by Kelly Irvin
She paused for air. Plain women did not talk to Plain men this way. Even if it was Salome’s little brother. Iris’s breath puffed white in the dark night. The rush of cold air burned her lungs. Her heart beat in her ears like a huge drum.
“You’re needed.”
Mahon let the words hang in the air as if they made perfect sense, as if they answered every question. He offered no apology for scaring the living daylights out of her. Iris blinked. Had he said he needed her? Or had she imagined that?
“Turn off the headlights. I can’t see.”
“There’s no time. You’re needed.” He jabbed one thumb over his shoulder. He wore no gloves. Some days men weren’t the brightest of animals. “We were headed to your house. What are you doing out here in this weather?”
“Delivering Rachel’s baby . . . Why am I answering your questions? What are you—”
“Hurry up! We’re freezing.” Salome’s sharp schoolteacher voice pierced the darkness. The headlights disappeared, leaving them in the darkness of a country road with no lighting. “The heater in this thing only works part of the time. I think Jessica’s water broke just now.”
Iris closed her eyes and opened them, hoping they would adjust to the dark. “Salome?” Not only was Mahon in this English car, but so was his sister. And who was Jessica? Iris could see the vehicle now, a light-colored van. Tan or brown. A man sat behind the wheel. A stranger. “Get out here and tell me what’s going on.”
“Ach. It’s too cold.” Salome hung out the passenger door window. She pulled the scarf wrapped around her neck up over her bonnet with one hand. “We’ve got a lady in here who’s expecting. We’ll explain the rest at your house, I promise, but we need to get there before this baby comes. Jessica thinks it’s coming soon.”
A baby. Why hadn’t Mahon said that? “I’ll meet you there. Go on ahead. Mudder will help until I get there.”
Her father wouldn’t be happy about Salome and Mahon bringing strangers to his door, but Cyrus Beachy would never turn away a person in need. Iris plunged through the snow as fast as her boots would allow, hoisted herself into the buggy, and waited for the van to pass. The engine rumbled and whined before settling into a hit-and-miss putter. The wind blew the nasty smell of gas fumes and burning oil in her face. They would arrive long before she did, but her mother would know what to do. No longer tired or hungry, Iris urged Sable into a canter. Fifteen minutes later she pulled in next to the van, which blocked the hitching post in front of her house. Sable was a patient horse. He would wait for one of her brothers to stable him—if she didn’t wait too long to ask.
She ran up the steps, skidded across the icy porch, and tugged open the door.
Two English teenagers sat on the couch by the fireplace, a tattered blue gym bag on the floor at their feet. Mahon sat across from them in the straight-backed chair wiping condensation from his black-rimmed glasses. It had been years since she’d seen him without his glasses. He glanced up at her entrance. His eyes, normally a brilliant blue behind the lenses, looked softer and warmer. He and Salome could be twins. He nodded and stood. “This is Quinn and Jessica from Iowa.”
The girl was rail thin except for her swollen belly. She wore a wool navy peacoat not large enough to button across her stomach. Someone—probably Mudder—had placed a blanket over her shoulders. Her porcelain skin, huge blue eyes, and curly blond hair that hung to her waist gave her the look of dolls Iris had seen in the toy store windows in St. Louis. She wore no makeup. Tiny earrings like purple jeweled flowers adorned her ears and one side of her nose. The boy had wispy brown hair on his lip and chin that didn’t match the darker hair cut close to his head. A single diamond stud flashed on his right earlobe. His eyes were bloodshot. He tucked a cell phone into his jeans pocket and put an arm around Jessica in a protective gesture.
“I’m Iris.”
“I know.” Quinn’s tone stopped short of belligerent. “They said you could help Jess. Are you a nurse?”
“A lay midwife. I deliver babies.”
“We don’t have much money.” Jessica offered this fact in a high, tight voice. “We don’t have insurance.”
“I wouldn’t take your money—”
“I’m more worried about whether you know what you’re doing,” Quinn broke in. “Did you go to medical school?”
“I apprenticed—”
“She knows.” This time Mahon interrupted her. He plopped his glasses on his nose. “That’s why we brought you to her. We could always go into town.”
“No.”
They both spoke at once. Quinn’s tone definitive, Jessica’s less certain.
Iris glanced at Mahon. He shrugged. “Your mudder is getting a room ready. Salome is in the kitchen making hot cocoa with your schweschders.”
“I thought she was about to deliver.”
“Your mudder says no.” His tone was apologetic. His face, with its chipmunk cheeks, was red. He stood and walked past her, his stride swift as if he couldn’t wait to escape. No Plain man wanted to discuss these things with a woman not his fraa. “I didn’t ask for details. I’ll put up your horse and the buggy.”
She caught his woodsy scent as he passed. “Bundle up.”
What a silly thing to say. Of course he would bundle up. They’d known each other since they were old enough to catch tadpoles in the pond and make mud pies for pretend frolics. It had never been awkward between them, never been a boy-girl thing. More of a brother-sister thing. Until her friends planted the seed. Had his done the same? This wasn’t the time or the place to find out. Iris waited until the door closed behind him. Then she went to Jessica and knelt in front of her. “Can I touch you?”
The girl nodded. Iris placed her hand on the girl’s black-and-red plaid flannel shirt pulled tight over her belly. A minute ticked by. Another. And then another. “When are you due?”
“Not for three more weeks.” Jessica glanced at Quinn as if seeking permission to speak. He shrugged. “That’s why we thought we had time to get to Texas. I was gonna find a doctor there. I even have my bag packed and ready.”
She motioned to the gym bag on the floor. The knob of her delicate wrist stuck out under the frayed sleeve of her shirt. “I brought a nightgown for the hospital and diapers and formula and some bottles and a pacifier—even an outfit to put her in.”
Formula and bottles. “You don’t want to nurse your baby?”
Jessica wrinkled her nose. “I know it’s good for her, but I still have to finish school, and I probably have to get a job for after school, and I can’t be carting her around with me everywhere.”
Who would care for the baby while Jessica went on with her life? That was none of Iris’s business. “It’s a girl?”
“That’s what the doctor said. We saw her in the sonogram and everything. She was mostly a blob, though.”
“What else did he tell you the last time you went to see him?”
“She said Jess needed to eat more. She wasn’t gaining enough weight.” Quinn snorted. “She eats like a horse.”
“Do not.”
Iris smiled at the girl. “You’re eating for two.”
Jessica nodded and leaned back. Iris waited. Quinn smelled of cigarette smoke. Jessica’s scent was flowery, like lilacs. Quinn sat rigid and unmoving, while Jessica’s face grew whiter. Her lips trembled. Finally, muscle contracted under Iris’s fingers.
“Oh no. Not again.” The girl gasped. She grabbed Quinn’s free hand and gripped so tight her knuckles turned white. She sat up straight. Her mouth gaped open. “Ow, ow, ow.”
“Breathe, breathe through it.” Iris kept her voice gentle. She stroked the girl’s other arm. “Relax into it.”
The contraction subsided. Jessica sank back into her chair. “See, it’s getting close. My baby’s coming.”
“It’s not time yet.”
“That’s what the other lady said.” Quinn snorted. “I thought when the water came out, it was time for the baby to come.”
“The contract
ions are still far apart.”
“But they hurt so much.” Jessica sniffed and wiped at her face with the back of her coat sleeve. “It feels like it’s killing me. I can’t do it. What if I can’t do it?”
Iris had seen this before with other first-time mothers, but never this young. She wanted to ask Jessica how old she was, but she bit back the question. That also was none of her business. “You can. I promise. Women do this all the time. All over the world since the beginning of time. We’ll get some cocoa to warm you up. If you want to walk around for a little bit, that might help move things along.”
“Walk around?” Quinn tightened his arm around Jessica, his look suspicious. “Aren’t you supposed to get in bed?”
“No. Unless you’re tired and want to rest for a while.”
“She hasn’t been sleeping good.”
“You wouldn’t either if you had a watermelon sitting on your bladder and had to pee every five seconds.” Jessica’s voice crept higher with each word. “You wouldn’t sleep if your back felt like you’d been lifting fifty-pound bags of potatoes all day.”
“It’ll all be over in a few hours.” Quinn swung his gaze toward Iris as if seeking reinforcement. “You’ll be fine.”
“It might be a little longer than that.”
“We have to get on the road.”
“There’s no rushing a baby.” Iris stood. “I’ll see about the cocoa.”
She grabbed her satchel and fled to the kitchen where she found her little sisters, Louella and Abigail, vying for Salome’s attention while she poured cocoa into mugs and added miniature marshmallows.
“Iris! Iris, an Englisch lady is in the front room.” Louella, who was eight, beat six-year-old Abigail by a hair’s breadth in their mad dash across the room. “She’s having a bopli.”
“I know.” Iris took turns kissing each girl on the top of their kapps. “Where’s Daed?”
“Isaac Borntrager died.” Louella held out a sticky hand full of crushed marshmallows. “Want some?”
“Nee, but it is nice of you to offer.” Daed would help Bishop Freeman Borntrager prepare for his father’s funeral. The man had lived to the great age of eighty-nine, but recently he’d taken to bed with a terrible cough. Her little sister was matter-of-fact about the situation.
“Can you sit at the table and drink your cocoa while I talk to Salome?”
They could, so she took their mugs to the table and settled them in. Then she turned to Salome. “Tell me everything.”
“He had pneumonia.”
“I know, bless his heart. He lived a gut life. Tell me about our visitors.”
“They ran away from home. That’s what I think.” Salome sipped her cocoa and winced. “Hot.”
“Stop drinking hot chocolate and spill the beans. How did you end up in their van?”
Salome leaned on the counter and wrapped her hands around the mug. “Mahon walked out to help Daed with the chores and saw them sitting in the van with the engine running. He asked if they needed something. Quinn said he needed help for his wife.”
“I don’t think she’s his wife.”
“Me neither, but he said they’re driving to Texas. He has a job there and a place to live. He said so and she just kept nodding.”
“Why didn’t Mahon give them directions to the medical center in Chillicothe?”
“He tried. Quinn said there was no time.”
“Her contractions are still ten minutes apart, even now.”
“I know that now.” Salome shrugged. “I reckon they’ve never had a baby before.”
“I hope not.” Iris poured more water into a pot on the stove and turned up the flame. Then she opened her satchel and pulled out the tools of her trade that needed washing. “They don’t seem prepared to be parents at all.”
“What did Mudder say?”
“She hugged the girl and asked Quinn if he wanted some venison stew.”
That was Mudder. Unflappable.
“He said he wasn’t hungry.”
Iris turned. Her mother stood in the doorway, a pile of sheets in her arms. “The girl looks like she could use a meal, but he said no before she got a chance.” Mudder frowned at the memory. Her first instinct was always to feed people. Especially if they needed fattening up. “I put fresh sheets on your bed and covered it with the plastic one. I don’t reckon you’ll be sleeping tonight.”
“Gut. It’ll probably be awhile before she delivers, but it’s nice to be ready.”
Mudder deposited her load on a chair by the table, then trotted over to the stove. She stuck her hands above it. “It’s cold in there, but she’ll warm up once she gets going. She’s walking around in circles now in the front room. She said you told her to do it. Her friend asked me why he can’t get on Facebook out here.”
Iris’s chuckle mixed with Salome’s. Mother surely had no idea what Facebook was. “Did you tell him we have no Internet access?”
“Stop laughing. I know what Facebook is.”
Both Iris and Salome knew from rumspringa experience that a cell phone signal could in fact be had on the farm. Quinn could likely make a phone call if he needed to or send a text, but there was no Internet service. Of course, Daed wouldn’t like him chatting on the phone in the house.
“I hope this isn’t causing you too much trouble.” Salome set her mug on the counter and went to stand by the woman she sometimes called aenti, other times Mudder-number-two. “We didn’t know what else to do.”
“I don’t consider it trouble, helping strangers in need.” Mudder patted Salome’s arm. “It’s what Jesus did. It’s what the good Samaritan did.”
“Do you think Daed will feel the same? Englischers having a baby in his house?” Iris watched the expression change on Mudder’s face as she rubbed her wrinkled hands together to warm them. “Will everyone feel that way?”
She didn’t have to specify. They knew she meant Freeman.
“I’m going there in a few minutes. I’ll tell him myself.”
“In this weather?” Iris shook her head. “You shouldn’t be out there. You have a cough already.”
“I’ll be fine. Rueben will take me. They’ll need help with the preparations.”
Death notices. Food. Cleaning. The viewing. Building the coffin. It wouldn’t have to be big. Freeman’s daed had shriveled in his old age, a wizened little man with big ears, sparse hair on his head, and a beard that reached his waist. He wouldn’t take up much space. The cold, hard earth in the cemetery would be difficult to pierce. Iris shivered. “Take care.”
“You too.” Mudder slid her coat from the hook by the back door and shrugged it on. “That girl is small and she’s scared and she has no idea what she’s in for. It’ll be a long night.”
“The baby will be here by midnight, I reckon.”
“Babies come on their own time.”
CHAPTER 3
Mothers are always right. Iris glanced at the wooden clock shaped like a log cabin hanging on her bedroom wall. Midnight had come and gone. The hands crept toward one. Jessica sat on the side of the bed, her hands gripping the rumpled sheets on either side of her body. Her toes, with nails painted bubblegum pink, curled into the piece rug on the floor. Sweat soaked her tangled hair, her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, and snot ran from her nose. Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed. Quinn had collapsed on the floor across from her, his back to the wall, long legs sprawled in front of him. He clutched his phone as if somehow he could wring help from it.
Her back to Jessica, Iris slipped over to his side and squatted.
“Try rubbing her back and shoulders.”
“No way.” He shot a panicked look at Jessica. “She doesn’t want me messing with her. You heard her. She bit my head off. She blames me for all this. Like she wasn’t even there.”
“It’ll help if she relaxes. We’re on the homestretch. She needs you.”
“Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
Iris pivoted. Her face contorted, Jessica plopped sideways on the b
ed and curled up in a ball. “I can’t take this anymore. I can’t take it.”
“Yes, you can.” Iris straightened and moved to the bed. She took a washrag from a basin of water sitting next to the kerosene lamp, wrung it out, and wiped Jessica’s face with gentle strokes. She handed her a tissue. “You’re almost there. You’re doing great.”
The girl’s ragged sob said she didn’t agree. She rolled to her other side and rubbed her belly. “Have you ever had a baby?”
“No, but I’ve delivered plenty.” Iris eased onto the mattress and massaged the girl’s thin shoulders. She worked her way down Jessica’s knotty spine. “Babies mostly come on their own. They just need a little help.”
“Did the mother ever die?”
“Not one. No babies either.”
Laura had prepared Iris for that. It happened rarely, but it happened for reasons only God understood. So far she’d been spared the anguish. Iris worked her way back up the spine and across the shoulders. Jessica uncurled a little. Her head lolled forward. “That feels good. I’m so tired.”
“I know you are. Tell me about yourself. How old are you?”
“I turned sixteen on Christmas Eve.”
Sixteen. The age Plain girls and boys began their rumspringa, a time of courting and seeking a special friend. The time before making the decision to be baptized. She glanced at Quinn. His head lowered, he used his thumbs to tap out something on the screen. Texting. She’d like to pluck the phone from his hands and toss it in the snow outside the window.
“How long have you and Quinn been together?”
“Since seventh grade.”
“A long time.”
“He’s my soulmate. I knew it the first time he kissed me after our basketball team won state and he made thirty points.”
“Where’s your school?”
“I’ll do that.” Quinn stood next to her. His hand brushed hers away. He put both hands on Jessica’s shoulders and squeezed. “I texted my cousin. He says he’s got room for us. We just have to get there.”
“It hurts. Oh, it hurts.” Jessica’s voice rose. She screamed. “I hate this. I hate you. I hate your cousin.”
