The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,82
area from the mid- to late-1800s.” An email in German popped open. “But I haven’t verified it’s the man you’re looking for,” he said. “Not yet.”
I thanked him for his work and then asked if I could use the computer for a minute. I logged onto the registry first. There were still no responses. Next I checked my email. I had a message from James, asking how things were going and saying he had a weekend retreat with the kids from the group home where he was doing his internship. He said he’d call me Sunday night. He didn’t mention our last phone conversation.
As I stood, sliding the chair back to Zed, I asked how Ella was doing.
“Fine, I guess,” Zed said. “She went out right after you left.”
“What do you mean?”
He focused back on the computer as he spoke. “Someone came and got her…”
“Who?”
He shrugged. “Someone who needs a new muffler.”
“Someone in a car?” I hoped it was a car and wasn’t who I feared it was.
“Nope. Sounded more like a motorcycle.”
I called Ella’s phone but she didn’t answer. I walked down to the bridge, listening for the telltale sound of Ezra’s motorcycle, but I heard nothing except for the hoot of an owl. The sky was clear and the stars bright with no city lights to compete with, but the icy chill of the night made me shiver. Just the thought of Ella in her thin dress on the back of Ezra’s bike speeding along the highway had me vaguely nauseated.
As I headed back to the cottage, I heard the distant roar of the motorcycle coming from the other direction. I made my way through the darkness as carefully and quickly as I could back toward the cottage, but it sounded like the roar had beaten me there. The sound paused and then, after a few moments, started up again. A lone headlight was coming toward me. I waved my hands for Ezra to stop, but he merely ducked his head as he buzzed by. I watched his taillight swim a little as he bounced onto the bridge. He wore his leather jacket and helmet, but another helmet was secured on the metal loop at the back of the empty seat.
When I got to the house, Ella was in the shower.
“A hot shower,” Zed said. “She was really cold.”
“I’ll bet,” I said.
“Her birthday is Saturday.” Zed spoke with eyes glued to the screen.
“So she said.”
“She’ll be sixteen,” he added, as if that explained everything. He sat up straight and his eyes popped wide. “Incoming message.”
I peered over his shoulder, but this email was in German too.
Zed spoke slowly as he read. “Abraham Sommers had a daughter Elsbeth. And a property called Amielbach.” Zed paused. I already knew all that. “He was a councilman in the Emmental.” That I didn’t know.
Zed continued. “His daughter left in—sometime in the mid 1870s—for America and ended up settling in Indiana.”
I’d guessed at that, but it was nice to have it confirmed.
“Elsbeth retained the property and passed it down through her family, but it was sold twenty-four years ago and turned into a hotel.”
I would have been two years old at that point.
I pulled a dining room chair next to Zed and sat down. It was too bad the beautiful house wasn’t in the family anymore, but I could still visit it someday.
“And,” Zed looked at me furtively and then back at the screen, “an American woman moved to Amielbach right after it sold. She lives in a little house on the property.”
I took a deep breath. “What’s her name?”
“No name given.”
Zed kept reading silently.
“What does it say about her?”
“Just that she’s not your average American and she’s very private and he doesn’t feel that he should give out any personal information.”
“Wait a minute. Not your average American how? In what sense?”
“I don’t know. That’s how he put it.”
I tensed. “Who is this man?”
Zed reread the email. “Hey, my German isn’t perfect, but I think he owns the hotel. He’s a history buff. That’s why he’s on the list where I posted.”
“Email him back and ask him for more information about the woman. Tell him…” Tell him what? That I wondered if the woman might be my birth mother? What were the chances of that? “Ask him if the woman’s name is Giselle.”
It couldn’t hurt to try.
Ella avoided me for the rest of the evening. Finally, I confronted her in her room. “I was worried about you.”