The Tempted Soul (26 page)

E
mma’s arms went slack around Zachary as Carrie finished telling her tale Tuesday afternoon. “I don’t believe it.”

“Read for yourself.” Carrie pushed the brown paper across the table, and Emma reestablished her grip on the little boy as he reached for the chocolate chip cookie on her plate and she reached for the letter.

Emma scanned it, shook her head, and gave it to Amelia. “There must be something deeply wrong with that girl. How can a person simply walk away from her child?”

“Or take the bus, as the case may be.” Amelia folded up the letter and tucked it under the sugar bowl. “In a strange way, I understand. How can a girl who has grown up without love know how to love a child of her own? Abe Zook makes no bones about how much of a nuisance he thinks she is. So when Lydia treats her little girl like a piece of luggage, to be left wherever it’s convenient, I can’t be all that surprised. Poor thing.”

It wasn’t clear whether she meant Lydia or the baby. Maybe it was both.

They’d given up any pretense of designing a quilt, though Carrie had brought some scratch paper and a pencil in her own bag in case they got around to it. Today there were much more urgent topics to deal with.

“What are you going to do?” Amelia asked.

“I’m going to love this little
Bobbel
just as hard as I can for however long Lydia lets me keep her.” In a whirlwind of uncertainty, that was the one thing Carrie knew for sure.

“But what if that turns out to be years?” Emma asked.

“It would be worse if it were weeks,” Carrie told her. “Can you see that girl changing diapers and doing three-o’clock feedings in some youth hostel in Philadelphia?”

“I can’t see her changing diapers at all,” Emma said frankly. “Has she really not even touched her own daughter?”

“Not once. It’s been me, right from the beginning. But she says herself she doesn’t have those feelings.”

“But the child of her own body!” Amelia burst out. “Even if you hated your baby’s father or the circumstances of your life, imagine not loving someone who is part of you.”

“How could you not love Rachel just for her very own self?” Carrie nuzzled the baby’s neck. She smelled of a fresh bath and baby powder, and Carrie was like to cry from the simple delight of it. “I worry about Lydia. But if it’s the Lord’s will that she finds happiness in Columbus or Pittsburgh or even California, then I’ll accept it gladly and never look back.”

“And if it’s not?” Emma asked quietly. “If she comes back in two weeks with an
Englisch
family all arranged, and wants to take Rachel away?”

Emma’s gift with words had taken Carrie’s deepest fear and expressed it with dreadful simplicity. “Then I’ll do my best to talk her out of it. And if that fails, then I suppose
Uffgeva
will become something I do, not something I hear about on a Sunday.”

“You’ll never be able to do it.” Amelia shook her head. “I see you with this baby and she is your own. But from a practical standpoint, I think you should prepare. The church sees nothing wrong in you becoming Rachel’s mother. But the
Englisch
doctors will have something to say about it when you take her in for her checkups.”

Carrie nodded. “I know. She left everything, you know. The birth certificate, the hospital paperwork, the death certificate for little Joshua. Melvin says we are going to apply to be foster parents, and we’ll see where that takes us. The
Englisch
have many more rules about these things than we Amish do. All I care about is loving her.” And she cuddled Rachel close.

“In the end, that’s the important thing.” Amelia touched the baby’s cheek.

Emma looked from one to the other before she set Zachary down on the floor and took some blocks out of her carry bag to give to him. “We’re not getting any sketches done today, are we?”

Carrie had to smile. “
Nei
, I suppose not.” She handed Rachel to Amelia, who settled back in the chair, rubbing Rachel’s back like the old hand she was. “But I see Amelia has some of her famous beet pickles out on the counter and I’m dying to try them. Did you make them with that new recipe?”

“I did, but if you want some, you’ll have to open them yourself. I am most definitely busy and I must not be interrupted.”

Carrie got a butter knife from the drawer while Emma chose a jar of pickles. “I don’t know how these can be better than your usual ones. I’m almost afraid to try them.”

“I wasn’t aiming for better. I was aiming for different.”

With Emma hovering close by, Carrie popped the lid off the glass jar of fuchsia-colored beets. The smell of vinegar and sugar and garlic wafted up, and the contents of her stomach did a somersault.

Emma clapped a hand to her mouth.

Carrie broke into a sweat and set the jar down with a clank.

Emma made a sound behind her hand, and both of them dashed to the double sink and were violently sick, one into each side.

“Carrie! Emma!” Baby on her shoulder, Amelia pushed her chair back with such force that it tipped over, frightening Zachary, who burst into a roar.

Startled at the sudden movement, Rachel did the same.

Carrie and Emma wiped their mouths with two ends of the same towel and exchanged one astonished look before seeing to the crying children.

Amelia eyed the two of them. “Either my beet pickles are a terrible failure or something is going on with you two.”

Emma’s face was still a little green around the edges, and the towel was still in her hand. “Do you think—is it possible? Carrie? And me? At the same time?”

Carrie sat as though frozen in the kitchen chair. The roaring flame of hope in her chest fought with the cold rush of common sense, of hopes that had been denied before, of dread that this flame would be doused the cruel way it had been six years ago.

It could not be. She would have known. After all this time, she knew the signs the way a woman knew the behavior of her own hair. And except for that once, she had not experienced them.

“No,” she whispered. “It can’t be. I mean—maybe for Emma, but not for me.”

“Those fainting spells of yours,” Emma said in the tones of someone who had just had a revelation. “It takes some women that way. My sister Karen fainted with Barbara—it frightened poor John to death until the doctor told them what was causing it.”

“It can’t be true,” Carrie whispered. “Not after all this time. Not after Rachel.” She looked down at the little bundle in her arms.

Rachel hiccupped, the tears drying on her cheeks. She gazed up at Carrie. And for the first time, she smiled, her soft cheeks bunching up and a dimple denting the center of the right one.

Rachel had a dimple.

Carrie’s own eyes filled with tears at the little gift. “Look. She’s smiling.”

Amelia glanced at Emma. “I won’t tell her it’s probably gas if you don’t.”

“It’s not gas,” Emma said stoutly. “She is as happy at this news as we are. No matter what, Rachel will stay in this family to welcome her little brother or sister. We’ll see to it.”

“Oh Emma.” The tears were running down Carrie’s face now. “Will we really have children together?”

“I think we will. Oh girls, I can’t wait another moment. I have to go over to Mandy and Kelvin’s house and tell Grant. He’s finishing the last of the floors there today.”

“I can’t believe it,” Amelia said, wiping tears off her own cheeks with the palms of her hands. “Babies. Blessings. Oh, God has been so good to us.”

And suddenly the floodgates burst open inside Carrie, and hope and love poured through in a rush. Yes, there might yet be danger ahead. Yes, Rachel’s future was uncertain. But in God’s hands there was always hope, and joy, and the certainty that He meant good for them in the end.

“It’s just as we thought when we started your quilt,” she said to Emma, who had put on her away bonnet back to front while Zachary clung to her leg chanting, “Daed? See Daed?”

“We thought the pattern was about hope in the Cross. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? It’s the little hopes we have day by day that make life so sweet. The little joys. Like sharing this gift with you.”

Emma was not normally a demonstrative woman, but her face crumpled and she pulled off her bonnet altogether as she gathered Carrie and Rachel into a hug. And then Amelia put her arms around both of them and Carrie knew the truth.

They had not just been making quilts for all these months. They had been setting the stitches in a friendship—a sisterhood—that would last all the days of their lives. Come what may, they could face it together, as long as the
gut Gott
held them in their hands.

And for Carrie, with a heart full of hope, that was a fair prospect indeed.

One year later

The manila envelope lay on the kitchen table with its official-looking printed label from the family-law attorney they’d been referred to by Dr. Shadle, the chiropractor. The attorney had represented folk from the church numerous times in their dealings with the
Englisch
, and even though he frightened Carrie with his fast words and air of brusque authority, there was no denying he got things done.

Carrie expected Melvin in for supper at any second, since he’d driven in fifteen minutes ago, but she could hardly keep her mind on whipping up biscuits when that envelope lay behind her like something alive.

It was alive, in a way. Its contents would tell her which way their lives were going to go. The
gut Gott
had already made up His infinite mind about this, of course, but Carrie wouldn’t know what His plans were until they opened it up.

When she heard boots on the porch, she hurried to drop the last of the biscuits on the baking sheet, and met him at the door. “It came,” she told him, trying to keep the urgency out of her voice and failing utterly. “I haven’t opened it. I wanted to do it together, but Priscilla and Amelia and Emma and their families will be here any minute.”

“Let me kiss my
Maedel
and then we’ll find out what it says.”

She dimpled at him. “This
Maedel
first.”

He kissed her soundly and then crossed the kitchen to Rachel, who would celebrate her very first birthday in eight more days. He lifted her out of her high chair and blew kisses into her neck, which made her laugh in delight—a sound that never failed to clutch at Carrie’s heart.

“Where is
mein Bobbel
?” he asked when he slid the little girl back into her seat and given her back the teething biscuit she had been gnawing on for ten minutes.

“Asleep. You’re not to wake him—it took me half the afternoon to get him down.”

“He’s a bundle of energy, that one. We did well to name him David—he’s just like my
Daed
was. Always busy, always interested in what was going on around him.”

“And just like your
Daed
probably did for you—you can take him for the first feeding tonight.”

She wrinkled her nose at him and he kissed it. “I won’t wake him. But it’s only been three months. I just have to look in on him, my little miracle son.”

Carrie was still smiling when he came back into the kitchen. She’d actually seen Melvin in the night, hovering over the bassinet like a protective angel—one who couldn’t quite believe this tiny soul had been given into his charge so soon after the blessing of the first.

He came back into the kitchen on soft feet. “Now let us see what this letter will tell us.”

One thing about Melvin—he wasn’t the kind to carefully unwrap a gift, saving the paper for another occasion and rolling up the ribbon. He was a ripper. He tore open the envelope with a satisfying sound and angled the sheet of paper it contained toward her so they both could read it.

It took a moment for Carrie to take it in.

“She signed it. She actually signed the form giving up all her legal rights as Rachel’s mother.” Even though she had long ago given up wondering what piece was missing from Lydia’s heart that she could do such a thing, Carrie still had difficulty believing that a piece of paper could make it so.

The
Englisch
had many, many pieces of paper to put into motion something as simple as taking a baby into your home. First with the foster-care people, then with the attorney, then with the county…Carrie had lost track of all the papers. But the end was in sight. Soon Rachel would belong to them irrevocably, and no one—not even Lydia—could tear her away.

The rattle of buggy wheels outside told them the first of their guests was arriving. Melvin put the drape aside and looked out. “It’s the Bontragers. I’m glad they’re going to stay tonight—Moses Yoder says his bones say the first snow will fall.”

“And Moses Yoder’s bones always seem to be right.”

Melvin pulled on his rubber boots and coat and went out to look after the horse, while Priscilla and her brood of eight flooded into the kitchen. And then Amelia and Eli arrived, with Emma and Grant on their heels, and suddenly the entire house was full of children and laughter.

The eldest Bontrager girl swooped in on her cousin Rachel and carried her off, biscuit and all, to play in the sitting room, while Katie and Sarah Weaver made themselves comfortable on Rachel’s play blanket, holding baby Zeph as carefully as though he were made of spun glass.

Carrie dropped a kiss on the top of his head. “When he falls asleep, you can put him in with David. Our little twins can keep each other company.”

She turned to Amelia and Emma and then extended a hand to Priscilla to draw her into their circle. “You must hear this, too. The letter came today. Lydia signed the paper, and now there is nothing to stop us going ahead with the adoption.”

Amelia hugged her while Emma beamed. Tears welled in Priscilla’s eyes, and Carrie’s breath caught. Had the news hurt her?

Since Lydia’s departure that cold day last year, Carrie and Priscilla had become close. Priscilla was Rachel’s great-aunt, after all, and her children were the baby’s cousins. Carrie would no more separate Rachel from this sweet-faced woman than fly away to Missouri.

“Priscilla,
Liewi
, what is it?” She hardly dared ask. What if she and her husband had changed their minds and wanted to adopt Rachel after all?

“I’m just so happy,” Priscilla whispered. “Rachel is one step closer to being where she belongs—in a house filled with love, and two families to make sure she knows it. Forgive me. I don’t mean to cry.”

“Happy tears are the best ones,” Emma told her, folding her into a hug.

“I’ve cried enough of the other kind to last me a lifetime,” Carrie said. “I welcome happy ones.”

“I saw a quilt pattern the other day called Baby’s Tears,” Amelia said, apropos of nothing. “Priscilla, maybe you’d like to join us on Tuesday afternoons? It’s time to make another baby quilt.”

Carrie stared at her. “You’re—are you—
are you?
”

“
Ja
, I am. Eli and I are expecting a little blessing in July.”

When the men came in, they found all four of them in a laughing, crying knot in the middle of the kitchen.

Melvin looked at Eli. “Women. What do you suppose is going on?”

“I don’t know,” Eli said, gazing at his wife as though she were the sun in his summer sky. “But I thank our Father in heaven for them.”

Little Katie ran up to Grant and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Daed,
Aendi
Amelia says they’re going to make a quilt called Baby’s Tears. Doesn’t that sound funny?”

Grant smiled his quiet smile at Eli Fischer. “I think that depends on who’s doing the crying. Maybe Mamm will teach you how to make one, too.”

As her friends rolled up their sleeves and got to work putting out the food they had brought, Carrie’s eyes met Melvin’s.

There would be more children, and more quilts, and more blessings than one woman’s heart could hold.

It would take a lifetime to thank the
gut Gott
for them all.