Arleta slept on the couch, the baby in the crook of her arm, while I curled up on the end of it, wearing my coat. There was no other place to doze. Well, there were six hardback chairs at the table, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep sitting on one of them.
I stoked the fire every half hour or so, checking on both the baby and Arleta when I did. At 4:30 a.m., Vernon shuffled into the living room and lit the lamp that I’d extinguished an hour earlier. His suspenders hung around his hips.
He headed straight to the kitchen without turning his attention to Arleta or the baby.
Arleta stirred. “Could you make him coffee?”
“Probably not,” I answered. “I haven’t made coffee on a propane stove for years.”
She sat up and extended the baby to me. “Would you hold her?”
I took the baby as I asked, “Can’t he make his own coffee?”
“Probably not,” Arleta answered.
I held the baby in one hand and scooted off the couch, feeling as if I was being petty. “Tell me how to make the coffee.”
She shook her head. “I’ll do it.”
I gave her my arm as she twisted her legs out from under the blankets and stood.
“Do you feel all right?” I hoped her blood pressure was staying steady.
She nodded.
A pan banged in the kitchen. Arleta shuffled over the hardwood floor. I drew the baby close, wondering what they would name her.
A minute later, Vernon hustled back through the living room, yelling, “Joshua! Time to get up.”
The baby startled, and I held her closer. Vernon kept on going down the hall.
A minute later, he returned, and soon after, Joshua came stumbling through the living room, oblivious to me or the baby.
I dozed on the couch with the baby in my arms, relishing the weight of her body and her sweet breaths, then woke to the smell of coffee and ham. Maybe toast. I groaned. Arleta had made breakfast too. I checked my phone, which only had five percent of its battery left. I still needed to arrange for a ride back to the pickup and call for a tow.
Vernon barked, “Let’s get going.” The back door banged.
I stood with the baby and headed into the kitchen.
Arleta sat alone at the table with a cup of coffee and full plate of ham, scrambled eggs, and toast in front of her. “Hungry?” she asked.
“No, thank you.” I sat down across from her. What would Mom think of a new mother cooking me breakfast?
Arleta cut the ham with her fork and took a bite.
I asked, “Do you have a name picked out for the baby?”
She shook her head as she chewed.
“A top-three list?” I asked, hoping to make some sort of conversation.
She shook her head again and took a bite of the eggs. Maybe she had a name in mind but didn’t want to talk about it.
“Do you have anyone to help you today? A relative or neighbor?”
“No,” she answered. “Miriam was going to help.”
“Where do you think she is?”
Arleta shrugged, her face expressionless.
The baby stirred, and I shifted her to my shoulder. “Are you going to call the police and report her missing?”
Arleta wrapped her hands around her mug. “Vernon will call the bishop once he’s done with the chores.”
“All right . . .” I wondered what the bishop would do. “Delores will come by tomorrow to check on you and the baby and fill out the birth certificate. But I’ll go out now and ask Vernon to ask the bishop to send someone over to help you.”
Arleta ducked her head. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be fine. Tell Delores I’ll call her if I need anything.” That wasn’t how it worked, but I didn’t tell Arleta that Delores would visit no matter what. If she was still ill, she’d find another midwife to do it.
As I cradled the baby, she began to root around. I’d give Arleta a few more minutes to eat and then get her nursing again. I was thankful for the chance to meet this little one, and I’d be forever grateful that both she and her mama were all right. And it had been a thrill to witness a birth again.
But I was done masquerading as a midwife. Sadly, I was anything but.
AFTER THE BABY nursed again, Arleta folded up the quilt and blanket, stashed them back in her bedroom, and pulled a baby bassinet out of a closet and placed it close to the wood stove.
“You need to not overexert yourself.” I slipped the baby onto the little mattress. “Too much activity can cause you to bleed. That’s a big no-no.”
“I’ll be all right.” She sat down on the couch.
I gathered up my things and then headed into the kitchen to do the breakfast dishes. A pot of water was just coming to a boil on the back burner. I cringed at the thought of Arleta filling it.
I put the plates in the dishpan.
“Leave those,” she called out.
“It will only take me a minute.” When I’d assisted Mom, I’d done dishes, along with sibling duty. She’d always had mama and baby duty. And calm-the-father duty too, when needed.
As I scrubbed the dishes, I had a view of the side yard and the pasture but also a sliver of the barn, if I leaned to the left. I caught glimpses of Vernon and Joshua in the bit of light that spilled out from the barn from time to time. They’d been feeding and milking a small herd, probably around twenty cows, and then feeding the horses and chickens.
When I finished the dishes, I dried my hands and took out my phone, figuring I should arrange my ride. I decided I’d wait until I got to the pickup to call for a tow truck, just in case it would start this time.
I called Kenny M.’s number and was sent straight to voicemail. I didn’t bother to leave a message and instead got back on the ride-share app and found a car ten minutes away. I headed back into the living room. Both Arleta and the baby were sleeping. I stoked the fire and said Arleta’s name quietly.
She stirred.
“I’m leaving in a couple of minutes.” I held up the list I pulled from Delores’s bag. “I need to go over a few things before I go.”
“I remember all of this from last time,” Arleta said.
“Well, it’s been a while.” I guessed Joshua was fifteen or sixteen. I sat down beside her and talked about getting enough fiber, using ice and taking acetaminophen for pain, and monitoring her bleeding. “Call Delores—I mean, have Vernon call her—immediately if you start to hemorrhage or if you pass a large blood clot. Wear your nursing bra at all times, let your breasts air, and apply some sort of cream—lanolin or udder ointment—on your nipples.”
She nodded. “Like I said, I remember all of this.”
“All right.” I handed her the list. I’d tell Delores she needed to go over the entire list with Arleta, just to make sure everything was covered.
I checked my phone. The car was just minutes away. “I’m going to go ahead and leave,” I said. “It was wonderful to share this experience with you and your baby.”
Arleta nodded, with a hint of a smile on her face, the most I’d seen since I arrived.
I slipped my coat on, pulled on my gloves, and picked up the bags.
It was still pitch black outside, except for the light from the barn. I headed for it. The snow had stopped, but at least a foot had accumulated in the barnyard.
Perhaps Vernon sensed me because he stepped through the side door of the barn. “Are you leaving?”
“Yes,” I said. “I left Arleta a list of things to do to ensure she gets good postnatal care. Please take a look at it.”
“All right.”
“And make sure she doesn’t work too hard. She needs a woman to come in, or at least an experienced girl. Would you talk to the bishop about that?”
“Well, I expect Miriam will be home any minute.”
“Hopefully so, but Arleta needs help. And perhaps the police should be notified about Miriam, in addition to the bishop.”
He crossed his arms over his heavy coat. “I’ll think on that.”
“Call Delores if you have any questions about anything.”
“I’ve delivered plenty of calves.” He nodded his head toward his herd.
I sighed. “Some things are similar, but it’s not the same. Believe me.” I nearly laughed at myself. What did I know anymore?
An SUV turned into the driveway.
“Mach’s gut,” I said.
He grunted. “Good-bye to you too” in English, most likely happy to see me go.
The driver, whose name flashed on my screen as Nancy S., was a middle-aged woman. “Well, I can guess what you’ve been up to,” she said as I put my bags in the back and then climbed up front. “New baby for this family?”
I nodded.
“Everything go all right?”
“Perfectly.” Well, except that their oldest daughter had gone missing in the middle of the night, but I wouldn’t tell a stranger that. I covered my mouth as I yawned.
“Yep, I bet you’re tired.” She pulled around and headed back to the lane. “I actually have come out this way a number of times. Two kids on their Rumschpringe, sneaking out at night.”
I hesitated about asking her anything more. It wasn’t my business. But I couldn’t keep quiet. “Did you see the girl last night by any chance?”
She shook her head. “But I saw her the night before, and she was quite upset.”
MERCIFULLY, UNCLE SETH’S pickup started. I waved to Nancy and then, after I’d plugged my phone into the charger, called Delores as the sun peeked over the woods to my left.
“How are you feeling?”
“My fever broke,” she said, “so I’m on the mend. Hopefully I won’t be contagious by tomorrow.”
I gave Dolores an update, including Miriam’s disappearance, and then said, “Do you think she’s in danger?”
“I know Miriam has been troubled, running with the wrong crowd and that sort of thing. Hopefully she just crashed at someone’s house and will be home soon.” Delores coughed deeply several times.
When she stopped, I asked, “Do you think Arleta is safe?”
“What do you mean?” Delores was growing hoarse. “Do you think she’s physically at risk?”
“She doesn’t have anyone coming to help her,” I replied. “And Vernon seems completely disengaged—not that interested in Arleta or the baby. Honestly, Arleta didn’t seem that interested in the baby either. I mean, she nursed her, but everything she did seemed robotic, as if she knew what was expected but there was no feeling to it.”
“I think she has a pretty flat personality. . . .” Delores’s voice trailed off. “Arleta only came to two prenatal appointments, both times by herself. And I haven’t met Vernon.”
“Well, see what you think when you go visit her tomorrow.” I shivered. “Should I take Uncle Seth’s pickup back now? Or wait until later?”
“Wait. I just spoke with him, and he’s feeling worse. If you need to use it to run an errand or anything, feel free.”
“All right,” I said. “Let me know how Arleta is doing.”
She assured me she would and then hung up. I checked to confirm the battery on my phone was still charging and then headed back to Mammi’s.
As I drove through the winter wonderland, thoughts of my mother returned. She’d had some friends from the organic farm where she’d worked who used a midwife for their children’s births, so when she realized she was pregnant with me, she chose to do the same. Then she checked out every library book on pregnancy, childbirth, postnatal care, and caring for a newborn that she could find.
I was born on a hot July night in the cabin where Dad still lived, only now with Joy and Karlie. Mom’s friends had gathered on the front porch in support, while Dad massaged Mom’s lower back in the living room, with her midwife, Hazel, standing watch. After my mother labored for nearly thirty hours, I finally slipped from her body.
Mom said it was the holiest moment of her life. She was changed. Completely transformed by motherhood. She scooped me up and held me to her chest, not letting anyone else even see me.
“You were perfect,” she would coo when she told me the story.
Two years later, she lost a baby, a stillborn little boy. She was heartbroken. After that her midwife—who was in her fifties—asked if Mom wanted to train with her, to be a partner. Hazel saw Mom had both an interest and an aptitude for the business. Mom embraced becoming a midwife, sure it was her calling. She took classes, correspondence courses, and assisted Hazel. Step by step, she grew more experienced. By the time I was old enough to go to school, Mom was going out on births alone. She decided to homeschool me so she wouldn’t have to worry about after-school childcare. I went with her, whenever she was needed.
Dad continued to work on the ranch, herding, branding, and calving. Sometimes I’d go to work with him too, and I even thought, for a short time, about being a cowgirl. But that didn’t last long. I knew I wanted to be a midwife like my mom. As I grew older, I still loved going to Indiana and spending time with Mammi, but I also loved returning home. Not only did I miss Mom and Dad, but I missed the newborn babies too.
I’d never be a big sister—Mom finally told me only a miracle would make me one—so I poured the love I had stored up inside of me for a sibling onto those babies. It wasn’t until after Mom died that I realized she’d done the same thing. She’d poured all of her grief for the baby she’d lost and the ones she’d never have into those babies and mamas and their husbands and the children they already had.
She turned grief into love.
She did all that after she’d already poured so much into Dad and me. She never sat down. She was always on the go. At the time, I thought it was because she was such a good person, such a good mom. But now I wondered if that fast pace was a mask for her insecurities and fears. She didn’t have the best example of being a wife and mother. Did she fear becoming like her own mother? Did she think that working nonstop both at home and as a midwife would protect all of us from that? I think, looking back on the tension between them from an adult perspective, that all Dad wanted was more time with her—not the unpredictable life that we ended up living. He’d been raised with the certainty of his mother’s availability. With the security of community. With a schedule set around chores and seasons and farm work. He had that at his job but not at home.
It wasn’t that Mom shouldn’t have worked as a midwife—she was amazing at it—but maybe she shouldn’t have taken on so many clients. Maybe she needed better boundaries. Not that I blamed her death on any of that.
It did snow in Grass Valley, where we lived, but not nearly as much as it did east of town, up on the pass. That night Mom didn’t arrive at that cabin, Dad and I both stayed silent as he drove as fast as he could up the mountain. We saw the sheriff’s lights before we saw Mom’s car. It had gone over the guardrail, straight down a ravine.
As my heart raced at the memory, I slowed Uncle Seth’s pickup, signaled to turn, and eased down Mammi’s driveway, only to find her shoveling the walkway leading to the house. I parked and jumped down, leaving the bags in the pickup. “I’ll do that!” I called.
She shaded her eyes against the rising sun. “How is Arleta?”
“Fine,” I answered, taking the shovel from her. “So is the baby—a little girl.”
I wouldn’t tell her about Miriam disappearing. If I’d learned one thing from Mom when it came to midwifing, it was not to talk about any client’s business.
“The neighbor boy who does the chores didn’t have time to shovel this morning. Are you sure you don’t mind doing it?” she asked.
“Of course not.”
“Then I’ll go start breakfast.”
That sounded like a fair trade. I was starving.
I soon grew warm under my down coat. It had been years since I’d shoveled snow—since I’d moved away from Grass Valley, in fact. There was no snow to shovel in Los Angeles or San Francisco.
I kept moving—bend down, scoop, stand up, fling—until I reached the driveway. My eyes watered. It took me a minute to realize I was crying. I brushed my gloved hand against my face. Arleta was fine. The baby was fine.
The last baby, the one Mom had been on her way to deliver, wasn’t fine. He was born with the cord wrapped around his neck, something Mom would have most likely been able to slip over his head, but the father didn’t know what to do.
I brushed my tears away, tears for Mom and that dead baby in the cabin on Blue Pass. But also tears of relief for Arleta and her new little girl.
When I’d finished shoveling, I grabbed Delores’s bags from the pickup and trudged into the house. Mammi had coffee and oatmeal ready. After she led us in a silent prayer, she asked, “How are the roads?”
“Not cleared yet,” I answered as I ate. “I slid a bit in the pickup coming home. Last night too—before it broke down.”
“Oh no,” Mammi said. “What did you do?”
“I got a ride-share. Do you know what that is?”
She nodded. “I know you have to use a smartphone and have an app for it.” She smiled. “I just use the ‘dumb phone’ in the shed and call for a driver.”
I laughed. “Do you have church today?”
She shook her head. “It’s our off Sunday.” The Amish met every other Sunday for services. Often they’d visit a church in another district on their off Sundays or visit family and friends. But Mammi hadn’t made any such plans.
I ended up sleeping most of the day—and all night too. When I awoke, I thought of Ryan first. Thoughts of our last phone call played in my head over and over.
The next morning, when I came down for breakfast, Mammi said, “I’d like to go to the quilting circle this afternoon, but it snowed more during the night. I don’t think I can take the buggy unless the plows come through.”
“I can take you in Uncle Seth’s pickup,” I said. “Delores said he’s under the weather and to go ahead and use it if I needed to.” As long as it started again.
“Denki,” she said. “It begins at one. I’ll call Seth and make sure he doesn’t need it back today.”
“Ask him how he’s feeling and if he needs anything.” I took another bite of oatmeal. Of course she would want to check with Seth and make sure it was all right to use the pickup. She didn’t want to take advantage of anyone, not even her brother. I’d need to tell him at some point about the engine trouble, but I wouldn’t bother him with it now. If it broke down on the way to the quilting circle, I could always use the ride-share app.
Or call Kenny M.—whoever he was.