“I felt the same way when I met you,” she said honestly. “But I haven’t dated and I didn’t know what to say to you.”
He reached over and squeezed the hand she didn’t burn. “I’m glad.”
They sat there looking at each other for a long moment. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on the wall. Then they heard someone banging on the front door.
Saul sighed. “Back to real life. Maybe we can have lunch together when Katie and Rosie come in.”
“It would be nice.”
“Maybe supper after work one night—”
She nodded.
“I’ll go open again. You stay and keep ice on your hand.”
“It feels fine now,” she said, getting to her feet and following him. “I wouldn’t want the boss to think I’m taking advantage of him.”
Saul tried not to think about her words as he went to unlock the door. He didn’t need his mind going in that direction—not now!
Dating was a new experience for Elizabeth, one she’d wanted for so long.
Knowing things had changed between them seemed to make work hours flash by. They ate lunch together whenever the twins could take care of the store without Saul. He took her to supper a couple of times a week and once, when they happened to be in the storeroom looking for something at the same time, she swore she thought he was going to kiss her and then he didn’t.
She let him persuade her to go to church again—well, she let him think he persuaded her. While she didn’t want to see the bishop again, she did want to see Jenny and Matthew and their family.
He invited her to Thanksgiving dinner with him and his family. She was grateful it was their custom not to discuss it with family until—if—they decided to become engaged. It was a big if for her right now. Dating was such a new experience for her.
One day when she was eating lunch alone, while Saul ran an errand to the post office and Katie handled customers, Rosie came into the back room and got a soft drink from the refrigerator and sat at the table.
“So how are you?” Rosie asked her.
“Good,” she said as she put her plastic salad bowl back into her lunch carrier. “You?”
“Not as good as you. I’m not dating Saul.”
Elizabeth’s hands stilled on the handle of her carrier. “Who says we’re dating?”
Rosie gave her a coy smile. “It doesn’t take a detective to figure it out. We’ve seen the way you two look at each other.”
“I see,” Elizabeth said slowly. “I didn’t realize we were being so obvious.”
“That’s because you care about each other,” Rosie told her. “I think it’s sweet. Katie does, too.”
“I wonder if anyone else has noticed . . .” Elizabeth trailed off, thinking hard.
“I saw Samuel watching the two of you when he came in last week.”
Elizabeth winced. She’d have to talk to Saul about that, see what he thought they should do when they had Thanksgiving dinner with his family.
Katie stuck her head in the door. “Rosie? I need help.”
“I’m done with lunch,” Elizabeth said as she got up. “Rosie, you take your break.”
Grateful for the excuse to be away from her questions, she hurried from the back room.
Saul reassured her his parents wouldn’t make her uncomfortable with nosy questions when she came to Thanksgiving dinner.
“How can you be so sure?” she asked him as they ate supper together after work one evening.
A thought struck her. “Is it because you’ve brought other women to supper?”
He laughed and shook his head. “No. Are you jealous?”
“No,” she said, lifting her chin.
But she remembered those two young women she’d overheard at church the first day and how they talked about him seeing a woman. She didn’t feel comfortable bringing up the subject yet. How did you do that when you dated without sounding jealous—or nosy? she wondered. Maybe she’d ask Paula.
Thanksgiving. She wondered if her family would be celebrating the way they had always done. There was always lots of food, lots of noise with so many crowded around the table. Always so many little mouths to feed, while trying to eat as well.
“Are you thinking about your family? About not being with them for Thanksgiving?”
“How is it you always seem to know what I’m thinking?” she asked quietly, staring into his eyes.
“Of course, I know what you’re thinking. I care about you.”
She cared about him so much, too, but men—this man—was still a mystery to her. He held out his hand to her on the table and she put hers in it.
On Thanksgiving, she found herself welcomed with a hug as she entered his house carrying one of the pecan pies she had baked the night before (the other went to Paula’s parents with her). Saul’s brother and his wife were having Thanksgiving dinner with her family and his sister and her family were down with the flu. So it was just the four of them at the table. Elizabeth felt a little relieved at not having to meet more new people.
Saul was right about his parents, she found. While she caught his mother looking thoughtfully at her as they sat at the table and ate turkey and stuffing and what felt like a dozen side dishes, she didn’t cast hints about or ask nosy questions. Samuel didn’t either despite what Rosie had said at work.
Instead, she thought he seemed quiet, not his usual jovial self, eating so little his wife asked several times if he was okay.
“Is your shoulder hurting again?” she asked.
“I’m allrecht,” he insisted. “The woman worries,” he confided to Elizabeth.
“Did you strain your shoulder somehow?” she asked casually. Something niggled at her memory, something from the first-aid course she’d taken.
“Must have, but I can’t think how.” He turned and nudged Saul. “Are you going to eat everything so I don’t have any leftovers tomorrow? Best part of Thanksgiving is the leftovers.”
“As if there are ever leftovers in this house,” his wife remarked, winking at Elizabeth. “Samuel, do you want a slice of pie now or wait for supper to settle?”
“I think I’ll wait,” he said, patting his stomach. “Maybe I’ll just have another cup of coffee.”
“Let me get it, you’ve been cooking all morning,” Elizabeth told Waneta.
Elizabeth fetched the percolator and served them all coffee. Just as she was about to sit down, Samuel’s face changed color.
“Samuel? Are you all right?”
He stared at her, started to say something and then suddenly slumped at the table. His cup fell from his hand and coffee spread across the tablecloth.
14
Samuel! Mein Gott, what’s wrong?” Waneta cried.
Elizabeth set the coffeepot on the stove and hurried to his side.
“Saul, help me lay him on the floor,” Elizabeth said quickly.
He lay his father on the floor and loosened his collar. Elizabeth knelt beside him and checked to see if he was breathing.
“Call 911,” she told Saul. “Tell them we need an ambulance.”
Waneta knelt beside her. “Is he breathing?”
Elizabeth shook her head. She mentally ran through the steps to perform CPR she’d taken in the first-aid course: checking to make sure his airway was clear, then placing her hands on his chest to begin compressions.
“Is he having a heart attack?” Waneta cried. “He’s never had any trouble with his heart.”
Elizabeth glanced at Saul and heard him telling the dispatcher someone was doing CPR.
“They’re on their way,” he said. “They want me to stay on the line.”
Busy counting out the compressions, she nodded and kept going. As much as she wanted to reassure Saul’s mother, she had to focus.
She heard sirens and wanted to weep with relief.
“I’ll go let them in,” Saul said. “Mamm, why don’t you sit at the table so the paramedics can get in here and help Daed?”
Moving a
lmost like a robot, Waneta got to her feet and did as he suggested.
The paramedics streamed in, one of them taking over the CPR while Elizabeth moved out of the way and another paramedic asked her what had happened and made notes.
They gave Samuel oxygen and a shot of something and loaded him onto a gurney. Within minutes, he, Waneta, and all of the paramedics who had come to help were gone, leaving Elizabeth standing there, drained, staring after them.
Saul put his arms around her and hugged her for a long moment. “I don’t know what we would have done without you here tonight,” he said. “You’re a good person to have around in an emergency. You’re a good person, period.”
“He’s going to be all right,” she said, knowing he needed reassurance. “They got here quickly.”
Still he held her. She absorbed the comfort, the gratitude, and then became aware they shouldn’t do this—they were alone and the events of the evening had affected them too much.
She stood back. “You need to get a ride to the hospital.”
He nodded, pulled out his cell phone, and made arrangements. “Phil says he can drive you home after he drops me at the hospital.”
They cleared the table, setting the dishes in the sink to soak in soapy water and put away the leftovers.
“There’s some coffee left,” she told him. “If you have a thermos you could take it to the hospital.”
A van pulled into the driveway.
“No time. We have to go.”
“Sorry to hear about your father,” Phil said when Saul opened the passenger-side door for Elizabeth.
“I appreciate you being able to drive me to the hospital.”
“No problem. The wife’s praying for him. I’ll have you to the hospital quick as I can, then I’ll take Miss Bontrager home.”
He nodded at Elizabeth. They’d met when he drove her and Saul on some dates.
The drive was silent. Saul looked drawn as he stared out the window. His fingers tensed on the seat between them. Elizabeth reached over and touched his hand. He looked up and smiled slightly at her.
Then he frowned. “The store. I should give you a key in case I can’t get there in the morning to open up.” He pulled his keys from his pocket, selected one and began working it off the key ring.
Elizabeth drew back in her seat. “I—I’m sure you’ll be there—”
“If I am, I’ll just be waiting for you to open up.” He handed her the key.
It touched her how he trusted her with the key to the store but it felt like a big responsibility. “I’m not sure I’ll know what to do if you’re not there.”
“Of course you will. And Katie and Rosie will be there around noon like usual. If you get too busy before then, you know where their phone numbers are to call them.”
Phil pulled into the hospital parking lot and drove up to the emergency room entrance.
“I’ll be praying for your daed,” she told him and squeezed his hand before he got out.
The apartment was empty when she got home. She took off her dress and hung it up, then pulled on her nightgown and robe. Restless, she wandered into the living room, lay down on the sofa and turned on the television set. She could see why people talked about becoming couch potatoes. It was nice to lie here on a soft sofa and watch something on the television. But she was too restless and soon she was up again, looking for something to do.
“You’re home already?” Paula asked when she came home a few minutes later. She carried a shopping bag into the kitchen. “Did you have a nice time?”
Elizabeth slid onto one of the stools at the kitchen island and watched Paula unload Tupperware containers and store them in the refrigerator.
“We won’t have to cook for days. I always take these to Mom’s for leftovers. Wait until you taste her green bean casserole. Oh, by the way, the pecan pie you made was amazing. Did Saul and his parents like it?” She stopped and grinned at her. “Sorry, I’ll let you get a word in.”
“You remember how you were watching a CPR video for class one night and I watched it with you, even though I said I took a class at the fire station last summer? Well, Samuel—Saul’s daed—I think he had a heart attack.”
“Oh, no!”
“I performed CPR on him until the paramedics arrived. I’m not sure if I would have remembered what I learned last summer if I hadn’t seen that video recently.”
She glanced at the clock on the wall. “I’m hoping Saul will call soon and let me know how he is.”
But hours passed with no word, and finally Elizabeth went to bed.
Saul sat in the waiting room of the hospital and couldn’t take his eyes off the door.
He prayed the next person walking through it would have good news about his father. When he’d arrived at the hospital, his father was already in surgery, and he found his mother shredding a tissue and praying as she rocked back and forth in a hard plastic chair.
An hour passed, then another. His father was the rock of the family and now he lay, vulnerable, under the knife of the surgeon.
Saul had managed the store his father started and made into a thriving business. He turned it over to Saul without a qualm when his wife fell ill, and Saul knew he’d run the store as well as anyone could have. But he’d relied on his daed for advice and always knew he could go to him for anything he needed.
Now, if it was God’s will for him to leave, Saul didn’t know what he’d do. Surely God hadn’t helped heal his mother and given her a chance for more years with her mann only to lose him?
“I’m going to go get us some coffee,” he told her. “Can I bring you anything else?”
She shook her head. He patted her hand and went in search of the cafeteria. When he returned bearing two cups she still sat in the same place, her gaze trained on the door as his had been.
“No word?”
She shook her head and accepted the cup he held out.
“The hospital smells the same as it did three years ago,” she said. “I guess it never changes.” She sighed.
“You got through chemo. Daed’ll get through this. He’s strong.” He hoped he sounded more certain than he felt. “You said they told you having someone start CPR right away was a big factor in his survival.”
They’d prayed and then prayed some more. Saul went for coffee but his mother would drink just a sip and then set it down and walk away to stand and look out the waiting room window.
Finally, the door opened and the doctor walked in looking exhausted. “One of his arteries had a 90 percent blockage. We did a bypass and now it’s just a waiting game.”
“When can we see him?”
“He’ll be in recovery for a while yet. The nurse will let you know.” The doctor patted his mother’s shoulder and left them.
They sat again.
“Gut news,” Saul said.
His mother nodded. She closed her eyes and her lips began moving in what Saul thought was a silent prayer.
Saul felt her hand on his shoulder a little while later. He blinked, sat up, and realized he must have dozed off. When he checked his watch he saw that a half hour had passed since the last time he looked at it. His mother had left him some time during his unexpected nap and he was alone in the waiting room.
A nurse came in. “Your mother’s with your father. Would you like to go in for a minute?”
He jumped up. “I sure would.”
She led him down a corridor to a small room in intensive care. There, she gestured through the window at Saul’s mother and she walked out.
“They said one at a time,” his mother told him as she nurse walked away. “And we’re not to try to wake him.”
“I don’t want to keep you from—” he began.
She squeezed his arm. “He’s my mann, but he’s your daed as well. Go in and see him. ”
Saul walked into the room and winced as he saw how pale his father’s face looked against the pillow. Fancy machines beeped and pulsed around him and he looked so much smaller lying h
ere in bed.
He touched his father’s hand and wondered if it he imagined he felt his father’s fingers tighten imperceptibly around his. Shaking his head, he stayed for a few minutes, hoping his father’s eyes would open and then finally, he released his hand and walked out.
His mother looked at him with hope in her eyes. “He’s looking better than I thought he might.”
“I agree,” he said, trying to make his voice sound hearty and reassuring. “I’m feeling much better about him.”
“I’m selfish,” she confessed, her voice shaky. “I talked to God and said I would understand His will but to please let me have more years with Samuel.”
He patted her hand. “I’m praying you get them.” He sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall.
“I’m staying,” she said firmly before he could speak. “You can go home if you want to. I know you’ll have to open the store in the morning.”
He waved away her words. “I gave Elizabeth a key. She’ll open the store. I have complete faith in her. We’re staying, but we need to get something to eat.”
Saul could tell she wanted to argue with him, but to his surprise she nodded and picked up her purse. He took her hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm as they walked.
“I hope this place isn’t bringing back bad memories,” he said as he punched the elevator button.
“Why no,” she said, looking at him with surprise. “Everyone was wonderful here and the chemo saved my life. And the hospital worked with us to give us a discount in the cost.”
Saul knew the payment had still been significant and without the Plain community sharing the financial burden they could have lost everything.
The hospital never closed but now as it grew near daylight it seemed to be coming awake. They joined the line to get coffee and breakfast.
“It isn’t the breakfast my mamm makes for me,” Saul said when they were seated at their table.
“Sssh,” she said. “They do the best they can with so many to cook for.” But she smiled.
After they asked for a blessing for the meal, Saul began eating his eggs. “Wonder how long it’ll be before Daed wakes up?”
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