Her Restless Heart

by Barbara Cameron

  "How would I know? I'm not in church often." She glanced around. "I guess since yours is held in a home, somehow I thought there'd be more comfortable chairs."

  "They don't have enough recliners," Mary Katherine told her tongue-in-cheek.

  Jamie rolled her eyes and elbowed her. But there was laughter in her eyes. Mary Katherine was glad to see her friend in a better mood after the tension of thinking she was pregnant.

  "Three hours, huh?"

  Mary Katherine looked her in the eye. "Ya," she drawled.

  Because she had a guest, Mary Katherine found herself seeing the service through her eyes. She didn't know what an Englisch service was like—well, she knew one thing. They were led by a church official, whereas here, members of the congregation—lay ministers—spoke. Today, one of them talked about his understanding of the book of Luke.

  She watched Jamie frown in concentration as part of the service was delivered in High German. Translating wasn't an option—even if she whispered, it could disturb those around them.

  Then she realized that Jamie was looking around. When she looked at her, eyebrows raised, her friend had the grace to blush. It was her guess that Jamie was curious as to where Ben was.

  "I made it," Jamie said with some pride when the service was over. She watched as the men and boys began turning the benches around and into tables. "What's going on?"

  "We have a snack before everyone heads home."

  Jamie grinned. "Cool. Sometimes they have a potluck at a church I attend in town."

  "I should go help with the food. You don't have to . . ." she trailed off. "Maybe you want to go look for a certain person."

  "I'm sure Jacob will come say 'hi' if he's here."

  "Don't even try to tell me you're looking for Jacob," Mary Katherine said dryly. With that, she left her friend and joined the women in the kitchen.

  Her mother was there, slicing a loaf of bread. She looked even quieter and paler than she had the last time Mary Katherine had seen her.

  "Are you all right? You look tired."

  "I'm fine."

  For some reason, Mary Katherine didn't think so. As much as she didn't want to talk to him, she decided to go in search of her father. He was standing talking with some other men when she found him on the front porch, and he finished his conversation before he left them and walked toward her.

  "Mamm doesn't look well."

  "It's just her arthritis. She's getting old. We all are." He started to move away, but she shook her head. "What?" He sounded irritable with her.

  "I'm worried about her."

  He frowned. "Then maybe you should stop by and help her sometimes."

  Mary Katherine stiffened. "You know I work six days a week."

  "Most of us do," he said.

  She wanted to say that he made it difficult for her to want to go to the house when he was there. But she'd been raised to be respectful to her parents. It was too deeply ingrained in her, no matter how he behaved.

  Turning, she walked back into the house and started toward the kitchen. Jamie walked toward her carrying a slice of bread covered with Amish peanut butter.

  "This is amazing," she said, licking her lips. "Who came up with the idea of putting marshmallow crème in peanut butter?"

  Mary Katherine managed a laugh. "I don't know. But it's good, isn't it?"

  "You mean it's gut," Jamie said, using the Pennsylvania Dietsch pronunciation. She grinned.

  Naomi came rushing up to her. "Mary Katherine, your mother's ill."

  "Go get my father," she said as she ran into the kitchen.

  Leah and Anna were gathered around her mother in the kitchen. Her face was white, and she was pressing her hand against her chest.

  "Pain in my—chest," she said with effort.

  "Someone call 911," Mary Katherine called over her shoulder.

  "Nee, I don't need that!" her mother insisted, but her voice was weak. "No fuss!"

  "When are you going to think you're worth the trouble?" Leah asked quietly. "What if you're having a heart attack?"

  "Women don't—" Miriam broke off, then fought to continue, "women don't have heart attacks."

  Leah muttered beneath her breath. "You're wrong. We need to get you to the hospital."

  Miriam closed her eyes and then opened them. "Oh, allrecht," she said. "Isaac is going to think it was a waste of time. And money."

  "Never mind about Dat," Mary Katherine said firmly.

  "How dare you talk about me that way," he thundered behind her. "Leave us!"

  "Fine," said Mary Katherine. She rushed past him, blinking back sudden tears.

  Someone grasped her arms. "Mary Katherine?"

  She blinked. "Jacob! Mamm's sick."

  There was a commotion at the door what seemed like hours later. "The paramedics are here. Come on, let's go out on the porch while they take care of her. Come on."

  He led her outside to a chair, made her sit, and knelt in front of her, holding out a clean handkerchief. "Calm down. They're taking care of her. I'll take you to the hospital. We'll go as soon as—" he stopped as the door opened and the paramedics pushed a gurney with Miriam on it onto the porch. Mary Katherine's father walked alongside it, carrying his wife's coat and purse.

  "Let me get your coat and we'll follow," Jacob told her. "I'll be right back."

  Jacob sat with Mary Katherine in the hospital waiting room. Her mother had gotten help just in time—the paramedics said her heart had stopped in the ambulance, but they'd gotten it restarted. One of them had told Mary Katherine that her father had gone white and not spoken the rest of the ride. A surgeon had been waiting to perform a bypass when her mother arrived.

  Jacob watched Mary Katherine, and with every hour that passed, she seemed to be withdrawing deeper inside herself right in front of him. He hated to see the change from the happy, confident young woman she'd been before her mother had suddenly become ill.

  He might have blamed it all on her mother's current hospitalization. But he'd noticed Mary Katherine tensing when her father entered the surgical waiting room . . . then it was almost as if a shadow came over her, and she seemed to shrink inside of herself. He didn't know exactly why, but he had the suspicion that more was going on here than he understood. The doctor stuck his head in the door and took her father and grandmother with him to talk to them. When Leah returned, she sat and began telling Mary Katherine how her mother was doing. Jacob excused himself to walk to the cafeteria to get them all coffee.

  "Jacob! Wait!"

  He turned and saw Naomi and Anna coming down the hall. "They won't let us see Aenti Miriam tonight, just Onkel Isaac and Grandmother, maybe Mary Katherine. We're going to go call a driver to take us home and come back tomorrow."

  Jacob wasn't waiting to see Miriam, and he certainly would have preferred not being watched by Isaac as they sat in the waiting room. But he wanted to be there for Mary Katherine.

  They got coffee for everyone and carried it back to the waiting room. Leah accepted hers gratefully and urged a cup on Mary Katherine.

  A nurse appeared and told Isaac that he could see his wife.

  "We'll see if the doctor will allow you to sit with her for a few minutes later on," she told Mary Katherine.

  Leah leaned forward and squeezed Mary Katherine's hand. "I know you're worried. But it's in God's hand, liebschen."

  Mary Katherine wrapped her arms around her grandmother. "I'm so sorry, I'm just thinking about myself. She's my mother, but she's your daughter."

  "It's allrecht," Leah murmured, rocking her granddaughter and patting her back. Her eyes met Jacob's.

  "Why don't you and Jacob go take a walk and stretch your legs?" she suggested. "It's going to be hours before we're allowed to see your mamm."

  Mary Katherine started to object, but then she looked at Jacob, searching his face for something.

  He didn't know what to say, so he just held out his hand. "Come, we'll just take a short walk. Maybe get something to eat. Leah will make sure
you're called if you're needed."

  She might have turned him down, but Leah briskly steered her toward Jacob, like a mother bird might push a chick from the nest.

  They walked past the nurse's station, past rooms of patients, and got into the elevator. It stopped at the maternity floor, and the doors opened. A nurse pushed a woman in a wheelchair inside. She held a newborn in her arms, something all the occupants immediately noticed. A bunch of balloons was tied to one armrest. The woman reached out to grab them back, then giggled when they floated toward the doors as they started to close.

  Mary Katherine glanced at the baby and smiled, then turned to Jacob. "I'm sorry, I forgot to congratulate you on being an onkel again. Someone told me at church."

  He smiled. "It was quite an exciting evening. I'd never been around Rebecca or my sisters before when they had their boppli—not that I was in the room when she had it—" he shuddered as the elevator stopped at the main floor and they stepped off.

  "Just like a mann," she teased. "What are you going to do when your wife is having your baby?"

  "That'll be different," he said, indicating that they should proceed down the corridor.

  "Why?"

  "Well, first, it won't be my sister," he told her. "And who wouldn't want to be there together when your child is born?"

  Her steps faltered, and he stopped, wondering if he'd said something too personal. She cleared her throat and looked around. "Where are we going?"

  "We haven't eaten since breakfast. Neither of us got a snack at church. I thought we could have something to eat and then go back up and check on your mother."

  He could see that she was torn but out of consideration to him agreed. As they walked down the line, she chose a salad, but he'd known her for years and knew what she liked, so he added a chicken salad sandwich to her tray.

  "You don't know when you'll get a chance to eat again," he told her when she protested. He added a carton of milk to her tray at the drink station.

  They sat at a small table in a corner of the cafeteria. The place was nearly empty. Two women in scrubs at a nearby table ate their meals silently, looking too tired to talk. A woman with a fussy toddler calmed him by scattering a breakfast cereal on her tray and letting him pick the rings up and stuff them into his mouth. She sipped from an extra-large cup of coffee and stifled a yawn.

  "It's really nice of you to stay with us—"

  "It's what a friend does," he said, waving away her thanks. "Besides, where else could I get a meal like this?"

  She looked at the beef cubes and limp noodles on his plate and couldn't help laughing. "Yes, that's worth all your trouble."

  "You are," he said quietly. "Now eat. You'll need to keep your strength up."

  A slight noise woke Mary Katherine.

  She blinked, not sure what had awakened her. Then she realized that her mother's eyes were open and she was looking around the room. Her head turned on the pillow, and she smiled weakly.

  "Cold. What day is it?" she asked, shifting in her bed.

  "Tuesday." Mary Katherine stood to unfold the extra blanket at the foot of the bed and spread it over her mother.

  "So tired."

  "I thought you'd never wake up," Mary Katherine said, biting her bottom lip to keep from crying. "You'd come to for a while and then go back to sleep." No matter what the nurses had said about this being normal post-surgery, Mary Katherine had worried.

  Her mother patted her hand. "I'm allrecht."

  Mary Katherine saw her look around the room. "Why aren't you asking where Dat is?"

  "I can't imagine he'd want to sit around here," her mother told her. But her tone held no censure.

  "If we'd listened to him, you wouldn't be here," she blurted out, her hands clenching at her sides.

  "Now, Mary Katherine—"

  She took a deep breath and forced herself to relax her hands. "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I don't want to get you upset."

  "It's my own fault. I ignored how I was feeling. I knew something was wrong."

  When she reached for the cup of water on the tray next to her bed, Mary Katherine moved quickly to help her.

  "You can't blame him. He never gets sick, so he doesn't understand it when others do."

  "Well, you're not going to be able to keep to that schedule he's so fond of when you get back home."

  "We'll manage."

  Mary Katherine didn't like how wan she looked. "Are you hungry?"

  Her mother shook her head. "Just tired." She closed her eyes, then opened them. "Just so tired."

  "Rest, then. I'll be right here."

  "You should go home," her mother began.

  She was fighting a losing battle to keep her eyes open. Mary Katherine watched as she lost the battle, and slept.

  Sinking back down into the chair she'd occupied since her mother had been moved to a regular room, Mary Katherine felt exhaustion steal over her.

  Something moved at the periphery of her vision. Her grandmother stood in the doorway, gesturing at her. Getting up, she tiptoed over to the door.

  "How is she?"

  "She woke up a little while ago, but then she went back to sleep."

  Her grandmother held up a brown paper bag. "I brought you lunch." She threaded her arm through Mary Katherine's and pulled her out of the room. "Kumm, let's go sit outside and eat. You've been cooped up here for days."

  They went outside on a small patio and sat at a table, but instead of taking the food from the bag, her grandmother reached across it and took Mary Katherine's hand.

  "She's going to be fine, liebschen," her grandmother said. "You need to come home and get some rest."

  "I thought I was going to lose her," Mary Katherine said, tears welling in her eyes. "I feel so guilty. If I'd gone by to see her more often, I might have noticed that she wasn't well. But he—" she stopped.

  "Your dat didn't make it easy, did he?" She sighed. "But Miriam has to take some of the blame, too. She never spoke up. She made excuses for him every time we talked. Even when she knew you were moving out, she wouldn't speak up and tell him she thought he was being too stern with you."

  She shook her head. "He's the head of the house as a mann should be, but I don't believe that God ever meant for women to be treated the way he treats his wife and daughter. Your grandfather never behaved like that at all."

  "'Browbeaten,'" Mary Katherine said. "Jamie used that word when we talked about our fathers sometime back."

  Leah sighed, picked up the bag, and started withdrawing items. "You see, it's not just Amish fathers who can be too stern with their daughters. Jamie has told you that her father is the same way. If I'd told you that Englisch fathers did this, you might never have believed me."

  "I always believe you," Mary Katherine told her staunchly.

  "Then you will believe what I tell you next," she said, meeting her granddaughter's eyes. "You know what you need to do."

  Mary Katherine rested her elbows on the table and put her forehead in her hands. "Yes."

  Leah patted her back. "It's the right thing to do. 'Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment with promise.' "

  She handed Mary Katherine a paper-wrapped sandwich, a bag of potato chips, and a can of her favorite soda. When she pulled out a cookie the size of a saucer, Mary Katherine couldn't help laughing.

  "You even brought the big chocolate chip cookie," she said, shaking her head.

  "I was prepared to bribe you," her grandmother told her, reaching over to hug her. "I didn't think it'd take the big cookie, but I wasn't taking any chances. Shall we bless our food?"

  Mary Katherine looked at the spread that her grandmother had brought to her, remembering the things she loved. She thought about how her grandmother had brought up a difficult subject but had not tried to lecture her or tell her what she should do. And she felt regret.

  "I haven't thought much about how you feel," she said, her eyes welling with tears again. "I thought about losing my mamm, but it would be eve
n more awful if you lost a child."

  Leah patted her hand. "You thought of your mother and that's as it should be. I'm fine."

  "I'm missing work—"

  "You're not to think of that," she said quickly. "Naomi and Anna are covering for you and everything is going well."

  "The doctor says he thinks Mamm can go home soon," Mary Katherine said as she unwrapped her sandwich. "I'm not looking forward to moving back in, but it'll just be for a short time."

  When her grandmother made a slight movement of distress, Mary Katherine's heart sank. Sure enough, when she looked up, she saw her father's stiff back as he turned and walked away.

  "He heard me," she whispered.

  Her grandmother nodded. "I'd have told you if I'd seen him in time." She sighed. "Well, they say that eavesdroppers never hear good of themselves. Why don't you go talk to him, and I'll wait for you?"

  Mary Katherine wrapped up her sandwich and got up. With feet that felt like lead, she went to find him.

  To her surprise, her father wasn't in her mother's room.

  "I sent him out to see you and Mamm," Miriam told her. "Did you miss him?"

  Mary Katherine nodded but decided her mother didn't need any details.

  "Maybe you can catch him. He was just here a few minutes ago."

  "We'll see each other tomorrow."

  Miriam straightened her covers. "I can't wait to get home. It'll be good to sleep in my own bed, see my garden."

  "You can't work in it for a while."

  "Everything will die if it's not tended," Miriam said, her fingers becoming agitated on the covers. "I need to water the plants and—"

  "I'll take care of it until you can."

  "But you work and you live—"

  "I'm going to come and stay with you for a while until you feel better."

  Relief swept across her mother's face but was just as swiftly gone. "Oh, how can you do that? You and your dat don't get along . . ." she trailed off, looking worried.

  "We'll manage." Mary Katherine didn't know how, but that was her concern, her problem.

  "Listen, I'm going to go back out and finish my lunch with Grandmother. Do you need anything before I go?"