The Healing

by Linda Byler

  “Look at me, John.”

  He raised his face, the sad, dark eyes a mirror into his tortured soul.

  “You’re going to be all right. Nothing is going to happen to you that the doctors and your Mam and Dat can’t handle. You will be OK. Remember that. God doesn’t give us more than He gives us strength to handle. You do know that, don’t you, John?”

  He dropped his head, nodded.

  “I love you, John. You’ll get through this.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, drew his upper lip down over his lower, his face contorted as he buried it in his large, rumpled red handkerchief.

  Pity grasped her in its grip, as she saw her mother fussing over her beloved and highly esteemed daughters, hoping she would remember to take care of John.

  In January, she wrote her mother a long letter, after she thought long and hard, talked it over with Alvin, allowed him to read it. With misgiving, she posted it on a wet, cold, Kentucky morning, walking out to the mailbox with a prayer on her lips, hoping her mother would receive the words the way she had written them.

  The next planned phone call confirmed her fears. It had not gone down well.

  Her mother was terse, tightlipped, asking Lydia what she meant by the letter. Her feelings were hurt. She had enough, dealing with John’s illness.

  The martyr again, a skill honed well, over the years.

  “Mam, I meant well, OK? I’m just so worried about John. He’s just so, well, he’s not noticed enough, just the way I wrote.”

  “He is now, with all his sickness.”

  “Did you have him tested?”

  “Not yet, Lydia. He has an appointment the sixteenth of this month.”

  “Good. I’m so glad. Just don’t let the big boys tease him, please, Mam. He tries so hard to be cool. That’s why he won’t talk to anyone. You’ll let me know the results of the Lyme test?”

  “Oh, of course I will. You know that.”

  Lydia sighed. “I just wish I was closer, Mam.”

  “I know. Oh, I know. But still, we can’t complain now. It is what it is. I do take your letter seriously, and I’ll try my best to stay calm and stop asking questions. It’s just so hard. It goes against my nature so horribly. I have to know things, figure them out, have a solution at my beck and call.”

  Lydia laughed. Dear Mam. Couldn’t stay angry if she wanted to. Bless her heart. Surely there was a special place in Heaven for mothers all over the world.

  On a dark night, when there was no moon at all, just before his doctor’s appointment in town, John lay in bed, unable to sleep, so tired it seemed as if the floor would open up and swallow his whole bed, and there was no strength to defy this yawning pit of gravity.

  He learned to breathe deeply. Inhale. Exhale. Calm, calm. Tonight, it did no good. Sleep simply was not available. His bed was his prison, holding him in chains of misery.

  He got up, walked to the bathroom in the dark, opened the faucet halfway, so he wouldn’t disturb anyone with the loud gush of water. He took a tepid drink of water from the plastic, communal cup. He went back to his room, but sat on the edge of his bed, his elbows propped on his knees, his head hanging low, too weary to contemplate crawling back into bed.

  Was there no one who could help him? No one out there he could turn to during these nightly upheavals, when sleep eluded him like wisps of fog?

  Mam would say God, but God wasn’t too well known to him, yet. He had heard about God and the Bible and Jesus and the disciples, all of it, in church. He read his Bible occasionally, but mostly, God was still a mystery, not really a friend he could confide in.

  What kept him from trying?

  Slowly, awkwardly, he slid to his knees and turned, lifted both hands in the position of prayer, and whispered, “God, it’s me, John. Help me to best this thing at night. I’m scared. It’s awful. Don’t let me lose my mind the way some people do. Help me, please.”

  He was halfway to a standing position when he remembered to say Amen. He collapsed into bed, as powerless as if his limbs were pancake syrup, and lay on his side, pulling up his knees to ward off the pain in both of his legs.

  Like a severe toothache, it roared along his muscles, receded, and came creeping back. He thought of the plastic container of Unker’s, knew he could never smell that mentholated odor again without being transported straight back to that awful day on second Christmas, when he’d been gripped by a craziness he would never forget.

  He groaned in pain, rolled onto his back, and lifted his knees to a V position. He tired to think pleasant thoughts, of times past. Fishing in the Juniata River, the way the water bugs skated across the muddy water in the backwash from the creek. The time Daniel hooked a snapping turtle, landing him on the dock, sending Allen galloping back to the safety of the riverbank. The turtle wasn’t very big, for a snapping turtle, but big enough to give them an awful scare.

  He must have dozed for a few minutes, but was jerked back awake by his heartbeat going out of control, yet again.

  This time, there was no stopping it. Carried along on a wave of sheer panic, he leaped from the bed, paced back and forth across the room, his hands gripping the sides of his head. There were no thoughts, only a yawning chasm of fear in which he would be hurled. Thick fog obliterated all normal thinking. A despair clutched his chest, squeezed the small, rapid breaths until he was gasping.

  His heart hammered violently, thumping in his chest, until one thought pierced through the thick fog that rendered his brain incapable.

  He was dying. Death would come, take him. He knew with startling clarity that he was not ready. It was too cruel, this sudden dying at a young age.

  He began to cry. Helpless sobs of fear and despair racked his weary body. He had to have help. He needed someone, anyone, to stand by him. He was deeply ashamed to let his parents see him in such a state, especially his mother, who would ply him with all manner of inquiries, rambling away on subjects that did not pertain to his symptoms, heaping more confusion and fear on top of everything else.

  He had often been alone in his life. He actually preferred the solitary life, the fishing, hunting alone, never with Dat or his brothers. He had never experienced this kind of terrifying separation, however. He barely knew who he was, this sick, exhausted, foggy-brained individual who was obviously not going to survive.

  He opened his bedroom door with shaking hands slick with sweat. Stifling sobs, he made his way slowly down the stairs, clutching the smooth wooden railing. He hesitated when he reached the living room.

  A fresh wave of panic propelled him to the open door of his parents’ bedroom, shivering, shaking and crying.

  “Dat.”

  Instantly, his mother’s head shot straight up.

  “What? What? Who is it?”

  “It’s me. John.”

  She leaped from the bed, grabbed her housecoat from the hook on the door, came to stand beside him. Dat followed, after opening a dresser drawer to extract a clean pair of trousers.

  “What’s wrong, John?”

  His mother’s voice was high with her own fear. She grabbed for the battery lamp on the end table, then realized the battery wasn’t in it. She’d put it on the charger. Fumbling, she made her way to the kitchen.

  His father came to stand beside him, the deep, heart-wrenching sobs from his son like a dagger to his own heart.

  “What is it, John? Don’t you feel well?”

  John shook his head.

  Mam clicked on the battery lamp, peered into her son’s tortured face. Clearly, there was something creating this poor boy’s misery. She had to know, so the questions began, pelting him like a snowball fight with his siblings.

  “Are you having a spiritual battle?”

  “Do you feel physically sick, or is it mental?”

  “Does God seem far away?”

  Tell me, John. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell us. Tell us. Tell us.

  Those two words turned into an endless circle, a bewildering meld of sound that turned into one
word that squeezed his brain until the pain above his eyes was white hot. He gripped his head, shook it from side to side, like a wounded animal.

  “Mary, stop.”

  Dat pulled her aside, gently, as she began to cry.

  “John, if you don’t feel well, why don’t you bring your sleeping bag down on the rug here in the living room, and I’ll be on the couch?”

  John nodded, turned to get the required sleeping bag on the shelf in his closet. He dragged a pillow off his bed, his sobs already subsiding.

  Dat would understand. He would not have to know everything. In his own simple way, Dat had an intuition, a knowing of John’s need to keep this hideous sickness to himself.

  He spread the sleeping bag, arranged the pillow, threw himself down, still crying uncontrollably. Mam hovered, wringing her hands, clearly beside herself, unable to go back to bed.

  He watched his father bring his own pillow, find a soft blanket. His white T-shirt and clean denim pants, his pale bare feet, the graying beard and toweled hair, all took on the appearance of a guardian angel, complete with soft, flowing white gown and majestic, celestial wings.

  Here was John’s help. He had found it. God had heard him, after all. He was not alone, would never have to be separated again. Here was his father, the silent rock he could depend on.

  And slowly he slid into a twitching, restless sleep.

  There was a strained atmosphere at the breakfast table, with John still in his sleeping bag by the couch. All traces of Dat having spent the night there had been removed.

  “’S wrong with the baby?”

  A thumb jerked in John’s direction.

  Mam stood by the stove, dark circles visible behind the lenses of her glasses, stress emanating from her face, the set of her shoulders. She was flipping eggs with the hard motion that meant there was trouble on hand.

  “How come he’s in his sleeping bag?”

  It was a simple question, not unkind, from Abner.

  Mam lifted a warning finger to her lips, drew down her eyebrows, and shook her head.

  One by one, breakfast eaten, drivers arrived, six of them out the door, casting questioning looks in John’s direction. Dat’s face was stern, gave nothing away. Mam was like a simmering pot of nerves, so they did not ask any more questions, figured it was bad timing.

  The sixteenth of January found John sitting in the waiting room of the family physician, pale, thinner, his chapped lips bitten to shreds, nervously clutching a magazine in front of his face, hiding his weakness from the world.

  Of course, it was his mother who accompanied him, sitting in the front seat with the driver, making senseless conversation scattered with lighthearted laughter. She always acted happy in front of drivers.

  “John Stoltzfus.”

  He started, laid down the magazine, looked to his mother, who stood, waiting for him to go first. He had no idea where to go, with all those eyes watching him, so he made a motion for her to go first, an irritated expression on his face.

  He found his mother always quieted if he used anger, an expression of resentment, the handy unscalable wall he built around himself like a tall privacy fence. It worked. His mother would gaze at him without the one hundred questions just below the surface, and he was safe.

  They sat in complete silence, John examining the charts on the wall, his mother looking rapidly through her checkbook, producing a pen, her brow furrowing as she concentrated.

  “Hello there. John?”

  He looked up to see a nurse, her body straining against the confines of a too-tight uniform, the buttons pulling the fabric in all directions. Her hair was drawn back into a high ponytail, her round face like a cinnamon roll. She smelled good, like honey-suckle that bloomed in June.

  “How are you, John?”

  He shrugged, glaring at his mother.

  She took in a breath, getting ready to speak, then remembered, closed her mouth.

  “I’m . . . I dunno. Weak. Tired.”

  “All righty, John. We’ll get your vitals, let you talk to the doctor, how’s that?”

  Temperature, blood pressure, height and weight.

  He’d lost nineteen pounds. He was almost five foot eleven.

  “Cold out there, huh?”

  “It is,” his mother nodded.

  “Could use more snow. I never like to see bare ground in January.”

  “Oh, me neither. Not good for the crops.”

  “That’s right. You’re farmers, then? You too, John?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you like it?”

  Nodded again.

  “All right, we’ll let you talk to the doctor then. Take care. Bye-bye.”

  More silence. John sat on the table, the wide roll of white paper beneath him, his mother on a chair, looking heavy and uncomfortable. She had lint on her black sweater. Her shoes were ugly black lace-up leather shoes that would have looked better on Abner. But then, all middle-aged or older Amish women weren’t exactly beauties, the way they had all those children. And most of them mixed up food with joy. Or the other way around.

  Blessedly, the fog in his head had dissipated, leaving him with a sense of being centered, like coming home after a long journey.

  A knock on the door, and Dr. Stevenson entered, shook hands with his mother and then, with him. There were a few kind, professional words of greeting. He looked at his chart, thumbed the tip of his nose, said “Hm.”

  His hair—what was left of it—was graying, and he had brown inquisitive eyes like a squirrel. He wore a shirt the color of lilacs and pressed gray trousers.

  “So, you’re not feeling well.”

  John shook his head.

  “Can you tell me about it?”

  “Just sort of weak. Tired. My . . . well, everything hurts.”

  He didn’t have to know about the horrifying nights.

  “Hm. Sounds like Lyme. You had a tick bite?

  John shook his head.

  “Never?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Well, we’ll do a blood test.”

  He checked John’s heart with a stethoscope, listened to his lungs, checked his reflexes, prodded his stomach, shone a light in his ears and down his throat, then paused, turned to Mam.

  “You’re aware of the cost of the test?”

  “No.”

  “It’s expensive.”

  “We’ll do whatever it takes,” Mam said, her voice taking on that wobbly quality that John could so easily detect.

  “So. We’ll go ahead with that. We’ll get the lab technician to draw the blood, and you’ll be asked to drop the package at the FedEx place. The test is called the Western blot. It goes to Palo Alto, in California, to a place called IGeneX Labs. It’s a very good facility. You should have the results in less than two weeks. Now, are there any questions?”

  John shook his head, in spite of wanting to know so much more. The more he kept his thoughts and fears to himself, the less his mother could distribute his failings and shortcomings among the community, his brothers, everyone.

  Mam, of course, told the doctor about his nighttime upheavals, the crying, everything. Shamefaced, John bent his head, his shoulders hunched, afraid to look at the doctor. Fifteen years old, driven to sleep on the living room floor like an insecure two-year-old.

  He listened closely, felt the doctor’s eyes on him. As Mam finished with her story—she didn’t know the half of it—there was a sigh, a squeak of the chair.

  “Not unusual. One of the worst things about chronic Lyme disease is anxiety. We’re not sure what causes this, but there are many other neurological symptoms associated with Lyme. It seems to be extremely prevalent in teenaged children. Depression, insomnia, extreme fear . . . it seems to be the pattern. Since John has no idea of having been bitten, no bull’s-eye rash, the Lyme bacteria has likely been hiding in his cells for quite some time. It’s a nasty little organism called Borrelia burgdorferi, causes a bunch of mischief. If you want, I can prescribe an antidepr
essant like Zoloft, or Xanax. I think in his case you would find it very helpful.”

  A hand came down on John’s knee.

  “Good luck, there, buddy. You’ll be just fine. I’ll call Reba to take you to the lab.”

  He shook hands with Mam, patted John’s shoulder.

  He watched the dark maroon-colored blood being drawn from the needle into the vial, imagined his own blood alive with horrible little creatures that would, eventually, cause his demise. How could one doctor and one test do any good if they swarmed and cavorted all through his system, hiding in cells, slowly causing him to become crippled?

  He heard the low murmuring of his mother, talking, talking to the doctor, the answers she so desperately sought being murmured back.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE RESULTS OF THE LYME TEST WERE NEGATIVE.

  “Negative?” Mam screeched, then proceeded to blame Doctor Stevenson, the lab in California, the unsuspecting nurse who had drawn the blood.

  There was a vein of panic in her voice.

  Dat sat on his kitchen chair, unruffled, contemplating this unexpected news, a cup of coffee going from lukewarm to cold. He was surprised at the result of the test, but couldn’t see how making a fuss would help John in any way.

  So he looked at John, said, “Well, good. No Lyme disease. That means you’ll be better real soon. Probably some leftover bug from your strep throat.”

  John was pale and perspiring, his eyes riveted to his shoes.

  Suddenly, he looked up.

  “I didn’t have strep throat. That test was negative too.”

  “It was?” Dat raised an eyebrow.

  Mam turned from the oven, her face red, holding the toothpick she had inserted into the chocolate cake on the rack.

  “Yes, it was. But what else could it have been? His tonsils were covered with white splotches. I’m sure it was strep.”

  “Well, we’ll let it go, then, this testing. A thousand dollars down the tube, but at least we know.”

  John agreed, but felt bad about the money his parents had spent for nothing. He’d work hard, help make up for it.

  And for a time, it seemed, life returned to normal.