The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,76

“Ada.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shrugged. “Zed thought so too.”

“Ella—”

“I didn’t know you then, Lexie.” She paused. “And I thought Mom would be mad.”

“Why?”

“I grew up with her telling me I talked too much, that I didn’t have any boundaries. All of that. She expected me to be this nice little girl. But I’m not nice. And I’m not Amish.”

I wanted to laugh. She was one of the nicest people I’d ever met. And her life didn’t seem that different from the Amish.

“I’m sorry,” she said, turning toward me. “So you and Ada are cousins. You already knew that, right?”

“Yes,” I said.

“But you two look more alike than most cousins—for example, more alike than you and I do.”

“Genetics,” I said. “It could happen.” But I wasn’t sure. Maybe we were just cousins who happened to share a number of dominant genes, but I suspected that we were even more, that we were half sisters instead.

“Are you going to stay?” Ella turned up the heat in the car.

“I probably should…at least until Saturday,” I answered, giving her a sideways glance.

“Don’t tell Mom.”

“What do you have planned?”

“Volleyball and a sing.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Honest,” Ella said. “That’s what Amish kids do.”

“Even ones on their rumschpringe?”

“Ya,” she answered. “Even those. Besides,” she said. “Saturday is my sixteenth birthday.”

Marta stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes when we arrived. She’d made a broccoli-and-rice casserole for dinner that Ella and I ate as we told her about Esther’s delivery. Next I told her about checking on Peggy and little Thomas.

Ella shot me a look but she didn’t need to. I had no desire to tell Marta about my stop at Klara’s. I still felt as though I’d been gutted alive. Besides, what if Marta and Klara formed an alliance and ganged up on me? I couldn’t handle them one-on-one, let alone two-on-one.

Worse, I was still feeling guilty about my own behavior from earlier, when I had so stubbornly forced Marta’s hand once I knew we had a patient in labor. Though I deserved to get all of the information she had given me thus far—and plenty more, for that matter—I still didn’t like the way I had gone about it, and something in me wanted to make amends.

“Would it help if I stayed another week?” I asked Marta. “I can call the agency tomorrow. If I use the extended-stay hotel, I don’t need to find a place to live.” I had to go back and see Ada and soon. Once I left Lancaster County, I didn’t know how long it would be before I could return.

She did that funny little lip purse I’d seen so many times. Finally she said, “I don’t want to put you out.”

I stood and picked up my plate, carrying it to the sink. “Think about it.”

“Maybe just until I find someone else. It should only take a few days.”

“Just until then,” I said, suddenly exhausted. I quietly washed my dishes and put them in the rack, hoping Sean would be free for lunch the next day.

NINETEEN

Please let me go.” Zed’s voice carried up the staircase the next morning.

I couldn’t make out Marta’s answer, but as I started down the steps, I heard, “Ella isn’t going either. You’ll both be at school.”

“But it would be a good civics lesson.” Zed was as close to whining as I’d heard him. I stopped on the last step.

“The answer is no.” Marta handed him his backpack. “Ella,” she called into the kitchen. “You need to get moving.”

She came out in a moment, her coat already on. She kissed her mother on the cheek but didn’t say a word. A second later she led the way out of the house with Zed tagging along behind.

“I’d like to go,” I said. There were no prenatal appointments scheduled for the morning.

She shook her head without looking at me.

“You need someone with you, Marta. I’ll take notes in case you forget what was said.”

She frowned. “Believe me, I think I’ll remember.” The arraignment was scheduled for ten, but Marta was required to turn herself in by nine.

I left the house an hour after she did. The morning was the warmest yet since I’d been in Pennsylvania, and the trees along the road were beginning to bud, making me wonder if the leaves on the hazelnut trees back home were unfolding. It would be time to spray soon.

A crowd was gathered outside the courthouse again—both Amish and Mennonite, both men and women and several babies and young children. I didn’t