Love Redeemed (33 page)

That was a new one. He'd moved on from
sorry
to asking for help. Some might call that progress. He called it desperation.

Chapter 31

H
er hands damp with perspiration despite a brisk breeze that held a strong hint of the winter to come, Phoebe stuck her head through the doorway of Elijah and Bethel's house. It had been a long, brisk walk up the hill and across the creek from her house to her onkel's. It seemed they would skip fall and jump right into winter this year. After the heat of the summer, it felt good. Still, she'd worried the entire walk about what she was doing here. Was something wrong with the baby? Why would they want her? “Aenti Bethel? Onkel Elijah?”

She'd knocked on the screen door frame, but no one had answered. Probably because of the high-pitched caterwauling that carried from the back of the house. Baby John did not sound happy. Poor baby. What was going on?

“Bethel!” The baby's crying propelled her forward. Daed had stopped by the house to tell her Elijah wanted her to come over this afternoon. Something about helping with the baby. Why her of all people?

“There you are.” Onkel Elijah strode from the long hallway that led to the bedrooms of this one-story house he'd built for his bride who needed crutches to get around. He had John on his chest, his huge hand covering most of the baby's body. He had to shout to be heard over the screams. “Glad you could make it.”

“Daed said you wanted me.” Phoebe hollered. “What's wrong with John?”

“I don't know. Bethel says maybe colic or just a plain old stomachache. It's not like he can tell us.” Spoken like a man out of his element. His shirt was wrinkled and stained and he looked as if he hadn't slept in several days. “We need help.”

That he put it so bluntly spoke to her onkel's state of mind. Elijah was the helper. He helped her learn to skate. He taught Elam to throw a baseball. He took care of groosdaadi and groosmammi when they were sick before they passed. He helped everyone.

“What can I do?”

Elijah gingerly held the baby out to her. John's red face scrunched up and his mouth widened as he bellowed. What lungs for a newborn. Quite strong. “Take him. He won't stop crying and now Bethel's sick and I need to go to town for a part. I need to get one more round of hay while I can. We need at least one more to make it through the winter. Plus the fence around the chicken yard needs work and we need to get ready to butcher the fryers…”

Phoebe hesitated. Elijah's beseeching look would almost be funny if he hadn't been intending to entrust her with the safekeeping of his only child. Why not Rachel or Molly or one of the aenties?

“What's wrong with Aenti Bethel?”

“Flu, I guess, or she ate something that didn't agree with her. She was up all night.” The worry in Elijah's voice spoke to his feelings for his wife. They'd been married a little more than a year and still had that newlywed eyes-only-for-each-other look about them. “She doesn't want to get close to the baby and give it to him. She's so tired—she fell asleep a few minutes ago despite all this screaming. Take him, will you?”

“Are you sure you want me to do this?”

“What? I asked for you, didn't I? You came. You're standing here.” He definitely needed to get some sleep. “Will you help or not?”

His determination to leave the baby with her might be the result of his inability to think straight in his state of sleep deprivation. Or else he trusted her. Phoebe didn't want to examine this possibility too much.
She held out her arms and Elijah plopped his firstborn into them. She began to rock him back and forth in her arms. “When did he last eat? Could he be hungry?”

“She fed him before she went to sleep. We thought that would make him happy, but it only seemed to make it worse.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

“I'll be back as soon as I take care of the chores.” He fairly fled toward the door.

“Is there anything else I should…”

The screen door slammed.

Phoebe looked down at the crying baby. “Well, it's you and me. Let's see what we can do to get you settled down.” She checked the diaper first. Dry. Not the problem. She settled into the rocking chair and began to rock, John's writhing body tense against her chest. “Come on, little one, hush, shush, shush, it's all right.”

She cooed sweet nothings in his ear, but she doubted he could hear them over the sound of his own shrieks. “What's the matter, sweet pea, what's wrong?”

Rocking didn't seemed to be working. She laid him on her lap facedown and began to pat his back. Pat, pat, rub, rub, in a circular motion, like she'd seen her mudder do with Sarah when she had a tummy ache. All the while she hummed—soft, tuneless, humming.

The volume of the shrieking died down a little. Even when her arm began to tire, she kept up the
pat, pat, rub, rub
routine, letting her humming increase in volume ever so slightly.

John burped, a burp so loud it couldn't possibly have come from such a small bundle of bones. She giggled. She couldn't help it. He hiccupped another sob and fell silent.

“Oh, my. Oh, my.”

She'd done it. She'd soothed the child. She looked around, wanting affirmation for her victory and finding none. No one had witnessed her conquering of a little baby's cries. No matter; she knew.

“You are a big boy with a big appetite.” She slipped him from her lap to her shoulder and continued to pat as she wiped at the spit-up that soaked a growing spot on her apron. “What do we do now? You
want to go outside for a walk? How about that? A little fresh air? A little sunshine?”

He grunted. The clean diaper probably wouldn't remain clean much longer. She hugged him to her chest and used her free hand to push through the screen door. Then she shifted him into the crook of her arm so he could look up at her. “Hi there, John. I'm your Cousin Phoebe. I'm the black sheep of the family so do as I say and not as I do, you hear?'

He babbled something, little bubbles of spit-up floating on his pink rosebud lips. “You look just like your daed, did you know that? You've got his chin and his nose and his hair. But you have your mudder's eyes.”

She walked him out to the corral, introduced him to the horses, and then showed him the batch of kittens snuggled into a corner in the barn. By now, he'd grown heavy in her arms and she suspected he'd made a nice deposit in his sagging cloth diaper. “Time to go in and get you cleaned up, little one.”

As she trotted up the steps to the door, it occurred to her she hadn't thought about anything else, anyone else, for more than an hour. Just her and little John in their small little world. She smiled at him. He smiled back, she was certain of it. “You are so sweet. You are a looker, little one.”

She'd heard Bethel tell Elijah that once when she hadn't known Phoebe could hear. She figured if Elijah was a looker, so was his son. She pushed through the door to find Bethel shuffling on her crutches into the front room. “You're up? Are you feeling better?”

“How's the baby? Is he better?” Her face pale, hair straggling from her prayer kapp, Bethel eased into a chair at the table. She put a hand to her mouth and swallowed. “I woke up and didn't hear him crying. I was hoping he was asleep.”

“He had a nice burp and now it smells like he needs his diaper changed.” Phoebe pinched her nose with two fingers to emphasize the smell part. She kept her distance from her aenti. “How about you? How are you feeling?”

“A little rugged, but I'll live.” She wiped at her face with a crumpled hankie. “It's already starting to pass.”

“I'll change this diaper and then get you some hot tea and toast. It'll help settle your stomach.”

“You're good at this, you know?”

Phoebe felt her body stiffen. John gazed up at her, his blue eyes sleepy. Despite the terrible smell emanating from his lower region—how could someone so cute and small smell so bad?—she leaned in to kiss feather-soft hairs the color of corn silk. “I don't know about that.”

“I do. That's why I told Elijah to fetch you. Because I knew you would be able to settle him down.”

“He just needed a good burp.”

“You're good with babies.”

“Not with every baby.”

Bethel leaned back in the chair, looking wan. “You made a mistake. Something any of us could do. None of us is perfect. God loves us anyway.”

Phoebe went to the cradle in the corner of the room and grabbed a diaper from a stack on the table next to it, along with a washcloth and towel. “Time to get you cleaned up, little one, before I pass out from the smell.” She laid him on the couch, sat down at his feet, and went to work. She kept her gaze on his feet, no longer than her pinkie.

“Phoebe, when will you forgive yourself?”

“Did you…did you ever do something when you were courting Elijah that you knew you shouldn't have?”

“Like kiss him?”

Phoebe swiveled to look at her aunt. “You kissed Elijah?”

“He kissed me in your father's barn.” She chuckled, the sound weak. “We weren't even courting, exactly. I mean, we mostly bickered and picked at each other. I think he was so fed up with me he did the only thing he could. He kissed me.”

“Did you…I mean…what did you…what did you do?”

“Nothing. There was nothing to do. I could tell from the look on his face he was mortified. I thought he might never show his face again. But he did. He proposed to me at the clinic in town. He was near frozen to death from wandering around looking for me, thinking I was lost, but I wasn't. He was so shaken up, he asked me to marry him.
Then he kissed me again for good measure. By that time, I figured it was about to become a habit so I said yes.”

“That's why you didn't want to wait until November.”

“Phoebe!”

They both laughed, a sheepish-sounding laugh.

Silence prevailed except for the sound of John sucking on his fist when he could find it. Phoebe wiped down his bottom, dried him off well, and then tugged his legs up and planted a soft, clean diaper under him.

“You look like you're exactly where you should be,” Bethel observed.

“The problem is…” She couldn't give voice to her fear. Mudder and Daed still hadn't given her permission to go to Springfield. If she didn't talk to Michael, she might never have this. She'd never want it with anyone else. Of that, she was certain. She fastened the diaper with long diaper pins and tugged John's shirt down over his potbelly. He gazed up at her with the most trusting look in his eyes.

“The problem is you've lost your assurance.”

“Jah, that's it.” Nodding, she lifted John into her lap. “My assurance.”

“You silly goose.”

“Hey!”

“Does your daed still love you despite what you think you did?”

There was no doubt about what she'd done. Lydia's death ensured that. “What I did.”

“Purely by accident, with no bad intent.”

Intent didn't matter. Consequences did. Even so, Bethel had a point. Her father had not abandoned or forsaken her, as hard as it must be for him. “Jah, he loves me. At least I think he does. He hasn't tossed me from the house. He looks at me when he talks to me.”

“He loves you like a good father. God loves you with a father's love. He gave His Son for you. He's not going to stop loving you now.”

“I know.” She did know, but she didn't see how it helped.

“Have faith. God will give you what you need, even if it isn't what you want.” Bethel straightened. “Look at me. I thought I had to conquer these crutches and stand on my own two feet to have the happiness
that was right in front of me. It turns out that God holds me up, not the crutches. God provides for me what I can't provide for myself. He gave me Elijah, who sees to my every want and need. He gave me a son. He gives me what I need, not what I want.”

Phoebe opened her mouth and then shut it. She hugged John to her chest and breathed in his sweet, sweet baby smell. She not only wanted Michael, she needed him. As much as she needed the air she breathed. “I'll get you some tea and toast.”

“I know you want babies of your own.”

“I do, but how do I know I'll be a good mother? I have bad instincts.”

“No, you don't. You proved that to yourself today, with John. You just need to get things in the right order, that's all.”

She was right. Phoebe knew she was right. “I told my mudder I need to go to Springfield.”

“To talk to Michael.”

“Jah.”

“You do need to go.”

“Problem is Daed doesn't think it's right.” Mudder had tried, but Daed was as stubborn as an old tree stump refusing to be pulled from the ground. “He says it's not right for a girl to go to the city for a man.”

“Convince him.”

“You know my daed.”

“What does Katie say?”

“She says she's working on it.” Phoebe blew out a sigh. “She says I need to go.”

“Then you'll go. When the time is right.”

Right. “Look at me, sitting here gabbing on about my problems.” Phoebe popped to her feet. “You need the tea. And the toast.”

“I keep a bassinet in the kitchen. Makes it easier for me. You can tuck John in there and we'll have a nice visit.” Bethel grabbed her crutches from the floor and hoisted herself from the rocking chair. “It's the coziest place in the house, anyway.”

Phoebe nodded and kept her suspicions to herself. Bethel undoubtedly had a little flu, but she also had a hankering for a visit. She wanted
to set Phoebe straight. No matter. She wanted to know more about that kiss in the barn.

“So when do you start teaching?”

Phoebe hunched her shoulders. Another topic she'd rather avoid.

Bethel certainly knew how to stir the pot.