by Jo Ann Brown
“Danki for coming with me,” she whispered. “I don’t know how I would have handled this long ride otherwise. Even God’s patience might be tried when I keep praying the same words over and over for Him to let Daed live.”
“Where else would I be?”
She shrugged beneath his arm.
Though he couldn’t see her face, he put a single finger beneath her chin and tipped her face up so her mouth was close to his. He longed to kiss her again, to sweep away her fear and to think only of joy. Instead, he said, “If our situations were reversed, you’d be here for me.”
“But I wasn’t.” Her voice broke on each word. “When you struggled after your daed’s death, I wasn’t here for you.”
“Because you were there for your brother. Even you, Leah, can’t be in two places at once, and you were where you were supposed to be at that time. I had my family. Johnny and Mandy had only you.”
“I wish I could have been here for you.”
“I know you do, but you’re here now.”
The wrong thing to say, he realized, when she stiffened and pulled away. Was she thinking of returning to Philadelphia? After everything that had happened today? Her daed’s illness and the kisses by the creek? Defeat clutched his heart. If today’s events wouldn’t keep her in Paradise Springs, he had no idea what would.
* * *
Everything about the hospital emergency room was frantic and calm at the same time. Odors of cleaning fluid and disinfectants filled each breath Ezra took. He kept his hand on Leah’s arm as they were directed to a counter to the left of the entrance. Around them swarmed emergency personnel and the emergency room staff, along with families and patients seeking help.
A dark-haired woman who looked to be about the same age as his mamm stood behind the chest-high counter. Her name tag read Gloria. She looked up with a professionally kind smile when they halted in front of her.
“How may I help you?” Gloria asked.
“My daed—” Leah quickly corrected herself. “My father was brought here in an ambulance. Can you tell me where he is and how he’s doing?”
“His name is Abraham Beiler,” Ezra added.
Leah shot him a thankful smile, then turned back to the woman in the bright turquoise scrubs who was tapping the keys that must connect to the computer to her left. Leah might look composed, but her arm shivered in his hand. At every sound, she flinched and glanced around fearfully.
“Yes, Abraham Beiler,” Gloria said, drawing his attention back to her. “He’s waiting to see the neurologist. His wife is with him. Our policy is that ER patients can only have one visitor with them at a time.” She glanced past Leah to him.
“Leah is his daughter,” he said. “I’m a family friend.” The words tasted bitter on his lips, but if she went back to the city, that would be all he’d ever be.
“If you’ll take a seat in our waiting room, I’ll let his nurse know you are here.”
“Thank you,” Leah whispered, her voice shaking.
Telling himself now wasn’t the time to think about Leah’s plans, Ezra steered her to where four rows of plastic chairs faced a television set. She sat on a red chair and stared up at the television. He glanced at it and quickly away as cartoons flitted across the screen with the sound turned off.
“I hope we don’t have to wait a long time,” she said.
“It may be a while if the doctor is there now.”
She wrapped her arms tightly around herself. He would have liked to put his arms around her, too, but the waiting room was filled with strangers. The doors opened and closed, spewing more people into the emergency room.
“A neurologist is a brain doctor,” she said abruptly. “Why would Daed need to see a brain doctor?”
“Maybe,” he replied, “they want to make sure Abram didn’t get a concussion when he fell.”
She nodded, clearly wanting to be comforted. “That makes sense.”
Ezra stood when he saw two familiar faces near the door. Their bishop, Reuben Lapp, walked into the emergency room along with Isaiah. When they glanced around, he waved to them, and they hurried over.
“Reuben, Isaiah, danki for coming,” he said.
The bishop nodded to him and sat beside Leah. He spoke quietly to her, and Ezra tried not to listen. The words of God’s comfort and grace were for Leah. He longed for some of that grace for himself, that faith he’d once had that there was no problem too big for him and God to handle together.
Isaiah motioned toward a couple of open chairs against the opposite wall.
“Micah alerted us, and I contacted Reuben,” he said without waiting for Ezra to say anything. “We got here as quickly as we could. How’s Abram?”
Ezra sat beside his brother and told him the little he knew. Isaiah’s brows lowered when Ezra spoke of how this wasn’t the first time Abram had fallen and how the family had kept his unsteadiness a secret at his request.
“Like daed, like son,” Isaiah grumbled under his breath. “Both too proud to admit that they needed help.”
“Fortunately Leah has been close to help both of them. Abram should be grateful that she knew what to do.”
“She’s here for now...unless you’ve convinced her to change her mind.”
Ezra didn’t bother to reply. His brother might think it was because Ezra didn’t want to discuss his relationship with Leah...or Isaiah might sense the truth. Either way, there was nothing Ezra could say that wouldn’t sound pitiful.
“Fannie!” Isaiah jumped to his feet and went to assist Leah’s mamm to the chair he’d vacated.
Leah rushed across the room to hug her mamm. “How’s Daed?”
“He wants to talk to you,” Fannie replied. “Where’s Mandy?”
“With Mamm,” Ezra answered before Leah could.
“Gut. This is not place for a kind who’s still mourning her daed’s death.” She looked back at her daughter. “Go. Your daed is waiting to speak to you.”
Leah took one step, then faltered. Ezra moved to her side and put his hand on her arm, not caring if everyone in the world was watching. “We’ll wait here with Fannie. It’ll be okay.”
“Will it?” She was walking away before he could answer, even if he’d had an answer.
* * *
Leah heard moans of pain and hushed voices coming from behind the drawn curtains. Hospital staff went from room to room, comforting patients, drawing blood, running tests. She’d hoped she had become inured to suffering after the times she went to the ER with Johnny. She hadn’t. She didn’t think she ever could.
Repeating the prayer that Reuben had shared with her in the waiting room, she asked God to be with each of the sick or hurt people behind those curtains and with their families. Give them hope, let them know that You are with them always, in the gut times and the bad.
She stopped in front of the curtained door with the number four printed over it. Taking a deep breath, she drew the curtain back and stepped inside.
Daed was alone in the room, except for machines that beeped and listed numbers she had learned to read. A quick scan told her that her daed’s vitals were gut, though his pulse was elevated. That wasn’t a surprise when he’d been brought by ambulance to the hospital.
He looked gray against the white sheets on the bed. The top was cranked up, so he had a view of the curtains without lifting his head. A bandage was wrapped around his forehead, and she guessed he’d cracked open the healing scab from his previous fall. She rushed to his bedside and clasped his left hand between hers, being careful not to jostle the needle hooked to the IV bag hanging behind him. If he pulled his hand away, too angry at her to let her offer him sympathy, then so be it. She loved him. She’d never stopped loving him, and she couldn’t pretend otherwise so he wasn’t upset.
But he didn’t pull his hand
away. Instead, he looked up at her with tear-filled eyes as he said, “Danki, Leah.”
“I didn’t do anything you need to thank me for, Daed.”
“Your mamm told me how much you helped her when I...when I fell over. Neither of us is surprised, because you have always helped those who need it, but we’re both grateful.”
“I’m glad I was there to call 911.”
He grimaced as he pushed himself up to sit higher on the bed. Reaching behind him, she readjusted his pillow so it was comfortable. She started to step back, but Daed caught her hand, keeping her beside him.
“I’m glad you were there, too, Leah,” he said in a gruff tone that she knew covered his emotions, “and not just to call the ambulance. I’m glad you are home.”
“You are?” The words squeaked out before she could halt them.
He rubbed his forehead with his right hand, and she noticed how it quivered. She glanced up at the screen with his vitals listed on it. They remained the same.
“Don’t look worried,” Daed said. “The nurse told me that we’ll have to get used to my hand shaking.”
“Why? What’s causing it?”
“I heard the nurses talking. They mentioned Parkinson’s disease.” He looked at his right hand. “I think it has to do with this shaking and maybe the falls, but they want the brain doctor to examine me so they can be sure. Will you stay here while he’s here?”
“Ja.” She hid her surprise. “If you want me to. I’ll get Mamm—”
He shook his head, then winced. “You know more about this Englisch medicine, so it’ll be better if you explain it to her after the doctor’s done. She’ll get upset with the fancy words, but you’ll understand them, won’t you?”
“If I don’t, I’ll ask.” She glanced up at the monitors again as she added in a faint whisper, “That’s what I learned to do when Johnny was in the hospital.”
“Leah...”
When her daed didn’t continue, she looked back at him, fearful. He was regarding her steadily, his face revealing raw emotions that appeared as jumbled as she’d described hers to Ezra. How she wished Ezra was here! He was steady and calm and cared about her and Daed. To touch him would bolster her flagging strength.
“Ja, Daed?” she asked.
“It’s time we talked.”
“We are talking.”
“But not about what’s been bothering you. You don’t understand why I sent your letters back unopened. I thought you would understand.”
“I didn’t, and I don’t now.” She took another deep breath, then added, “Mamm told me that you believed if Johnny and I had anything to say, we could say it to you directly.”
“She’s partly right.”
“What’s the other part?”
“I was ashamed that I had chased my own kinder away.”
“You didn’t chase Johnny away. He’d been planning to leave with Carleen for quite a while. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision.”
He stared up at the ceiling tiles where a water leak had made an abstract brown pattern. “Johnny would never have stayed here, even if we never had raised our voices to each other. He looked beyond our community from the moment he realized there were others who lived differently than we did. He was like a fire that burned too brightly and too fast. A fire that demanded more and more fuel to keep burning. A plain life would never have given him that endless supply of excitement and speed. I knew as soon as he found work beyond Paradise Springs he would eventually be gone.”
Compassion for her daed surged through her. “I know, but I never guessed he was jumping the fence that night.”
“He had jumped it long before, though he remained beneath our roof.” His eyes shifted toward the curtain, but whoever had paused beyond it kept walking. “He chose a wild gang to run about with.”
“I wished he hadn’t. They got into all kinds of mischief.”
“I thought he might come to his senses when the Miller boy was killed in that car wreck, but he didn’t.”
“No,” she said with a sigh, “but he did the right thing by trying to make a life with Carleen. He never could have guessed that she’d walk away from him and Mandy when the going got rough.”
“But you didn’t.”
“How could I? They needed me. After his accident, Johnny couldn’t care for Mandy by himself, and bringing her home would have been a worse blow to him than having Carleen leave. I couldn’t separate Mandy from her daed or Johnny from his daughter.”
“So you separated yourself from me.”
Tears rolled out of her eyes and down her cheeks. “Don’t think that I wasn’t aware of that. I saw our phone number in the barn. Why didn’t you call?”
“And say what? Johnny had made his decision, and so had you.” He sighed. “I couldn’t bring myself to throw that number away.”
But he couldn’t call and beg. As Mamm had told her, Daed was a proud man who struggled to be humble.
“In his own way,” Leah said, “I think Johnny missed home, too.”
Surprise widened her daed’s eyes before sadness dimmed them. “Danki for telling me that. And let me be as honest with you. During those quarrels with Johnny, when I knew I was losing him, I never guessed you would go, too. That’s why I sent back your letters unread. I hoped you’d come home to find out why.”
Leah’s breath caught at her daed’s grief. All the homesickness she’d suffered, all the frustration she’d endured when every one of her letters came back, the pain of believing that she wasn’t missed... Every bit of it vanished as she saw the truth on her daed’s face. For every hour she had regretted not being home, he’d regretted not having her there.
“And, Leah, I don’t know if I could lose you again.”
“I know.” She leaned her head against his chest so he couldn’t see her face. As she listened to his steady heartbeat, she knew that, somehow, she had to convince Mandy to stay. Not out of guilt, because that might lead to her niece becoming as resentful as Johnny had been.
But somehow...
Chapter Thirteen
If he weren’t a farmer, Ezra decided he might like to run a general store like Amos did. Everything had a sense of order about it, as did the fields on the farm once the crops were planted. The shelves were set in the two rows that ran the depth of the store. Cans and bottles and boxes and bags were stacked on the shelves to the ceiling. A long-handled gripper hung at the end of each row so that shoppers could get down items from the higher shelves without resorting to using a step stool. He’d been fascinated by them as a boy and excited the first time Mamm let him wield it.
Fresh meat and vegetables lent an interesting aroma to the store. Ground coffee and fruits sweetened the air and made his stomach growl despite the large dinner he’d eaten at midday.
Supper would be on the table by the time he got back from coming into Paradise Springs to get more baling twine for tomorrow, if Mamm Millich didn’t go into labor. She was restless, so her time was coming soon, but he figured he could take a quick drive into the village as the sun was setting. He knew the baling twine was shelved at the back of the store with the other nonfood items that Amos sold. He’d grab it and get out so Amos could close up. The parking lot in front had been deserted when Ezra drove the family’s buggy up to the store, so he’d be the last customer of the day.
He walked past the black potbellied stove that was cool now that the days were warm. He’d reached the end of the row of shelves when he heard “...and three yards of the red cotton, if you have it, Amos.”
Leah!
Ezra’s heart lurched. He hadn’t seen her for the past week because she’d been busy with helping her parents adjust to what life would now be like since Abram’s diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. Though he could have gone across the field to visit as Mamm had, he had
resisted. He told anyone who asked—and his brothers did frequently—that he needed to remain close to the farm to be there when the calf was born. That was the truth, but only part of it.
He was tired of the hurting whenever he thought of how, once Abram was stabilized and accustomed to his new limitations, Leah might accept the invitation to go to Philadelphia. After her last visit to the Beilers’ house, Mamm had sadly mentioned that Mandy talked of little but her plans to go to her best friend’s birthday party. Leah would never allow the little girl to make that journey alone.
“I’ve got three yards, Leah,” his brother said, “but the bolt is almost gone. If you want to take the last couple of yards, I can give you a really gut price for it.”
“Danki, Amos. I’m sure I can find a use for it.” There was a lilt in her voice that he hadn’t heard since her return to Paradise Springs. It took him instantly back in time to the day so many years ago when they’d gone fishing by the creek that cut between their farms and she’d hooked the biggest trout ever caught out of the rapidly running spring waters. That was the day when, as he listened to her joyous laugh, he’d begun to realize that he wanted to be more than her friend.
“You or your students will, I’m sure.”
His brother’s easy words stabbed at Ezra’s heart. Students? She must have made her decision to return to the city. Blinded with pain, he started to turn to leave, but his shoulder bumped a stack of cans at the end of the row. They crashed to the concrete floor and rolled in every possible direction.
“Couldn’t you just say hi, big brother?” Amos asked with a chuckle as he came around the fabric counter and began gathering up the cans. “No need for a grand entrance.”
Ezra gave a terse laugh as he picked up the cans, too, and put them on the counter beside the bolt of cloth. Leah collected the ones that had rolled toward her and set them beside his.
As Amos chased after a couple of cans that had bounced farther away, Ezra couldn’t go without saying something to Leah. Again she spoke before he could come up with something that didn’t sound dumm.