The Amish Midwife's Courtship. Cheryl Williford

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СКАЧАТЬ not too busy.”

      His sarcasm didn’t go unnoticed. Her bad mood darkened. She grumbled to herself as she went into the old-fashioned, minuscule bathroom just off the bedroom. She didn’t resent being told to clean the sparsely furnished back bedrooms when their last two renters left, but she’d already had her day planned.

      She was used to hard work during their peak winter season, but holding down a job at the local café as a waitress and birthing babies as the local midwife kept her busy. Sometimes too busy. She liked the whirl of her demanding life, but she did resent her mamm’s attitude. Just because she was still single didn’t mean she didn’t have anything better to do on her day off than mop floors and strip down beds. She’d miss singing practice again this afternoon thanks to her mamm’s unreasonable demands on her time.

      Her lip curled in an angry snarl as she pushed back a wayward strand of hair behind her ear, then ran a clean washcloth under cold running water.

      Lifting her head, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and scowled. Dishwater blonde hair that had been neatly pulled back in a tight bun now ran riot around her head. Remembering the renter’s good looks, her cheeks flushed pink. What must he think of her appearance?

      Her brown eyes flashing with frustration, she looked away, reprimanding herself for behaving like the frustrated twenty-year-old spinster she was.

      With a jerk, she tugged her prayer kapp back into place and then squeezed the water out of the cloth. She was in enough trouble for hitting the man. Now wasn’t the time to start ogling the guests and worrying about how she looked. The sin of vanity brought only strife into the life of a Plain person. She had to pull herself together.

      The worn but well-polished hardwood floor squeaked as she hurried back to the bedroom and handed the cloth to the man. Their hands touched and she pulled away, not about to admit she felt anything.

      But she had.

      He ran his fingers through the dark spikes on his head and brought a semblance of order to his wild hair before wiping at the cut above his eyebrow.

      “Here, let me do that. All you’re doing is making it bleed again.” Forgetting her own stringent proprieties, Molly moved to the bed, pulled her full skirt under her and sat as far away from him as she could and still touch him. She jerked the cloth from his fingers before he could object and dabbed lightly around the seeping wound.

      “A butterfly bandage should take care of any further bleeding and keep the wound from scarring,” she said. “The bandages and antibiotic cream are in the kitchen. I’ll be right back.”

      She ran for the door, then skidded to a halt. “While I’m gone, please get out of bed and put on proper clothing.” She bounded away, her skirt swirling around her legs as she hopped over the trash can and slipped out, letting the bedroom door bang behind her.

      * * *

      Isaac Graber’s head hurt. He wiped the sticky blood off his fingers with the damp cloth the petite blonde-haired housekeeper had left behind and found himself smiling, something he hadn’t done since the accident and his painful recovery.

      The tiny woman had put him through sheer misery trying to keep up with her rapid-fire conversation. She taxed his patience and his temper, but he couldn’t wait for her to come back into the room.

      With a tug, he threw back the tangled covers and slid out of bed. The same white-hot agony that kept him up most nights stabbed down his leg. Angry red lines of surgical stitching laced up the puckered skin near his left knee and calf, his leg pale where the cast had covered it for several months.

      He struggled to get into a pair of clean but well-worn trousers and a wrinkled long-sleeved cotton shirt he’d pulled from his suitcase, and then put on a fresh pair of socks and his scuffed boots, as he tried to forget the fresh ache in his head.

      He’d taken his last pain medicine in Missouri, weeks before, and now had nothing to dull the ache in his leg or his heart. Not that he deserved the mind-numbing pills that helped him forget what he’d done and the tragedy he had rained down on his best friend’s family.

      Isaac dropped his chin to his chest and forced himself to breath slowly. He shouldn’t have been driving that day, especially since the country road was slick after a sudden hard rain. He had no license. No insurance. Someone else could have taken Thomas home from the multi-church frolic when he’d wrenched his ankle. Why had he offered to drive? It wasn’t like him to break Amish laws, even if Thomas’s ankle was swollen after the rough game of volleyball.

      With his eyes squeezed shut, his mind went back to the horrific day. The memory of Thomas lying on the ground next to him was seared in his mind.

      The first police officer at the scene had assumed Thomas, who was Mennonite, had been driving. In shock and bleeding profusely, Isaac had been too confused to speak. He’d been rushed to the hospital and then into surgery.

      But days later, when his thoughts had cleared, he’d heard the police were blaming the dead-drunk man in the other vehicle for the accident. Isaac knew they were wrong. Surely he was the one at fault and needed to make it right.

      In the hospital, Isaac had confessed everything that day to his daed, but his father had railed at him, “We are Amish and will manage our own problems. You are to ask Gott for forgiveness and then be silent. I will not have the truth known to this community just to make you feel less guilty. Nothing can be gained by your confession. It was Gott’s will that Thomas die. You are to keep all this to yourself, do you hear, Isaac? You must tell no one. The shame you carry is yours, and yours alone. It is Gott’s punishment. You must learn to live with it. Your mamm and I will not be held up to ridicule because of your foolish choices. This kind of shame could kill your mamm. You know her heart is weak.”

      And like the coward he was, he’d run to Pinecraft, desperate to get away from his daed’s angry words, his mother’s looks of shame. Isaac would spend the rest of his life dealing with things he could not change.

      His hands braced against his legs, he looked down at his scuffed brown boots, at the crutch at his feet. He deserved to be crippled. If the police in Pinecraft ever found out the truth, he knew he’d be arrested, thrown into an Englischer jail for the rest of his life.

      He rubbed the taunt muscle cramping in his leg. Gott was right to punish him for his foolish choices.

      He smoothed down his trouser leg, covering the scar. Fatigue overwhelmed him. His guilt robbed him of sleep. He and Thomas had both died that day, but he knew he had to go on living.

      A ridge of stitched skin under the trouser leg sent pain burning into his calf. No more Englischer doctors for him. All they wanted was to make him whole again. He didn’t deserve to be free of pain. The doctors in Missouri should have let him die.

      He’d have to find a way to deal with the ache in his heart, his guilt and the odd way he was forced to walk. Let people stare. He didn’t care anymore. Nothing mattered. Thomas was dead.

      The housemaid came swinging back into the room with a tray of bandages, a bottle of aspirin and bowl of water. A steaming mug of black coffee sat in the middle of her clutter.

      “I thought you might want something for the pain in your head.” She set the tray on the nightstand, ruined his coffee with three packets of sugar and used a plastic spoon to stir it. With the twist of her delicate wrist, she unscrewed the aspirin bottle. “One or two?”

      “None, СКАЧАТЬ