The Hand that Rocks the Ladle (23 page)

Like a lamb led to the slaughter, I stood there and waited to die. It is true what they say: my life, pitiful as it was, flashed before my eyes. A childhood of taunts for being too tall, a critical, overbearing mama, a somewhat wimpy papa, a selfish sister, a bogus marriage to a man who I thought adored me, but who then betrayed me, and did I mention sex? And not just with the washing machine either, but with the aforementioned love of my life?

I suppose a more virtuous Magdalena would have felt regret for all the folks she’d wronged, for all the paths not taken, but alas, as I stood there, waiting to take that bullet to the back of my head, all I could think of was that what I had come to take for granted with the Maytag, I had missed out on experiencing with Aaron.

“Don’t move, or I’ll blow your head off,” Nurse Hemingway growled, in what I now clearly heard as a strong New Jersey accent. A second later she jammed a hypodermic needle through my clothing and into my derriere.

I have vague memories of staggering around, stepping into unfamiliar clothes, and climbing into a strange car. I think I may have sung a little. Hymns, I think. “Bringing in the Sheaves” comes to mind. So does “Ninety-nine Barrels of Beer on the Wall.” Go figure.

At any rate, at some point I fell into a deep sleep. When I awoke it was dark, my heart was pounding, and my mouth felt like the Sahara in a dust storm. My wrists were shackled in handcuffs, and I was seeing double. Through the ringing in my ears I could hear Nurse Hemingway’s jarring accent.

“Don’t worry. I already gave you the antidote. You’re going to live.”

I struggled to speak, but my tongue flopped about in my mouth like a freshly caught perch in the bottom of a rowboat.

“It’s tubocurarine chloride,” she said. “It’s used in surgery as a muscle relaxant. That pathetic hospital in Hernia didn’t have any—hell, they didn’t even have an operating room—but that didn’t stop me. I carry my own with me. In my line of work you never know when it will come in handy.”

The fish flopped about in the boat some more.

“What do I do? Ha! I thought you had that all figured out. I steal babies, that’s what I do.”

“Thyew
thwart”

“I babynap. Newborns only—that’s my specialty. There’s a big market for that. Especially white Anglo- Saxon babies, whose parents are unlikely to have had much exposure to drugs or AIDS. You Mennonites and Amish make perfect pickings.”

“Thyew do this by yourthelf?” The fish in my mouth had been replaced by a tongue, albeit one that was not very obedient.

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is a two-person operation. I move into a territory, scope it out, and then, if I find potential targets, I send for Doc. You might be surprised how many small towns are hurting for doctors. No questions asked. And if it’s an itty-bitty dump like the one you have in Hernia—geez, what an appropriate name, Doc has no trouble getting me on staff. Anyway, after we’ve skimmed what we can from the baby crop, we move on to the next burg.”

I was aware that we were indeed moving. It was dark outside the car, and still difficult for me to focus, but from the landscape that streaked by the windows and the occasional blurry sign, I determined that we were somewhere on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. “How do you thkim off babith?”

“That’s the hard part, and that’s where I earn my share. You have to have a real feel for that. Sort of a third sense. Unwed mothers are usually a good bet. And religious fanatics. You wouldn’t believe how many stool pigeons have given their babies to the Lord.”

“What? You mean the angel Levi Gindlesperger met at the Sausage Barn was really Dr. Bauer?” I don’t mean to sound prejudiced, but those folks at the First and Only True Church of the One and Only

Living God of the Tabernacle of Supreme Holiness and Healing and Keeper of the Consecrated Righteousness of the Eternal Flame of Jehovah needed help in visualizing their heavenly hosts. I thought Gabe the babe was an angel when I first met him, but he had pects, not a paunch.

Nurse Hemingway laughed wickedly. “How stupid can you get!”

“Apparently pretty stupid, dear, because you’re going to be spending a whole lot of time behind bars.” It was an effort to move my head, but I did. “And what’s more,” I said, looking at her double image, “you wouldn’t look good in stripes.”

“Shut up!”

Of course I didn’t. “But ten thousand dollars! You were going to give the Gindlespergers ten grand, right? Speaking purely as a businesswoman, that seems a bit generous. How did you expect to make a profit?”

“Ha! That just shows how little you know about this business. I can get as much as seventy-five for a healthy baby boy.”

“Seventy-five thousand?”

“That’s for the whole package. Fake birth certificate included. For girls it’s usually less. Fifty maybe, sixty tops if both parents have blue eyes and blond hair. For boys it’s the other way around. Dark hair brings in more. It’s that whole dark and handsome thing I guess.”

“That’s outrageous!”

“Tell me about it.”

“Girls should be worth as much as boys!”

All four of Nurse Hemingway’s shoulders shrugged.

“Hey, I don’t make the rules. It’s what the market can bear.”

I fumed for a few minutes. The steam coming from my ears clouded the car windows, but it did my eyes some good. Gradually the two Nurse Hemingways melded into one. Thank heavens there was less of that bleached blond hair to look at.

“But Freni’s grandbaby—Barbara and Jonathan’s baby—is it a boy?”

“A girl. But both parents have light hair, and the mother has blue eyes. Besides, we really had no choice. The juice I gave Mr. Hostetler to drink didn’t kick in until the third baby was born. He’d already seen the two boys. I’m telling you, that man is built like an ox.”

“You spiked his punch?”

“So to speak.”

“Because he wouldn’t sell his children?”

“We never asked him. As you can see, there was no need. Multiple birth situations where the fetuses are healthy and close to full term are fairly easy pickings. Especially when the parents are uneducated.”

I saw a sign for Breezewood, Pennsylvania. We were headed east, toward New Jersey.

“The Hostetlers may not be educated, dear, but they’re not stupid.”

“Whatever. But it was you who caught on, not them.”

“Apparently Dr. Pierce caught on as well.”

“He was kind of cute, don’t you think—if you like older men?”

“I couldn’t tell if he was cute or not, dear. Blood is unbecoming.”

“Maybe you won’t feel so sorry for him, if I tell you he was in on it from the beginning.”

“Dr. Pierce was your third partner?”

“Nah, he was too straight for that kind of thing. But he sold us his patients’ files. No questions asked, that was the deal.”

“Why would he do that?”

“It seems he had a cash flow problem. He was recently divorced, you see. Apparently she took him to the cleaners. He was about to lose that fancy-schmancy house. Drove him to drink. Anyway, the damn bastard had a conscience and—”

“Don’t you swear in front of me!”

“Ha! What are you going to do about it?”

I struggled stupidly against the cuffs. “Well, maybe I can’t do anything, but God can.”

“Ha, that’s a laugh.”

I gave her the evil eye on the Lord’s behalf. “I’d be careful, dear, if I were you. Back in seventh grade Mabel Bontrager took His name in vain and—ach!” I could see what should have been my reflection in the driver’s side window. But instead of my comely visage staring back at me, I beheld the horrified face of an Amish woman. An Amish woman with a long horse face and a nose that had its own zip code.

I stared at the apparition in the window.

The evil nurse chortled. “Oh, so you’re just now noticing? I’ve got you all done up to look like an Amish woman. Bet your friends wouldn’t recognize you now.”

My arms felt like rubber, but with a great deal of effort—during which Nurse Hemingway had a good laugh—I managed to pull down the passenger side mirror. Someone’s black travel bonnet had been clamped over my own white prayer cup. I looked down at my dress. Why hadn’t I noticed? I was wearing a dark blue dress with wrist-length sleeves, and over that a black pinafore. But where were my own clothes? And Little Freni?

I reared back, craned my neck, and peered into the neckline of the Amish dress. Fortunately the previous wearer had possessed a far fuller bust, and the neckline of the frock gaped. You can imagine my relief when I not only espied my own dress under the Amish garb, but the fuzzy head of my sleeping pussy.

“Whew!” I was stupid enough to say it aloud.

Nurse Hemingway laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m not into women. I didn’t undress you, if that’s what you’re thinking. Fortunately for you, Mrs. Hostetler is a bigger woman. And she was pregnant, of course. Her clothes slipped right over yours.”

I snapped the mirror flap closed. “I don’t know what your game is, toots, but it isn’t going to work.”

“Well, it’s working fine at the moment, and that’s all that counts. I lived in that hellhole Hernia long enough to learn a few things about the Amish.” She pronounced it Aye-mish, a fact that grated on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. “And one of the things—”

“Oh, is that a fact, because—”

She rudely cut me off midsentence. “I’ve learned that although Amish are forbidden to own and drive cars, they may ride in cars owned and operated by we lowly English. So, you see, Magdalena Portulaca Yoder, if anyone noticed us leaving town, they certainly didn’t see you sitting beside me. And when I’ve moved your meddling butt far enough so that you wouldn’t be recognized, even without any clothes, it’s curtain time.”

“Move me across the state line and it’s kidnapping,” I wailed, and then remembered my stolen niece. “Where’s the baby? Where’s Barbara and Jonathan’s little girl.”

“That’s for me to know, and for you to never find out.”

My heart dropped into my stomach and bounced several times. “She’s not—I mean, you didn’t—you couldn’t have!”

“There you go being ridiculous again. Like I said, she’s worth a cool sixty grand, and I’ve got a customer all lined up. No, that little sweetie is on her way right now to a pair of loving arms.”

“Just one pair? She had two pairs of loving arms right where she was. Dozens more, if you include extended family. You won’t get away with this, you know. Sooner or later you’re going to get caught, and then either you’ll fry like a flank steak, or you’ll end up in jail, for life, with a boyfriend named Jill. And seeing as how you’re so stupid, I say it’s going to be sooner rather than later.”

“Shut up.”

Breezewood zipped by in a streak of lights. The mountains pressed in again, the landscape now just shades of darkness. A few pinpricks of light marked the hamlet of Burnt Cabins, and then we plunged into total darkness.

“The Tuscarora Tunnel,” I said. “One of the longest in America.”

She said nothing.

“Say, what do you call five blondes standing in a row? You give up? A wind tunnel!”

“Shut up!” This time there were a few additional words that I can’t repeat, and the sound of the back of her hand striking my cheek. There was also the taste of blood in my mouth from where I bit my tongue. This time literally.

Yes, I can be foolish at times—sometimes even downright stupid, but I’m not completely untrainable. I swallowed my blood and kept my big mouth shut. Meanwhile, I prayed for deliverance.

Believe it or not, prayer calmed me, and I was half dozing when I felt us veer off the highway. I jerked awake. My heart, which had resumed its rightful place in my chest, was now pounding at a million beats per minute.

I can’t adequately describe my relief when I saw that we had pulled into a service area of the turnpike system. I know that my sigh was heard in Hernia— Gabe later confirmed it—and I may have lost some bladder control. But just a little. At any rate, that somewhat homely building with its neon signs advertising food and gas looked as good as anything the Pearly Gates might have to offer.

“Thank you, Jesus.”

“You can thank Him in person later,” Nurse Hemingway said with a cackle. “This is just a pit stop. For me, not you. Try anything—anything—and that baby ends up in a Hoboken Dumpster.”

I gasped. “You wouldn’t do that! She’s worth a lot of money to you. You said that yourself.”

“Just try me and see.” She ripped the key from the ignition, slammed the door behind her, and took off at a run.

“Well, when you gotta go, you gotta go,” I said to Little Ferni. Already I’d learned the biggest blessing any pet bestows on its owner: the right to talk with impunity when no one else is around. A conversation between myself and a mirror might be grounds for committal, but prattling to my pussy merely made me eccentric.

Please understand the dilemma I was in. I mean, there was nothing to stop me from getting out of the car and making a run for it, except my concern for a baby that I had never seen, and who may, or may not, have been alive at that moment. I honestly believe I would have remained in the car, awaiting my certain death, had not the most remarkable thing happened. Truly, it was a miracle.

Hardly a minute had passed since Nurse Hemingway’s bleached tresses disappeared into the service center, when I saw a couple exit from the building and head in my general direction. This, I knew, was no coincidence, but an out-and-out answer to my fervent prayers. The Good Lord has sent someone to save me! Perhaps they were angels—their faces were in silhouette, but already I could tell that they were more attractive than Dr. Bauer. And vaguely familiar. I leaned forward, peering intently through the windshield that was fast fogging up.

“What a beautiful night,” the female angel said, and I recognized her voice.

“Thank you, Lord!” This time I shouted. “Thank you for answering my prayers!”

Then, without waiting for a “you’re welcome,” I finagled the door open and lunged outside. Then I plunged, right to the pavement.

I have never been drunk, not even so-called tipsy, but I have had the flu upon occasion, and once I had a middle ear infection. Therefore I am familiar with the phenomenon of rubbery legs and no sense of balance, but nothing like this had ever happened. I literally kissed the ground. However, I managed to take the brunt of the fall on my right shoulder, and thus spared the life of my child. Little Freni barely stirred.