Hurrying back to Jamie"s apartment, she thrust the package into her friend"s hands. "There. You can find out now."
Jamie stared at the package as if it were a snake.
"Well, I thought you"d want to find out right away."
Lifting her eyes, Jamie shook her head. Her lips trembled. "I do. But I"m scared everything is going to change if-if-"
Mary Katherine hadn"t ever been faced with something like this. But she could see Jamie"s terror, could almost feel it. She"d never even thought of what might happen if she got pregnant outside of marriage because she"d been so determined to avoid dating until she figured out where she belonged.
But fear-she"d known fear, and she saw it now. So she did the only thing she could think of. She reached out and hugged her friend.
"Let"s just get it over with," she murmured. "The sooner, the better. Then we"ll talk about whatever you need to do."
Jamie"s breath hitched, and she nodded. "Okay." She backed up. "Thanks."
"The instructions say it"s really easy. That it"s hard to get the results confused."
"Really?" Jamie"s laugh was more an exhale of air than a sound of mirth. "Well, that"s good to know." She rubbed at her forehead. "It"s just been such a difficult semester. I took on too many cla.s.ses to get out sooner, then I had my hours cut back at work. My roommate moved out. I"m scared I won"t have my rent money this month. And I let myself get talked into-" she stopped and blushed.
Mary Katherine hugged her again. "Everything will work out."
"I don"t know how." She turned and walked toward the bathroom with slumped shoulders and closed the door behind her.
"I"ll pray for you," Mary Katherine whispered.
Mary Katherine took a seat on the sofa and did as she"d told Jamie she would do: she prayed for peace, and for guidance, for her friend.
She realized at that moment that she had turned to G.o.d for the first time in a long, long time. She"d asked Him for peace, for guidance-things she hadn"t asked Him for herself. And she"d asked, believing that He was listening to her when she hadn"t felt that way for months and months.
The next day, Jacob sat in his kitchen, brooding over a cup of coffee while he waited for the oven timer to go off.
He couldn"t forget Mary Katherine"s question from the night before: "I wonder what Daniel"s bishop in Florida is like?"
Why had the bishop picked now to visit the shop and make his comments to Leah? Mary Katherine had been so upset. Jacob didn"t see anything wrong with what they created and sold at the shop, and he didn"t think anyone else in their Plain community would.
And it didn"t make sense that if the bishop wanted Mary Katherine to join the church, he would be critical of her. Then again, he was an authority figure who didn"t go around trying to be liked. Instead, he was looked on as being someone who saw to it that the Ordnung, the unwritten rules, were strictly obeyed.
Mary Katherine had been so upset with the bishop she told Jacob she had left the shop for a walk to cool off.
He could only wonder if she"d view what had happened with the bishop as just another reason she shouldn"t stay in the Plain community. The timer dinged, and he rose to pull the baking pan from the oven. Setting it on top of the stove, he used a toothpick to check to see if it was done. Satisfied that there was no uncooked batter on the toothpick, he turned off the oven.
The pan was still warm when he knocked at his sister Rebecca"s door a little while later.
He heard yelling through the door, and then it was opened by one of his nephews.
"Mamm! It"s Onkel Jacob!" he yelled.
She held her hands over her ears and winced. "Danki, liebschen. Next time please use your inside voice. Now go back to your homework."
Jacob watched him drag his feet back to the kitchen. He remembered the days of homework and winced. Then he realized that his sister was standing there rubbing at the small of her back, an expression of pain on her face. He stepped inside and closed the door.
"I brought you a peace offering." He held out the coffee cake.
She took it from him and sniffed at it. "Smells good. You made it?"
"Ya. Here, let me carry it into the kitchen and you sit down. You look exhausted."
"Well, if you go around saying things like that, it"s no wonder you"re not married," she told him with a trace of tartness.
"I"m sorry, but-"
She held up her hand. "Never mind. You try being pregnant for nine months and see how good you look."
He felt himself pale. "That"s not funny."
Yawning, she leaned against the chair of her oldest and watched her do her sums. "What I wouldn"t do for a nap."
He looked around the table. His nieces and nephews were busily working on their homework. Such quiet, well-behaved children, he couldn"t help thinking. Even the youngest, a four-year-old boy who was the spitting image of his mother, was quietly coloring a blue squirrel within the outlines of a coloring book.
"Tell you what," he said, placing the coffee cake on the kitchen counter. "How about I watch the kinner so you can lie down?"
She walked over to him and thrust her face uncomfortably close to his. "Jacob, don"t be joking about something like that with an overdue pregnant woman."
Jacob backed up. "I wouldn"t joke about that. I meant it."
"You have the time to babysit my five little monsters? Well, four. One of them went to town with his dat."
"Four, five," Jacob said, shrugging. "Doesn"t matter. I"ll watch them." He frowned when he saw her trying to suppress a smile. "What?"
"You"d be surprised," she told him dryly. "But I"m going to take you up on your offer. You won"t think it"s so easy after you do it."
Now she was making him uneasy. "I never said it would be easy. I learned never to say that anything you or any other woman does is easy."
"So, is the coffee cake safe to eat?" she asked, breaking off a piece and trying it.
"Well, that"s pretty good."
She pulled a roll of aluminum foil from a kitchen drawer and covered the top of the pan with it. "This is dessert. No one gets it until after supper."
"We can"t have some now?" Mary asked. She gave Jacob a winsome smile. "It"s hours and hours until supper."
"And we"re starving," her six-year-old brother added.
"You had cookies and milk and fruit when you came home from schul," his mother reminded them.
"Hours ago," John said with a nod.
"Ignore them," Rebecca told Jacob. "They"re little eating machines."
"Kinner get hungry," he said, shrugging. "I remember those days."
"You still eat like them." She waved a hand at the oven. "Supper will be ready in an hour." She sighed. "Nap. I can"t remember what a nap feels like."
Jacob kissed her cheek and then gently pushed her toward the stairs. "It means sleep. Now go. No worrying about anything."
"You"ve never taken care of them. You"ve never taken care of a single kind."
"No playing with scissors," he whispered in her ear. "No running screaming around the house. No fighting. And definitely no more snacks, especially coffee cake."
"How bad can it go?" he heard her say as she left the room. "I"ll be right upstairs if you need me," she called over her shoulder to him.
"We won"t need you," he said. "Right?" he asked his nieces and nephews.
"Right!" they chorused.
"It"s babyish to take a nap," John said once she left the room. "I haven"t taken a nap in years."
Probably why she needs one, Jacob couldn"t help thinking. While they were behaving now-were, in fact good kinner- he wasn"t so naive that he thought they were angels.
But it was just an hour. What could go wrong in an hour? And maybe this was a way to see how he"d be as a father. It was a logical step after thinking of Mary Katherine as his choice of fraa, his wife, after all. He was going to find a way to convince her that she belonged here.
That she belonged with him.
10.
Shh!" Jacob hissed at his nieces and nephews. "We have to be quiet so your mamm can get some rest."
Everyone quieted down again. For about five minutes.
He was exhausted. Homework had been done twenty minutes ago, and after the kinner finished, they had run around the house like little wild things while he raced after them trying to stop them. Then there had been the begging for snacks, which he"d had to turn down. A contest to see who could do the most jumping jacks was next. And on it went.
He got them quiet, sank into a chair, exhausted, and heard the telltale creak on the stairs that told him Rebecca was coming down.
"Now you"ve done it," he muttered and looked up to see his sister shaking her head at him. "Sorry."
"For what? I slept like a log." She bent down to kiss his cheek. Then she turned to her children. "No thanks to you monsters. I can see by the way your onkel looks so tired that you ran him ragged."
They had the grace to look penitent. "Sorry, Onkel Jacob," they said as one.
The youngest tugged at his hand. "Sowwy," she said, looking up at him with big blue eyes.
Jacob reached down to pick her up. "I forgive you."
She grinned and kissed his cheek.
There was a faint noise that sounded like water being spilled. Jacob pulled his gaze away from his youngest niece and couldn"t believe what he was seeing.
"Mamm! You"re going potty!" one of the kinner cried.
Rebecca sighed as she stared at the puddle at her feet. "I just mopped this floor yesterday." She looked up at Jacob. "My water broke."
Jacob stood and set Lizzie down. "You"re having the baby. Rebecca, you"re having the baby."
She laughed and patted his cheek. "It"s okay. Yes, I know, I"m having the baby. But don"t look so scared. It"s not going to plop out onto the floor any second."
"I don"t know anything about having a baby."
"Maybe you better sit down before you fall down," she suggested, laughing.
He sat.
"Mary, go get the mop. Luke, run down the street and get your grossmudder."
Jacob watched his sister take charge and became ashamed of his behavior. He took her by the shoulders and eased her into the chair he"d been sitting in. "Should we call 911?"
"Why?"
"To take you to the hospital."
She waved her hand at him and tried to rise from the chair, but he kept his hands on her shoulders, preventing her from standing. "No, silly. I have my boppli at home, remember?"
"But-"
"When Mamm gets here, I"ll have her call the midwife. And don"t worry, she"ll stay in the room with me, so you don"t have to worry about helping deliver a boppli."
He crouched down and held her hands. "Are you okay?"
Shrugging, she nodded. "I wondered a couple of times today if I was having back labor. Figured I"d find out soon enough if it wasn"t. Now, don"t worry. I have very easy deliveries."
The oven timer buzzed. Jacob turned it off and used potholders to get the roast out and place it on top of the stove. He inhaled the delicious aroma and turned back to Rebecca, frowning as he watched her rub her swollen abdomen.
"Should I make you something to eat?" he asked her, feeling clueless.
She shook her head. "Can"t eat now that I"m in labor."
The front door opened. "Mamm? Grossmudder isn"t home."
Rebecca waved a hand at the refrigerator. "Jacob, the midwife"s number is there under the magnet. She needs to be called."
"Schur. First, let"s get you up to bed." He held out his hand and helped her to her feet.
"The kinner need supper," she protested.