The Hand That Rocks the Ladle Read online

  He was also well tanned, although dark eyebrows and dark roots betrayed the pale blond hair on his head. He too wore jewelry, most notably an earring. Alas, it wasn’t a simple gold hoop, which I wouldn’t have found too objectionable, but a pearl that dangled from a little platinum chain. Oh, well, kids these days.

  From what I hear, it’s the rare parent who can exercise control.

  “You didn’t say you were bringing your son with you,” I said through gritted teeth. I had two more guest rooms available, but hadn’t bothered to make them up.

  “He isn’t my son,” she said through capped, but gritted teeth.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Your grandson?”

  “My husband.”

  I stared at the boy. He couldn’t have been a day over eighteen. And she—add ten years for sun exposure, take off ten for plastic surgery—she had to be my age.

  “You’re putting me on!”

  “I most certainly am not. It says so right there on that form you just made us fill out.”

  I stared at the form. The boy was just barely twenty, and she was nine days older than I! I had to prop myself against the counter for support.

  “But you didn’t say you were married when you called and made reservations,” I wailed. “In fact, you said you were a widow.”

  Vivian looked at my ring finger, and then smiled like the cat who had licked the clotted cream dish. “I am—was a widow. And I didn’t say anything about Sandy because I didn’t know him then.”

  “But that was less than a month ago!”

  “I guess I’m just a lucky woman. I mean, what else can I say?”

  Fortunately, Freni came running into the room, her stubby arms flailing like the blades of a broken windmill. “Help! Help!”

  “Freni, what is it? You see your reflection in aluminum foil again?”

  “Ach, no! It’s Mose!”

  My heart did a flip-flop. “He wasn’t up on the barn roof again, was he?”

  “Ach no, it’s much more serious than that. His water broke.”

  Three

  “You mean he peed in his pants, don’t you?” I avoided looking at the rich woman and her child groom.

  “Yah, but you know what that means, Magdalena?”

  “It means you need to take him home and get his clothes changed.”

  “Ach, so dense! It means that my Barbara has gone into labor.”

  “Your daughter-in-law,” I said for the benefit of our audience, “lives on your farm which is more than a mile away. You don’t have a phone, and anyway, my phone didn’t ring. How do you know Barbara’s in labor? What did she do, send up smoke signals?”

  Freni rolled her eyes. “A mother knows these things.”

  My cheeks burned. I am not a mother, nor will I ever be. I had a sham marriage to a bigamist that lasted exactly one month, and although he created enough opportunities to populate a small third world nation, I did not conceive. Of course, I know now that it was the Good Lord’s doing, and that Aaron Miller was the devil incarnate and utterly unfit to be a father. But let’s face it, even if I were to marry tomorrow, I doubt I would ever hear the pitter-patter of tiny human feet. The minute hand on my biological clock has stopped ticking. As for adoption, the agency I approached told me in no uncertain terms that there had to be “at least one stable adult in the household.”

  At any rate, don’t believe for a minute that Freni had me stumped. I still would have thought of some pithy rejoinder had not her son Jonathan Hostetler come flapping through the front door, a giant version of his mother.

  “Ach!” he squawked. “Come quick! My Barbara is broken and her water is having triplets!”

  Freni gave me an “I told you so” look. “You will drive us to the hospital, yah?”

  “Yah, yah,” I said irritably. “Where is the mother to be?”

  Jonathan’s eyes were wild. “Outside in my buggy. Come, we have no time to talk.”

  Vivian the vamp and her sex slave Sandy had been watching the proceedings mutely. Thank the Good Lord for that. But all the commotion had attracted that delightful Mennonite couple, Donald and Gloria Rediger.

  “Miss Yoder,” Gloria said kindly, “is there anything we can do?”

  “Yes! Call the hospital and tell them we’re coming. Then call Dr. Pierce’s office—his practice is in Bedford. The numbers are posted by the kitchen phone.”

  “Anything else?”

  I slapped my forehead with the palm of my right hand. “There’s a wet Amish man in the barn. Get him some dry clothes and bring him to the hospital. It’s just south of town. You take Hertzler Road to Main Street and—oh, never mind, he knows the way.”

  “We’ll take care of him,” Donald said, and not even knowing which direction the barn was, they rushed off to help.

  “Here is your room key!” I slapped a six-inch piece of wood with an attached key into Vivian’s manicured hand. “That’s a new bed in Room Five. You break it, you buy it.”

  I turned my attention to my kinsfolk. “I’ll move my car around to the front. Freni, get a plastic tablecloth to spread in the backseat. Jonathan, unhitch your horse and get ready to transfer Barbara.” And then, just for fun, I hollered up my impossibly steep stairs. “Somebody boil water!”

  Thank heavens Hernia finally has its own hospital. A town our size would never be able to support one if it wasn’t for the hundreds of Amish and Mennonite families who prefer to avoid the streets of Babylon— I mean Bedford. Granted, ours is a very small facility, more suited to emergency care than anything else, but it is handy. Fortunately, I had yet to use it, but I had heard only good things about it.

  We arrived at the hospital in the nick of time. Just a few minutes later and baby number one would have been born in the backseat of my BMW, and not on the gurney. As it was, I was going to have to get my car detailed at the earliest possible opportunity.

  At any rate, a young orderly named Gordon helped Jonathan and me transfer Barbara to the gurney, and then we took off running for the front door. Just as we passed the admissions counter a giant hand reached down and grabbed me by the collar of my navy blue dress. For one panicky second I thought God was calling me up yonder. I am ready, by the way, so don’t get me wrong; it’s just that my underwear had holes in them.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Although the voice was female, I knew it wasn’t God because of the Pittsburgh accent.

  I turned my head the best I could. “Nurse Dudley?”

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  In the meantime, Jonathan and Freni had disappeared along with the gurney through a set of swinging double doors.

  “Unhand me at once!”

  The bruiser practically threw me across the small waiting room. “Get out of my hospital, Magdalena Yoder.”

  I gasped. “This is not your hospital! You work at Bedford Community Hospital along with the evil Dr. Luther.”

  Nurse Dudley, a behemoth of a woman with a neck as big around as a dinner plate, smiled. “This is my hospital now. I’m the R.N. supervisor.”

  I must have blanched. I certainly felt weak in the knees.

  “What’s the matter, Magdalena? Don’t you read the papers?”

  No doubt by now you’ve assumed that Nurse Dudley and I have had our run-ins before. If that’s the case, you are absolutely right. The woman is—how can I put this the most Christian way possible? The woman is a cretin. She has the IQ of concrete and the personality of a cobra.

  “Of course I read the papers!” I cried. I do. I read Ann Landers, the comics page, and if I have time, the editorial page.

  “Then you’d know that not only am I the head nurse, but the evil Dr. Luther—as you put it—is the chief of staff.”

  My head spun. The only thing that kept me from fainting was my fear that the diabolical duo would do something horrible to me while I was out. Like amputate my larynx.

  “Well, the two of you might have somehow wormed your way past the board of directors and hospital administrator, but y
ou don’t own the place.”

  The battle-ax took a step closer. Her neck was now the size of a washtub.

  “That might be, Yoder, but none of them are here right now. I, however, am.”

  “You lay a hand on me again and I’ll sue!” I wailed. “I know both Johnny Cochran and Marcia Clark.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “But I do! They’ve stayed at my inn. I even know Kenneth Starr!”

  That seemed to make an impression on her, because she took two steps back. I dodged around her, but the second I reached the set of swinging doors, they swung open and I ran smack into Freni. Fortunately for both of us she is well padded.

  “Ach!”

  “Sorry! What are you doing coming back out? Where’s Jonathan? Where’s Barbara?”

  “They went into the delivery room.” Her chin quivered. “They won’t let me in!”

  “Then come, sit with me.” I dragged her back into the waiting room, and under the dour gaze of Nurse Dudley, held her hand while we waited. And waited, and waited. And while we waited, I worried. The Redigers had yet to show up with Mose. What if they’d taken a wrong turn and were headed south toward Maryland? I’d been weaned on tales of folks who’d crossed that line, never to return.

  Finally, I could stand the wait no longer. I hoofed it over to the admissions desk.

  “I need to use the phone.”

  “It’s for staff use only.”

  “Then where’s the public phone?”

  Nurse Dudley smiled sadistically. “It’s outside, but I’m afraid it’s out of order.”

  “Then can you at least tell me what’s happening in the delivery room?”

  “No can do.”

  I pointed to Freni. “But that’s her son and daughter-in-law in there! Those are her grandbabies! What am I supposed to tell her?”

  “Tell her to keep waiting. This is, after all, a waiting room.”

  “Well, we’ll just see about that!” I strode back to Freni, grabbed one of her tiny hands, and pulled her through the swinging doors.

  Alas, we had barely set foot in the hallway when a second set of double doors swung open and there, coming straight at me, was Dr. Luther. I gasped. He growled.

  “You!” he said, wagging a finger at me in a presidential manner. “What are you doing back here?”

  I stood my ground. Under normal circumstances—say, if I’d met the man at church—I would think him a very handsome man. My sister Susannah says he looks like Clark Kent. I do not watch television, but I will say this: there have been a couple of times when I’ve dreamed of Luther and woken up feeling very guilty. But don’t get me wrong. He’s a mean and spiteful man. Malicious even. He once had me thrown out of Bedford Community Hospital.

  “Where are the Hostetlers?” I demanded.

  “That’s none of your business, Yoder.” He pronounced my name to rhyme with otter, which is not how one should pronounce it.

  “But it’s her business!” I pointed at Freni who was ringing her stubby hands. “Those are her grandbabies being born.”

  The evil man glowered at me over horn-rimmed glasses. “Get out of my hospital before I call the police!”

  “Call. See if I care. For your information, buster, the chief of police here is my brother-in-law.”

  Alas, those words are true. Melvin Stoltzfus is married to my sister, Susannah. The man—and I say this in all kindness—is a twit. He once sent his favorite aunt a carton of ice cream in the mail.

  Dr. Luther had the audacity to laugh. “Yes, I know he’s your brother-in-law. And from what I hear, the two of you can’t stand each other.”

  “Yes, well, Melvin’s mother, Elvina, is Freni’s best friend.”

  “Is that so? Well, in that case, I’ll make an exception for you, Mrs. Hostetler. In fact, I’ll personally escort you back to the delivery room.” He glowered at me again. “You, however—out!”

  Benedict Freni beamed.

  I, of course, was properly outraged. “Why I never! If Dr. Gabriel Rosen were in charge…”

  Freni pinched my elbow. “Shush, Magdalena. He doesn’t want to hear about your new boyfriend, and I want to see my babies.”

  “Your grandbabies, dear,” I reminded her. “They’re Barbara’s babies.”

  “What did you say?” Dr. Luther demanded.

  “I said, they’re not her babies. As far as Freni is concerned, Barbara is just a handy conveyance for Little Freni and her siblings.”

  “Ach!”

  “No, Yoder, before that. What did you say about Dr. Gabriel Rosen?”

  “I said that.” Freni would wave for attention in a police lineup.

  “Yes?”

  My plump, elderly kinswoman not only smiled coyly at the evil physician, she went so far as to link her arm through his. “I said you didn’t want to hear about her new boyfriend. So now we go back and see my babies, yah?”

  Dr. Luther shook Freni’s arm loose like a flake of dry snow. “This wouldn’t happen to be the Dr. Gabriel Rosen, the famous heart surgeon, would it? I mean, I’d heard rumors that he had retired and moved to somewhere in this part of the state. I just thought they were too good to be true.”

  “Heart-shmart,” Freni humphed. “If God would have wanted us to transplant hearts he would have put zippers in our chests.”

  “You don’t even believe in zippers,” I hissed. “And yes, Doc, he’s the one. Like I was about to say, if he were in charge of this rinky-dink hospital, we’d be back there right now watching my little namesake being born.”

  “Ach!”

  Dr. Luther actually smiled at me. It was the first, and hopefully last time. Some folks really do look better grim.

  “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to make an introduction would you, Miss Yoder?” His pronunciation of my name had now changed. “You see, it is my dream to someday add a cardiac care unit here. Maybe—just maybe, he would be willing to consult with us.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but not likely, considering the way you’ve treated me over the years.”

  Dr. Luther turned the color of Freni’s pickled beets. “You have my deepest apology, Miss Yoder. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You were thinking that I was a meddlesome nobody.”

  His color turned even deeper. “I would like to make that up to you. Come”—he actually grabbed my arm—“we’ll put you in scrubs and you can watch your little namesake come into this world.”

  “Ach!” Freni had latched on to me with a hand that only death could open. “Where she goes, I go, and the first little girl to be born will be named Freni, not Magdalena.”

  The swinging doors flew open and in stumbled seventy-three-year-old Mose. Hot on his heels was the diabolical Dudley.

  “He wouldn’t stay in a wheelchair,” she barked.

  “Ach, I’m not sick! I’m having babies.”

  I rolled my eyes in embarrassment. I was, however, immensely relieved.

  The loathsome Luther loosened his grip on my arm. “What did you say?”

  Nurse Dudley laughed like a hyena on steroids. “He thinks he’s pregnant.”

  Mose clutched his abdomen and groaned.

  Dr. Luther nodded. “I get it now. You,” he said to Mose, “are my present from the staff of Bedford Community Hospital. Right? Their sick idea of a practical joke. What insensitive, politically incorrect name do you call yourself? A rental mental?”

  Freni flapped her arms in alarm. “Ach, he’s just my husband.”

  “It’s a sympathetic pregnancy,” I explained. “Although I must admit, he’s taking it too far. Labor pains, indeed.”

  “But it’s true!” Freni wailed. “I felt the babies kick.”

  Nurse Dudley pointed to her own head, and with a finger almost as thick as my wrists made a circular motion. “She’s just as crazy as he is.”

  “Maybe he’s really sick,” I snapped. “Maybe he has appendicitis.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous—”

  Dr. Luther
had put up a quieting hand. “Where exactly does it hurt, Mr. Hostetler?”

  Mose pointed to the lower right quarter of his abdomen. “Here,” he moaned.

  The doctor leaned forward, and using the first two fingers of his right hand, gently palpated Mose’s belly. “Hmm,” he said at last, “there might be something to this appendix theory.”

  Nurse Dudley glared at me. “Just you wait,” she whispered.

  Dr. Luther straightened. “Nurse, get this man into an examining room.”

  The battle-ax didn’t budge. “You’re not falling for their little trick, are you?”

  “Nurse!” Dr. Luther’s stock soared in my eyes.

  “But—”

  “Mama! Papa!”

  Five heads swiveled to look down the hall to the second set of swinging doors. Jonathan Hostetler, still dressed in scrubs, was lurching toward us, a lopsided grin on his face.

  Freni paled. “Ach! My babies! Are they all right?” Jonathan lurched close enough to give his mother a hug, but like me, he was genetically incapable of unnecessary human contact. He looked radiant nonetheless.

  “Little Jonathan and Little Mose are doing fine.”

  “And?” Freni coaxed.

  “And Barbara too.”

  “Ach, that’s not who I mean! How is Little Freni?” Jonathan shook his head. “Sorry, Mama, but there is no Little Freni.”

  Freni gasped, momentarily depleting the hallway of oxygen. “What”—she struggled to say—“what do you mean there is no Little Freni.”

  “He means,” I said gently, “that the third child is a boy.”

  Tears filled Jonathan’s blue eyes, and his lower lip quivered. “No! There is no third child.”

  Four

  I smiled reassuringly at Freni. “Don’t tease your mama like that, Jonathan. Of course, there is a third baby. I drove Barbara into Bedford for all her checkups.”

  Jonathan blinked. “Yah, but still, there are only two babies.”

  Freni was as white as her homemade cottage cheese. “Are you sure?” she asked, lapsing into her native Pennsylvania Dutch.

  “Yah, very sure.”

  I whirled to face Nurse Dudley. “Get Dr. Pierce!” Nurse Dudley recoiled in shock.