The Amish Midwife Read Online Free PDF Page B

was spread with food, and they stood with their hands folded in front of them, waiting for someone to pray.
    James cleared his throat. “I’ll say grace.”
    I let out a sigh of relief.
    His voice was a notch deeper than usual. We all bowed our heads as James thanked God for my father’s life, asked God to comfort me, and then prayed He would fill the void left in all of us by Dad’s passing. Tears welled in my eyes again. James blessed the food and then said amen andmotioned to Mrs. Glick, the oldest person in the room at ninety-three, to start the line. She pushed up the sleeves of her simple dress and snatched up a china plate. Her cap covered all but the front of her snow-white hair. Most of the women still wore head coverings, although at the other Mennonite church, the one on the other side of the interstate, no one did. By early high school, I wanted to belong to that church.
    Mrs. Glick motioned to James to cut in behind her, but he shook his head, his eyes dancing. Widow that she was, she and nearly all of the other ladies had a crush on James. Through the years he would go to church with Dad now and then even while he was in college, driving down for the morning and staying for lunch. As it turned out, he made a much better Mennonite than I, although he hadn’t joined the church. I had—but then I’d left.
    Sophie and I filled coffee cups and punch glasses. Our group of seventeen seemed to be a little messy, so I hunted for and found more napkins in the top drawer of my mother’s antique hutch. I paused for a moment, my hand flat against the cherrywood, wedged between two pies. Would I keep the hutch? It wouldn’t fit in my apartment. Would I sell it? I couldn’t imagine.
    As James followed me around the table, heaping his plate with food, I tried to take a small spoonful of everything. I overheard Sophie tell Mr. Miller I’d found a document written in German. “Do you think you could translate it?” she asked him.
    “Say what?” Mr. Miller shouted, leaning forward.
    Mrs. Miller halfway cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, “Lexie needs you to translate something.” Sophie motioned my way. Every eye in the room landed on me.
    “No need to do it now,” I said, stepping toward him and making sure he could see my lips. “I can bring it by your house later.” I marveled at Sophie’s audacity, butting in about my letter and turning my wanting a little vacation into a search for my birth family and possible involvement with a midwife who was in trouble.
    Mrs. Miller stood. “We’re getting ready to go to Boise. To visit our son.” She was always to the point.
    “Let’s take a look at it now.” Mr. Miller smiled as he handed his empty plate to his wife and she headed to the kitchen. He was a happy man and always eager to help.
    James settled onto the far end of the mauve sofa, beside Mrs. Glick. I stood for a moment, frozen, not sure I wanted all of these people to know what the letter said. Mrs. Miller returned to the room.
    “Go on, Lexie,” she said. “We don’t have all day.”
    I put my plate on the coffee table and headed down the hall. Every eye in the room was no longer on me when I returned. They were all on the carved box in my hands.
    “Oh, my,” Mrs. Glick said.
    “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Mrs. Miller plunked back down into the chair beside her husband.
    I pulled out the letter and handed it to Mr. Miller.
    “Let me have a look at that box.” Mrs. Glick abandoned her plate on the coffee table too and was inching her way to the edge of the sofa, her arms outstretched. I handed it to her.
    “Isn’t it amazing?” James asked.
    Mr. Schmidt, who sat beside Mrs. Glick, ran his hand over the carved top. “Looks like sycamore wood.”
    I’d wondered what it might be.
    “But it must have been carved when it was green.” He squinted at the box. “Years and years ago. You don’t see work like this anymore.”
    “Look at the turrets.” Mrs. Glick spoke