Christmas Cradles Read online

  “You have a beautiful Turkey Tracks quilt, Deborah.”

  The woman glanced in the direction of the bright red pattern and nodded, the tension in her brow easing a bit.

  “Jah, John’s mother gave it to us . . . a wedding gift. I forget now what she said about it . . .”

  Anna breathed with her through another contraction and then began to speak. “Actually, one of the first names of that pattern wasn’t Turkey Tracks—it was Wandering Foot. The story goes that any boy who slept beneath the quilt was destined to lead a life of endless wandering, never having a home or family. So mothers renamed the pattern.”

  Deborah smiled. “That’s right . . . and my John would never wander. Danki for reminding me.” She grimaced again, and Anna adjusted the pile of quilts that covered her patient’s chest. She bundled up the plastic sheet and put it in a trash bag she pulled from her midwifery case. Then she put down sterile towels and pulled on a pair of sterile gloves. She began laying out supplies from her bag, including the antibacterial wash.

  “Deborah, I’m just going to check you again because I think you’re very close, okay?”

  “Jah, I think—I have to push.”

  “Okay, just hold on.” Anna was quick. “You’re right—it’s time to push. Do you want John?”

  Deborah nodded with visible concentration.

  Anna opened the door and peered out into the kitchen where Asa and John were talking to each other by the stove.

  “John, it’s time now.”

  Anna took in the blanched face of the father-to-be and ushered him to the door. Then she saw Asa’s encouraging smile, as if he held her responsible for the whole moment to come. She quickly checked her vanity and reminded herself she’d be returning the next day to Pine Creek. The thought sobered her as she eased the door closed on the man she’d just met but who had made a surprising impact on her. She refocused and followed John to the bed.

  She turned up the oxygen to three liters and concentrated on encouraging Deborah. Anna always made it a habit to allow the couple to feel comfortable and in control of the moment while she was there to provide reassurance and spiritual, mental, and physical support. When John looked rather lost as to what to say as his wife squeezed his hand, Anna suggested that he climb behind Deborah in the bed and be a support for her to lean against. John latched onto this idea, and soon both husband and wife were working together as Deborah delivered a healthy firstborn son to the Loftus house. Anna laid the baby on Deborah’s belly and then clamped the umbilical cord and worked on her own chores with the afterbirth as the new parents murmured thanks to Derr Herr over their child in soft Pennsylvania Dutch.

  “Would you like to cut the cord, John?” she asked after a few minutes and was surprised when he nodded and snipped the area between the two clamps with calm precision. Anna smiled as she made a brief examination of the child. She lifted the baby onto the portable sling scale. “Seven pounds, five ounces,” she announced as she laid the baby on the end of the bed to clean and dress him in the traditional tiny undergarments, gown, and head covering that had lain waiting in the cradle. Then she swaddled him in a yellow patchwork baby quilt and handed him to John, who’d moved to stand by the bed, while she finished her cleaning and eased Deborah into a fresh nightdress. John laid the infant in his wife’s arms, and Anna smiled in satisfaction.

  “You both did great! Now I’m going to check Deborah’s lungs and give her a little shot to help her breathing and we’ll see if we can’t get the oxygen turned down. But”—she eyed John—“I want them both to be seen tomorrow at the hospital in Paradise, just to make extra sure that everything’s all right.”

  John gave a solemn nod, seeming to have grown older in just a few minutes. “We’ll be there, Doc.”

  “Great. Now what are you going to name this handsome little man? I’ve got to fill out the paperwork.”

  They spoke in unison, “John Matthew.”

  “After his father,” Deborah murmured.

  Anna nodded. It was common to have three or four people with the same name in an Amish community, and it made it all the more confusing when a midwife got a nervous phone call and someone forgot to leave an address. “All right, I’ll give you three some alone time.” She walked toward the door, then turned back around with a smile. “By the way, I have to make it a habit to check my watch at each delivery. Your son was born on Second Christmas, 12:05 a.m.” She closed the door on the happy family and walked out to the kitchen table, which was laden with covered trays of Christmas cookies that Deborah must have prepared before her labor began. She saw Asa folding white tea towels and dipping them with tongs into the steaming kettles, which filled the room with rich, spicy scents. He must have taken her instructions about herbal remedies to heart. He turned and laid the tongs aside when she sat down.

  “How did it go, Doc?”

  She smiled up at him. “A healthy baby boy. John Matthew Loftus.”

  Asa leaned back against a counter and half-closed his eyes in consideration. “The babe will be the sixth John Matthew Loftus to bless the community.”

  Anna laughed. “I wondered how many there might be.” She drew the necessary paperwork and forms from her bag and began to write in her copperplate handwriting.

  Asa came forward and put a cup of coffee in front of her. “Here. Now, tell me—how are you?”

  She paused in her writing as his question penetrated. She couldn’t recall a time that anyone had ever asked her that after a delivery . . . not even her mother when she returned home. The simple question brought a rush of emotion and longing with it, sharp and piercing in its intensity. How was she? She bit her lip as the birth certificate blurred before her eyes.

  He sat down at the table next to her. “Did I say something wrong?”

  She shook her head, then realized he was waiting for a response.

  “It’s just that . . . you’ll think it’s silly, but it’s just that no one’s ever asked me that before and I’ve never realized how lonely a job it can be . . . I mean, people say thank you and are so grateful, but right after a birth no one’s ever asked me how I was. Thank you.” She looked away, hoping he wouldn’t notice the tears that she barely held in check.

  He repeated his question in a soft whisper. “So, how are you?”

  She laughed, feeling jubilant in her spirit with a realization from the Lord that tomorrow didn’t matter, nor the rest of the night; this moment was enough. She met his gaze, drowning in the dark depths of his eyes. “I’m—fine, tired but so happy that everything went well.”

  “Gut,” he murmured. “That’s good. I’m glad.” She caught her breath as he leaned closer to her, and for a wild moment she thought he might actually kiss her, but then the bedroom door opened and John emerged.

  “They’re both asleep. Thank you again, Doc. Deborah wanted me to offer you some cookies, or would you like a sandwich?”

  Anna penned out the remainder of the paperwork with haste. “Cookies would be good . . . to go.” She glanced at Asa. “Actually, I’d like to check on another patient my aunt told me about, depending on where she lives. I just feel a responsibility to Aenti Ruth to make sure all of her possible deliveries are okay.”

  John shook his head at the darkened window where the snow beat without mercy. “It might be better for you to stay until morning, Doc. The storm’s bad.” He looked at Asa over the top of her head, and Anna turned to Asa.

  “Nee, if the Doc says we go, we go. I trust her instincts. Who is it?”

  Anna thought. “Sarah Raber.”

  John looked relieved. “Ach, that’s only a mile away then.”

  “Gut.” Asa rose. “I’ll bring the horse and buggy out of the barn while you get ready.”

  “And I’ll have one last look at Deborah and the baby.” Anna bustled into the bedroom, much more pleased with Deborah’s eased respirations. She reminded John about the hospital, then stuffed the side pockets of her bag with the cookies he pressed on her. He opened the door and held a lantern high as she stepped out onto the porch, rocked by the combination of wind and snow. Asa moved like a huge shadow in the blur of white, coming to the steps and leading her into the buggy while his horse stood still. She waved toward the light of John’s lantern, then refocused on the bleak road before them, but Asa was energetic and cheerful.

  “That was great,” he announced as he tucked the Jacob’s Ladder quilt across her lap once more. She tried to focus on his words instead of his gloved hand and nodded in agreement.

  “It’s always something wonderful when it’s a first baby, but each one is special.”

  He was navigating the buggy through the blowing snow with apparent calm.

  “I think it’s a gut plan to stop by the Rabers’ tonight. The weather’s not going to give any. I can’t believe there are so many women due to labor tonight.”

  She decided not to tell him about the third possibility at that moment. “Babies don’t wait on the weather or holidays,” she pointed out instead.

  He grinned at her and once more she had to resist the myriad of sensations that danced across her usual reason. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she imagined what it might be like to steal a kiss from him. She’d only been kissed by two boys during her young adulthood, and both were memorable for their sloppy lack of prowess. One had been from a boy who’d called her stuck up and who’d kissed her out of taunting more than desire, and the other had been from a youth one year her senior who’d been on his rumschpringe and smelled of sweat and alcohol. After that, Anna had focused all of her mental energies on her studies once she’d gained her parents’ approval to proceed. She’d had no time for men, but now she discovered that she had a great potential for fantasizing. She could imagine Asa sleeping somewhere, maybe in a grassy field, and
her leaning over his firm mouth to . . .

  “Ach! We can get through!”

  She jumped in her seat and he regarded her with a quizzical smile.

  “Dreaming again, Doc?”

  She blushed and was grateful for the dim interior of the buggy.

  “No . . . I, ah . . . was thinking about . . . ah, what we might find at the Rabers’.” Her voice ended on a squeak and she swallowed hard.

  He eased on the reins and pushed his hat back a bit, exposing more of his dark mane of hair and strong brow. “Hmm . . . well, Derr Herr has his plans for what we’ll meet at the Rabers’, but I know that I do a fair bit of daydreaming myself, especially when I’m plowing.”

  “What do you daydream about?” she ventured with a guilty conscience, considering the train of her own thoughts.

  His laugh was husky, causing a knot of feeling to tighten in her stomach. “Weird things, I guess, like picturing the sky a different color, or the way dew bounces on a spider web, or just remembering climbing trees when I was a kid. . .”

  She was silent, drinking in the unconscious poetry of his words.

  “Think I’m narrisch?”

  She shook her head. “I think you’re—real.” Real as honey on hot bread, her mind whispered.

  “Thanks.” He smiled. “If I ever told any of my brothers what I just told you, they’d take me down to the creek and give me a good dunking to fix my addled brain.”

  “How many brothers?”

  “Four. I’m the second oldest. What about you?”

  “Two younger sisters . . . both married.” She felt she should add their marital status for some reason.

  “Does that make them more ‘real’ than you somehow—that they’re married?”

  She looked at him in surprise, amazed at his intuitiveness. “Jah, but why would you ask me that? How could you know?”

  “My own brothers are married and neither they nor their wives ever stop pointing out to me that I’m missing out on real life because I’m not married.”

  She laughed aloud. “And are you?”

  He looked at her and again she thought she saw a shadow pass over his face, but he just shook his head. “Maybe I’ve never considered it fully until now.”

  She found that she couldn’t proceed with her line of questions without blushing and felt relieved when he turned the buggy into a drift-deepened lane. Anna marveled at how well the horse responded to the control of its master as it navigated through the snow. “You’re a gut driver.”

  “Thanks, but a buggy’s the best way to travel in snow this deep. After that, you need something from the Englisch.” She felt him study her profile and tried to sit up a little straighter.

  “Is this your first winter delivering babies?”

  “Ach, no . . . my second, but I didn’t expect Paradise to be having a storm like we do up in the mountains at Pine Creek.”

  “It’s a doozy, all right. You drive yourself at night?” he asked.

  “Jah, it’s safe.”

  He grunted but didn’t respond.

  “Ach, that must be the house, and from the looks of things, we might be just in time,” Anna said as she peered through the haze of snow at the farmhouse and saw that all the downstairs windows blazed with kerosene lamps. Even the barn door, farther on, revealed a thin line of welcoming light.

  “I’ll get you in there first and then wipe down Dandy.” Asa leaped out of the buggy as she folded the quilt back. She waited only seconds before she felt him grasp her around the waist. Somehow, even through the bulk of her clothes, she could feel the warm press of his hands and the length of his leg as he hugged her to his side and swept her onto the porch.

  She glanced over her shoulder to watch him stride against the wind and back to the buggy before she knocked at the front door. She decided that no one could hear her over the subdued din of the storm, so she pulled off a glove with her teeth and tried the knob. It gave with no problem and opened to a typical Amish kitchen: neat, well ordered, warm with light, but silent. She tiptoed inside, recalling her aunt’s primer that Sarah Raber already had four children, and hoped she wouldn’t wake anyone. Considering the hour, perhaps everyone was asleep and they’d just left lights burning because of the storm.

  She was debating whether to knock on the master bedroom door or head back out to the barn when the door burst open behind her with a gust of swirling air.

  “Anna,” Asa gasped, his cheeks flushed, light snow dusting his face. “Sarah and Ezekiel are in the barn. They were trying to make it to the hospital or her mamm’s, but she’s in their buggy . . . I think the baby’s coming now!”

  Anna pulled the edges of her cloak together. “Let’s go.”

  The wind was piercing in its intensity. Even a few moments of respite from the cold hadn’t prepared Anna for heading back outside. She caught her breath when Asa lifted her with ease off her feet, bag and all. “I’ll carry you; you’ll stay drier,” he yelled.

  Anna forgot about the cold and wished the few feet of being held against his chest could go on forever. His damp wool coat rubbed against her tender cheek like a hushed secret.And his purposeful steps made her wonder what it would be like to have someone to help carry her through life’s burdens, or at least through clover fields in high summer. She smiled and knew she’d remember this Second Christmas for as long as she lived.

  He bumped open the barn door with his hip, then slid her to the ground, twisting to shut out as much cold as possible. She was surprised at the overall warmth of the barn, its walls insulated by the hay, the feed bags, and the animals’ bodies themselves. She noticed Asa had withdrawn his quilt from beneath his coat and laid it on a clean hay bale. Lamps burned, highlighting the hay and the shadowy movements of the animals’ bodies, as cows chewed from their mangers and horses shifted with gentleness. Asa had stabled his horse in a stall to her right and must have left the buggy outside, though she’d been in no frame of mind to notice it.

  But now, Anna couldn’t help but compare the comforting warmth of the scene to the one so long ago, on that first Christmas. Only the starkness of a woman’s cry brought her back to reality and reminded her that her Lord and Savior had few of the comforts that lay before her. The Rabers’ buggy was hitched and ready to go with one door still wide open. Mr. Raber, a middle-aged Amish man with a blue shirt and black suspenders, was running his hands through his hair and speaking in earnest, soft Pennsylvania Dutch to the occupant of the buggy while Asa stood tense with his back turned.

  Mr. Raber caught sight of Anna and hurried over, his hand extended. “You are Anna, Frau Ruth’s niece, jah? Thank Derr Herr you’ve come. How did you ever know?”

  He wrung Anna’s hand with goodwill, and she caught a firmer grip on the handle of her bag. She smiled with reassurance. “The Lord is in control. So this is your fifth child, Mr. Raber? May I examine your wife? I take it that things have moved rather fast?”

  He led her to the buggy. “Jah, so we thought, but something is wrong now.” He kept his voice low, then stepped away to unhitch the horse, who was beginning to dance restlessly.

  Anna peered inside at the laboring woman. She met the anguished green eyes of Sarah Raber and recognized worry mixed with pain in equal amounts. Her first job was to calm her drained patient.

  “I’m Anna Stolis, Sarah. Have you had problems or delays with your other deliveries?”

  “Nee.” The woman shook her head and put a hand up to push her kapp back on her head. “And we thought this one . . . would be as easy, but . . . we got into the buggy and I felt like pushing, but nothing’s happened. I’m afraid it’s been too long . . .” Tears dripped from her eyes as she clutched the sides of the buggy seat with white-tipped fingers.

  “Aenti Ruth said that you could probably deliver without me,” Anna told her with a heartfelt smile. “Now, let’s just see what’s going on, shall we?”

  Anna disinfected and pulled on her gloves, praying as she went through her comforting preparation rituals. She had a sick feeling of what might actually be wrong.