

  Had Samuel told her mamm about her commitment to Isaac?

  * * *

  Isaac rang up the inexpensive tire valve and forced a smile on his face as he handed back the change from his customer’s dollar bill. “Danke. Come back to see us,” he said, and watched the burly teenager walk out the door. The boy had come in for two new bike tires, but he didn’t have the right size in stock for one. Another sale lost.

  He looked down
at the dollar bill in his hand. Should he add it to the two quarters, two dimes, a nickel and four pennies in the money drawer? Not even enough to buy his lunch. He folded the money and dropped it in his pocket and then wrote the sale down in his book under the correct date. At this rate he wouldn’t be able to pay for new supplies at the end of the month, much less his rent to Ulla, even if she let him stay after she heard the news of his courting her daughter. Where would he go to live?

  Silence ate at him. He could hear the low hum of a dryer going around and around at the Laundromat next door. He’d had no business for hours, yet there was always a line out its door, Amish and Englischer snowbirds waiting for fresh clothes during peak season. Maybe he’d gone into the wrong business. Maybe he should go back to Missouri, face his family’s disappointment and the police with the truth.

  Isaac sat on the red couch and watched traffic go by. He perked up in his seat and stretched to watch as Molly flew past his window, pedaling her bike like time was against her. Her medical bag bounced in the wire basket behind her seat. Another baby to be birthed by the ever-busy woman. Her profession and work ethic warmed him. He’d never liked lazy people. There was nothing lazy about Molly Ziegler.

  His stomach growled, but he ignored the call for food. He’d eat an apple in a bit and then wait for another inexpensive but delicious meal at home. Home. When had he started to think of Molly’s house as his own? He’d lived there almost a month now. Even Ulla had warmed to him and treated him almost human at times. But would she treat him so well after she learned of them courting?

  Isaac picked up a fashion magazine an Englischer had leafed through while waiting for a handlebar adjustment on her bike.

  A thin Englischer woman in bright clothes that barely covered her body stared back at him. For a fleeting second he wondered what Molly would look like in a modest Englischer dress instead of the plain Amish clothes she wore.

  An appealing image of her flashed through his mind. He sighed and started to toss the magazine in the trash, but caught a glimpse of an advertisement about bettering your business profits. He looked up the article’s page number, turned to it and began to read. The writer was big on start-up loans for small businesses.

  He thought about what he needed on the shelves, how a couple of extra rental carts could double, maybe triple his profit margin. He laid the magazine on the couch cushion next to him and leaned back, his eyes closed. Was he just being stubborn? Why not borrow a small loan from the church, just enough to get regular customers coming in?

  Mose Fischer could help him make a decision. He was an elder in the modern Amish church they attended. Maybe he would be knowledgeable about loans and such. Isaac stood and stretched, his leg hurting, but not as much as it had in the past. The limp would remain, forever his companion.

  Turning the Open sign over to Closed, he locked the main door and strolled toward the back exit. Excitement coursed through him. This loan idea could be the chance he needed to make his business thrive.

  * * *

  Tired but exhilarated after her patient’s quick and easy birth of a healthy seven-pound boy, Molly returned home. She headed straight for Isaac’s private room, a stack of fresh linens over one arm, her basket of cleaning supplies over the other.

  She knocked on his door to make sure he hadn’t come home early, then went in. Entering his room when he wasn’t there felt strange. Her arm pimpled with goose bumps. She was being ridiculous. She’d cleaned his room a dozen times before.

  She had a job to do and got busy working, a hum coming from the depth of her soul, calming her.

  His bed was tidy but not properly made. Typical male. His curtains were closed so tightly not a beam of sunlight filtered in. Using both arms, she threw his drapes back and opened the two windows, allowing fresh air to blow into the small room. Rooms needed to breathe, her mamm had taught her as a small child. The scent of oak trees and sea breezes blew in, ruffling the curtains and flushing out the stale air.

  She tore at his sheets and light quilt, and made a messy pile on the floor with the dirty linens. Leaving the mattress to air, she cleaned the windows with ammonia water and rubbed a shine into the glass windowpanes. A swipe of lemon water and baking soda cleaned the window ledges and doorknob. She grabbed a container of beeswax and went to work polishing the bed’s headboard.

  Moving over to his dresser, she lifted his Bible and couldn’t resist the temptation to sniff the old leather-bound book. It reminded her of her grossmammi’s Bible from so long ago. As a child, she’d spent many hours in the Word, enjoying the pictures of the animals and people separating the pages of God’s infinite words. Molly gave the old book a swipe of beeswax and then cleared the top of the dresser. She smeared a wax film all over the surface, hitting the sides and drawers for good measure. When she was finished, the old dresser had a golden shine that would have impressed her grossmammi if she’d still been alive.

  Prepared to remake the bed, Molly flipped out the clean bottom sheet, tucked in the corners and smoothed out any wrinkles left on the top sheet. She reached for the quilt on the chair and saw something white on the floor by the closet door. Almost ready to dust mop the room’s wooden floors, she walked over and picked up an envelope, this one smaller than the ones she’d seen in his room before. It smelled of roses.

  As the envelope was roughly opened, the name of the sender was partially torn. But Molly could make out the first name and the address clear enough. The name Rose, written in a small, feminine print, drew her attention. She turned the envelope over. Near the seal was a small X and the words See you soon.

  She read the name Rose again and tapped the envelope against her hand as she pondered. Who was this Rose? His mamm? A sister? Maybe a cousin. She sniffed the envelope again. No mamm she knew would douse a letter to her son with sweet water. Perhaps he had a girlfriend back home?

  Could he already be courting someone? Maybe he’d agreed to her deception because he felt sorry for Molly?

  Her face flamed. She often regretted her impulsive decision to ask him to fake a courtship. Maybe he did, too. Could she be causing him problems? She looked around for more letters on the floor, but only found dust bunnies under the bed.

  Molly put the letter on the dresser and went back to making the bed, her thoughts lingering on the name Rose as she flipped the fresh quilt across the bed and punched air into Isaac’s feather pillows. Whoever this Rose was, she lived in the same town Isaac had come from. Jamesport, Missouri.

  She grabbed for the dust mop and began pushing it across the floor.

  “I see you’re still handy with the mop.”

  Molly flushed, remembering the bump she’d put on Isaac’s head that first day. She glanced at the letter she’d just placed on the dresser and then leaned on the mop handle and sheepishly grinned his way. “Ya, the mop and I have become good friends.” She tugged one of her kapp’s ribbons away from her face. “You’re home early. No business?”

  “Not much, but that could all change soon.” He flashed a smile and then rested against the doorframe, his arms across his chest in a relaxed manner. He seemed content to stand there and watch her finish the last of the cleaning. “I read an article in an Englischer magazine this afternoon.”

  “Ya, and what kind of advice did this magazine article suggest that puts such a big smile on your face?” Isaac seldom smiled like he meant it, and here he was smiling like the proverbial Cheshire cat over something Englisch. “I find hard work and perseverance usually pay off for me.”

  Isaac pulled off his straw hat and tapped it against his leg, his expression serious again. “Ya, well. I’m working hard at getting the business going, but if I don’t have bikes to rent or parts to sell, it’s tough meeting my customers’ needs.”

  “You make a good point, but all businesses take time to get going.”

  “That’s just it. I don’t have the cash
flow to wait for business to pick up. I need income now, and this article reminded me of something.”

  “And what is that?” Molly walked to the door, her mop and supplies in hand. She looked up into his green eyes and saw a fresh flash of fire smoldering there.

  “I’m going to meet with Mose and see if I can get a loan from the church. I just came home to clean up a bit before I go.” He tugged at his shirt, revealing golden dots of some kind of oil on his light blue shirt. A smear of bike-shop goo on his left cheek could have been anything from mud to motor fluids.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Molly said, and turned to go, only to glance back. “I put fresh towels in your bathroom and there’s plenty of hot water. I’ll be praying Gott’s will for your life.”

  His hand on the doorknob, Isaac said, “Danke, Molly. I need those prayers.”

  “You can pray, too, you know. Where two or more are praying, He’s in the midst of them.”

  Isaac’s head dropped. “Sometimes I think Gott doesn’t listen to my prayers anymore.”

  Molly paused. Isaac stood inches from her, prepared to shut his bedroom door behind her. She really didn’t know anything about his life, his family, what he believed, but she did know he was hardworking and kind. Since showing up at their door, the road-weary expression he wore on his face convinced her there were things undone in his spiritual life. Threads that had unraveled, leaving him feeling alone and lost. She knew what that loneliness felt like.

  When her sister, Greta, had died suddenly in childbirth, it had taken Molly a long time to trust God again, to believe He knew what was best for her life. Maybe Isaac was going through loss, too. She smiled her encouragement. “You’ll see. Just pray for Gott’s will and wait for the good to happen.”

  Chapter Nine

  There was no hesitation in Isaac’s steps. He strolled up to Mose’s furniture store as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He wanted to exude confidence. His pain level down, his limp was less noticeable and not as apt to hold him back.