The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,88
option—a husband and children.
“I’m doing okay,” she said. “I had to have a transfusion last week, so I’m better now.” She seemed to be uncomfortable talking about herself.
I took off my sweatshirt, tied it around my waist, and reached for the hoe, asking if I could take a turn. She handed it to me and I took over, angling the hoe so the corner scraped a row an inch deep, ready for the seeds, as my tennis shoes sank into the loamy soil. “How often do you have to have transfusions?”
“Oh, it depends. Sometimes not for a year or two. Sometimes every couple of months.” She glanced off into the distance toward the road again as another buggy became visible for a moment and then passed on by. “I was supposed to teach school last year…” She pointed in the direction of the schoolhouse that was, if I remembered right, about two miles away. “But then I had a bad spell starting last August. I’m just starting to get my strength back.”
“Will you teach this coming fall?” I finished the row as I talked.
“I hope so,” she said. “If the board will allow it. Between my health and my age, they may not want me to.”
“Your age?”
She shrugged. “At twenty-four I should have joined the church by now. Some of the board members have questioned my commitment to the faith.”
I was curious as to why she hadn’t joined the church, but before I could figure out a polite way to ask, she continued.
“Christy Gundy is a student at the school—she’s in the sixth grade. In a few more years Rachael Kemp will go there and then the Gundy twins.” She smiled.
I hadn’t been jealous of Ada until that moment—but in that instant I started to see what she had that I didn’t, and it wasn’t Klara and Alexander. It was a belonging to something bigger. Something permanent. Something beyond her parents and her family. She belonged to people who knew her as a baby and would do anything to help her. And they weren’t all old, not like I had back home. They were young people and old people and in between people and probably more people than could easily be counted. Someday, when she married, hundreds would attend. If I ever married, there wouldn’t be any more than had been at Dad’s funeral.
I became aware of Ada speaking again. “I really want to teach,” she said. “More than anything.”
“Why haven’t you joined the church yet?”
She shook her head. “I was going to when I was twenty. But then I got really sick and they finally figured out what was wrong with me. So that postponed everything.” She sighed and then lowered her voice. “And I’d really like to travel.” When she resumed speaking her voice was even softer. “Sometimes I think I’d like to get more schooling too.”
I nodded my head and bit my tongue, but what I was thinking was, You go, girl!
She was kicking the dirt from her black Reeboks onto the grass. I wondered what the chances of her being able to teach—or travel—were.
“I should leave,” I said.
She nodded.
“But can I come back sometime?”
“Anytime…”
“Ada,” I said softly. “I don’t know if you noticed the other night, but your mother doesn’t want me around.”
“Oh, I think she will. Once she knows who you are.”
I shook my head.
“I’ll talk to her.”
“Okay.” I wrinkled my nose. I didn’t want to put her in a bad position but… “In the meantime, until things get straightened out, could I come see Mammi sometime when your mom’s not here?”
Ada had her eyes on the road again. Either she was worried about her parents coming home and finding me or else she was looking for someone else. She met my gaze. “Mamm quilts on Wednesday mornings at nine. You can come then.”
“I will see you then,” I said, handing her the hoe. “Thank you.”
She hugged me with one arm, the other still on the hoe, and looked me in the eye. “Come sooner if you can.”
I nodded but knew I wouldn’t. As I drove up the lane, a buggy turned down it. Of course I expected Klara and Alexander with Mammi tucked into the backseat, but it wasn’t them. It was Will Gundy, alone. I pulled over as far as I could onto the edge of the field. He waved as he passed me. He was grinning, and he looked more like his brother Ezra than I’d remembered.