Abram's Daughters 01 The Covenant (29 page)

So she rode, clinging to the horse's neck and mane, her

I nst-length braids flying through the dreary night. Up Bfeirgetown Road, past the woods on the knoll, to the home ^H clinic of the doctor Lizzie had suggested.

W&* I lenry's drowsiness fell away remarkably fast with the arri-

il of the stranger at his door. Without much ado, the Amish

hnl, calling herself Leah Ebersol, described a desperate situa-

ti. hi her teenage *ister was in premature labor a half mile

invay.

With no time to waste, he grabbed his coat and hat and lushed outside. Meanwhile, the girl had tied up her horse in their backyard, promising rather apologetically to return for li later.

The drive took only a few minutes, and the young woman hnl" in the front seat and gripped the door handle. In spite of her great anxiety, Leah offered clear directions as to where to

I1 urn to get to the "mule road that leads to my aunt's cabin."

Getting out of the car, Henry hurried up the steps to a | in lie log house, following Leah, whose gentle yet frightened

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eyes and faltering voice exposed her innocence to the wliuli ordeal of childbirth. He intended to do his best to save ili> lives of both her sister and the coming baby.

Quickly she led him to the room where her sister w.r. writhing in pain. He set to work, evaluating the situation, noting the intense struggle on the part of the young moilui, whose face was covered with beads of perspiration.

He spoke calmly to her, introducing himself. "I've coin, to deliver your baby, miss. If you do as I say, things will r" more smoothly. Do you understand?"

She looked up at him and nodded weakly. At ili.u moment he recognized her as the same young woman wl>" had come looking for Derek one autumn night, the one wli" had then quarreled with his son and fled on foot. Whom In had seen at the Mast wedding, in fact. He saw the glinl "I recognition in her tearful eyes. She said her name was StulnEbersol, that she was unmarried, and that her parents did urn yet know of her pregnancy.

Could this be Derek's child I've come to deliver? Henry won dered, the thought filling his soul with anguish.

No time to ponder the possibility. Instead, drawing on In. medical expertise, he moved ahead with the task at hand. In the hallway, he heard the younger sister, Leah, call to someone in the kitchen, followed by the muffle of footsteps and .1 teapot whistling loudly. He checked his watch, timing ilic contractions, helping Sadie know how to breathe.

Seemingly terrified, Sadie fought the birth spasms evciy step of the way. Considering the circumstances, he was cmi cerned that this delivery might be unlike any he had pri formed in recent years.

When the baby finally did come, Sadie lifted her damp

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ImmuI off the pillow, and in an exhausted whisper asked, "Do I I Hive a son?"

"Yes, a boy, but. . ." Henry could not get him to cry even

IIrr repeated smacks on the behind.

He paused, holding the infant in his arms, his mind racin|(. "I'm terribly sorry, Sadie, but . . . your baby is blue," he whlttpered. "No breath in him."

At this news, the young woman began to weep inconsolilily, She called out to her sister, who came rushing into the l"\lroom. "He's dead, my dear baby's dead!" Sadie sobbed.

In the midst of the commotion, an older woman appeared in I he doorway. Henry's gaze held hers for an instant. Her soft li-istel-brown eyes seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn't i'ilte place her. Perhaps she had been one of his patients or

>meone he'd met along the road at a vegetable-and-fruit uud.

"You'll handle things for my niece, then?" The woman I' lined Leah at Sadie's bedside, where the two attempted to ' . >im>le the grief-stricken mother.

He looked down at the shriveled baby in his hands, a lump in his throat. "I'll take care of the remains ... for you."

"Oh, thank you, Doctor," Sadie's sister spoke up.

Moving toward the bed, he offered, "I would be happy to I' > ik in on you tomorrow, Sadie. Make sure you're feeling beti.-i."

"That's kind of you," the girls' aunt replied, "but I'll see in her myself."

Then, from beneath the long sleeve of her nightgown,

ulie slowly drew out a tiny white handkerchief with an

' mbroidered butterfly on the corner. Her fingers trembled as

lie opened it and gently laid it over the baby's face. "Fly

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lu .j3e

away, my little one . . . rest in peace," she whispered.

Henry quietly extended his condolences again and headei for the door, the tiny, dead boy wrapped securely in ilu warmth of his coat, the bloody face covered with Sadie' handkerchief.

He placed the infant on the front seat of his car, keenly aware that he had most likely delivered his own stillborn grandson.

Mixed emotions swept over him, and he felt a sudden and inexplicable sense of loss. This was the little lad he would never have a chance to know, to play with, to watch grow into manhood. His own flesh and blood, though conceived in sin. His son's firstborn.

And yet . . . what would have happened if this boy hail lived? Most assuredly Henry's reputation and that of his family would be tainted forever. If not destroyed.

He despised himself for his divided feelings and reached over and gently placed his hand on the dead babe's stomach. "Your mother's name is Sadie Ebersol," he said softly. The young Amishwoman's name would haunt him for years in come.

"And your father's name is..."

He thought of Derek. He and Lorraine had been excited by a recent letter, as they had not heard much since then boy's enlistment. Derek's note had been full of complain In about KP and acclimating to army life at Fort Benning, Geor gia. He never inquired of either of them of the home fires

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Ibiirning. And certainly not of the Amish girl he'd left in-hind....

I Lost in thought, Henry was aware of a faint whimper. Was In his imagination, or had the handkerchief over the infant's i l.u f fluttered slightly? And if so ...

I Mis hand still on the child's stomach, he felt the sudden [lie and fall of the little chest. Then the infant's soft cry limned to a full-blown wail, as vigorous as any healthy new-

I mill's.

What's this?

Evidently, he had accepted the child's death far too miiickly. Medical journals documented rare cases such as this, Infants who revived miraculously on their own.

Henry's pulse raced. Pushing the speed limit, he wasn't Inking any chances. He must get Sadie's baby to the clinic in an incubator. He tore into the driveway, then scooped up I In- infant, breathlessly carrying him inside.

Under the heat lamp, he washed its small face and body.

I lien he diapered him and wrapped the newborn preemie in

n receiving blanket and settled him into an incubator. Even

though the babe vPas breathing normally now, most likely he

I would be disabled either mentally or developmentally, having

U-m deprived of oxygen at his birth too tiny at the present

1 i o generate his own body heat. Later, he would even have to

he laught to suckle for nourishment.

Henry hovered near, gazing into the now pink face of this t-liild. Unmistakably evident he recognized Derek's tuft of d;irk hair and the set of his eyes. This was his grandson!

Bewildered and torn, Henry took the soiled handkerchief the one Sadie had placed over the infant's face and rinsed it in cold water. Down the road, a grieving young

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mother wept in the night, totally unaware that her child vv.i. indeed alive.

He had the power to take her sorrow and replace it wiih joy, but in so doing he would bring shame to his own family'1, good name. Shame to her family's name, as well. What w;r. he to do?

Back and forth he walked between the waiting room, In-, private office, and the infant nursery, muttering to himsi-ll, trying on every imaginable option. The right choice, nl course, was to return the baby to its mother. Or he could sim ply arrange for an adoption, indeed saving Sadie's skin, wL> wanted to keep her Old Order Amish parents in the dark, Im obvious reasons. Yet if he did so, he might never see \\\u grandson again.

Long into the night Henry labored over a decision, rationalizing away all common sense.

Leah felt weak with fatigue, drained of emotion. Still, she sat near Sadie in Aunt Lizzie's spare bed for several hours. Sinstroked Sadie's hair while she slept, exhausted from the panes of childbirth, with nothing to show for her agonizing struggle.

Aunt Lizzie, asleep in the cane-backed chair nearby, h;ul agreed that the girls should stay the night, as they often did. Leah was especially glad they'd cleared it with Mamma before ever leaving the house.

Meanwhile, Sadie rested fitfully, making sad, tearful sounds in her sleep. Leah didn't feel so well herself, though her wooziness came from spending half the night awake,

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riilu-r tending to Sadie after the doctor left or holding her Mm I weeping along with her.

But then, once her sister fell into deeper slumber, Leah i' .( nnd walked back over to the clinic to leave the doctor's I ivinent Lizzie had thrust in her hand. And she'd retrieved

I mi horse at the same time, leading him back down the road in home long before dawn. Mindful of the bishop's decree, ilu/d hoped and prayed she might never have to break the

11mrch's rules for another emergency. Never again in her life.

Now, unable to rest or sit down, Leah walked the floor

I1 Mm one end of the cabin to the other, praying silently, askii>i: Uod how this dreadful thing could have happened. But lie felt she knew . . . would never tell her sister, though. The wiriched sin of King David had been punished in a similar w.iy. Why should Sadie's transgression be any different ... or ignored by the Holy One? Surely, this was what the Lord God Iu;iverily Father had allowed to befall her on this unbearable mi:ht. Divine chastisement.

Sadie had received just reward for disobedience. And I i ,ih felt responsible for having kept quiet about her sister's

Aunt Lizzie was more than a little reluctant about Sadie's I'li'n not to tell Mamma. Truth was, Lizzie made an awful fuss, insisting that Mamma be told. Right then, Leah began siding with Sadie, begging Lizzie to leave things be. "What's done is iluiK-1, and nothing good can ever come from Mamma and Dat i i lowing," she said.

Ai long last their aunt agreed never to utter a word of wluii had happened. Not unless Sadie spoke of it first.

So the three of them embraced the dark secret while a

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heavy mist hung low to the ground outside, like a veil tluil would vanish at first light.

Soon as possible, Leah would have to tell Jonas that ;is much as she liked the idea of living in Ohio, being a mother's helper while Jonas learned the carpentry trade in the Midwest she simply couldn't see her way clear to leave Sadie, Not now. Sadly, she resigned herself to a courtship by mail. There was no other way.

Sisters came first, after all... even before a beau. Mamma had drilled this into all the girls, growing up. You stuck by family, no matter.

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4- Z't- 1 it

tl>- & Wl--H- -~ ^L^'t-f-C-

JL aithfully, Leah looked after Sadie in the days that followed, once Aunt Lizzie gave the go-ahead for Sadie to return home. Every so often Leah noticed Mamma eyeing Sadie niriously as they worked together in the kitchen, yet their mother did not question the sudden overnight stay. Nor the Idleness of Sadie's face and her gaunt figure.

Soon Mamma's attention turned to her coming child, and Sudie began to regain strength, resuming all her daily chores.

Best of all, the girls had a cheerful time making a place lor their new sibling in one corner of Dat and Mamma's big lu'droom. What a flurry of sewing and whatnot went on. Siidie joined in, too, making a lightweight baby afghan for I lu" spring and summer months, when the new babe would nI ill be tiny and in need of an occasional wrap.

Leah winced, looking over at Sadie crocheting up a storm iinc afternoon, wondering how her sister was doing emotionally. Surely the loss of the baby and the heartache had taken its foil. But Sadie shared nothing at all, neither in the privacy

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of their room, nor when they happened to be alone down stairs, working together.

Sadie's ongoing silence worried Leah something awful She felt strongly that if such a thing had happened to her, she would desperately need to confide in someone, share the wrenching sadness with a trusted sister or friend. But each time she made an attempt to open the door for such talk, Sadie abruptly changed the subject. It was ever so clear that her sister must be suffering terribly. But what to do? Leah wouldn't pry, for fear that might just push Sadie further away. Still, Leah couldn't imagine the loss Sadie must be feeling these days, especially now with all the talk of Mamma's baby coming soon.

A week later, nerves a-flutter, Leah hurried up the hill to visit with Aunt Lizzie, hoping to share some of the burden ol concern. Lizzie met her at the door with a pained look in her perty eyes, though she did seem glad for the visit, serving up warm sugar cookies and cold milk. "Mm-m. You always have the best-tasting cookies," Leah said, settling down in the kitchen.

Lizzie's eyes brightened a bit. All of Leah's sisters made such remarks about their auntie's extraordinary baking talents. Mamma, too, would often say how nice and moisi Lizzie's cookies were.

But soon Leah and Lizzie's talk turned to Sadie and how sick with worry both of them were. "My sister's too quiet all the time, scarcely ever speaks to any of us," Leah said, pouring out her heart. "I'm frightened, Aunt Lizzie. She's not herself, not one bit. And she takes off alone, walking out on the main road." Leah sighed. "What can we do to help her?"

Aunt Lizzie nodded, indicating that she, too, wished to

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offer support somehow. "What's even more worrisome is your