The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,121
later, during all of their rumschpringes, Klara couldn’t get it out of her head that Alexander was interested in Giselle, even though it was obvious he was smitten by Klara. It looked as if I’d finally found my Amish gossip. She sighed. “Poor Alexander,” she said. “I don’t think he’s ever recovered from Klara not trusting him.”
“Do you know what happened to Giselle?”
“No.” Nancy looked straight at me. “I really don’t know.” She stood and put another piece of wood in the fire. “But I’ve always wondered.”
After I checked on Hannah one more time and woke Ella, I asked Nancy where Will was. I wanted to thank him for pulling Marta’s car out of the ditch.
“He took Christy to the doctor,” she said. “Hired a driver. They left just after I arrived.”
I must have looked pleased.
“He’s taking her to a specialist. The first doctor thinks something is wrong with her heart.”
Marta had canceled my appointments for the day, so I slept soundly until I heard a man’s voice downstairs and sleepily thought it was Zed’s, meaning it was late afternoon and he had arrived home from school. It wasn’t until I reached the bottom stair that I realized the voice was way too deep to be Zed’s—it was Will, sitting on the sofa with a girl who looked to be ten or eleven, leaning against him with her eyes closed.
“This is Christy,” Will said, his voice low. “I’m afraid she’s all tuckered out.”
Her hair was strawberry blond and she had a pinched expression on her face, even in her sleep. I stared at her for a moment, wondering if she looked like Lydia.
Marta turned a little, her head popping out of the wingback chair, and Will cleared his throat. “I just saw Ada in the hospital. She said to tell you hello.”
I searched his face, wondering if she’d told him we were sisters. From his look I didn’t think she had.
“She thinks she’ll go home tomorrow,” he said.
Marta turned toward me again. “But that’s not why Will is here. He tells me you’ve been sleuthing.”
It took a minute, but then I realized she was probably talking about Lydia’s file, the one I had read through even though I shouldn’t have. So be it. I had done it for Marta’s own best interests.
I ignored her as I sat on the hearth with the warm stove behind me, facing Will. “Your mother said you were taking Christy to a specialist today.”
“I was just telling Marta,” he said, glancing down at a piece of paper in his hand. “He said Christy’s been having a cardiac arrhythmia, caused by spasms,” he added. “And he’s put her on medication.” He nodded toward me. “Thanks to you.”
I leaned forward, my own heart racing, although not irregularly. If this were really true, it would change everything for Marta.
“I told him about Lydia, like you said,” Will continued. “He told me there’s some evidence the condition is hereditary. He said Lydia might have had a series of spasms during labor that cut off her oxygen—and the baby’s.”
I turned toward Marta. “It wouldn’t have showed up in the autopsy.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because the spasm would have relaxed once she died. There wouldn’t have been any evidence. It’s not like cardiac arrest. There wouldn’t have been any scarring.” I stood and faced my aunt. “You need to call your lawyer.”
Marta moved like molasses. Will said they needed to go because they had a driver waiting. We all said goodbye. I thanked him profusely for coming by. As soon as Marta shut the door behind them, I said, firmly, “Call your lawyer, Marta. Now.”
“You think this is significant?” Her eyes clouded over.
“Yes!” Over the past month, there had been many times I had wanted to give Marta a shake, but never as badly as right now. I was still trying to find the right words to spur Marta into action when Zed clomped up the outside steps and burst inside. His mother was still just standing there, frozen, so I told him the good news and together we finally got her to move. I think she had become so resigned to the situation that she simply didn’t know how to respond now that it had been turned on its ear.
Together, she and I called the lawyer and explained everything we’d just learned. The woman sounded pleased but said we’d need Christy’s medical records and an affidavit from an ob-gyn indicating that the condition could have caused Lydia’s death during labor.