The Hand that Rocks the Ladle Read Online Free

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.