brooder. There’s no one else I can turn to.”
Were those tears on her face? “What help can I give you? I don’t have money.”
“I don’t want your money. I...I want you to meet someone. This is my daughter. Your niece. Her name is Leah. I named her after our mother.”
“You have a bubbel?” Joseph reeled in shock. He still thought of his sister as a little girl skipping off to school or playing on their backyard swing, not someone old enough to be a mother. He gestured toward the car with a jerk of his head. “Is this man your husband?”
“We’re not married yet, but we will be soon,” she said in a rush.
“Soon?” Had she come to invite him to the wedding?
“Ja. As soon as Johnny gets this great job he has waiting for him in New York. He’s a musician and I’m a singer. He has an audition with a big-time group. It could be our lucky break. Just what I need to get my career going.”
She looked away and bounced the baby. Something wasn’t right. Joseph knew her well enough to know she was hiding something.
Maybe he was being too hard on her. Maybe she was simply ashamed of having a babe out of wedlock and she expected her brother to chastise her.
This wasn’t the life he wanted for her, but he was a practical man. It did no good to close the barn door after the horse was gone. He struggled to find the words to comfort her. “If Johnny is the man Gott has chosen for you, then you will find a blessed life together.”
“Thanks. Danki. We will have a good life. You’ll see. But in the meantime, I need your help. Johnny has to get to his audition, and I’m going to have surgery. Nothing serious, but I can’t keep the baby in the hospital with me.” She moved the blanket aside and showed him a cast on her wrist.
“It was an accident,” Johnny shouted from inside the car.
“It was,” Fannie added quickly, her eyes wide. She nibbled at the corner of her lower lip.
“I did not think otherwise.” At least not until this moment. He eyed Johnny sharply. Nay, it was wrong of him to think the worst of any man. If his sister said it was an accident, he must believe her. He nodded toward the house. “Come in. We can talk there. I have a pot of coffe on the stove.”
“No, thanks. Your coffee was always strong enough to dissolve a horseshoe. I can’t stay, Joe. Please say you will take care of Leah for me. It’s only for a couple of days.”
“Think what you are asking. I have no experience with babies.”
“You raised me.”
“You were not in diapers.”
“Please, Joe. If you don’t keep her, I don’t know what I’ll do. I have everything she’ll need in a bag for you. I’ve even mixed a couple of bottles. Keep them in the fridge and warm them in a pan of hot water when you need them. That’s all you’ll have to do. If you run out, there’s powdered formula in here.” She set a pink-and-white diaper bag down by her feet.
“Hurry it up, Fan, or I’m going to leave without you.” Johnny’s snarling tone made her flinch. Joseph scowled at him. Johnny sank back behind the wheel muttering to himself.
Joseph shook his head. Why was she with such a fellow? “This is not a good idea, Fannie. You know I would help if I could.”
She moved close to him. “I’m desperate, Joe,” she whispered.
Glancing at the car, she kissed the baby’s forehead. “She will be safe with you. I won’t worry about her for a single minute. Please. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s what’s best for her.” She thrust the baby into his arms and hurried away.
Stunned, Joseph froze and then tried to give the baby back, but his sister was already getting in the car. “Fannie, wait!”
The moonlight showed her tear-streaked face and her hand pressed to the window as the car took off with a spray of gravel. He stood staring after it until the taillights disappeared.
“Don’t do this, sister. Come back,” he muttered into the darkness.
The baby started crying again.
Startled awake from a sound sleep, Anne tried to get her bearings. It took her a moment to realize someone was pounding on her front door downstairs.
She threw back the quilt and turned on the battery-operated lantern she kept on her nightstand. As a midwife, she was used to callers in the middle of the night, but only Rhonda Yoder was due soon. Anne lived so far away from them that the plan was for Rhonda’s husband to use the community telephone when she was needed. Anne carried a cell phone that had been approved by the bishop for use in emergencies. She checked it. No calls had come in.
After spending the previous day and night delivering Dora Stoltzfus’s first child, Anne was so tired it was hard to think straight. Maybe Dora or the baby was having trouble.
The knocking downstairs started again.
“I’m coming.” After covering her head with a white kerchief, she pulled on her floor-length pink robe, making sure her long brown braid was tucked inside.
She hurried down the stairs, opened the door and gazed with sleep-heavy eyes at the man standing on her front porch. She blinked twice to make sure she wasn’t dreaming and held the lantern higher. “Joseph?”
Why was her neighbor pounding on her door at two o’clock in the morning? He shifted a bundle he held in the crook of his arm. “I require your help, woman.”
That didn’t make any sense. Joseph was a confirmed bachelor who lived alone. “You need the services of a midwife?”
“That is why I’m here.” He spoke as if she were slow-witted. Maybe she was. What was going on?
It had been almost a week since she’d hit him with a tomato. This wasn’t his way of getting back at her, was it? Suddenly, the most probable answer occurred to her.
She reared back to glare at him. “Don’t tell me it’s for one of your goats. I’m not a vet, Joseph Lapp.”
She was ready to shut the door in his face. Joseph’s passion was his annoying goats. They were practically family to him. He preferred their company to that of his human neighbors. She often saw him walking in the pastures with the herd surrounding him. The frolicking baby kids were cute in the springtime, but it was the adults, Chester in particular, who saw her garden as a free salad bar.
“She’s sick and I don’t know what’s wrong.” The bundle Joseph held began whimpering. He lifted the corner of the blanket and uncovered a baby’s face.
Anne’s stared in openmouthed surprise. Her lantern highlighted the worry lines around his eyes as he looked at the infant he held. This wasn’t a prank. He wasn’t joking.
“Joseph, what
