The Midwife's Dream Read online

  COPYRIGHT

  ZONDERVAN

  The Midwife’s Dream

  Copyright © 2018 by Kelly Irvin

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

  Epub Edition April 2018 ISBN 9780310352006

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

  CIP data is available upon request.

  All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

  Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  18 19 20 21 22 / LSC / 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Glossary

  Featured Jamesport Families

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  To my daughter, Erin, whose dream was always to be a

  mother. You’re doing a great job, sweetie! Love always.

  Wait for the LORD;

  Be strong and take heart

  And wait for the LORD.

  PSALM 27:14 NIV

  GLOSSARY

  ach: oh

  aenti: aunt

  appeditlich: delicious

  bedauerlich: sad

  bopli/boppli: baby

  boplin: babies

  bruder: brother

  bruders: brothers

  bu: boy

  buwe: boys

  daadi: grandfather

  daed: father

  danki: thank you

  dat: dad

  dawdy/daadi haus: grandparents’ house

  Dietsch: Pennsylvania Dutch, the Amish language (German dialect)

  dochder: daughter

  Englisch/Englischer: English or Non-Amish

  fraa: wife

  freind: friend

  freinden: friends

  froh: happy

  gegisch: silly

  geh: go

  gelassenheit: fundamental Amish belief in yielding fully to God’s will and forsaking all selfishness

  gern gschehne: you’re welcome

  Gmay: Church District

  Gott: God

  granddaadi/groossdaadi: grandpa

  grandmammi/groossmammi: grandma

  gut: good

  Gut nacht: Good night

  haus: house

  Ich liebe dich: I love you

  jah: yes

  kaffee/kaffi: coffee

  kapp: prayer covering or cap

  kichli: cookie

  kichlin: cookies

  kinner: children

  lieb: love

  liewe: love, a term of endearment

  maed: young women, girls

  maedel: young woman

  mamm: mom

  mammi: grandmother

  mann: man

  mei: my

  mudder: mother

  naerfich: nervous

  narrisch: crazy

  nee: no

  Ordnung: the oral tradition of practices required and forbidden in the Amish faith

  rumspringa: running-around period when a teenager turns sixteen years old

  schee: pretty

  schtupp: family room

  schweschder: sister

  schweschdere/schweschders: sisters

  sohn/suh: son

  Was iss letz?: What’s wrong?

  Wie bischt?: How’s it going?

  Wie geht’s: How do you do? or Good day!

  wunderbaar/wunderbarr: wonderful

  ya: yes

  yer: your

  yerself: yourself

  yung: young

  *The German dialect spoken by the Amish is not a written language and varies depending on the location and origin of the settlement. These spellings are approximations. Most Amish children learn English after they start school. They also learn high German, which is used in their Sunday services.

  FEATURED JAMESPORT FAMILIES

  CYRUS AND JOSEPHINA BEACHY (DEACON)

  Iris

  Joseph

  Rueben

  Samuel

  Carl

  Louella

  Abigail

  JEREMY AND BERTHA KURTZ

  Nathanael

  John

  Avery

  William

  Salome

  Mahon

  Jason

  Mary

  Mark

  BARTHOLOMEW AND RACHEL SHROCK

  Liam

  Annie

  Micah

  AIDAN AND BESS GRABER

  Joshua

  CHAPTER 1

  The baby boy slid into Iris Beachy’s hands so fast a person might think he was late for supper. He opened his mouth wide and declared his dislike of his new surroundings with a loud wail.

  “Hello to you too, sweet one.” Her best friend’s new son weighed at least ten pounds. He arrived with a full head of dark hair that stood up in wet spikes around his red, wrinkled face. Iris chuckled and held him up for Rachel and Bartholomew Shrock to see. “He’s a full-grown man. Better set him to work chopping wood.”

  “He’s here. Our boy’s here, fraa.” Bartholomew left his wife’s side to take a closer look. His big grin split his face over his long brown beard. “He’s a giant.”

  “Built like his daed for sure.” Iris suctioned fluid from the baby’s nose and mouth with a syringe. He didn’t like that at all. The wail turned to an aggravated howl. “Hush, hush, you’re fine. It’s a good thing you’ve done this before, Rachel. He had plenty of room to squeeze out without any tearing.”

  Twice before. Fortunately, Rachel’s mother had taken little Annie and Liam to her house at the beginning of the six hours of labor that started on a cloudy February afternoon in which the Missouri sky spit ice and snow at passersby as if to taunt them for daring to venture outdoors.

  Iris wiped the baby off and looked him over from top to bottom. His skin was pink, his toes and fingers perfectly formed, his legs and arms strong. She laid him in the old blanket Rachel had placed in the cradle by the bed. They would save the tumbling block crib quilt Iris made for later when he was dressed. She placed a clip on the cord and cut it.

  “Your suh has a healthy set of lungs.”

  She handed the squalling baby to Rachel, who sank back onto the pillows and tucked her new baby into the crook of her arm. His cries subsided seconds later. “He’s built like Bart, but he looks like me. Don’t you think?”

  “
He looks like my groossdaadi. No teeth, all hair.” Bartholomew leaned over Rachel and tickled his son’s cheek with one huge, callused index finger. “Micah. We’ll name him Micah.”

  Rachel smiled up at them. Bartholomew’s hand moved from his baby to his wife’s cheek. She held it there with her free hand. The look her friends exchanged brought a lump to Iris’s throat. She ducked her head and dealt with the afterbirth.

  Be thankful for Rachel and Bartholomew’s blessing. Be joyful. Be thankful. Be content.

  Iris reminded herself, as she always did, of God’s blessing in giving her this role in the Jamesport community. She’d delivered six babies on her own since Laura Kauffman retired as the Gmay midwife. Many more under Laura’s tutelage. To be able to bring her friends’ babies into the world was a gift. God allowed her to be present when a new life bounded into her arms and began this journey in the world.

  Thank you, Gott.

  Even if He hadn’t fulfilled her one and only dream. That of her own family. A husband and her own babies. Not yet, she amended. On His time, not hers.OnO She gathered up the bloody towels and sheets. She refused to lose faith. Not when her friends married and had their babies. Not when her twenty-third birthday passed.

  Plenty of time, her mother kept saying. Plenty of time.

  “It’s dark out already. I better do my chores.” Bartholomew headed for the door. “I’ll let you women do what you do. Iris, I’ll hitch up the buggy and bring it around front so it’ll be ready when you are.”

  Iris cleared her throat of that annoying lump. “I won’t be long. The road will be bad and getting worse.”

  Fortunately, the Beachy farm was only a stone’s throw from the Shrocks’. Perfect for visiting back and forth. Perfect for watching Annie and Liam grow and change. Now Micah. The annoying lump returned. Iris made a pile of the bloody towels and stood. “Micah is a fine name.”

  “I told Bartholomew we couldn’t pick Ephraim because I know you want that name for one of your boys.” Her tone airy, Rachel smoothed Micah’s blanket. “It would be too confusing when they get together to play.”

  Leave it to Rachel to hop over all the parts in between. Finding that special friend. Courting. Marrying. “You can use the name for your next one.”

  “You’ll need it. Don’t you worry.” Rachel patted the bed in a sit-with-me motion. “You have lots of time. Look at it this way, when you get married, you’ll be too busy having your own boplin to deliver other people’s. You’ll miss it.”

  Rachel was a good friend. She’d just given birth and she chose to focus on how that made Iris feel. She always knew what Iris was thinking. All the way back to when her daed became the deacon and he started taking care of Gmay business. Then rumspringa and the singings. And Aidan. Iris settled onto the bed and began to re-braid Rachel’s hair. “You’re a mess.”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “No point in talking about it. Gott’s will is Gott’s will.”

  Rachel kissed Micah’s forehead. His eyelids fluttered. He went back to sleep, lips puckering as if he were sucking. “You are the kindest, nicest, sweetest person I know, Iris Beachy. And no man would say you’re hard on the eyes. Your turn will come. I promise you that.”

  “You’re sweet, but you can’t promise me anything.”

  “Mahon Kurtz likes you.”

  “He has a funny way of showing it.”

  “He knows you’re still in love with Aidan. He’s waiting until you’re ready.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Iris tugged at Rachel’s chestnut hair. “Aidan asked me to marry him. I said no. Not the other way around.”

  “Ouch. Not so hard.” Rachel pushed Iris’s hands away from her head. Even with her skin blotchy, hair sweaty, and nightgown stained and wrinkled, Rachel was the pretty one. At sixteen, Bartholomew asked her to ride home with him after their first singing. They never looked back, marrying two days after her nineteenth birthday. “Because you’re wise beyond your years. Aidan loves Bess, and you knew it before he was willing to admit it. Mahon is waiting for you to give him a sign you’re ready.”

  “You see what you want to see.”

  “What does Salome say?”

  Salome was the other still-single woman in the gaggle of girls who’d once been inseparable. She taught school and waited for her special friend. She was also Mahon’s sister. “She thinks her brother is short a few tools in his toolbox. He’s busy working the farm with his bruders now that his daed is retiring. And when he’s not, he draws pictures and looks at the stars.”

  Rachel giggled. “So draw him a picture.”

  “Don’t laugh. It’s not like our paths don’t cross at church and at every frolic and every school picnic.”

  “You like him. You know you do.”

  She did like him. In a warm, content, he’ll-always-be-around sort of way. She’d simply never thought of him in that light. He was Salome’s goofy brother who wore glasses and knew the names of all the constellations in the sky before he learned his multiplication tables.

  “He needs to know you’re interested back.” Rachel smoothed Micah’s wild hair. He sighed, the sweetest, most tender sound imaginable. “Most men do.”

  “If he’s not interested enough to approach me first, then I reckon it’s not meant to be.”

  “Admit it.” Rachel scooted up on the pillow. Her face had that same fierce expression it did when she accused her little brother of eating her lunch at school. “You won’t do it because you’re mad at Gott.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  “I think we’ve had this conversation already.”

  Rachel laughed. Micah frowned and sputtered. She shushed him. “Go home, freind.”

  “Do you want something to eat first?”

  “I’ll get it in a while. Help yourself if you’re hungry.” Rachel pulled the quilt up so it covered both her and Micah. “I’m going to enjoy lying here with no little ones tugging on my skirt or asking me for a cookie or needing a diaper changed for a while longer. Bart will be hungry after he finishes the chores. We’ll eat together.”

  Rachel would be back on her feet making breakfast in the morning, and Iris would get a good night’s sleep before doing her own chores. She glanced out the bedroom window. The icy panes reflected the kerosene lamp back at her. The days were short this time of year. “Mudder will have left a plate warming on the back of the stove for me. She’ll be sitting by the fire, waiting.”

  “That’s where you get your sweetness—your mudder.” Rachel grinned. “Definitely not from your daed.”

  “Daed’s different at home.” Rachel was teasing, but Iris couldn’t help but defend her father. “His bark is worse than his bite, always has been.”

  To others, Cyrus Beachy might be a stern deacon who taught baptism classes. But at home, he was still a big, overgrown teddy bear to her. The man she’d climbed all over as a little girl, the man who tickled her until she shrieked on cold winter nights after she beat him three times in a row in checkers. The man who read stories to his children every night before presiding over their prayers.

  She wanted a husband who would be a father like that. Aidan would’ve been that kind of husband. She gritted her teeth and administered a silent scolding as she always did when these thoughts wiggled their way into her brain. Aidan belonged to someone else now. “I better get going.”

  “Talk to you soon.”

  Rachel’s sleepy voice trailed after Iris as she tugged on her wool coat, mittens, scarf, and bonnet. Her satchel in one hand, she trudged out into a biting wind that took her breath away. Icy snowflakes pelted her cheeks as she slipped and slid down the porch steps and slogged toward the buggy Bartholomew had retrieved as promised. Sable snorted, whinnied, and stamped her feet as if to say hurry up. Iris ducked her head and grabbed her bonnet to keep it from flying away.

  Minutes later she turned the buggy onto the highway and headed f
or home. Her hands and feet were frozen and her nose numb. It had been a long day. The urge to doze overwhelmed her. Her stomach rumbled. She snapped the reins, and Sable picked up speed. Home, a grilled-cheese sandwich, a hot cup of tea, and bed, in that order. The buggy’s wooden wheels skidded under her. “Whoa, whoa. Take it easy, girl.”

  Only a mile more. One more mile. The wind whipped through her coat as if she wore nothing. An engine revved behind her. Who else was silly enough to be out on the road in this weather? She eased toward the shoulder. A horn blared. She swerved still closer to the edge, afraid to go too far for fear of landing in a ditch she couldn’t see under the heavy blanket of snow.

  The horn honked again and again in an irritating refrain. She twisted in her seat. Headlights blinded her. “Ach, okay, okay.” She pulled over a little more, halted, and threw her hand up in the air to wave them on.

  Instead of passing, the car—or was it a truck—pulled in behind her and stopped. The engine idled in a weak put-put-put.

  She strained to see the black form behind the lights. A pickup truck maybe.

  A door opened. Words were exchanged. English. The door slammed.

  Sudden heat rushing through her, Iris gripped the reins. She couldn’t outrun a car in her buggy. She heaved a breath and licked chapped lips. Her whole mouth was dry. “Who is it? What do you want?”

  The headlights illuminated a form that moved toward her. Her heart hammering in her chest, she squinted.

  A man strode toward her.

  CHAPTER 2

  Iris couldn’t see his face. He wore a dark hat. A dark coat, black pants, black boots. A Plain man? Why would a Plain man be in a car that pursued her on an empty country road on this icy cold night? Her heart whipped itself into a frenzy of off-kilter beating. The taste of metal in her mouth made her gag. She swallowed against the acid taste. “Who is it? Speak up.”

  “It’s me. Mahon.”

  Her heartbeats fought to resume their normal rhythm. The whoosh of adrenaline leaving her body left her weak. Her lungs ached with the effort to breathe. A rush of anger followed, warming Iris from head to toe. She hopped from the buggy and trudged toward him. Her rubber boots, a size too big, sank into the snow, halting her forward progress, which served to aggravate her more. “What are you doing following me in a car? Are you driving? Why did you honk at me?”