The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,72

be there.

I’d definitely studied what birth was like for a newborn. I knew I would have recognized Giselle’s smell and her voice. And I knew, whether I was taken from her at birth or a few days after, that I had mourned her. I knew that without her colostrum and then breast milk that I was at a greater risk for allergies, infections, and disease. I knew buried within me, subconsciously, was the primitive terror of being separated from her. I knew she was my first tragic loss and that, no matter the protection I’d been given since, that loss impacted my lifelong sense of trust.

I kept my eyes on the house as I thought about her, and I thought about her because it was easier than thinking about the people inside the house as I walked up the brick path.

The porch steps were just a few feet away. The curtain in the upstairs window on the left side of the balcony fluttered. I stopped, willing myself to breath, willing my heart to not thump right out of my chest.

The only other time I’d been close to this scared was when Dad took me to college my freshman year. It wasn’t college that scared me—not the academics, not making new friends, not living away from home. It wasn’t what I thought my new classmates would think of Dad’s hat and clothes that scared me, either. I was over all of that by then.

At first, as I sat and cried in his car and he put his arm around me, I knew what didn’t scare me—but I couldn’t pinpoint what did. I just knew I was terrified.

He told me to give it a week. He said if I still felt sad he would come get me, and I would still have time to enroll in Chemeketa Community College. I called him after a week and told him I was fine. Three weeks later he called to ask when I was coming home for a visit. He said he’d been missing me and hoped he would see me soon. After I told him goodbye and hung up the phone, I sat on my bed and cried. He was still my father. He still wanted me. I realized then that I’d been afraid he was done parenting me. Even though he’d said I could move back home, I’d been afraid he didn’t want me anymore.

He came and got me the next weekend for a visit.

The upstairs curtain of Klara’s house fluttered again, and I climbed the steps. Here I was, my beloved father dead, forcing myself on people who hadn’t wanted me twenty-six years ago and most likely didn’t want me now. I crossed the porch, knocked on the heavy front door, and waited. For the first time it occurred to me that they might not answer the door. In that case I’d go around to the daadi haus and find Mammi myself. I knocked again. And waited. I knocked a third time and then turned on my heels. I barely heard the door creak open a crack. I turned back.

“Yes?” A man stood at the door, probably the same one I’d seen in the field the week before.

“My name is Lexie Jaeger. I’m looking for Klara.”

The door opened all the way. His face was worn and weathered, and up close I could see that his eyes were gray.

“She’s out back. Could I tell her what you want?”

“I can wait,” I said. I thought of Ella. She’d have to bear with me.

The man squinted. Finally he said, “Come on in then. I’ll go see how long she’s going to be.”

He led me into a living room and motioned me over to a brown couch with a green crocheted afghan draped over the back. I sat and looked around the room. There were the bookcases Ella mentioned and the stack of puzzles. Behind them would be the Bible. I wondered if I had enough time to look, but it was as if I were glued to the couch. Though I already knew my name was in it, I was still the unwanted child. I didn’t have the right to look.

There was an old, old clock on the mantel that ticked off each second, and above it was a framed cross-stitch that said “Bless this house and all who enter.” I scoffed and turned toward the kitchen. A long plank table with benches on either side filled one end. It could seat twelve at least.