Monday, December 18
"Wake up, Heidi."
A male voice? She must be dreaming. Before she dared open her eyes, she tried to remember the night before. She’d gone to sleep in her own bed, she was absolutely certain of it. Slowly, she opened her eyes and saw a fuzzy figure looming over her. She froze, too scared to scream and then she realized that the man was Derek.
“Derek,” she heard herself say as she looked into his hazel eyes.
"Heidi," he said again.
"Yes, it's me.” She was dreaming! She grabbed hold of his hand and he put his arms around her.
“You’re okay now,” he whispered.
"I thought I’d never see you again.”
He moved back and then picked up her hand and held it tight. “Are you all right?"
“I don't know." It was then she realized she wasn't in her own room. Of course not. How would he have gotten inside? She saw boards running horizontally across the wall, and the furnishings told her she was in a farm house. "Where am I?"
"You're at home. I couldn't wake you.”
She stared at Derek’s beautiful face. He was older, his build was heavier, and his features were more manly than boyish. Her dream sure was lifelike. She looked around the room again. “Where are we?”
He leaned over and stroked her hair. "At home. It's all right, I'll stay home with you today. Your Mamm’s been here and taken the girls for the day. We’ll fetch them later.”
"Who?"
He frowned looking almost sympathetic. "I'll bring some breakfast up to you before Michael wakes."
She couldn’t speak. Who is Michael? Who are 'the girls?' Derek was wearing his usual Amish clothes. She looked down at their hands linked together. Since she could feel his touch, it seemed real and not like a dream. “Where am I? What’s happened?”
“You fell down the porch steps yesterday when you were trying to get the girls out of the rain. Don’t you remember?”
“No. What girls?”
“Are you joking? Because you’re scaring me right now.”
She dropped his hand and scooted further to the edge of the bed. This was real. It was no dream.
He straightened up and rubbed an eyebrow. "You had a fall last night." He ran a hand through his nearly-shoulder-length dark hair. "I should've sent for the doctor then and there."
"Not the doctor."
"Yes, the doctor. I'm sorry, Heidi, but I’m worried. If you’re still like this in an hour or two, I'm going to have to get the doctor. I'll go heat up Michael’s bottle."
She opened her mouth to speak, but he was already out of the room. Then she looked over toward the window and saw a crib. She got out of bed realizing she was in a cotton Amish-style nightgown, but she was more concerned about who was in the crib. Lying there wrapped in a white shawl was a small baby who couldn't have been more than six-months-old. She got a fright when long hair fell across her face. Then she touched her hair and it was long again—not at all the short-cropped hair she’d had when she had fallen asleep.
The baby making snuffle noises drew her attention away from her hair. She looked in the crib again and when she saw he was okay, she swung around. In an effort to make sense of what was happening, she flung open the doors of the closet. There were women’s Amish dresses, boots and shoes, and with a closer look, the shoes were all in her size. In the adjoining closet were men’s clothing.
Next, she looked through the chest of drawers. In the bottom drawer was paperwork. She pulled out a handful and leafed through the pages. The biggest piece of paper was a marriage certificate. Scanning the names, she saw her name and Derek’s—she was married to Derek. It was dated a month after she’d left the Amish community.
Needing to sit, she headed back to the bed, still staring at the marriage certificate. Then she remembered how she’d cried out to God when she had cried herself to sleep the night before ... when she was in her own bed in her own apartment. Had God answered her prayers in a weird and wonderful way, or was she just having a weird dream? Maybe God was giving her a vision to show her what she’d missed out on by leaving the community.
Her gaze traveled to the baby in the crib by the window. He’d never have come into this world because she had never married Derek.
“This is what people mean by their life flashing before them before they die," she said softly. "Except, this is the life I would’ve had if I’d never left the community.”
Derek walked back into the room. “Here you go.” She looked up to see him with a mug in his hands. “What are you doing with that?” He nodded toward the marriage certificate.
“I don't know. Just looking at it.”
“Here’s your coffee.” He placed it down on her nightstand. “I’ll go cook your eggs just as you like them—not runny.”
“Thanks. I’m rather hungry.”
“You’re what?”
“Hungry.”
“Gut. You’ll feel better once you eat.”
“Maybe I will.” Whatever was happening, she’d play along until she figured it out. “The girls are at Mamm’s you said?” She wondered how old they were, and were they hers and Derek’s? They couldn’t have been that old, and just how many of them were there?
“Jah, that’s right.”
She drank a mouthful of coffee. “This is good.”
“Denke.” He chuckled. “You don’t normally allow me in the kitchen. I’m looking forward to making your eggs.”
She looked up at him, still thinking about the coffee. “It’s ground coffee and not instant.”
He frowned at her. “That’s right.”
“I don’t let you in the kitchen?” She lowered the hot mug into her lap. She wasn’t doing a great job of going along with what was happening, not with that stupid question.
“Jah, the kitchen’s your domain, you always tell me.”
Heidi laughed. She found it odd that he said that. She hated cooking and never cooked anymore, not since she’d found the excellent people who delivered the home-cooked freezable meals. All she had to do was pop them in the microwave. She took her mind off food and coffee, and stared back down at the marriage certificate.
He said, “Have you lost your memory?”
She stared at him. She’d touched him and she had felt him, and everything seemed so clear. Normally, her dreams weren’t like that. “Am I dreaming?”
“You think you’re having a dream?”
“I am having a dream, and you’re not real.”
“Aha. Why do you think you’re dreaming?”
“That’s just it, it’s not my real life. I never got a chance to … Gott is giving me this chance to see you again. I’ve always thought about you over the years.”
“You’re not dreaming, and I have no idea what you’re talking about. You fell and you hit your head. Don’t you remember?”
She licked her lips. “When I left to go on my rumspringa, you never came to find me when I stayed in New York. It’s okay. I’m not mad, I just want to know why.”
He sat down beside her and picked up her hand again and she felt the warmth of his touch. “You never went on rumspringa. You changed your mind when I took you to the bus stop. You had this whole notion that you were going to become a famous supermodel, and you could’ve done it if you’d wanted to, but you changed your mind and never got on the bus.”
It all made sense. She knew she would’ve ended up marrying Derek and having children and living in a sweet little storybook house. Letting go of his hand, she picked up her mug with one hand and pinched herself with the other until it hurt. She still didn’t wake up.
“Heidi!” He shook his head. “What are you doing?”
“Trying to wake up.”
He leaped to his feet. “That’s it. I’m taking you to the doctor.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Nee, you’re not. You’re even speaking in a weird way. You’re not yourself. I’ll book an appointment and hopefully we can get you in to see him today.” He strode out of the room.
Heidi continued drinking coffee. If he was insisting on taking her to the doctor, she’d have to make sure she didn’t give them any reason to declare her insane. Even if she was having a dream, she didn’t fancy it turning into that sort of a nightmare.
Feeling like a fat useless frump, she headed back to look at the small baby. He had wiggled his wrapping loose, and waved his arms around while his lips moved as well. Heidi stared at him in wonder while his tiny fists opened and closed. Reaching down, she touched his soft skin and then one of his hands encircled one of her fingers and he slowly turned his head and looked at her.
“Hello, little baby.” The baby opened his mouth as though to answer and started wailing. “It’s okay, don’t cry.” She picked him up and held him close against her shoulder and then patted him on his back. “You must be hungry, too.” Holding him with one hand, she pulled a small blanket off the edge of the crib and wrapped it around him, and then left the bedroom. As soon as she was out the door, she saw stairs. Slowly and carefully she made her way down them.
“It sounds like he’s hungry,” she said to Derek when she found him in the kitchen.
“I’ve got his bottle warming. It won't be much longer.”
“Thank you.”
He glanced over at her and it was then she realized she wasn’t speaking in Pennsylvania Dutch.
“I’ve made an appointment at the doctor for twelve.”
“For me?” She jiggled the baby up and down, trying to stop his crying.
“Jah, for you.”
“That was fast.” She only hoped that she would wake up before then. She wasn’t a fan of doctors. When the baby stopped crying, she took her chance to say some things to Derek. Maybe he was having the same dream about her and would remember it when he woke. “I want to apologize for leaving. I never realized what we had.”
“You never left me, Heidi.”
“If I had, I would’ve been silly. That’s what I meant and I just wanted you to know that.”
He moved closer to her and put one arm around her. She closed her eyes and nuzzled into his manly chest while the baby was nestled between the two of them.
“I never would’ve let you go,” he said.
“Really?”
“Jah.”
She took a step backward. “So, let’s just say that I’d gone on rumspringa when I was eighteen, and then decided to stay away, would you have come to find me?”
“Nee.”
She stepped back again. “Nee?”
“That’s right.”
She pouted. “Why not?”
“Gott gives everyone a free will to choose what they want in life. If you had chosen to leave, I would’ve had to respect your decision. Do you understand that?”
Heidi was disappointed with his reasoning.
“What would you have done if I had left?” he asked.
“I would’ve been angry with you and I'd have wondered why you left me.”
“Would you have come after me?” he asked.
Slowly, she shook her head.
He smiled at her. “Why?”
“I would've been too afraid of what I’d find when I got there, if that makes sense. I'd have been afraid you wouldn’t want me and I would’ve gone all that way for nothing.” Now she had a better idea why he hadn’t chased after her. "I would’ve just hoped that you would’ve come back of your own accord because you would’ve missed me so much.”
He chuckled. “I could never have done that. I could never have left you.” He stared at her for a moment. “And?”
He was waiting for her to say she could never have left him either. She had regretted it, but staying with him would’ve meant staying within the community and leading a boring life. Being back in his arms had certainly made her rethink her choices. “I would’ve been a fool to leave you.” And that was the truth.
He chuckled once more and held her close again. Then the baby yelled once more, and shattered the moment. “The bottle’s coming, little bu. It should be warm now.” He left them to get the bottle out of the saucepan.
Heidi giggled at the way he spoke to the baby. “He can’t understand you, so there’s no use talking to him.”
He wiped the bottle off and laughed. “You were the one who told me to talk to our bopplis and then they’ll start understanding.”
“That’s true. Do you want to feed him?”
“Okay. Your eggs are there,” he nodded to the table while he took the baby.
They both sat down at the kitchen table, keeping warm by the stove. She ate the food he had prepared for her while he fed the baby. She looked around the kitchen and it affirmed to her how real everything seemed including Derek and the baby. Could she have hit her head and dreamed her other life? Was this her real life and the other was just a dream—a fantasy? “I need to make a phone call.” She had memorized Janelle’s number just in case she ever lost her own phone.
“Who do you need to call?”
“Just a friend.”
“Do you have to do that now? You haven’t even finished eating.”
“Oh.” She looked down at the eggs on the plain white china plate. “Denke.” She spooned some more into her mouth.
“Don’t go making any plans with your friends. Remember we’ve got the doctor at twelve.”
“I won’t forget.” To be polite, she finished her eggs and then headed outside, hoping there would be a phone in the barn. When she was outside, she saw a shanty that housed a phone. Her hands were cold and shaky as she dialed her friend’s number. When she heard the phone had connected and she was getting a dial tone, her heart pumped hard. It was a real phone number and that meant she wasn’t dreaming.
“Hello, this is Janelle Adams.”
“Janelle, it’s me.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s Heidi.”
“Hello, Heidi. How are you?”
Heidi could tell by how she spoke that Janelle didn’t recognize her name or her voice. Janelle didn't know who she was at all. She tried something else. “Are you in the office?”
“I’m out of the office at the moment. How can I help you?”
“Do you know who this is?” There was hesitation on the other end of the line. “Janelle, who do you work for?”
“Our Town Blinds and Awnings.”
Janelle wasn’t even a realtor and she was going by her maiden name, when she’d almost immediately changed all her business cards and everything else to her married name. “Is this some kind of a joke?” Heidi asked.
“Can I help you with something? Do you need a quote on blinds?”
“Janelle, do you know me—Heidi King?”
“I’m sorry the name doesn’t ring a bell, but I meet hundreds of people every week. I’m sorry. Do you need—”
She tried something else since her married name would’ve been Miller. “Heidi Miller.”
“I’m sorry—”
Heidi hung up the phone’s receiver. If Janelle didn’t know who she was then maybe this was her real life and she’d just dreamed her whole entire other New York City life, but if that was so, how did she know of Janelle’s existence and, equally mysterious, how did she know her phone number?
If only she could talk to someone. She couldn’t talk to Derek because he was taking her to a doctor, and she certainly couldn’t talk to the doctor about something like that. She heard a noise and turned to see Derek coming toward her with a heavy black coat.
“You’ll catch your death out here, Heidi. Come back inside.” He flung the coat over her shoulders, put his arm around her and together they walked back into the house. “Now sit down in front of the fire and I’ll go make you another coffee. I don't like you getting chilled like that.”
She looked down at the baby who was propped in a wooden crib with his bottle nearby. She reached down and picked him up, held him in her arms and fed him the rest of his bottle. “Do you know what’s going on, little one? Maybe if you were older, I could talk to you. There’s no one else I can confide in. Maybe I am going mad. Shh, don’t tell anyone.” The baby stared up into her eyes while he sucked hard on the bottle.
She said a quick silent prayer. She’d heard of alternate universes. Maybe she had crossed over into one through some kind of portal. She’d listened to the theories and even though she’d always tried to keep an open mind, she never imagined they were a real thing. If that was what was happening, then one version of her was a realtor living amongst the Englisch, and the other was a wife and mother living amongst the Amish. If that was what had happened to her, how would she cross back into her other life?
Once the baby was fed, Heidi headed upstairs with him in one arm. If they were going out, she’d have to change out of her nightdress. No wonder Derek is worried about me. I can't believe I went outside in just my nightie!
She placed the baby back in the crib and opened her closet. She took out a purple dress. Back in New York, she never wore colors and it was confounding to see an array of colors in an Amish wardrobe. At home, all her clothes were either black or cream, and with her interest in fashion, everything had a designer label.
She looked around for some warm stockings and finally found them hanging in a bag in her closet. They were thick and boring, but at least they were black. Then her attention turned to her choice of shoes. Once again, all were black, with a choice of either black lace-up boots or black lace-up flat shoes—a far cry from the stilettos she normally wore. Once she’d hunted up clean underwear and stripped off her nightgown, she looked down at her normally flat stomach and wanted to cry. Where had it gone? In its place was a flabby-looking tummy that not even a million tummy crunches and a year’s membership to a gym would fix. Doing her best to ignore the sight, she pulled on underwear, dress and stockings. Lastly, she donned and laced up her boots.
The next chore was to braid and pin her hair so it would fit under her kapp. The first model agency she’d gone to in New York City had suggested she cut her hair in a shoulder-length bob. She’d kept it like that until recently when she had it cut short into the spiky pixie style. She laughed quietly, wondering what Derek would say to that idea.
It had been years since she had pulled a brush through hair that was way past her thighs. Not only was brushing it a time-consuming chore, once it was tangle-free, she had the job of braiding it. She found bands wrapped around her hairbrush handle, and once she’d woven her hair into two long braids, one at either side of her head, she wound them carefully around her head and pinned them in place. Then she situated her white prayer kapp over the top. Wow. I forgot about doing that every day. I was much quicker at it before I left for New York.
A strange smell coming from the crib reminded her that babies needed diaper changes. She’d changed many diapers when she’d looked after babies for their mothers at meetings before she’d left the community, so at least she knew what to do.
She picked up the baby, spied some cloth diapers and went about changing him. “It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it. Your vadder has been doing everything for me this morning, so I couldn’t ask him to do it.”
“See, now you’re talking to him too.”
She looked over her shoulder to see Derek, and then she laughed. “It just seems normal to talk to him. He and I have an understanding.”
“We’ll have to enjoy him before he starts talking if he’s going to be anything like Molly.”
“Yes,” she agreed, thinking that Molly must either be cheeky or she must talk a lot. She fastened the clean diaper at the center with one large pin. “There you go, Michael. As good as new.”
“Here.” Derek stretched out his hand for the diaper. “I’ll take it down to the laundry room. And it looks like you're okay without that second cup of coffee.”
“Denke. And jah, I am okay. I got caught up in getting dressed and forgot about it.
She placed the baby back in the crib and went to find the bathroom, which thankfully wasn’t too far from the bedroom. When she was a young child, they hadn't had a bathroom in their house. A bathroom had been installed indoors when she was around ten years of age. These were all the things that had never occurred to her in her day-to-day life. Back home, she’d never thought to be grateful to step out of her bedroom into a fully functioning bathroom. She was more worried about how stylish and up-to-date it was, rather than being grateful that she had one indoors.
Once she’d used the toilet and had a quick wash, she worried about the older children. Surely they’d notice she was different and she wouldn’t remember things about them. Derek thought she was suffering memory loss, so she had to go along with that. Maybe before she even got to see them, she might be back in her other life. Then it occurred to her that she should make the most of her time with Derek and also enjoy what came with being a mother.
Heidi stayed in the bedroom, too frightened to speak to Derek in case he thought she was losing her mind.
Several minutes later, Derek poked his head through the door, giving her quite a fright. "I'm going to do some work in the barn, and I’ll call out just before we need to leave. Is that all right?"
"Yes, that's fine.” She cleared her throat. “Jah, that's fine," she corrected herself; it'd taken her a long time to forget about using Pennsylvania Dutch, and now she had to remember to use it. Jah hadn't seemed so odd, as many Americans used ya instead of yes, but the other words and phrases had drawn some pretty interesting looks until she worked them out of her speech patterns.
He smiled at her, and then said, "Can I get you anything?"
"Nee, denke. I'm fine." She’d forgotten how handsome he had been as a young man, and he looked even better and more masculine now that he was older. It seemed unfair that men looked better once they got older. Her looks had gone downhill, and she had avoided the small cosmetic investments her peers back in her real life made to keep their youthful looks.
Derek gave her a little nod and left the room. She listened to his footsteps as he made his way down each wooden step. When she heard him close the front door, she looked out the window and watched him walk to the barn. Now she was free to have a look around the place. There was something about the house that was oddly familiar and she was certain she’d been there before.
The first room she explored was the living room. It was the rough stone fireplace that looked familiar. The rough-cut stones were large and of a sandy-color, stacked one upon the other. The fireplace was topped with a large piece of dark wood forming the mantel. There was a pretty white china clock centered on it.
She sank down onto the couch, liking the way it molded to her body. Soft, but not too soft. There was a three-seater couch opposite, and one comfortable-looking arm chair beside it, with a low table in between all of them. Covering the bare floorboards was a large braided rug in muted grays and reds.
Over the back of the couch was a crocheted throw, and a pile of children's toys were stacked in the corner. A faint smell of smoke from the fireplace completed the homeyness of it all. A smiled twitched at her lips. It was a perfect room for a family to sit around the fire on cold winter’s nights, drinking hot chocolate and telling stories.
Maybe her life would've been happy if she stayed within the Amish community and married Derek. She could get used to this life if she had to, but could she really live without the modern-day basic necessities? The computer kept her connected and television was the way she wound down every night. She pressed her back into the couch and looked up at the ceiling.
Reminding herself she’d have to do a good job of fitting into this lifestyle while she remained there, she headed back into the kitchen. There she opened every drawer, every cupboard and every cabinet, and looked through the gas-powered refrigerator. As an Amish woman, she was in charge of the food, so it was good to see what they had because she’d soon be expected to cook.
She could see there were no bedrooms downstairs, so she climbed the stairs to have a look in all the bedrooms. The first bedroom at the top of the stairs contained a single bed. The room was spotlessly clean, with a sizeable blue and gray rug on the floorboards and partway under the bed. Trying to guess the age of the girl who occupied the room, she opened the closet door. She ran her hands along the hanging dresses. There were two in different shades of green and one in deep blue. Going by the size of the clothing, she figured the girl would be around seven years of age.
She closed the closet and moved to the next room. Another single bed. The clothes in that room were a little smaller. "The younger sister. There's only two of them." There had to be only two because there were no more bedrooms upstairs. After she closed that closet door, she looked around the room. It was pretty much the same setup as the other one, with the bed under the window, and a medium-sized brown and green rug on the bare floorboards. The only difference was that this room had more toys and they were stacked on a low bookcase. She crouched down to look at the toys and saw they were all intricately carved. Derek had loved woodwork, she remembered as she pushed herself to her feet. Had he made these beautiful things for his daughter?
The only other bedroom was the large bedroom she shared with the baby and Derek.
There was only the one bathroom, but she wasn’t about to complain. At least there was one within the house. She made her way downstairs feeling like she was on an episode of Wife Swap—she was completely out of her depth, and she didn't even have a manual to see how the household ran. She'd have to make it up as she went along.
Exploring downstairs, she found the laundry room just off from the mudroom, which led off from the large kitchen. The house was adequate; no luxury items anywhere, but it suited the needs of a small Amish family.