The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,113

she depressed?”

“Maybe. But mostly she just seems worn out. Like it’s an effort for her to walk across the room, let alone do her chores.”

“Is she going to school?” I put my medical bag on the concrete at my feet.

“Some.”

“Have you taken her to the doctor?”

He shook his head. “No, but I was thinking I should.”

“That’s a good idea. Make sure you explain how Lydia died. Tell them that a cause hasn’t been determined, even though an autopsy was done.”

He bent down and picked up my bag, but before he turned back to the house, I asked if he would mind answering a few questions about Lydia.

He sighed. “Sure.”

“Did she go to the doctor about her high blood pressure after Marta told her she should?”

He shook his head. “And she never told me Marta said she should.” He placed both hands on the handle of the bag. “She hated doctors, hospitals, all of that. Her mother died young despite being under a doctor’s care. Then Lydia had a bad experience herself before we got married.” He paused. “We had to force her to go to the hospital when she was ready to have the twins. But when Marta told her she needed to go to the hospital during labor this last time, she refused. By the time Marta called the ambulance, it was too late.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“Ya. I know. So am I.” His brown eyes were kind. “And I’m really sorry for the mess Marta is in because of this.”

I took a deep breath. “Can I ask you one more question?”

He nodded.

“Can you tell me about Lydia’s first baby?”

“Christy?”

“No.” I hesitated. “The one before.”

“Who told you about him? Marta?” His voice was confused.

“No, I was doing some filing and ran across some old notations in her office.” I didn’t want to admit that I’d intentionally read through Lydia’s chart. Because I was part of the practice, I hadn’t exactly broken the law, but that still didn’t justify what I had done. If Will wanted to, he could file a grievance against me. But because he was Amish, I knew he wouldn’t, and I was taking advantage of that.

He glanced off toward the greenhouses and then back at me, his head tipped downward. “Ask Marta about it if you want to,” he said. “But just know this. I had no part in that first baby.”

My conversation with Will weighed heavily on me as I examined Hannah. When I was finished, I noted in her chart that she was fifty percent effaced, two centimeters dilated, and the baby was in a breech position. I showed her exercises to do to turn the baby and told her that if it didn’t, she would need to deliver at the hospital.

“Marta does breech home births,” she said, pushing herself up to a sitting position and then clumsily swinging her bare feet to the floor.

“I know, but I don’t,” I said, looking her straight in the eye. “Rest as much as you can. It will be best if the baby waits another week or two. And do the exercises faithfully.”

Hannah said she had slept better the night before and that her mother and grossmammi had the girls over at her parents’ house for the day. “There’s always so much activity over there, so many hands to help. It tires all of them out.”

I thought of Ezra, and of Sally and John, and of Sally’s sister, Ruth. The girls were lucky to have so much going on. I had an appointment with Sally the next day. I couldn’t believe I’d been in Lancaster County a couple of days short of a month.

“How about Christy?”

“She went to school today. The first time this week.”

I asked Hannah if she was okay being alone, and she assured me she was. Her husband and Will would be in for lunch, and her mother would bring the girls back after their naps.

I left the house thinking about Lydia. Marta told me that the home had been built by Will, his father, and his brothers after Will and Lydia had married. She must have felt like a queen, albeit a queen with a secret. It looked like the Lantzes weren’t the only family in Lancaster County hiding the past.

But it seemed Marta was a common denominator in both.

The next afternoon, I finished up a delivery—baby number 262, seventh for me in Lancaster County, and the second child of a twenty-eight year old mother, living in Strasburg proper. The husband kept his carriage in