Jacob's Return (30 page)

Jacob shook his head and went to the top of the stairs. “Ruben!”

Ruben stepped into range at the bottom, his face ashen.

“Nobody’s dead, Ruben.”

“I know, Es told me. But....”

“And nobody’s going to die. I need you to go to Atlee’s. Shear some of his sheep if you have to. I need their wool to wrap the babies in.”

Ruben did not move.

“Dammit! Now, Ruben! Es, bring up all the quilt batting you can find.”

“Surely, the blankets are enough,” Levi said.

“They need layers to keep in their body’s warmth. I learned that in North Dakota from an Australian sheep farmer. I helped him rescue some calves in a blizzard. Unusual man. Smart, though.”

With Esther’s help, he swathed the babies in quilt stuffing, individually, then side by side again, and handed them back to their waiting mother. “They’re pinker than they were before, Rache. That’s a good sign,” Jacob said.

“Thank you for saving them.”

He scoffed, embarrassed, guilt-ridden.

“Bed’s all set,” Bishop Zook said.

“All made up? Fire roaring? Extra blankets?”

“Fire going, bed made up. I’ll get the extra blankets.” He left again.

Jacob lifted Rachel, bedding and all and saw the bloody linens she lay on. “Ach, Rache, nobody even cleaned you up.” The clean blanket over her had been hiding the mess. He put her back down, took the babies and handed them to his father. Take them down by the fire, hold them against you, and pray. Send Esther back up.”

“Esther delivered the afterbirth, at least? Jacob asked when his father left. He peeled away the blanket, then the sheet, still red with blood.

Rachel floated in a different world. She nodded in response to Jacob’s question, then looked down at herself, her nightgown bunched at her waist, her body exposed, bloody. Great gasping sobs overtook her.

“Ach,” Jacob said to cover his concern at the blood flowing from her. “A flood from both ends.”

Her smile was not for his forced jest, but because he could look at her, soiled with blood, and show only love.

“Better for you to smile than cry,” he said. “No more tears now to spoil the day such beautiful babies were born.”

Esther stepped into the room just as Jacob placed padding between Rachel’s legs and Rachel marveled that her sister did not so much as blink at finding him tending her so intimately.

“Es, I’m sorry I yelled,” Jacob said.

Esther nodded. “You had a right to be angry. I was not thinking straight.”

“Neither me.”

As they worked efficiently side-by-side tending her, Rachel wondered if she would ever recover from the embarrassment of being unable to tend herself.

“Let’s get this gown off her,” Esther said. “Then you can raise her so I can remove the soiled linen and replace it with fresh.”

Lifting her in his arms, while Esther replaced the linen, Jacob took a minute to press a kiss to her forehead. Rachel closed her eyes and accepted the words he did not speak, that he loved her and their daughters. The moment brought forth the dread buried deep in her heart. “I’m frightened,” she said. “That we do not deserve them and God knows it.”

“Me too, Mudpie.”

Esther’s gaze shot to their faces, her shock turning quickly to understanding, but she revealed no judgment. “Jacob, your Datt said you and Anna were smaller. Did you know?”

“Oh, Es. Were they?” Rachel asked, her heart near-bursting with hope. Smaller babies than hers had survived. Their own father, even. Had he passed his strength to his daughters?

Rachel closed her eyes to ask the impossible of the only one capable of granting it.

Jacob lay her back down. Together he and Es finished washing her then they put her in a clean, soft nightgown.

“Clean feels good.”

Esther tucked the quilt around her.

“Warm and clean feels better.”

Jacob carried her downstairs to the big bed by the fire.
Being in Jacob’s arms feels best.

When he settled her in the bed downstairs, and took his arms from around her, it was all she could do not to cry out, the pain of separation so keen.

He took the twins from Levi and tucked them into her arms under her blanket.

Levi sniffed. “I go to my house and sleep now. Too much for an old man, all this excitement,” he said gruffly.

“’Night, Datt.”

Upstairs, Daniel began to cry. Esther excused herself. “Middle of the night feeding,” she said. “Best get there before he wakes Emma and Aaron.”

“Lord, yes,” Jacob said. “A tornado couldn’t wake them, but Daniel probably could.”

Once they heard Esther moving around upstairs, Jacob sat on the bed facing her and his daughters, the look in his eyes speaking of crippling fear and growing hope, of lifetime vows unspoken … yet no less binding.

He took them all into his arms and buried his face in her hair. “This is where the three of you belong,” he said.

After a while, she felt him calm and he began to pray in German. They spoke the words together.

And peacefulness washed over her.

As if peace came to Jacob at the same moment, he sat back and nodded, then he examined the tiny faces. “Have you seen their eyes?”

“Not yet. You?”

He shook his head. Like her, he was probably thinking it might never happen.

He put his finger toward one tiny mouth, prodding it.

“What are you doing?”

“I want to see if they can suckle. If they can, they’ve got a fighting chance.”

“But she isn’t, Jacob.”

He did not look away fast enough for her to miss the pain in his eyes. “Well, she’s not the hungry one. Let’s see if this little one … yes! Look at her go. Oh, oh, she’s gonna cry ‘cause there’s nothing there for her. Your turn, Mudpie.”

“How can I with them bound together?”

Jacob moved the babes about in their cocoon a bit, then angled the hungry babe toward her, while holding the other.

Rachel blushed exposing her breast.

Jacob chuckled. “After everything, you can blush with me?”

“I blush for my stupidity. I don’t even know how to nurse her.”

“If we’re lucky she’ll show you how.” He nudged the baby’s mouth toward Rachel’s nipple. “Come on Squeaky. Time for breakfast.”

“Ouch!”

“Guess she knows how. Smart girl.”

But her nursing did not last long before she drifted to sleep. Rachel feared the baby might still be hungry. “Maybe she’s not strong enough to nurse.”

“She’s small, she doesn’t need much. Even a drop or two is good for the first time. It’s all right, Rache. They’re going to make it, I know it. Let’s see if lazy Anna here is hungry now.”

“Oh, Jacob, Anna is a good name. Let’s call her that, for your sister.”

“Guess that’s who I was thinking of when I said it. She reminds me of Anna, the quiet one. But I think our girls are identical, Mudpie. See each dimple and single arched brow—”

“Like yours,” Rachel said.

“Like mine,” Jacob agreed, looking embarrassed.

“If this is Anna, then what shall we name her sister?”

“Squeaky?” Jacob joked.

“I think Anna and Squeaky sounds funny.”

“How would you like it if we named our squeaky, hungry baby after your mother?”

“Mary. Pop will like that. I do too.”

“Good, now let’s feed our Anna.”

But Anna did not suckle. After a bit, Rachel closed her gown and held the babies while Jacob kept his arms around all of them.

Ruben came back with the sheep’s wool at about two a.m. With shaking hands, he helped Jacob bathe the babies for the first time at the foot of Rachel’s bed where it was warm from the fire. Then they wrapped each in raw wool, a blanket, quilt stuffing, then a final blanket.

“Do you think it will help?” Ruben asked.

“The Sheep’s wool is warm and the lanolin will coat the babies’ skin creating another barrier from the cold. Saved a calf in a blizzard that way once.”

“With sheep’s wool?”

“And layers of clothes. Mostly mine.”

Ruben came to the head of the bed and kissed her cheek, his own growing red. “Glad you’re all right. Where’s Es?”

“Sleeping by now, I imagine,” Jacob answered. “Go on up. There are two beds. I’ll stay here.”

“Only need one bed, thanks.”

* * * *

Squeaky nursed twice more in the next two hours, Anna not at all.

When Rachel was ready to sleep from sheer exhaustion, Jacob took the babies, holding them in the rocker near the fireplace … and he prayed.

That Anna would not nurse broke his heart. He’d had her so short a time, yet he could not bear to lose her.

Near dawn, he heard the kitchen door open and close, and then Simon stood in the doorway, between the kitchen and the best room, looking from him to Rachel and to the babies. His brother’s face wore no expression, neither did he speak, he just stood there.

Finally, he slapped his hat against his leg, turned and went toward his house.

“He was awfully quiet,” Rachel whispered.

Her words surprised Jacob. “Quiet, we can live with.” When he stood, Squeaky woke.

As Rachel fed one daughter, she cried for the other.

Ruben and Esther came down at dawn, Ruben carrying Emma and Aaron.

The new babies delighted them. Rachel showed off the daughters she feared would never see the summer flowers.

Would Emma and Aaron ever know Anna and Mary?
Jacob wondered.

Emma and Aaron were so distressed at Momly’s tears, Jacob took the new twins so Rachel could cuddle and calm the older ones, and their determination to love her into smiles seemed to lighten her heart.

Esther herded everyone into the kitchen for breakfast. From her bed in the best room, Rachel smelled maple syrup warming as she nursed her ravenous daughter. Es must be making funnel cakes.

Before long, Emma slipped into the room alone, her movements and her impish, smiling eyes saying she’d sneaked out and was pleased she got away with it. She came around to the babies, and before Rachel could get a hand free to stop her, Emma put the tip of her finger into Anna’s mouth.

Looking at Emma’s sweet smile, Rachel couldn’t scold. But when she went to take Emma’s hand away, she saw that Anna was sucking on Emma’s finger.

Rachel almost cried out, but feared she’d upset everyone with the cry. “Emma, sweetheart, what did you give the baby?”

Emma held up her wet finger. “Baby like mapou.”

A picture of last night flashed before Rachel’s eyes — Ruben teaching Emma to dip her finger in maple syrup and suck it off. Him giving it to Daniel the same way.

“Go get Pa-pop, sweetheart, and bring him here. And bring some maple with you.

After Emma went into the kitchen, Rachel heard Jacob laugh. Then he came in, his look changing when he saw her tears. She shook her head, to tell him he need not worry, but her action made him pale.

“Emma,” Rachel said. “Show Pa-pop how you feed the baby.”

Emma put her little syrup-covered finger into Anna’s mouth; Anna suckled for a minute and fell promptly back to sleep.

Jacob gasped.

Rachel blinked to clear her eyes. “Maple syrup,” she said. “Anna likes maple syrup. If we can get her to take that for now, maybe she’ll grow strong enough to nurse.”

Jacob lifted Emma into the air making her giggle. “And my smart little Emma found the way.”

“And who taught Emma to suck maple syrup off her finger?” Rachel asked.

“Boob!” everyone said.

* * * *

A traveling English doctor came to examine the babies, but to everyone’s distress, he gave them little hope, which took the light from Jacob’s eyes. What they were doing made sense, the doctor said, and they should continue. He marveled at the way Emma had made the sick baby eat, saying she had likely extended Anna’s life, but he should be called when … well, if either of the babies took a bad turn. “Each day they live will give them more strength to face the next one,” he added before he left.

And those words gave Rachel hope and her life purpose.

Ruben and Esther moved into one of the upstairs bedrooms. Besides helping with both sets of twins, Esther cooked for their house and her father’s, and cared for Daniel.

Over the next weeks, Jacob, Rachel, Esther, Ruben, even Levi, gave their body heat, and their hearts, to the new twins. Daniel, Aaron, and Emma adapted easily to sharing the adults with two more little ones.

Rachel regained her strength as each day passed.

Everybody loved the babies.

Everybody except Simon.

He ate in silence, and worked the farm the same way.

But Jacob and Rachel did not have time to worry over Simon’s forbidding demeanor. It took all their time and attention to care for the tiniest and neediest baby, Anna. Mary — better known as Squeaky — needed nearly as much.

Emma and Aaron needed their time and attention too. Rachel did not forget Simon’s warning.

They kept the fireplace in the best room going till almost the middle of May when the traveling English doctor declared, with patent disbelief, that the babies were out of immediate danger.

Ruben, Esther and Daniel moved back to the Bishop’s house. Ruben had been doing his farm chores there, and many of Jacob’s, since the babies’ birth.

Life began to return to normal.

For everyone except Simon. And Levi, who was becoming a broken man. No matter his coaxing, he could not get Simon to hold or notice ‘his daughters.’

When Rachel and Jacob went to the
daudyhaus
to ask Levi to stay with the children while they put in a long night in the barn to print the Chalkboard, they found him weeping.

Jacob’s pain for his father’s suffering told Rachel what must be done. Once again, she hugged Levi. Once again, she began by telling him she loved him.

Then with Jacob’s nod of approval, for he knew without words, what she intended, she sat facing his father and released one canker in his heart to replace it with another.