“We will do the right thing but until we can talk to someone, Dinah remains here with us. She will be well taken care of, I can tell you that.”
Josiah came out of his chair and put his hand in the pocket of his lightweight work coat and then shoved his hat back on, his eyes full of a troubled regard as he studied her and the baby. “I will call my investigator. I’ll have him search for proof.”
“If she had the baby in a hospital, there would be a record,” Raesha said. “Maybe even a birth certificate.”
“That would certainly show proof,” Naomi said. “But most Amish don’t have official birth certificates. You might check with midwives in the surrounding counties and communities.”
Josiah scrubbed a hand down his face. “I do not mean to snatch the child away. I am thankful that she is safe and warm, whoever she belongs to. But that little cap has my sister’s initials stitched in the lining.”
“It could be someone else’s initials,” Raesha said, sounding defensive in her own mind.
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “My mamm went against our father’s wishes to make pretty things so she could sell them to help our family. But some she kept. It’s clear to me the baby hat belongs to my sister and this child looks like my sister. The note said she was Amish. How can it not be so?”
“It very well could be so,” Raesha echoed, torn between her own heart’s desire and doing the right thing for the baby. “We will have to find out what needs to be done to prove your claims.”
Then she softened her stance, hoping to make him understand. “We have taken in lots of young relatives through the years. We are both widows and I am...childless. We will keep Dinah fed and warm and you can visit her anytime you want, ain’t so, Mammi Naomi?”
Naomi bobbed her head. “She could not be in a better place for now. What do you know of children, Josiah?”
His dark eyes flared with regret. Shaking his head, he looked at Raesha again. “I know nothing much about children except my sister, but I have no kin left around here. I need to find Josie and hope she’ll change her mind about giving up her child. Little Dinah could be my only close relative and she’ll need to know that one day.”
“Then we will work together to figure this out,” Raesha said, standing her ground. They all knew he couldn’t take care of a bobbeli right now. “As I said, you are wilkum to visit Dinah.”
He studied the baby again. “May I hold her? And then, I’ll leave. But I’ll be glad to go with you to the Campton Center, both of you. We should all be there to talk with someone.”
Raesha indicated she agreed. “Then it’s settled. We could go later this afternoon. We have a girl who comes to watch the shop when we have to be away.”
“I have much to do today,” he said. “But I will make time for this. I plan to stay in the house if I can get it fixed up before winter sets in. I need to find lumber and supplies and get the back bedroom fixed, at least.”
“Maybe we should wait,” Raesha suggested. “Maybe the mother will come back.”
“I still need to call the man I hired,” he said. “I’ll give him this new information and ask him to talk to hospitals and to check as many Amish communities as he can.”
“We have a phone in the shop,” Raesha said. “Meantime, we have supplies enough for this little ball of energy. I have learned how to make homemade baby formula since she can’t be nursed.”
“I will consult with the bishop regarding your information,” Naomi said to Josiah. “I hope he will agree we need to protect the child first and worry about the rest later.”
“I’d feel better if we brought in a midwife,” he added as Raesha carefully handed him the baby. “To make sure she is well.”
Raesha looked to Naomi. The older woman nodded. “I’ll go and get word to Edna Weiller. She lives around the bend. I’ll send one of our shop workers over for her.”
“Denke.” His big hand touched Raesha’s when he took Dinah into his arms. Their eyes met and held, causing a keen awareness to envelop her in a warm glow.
“There you go,” she said to hide the swirl of disturbing feelings pooling inside her stomach. “Dinah needs to know we will provide for her. She’ll need to know her uncle, too.”
“If I am truly her uncle,” he said, a soft smile on his face as he stared down at the sleeping baby, “I will take good care of her and raise her as my own.” Then he handed her back to Raesha. “But maybe I will find my sister and then she can explain all of this—especially how she came about having a baby in the first place.”
* * *
“I expect she did it the natural way,” Naomi said later that day, shaking her head while she rocked Dinah. “If she no longer considers herself Amish, she might not be able to return to the old ways. But if she wants to return, she will have to confess all. Josiah seems to want to find her, regardless.”
She paused, her brow furrowing. “His mention of his father brings back some memories. Abram Fisher was very strict and a stickler for following the Ordnung.”
“There is a reason we have a rulebook,” Raesha replied. And yet her heart went out to Josiah and his lost sister. The lost sometimes did return. She prayed he’d find the girl, but that meant Dinah would have to go back to them.
Your will, Lord. Not mine.
Naomi gave Raesha one of her serene stares. “Abram went beyond the rulebook.”
“What do you mean?”
Naomi lowered her voice. “He was not above using his physical strength to make his point.”
“You mean, he abused his family?”
Naomi nodded. “Sarah never spoke of it, but the proof was in the many bruises we saw. She had a black eye once and said she’d fallen and hit the floor too hard.” Gazing down at Dinah, she added, “We mustn’t speak of this, of course.”
“No. We mustn’t,” Raesha agreed, her heart hurting for Josiah and Josie. No wonder neither of them had stayed here.
Earlier, Edna Weiller had come by and looked over little Dinah, examining her from top to bottom. “This child seems fit as a fiddle,” the stout woman announced, her blue eyes twinkling while she danced Dinah around. “And probably much better off now that she is with you two.”
“We are going to try to find her mother,” Raesha had explained. Then she told Edna about Josiah.
Naomi had talked to Bishop King earlier. “The bishop thinks we’re doing everything in the right way. But he expects us to alert the authorities if the woman doesn’t return in a week or so, to find out what we should do.”
“You’ll need proof on this Josiah being related,” Edna said. “If no proof is found, the Department of Child and Family Services will want to place her with a foster family until they find proof that the mother can’t be located or that Josiah Fisher is truly her onkel. The sooner you turn her over, the
