The loud bang from the clapping shut of a screen door echoed across the yard and bounced off the barn snapping Ava out of her daydream. She’d ventured way back again. Back to the night she and Chris first met and to the first rash decision she’d made about him. Ava had completely forgotten about the kitten she still held in her hands. Seduced by the heat from her hands the kitten lay curled up in a ball sound asleep. Gazing down at it Ava marveled at the complete trust it embodied. If I had been capable of trusting,thought Ava, Chris would still be alive today.

Ava felt the familiar heaviness inside. She had to get out of here and back to the motel. She needed to get down to business today so she could head back to the city. Carefully rising to her knees Ava gently tucked the kitten next to her two litter mates who slept cuddled together in a nest of hay.

“A-a-va-a-a-a-a.” Anne Pine called. Catching sight of Ava at the open door of the haymow Anne Pine bellowed, “Baby arrived, come on down and meet him.”

Ava bristled. She felt achy and tired and badly in need of a hot shower. But she sensed in Anne Pine’s voice a combination of pride and a need to share. After all she’d just safely delivered a baby into the world. How many people could do that! “I’ll be right down.” Ava called down.

Ava stepped onto the ladder to descend but stopped to take one last long look around the haymaw. Closing her eyes she memorized the feel and smell of it. Tomorrow would find her back in the city with all its buildings, people and congestion. Once she left this barn, the only place she would ever be able to find a place such as this would be deep inside her own mind.

“You got hay sticking to you,” crowed Anne Pine. “I bet the girls showed you a new batch of kittens, right?  Ava nodded as she brushed bits of hay and dried clover off her black running suit. And then she remembered how the two little girls had stared at her. “You know Anne, maybe we should skip anymore introductions for now. I’m really not dressed properly.”

Shrugging Anne Pine turned and headed for the house. “Don’t worry about it. Look at me. I’ve never been dressed right for anything in my whole life!” said Anne letting out a giant burst of laughter.

Anne Pine who stood almost six feet tall was dressed in bib overalls and a pale pink checked blouse with the sleeves rolled back to her elbows. On her feet a well broken in pair of Boston Birkenstocks. It was obvious that comfort prevailed over style in Anne’s world.

Ava noticed Anne Pine’s long braid that had been hanging down her back to her waist was now wound around her head like a length of thick rope. Anne Pine always pinned it up out of the way when delivering a baby. And she would keep it like this for the rest of the day. Over the years people had grown to count on this hairdo of Anne’s to let them know when a new baby had arrived. It never failed to bring a smile to folks lips as they asked how mother and baby were doing. Anne Pine secretly thought of it as her “Happy Hair”!

For the second time this morning Ava stood in the middle of an Amish farmhouse. Like Gideon’s there was a serenity in the simpleness of it’s décor. Everything felt clean and whole and settled. Not possessed by a frenetic energy like in the city.The house smelled of the fresh cut hay drying in the sun in a nearby field. Lydia and her two young girls busied themselves in the kitchen. All three were beaming and smiled brightly as Anne and Ava quietly slipped passed the kitchen doorway.

Anne Pine quietly knocked at the bedroom. “Jah, you’re welcome to come in,” said Katie Miller.

Mother and child lay in a beautiful handmade oak bed draped with a spectacular Amish quilt composed of bright blue and green and red and purple squares and triangles. An Alber’s Square study in the form of a quilt thought Ava. She was utterly mesmerized by the graphic beauty of it.

As Ava stood there admiring the quilt she recalled something she’d learned years before in a Childhood Psyche course about bright primary colors stimulating a child’s early mental development. This quilt, thought Ava, was going to make this baby a genius! On the far side of the bed stood the proud new father.

“Katie and Eli, this is my friend Ava Land,” said Anne as she turned towards Ava. “And this is Eli and Katie Miller.”

“How do you do,” said a radiant Katie smiling up at Ava.

“Nice to meet you,” said Ava warmly , “and congratulations!” looking first at Katie and then into the happy bearded face of the young husband and now new father.

“Dunka, I mean, thank you very much,” said Katie correcting herself for the English woman friend of Anne Pine’s.

“So,” said Anne pulling out paperwork from her medical bag, “have you decided on the baby’s name?” Anne waited as Eli and Katie exchanged glances and smiled.

“Jah,” said Katie looking down at the the baby in her arms, “You tell her Eli”

“He will be called Christian.”