by Beth Wiseman
It was a song they sang during Sunday singings, usually followed by a game of volleyball. Aaron pictured Leah as the one skipping and singing in the meadow, and it was a delightful picture in his head.
But what held Aaron’s attention the most was the budding romance between Rose and a boy in her Amish community—Jesse. Aaron cringed and wondered what his friends would think if they knew he was reading a romance book. He’d sure never tell them about it. But in the story, Rose wanted Jesse to accept her for the free-spirited girl that she was, and Aaron couldn’t help but speculate that this was the kind of mate Leah was looking for too.
Aaron was certainly intrigued by Leah, but his reservations ran deep about whether he could make a home with someone like her. When he watched Abner and Edna together, there was no doubt that Edna would make a fine wife. Several times she’d brought casseroles or snacks to complement the meal his mother prepared for them all, and everything Edna brought was delicious. She often commented about the clothes she’d sewn for her family. She also talked about what a fine cook her youngest sister, Kathleen, was, and how Mary Carol grew amazing vegetables in their garden. But when it came to Leah, she would take a deep breath. “Leah will find her way,” she’d once said.
Aaron got comfortable atop the sheets and hoped for a breeze to blow through the open window in his room. The heat was stifling, but he knew sleep would come. Normally he didn’t need to set the battery-operated alarm clock on his bedside table, since his body was programmed to wake up at four o’clock, but on this night he did.
Leah made it a point to be downstairs before her father. She helped Mary Carol, Kathleen, and her mother prepare dippy eggs, bacon, scrapple, and biscuits.
“Where’s Edna?” Mary Carol asked as she stirred the eggs.
Leah yawned. “She was still sleeping when I got dressed.”
Edna was always up early and helped with breakfast.
“She was coughing a lot during the night again,” Leah said. She poured herself a glass of orange juice. “Can’t the natural doctor give her something that helps her more?”
Mamm walked away from the skillet of sizzling bacon, pulled six forks from the drawer, and walked toward the table. “Maybe she needs to go for another visit with him and see about that.”
Leah picked up a fork to flip the bacon as her mother placed the other forks on the table.
“I can finish that, Leah. Why don’t you get the butter and jellies from the refrigerator?”
Leah sighed. Maybe if everyone would let her cook occasionally, she’d get better at it. But she was too tired to argue. She set the fork down on a paper towel on the counter, then moved toward the refrigerator.
As she placed a jar of rhubarb jelly on the table, she heard footsteps coming down the stairs.
“Guder mariye,” Daed said. He entered the kitchen, kissed their mother on the cheek, and sat down at the head of the kitchen table.
“And good morning to you,” Marian said. The girls all echoed the sentiment.
Leah wanted her father to be proud of her, the way he was of her sisters. “Kathleen, I’ll be going with Aaron to the singing at the Grabers’ house this Sunday,” she said as she set the butter on the table. “I was hoping you could show me how to make that Lazy Daisy Oatmeal Cake you make. I’d like to bring that.” She glanced in her father’s direction, pleased to see his eyes shining with approval.
“Uh, are you sure?” Kathleen asked. She pulled the biscuits from the oven and put them on the table. “I reckon that cake is a lot of work. Maybe you could take a lemon sponge pie instead?”
“Kathleen, I’m sure your sister can make the oatmeal cake,” their father said. “You give her a hand.” He reached for a biscuit, and it warmed Leah’s heart when he smiled in her direction.
“Ya, Daed,” Kathleen said.
Her mother sat down in a chair at the other end of the table from their father. “Did—did you and Aaron get along well?”
Leah waited until Kathleen and Mary Carol were seated on the bench across from her before she answered. “He seems nice.” She let her eyes veer in her father’s direction.
He nodded his approval.
They all bowed their heads to pray, but Daed spoke up only a second or two into the blessing. “Where is Edna?”
“Sleeping,” Leah answered. But I’m here, on time, and I helped.
Daed smoothed his beard with his hand. “Leah, go and check on your sister before we continue with the blessing. She is never late to breakfast.”
Leah stood up from the table. “Ya, Daed.” No one says anything bad about Edna being late for a meal. She grabbed one of the lit lanterns on the kitchen hutch and marched up the stairs, thinking how she could have used an extra hour of sleep.
Their bedroom was the last one on the right, at the end of the hall. “Edna, get up!” she said before she pushed the door wide. “Breakfast is ready, and everyone is already . . .”
Leah froze for a moment. Her bare feet seemed rooted to the wooden slats on the floor as she looked at her sister lying in the bed. “Edna?” Her eyes filled with tears as she slowly moved toward her sister in the bed. “Edna!”
She grabbed Edna’s shoulders and shook her. “Edna! Wake up!” Edna’s mouth was slightly parted, and her face was the color of ripe blueberries.
She’s not breathing. Please, God, dear God in heaven. Help.
“Mamm! Daed! Mamm! Daed!”
There was a stampede of steps up the stairs. Her father was the first one to enter the room. “Mary Carol, go to the barn and call 9-1-1!”
Daed’s mouth was quickly on top of Edna’s, forcing air into her lungs, after he tilted her head back and pinched her nose. His hands were trembling, but he kept the breaths steady. Thank goodness her father had training in CPR when he was a volunteer at the local fire department years ago. Leah thanked God that he apparently still remembered his training.
Mary Carol jetted from the room to do as their father instructed. Kathleen was starting to cry, and Leah reached for her hand and squeezed it in hers. Mamm’s face was as white as the cotton sheet beneath Edna, and Leah didn’t think her mother was breathing either. Her fingers were clamped tightly against her lips, and her eyes were wide and fearful.
Dear God, save her. Dear God, save her. Leah prayed like she’d never prayed before. I promise not to be jealous of Edna ever again. Please, God, save her.
“Daed!” Leah yelled. “Make her breathe!” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she watched her father trying to pump life into Edna. “Daed!” she yelled again.
I love you, Edna. I love you, Edna. Please wake up. God, wake her up.
Chapter Four
SIRENS SHRIEKED IN THE DISTANCE, INTENSIFYING THE fear in the room as their father continued his efforts to breathe life into Edna. But when Edna began to flail her arms about, their father backed away. Edna began to gasp for air, as if there were a shortage in the room. With each deep inhalation, a tiny bit of color came back to her face.
They’d all subconsciously moved closer to the bed, and Daed told them to step back. “Give her some room,” he said, holding his hands outward.
Leah had seen her father angry, even frightened, but nothing like this. Even in the midst of a crisis, he always showed a level of calm. She recalled a fire in the kitchen a few years ago when a lantern got knocked over at suppertime and ignited a small rug by the sink. The fire had spread quickly and scared them all, but their father stayed reasonably calm as the old kitchen floor splintered and glowed. He hadn’t hesitated but quickly retrieved the fire extinguisher and put out the fire.
They’d all had accidents as kids, and once their mother even fell down the porch steps carrying a casserole dish. She busted her knee up good, and Lydia had watched her father run from the fields when he was called. But again, he’d handled the situation calmly. But Daed looked anything but calm now, and Leah knew that Edna had been dead. Somehow she just knew. And their father had brought her back to life. Their father—and God.
Thank You, dear Lord.
Sweat trickled from Daed’s wrinkled brow and poured over eyes that were wild with a mixture of terror and relief. The sirens grew louder, and Edna continued to cough and gasp, but she was breathing. Leah let the tears flow full force. If anything had happened to Edna . . .
Mamm clutched Edna’s hand and seemed to take over where their father couldn’t. “Edna, dear. Breathe slowly. Help is on the way.”
Edna’s eyes sought relief from their mother, but she continued to inhale and exhale, each breath crackling into the room with effort. Leah heard footsteps bolting up the steps, and within seconds two men dressed in navy blue entered the room. They brought in machines and gadgets Leah had never seen before, and they instructed everyone to move away from the bed. The first thing they did was put some sort of mask over Edna’s face, and her breath clouded the clear plastic in shallow bursts.
The men didn’t say much as they worked on Edna, but after about fifteen minutes they said that they were going to take her to the hospital in the ambulance, and that there was only room for one parent to ride along. All eyes were on their father, but it was Mamm who stepped forward.
“I am going,” she said, standing taller. Then she reached for Edna’s hand and squeezed it tightly within hers. Leah wanted to go so badly she could hardly stand it, but she could see that her father wanted to go equally as much, and they’d said there was only room for one anyway.
“I am going also.” Daed stood taller and spoke with an authority that challenged the men in uniform. “She is my—my daughter.” His voice broke as he spoke.
The two men in blue glanced at each other. Leah thought they could almost be twins, brothers at the least—both short and stocky with thick crops of unruly dark hair. And the shape of their eyes, more round then oval, was similar.
“I guess we can make room,” one of the men said.
Leah recalled her trip to the movies with Clare and Donna a few months ago. Her father would have been furious, but she suspected her mother must have known she was indulging in the freedoms of her rumschpringe when she saw Leah leave in Clare’s car that day. In the movie, there had been a scene where an ambulance picked up a sick girl, and the girl died on the way to the hospital. Leah closed her eyes and squelched the thought.
The men popped up a sort of portable bed right next to Edna’s bed, and Daed helped them get Edna onto it and down the stairs. Once they reached the first floor, things happened quickly.
“We’ll get word to you soon!” Mamm yelled as she and Daed followed Edna and the men across the yard. Her parents crawled into the back of the ambulance with one of the men, and the door slammed shut. The other man in blue scooted into the front seat. For what seemed like an eternity, the ambulance didn’t move. Leah could feel her heart pounding in her chest.
After a while, the ambulance eased down the driveway and onto the main road. Thin beams of sunlight speared through gray skies as dawn approached, but thunderous rumblings from far away lent confusion as to what type of weather the day would bring.
The men didn’t turn the sirens on. No swirly, colorful lights either. Leah presumed this to be a good thing. No sense of emergency.
“Edna will be all right, no?” Kathleen turned toward Leah. She blinked back tears and her lip trembled.
Leah reached for Kathleen’s hand. “Ya. She was breathing on her own.”
“But it sounded terrible, like she was choking, and her face was so blue,” Mary Carol said, sniffling. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Leah knew it was her job to reassure her younger sisters. “But her color started to return, and she was breathing. If it were that bad, they would have turned on the sirens.”
Then Leah recalled why they didn’t turn on the sirens in the movie.
The girl was dead.
Aaron picked at his eggs and stifled a yawn.
“Aaron, I got up at midnight to go to the bathroom, and I could see a light shining from beneath your door,” Annie said. “What in the world were you doin’ up at such an hour?”
He was too tired to deal with his sister this morning. She had a way of talking to him that he classified as clucking. Her tongue met with the roof of her mouth in an annoying manner.
“Reading.” It was true, although he sure didn’t want to elaborate—that he was reading to impress a girl.
“At that hour?” Mary chimed in. “What were you reading?”
“Nothing that would interest you,” Aaron said, hoping to halt the inquisition. He stuffed a piece of biscuit in his mouth.
Annie and Mary shuffled around the kitchen with his mother while Aaron, his father, and his youngest sister, Mae, waited for breakfast to be served. Five-year-old Mae had already placed jams, jellies, and butter on the table, which was her only job for breakfast. Aaron suspected Mae had been a surprise, even though his parents denied it. But Abner was twenty, Aaron was nineteen, Annie, seventeen, and Mary, fifteen.
Aaron yawned. This time he didn’t try to hide it. It just took too much effort. He reached for the bowl of applesauce to his right and scooped a generous helping onto a buttered biscuit. Then he piled eggs on top and took a big bite, thinking there was no better combination in the world than applesauce, egg, and buttered biscuit. Now if he could just have a cup of coffee, he might make it through the day. But his mother didn’t believe in coffee. “We shouldn’t need stimulants to get us through the day,” she’d say.
Ridiculous. Other families in their district certainly enjoyed coffee. He’d asked his father about it once, and his father quickly said, “It was the only rule your mother said she wanted to enforce when we got married, and I choose to abide by it.” Then Daed had smiled. “Coulda been a lot worse things to give up.”
Aaron knew his father liked to sip wine in the barn from time to time and even enjoy a cigar occasionally. But on this morning, nothing sounded better to Aaron than a steaming cup of freshly brewed coffee. A mocha latte would certainly work. He’d had plenty of those in town. Maybe he could convince his father to stop at the bakery on the way to the furniture store this morning.
After two more buttered biscuits with egg and applesauce, Aaron excused himself to milk the cows. As he strolled out to the barn, he couldn’t stop thinking about Leah and her story. He was anxious to see how the tale ended, but didn’t see how he was going to stay up another night reading. Then he thought about having Leah by his side at the Sunday singing, and just the thought gave him a burst of energy comparable to that from any cup of coffee.
Leah, Mary Carol, and Kathleen tried to stay busy all morning, but when the storm finally rolled in midmorning with lightning that lit up the skies and thunder that shook the china cabinet, a sense of dread further settled over the girls.
“It’s so dark outside,” Kathleen said. She lit another lantern and took a seat at the kitchen table. Mary Carol was seated and chopping cucumbers into tiny cubes.
“What’s that for?” Leah slid in beside Mary Carol and studied the cucumbers.
“A new recipe Kathleen is trying,” her sister said, not looking up. Then she slammed the knife down on the table. “Why haven’t we heard anything?”
“I don’t know.” Leah figured her parents would have sent word by now. She glanced at the clock on the wall. Ten thirty. “Everything must be okay, or Mamm and Daed would have sent someone to pick us up.”
Kathleen twirled the string on her kapp with her finger, then jumped when another flash of light lit the room, followed by a clap of thunder that Leah could feel in her chest.
“Look! Lights!” Mary Carol jumped from the table and walked toward the kitchen door.
Leah and Kathleen followed her onto the porch where they were misted with cool rain blowing up under the rafters. Leah put her hand to her forehead and watched the car coming up the driveway. Another bolt of lightning caused them all to jump, but they stayed on the front porch and waited.
“I don’t recognize the car,” Kathleen said. “Do either of you?”
Mary Carol shook her head. Leah strained to see past the headlights glaring onto the porch. “It’s one of those big truck-like things with a backseat.”
“It’s a Cadillac Escalade Hybrid,” Kathleen finally said, relief in her voice. Not because she knew who was in the vehicle, but because she’d identified it.
Kathleen had a strange fixation with automobile makes and models. She even had a Car and Driver magazine hidden in her room. “Front engine, rear-wheel drive, and it will hold eight people. Zero to sixty miles per hour in 8.4 seconds.”
Leah glared at her sister in disbelief. “Who cares!” she snapped. “It’s not like you’re ever going to have one.”
Kathleen’s lip turned under, and Leah shook her head and sighed. She was about to apologize, but then the car eased all the way into the driveway and cut the lights.
All three of them moved a little closer to the edge of the porch, peering through the downpour to see who it was. Hopefully, it was their parents with Edna. But Leah knew right away that it wasn’t anyone from her family when she saw the brightly flowered umbrella pop from the open car door and a high-heeled brown boot step into the mud below.
Chapter Five
LEAH LOOKED AT HER SISTERS. “DO YOU KNOW WHO THAT is?”
A plump woman trekked up the driveway on her tiptoes, balancing a bag on one hip and holding her umbrella with the other hand. Daed had recently added gravel to the dirt driveway, but it was still a sludgy mess from all the rain this morning, and the woman’s fancy boots were sinking with each step she took.
“I’ve never seen her before.” Kathleen arched her brows, then whispered, “She’s rather old. She can barely walk in them shoes.”
“I don’t know her either,” Mary Carol said. “Maybe she has word about Edna.”
The woman stumbled toward them with a wide grin stretched across a wrinkled face painted with bright colors. Her eyelids were covered in dark blue, and her lashes were long and black. A rosy streak ran high along each cheekbone, and her lips were the color of cherries. Puffy gray hair topped her head in a loose twist.