by Jo Ann Brown
Because you’re cute and a flirt, but you’ll soon be fat and nobody will want to flirt with you.
She hated her conscience, but she wouldn’t be forced into a loveless marriage. Maybe, before she had told Micah that she didn’t want to spend time with him anymore, it might have been possible for her to accept his offer.
Not now.
Not after the cruel and taunting words she’d fired at him.
“Good morning, Katie Kay,” called Gemma from the bedroom doorway. She held a bundle of dirty laundry in front of her. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Fine,” she replied, but her stomach roiled as she stood, countermanding her words. Putting her hand over her mouth, she ran to the bathroom.
It was almost ten by the time Katie Kay got downstairs. She glanced toward the kitchen, but the idea of breakfast was nauseating. She’d wait for lunch, and maybe her stomach would have settled by then.
Gemma smiled when Katie Kay came into the living room. “Just in time. You can join us.”
“Us?” She glanced around the room, which was empty except for her and her hostess.
“My young mothers’ prayer group.” Gemma hurried on, warning Katie Kay that her pulse of dismay had been visible on her face. “It’s okay. There aren’t any plain women among my prayer group friends. I doubt any of them know folks from your district.”
“I don’t want to intrude.”
“You won’t.” She smiled. “And lurking around in the kitchen will rouse their curiosity. Why don’t you join us?”
Katie Kay was tempted to be honest and state she was uncomfortable joining an Englisch prayer group. She bit her lip. Until she made up her mind where she intended to live and how, she shouldn’t close any doors or alienate anyone, especially the Donnellys, who’d welcomed her as if they’d been friends for years.
She helped Gemma put out plates of cookies and make coffee and tea for the members of the prayer circle. She watched Olivia, hoping the little girl hadn’t said anything to her mamm about Katie Kay’s tears last night. Olivia seemed focused on playing with her little brother, Jayden, as they built buildings out of wooden logs and filled them with plastic horses in the most outrageous pastel shades. They giggled and jumped around as if they were riding the horses.
Gemma paused in her preparations when Olivia dropped her plastic pony and began to cough. Pulling an inhaler out of the pocket of the shirt that was taut across her belly, she inserted it into a tube. She held the tube to Olivia’s mouth and told her daughter to breathe deeply. Pressing the inhaler, she calmed the little girl as the medicine hissed into the tube and was drawn into Olivia’s mouth and lungs. They repeated the procedure a second time before Gemma led her kind into the kitchen and had her wash her mouth out with clean water.
“She has asthma,” Gemma said when she caught Katie Kay watching. “When she plays too hard, sometimes she has an attack. Thank the good Lord, her inhaler takes care of it as long as we get to her fast.”
“Do you always carry an inhaler?”
She smiled. “Always, and Sean keeps one in the truck.” She continued chatting as she finished getting everything ready for her guests.
Katie Kay wanted to tell Gemma she understood what it was like having a special needs kind in the house, but such a discussion would have to wait.
The other five women began arriving just before eleven, and each of them seemed to accept Gemma’s explanation that Katie Kay was a guest from out of town. The women ranged in age from younger than Katie Kay to their midthirties.
Sitting in the living room, she listened as they spoke about the challenges they faced as mothers. Would she be confronted with the same problems? Not the ones where the women were concerned about their husbands, who were struggling, too, to understand the changes a boppli could bring to their lives. When the women bowed their heads to pray, so did Katie Kay, but her heart remained closed. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she opened it to God. Would He turn His back on her as Austin had? And as Micah had when she turned down the proposal he’d made out of obligation?
She was surprised that Micah’s actions bothered her more than Austin’s. It had to be a sign she was too distraught to think clearly.
Katie Kay breathed a sigh of relief when the women turned to the refreshments and conversation. She had the excuse to bring coffee and tea to serve to Gemma’s guests. They thanked her and tried to make her feel welcome, but she sensed the questions they didn’t utter. She kept up an easy patter to defuse their curiosity.
When everyone was served, she took her chair again and selected a chocolate chip cookie from the plate on the coffee table. Suddenly she was starving. A gut sign because her hunger should mean the day’s nausea was over.
Gemma’s youngest, Jayden, toddled to his mamm and climbed onto her lap. Gemma continued her story without a pause but drew the little boy close to her. When he seemed to reshape himself so he could lean against her distended stomach, Katie Kay was startled by her surprising sense of longing.
Would the boppli inside her ever reach out to her with such innocent love as Jayden did?
“Mommy gots baby.” Jayden patted her stomach and grinned while everyone chuckled.
Sliding off her lap, he went to the brunette whom Katie Kay thought was named Roberta. He tapped her belly as he had Gemma’s.
“Gots baby?” he asked.
That brought more laughter, because Roberta looked ready to go into labor at any second.
He started to move to the next woman, who held her hands in the air and laughed, “No, Jayden. I don’t ‘gots baby.’ Not yet anyhow.”
“No baby?” His pudgy face dropped as he turned to Katie Kay.
As she tensed, Gemma scooped him up and cradled him as if he were a boppli. “That’s enough, young man.”
Katie Kay hoped nobody heard her soft sigh of relief that Gemma had halted him before he asked if she had a baby. Too many people already knew. She trusted the Donnellys and Micah to keep her secret, but the more people who discovered she was pregnant, the greater the likelihood that they’d slip and word of her condition would reach her family.
They couldn’t know until she told them.
Whenever that might be.
* * *
Micah doubted he’d ever understood how deep guilt could go until, that evening after he drove home, he saw a buggy and a familiar horse near the barn on the Stoltzfus family farm. The handsome bay belonged to their bishop, Reuben Lapp.
Katie Kay’s daed.
For a moment, he was tempted to turn his buggy around and drive in the opposite direction. He pushed that thought aside, knowing that, like Katie Kay, he couldn’t avoid her daed forever. He drew Rascal to a stop. As he stepped out, he saw his future stepfather emerging from the dawdi haus.
Reuben looked every bit the Amish bishop he was. His gray beard hung to the middle of his chest, and his eyebrows were so bushy they seemed to arrive ahead of him. His dark suspenders matched his broadfall trousers and scuffed work boots. In addition to his duties as their bishop, he oversaw his farm, more and more with the help of his son and son-in-law. When he called out a greeting, his deep voice resonated off the nearby barn.
“How goes the solar panel business?” Reuben asked as he waited for Micah to reach him on the lawn beneath a tall maple reaching the apex of its scarlet glory.
“Well.” He hated having to force a smile, but he had to. A genuine one wouldn’t come because he had to fight to keep from being honest about knowing where Katie Kay was. “Almost too well. A lot of folks, both plain and Englisch, want to get panels on their roofs to help offset heating costs this winter.”
“The almanac says we could have a snowy winter this year. Will that be a problem?”
“No. Snow melts fast off the panels because they continue to gather the sun’s heat
through a few inches of snow. With a heavier storm, most homeowners won’t have to do more than clear off a corner of a panel. That’ll start the snow melting.”
Reuben smiled. “They seem to be a true blessing for any of us who don’t want to be connected to the grid.” He raked his long beard. “Any chance I could pull strings as a soon-to-be family member and get on your schedule to have a couple put on my roof?”
Micah gave in to his laugh. It felt gut not to have to weigh every word and expression. “I think Sean and I can squeeze you in, if you don’t mind us spreading the job out over a few Saturdays.”
“Your partner’s wife is going to have a boppli soon, ain’t so?”
“Ja, but not for a couple of months, so we should have plenty of time to get the panels on and hooked up for you.”
The bishop’s brows lowered. “I didn’t realize you did the electrical work, too.”
“I don’t.” He understood what Reuben wasn’t saying. A plain craftsman seldom worked with wiring, except to take it out of an Englisch house where an Amish family planned to live. “I leave that to Sean. It’s his specialty. Mine is getting the panels at the best angle to capture the most sunlight. There’s no sense going to the expense of having them installed if the household can’t get the most electricity out of them.”
“No wonder you’re such gut partners.” Reuben’s face cleared, and his easy smile returned. “I’m glad you’ve worked out your jobs as you have.”
“Ja,” Micah said again and then waited for the bishop to go on. Reuben wouldn’t have brought up the topic if he didn’t have something he felt he needed to say about Micah’s work with an Englischer.
Reuben was blunt. “There have been worries about our young people who are working off their family farms. Any skill a man or woman can learn that is useful in a plain life is welcome, of course. However, some of our young ones are learning things that won’t be of any use to them once they’re baptized. Danki for not sneaking around as others are, Micah.”
He nodded but avoided Reuben’s steady gaze. If his future stepfather had any idea what Micah was hiding, he wouldn’t have given Micah a friendly clap on the shoulder and a cheery farewell before continuing toward his buggy. Reuben waved as he drove away.
Micah watched him go. How much longer was Katie Kay going to quibble over whether she should let her daed know where she was? Keeping the secret was eating him from the inside out.
God, You could have put anyone in her way that night. Anyone would have helped her. Why did You choose me? What am I supposed to do? She refused my proposal. What else can I do?
He ignored his conscience, which reminded him how coldly he’d spoken to Katie Kay when he asked her to marry him. But he’d wanted to make sure she knew right from the get-go that he wasn’t asking because he loved her. She’d wound him around her little finger once, and he wouldn’t be foolish again.
“Are you going to stand there all evening, son?” called Mamm from the dawdi haus porch.
Pasting another smile on his face and hoping it looked more natural than it felt, he turned to answer her question. He hoped it would be the only one she asked tonight. “Not if you have cookies or pie waiting.”
She laughed. “And ruin the supper Leah has cooked for us?”
“A cookie or two has never hurt my appetite.”
Again Mamm chuckled, and he did, too, though it wasn’t easy to make it sound genuine. What would Mamm think if she learned of how he had abetted Katie Kay in her secrecy?
Something had to change.
Right away.
Chapter Five
The next morning, at the Donnellys’ house, Micah accepted Gemma’s invitation to come inside and have a cup of kaffi while Sean finished his breakfast. Glancing around the kitchen, he saw no sign of Katie Kay.
“She’s been sick every morning,” Gemma said when she noticed him looking around. “As I’ve told her, morning sickness should pass in a week or two.”
“I hope she realizes how blessed she is to have you,” he said as Jayden crawled in his lap.
The two-year-old wanted to show off the plastic cow he’d found at the bottom of the toy box. Because the little boy hadn’t seen it in a few weeks, he was as excited as if it were a brand-new toy.
Across the table, DJ was eating his cereal as if afraid someone was going to snatch it away from him. Drops of milk clung to the table, his chin and the napkin stuck in the neck of his shirt. Olivia nibbled delicately on her toast, and Micah smiled. There was something extra precious about a little girl amidst her rowdy brothers.
A no-longer-unexpected throb of jealousy cut through Micah. He’d hoped to have a family like this—or at least be beginning one—by now. If Katie Kay had been the woman he’d once believed her to be, maybe they would have been working together to have the life Sean and Gemma had.
He pretended to be enthralled with Jayden’s black-and-white plastic cow. He realized he was overdoing it when Sean shot him a curious glance. His partner knew him too well, but Sean didn’t know the whole truth about how Katie Kay had humiliated him.
As if his thoughts had summoned her, Katie Kay walked into the kitchen. She faltered and gasped when she looked at him.
“I thought you’d left already. That is, I heard—” She fled out of the room.
Setting Jayden on his feet, Micah stood and followed her. He stopped in front of her. If she pushed past him or edged around him, he wouldn’t halt her, but he hoped surprise would pause her in her tracks.
It did, and she gave him the frown he was familiar with. The frown told him she didn’t want him in her life any longer. Well, too bad. As long as she was living under his friends’ roof, she was going to have to put up with seeing him. He’d rescued her from beside the road, so he was responsible for her...as he would have been if she’d been an abandoned kitten. And he couldn’t ignore her unborn boppli.
“Are you going to keep running away forever?” he asked.
She blanched, and he regretted the words. As he started to apologize, she waved his words aside. “I don’t want you lying to me, Micah.”
“I don’t want to lie either, but I could have been nicer.”
“You could have.” A faint smile played at the corners of her mouth. “I’m assuming you have something to say to me other than less-than-nice questions.”
“Ja. When are you going to see a doktor?” He shook his head. “Knowing you, I guess that’s not the question I should be asking.”
Her whisper of a smile weakened. “No, it’s not.”
Before she could tell him—again—that he needed to stay out of her life, he hurried to say, “The question I should be asking is, have you seen a doktor yet?”
“I just found out I’m... I’m going to have a boppli.” Color rose in her cheeks with the vibrant pink hue that had fascinated him from the time they were kinder. She’d been brimming with excitement back then, and he’d been drawn to the shade like a rabbit into a snare.
Telling himself to focus on the present and forget the past, he said, “You should see a doktor or a midwife right away. There’s a birthing clinic in Paradise Springs. I’ll take you there.”
Her face seemed to thin as it paled once more, as if life had been sucked out of her. “I can’t go to a clinic in Paradise Springs. Not yet.”
He jammed his hands into the pockets of his work coat so she wouldn’t see how they curled into frustrated fists. “Stop thinking only of yourself! You need to make sure your boppli is growing well.”
“I’m not thinking only of myself.”
“No?” He was pushing her, but she had to be sensible. Hiding at his friends’ house was preposterous. He’d guessed she’d stay with the Donnellys for a night or two and then go home to her own family.
She walked to the front window. When Gemma hurried p
ast them with DJ, making sure he wasn’t too late to catch the school bus, Katie Kay didn’t turn to look at them or him.
The moment the door closed behind Gemma and her son, Katie Kay said, “All I’ve been thinking about is the boppli. I’m trying to figure out what’s best for him or her.”
“Keeping the boppli away from its family is...” He amended what he was about to say, knowing she wouldn’t take it well. “It can’t be right.”
“I know. It should be simple, but it’s not, Micah.” She looked at him.
He wondered if he’d ever seen such honest emotion on her face. It revealed the uncertainty she was wrestling with. He was crossing the room to her before he realized what he was doing. He pulled her into his arms and wasn’t surprised when his shirt dampened with her tears.
Lord, he prayed, it hurts to see her brought low. I know she is too proud, but please lift her up so she can see the right way to go.
A throat was cleared behind him, and he glanced toward the kitchen door to see Sean and the younger kids there. His friend looked concerned, but Micah couldn’t guess if his anxiety was for Katie Kay’s tears or because Micah was trying to comfort her. Should he have avoided trying to ease her pain?
With a sigh, he knew Katie Kay wasn’t the only one who needed to make tough decisions...and stick with them.
* * *
Katie Kay wasn’t sure how Micah had arranged it, but the following morning, he told her he’d set up an appointment for her in two days at the birthing clinic in Paradise Springs after it closed for the evening.
“That way, nobody will see you go in or out,” he said as he held out the page where he’d written the name of the midwife she would meet with.
Beth Ann Overholt, she read.
“Do you know her?” Katie Kay asked. “Will she say anything to anyone?”
“Beth Ann is a professional and doesn’t gossip about her patients. She’s delivered several of the bopplin for our family.” He shook his head. “How did you get suspicious of everyone and everything?”
She looked again, ashamed of what she had to admit. “The hard way. People I trusted turned away from me.”
