The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,136

the yard, Marta was splashing out of the creek, carrying you in her arms.”

I shuddered, looking at my aunt and realizing that I owed her my very life. I may have saved her from jail, but she had saved me from death.

“As horrible as that was, at least the incident seemed to snap Giselle from her stupor,” Mammi continued. “In truth, it was a real shock for all of us. After that, Giselle knew she had to leave, not just her home but her child. In the condition she was in, she was not a fit mother. That night, she packed a bag, wrote us all a note, and left. In it, she asked Klara to raise you as well.”

Klara bent forward, putting her face in her hands.

“Mamm?” Ada whispered.

“But you wouldn’t do it, would you?” I asked Klara, my voice sounding strangely calm. “Even with Giselle gone for good, you wouldn’t take me.”

Klara didn’t answer, so Mammi spoke for her.

“No, she would not. And she did not want me to, either. In fact she forbade me to. She said she wanted Alexandra as far away from here as humanly possible. You were only two years old, but to Klara you were the enemy.” Mammi’s face turned toward the window. “I thought of an old friend, an Englisch woman who had moved clear across the country, to Oregon. That seemed pretty far.” Mammi’s eyes were back on me now. “I wrote to my friend and asked if there were any Plain communities there, if she might know of some childless couple who was good, who was loving and kind, that God could bless with a beautiful two-year-old girl. She did. Of course, we worked with a lawyer and did it all legally. And that is how you ended up with your parents, Alexandra.”

And that is how you ended up with your parents. Her words ricocheted inside my head, the words I had waited a lifetime to hear.

James placed a warm hand on my arm and spoke.

“I know this is difficult for you, Lex, but can’t you see how God was in all of this? Just like with Joseph, He wrought good from bad.”

And that is how you ended up with your parents. Because God wrought good from bad. Because He was watching over me, had been watching over me all along.

“I remember the day you left,” Marta said suddenly. “Mammi hired a driver to go to Philadelphia, to the airport. You were two, wearing your little Amish dress, apron, and cap and holding the folded quilt Mammi had made for you. I stood on the balcony and watched you go.”

I gasped.

Marta kept talking through tears. “You turned and blew me a kiss, as if you were leaving on a short trip. As if you would soon return.”

I was that little girl again, looking back at the house, the balcony. My mother was gone. I was blowing my teenage aunt a kiss. I had no idea what was ahead of me.

I leaped to my feet, knocking against James.

“Lexie?” He was scrambling to follow me.

I stumbled through the room, nearly tripping over Zed’s outstretched foot, brushing past Alexander. I fumbled for the knob and pushed through the door.

“Lexie!” James was behind me. I started to run, around the back of Klara’s house. There was the creek—the icy waters of my waking nightmares. The back door was ajar and I dashed inside, tearing through the kitchen and into the dining room, around to the open staircase. Up I went, taking the steps two at a time. On the landing, I turned. There was the room with the balcony, the door open. Ada’s room, I presumed. I stepped inside. A quilt, bigger than mine but the same pattern, was spread across the double bed. Dresses and caps hung on pegs along the wall. I stepped to the French doors at the balcony and pushed them open, taking the short step to the iron railing and gripping it tightly through the vines that had wound around it.

Below, a pink dogwood tree bloomed to the side of the house. The cows had crowded around the white fence and one looked up at me. I turned my head toward the stand of trees, catching the scent of pine. Beyond them, the steel blades of a windmill, that wasn’t visible from the road, spun in the breeze.

I thought of how Mama and I used to sit in the shadow of our own windmill, how sometimes Dad would join