The Amish Midwife (30 page)

It wasn’t until after dinner that Marta finally went upstairs and I had a chance to ask Zed if he’d had another email from the man in Switzerland. He hadn’t. I decided to go to the coffee shop and check my email and the adoption registry. As I drove, I had the urge to call James and tell him about Ada, but he was away at the group home retreat. When I pulled into the parking lot and turned off the car, I sent Sean a text, asking what he was up to.

He immediately replied.
Getting off work in half an hour. Want to meet at the hospital?

We figured out the details through a couple more texts, and then I logged onto my computer while still sitting in my borrowed Datsun, not bothering to go inside the coffee shop at all. There was still nothing on the adoption registry. I closed my laptop, discouraged.

A half hour later, on the dot, Sean walked out to the hospital parking lot, and I rolled down the window of my car.

“I hope this isn’t too forward,” he said, bending down as he talked, “but want to come out to my house? I have a slow cooker full of pulled pork and was going to make a sandwich.”

I didn’t bother to tell him I’d already had dinner. “Sounds fine,” I said. “I’ll follow you.”

He headed northeast out of town, a direction I hadn’t been yet. On the outskirts of the city, he turned off the main road. I realized he could be taking me anywhere and then smiled. My intuition was pretty good. Sean Benson wasn’t a serial killer posing as a doctor. He pulled into a driveway and I followed, easing alongside a row of thick, neatly pruned shrubs that divided his property from the house next door. I parked behind him, climbed from the car, and paused to take a quick look around. His yard was immaculate, illuminated by ground lights. The grass was thick and edged, the flower beds filled with tulips. The house itself wasn’t huge, but it was by no means small.

He smiled and led the way up a brick path to the front door. “I bought this place two years ago.” He turned his key in the lock and pushed the door open. “But it looks like I’m going to have to sell it now.”

“You got the job?” I practically stumbled over the stoop into an entryway as I spoke.

He caught my elbow, laughing. “I got the job—at least that’s what the HR person on the phone told me today. I haven’t seen the contract yet.” He took my coat and turned toward the closet. The space was illuminated by dim overhead light.

“When do you start?”

“June first.”

I’d be more than settled in Philadelphia by then. In fact, at that point I’d only have three months left until I would be heading back to Oregon. But Baltimore was only a couple of hours from Philly. I imagined coordinating our days off and meeting in New York. Maybe even Boston. Maybe he would take me up to meet his folks…

He flicked on a switch as we stepped into a large living room. Taupe leather furniture—a sectional and easy chair—sat atop a white rug that graced a hardwood floor. The ceilings were high and boxed and an open staircase led to the second floor.

“What a great house,” I said.

“Thanks. The kitchen’s this way.”

I followed him through a formal dining room with a modern high table and six chairs and then through a swinging door into the kitchen. It
had totally been updated with granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances.

“Did it come this way?” I stood in the middle of the kitchen, turning slowly.

Sean shook his head. “I hired a decorator. She did a great job, huh?”

I nodded. He gave his attention to a black slow cooker in the corner on the other side of the double stove. The pork smelled delicious.

I glanced around the kitchen again. There was no clutter. And there hadn’t been in the living room or dining room either. There were no stacks of books. No papers. No magazines. No projects.

Plus he could cook.

“Want a tour before we eat?”

I nodded, feeling as if I couldn’t speak, wondering just how much money Sean Benson made a year.

Off the kitchen was his office. He explained that it had been a sleeping porch but he’d had it enclosed. The room was as big as my living room and dining room combined, and housed a sprawling desk with computer, a wall of bookcases, and an entertainment cabinet. He didn’t open it but I guessed there was a big-screen TV and stereo system inside.

He flicked a switch, opened a sliding door, and stepped onto a patio. I followed. The backyard was illuminated too and covered with rose bushes. They weren’t blooming yet—some were hardly leafed out—but I could imagine the beauty of the blossoms and the scent in the late spring and summer.

“My mother thought roses a waste of time,” Sean said. “When I was little, I vowed to have a garden of them when I was grown.”

“Did you put all of this in?” I asked, impressed.

“I hired someone to do the work.”

Of course he did. It would have taken months and months otherwise.

“I’ll take a few with me,” he said. “But I’ll most likely get an apartment or a condo in Baltimore. C’est la vie.” He smiled but there was sorrow in his eyes.

“When will you put your place on the market?” I asked, thinking about Dad’s property back home.

“Today.” He stepped back into his office.

“That soon?” I laughed. There was nothing passive about Dr. Benson.

“They’re putting up the sign tomorrow.”

He showed me the downstairs bath and a small guestroom down the hall and then we ended up back in the kitchen. He didn’t say anything about not showing me the upstairs and I didn’t ask. I imagined a huge master suite with a Jacuzzi tub, like something I’d see on HGTV.

He had coleslaw and chips to go with the sandwiches, and in no time we were sitting in a little nook off the kitchen, eating as Sean talked about the ins and outs of restoring an old house. I thought, although the new job sounded really cool, that it was a shame he had to sell his first home and said so.

He shrugged. “I knew I wouldn’t be here long.”

“Still,” I said. “It has to be hard.” I could so easily imagine living in this house. It was clean and comfortable and seemed easy to manage. Everything I wanted in a home. In a life, to be honest.

“Oh, well,” he said. “There’s no reason to get too attached to things. I won’t live in Baltimore long either. I’m not planning on putting roots down until I know where I want to settle for good.”

I admired his confidence—a lot.

“How about you?” he said. “After Philadelphia, where do you want to go?”

Even though I knew I planned to go back to Oregon, I said, “I’m not sure.”

“How about med school? At Johns Hopkins.” His eyes were lively. “I could write you a recommendation.”

“Med school? Why would I—” my phone beeped and I glanced at the screen—“do that?” It was Marta. I had a client in labor.

“Because you would make a great OB doc.”

“How do you know?” I texted Marta back as I spoke, saying I was on my way.

“I can tell,” he said.

“Well, right now I have a baby to deliver. Sorry to eat and run.” I stood.

“See, working in a hospital would be easier. You’d be scheduled to work or you would be off—you wouldn’t be at the mercy of nature.”

“I’m rather fond of nature,” I joked, following him into the dining room. We were silent through the dining room and living room.

“Hey,” he said, retrieving my coat in the entryway and then holding
it for me to slip into. “Text me when you’re safely done, okay? Even if it’s the middle of the night. I’ll worry otherwise.”

Touched I reached for his hand and squeezed it. For a moment I wanted him to kiss me, but then I waffled and stepped back quickly. “Sorry to rush off.”

“Thanks for coming,” he said, opening the door. “Let’s try it again. I’ll fix a real meal. And perhaps you’ll be able to stay for the whole thing.” He smiled, but I could tell he was tired. I nodded and hurried to my car. The light rain had turned cold.

T
he labor turned out to be false, and I was back at Marta’s and in my little bed by two a.m., updating Sean with a quick text. The next morning Marta told me that the one appointment I had that day had been canceled, so I decided finally to go to Harrisburg to see what I could find as far as a copy of my birth certificate. It was a Friday and my best chance at making some more progress on that end.

I now had two weeks until I needed to report to work in Philadelphia. I was tempted to call and say I needed another month. That way I would leave Lancaster County at the same time Sean did. My mind started racing as I packed my computer and grabbed my purse.

Once I was in the car, I tapped in the address to the vital records department in Harrisburg in my GPS and was on my way, heading northwest and then zipping through the city of Lancaster and back out into farmland, up Highway 23 through Mount Joy and Elizabethtown, Middletown and Steelton. Finally, I was making my way through the outskirts of Harrisburg, a bustling city built along the Susquehanna River. The capitol grounds were well laid out, and as I circled around, looking for the Health and Welfare Building on Forster Street, I eyed the capitol dome, which looked like something out of Rome when it came into view. Eventually I found a parking
place, and in no time I was inside the vital records department on the first floor and stating why I was there to the receptionist.

“So it’s an adoption search,” she said, peering at me over her reading glasses. She looked as if she had only a minute or two left until she retired.

“A birth mother search,” I replied. I didn’t need to search to know I was adopted.

“We don’t handle the birth certificates in those cases,” she said. “They’re sealed.”

“I know.” I leaned against her desk. “But I know the name of my birth mother. I just want a copy of the original birth certificate.”

“You’ll have to go to the county where you were born for that,” she said. “Although they won’t give it to you either, most likely.”

“The county?” All the advice I’d read online had said to go the state vital records department in person. “What about the letter I sent, asking that I be notified if my birth mother tries to find information about me?”

“It’s filed here.” Her phone rang and she put up one finger. In no time she transferred the call.

“Is there a vital records department in Montgomery County?” I asked as she hung up.

“Go to the courthouse in Norristown. But, like I said, they’ll most likely tell you they can’t help you either.”

It was only a piece of paper, and a copy at that, but it meant so much to me. It meant I existed from the beginning. That there was a reason for my sadness and my grief. That I didn’t just start to live once I was slipped into Mama’s arms. It meant there was proof that the truth was being kept from me.

“Should I call first?” I asked.

She peered at me over the rim of her glasses again and then, quietly, said, “If you just show up, you might catch someone off guard. If you call, you’re going to give them time to think about it. Maybe someone who’s not in-the-know will help you.”

She told me it was about a hundred miles, so I figured it would take me an hour and a half, unless there was traffic.

She glanced around the lobby and then said, “My kids are adopted. Two boys. One had no desire to find his birth family, but the second one
did. I helped him search and search, but we never found a thing. Anyway,” she took off her glasses, “good luck.”

For a second I had the urge to share my story with her, but then the phone rang again. I mouthed a sincere “Thank you,” and turned toward the heavy glass doors.

In no time I was on the Turnpike and heading east, wondering why in the world Giselle had given birth to me in Montgomery County. Had she made arrangements with Mama and Dad already and decided to go closer to Philadelphia to have the baby, closer to where I would be given away soon after? Or, if Alexander was my birth father, perhaps
Mammi
wanted Giselle to be far away from Klara when it was time for me to be born. Maybe Klara didn’t even know Alexander
was
my father—although it was hard to imagine Klara not being in the know of anything. There was the fact that
Mammi
took me to the airport to relinquish me to Mama and Dad. She would have hired a driver. Maybe Giselle waited in the car while
Mammi
and I went on inside.

A semi whizzed past me and I realized I was going too slow, driving as if I were still in Lancaster County. I sped up. The morning grayness had burned off and the sun shone brightly. I drove past patches of forest, rolling hills, farms, and subdivisions. A tractor with an enclosed cab pulled a wide seeder through a plowed field. Next to it was an orchard. A melancholy feeling overtook me as I thought of my own orchard, and I wondered if maybe I should try to sell the house and keep the orchard, although I didn’t know how would I continue to manage it through the years, especially if I didn’t end up staying in Oregon.

Sean’s offer was tempting. I wasn’t too old to go to medical school, and with my work experience it wouldn’t be nearly as difficult as if I were starting from scratch. In the long run I’d certainly make more money, though I’d also have more student loans to pay off. But I could do obstetrical surgery instead of assisting. I could supervise physician’s assistants and nurse-midwives. I sighed. I had no idea what I should do.