The Amish Midwife - By Mindy Starns Clark Page 0,9

of.”

She studied my face for a moment, her eyes squinting.

“I remember when you wanted to find your birth family when you were in high school.”

“Uh-huh,” I whispered, thinking that Sophie and my school librarian were the only two people I had confided in back then.

“And now you want to look for them in earnest.”

I met her eyes and then flushed with embarrassment, knowing this was all wrong. Dad had just died. He wasn’t even buried yet.

“I think you should,” she added with a confident, affirming nod.

I think you should. Rolling those words around in my head, I wanted to take her advice, but I couldn’t get past the image of my father, still alive, taking my hand in his and struggling to tell me about the box. This stuff had always been so hard for him to talk about. I couldn’t imagine what he would think about what I was considering now.

“I can’t do that to him,” I whispered. “Not so soon.”

“It would be okay, Lexie. He wouldn’t mind. Your mother wouldn’t either.”

If anyone would know, it would be Sophie.

“We’ll see.”

“All right. Let’s discuss it later,” she said, hugging me. “Gotta run for now.”

She turned and opened the back door. It had begun to rain, a torrential Oregon downpour. The string of sunny winter days had come to an end. Sophie hurried to her car in the darkness. I was alone again.

I remembered when men and women sat on opposite sides of our country church when I was little, but that ended nearly two decades ago. We were quite modern now at Faith Mennonite, located a few miles west of Aurora, just minutes from Dad’s filbert farm. Although the older women still wore head coverings, their dresses were made of floral patterns and store bought, unlike the dark-colored caped dresses of years ago. Changes in Mennonite fashion are what I thought of so I wouldn’t think about Dad in the pine box.

James held my hand. I knew we made a handsome couple, both of us tall, he with his curly golden hair, green eyes, and kind face, me with my long blond hair, brown eyes, and thick eyelashes. He wore a suit and navy tie, and I was in a black dress and wool coat.

Just before the service began, Sophie bustled down the middle aisle of the church, sat beside me, and took my other hand. Obviously, her first-time mother had safely delivered. James and I were the youngest people at the service by far. Even Sophie, at age sixty-two, was young, relatively speaking; everyone else there was much older.

At the burial, I stood between Sophie and James so the oldest of the mourners could sit in the folding chairs provided by the funeral home. Old-growth Douglas firs towered above us, and the melody of the creek that ran along the far side of the cemetery played along with the notes of the breeze high in the treetops. The overcast morning grew darker as we gathered in a semicircle around the pastor. During the moment of finality, when he said “dust to dust,” I slipped out of my denial long enough to register the coffin in front of me, my mother’s grave to the side, and the gaping hole waiting for my father’s body. The sky opened up just then, and the rain began, pummeling the canopy over our heads, running in rivers down the sides to the ground.

I sobbed, showing my lack of acceptance of the ways of God and displaying my lack of faith for all to see. Sophie and James stood close on each side. When the service was over, they kept me on my feet and supported me over the soft ground, out from under the shelter and into the rain, around the modest gravestones made of ancient lime and crumbling concrete, and toward James’s old Malibu car. The whole way, the people around us huddled under umbrellas, men and women who had loved me since I was a baby, looked on with concern. I knew they had stashed casseroles, hams, salads, fresh rolls, pickled beets, and desserts in their cars before the funeral, and that they would all follow me back to Dad’s house.

I willed myself to pull it together. I could have a good cry later, after everyone had gone on home.

“Hurry,” I whispered to James, dabbing at the streaks of tears and rain that had soaked my face. “I need a couple of minutes before everyone arrives.” A cold washcloth against my eyes