A Simple Charity (2 page)

Fanny sent Joe out to the buggy to tend to the horse and fetch her things—two heavy cases of supplies and medical gadgets that Anna had loaned her. As she washed her hands at the kitchen sink, Fanny was startled by her reflection in the window with the dense night still behind it. Her tawny hair was neatly pulled back under her white prayer
Kapp
, but her cheeks seemed hollow, her eyes wide and round like a wise old owl. My, oh my, but she could use a good night’s sleep. She was beginning to understand why Anna was always yawning at quilting bees. Ah, but to hear a baby’s first cry, to bundle an infant in flannel and hand it over to the mother—those sweet moments were worth a little lost sleep.

In the bedroom, Lizzy had changed into a robe that stretched over her wide belly and had slipped fluffy socks on her feet. Her white prayer kapp hung from a peg on the wall, and her golden blond hair was unpinned, still twined in a braid that ran down her back. The bed was already covered with a mattress pad and clean sheets.

“Look at that. The bed’s all ready to go. Now we just need your baby to come,” Fanny said as she motioned Lizzy to sit on the bed.

“We’ve been waiting so long,” Lizzy said as she scrambled back on the mattress, then quickly looked away. Amish women didn’t usually talk about such things—pregnancy and the like—but certain things had to be told to a midwife or doctor, and Fanny knew how Lizzy and Joe had waited. Most Amish women had their first babies within a year of marriage, but Gott had given Lizzy and Market Joe a different path. Lizzy was in her mid-twenties and having her first child.

Fanny propped up some pillows and had Lizzy lean back. Smoothing a hand over the young woman’s forehead for a quick temperature check, Fanny was relieved to see Lizzy relaxing between contractions, drawing in a breath and sinking back against the pillows.

“No sign of fever, and it’s good for you to close your eyes. You’re going to need strength for what’s ahead.”

“Where do you want these bags?” Joe asked from the doorway. He hung back sheepishly, knowing a man’s place was not in this bedroom right now.

“Right here.” Fanny pulled one of the heavy bags close to the bed, thanked Joe, and sent him back out to the kitchen. “Why don’t you go put some water on to boil,” she told him. The tradition of boiling water was steadfast during Amish home births, though the most practical use for it was making tea.

Guiding her hands over Lizzy’s taut belly, she felt the baby’s head
pointed down and securely engaged. “All good. Let me count the baby’s heartbeats.” The listening piece of the stethoscope was cold, so Fanny rubbed it with her palm. “Don’t want to send you and the baby jumping,” she teased.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lizzy murmured.

With the cup of the stethoscope pressed to Lizzy’s belly, Fanny found the rapid thud of the infant’s heart. Using a stopwatch from Anna’s black bag, she counted the beats. “A hundred and forty,” she said aloud. “A good, strong heartbeat.”

Lizzy smiled, though her lips thinned as a contraction took over. “Ah, Fanny, I need this baby to be born,” she said, wincing. “Please! Give me my baby now!”

Fanny helped Lizzy move to her knees so that she could rock her way through the wave. Tears glimmered in Lizzy’s golden eyes as she searched the room for relief.

“Look at that calendar over there. What a lovely picture. Looks like Niagara Falls. That’s it.”

“I didn’t think it would …” Lizzy moaned. “I didn’t think it would hurt so.”

“No one knows until it happens,” Fanny said gently, but she doubted that Lizzy could hear her. Although Lizzy had been told what to expect from her dutiful visits to the clinic in Paradise, Fanny found that all the well-told stories and directions flew out the window when a woman was in the throes of labor. A midwife’s simple words and calm explanations could wash over a woman in labor like a warm balm. Fanny stayed by Lizzy’s side until the pain subsided and Lizzy closed her eyes again.

“The contractions are getting closer. I’m going to send Joe to watch for the doctor. You rest.”

“Got to go.” Lizzy pushed herself up on her elbows and edged off the bed. “I need the bathroom.” She took two steps, leaned forward,
and gave a cry of pain. She gathered her robe up and peered down at the linoleum floor. “My water.”

“It’s clear. That’s a good sign, and it also means that your baby will be here soon.”

“Oh, Fanny, it’s taking so long and I’m about spent.” Lizzy dropped down to a squat, her head resting against the bed. “This little one will never come.”

“Your baby will come.” Fanny smoothed a strand of blond hair away from Lizzy’s forehead. “They always do.” She helped Lizzy to her feet. “Off you go. After that, you come back in here. This room is your little cocoon, ya? We’ll spin a warm, soft nest of love around your baby as it comes into the world.”

Lizzy gave a wan smile, then headed down the hall as Fanny quickly fetched a rag to wash the floor. Although Fanny was experienced in assisting with home births, she didn’t want to overstep her bounds. Where was that doctor?

Keeping a calm way about her, Fanny cleaned up the floor. In the kitchen, she started two cups of tea brewing. Joe asked how it was going, and she told him there was time to go down the road to get someone in the family to cover for him at the King family’s cheese stand in the city. Joe wanted to be here when his baby was born, but he was a bit squeamish about hanging around now. “Go,” Fanny told him. “Take my buggy if it’s still hitched up. And keep a lookout for the doctor when you’re on your way back.”

Inside the bedroom, Lizzy was curled on her side. Fanny helped her up to a sitting position and handed her a cup of honeyed tea with a dose of blue cohosh, an herb that stimulated labor.

“
Denki.
” Lizzy sipped gratefully. “The doctor … he should be here soon, ya?”

“He’s probably trying to find his way on the back roads.” Fanny perched in the chair beside the bed. “I do wish we had a birth center
here. That’s how things are done back in Ohio. All the doctors and Amish know where to go when the time comes. Makes for fewer mix-ups, and it can be a lot of fun, women together with their newborns for a few days.”

“That sounds like a very good thing, Fanny. Let’s pray on it. Maybe someone will build one before I have the next baby.”

“That’s thinking positive,” Fanny said. It would be a wonderful thing for mothers in this town, but who would build such a place? Her mamm used to say that if you want something done, you’ll do it yourself. That got Fanny thinking about the old carriage house at home. Would it be possible?

“Oh, here comes another.” Lizzy put the tea aside and focused on the picture of the waterfall. Her face was puffy from strain, but she didn’t complain.

Fanny recognized that look, the turning point when a woman realized she must give herself over to the pain, trust it, ride it out. She put her teacup down and blotted Lizzy’s face with the cool cloth.

“
Geh lessa
. Go with it.” She spoke in their first language, though she doubted Lizzy could hear her. The dear young woman was caught up in the shifting tides of intense labor. Fanny tended to Lizzy quietly as the pain ebbed and flowed. This was the bulk of Fanny’s duties: watching and waiting, soothing and cleaning up.

Not so long ago, Fanny herself had been attended by Doc Trueherz and Anna when Tommy was born. When Fanny’s labor pains began, her heart had been heavy with sadness over Tom’s death. But the minute she held the baby in her arms and kissed his wrinkled brow, she had recognized the blessing of family that Gott had granted her.

Every day she thanked Gott for her family. The older ones, Caleb, Emma, and Elsie, worked all day at their jobs and helped
keep the household running smoothly. What would she do without them? And then there were the little ones. Will had his rambunctious games, Beth was Fanny’s little helper around the house, and Tommy was a bundle of joy. How Fanny loved being mother hen to her brood of chicks!

Lizzy let out a small cry, then scraped in a deep breath and moaned quietly as the pain took her. Turned toward the wall, the young woman was withdrawing, finding her way. For now, it was best to let her be. Willing Lizzy to blossom with the pain, Fanny slipped out of the room to check on Tommy. He was up on his little fists, rocking and crooning.

“Time to eat, little one.” She took him into her arms and sat down in a rocking chair. His eyes soaked up her face as she smiled down at him and got him nursing. “Such a good boy, plucked from your crib in the middle of the night without a fuss,” she cooed. Of course, babies didn’t seem to care much where they were, as long as Mamm was near.

She ran a thumb over the crease in his little forehead. “What have you to worry about?” she teased as he nuzzled into her.

The sound of the creaking bed inside reminded her of dear Lizzy, and Fanny flashed back to her first time, when she gave birth to Will. At the time, her husband, Thomas, had been the knowing one, having had three children with his departed wife.

For the most part, Amish women went through the paces quietly when they had their children. And that was a good thing, with so many women having ten and twelve children. Fanny had seen her grandmother Martha, who was a midwife in Ohio, handle them with a steady gaze, a minimum of words, and a firm hand.

Rocking gently in the chair, Fanny warmed over thoughts of the large family she had left behind. As a girl, she had been content to help out at the birth center in Sugar Valley. She had been happy as
a lark with her family and friends there, until she had fallen for David Fisher, who had been visiting from Pennsylvania. Hard to believe that was more than ten years ago.

When David had asked her about Sugar Valley, she had told him that it was a good stretch of Gott’s acres. “Everything I love is here in Sugar Valley,” she had told him.

“Not everything,” he’d said. “I’ll be heading back home next week, and I don’t want to go without you.”

Verhuddelt
though it seemed, it had felt right as rain to follow him back here to Lancaster County and get married as soon as wedding season allowed.

The Fisher clan was a family of bakers with a successful shop in the town, but her David had wanted to work the land. He had been handy with machinery and good with animals—apt skills for a farmer. They had been living in a small outbuilding on the Fisher farm, saving up for their own house, when David died in a farming accident. She had been hanging wash outside on the line when she got the word. And suddenly, in the blink of an eye, she was an Amish widow living in a settlement hundreds of miles from home.

Although the community had supported her, she had not been comfortable living on their charity, and with her marriage so new, she never felt completely accepted by David’s family. Although the words were never said, she sensed that they were disappointed David didn’t choose a wife from here in Lancaster County. The family was never cruel to her, but she didn’t have a friend among them.

Fanny had been making plans to return to Sugar Valley when the bishop had asked her to help out a family in need. Widower Thomas Lapp needed a woman to come in and do some cooking and cleaning and minding his young ones, seven-year-old Elsie, ten-year-old Emma, and Caleb, just coming into his teen years.
Fanny had accepted because it was the charitable thing to do, and she’d stayed because the children had won her heart, along with their kind, thoughtful father.

A gray cloud of grief had hung over her, but Fanny had learned how to occupy her hands to ease her mind. As months went by, her heart began to mend, and Tom and the children kept her on her toes. One year after David’s death, to the day, Tom came into the quiet kitchen while she was cutting vegetables and the children were off doing chores. His muscular arms were brown against the blue of his shirt, and instead of taking his usual seat at the table, he had stood behind her, his hat in his hand.

“It’s time that we talk, Fanny.” She turned to find his eyes gleaming, his fingers pinching the brim of his hat nervously. “I haven’t said anything until now, out of respect to David, may he rest in peace. But I want you to know that I believe Gott sent you to us. You’re like a part of the family now. And I’m asking if, well, if you ever see fit to court again, I’d like to be on the top of your list.”

Fanny told Tom that she hadn’t planned to court again—and she held true to that plan for a few weeks. But as time passed, she had realized that, in large and small ways, Tom Lapp had become a good friend to her. A dear friend. And though she tried to push him away, after a year of working in his household, he had already found a place in her heart. He didn’t pressure her, but he was always there by her side, kind and good.

“How is it that the carrots have all this space, and yet they grow right against each other?” she had asked Tom one day as they worked together in the garden. “See this?” She held up two fat carrots that had twined so close, they were nearly one.

Tom had stepped over the broccoli and come to kneel by her side as he examined the tangled carrots. “Maybe carrots are like people,” he said, pushing back the brim of his hat so that she could
see the glimmer in his eyes. “No one should be alone. People could spread out over the land, and yet, we live together. A community, a family. A couple.”

With a broad smile, she put the two carrots in her pail. “I was only talking about vegetables, Tom.”

“I know. But I’ve been looking for a way to talk about this, and carrots are as good as any.” He took her hands in his, capturing her eyes. “Marry me, Fanny. You know I love you, and you’re already a mother to my children.
Kumm
now. Can’t you find room in your heart for an old widower like me and three children who need you?”

It wasn’t the first time he had asked her … but somehow, that day, she did find the room in her heart and the courage to say yes. Thankfully, the children were at school, so no one was there to see the two of them kissing in the garden, promising love and faith in the narrow rows between fat bunches of broccoli.

Dear Tom! Somehow he had found the twisted, narrow path to her heart.