Accidentally Amish (38 page)

“How are the vegetables looking?” Jakob squatted and slid his hand under a cornstalk.

“Anna promises fresh beans for supper,” Christian answered, “as much as we want.” He leaned in to look over his father’s shoulder, inspecting for insects boring through.

“Is Maria still sitting in her patch waiting for the beets to grow?”

Christian nodded. “She sings to them. She says it makes them happy.”

“Seems to me they should be happy enough to harvest.”

“Elizabeth knows how to make ink from beet juice. She promised to show us. Even Anna wants to learn.”

Jakob moved to another plant and rubbed a leaf between his thumb and forefinger. “Elizabeth likes to try out everything she reads about. She’s very creative.”

“I wonder if the new baby will be creative.” Christian hunched over to inspect a stalk for himself.

“Lisbetli will have to get used to not being the baby.” Jakob paused to wipe sweat from his forehead.

“As long as Lisbetli can be with Elizabeth, she’s happy,” Christian said. “I still hope that someday Elizabeth will join the church—when we have a bishop.”

“You could be waiting a long time for a bishop to come from Europe.”

They moved another few feet to inspect plants, and Christian knew the conversation was over. His father had less and less to say about the church. The Amish families were cautious around Elizabeth—anyone could see that—but without a bishop to pronounce discipline, no one fully shunned Jakob for his choice to marry an outsider. The families needed each other too much.

Christian heard the flapping steps of someone running through the corn. He abruptly stood up straight.

“What is it, Anna?”

The girl breathed heavily and tried to speak between gulps of air. “Bar-bar says you must come. Right now!”

“Elizabeth?”

Anna nodded. “Her pains started only a few hours ago, but Bar-bar is already worried. She’s afraid to be alone with Elizabeth when the baby comes.”

Jakob stepped back to where he had left the horse and grabbed the bridle. “Both of you, quickly, get on.” He picked up Anna, though she tended toward lanky at thirteen, and lifted her to the horse. Christian saw his father squat slightly with intertwined fingers and knew he was meant to step into the makeshift stirrup and swing himself behind his sister. “Tell Mrs. Zimmerman it’s time.” Jakob slapped the horse’s rump as Anna took the reins.

As the horse began to trot, Christian looked over his shoulder at his father. He had never seen Jakob move as swiftly as he did now in the direction of the cabin.

“I want Elizabeth,” Lisbetli said quite distinctly and adamantly.

“I told you,” Jakob said, “the baby is coming. Elizabeth can’t play with you right now.”

“But I need her,” Lisbetli whined and went limp as a rag doll across his lap.

“She can’t play with you now.” Jakob sighed heavily. He was on the cabin’s small front porch with Anna, Christian, Maria, and Lisbetli. Barbara was inside with Mrs. Zimmerman. Bar-bar was sixteen now, old enough to learn something about birthing. How much longer would it be before she married and started birthing her own children? Several of the families had sons who must have noticed Barbara’s industrious nature. Perhaps one of them would soon show interest.

Christian sat on the bottom step scratching in the dirt with a stick. Jakob never had to remind him to work on his sums, because he was constantly recalculating the number of acres they planted and the expenses that had gone into the effort so far.

Maria stood up. “It’s too hard to do nothing. I’m going to talk to my beets. Call me when the baby gets here.”

Jakob let her stomp off. Her garden patch was within sight of the porch. His eyes moved to Anna, who looked blanched and withered. When the next scream came from inside the cabin, he and Anna flinched at the same time.

“Take Lisbetli and go feed the chickens.” Jakob gently dumped Lisbetli out of his lap and then shoved open the door and went inside.

Mrs. Zimmerman appeared from behind the curtain that separated Jakob and Elizabeth’s bed from the main living space of the cabin. She wiped her hands on a rag and shook her head slightly.

“What is it?” Jakob whispered.

“I don’t think the baby is turned right.” Mrs. Zimmerman kept her voice low. “It will take a long time to birth.”

“Is Elizabeth in danger?” Jakob’s heart pounded at the thought.

“They both are. You know that.”

“You must do something.”

“It is in God’s hands, Jakob.”

“You have been helping to birth babies for years,” Jakob said. “You must know something you can try.”

She shook her head. “I tried to turn a baby once.”

“Then do that.”

“It didn’t help, Jakob, and the poor woman …”

Jakob forced himself to breathe. “Birthing was so easy for Verona. It was always a time of joy. Now this.”

“Elizabeth is quite old to be having a baby for the first time.” Mrs. Zimmerman shook her head again. “You must trust God.”

“I cannot lose Elizabeth.”

“You must trust. It’s up to God.”

Jakob pushed past his old friend and neighbor, past the curtain, past Barbara. Elizabeth lifted her eyes to his and held out one arm. He grasped her hand and fell to his knees at the side of the bed.

“Jakob, the pain! Something’s wrong.”

“Rest.” He gripped her pallid hand in both of his as if in prayer. “Save your strength.”

“I love you, Jakob Byler. I want you to know that before—”

He cut her off. “Before nothing. The baby will turn. The baby will come. We will have many years together.”

She clenched his hand, her fingernails digging into him, and screamed.

A second scream, higher pitched, echoed—coming from behind Jakob. He turned to see Anna’s whitened face.

“Anna, what are you doing here?” Jakob scolded. “I told all of you to go feed the chickens.”

“This is all my fault!” Anna wailed and ran from the scene.

“Go to her, Jakob.” Elizabeth gasped and waited for the height of the pain to pass. “She is such a confused child.”

“I don’t want to leave you.”

They heard the cabin door creak open and slam shut.

“Go,” Elizabeth said again. “Mrs. Zimmerman is here, and Barbara. I am not alone.”

“No, I cannot.”

“You must.” Elizabeth untangled her hand from his.

Jakob looked at Mrs. Zimmerman, who only shrugged. Finally, he strode across the cabin and out the door. Fortunately, Anna had not gone far. He found her huddled under the front porch.

He squatted. “Anna, come out of there. I’m too old to crawl under porches.”

At first he heard nothing, and then she scuffled across the dirt and into the light, hanging her tear-streaked, pale face.

“What is wrong, Anna? What is this nonsense about it being your fault?”

“It is. I did not want Elizabeth to come, and then I was so mean to her. And I did not want the new baby. I thought maybe she would leave if she did not have a baby.”

Jakob took a controlled breath. “You are old enough to remember when Maria and Lisbetli were born.”

She nodded.

“And neighbors have had new babies.” Jakob leaned forward and grabbed Anna by the elbows to pull her out and into his embrace. “Sometimes birthing is harder than other times. It’s not anybody’s fault.”

“But I thought such mean things!” Anna buried her face in his chest. “Before … before … I do not want Elizabeth to go away now because of me.”

Jakob stroked her head. “It’s not anybody’s fault. Why would God punish Elizabeth for your thoughts?”

“Is it in God’s hands?”

Jakob hesitated only slightly. “Yes it is.”

“
Maam
used to say everything was in God’s hands. But if that’s true, why did
Maam
die? She loved God.”

“You ask deep questions, Anna Byler. Perhaps it is not for us to understand God’s ways.”

Elizabeth screamed again, hideously. Anna gripped her father’s neck. Suddenly she felt to him as small as Lisbetli.

The cabin door opened.

“
Daed
!” Barbara called.

“I’m here.” Jakob stood so she could see him, pulling Anna to her feet as well.

“Mrs. Zimmerman is trying to turn the baby. It’s awful. I can’t stand it.”

“Stay here with Anna.” Jakob nudged Anna toward Barbara. “Let me go in.”

“I never want to have a baby,” Barbara said.

The shrieking stopped only long enough for Elizabeth to gulp and again gash the air with unearthly vehemence.

Christian took his younger sisters further from the house. He remembered when Lisbetli was born, and it did not sound like this.

And then came the aching silence during which anything could happen. Taking turns kicking a stone, Christian, Maria, and Lisbetli worked a jagged route back toward the cabin. At the porch, Christian caught Barbara’s eye, but she said nothing. The five Byler children huddled on the narrow front steps ascending the porch.

And then the baby cried.

Anna was the first on her feet and pushing the door open. They tumbled into the cabin in a rolling mass, stopping just short of the curtain.

Their father came around the curtain and grinned at them. “It’s a boy!”

“Can I hold him?” Anna, again, was the first.

“In due time,” Jakob said. “Elizabeth has been through an ordeal.”

Jakob returned to Elizabeth and drew a clean damp rag across her face, pausing to cradle one cheek. Mrs. Zimmerman wiped off the baby, wrapped him in a towel, and laid him in Elizabeth’s arms before bundling up bloody rags in a sheet and moving away from the bed. Jakob straightened the bedding then pushed the curtain open to reveal Elizabeth propped up with the baby, swaddled in a small quilt, on her chest.

Anna took the first steps then halted.

“Come on, Anna,” Elizabeth said, “come and meet your baby brother.” She held out one arm.

Anna settled on the bed in the crook of Elizabeth’s arm, and Elizabeth transferred the bundle of red squall to the girl’s grasp.

“What’s his name?” Anna asked.

Elizabeth looked up at her husband. “I’d like to call him Jacob.”

Anna giggled. “It will be fun to have a little Jacobli in the house.”

Christian watched as Anna cooed at the baby and tentatively explored his features with one gentle finger. It wasn’t long before the other girls gathered around the bed as well, all of them anxious to meet their brother. Even Lisbetli climbed up on the bed and touched the baby’s wrinkled wrist.

A boy. A brother.

Christian was used to having sisters—four of them. But a brother. He had been the only son. He was the one who worked beside his father in the fields, who kept the supply lists, who knew the trees that marked the corners of their land.

This new baby was not even Amish, yet he bore their father’s name.

J
amie never interrupted a meeting for anything less than urgent. Annie raised her eyes in question when Jamie slipped quietly into her office.

“Excuse me.” Annie nodded to the group gathered around her conference table.

Jamie whispered into Annie’s ear. “A Ruth Beiler is on the phone, and she says it’s an emergency. I tried to tell her you would return the call later, but she insists. She sounds like she’s been crying.”

“I’ll take it at your desk.” Annie stepped out of her office. She picked up Jamie’s phone and punched the flashing button. “Hello, Ruth?”

“I’m sorry to call,” Ruth said, “but it’s Rufus.”

“What happened?”

“Sophie sent a letter. No one has ever written, so I knew it had to be bad.”

“Ruth, tell me what happened.”

“Rufus was attacked. Three days ago. They took him to the hospital in Cañon City. Sophie said it was awful.”

“We’ll go to Cañon City.” Annie was the one who had to be calm. She knew that. “You and me. Can you get away?”

“I’m not working until day after tomorrow.”

“Good. I’m coming straight over.”

A pall settled on them in the car thirty minutes later.

“Will he even want to see me?” Ruth asked.

Or me?
Annie thought. She said, “You should be there.”

“My mother might not think so.”

“I know your mother,” Annie said, “and whatever happened between you, I believe she loves you.”