Belonging

by Karen Ann Hopkins

  Shifting my gaze back to Emilene’s husband, I growled inwardly. It certainly wasn’t fair.

  As the drone of the children’s voices faded behind me, I walked back to the birthing room, glad that no one had attempted to talk to me on my trip to get the ice chips. I really wasn’t in the mood for conversing at that point. Stepping through the doorway, I almost turned around.

  Emilene was sitting up and pushing.

  It was inevitable; I was going to see not one, but two babies being born.

  Bridgett counted while Emilene pushed with all her might, her face bulging and turning a darker shade of pink with each number spoken. After ten babies, I was expecting these to just fall out, but that wasn’t the case—they didn’t want to come out into the big bad world that easily.

  I stood to the side of the bed, peeking around the other women as Emilene strained. After several more minutes passed, I became increasingly nervous. With my heart tapping quickly against my chest, I moved up beside Bridgett and placed the ice chips on the nightstand.

  “Isn’t this taking a little long for her eleventh time?” I whispered to her.

  She gazed over at me, and I could read worry on her face. “She really wants to have these babies in the home, but—” she looked back down at Emilene “—I fear she may need a doctor’s attention.”

  “My Dad’s a doctor. He lives only a few miles away—if you want, I can call him and check if he’s home.” Seeing the confusion playing across her features, I added, “I’m not Amish. Well, at least not yet. It’s a long story.”

  “Who’s your dad?” I had her full attention now.

  “David Cameron. He works at Meadowview Regional.”

  “Oh, my goodness, girl, why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” She quickly pulled her cell phone from her pocket and handed it to me. “Go ahead and call him. We’ll see what comes of it before we make a decision,” she said.

  I caught Ruth watching me as I left the room. Surely she wouldn’t mind me getting my dad involved if it helped her daughter out. It was hard to find a quiet place in the house, so I resorted to the porch. The raindrops on the roof were actually quieter than the kids inside.

  “This is David Cameron,” Dad answered all serious-like. He wouldn’t have recognized the number. I was enjoying the fact that he would be surprised.

  “Hey, Dad, it’s me.”

  “Are you all right?” His voice had gone from calm and collected to on edge in an instant—served him right for being so mean earlier.

  “I’m fine. It’s just that there’s this woman who’s here about to give birth to twins. They’re her eleventh and twelfth if you can imagine that, and she’s having some problems.”

  Dad quickly processed the information, answering me immediately, “She should go to the hospital right now.”

  “She doesn’t want to. And she has a couple of midwives here, one isn’t Amish. Her name is Bridgett.”

  “You must mean Bridgett Langly. She’s qualified to deliver the babies,” Dad reassured me.

  “She’s the one who asked me to call you. She wants you to come over here and help out, if you’re not too busy.” I probably shouldn’t have added the sarcasm at the end because I knew firsthand what a busy guy he really was.

  “She’s in luck, then. I’m almost home. Where are you at? I’ll head straight there.”

  I told Dad the directions and returned the phone to Bridgett. She was thrilled to hear that the awesome Dr. Cameron was coming to help her out. Even Ruth patted me on the back, thanking me for making the call.

  When Dad arrived moments later, the room was quickly emptied of most of the people. I shouted an inner Go Dad for taking charge of the overly herdlike women. The only people left in the room were Ruth, Bridgett, Dad, of course Emilene and me.

  I had tried to make a clean getaway when the other women were dismissed, but Dad wanted me nearby to help. When I attempted to argue with him, he gave me a stern look that said if I spoke another word I’d be spanked. He then said something about wanting someone available to call the hospital if needed and I was overly qualified for that job. Even with Ruth so thoroughly distracted with her own child’s predicament, she still managed to smirk at my thorough take-down by Dad.

  Old people always stuck together.

  I had to admit, I felt much better now that Dad was here, and I could tell that Bridgett and Ruth felt the same way. Mrs. Zook, not so much—she took an obvious disliking to Dad when he asked her to leave the room saying that he had everyone he needed. Her frown at me when she made her exit spoke volumes.

  That had been about ten minutes earlier, and in that amount of time Dad had given Emilene an examination and had her pushing all over again. I don’t know if Dad actually did anything specific to get those babies moving or if just having a doctor in the room tilted the earth enough to get the job done, but with her second push this time, baby boy number one was out.

  I drifted closer to the baby as Bridgett bundled it and handed it to Ruth. Ruth beamed at me, and I found myself staring down at the pinkish little human in awe. It was hard to believe that a moment ago he was inside his mom’s belly, and now he was out here with us.

  The second baby was being difficult, and Emilene moaned that she couldn’t push anymore. Promptly and totally unexpectedly, Ruth handed me baby number one to rush to her daughter’s side.

  I held the baby as if it were a grenade, trying not to move a muscle. What was Ruth thinking, giving the baby to me? I’d never held someone this young before. I sucked my breath in, hoping that someone would take the baby quickly. If not, I was going to look for one of those identical sisters-in-law.

  Emilene’s crying felt like a slap in the face, and I looked up to see her exhausted, blotchy cheeks wet with tears. Strands of her gray-streaked hair had escaped the bun, and they hung about her in a tangled mess. Her blue eyes were bloodshot and squinted in pain above dark circles that resembled black thumbprints. Even with one baby out, her body was still grotesquely bloated. At that moment, my heart skipped, and I felt incredibly sorry for her. But despite my sympathy for the woman, if she didn’t start secretly using birth control after all this, I would lose any pity for her. I couldn’t even fathom suffering through eleven times of this torture.

  Dad talked to Emilene encouragingly while he pressed his hand down above the bulge in her belly. The sight of him pushing like that freaked me out, and I chose then to focus on the baby in my arms. It was straining my arms to hold him away from my body, so I brought him in close. Luckily, he was sleeping, and the way he was burrito-wrapped he wasn’t going anywhere.

  The baby cry snapped my head back up. Dad was cutting the cord while Ruth held a second tiny boy.

  Within minutes I was relieved of my bundle, and Emilene was cuddling her two baby boys. She wasn’t crying now. Instead, she beamed out from under the new sheets that Bridgett had covered her with. With total efficiency, Bridgett and Ruth had the bloodied cloths hidden in a laundry basket and the room tidied of any evidence of the messy event that had just taken place.

  I was still in a daze as the family members—all twenty or so of them—began to file into the room to check out the newest arrivals. Dad had a look on his face that clearly said who the hell opened the floodgates, but he kept his composure, instructing Bridgett and Ruth to get Emilene and the babies to the hospital as soon as possible to be thoroughly examined. He offered to call an ambulance, but as usual, Emilene wanted to take the more difficult path, opting to be driven to the hospital in the old Suburban parked outside.

  As Dad was leaving, he took my hand and pulled me out of the throng of people. Even with the clothes on, I still felt like an intruder. If I had closed my eyes, the strange language darting around the room would have made me think that I was in a foreign land.

  I let Dad pull me through the house, glad to get away from the crowd—and the unintelligible language. When we were out on the porch again, Dad finally looked at me. He shook his head. “I don’t get why you’r
e subjecting yourself to this.” He pointed to the front door. “That woman should have been in the hospital to begin with. She’s just lucky that there weren’t any serious complications. Her stubbornness is indicative of her society’s unwillingness to evolve.”

  I tried to hide the smile that was starting to form on my lips.

  “That’s quite a mouthful, Dad.”

  “I’m serious, Rosie. Don’t make light of this situation.” He grabbed the hair above his forehead and tugged on it in frustration. “Aren’t you getting tired of this fiasco—aren’t you ready to come home?”

  Dad’s voice was stressed and tired. His face was pained. I hated doing this to him, but what choice did I have? If I went home with him, I’d never be with Noah again. I couldn’t give up my love.

  “I’m sorry, Dad. I can’t right now. You promised me you’d give me time to decide, and it hasn’t been long enough.” I pleaded a little, using the twang in my voice that always got me what I wanted from Dad.

  Then he had to go and say something that brought tears to my eyes.

  “After delivering those babies, it’s hard not to remember the day you were born. Your mother was so happy to have a little girl of her own. I only wonder what she’d think about all this, what she’d do about it.”

  He pulled me into his arms and hugged me longer and tighter than he had when he’d left in a huff. This time, he seemed too tired to be angry.

  When he released me, he went to his car without another word. With a spirit that was heavy from many thoughts and emotions, I watched him drive away. Being around Dad always disrupted my resolve to become Amish. He made me feel guilty and homesick at the same time. I couldn’t deal with those feelings and the craziness Noah incited in me. I couldn’t handle it all.

  The decision came to me. I’d have to limit Dad’s visits, because he was only making matters worse.

  * * *

  After Dad left I thought my day was close to being over. I was looking forward to crawling into bed and pulling the thick homemade quilt up under my chin. It was about eleven-thirty and I was ready to head back to the Hershbergers. It would have been glorious to get into a car and drive the few miles home in a couple of minutes, park and walk to the door—but not for us.

  I was dreading the long ride, the rocking to and fro up the road, and then the time we’d have to spend unhitching the horse, grooming and putting her out in the pasture.

  In retrospect, the buggy ride home would have been welcomed compared to where I actually ended up: wedged in between Ruth and one of the sisters-in-law in the backseat of the Suburban. Since I was Ruth’s new daughter, tradition or something mandated that I go along to the hospital to get the mother and children settled in. Bridgett followed in her sporty little Mustang, and I wished so hard that I’d been allowed to ride with her that my head began to pound with the strain of it.

  I wandered around the hospital like a zombie, following the Amish women here and there until Emilene and babies were finally given a clean bill of health. They would be staying until the next day because of protocol. I suspected that was all right, now that Emilene had the bragging rights of having all twelve of her children at home. The hospital was a whole lot quieter than her house was. She might actually get to take a nap.

  Being in the hospital again made a rush of emotions surge through me, remembering when I’d been there the last time—and nearly lost Noah. It was a good thing I was too tired to dwell much on the feelings. Just as we were finally going to make our exit, I nearly ran into Tina coming off the elevator.

  Her face registered shock for an instant when she recognized my face, but she recovered quickly, introducing herself to Ruth and the sisters-in-law in a perky voice. How she managed the bright eyes in the middle of the night was beyond me.

  “I didn’t know you worked nights, Tina,” I said, making conversation, but really wanting to get out of there.

  “I do about once a month so that I can touch base with the nighttime employees.” She rushed through the words, obviously wanting to get on to more interesting topics.

  Tina picked up my hands and pulled me a little way from the other women, who continued to stand there staring at us.

  “How are you doing, Rose?” She lowered her voice and tilted her head. “Are you okay living with them so far?”

  I couldn’t say much while I was being spied on. But I did like Tina and wished I could talk to her about Levi and Miranda. She’d know what to do. Unfortunately, her solution to the problem would probably involve the cops. I needed a much more subtle approach to hanging Levi Zook.

  “I’m doing fine. Maybe sometime I’ll come over and have dinner with you and Dad.”

  I hoped that would satisfy her curiosity for the moment.

  I knew I’d succeeded when she gushed, “Oh, you’re welcome anytime. Just call me or your dad. Do you still have my number?”

  “Yes, I do. Thanks.”

  “Rose, come along.” Ruth was over the Englishers’ reunion.

  I hugged Tina in a quick motion and joined the women. As I went through the automated doors behind Ruth, I couldn’t help but turn and wave at Tina. She stood watching me leave.

  Seeing Tina made me feel guiltier still. After all, she was the one who practically guaranteed Dad that I’d be running home for freedom after a few weeks of living the disciplined Amish lifestyle. My three weeks were almost up, and I wasn’t running anywhere.

  I wondered what that revelation would do to her relationship with Dad.

  Minutes later when I thought my meeting with my bed had almost arrived, we pulled into the Walmart parking lot. I was beyond upset by that point, bordering on hysterical when I questioned Ruth.

  “Why are we doing this now? It’s the middle of the night,” I said, my voice rising with each word.

  Ruth, who was still looking fairly awake for an elderly woman, focused on me with hard eyes. “Don’t you go using that disrespectful tone that you give to your father with me—I’ll not be having any of it, young lady. We’re going to take advantage of hiring a driver and being in town to pick up a few items that we need.” She got out of the vehicle and was talking to the air by that time. “You’ll learn soon enough that drivers are expensive and we are thrifty people with our money.”

  I dragged behind the three women as we made a complete circuit of the store, even stopping for a few minutes in the sporting goods department to buy ammo for one of the sisters-in-law’s husbands. It was nearing hunting season, after all, she explained.

  I barely listened to her. I didn’t care about hunting season, or laundry detergent. Even the blue baby onesies were causing my vision to blur. I just wanted to get out of there.

  About the time we were almost checked out and I was placing the bags in the cart, I noticed several teenage girls gawking at us. It dawned on me that it was the first time I’d been out in public dressed as an Amish person. It was strange how all the events of the past couple of weeks, in addition to the hard work I was unaccustomed to, had made me forget about what I was wearing. Sometimes, I found myself freaked out to touch my head and discover the cap. But other than those startling moments I hadn’t really thought much about the strangeness of my attire—until now.

  One of the girls, a tall brunette, actually had the nerve to point at me, giggling.

  That must have been my cracking point. Without even knowing how I got there, I found myself face-to-face with the girl in a heartbeat.

  “Do you have some kind of a problem?” I snarled.

  Miss-Pointy-Finger was so shocked that her mouth gaped open and was unable to speak.

  The plump girl on the left said to the brunette, “Let’s go, McKenzie.”

  But I wasn’t done with her yet. I took a step closer, well into the girl’s personal space. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you that it’s rude to point at someone who’s different than you?”

  Still the girl was silent.

  For good measure, I said, “And besides, a girl who’s wea
ring an outdated jacket and ugly shoes is in no position to mock anyone else.”

  “Rose!” Ruth’s voice was close enough that I knew she’d heard me.

  The four girls turned and hightailed it toward the door, leaving me alone with my satisfaction and my unhappy chaperone.

  Sighing, I turned around slowly and faced Ruth.

  “Sorry about that. I just don’t know how you deal with being stared at like that,” I said.

  Her face wasn’t as upset as I was expecting. As a matter of fact, she had a little twinkle going on behind her glasses.

  She took a deep breath and blew it out. “It gets easier with time—you’ll become accustomed to it to the point that it won’t bother you any longer.”

  “Good job, Rose,” whispered sister-in-law number one as she passed by me heading for the exit.

  “Try to restrain yourself in the future,” Ruth said with a slight smile on her lips, choosing to ignore the other woman’s comment. She put her arm around me, and together we walked out of the store.

  The whole turn-the-other-cheek thing was fine for some people, but as for me, I planned to educate any of the inhabitants of this town who stared at Amish people as if they were freaks.

  10

  Noah

  I got back to the farm earlier than I’d planned since there was no point hanging around the youth gathering after Rose had left. The sky was still the soft grayish color of late evening, and I hurried to get Oscar unhitched and put out before darkness and the rain arrived. It was always easier to work in the barn with some natural light. That was one thing I envied the Englishers of—barn lights.

  Father approached just as I latched the gate shut. He held a shovel in his hands, and I guessed he’d been helping Mother with her new rock garden. The dirt on his trousers confirmed my suspicions.