“It might be a day or so before I’m ready to tackle the stairs.” She gave him a small smile. It was strange how two people could share such an intimate time and still be strangers, unaccustomed to the other.
He placed the tray next to her on the bed and pulled up the same chair he had used the night before. Then he took his plate, balancing it on his lap. Tillie bowed her head and wondered for a moment if he had any intention of praying before he ate. But she would never know. Once she prayed, he followed suit.
What did you expect?
He had lost so much. Was it a wonder that his faith was shaken? Perhaps even gone for a time? She hadn’t been through near that much, and her faith warbled like a broken buggy wheel.
“It’s good,” she said. And it was perhaps the best meal she had ever eaten.
“You’re just being kind,” he said. “But danki.”
“Thank you for the things for the baby.”
“You already thanked me for that.” He took a sip of his coffee.
“Then I’m thanking you again.” She gave him a smile.
He smiled in return but the action looked as if he hadn’t smiled in a long, long while. Or maybe she was just making stuff up.
“You have a name for her?” He nodded to the baby who lay close to her side.
“I don’t know.”
“You seemed pretty confident before she was born that she was a girl.” He shook his head. “Did you have one of those fancy English pictures done?”
“Early on. But too early to know the gender.” She wasn’t sure she would’ve wanted to find out anyway. She had the rest of her life to know what the baby was, a boy or girl. But only nine months to wonder and dream.
“So you didn’t pick out names?”
It wasn’t uncommon or even unheard-of in communities such as theirs that a woman didn’t pick out names for the baby until the baby came. Picking out names, buying too many items, making too many plans for a child that wasn’t born yet was somehow arrogant, and no one wanted to feel arrogant when it came to such a special matter.
“I was thinking about Michelle,” she said. “But she doesn’t look like a Michelle to me.” And it didn’t seem right to name a baby who was born so close to Christmas something like Michelle.
It was a great name. But just not Christmassy sounding.
The baby needed a Christmassy sounding name. Tillie wasn’t sure why. She just did.
And they shall call him Emmanuel.
“Emmanuela.” She said the name without thinking.
“Emmanuela?” From the sound of his tone she couldn’t tell if he thought the name was a good one or not.
Like it matters.
It wasn’t his baby. But somehow she wanted him to like the name she gave the baby. Because he helped bring the child into the world? Maybe. Or maybe just because she didn’t know what she would’ve done without him there. And she would’ve been alone had she managed to stay in the barn all night. It was a thought that didn’t bear thinking.
“Emmy?” she said. Emmanuela did seem like an awfully big name for such a tiny little baby, but Emmy seemed to fit just right.
Levi smiled. It was the same rusty one from a few moments before, but it seemed to be getting a little easier on his face. “Emmy,” he repeated. “I like it.”
The three words shouldn’t have filled her heart with such warmth and joy, but they did. And she wasn’t taking time now to examine why. “Emmanuela Dawn,” she said, trying out the middle name she had been contemplating. The baby had been born in the dead of night, but Dawn had a nice ring to it. There had been a woman she had worked with at the day care center named Dawn. She had been so nice to Tillie, always. Perhaps the nicest person she had met in her time in the English world. And Tillie liked the idea of naming the baby after her. Not that she would ever tell her mother that. Or her sisters, even.
The thought brought a smile to her lips.
“What’s so funny?” Levi had finished his food and started to restack the dishes on the tray.
Tillie shook her head, but she was still smiling. “Just thinking about my sisters.”
Levi stood and gazed down at little Emmy. “Thinking about what they’re going to think about her?” he asked.
“Jah,” she lied. But it was okay. She had been thinking about what her family was going to think about the baby girl she just had. Along with some other things that she would rather not think about just yet. Like how someone could consider such a beautiful child a mistake, or a sin, even. It was something she couldn’t fathom.
Because it goes against your own desires.
Because she wanted to raise her baby in the chaste confines of the Amish church. But if Melvin decided not to come back to the church, then what other choice did she have but to go back to him? She knew the rules. She had known when she broke them. She just never thought it would turn out quite like this.
Levi picked up the tray and started toward the door. “I’ll let you get some rest.”
She hadn’t realized until he said the words how very, very tired she was. She supposed it was to be expected. The rush she had experienced when she woke up and knew she was in labor had long since passed. She was fine, the baby was fine, they both had food in their bellies and warm clothes. They had a nice bed and a generous, gentle man who she supposed had been called by God to help them. It would be nothing now to lie back on the pillows and get some rest. Much-needed rest.
Levi closed
