A Simple Faith: A Lancaster Crossroads Novel (36 page)

“Guess what just happened? I just saw the box get auctioned off.”

The little wooden box. The air went still around her as Elsie pictured it. “Did someone buy it?”

“Ya, and for a pretty penny. It sold for five thousand dollars. Isn’t that amazing? Think of all the medical bills that’ll pay for.”

Elsie nodded, trying to tamp down the bitter taste rising up in her throat. Probably just indigestion. Too much coffee. She should have known better.

“I just wanted to let you know, since it was your good idea to donate it,” Emma said, squeezing Elsie’s shoulder. “I’ll get back to the little ones. Verena’s minding them, but they can be a handful.”

Elsie thanked her sister, keeping her head bent over her stitches because she knew Emma would be able to read her consternation with one glimpse of her face.

“That’s good news,” Lois Mast, the bishop’s wife, said from beside Rachel. “So many good deeds to help Jimmy Lapp and his family.”

Other women chimed in, but Elsie stayed on task.

“How’s the Country Store going?” Rachel asked. “You don’t seem to mind having Ruben helping out there.”

“Why would I mind, when more hands make light work?” Elsie asked, glancing past Rachel to Lois Mast, whose head was bent to her task, her eyes unreadable beyond the glare of her glasses. “Ruben has been a big help.” She wanted to say more, but her feelings for Ruben could not ever be known by folks like Lois Mast, the bishop’s wife, or Candy Eicher, who kept lifting her eyes from the quilt to peer across at Elsie. No, it was best to stick to a safe topic.

“Have you done any new paintings lately?” Elsie asked.

“None at all. My paint box has been dry since the accident.”

“Dear Rachel. That’s not like you. I don’t know how many times I’ve run into you and you have paint smeared on your hands from fitting in some painting here and there.”

“My days are full, with helping out at home and going to visit James.”

“And James needs you now. I was just thinking of that lady at the gallery in the city. Remember Claudia Stein?”

“I know.” Rachel sighed. “I got a note from her, after she heard about the accident. She’s still interested, but she’s going to have to wait till summer if she wants a collection of paintings from me.”

“Harvest comes not every day,” Elsie said. “I’m sure Claudia will understand that. Your pretty paintings are certainly worth waiting for.”

Just then a short Englisher woman with silver-streaked hair came up to the quilters’ table and paused. “There you are, Elsie.”

Glancing up, Elsie recognized Nancy Briggs, the mayor of Halfway. A woman in her fifties, she wore her hair in a pretty cloud around her face, though that was her one “fancy” feature. Her quilted down coat, boots, and denim jeans were very practical, well suited to her down-to-earth nature.

“I’ve been looking for you. Got a call from your neighbor Marta, and it looks like Fanny is having the baby.”

“Dear Gott in heaven.” Elsie flushed at the mention of such news in public. She stuck the needle into the fabric and rose from the table. “But it’s too soon … and the doctors wanted her to go to the hospital.”

“Sounds like there isn’t time.” Nancy pointed a thumb toward the auction. “About ten minutes ago I sent Anna Beiler over to your place with a driver, and Marta told me Doc Trueherz was already on his way. I’m sure they’ll call an ambulance if they need to get her to the hospital.”

Elsie pressed a hand to her mouth as fear knotted inside her. She couldn’t let anything happen to Fanny.

“I’ve got to get home.” Her heartbeat drummed in her ears.

Rachel was immediately on her feet beside her. “I’ll help you find Emma.”

Outside in the main area of the barn, the crowd that had brought her joy minutes before now seemed like a maddening throng.

“There’s Emma.” Rachel moved around two boys pushing a desk on a handcart and disappeared into the crowd.

But they needed a driver, too. Caleb had the family’s single horse and buggy over at the store, and even if he were already hitched up, it was an agonizingly slow way to travel in an emergency.

Calm down. Take a breath
, Elsie told herself. No one had said it was an emergency, but most folks didn’t know about Fanny’s medical problems through this pregnancy.

Biting her lower lip, Elsie scanned the crowd, searching for
George Dornbecker. Instead, the first face that emerged was her friend Haley.

“What’s wrong?” Haley reached out to touch her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“Fanny’s gone into labor, and …”

“She has that blood pressure issue.…” Haley’s amber eyes flashed as she made the immediate connection. “Where is she?”

“At home. Emma and I need to get home. And Will and Beth, too.”

“I’ll take you there.” Haley tossed her coffee cup into a trash bin and put an arm around Elsie’s shoulders. “Come on, honey. We are outtie.”

40

T
he tiny thing mewed as Anna placed him firmly in Elsie’s arms.

“Oh, little baby boy! What do you have to whimper about?” Elsie asked softly as she swayed gently back and forth. “You have a mamm who loves you so, and two big brothers to show you the way to be a man. And three big sisters to tease you and sneak cookies for you. Once you get teeth, of course.”

Elsie’s comment evoked soft chuckles from the others in the room. Doc Trueherz and Anna Beiler, the midwife, were still here, and Haley had stayed, just in case the doctor needed extra assistance.

The baby mewled again, and Elsie felt a tender tug of affection for him. He was sunshine and joy and tender new life, and he was ever so welcome in this house that had known so much sadness lately.

“What’s his name, Mamm?” Will asked.

“Ya.” Beth climbed up on the couch and perched beside her mother. “What his name, Mamm?”

“I was thinking of Thomas,” Fanny said. “And we could call him Tom.” She seemed so relaxed on the couch, so content and happy, that Elsie had trouble believing that she had given birth to this beautiful little baby less than an hour ago.

“Tom?” Elsie folded the blanket away so that she could see his face. “What do you think? Are you a Tom?”

He moved his peachy head so that he could stare up at her. “Such eyes you have.” A deep, warm brown, they were soulful and wise, as if he already understood that this world he was coming into wasn’t perfect, but that he would find his own right good place.

“Does he like his name?” Will asked.

“I would say he’s thinking about it,” Emma responded, holding out her arms for a chance to hold him. He kicked his tiny legs as they made the switch. “Such a feisty one, you are!” Emma cooed.

“He’s got spirit,” Anna agreed. “Just like his mamm.” She leaned in closer to Emma and Elsie to click her tongue at the baby. “This one was a challenge, preeclampsia and all,” she said, in a quiet, women-only voice.

Tom let out another cry, and everyone looked toward Emma.

“The kid’s got a good pair of lungs,” Haley said.

“What a day! Delivering babies is one of the highlights of my job,” Henry Trueherz said, as he pumped up the cuff on Fanny’s arm to check her blood pressure. “But I don’t get to do it too often because of competent midwives like you, Anna.”

“Ach!” Anna waved a withered hand at him. “I should know what I’m doing. Been doing it nearly forty years. I’d say that’s right good practice.”

“Can’t argue with that.” Dr. Trueherz checked the monitor and wrote the numbers down in his notebook.

“How is her blood pressure now?” Haley asked. She had been helpful in explaining preeclampsia for the family.

“It looks good. Fanny, I’d say we’re through the worst of it without complications.”

“Thank the Heavenly Father,” Elsie said. If the blood pressure had gotten too high during labor, there was a chance that Fanny could have begun having seizures, which would have been dangerous for mother and baby.

Fanny sighed. “I’m grateful to be home. I have no love for the hospital, but I would have gone if you told me so, Doc.”

“You’ve got the blood pressure of a marathon runner now,” the doctor said. “Your prayers worked, young lady.”

It seemed funny to hear Fanny being called a young lady when she was the mamm in their house. But truth be told, she was only twenty-nine, just eight years older than Caleb.

The doctor packed his things in a brown leather satchel. “Looks like my work is done here. Anna, do you want a ride home?”

“I’m going to stay on a bit.” Anna handed Fanny a glass of water. “I like to dote on the newborns.”

Dr. Trueherz said his good-byes, and the family settled in once again, a semicircle of rocking chairs facing the blue sofa.

“Is it all right if I get up?” Fanny asked the midwife. “There’s a little cap that I knit for Tom, and I want to try it on him.”

Anna pressed a finger to her chin. “You’re looking fit, but you best stay put for now.”

“I’ll fetch it,” Elsie offered.

“It’s yellow and white,” Fanny said. “I think it’s in the bedroom, on the chest of drawers.”

Elsie went into the bedroom that had been shared by Dat and Fanny for many years. Although she had avoided entering it since Dat passed, she now stepped inside with a new vision of the room now that the baby had been born in here. It was time to let go of
the shadow of grief and clear the way for the new life Gott had blessed them with.

She found the hat sitting right on the dresser as Fanny had said. As she stepped in to get it, she saw a flurry of white outside the window.

Snow.

Already it was beginning to stick to the ground, mottling the dirt trail and fence and golden grass with white specks. Caleb would have an interesting trip home from the store.

“Elsie?” Haley poked her head into the doorway. “Did you find it?”

“I did, but look. It’s snowing.”

“Wow.” Haley stepped up to the window. “It’s really coming down. I should probably go soon.”

“Will you be okay driving in it?”

“No worries. The Geo has all-wheel drive, and I’ll take it slow.”

“It’s such a beautiful sight. A blanket of white. It’s as if Gott is making everything fresh and clean for Tom’s arrival.”

Haley’s smile eased the strain on her face. “That’s one of the many things I love about you, Els. You find the good in everything.”

“It’s a wonderful good day. Tom’s birth is a new start for our family.”

“And a small miracle, I think. To have everything go off without a hitch, without complications. God had His angels watching over Fanny today.”

“We have so much to be thankful for.” Elsie picked up the knit cap. “You know, I was worried about how I’d feel when the baby came. I was afraid I would fall back into despair over Dat. It’s such a sad thing for a child not to have a father. But now that Tom is here, something inside of me has shifted. Like a flower has blossomed inside of me. I’m going to love that baby as if he were my own.”

“He is so precious. Doesn’t it make you want a baby, Els? A child of your own? When I see a tiny infant like Tom, it just pushes all my buttons.”

Elsie knew the tug of longing her friend was experiencing. She had begun to feel that way when she saw Amish mamms with their infants and toddlers. A baby grasping for the string of her mother’s prayer kapp, a toddler hiding behind the skirt of his mother’s dress. The sight of mother and child awakened that yearning that she had put to rest so many years ago.

But Tom would be the child she would never have. “I’ll just have to shower Tom with the same love I would give my own baby,” Elsie said.

“Everyone is already falling for him,” Haley said. “He’s lucky to be surrounded by so much love.”

“He’s a child of winter. A cold, dark time … but it’s cozy, too. And spring is just around the corner.”

Haley’s amber eyes flickered as she put her hands on Elsie’s shoulders. “You are the master of finding the silver lining in every cloud, and after everything you’ve been through. You’re my hero, Elsie.”

“Oh, it’s not a big deal … I just look for the little glimmer of light in the darkness. For a time, I couldn’t find it, but I can now. Little Tom has brought light into our house again.”

“I’m so happy for you.” They hugged, and in the moment of quiet came the sound of snow crystals tapping the window in the blustery wind.