The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,79

have to do the grocery shopping. Maybe pay the bills, which meant I should take a look at Marta’s books to see if they were balanced. I would visit Marta in jail by tomorrow or the next day to get the information to help me keep her home and practice afloat.

When I reached Marta’s, I pored over the schedule. The next two weeks were filled with both office visits and home visits. I would fit in postpartum and well-baby checkups as needed. As a nurse-midwife working in a hospital, I didn’t do well-baby checkups. Pediatricians did. With home births, after the one-week checkup, the baby went to a pediatrician and then later all of the vaccinations, which it seemed the majority of the Amish opted to do, were started.

I had five mothers due in the next two weeks. I would commit to staying in Lancaster County that long, until I could talk to Ada and until the change of plea, unless one of the other midwives Marta had asked to help her came through.

I figured Marta had a ninety percent chance, maybe a ninety-nine percent chance, of not keeping her business. If she plea-bargained and pled guilty to practicing without a license, I assumed that if she kept practicing, she’d be arrested again. If she didn’t plea-bargain and the matter went to trial, she would probably end up serving a sentence or at least being on probation. She wouldn’t be able to practice then, either.

Helping out a little longer wasn’t going to make a difference in the long run, but maybe it would help Ella and Zed in the short run. I also thought it important not to abandon those five mothers here at the very end of their pregnancies.

My last appointment for that afternoon was, thankfully, at two. I would be finished before Ella and Zed arrived home from school and able to talk with them about their mother. I closed the appointment book and stood. It shouldn’t be me, someone they hardly knew, doing the telling. It should be family. It should be Klara.

The afternoon went by quickly, too quickly. In no time at all the last mother left and I had the office cleaned and ready for the next round of appointments.

I waited in the cottage for the kids. I was afraid if I met them at the bus they would think something tragic had happened. With ten minutes to kill, I decided to call Sophie. She picked up on the second ring. I told her what had happened with Marta. She didn’t seem surprised. She thanked me for being willing to stay longer for the sake of Ella and Zed.

Then she told me all the church members said to tell me hello. They’d had their weekly Bible study the night before and had prayed for me. Sophie also said Mrs. Glick inquired about when I would be back.

I smiled, wondering who would have told me if my dad had landed in jail. It wouldn’t have been some stranger. It would have been Sophie. Or Mrs. Glick.

“Have you talked to James?” Sophie asked.

“A little.” I sat down on the sofa beside the cold woodstove.

“He said you’ve made a doctor friend.”

I sat up straight. “He did? He called you?”

“Just to check in,” Sophie said.

Right.

“Was he upset?” I’d mentioned to James that I’d met Sean at the hospital and had breakfast with him, but I hadn’t told him about the other meals we’d shared.

“No.” Sophie paused. “Just matter of fact.”

“Oh.” Had I wanted him to be upset? “Sean’s not really a friend. More like an acquaintance. He’s an OB doc at Lancaster General.” My face grew warm, and I admitted to myself that I was lying. I quickly changed the subject to well-baby checkups, going over the details to make sure I was covering all the bases. They weren’t complex, but I wanted to make sure I was doing what I needed. Then I asked her if the hazelnut trees had leafed out.

“You should ask James. He was working in the orchard last Sunday evening.”

That caught me off guard, and I started to ask about the caretaker I’d hired, but then I heard the kids coming up the steps, and I told Sophie I needed to go. We hung up quickly.

Zed was the first one through the door. “Where’s Mom?” he asked, searching the living room and then stepping toward the dining room. Her car wasn’t parked outside, so he knew she wasn’t home. I hadn’t thought about retrieving