Read Online The Amish Midwife by Mindy Starns Clark, Leslie Gould - Free Book Online Page A

Amish?
    “No.”
    “But she’s related to you?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay, I think I’ve got it,” he said, smiling. Then he turned serious and added, “Are you really ready to find your birth family?” He’d broached the subject in the last couple of weeks, but I had evaded discussing it.
    “You’re the one who’s wanted me to deal with my abandonment and attachment issues for the last year,” I said.
    “But that’s different than looking for your birth family.”
    “I just thought, you know, since Dad’s passed on that it was a good time to look. I won’t be hurting anyone’s feelings.”
    “You were worried about that?”
    “Or stirring up trouble.”
    “Trouble for whom?”
    “It’s not like I want a relationship with anyone, James. I just want to know…” my voice trailed off.
    “Know what?”
    I shrugged.
    “What if it’s not what you expected?”
    “Well, I don’t really expect anything in particular,” I lied. “So I think I’m good.”
    He folded his hands on the table. “Wow.”
    We stared at each other for a moment.
    Then he said, “What does this mean for us?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Do you want to take a break while you’re gone?”
    I slumped against the bench seat. “Actually…” I’d been mulling this over and over. “I do. But just while I’m gone.”
    He drew in a deep breath. He let it out slowly and then said, “Is this a break as in ‘so you can see other people’?”
    I wanted to laugh. Who would I want to see? “No,” I answered quickly. “Just a break so I can focus, think about my birth family, think about finding the information I deserve to know. I need to devote all of my energies to that, not to us.” He looked at me intently, as if to say he hadn’t realized that our relationship was such hard work. We both knew it wasn’t. I dropped my gaze, adding, “But we can still talk. And text. Right? Occasionally?”
    “Sure.” His voice was chilly.
    My heart constricted. He was my best friend. What was I doing? I took my camera from my bag and snapped a picture of him, trying to lighten the moment.
    “Stop.” He hated it when I did that. “You won’t be able to use that with the Amish.”
    “Says who?” I put the camera on the table.
    “The Amish.”
    “What? Besides dressing as though it’s two centuries ago, they don’t believe in cameras?” I was especially sensitive to the dressing issue, even though my experience had been closer to dressing as if it were the 1930s. Still, I knew how humiliating it could be.
    “I’ve been reading up on Pennsylvania.” James stood and put our garbage on the tray. “Apparently, they put photos in the category of graven images.”
    “Oh.” Exodus. The Ten Commandments.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
. Thank goodness I’d only be in Amish country for a week or two. What would I do without my camera?
    Darkness had fallen as we left the restaurant. “What do you hope to find?” he asked, stepping around me so he was walking closest to the street. Dad used to always do the same thing. I was pretty sure James learned it from Dad.
    “Didn’t you already ask me that?”
    “You didn’t answer.”
    “My story,” I said. “The truth.”
    James whistled. “That’s a pretty tall order.”
    He didn’t come up to my apartment. As always, he would only do so if there was someone else with us. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t as chaste in high school.
    I leaned in for a hug, but instead of embracing me, he grabbed my upper arms, pulled me toward him, and kissed me fiercely on the mouth. When the kiss was over, he straightened his arms, released his grip, and took a step back without a word. My face burning with heat, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure he could hear it, I whispered my goodbye. Then I turned and unlocked the door of the building, stepped inside, and pulled it closed behind me. Climbing up the stairs, touching my lips as I went, I wondered what, exactly, I thought I was