Her Fear

by Shelley Shepard Gray

  “I couldn’t believe it either at first.” Unable to stop the torrent of words, she continued. “My mother refused to believe that a handsome, wealthy, and upstanding man like Harlan would ever lie. No matter how I tried to get her to understand my side, she didn’t listen. They even locked me in my room until they decided what to do with me.”

  “How did you get out?” Esther asked as she went over to continue where Sadie left off, turning again each piece of chicken in the oil.

  “I told them I would run away.” Lowering her voice, she said, “Sometimes, I think that they wanted me to do that. To just leave.” Taking a deep breath, she concluded her sad story. “They eventually decided to send me down here. And here I am.”

  Esther’s eyes widened. “Does Harlan know what happened to you?”

  “I imagine he does. My parents wouldn’t keep my disobedience a secret. They have other children to raise and keep in line.”

  “One day everyone will realize that you were right and he was wrong.”

  Just as Sadie was about to nod, she caught herself. “I used to hope for nothing more. But now? Well, I don’t think it even matters.”

  Uneasy again, she joined Esther at the skillet. The chicken looked done. Together they removed the pieces, then Sadie wrapped a towel around the handle of the pot and pulled it away from the burner.

  Esther put a pot of water for potatoes on the stove. “What would you do if Harlan came here to find you, and he apologized?”

  “I canna imagine him doing such a thing.”

  “But if he does?”

  “If he does, I don’t think I will care.”

  Esther gaped at her. “But he is your baby’s father.”

  “I know. But he didn’t want the child. And neither did my parents. Now, though, I have no idea what will happen next, it feels like it is too late. They might have pushed me out of their lives, but what’s done is done. I’ve already left and I’m not going back.”

  Esther hugged her, and they went back to preparing supper, waiting for news about Verba. But when the men still hadn’t returned hours later, some of their hopefulness began to falter. Eventually, Esther fell asleep on the couch. Sadie covered her up with a quilt, sat in the wooden rocking chair, and stared out the window.

  Worried that their worst fears had been realized.

  Chapter 3

  June 29, 6:00 P.M.

  Almost immediately after bringing Verba Stauffer to the emergency department, Noah’s team was called out again, this time to a near drowning at an Englisher’s pool. A young child had fallen in. Chad performed CPR and revived the child, much to everyone’s relief.

  After they brought that child to the hospital for observation, they returned to the firehouse and spent the next two hours carefully cleaning the ambulance, restocking supplies, and submitting reports.

  When they got called out to the hospital again, they discovered that Verba Stauffer had died soon after they’d dropped her off.

  Noah was stunned. When they returned to the firehouse, he brought it up again. “Chad, you spoke to more people than I did. What was the cause of death? Did anyone tell you?”

  Chad shook his head. “The doctors think she might have eaten something that didn’t agree with her. Maybe she had an allergic reaction.”

  “Maybe.” It didn’t seem like she’d been having an allergic reaction, though.

  “We won’t know anything for sure until they get toxicology results from the lab,” Chad commented before going back to the report he was working on.

  Though he was disappointed with the way his partner was speaking so matter-of-factly, Noah understood that Chad wasn’t being disrespectful. He was simply trying to keep his distance.

  Noah had learned back during his first month on the job how difficult it was to take home all the pain and hurting he witnessed while working. He was hired to help save lives, not change them.

  That had been a difficult thing to wrap his head around, but eventually he learned to do the same thing. Otherwise, all the worry and stress would get him was a bunch of sleepless nights. He’d come to understand that even prayer wouldn’t heal every person or soothe the men and women who were burdened with addiction or suffering from disease.

  So even though Chad tried to keep his distance, it didn’t mean that he didn’t care. “Did she look near death to you?”

  Chad looked startled by the question. But in his typical way, he considered it thoughtfully before answering. “Honestly? No. If I were to take a guess, I thought maybe she had a burst appendix. She was complaining of awful stomach pain.”

  “I wish we could have done more.”

  He sighed. “Noah, we try to save lives, but we aren’t miracle workers.”

  This was true. Noah knew if his father was standing close, he would remind him that their fates were ultimately in the Lord’s hands.

  “You are right,” he said at last to Chad. “We aren’t miracle workers, nor do we need to be. May she rest in peace.”

  “Amen.” Chad waited a moment, then said, “Since she’s Amish, will you attend her service?”

  “Nee. We are in different church communities. I didn’t know them.”

  “Sorry. Do you hate it when I say things like that? When I assume that all the Amish know each other?”

  Noah couldn’t help but grin. “I don’t hate it, Chad.” Thinking about his big family and how many Amish men and women there were, he said, “I probably do know most of the Plain people in the area. However, the Stauffers are different. I don’t think they associate with many people, Amish or English.”

  “So they’re living off the grid.”

  Noah smiled again. He wouldn’t have described them that way, but it wasn’t a bad description. “Jah. They are.” Returning to the original question, he said, “Even if I did know them, I probably wouldn’t attend Verba’s funeral anyway. I think they might blame me for her death.”

  “You know that would be wrong. Remember what I’ve been telling you since you first started. We do the best we can. That’s all we can do.”

  Noah nodded. There wasn’t anything Chad could say to help him, and fixating on Verba’s death wasn’t going to help his peace of mind, either.

  Pointing to the clock, Chad said, “Let’s get out of here. Our twelve-hour shift is done.”

  Noah smiled. “I won’t argue with that.”

  Chad’s steps slowed as they walked out of the room. “You going to be okay? You do such a good job, I keep forgetting that days like this, when one of our patients dies, are new for you. Do you want some time off or anything?”

  It was offers like that that made Noah know he had a lot to be grateful for. Chad McGovern was a good man and a good mentor. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” He hoped he would, at least. Chad slapped him on the shoulder, then headed out. Noah went to the locker room.

  After washing up, he strode to his locker and took off his dark-blue ball cap with the Hart County EMT logo blazoned across the front of it and his black work boots. He set them in his locker, then removed his uniform shirt and trousers and folded them into his backpack. He would take them home to wash and hang on the line.

  In their places, he slipped on a pair of dark-gray trousers and a light-blue short-sleeved shirt. Then he sat down and pulled on a pair of dark boots that fit him so well they felt almost like a part of his body.

  Finally, he put on the straw hat that he’d placed neatly on top of his boots when he’d started his shift twelve hours ago.

  Feeling satisfied that he was once again dressed Plain, he closed his eyes and took a moment to give thanks for his blessings. Even the hardest ones to accept.

  This prayer was part of his normal routine. When he started working as an EMT, he’d made a promise to himself to always take a moment at the beginning and end of his workday to remind himself of who he was.

  With a renewed sense of peace, he hiked the backpack onto one of his shoulders and walked out of the locker room and through the rec room
and kitchen.

  Mitch, his immediate supervisor, was sitting at one of the tables, sipping coffee and eating a turkey sandwich. “You getting out of here?”

  “Yeah. I guess you aren’t?”

  “Nah. George’s boy is pitching tonight. He asked if I could stay an extra three hours so he could watch the baseball game.”

  “That was nice of you.”

  Mitch shrugged. “Tamara said she didn’t care. She’s out running errands.”

  “Hopefully you won’t get called out again.”

  “It’s almost July fourth. We’ll get called out.”

  Noah grinned as he tipped his hat and left. Mitch wasn’t wrong. Even though they hadn’t had much rain and there were warnings about setting off firecrackers in the dry heat, people still did. And got hurt while doing it.

  After exiting the firehouse, he walked the mile home to the small house that he shared with his older brother. They lived right next door to their parents, and just a block away from their sister and her husband. Though many of their parents’ friends enjoyed living in a dawdi haus in back of one of their children’s homes, Noah had often gotten the impression that their parents liked having their bit of privacy. He and Silas sure did.

  While it wasn’t that the two of them ever did anything too outlandish, they both had demanding jobs. He worked as an EMT and Silas owned his own construction company. They both enjoyed the freedom of being able to come and go without being questioned—and to sit around and do nothing in the evening if that was what they desired.

  Chances were good that if they still lived with their parents, they would be expected to spend at least a few hours each evening talking with them.

  On days like today, even that small amount of time felt like a burden.

  When he walked into the house, Silas was sprawled out on the couch in the living room. His black hair was damp, his white shirt was untucked, and his feet were bare.

  “Hey,” Noah said. “Long day?”

  “Jah. And hot,” he murmured, not even bothering to open his eyes. “Next year, remind me to go on vacation in the middle of summer. It’s too hot to build houses in the sun.”

  “I’ll make a note of it,” he said sarcastically as he sat down in their father’s old lounge chair. It was rickety and threadbare. Noah also happened to think it was the most comfortable chair in the world.

  When he worked the squeaky lever to recline the chair, Silas grinned. “It’s sounding worse than ever. I tell ya, one day you’re gonna force that chair back and it’s gonna fall apart.”

  “Probably. Hope it’s not today, though.”

  Silas finally opened his eyes and studied him with concern. “You sound almost as tired as I feel. What’s going on with you? There wasn’t a fire today, was there?”

  “Nee.” After debating for a moment about how much to share, he said, “We did have a real difficult call today, though. An Amish woman collapsed at home. She later died.”

  “Who was it?” he asked as he sat up.

  He didn’t usually feel comfortable talking about people’s private injuries or problems; the Amish community was real small. Likely, he and his brother wouldn’t know this family, but word would spread about the woman’s death.

  “Verba Stauffer. Do you know her?”

  Silas’s expression grew even more confused. “I’ve never heard of her. What was she like? Young? Old?”

  “Old. She collapsed and was lying on the floor when we got there. Mitch and Chad tried to get her stable when we arrived, but I guess it wasn’t any use.”

  “If she was old, maybe it was her time?” Silas said after a while. “I mean, sorry, I know it is hard, but the Lord don’t intend for us to live forever.”

  That had been what their grandmother was fond of saying. Hearing it would upset their mamm to no end, but Noah and Silas always kind of thought Mommi’s matter-of-fact view on death was a comfort.

  “I should probably take that saying to heart,” he said at last. “But I can’t shake the feeling that maybe it wasn’t Verba’s time.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t know. I know I’m still learning, and am no doctor, but her dying so quickly was surprising. The whole thing seemed off, somehow.”

  Silas was still staring at him intently. “Off how?”

  “I don’t know. Her pain, well, it seemed like she had kidney stones or a bad appendix or something.” He shrugged. “And that house, it was a real mess.”

  “Noah, look around you.”

  “Nee, it wasn’t a matter of dishes in the sink or dirt on the floor. I mean, the house had a feeling about it that spoke of neglect.” Thinking of the woman off near the bedroom, and of the men watching him, Mitch, and Chad with angry expressions, he continued. “There is something peculiar going on there.”

  “Like what?”

  “I canna put my finger on it exactly, but it was disturbing. There was a tension in the house that you could feel from the minute you stepped inside,” he continued, remembering the way Stephen and Willis Stauffer kept exchanging glances with each other. “Then, well, there was a girl there, a woman really. She was a cousin or some such.”

  “Nothing too peculiar about that.”

  “True, but she acted like she wasn’t even sure where to stand. She lurked in the back of the room, gripping a doorframe like it was a lifeline. She didn’t say a word and hardly moved a muscle.”

  “You sure got a good look at her for someone responding to an emergency.”

  Feeling himself flush, Noah said, “Anyone would have noticed her. She was ill at ease and frightened. I . . . well, I can’t stop thinking about her.”

  Silas sat up and studied Noah more closely. “You’re serious.”

  “I am. She seemed scared; and then, like I said, the whole situation felt off.”

  Silas looked at him curiously. “How so?”

  “I don’t know. It might have been my imagination, but it kind of seemed like the whole family was on edge. Not from fear about their relative, but for another reason.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like . . . Oh, I don’t know. Like maybe someone had something to do with the woman’s illness.”

  Silas’s voice hardened. “Do you hear what you are saying?”

  “Jah. And yes, I know I shouldn’t even be thinking such things.”

  “I think you’re jumping to conclusions.”

  Noah heard the warning in his brother’s tone. Silas was right. It was sinful for him to even be contemplating such things. But even if he was stepping over the line, it sure didn’t feel right to keep these thoughts to himself. “Maybe they didn’t mean for her to die. Maybe it simply went terribly wrong. But all I do know is that Verba didn’t get deathly ill on her own.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied, glad again that his older brother was the type of man who always went right to the point. “I’m an EMT in training, and Amish to boot. There ain’t a person in either the medical field or in law enforcement who’s going to listen to a single word I say.”

  Worry flared in Silas’s eyes. “But, bruder, if you don’t say a word . . .”

  Though Silas’s voice dropped off, Noah didn’t need to be a mind reader to finish his thought. “If I don’t say a word, then there will be no justice for Verba . . . and it could very well happen again.”

  Chapter 4

  Friday, July 6

  That lingering sensation of feeling that something was suspicious about Verba Stauffer’s death stayed with Noah for days. It cast a dark haze over his mood, and he did everything he could to shake it off.

  He prayed for Verba’s soul every evening. Tried to convince himself that he had an overeager imagination. He even tried to push his concerns about her—and her uneasy relatives—out of his mind.

  Nothing worked.

  Finally, after a whole week passed, he resigned himself to the fact that the Lord wanted him to focus on it. He didn�
��t know why and he wasn’t sure if he could make a difference, but the new responsibility eased him. He began keeping his eyes and ears open whenever someone mentioned Verba in passing.

  He even cast aside his worries about being taken seriously and mentioned his concerns to Mitch one evening. To Noah’s relief, Mitch had listened to him intently. But after Noah said his piece, his supervisor pushed aside his worries.

  “What’s happening to you is perfectly normal,” Mitch had said. “All of us at one time or another find ourselves getting too caught up in a case. You need to give yourself some distance, man.”

  Not wanting to directly disagree, Noah nodded and promised to drop his fears.

  But he found it impossible.

  Finally, not being able to help himself anymore, he rode his bike back to that house. Feeling like he needed a reason to visit, he brought with him a small first aid kit that they often gave out to classrooms when he and the firemen visited schools. It wasn’t much, but most people seemed appreciative of the gift of some basic medical supplies.

  As he rode, he tried to imagine how he would be greeted. He had no idea what to expect. Would everyone be in mourning and too upset to receive visitors? Were they going to be curious as to why he was there, maybe even willing to talk to him about the woman’s death?

  Or, maybe instead, they were going to be resentful of his presence. Mitch had told him that it had happened to him when another patient had died. Since he was the last to come in contact with the departed, the very sight of him brought back terrible feelings of anger and loss for the family.

  A chill ran up Noah’s spine as he contemplated that happening. Unfortunately, he could absolutely imagine receiving that kind of reaction. He’d felt something inside of that house. He’d felt it and had been taken aback enough to still be thinking about them and wondering what had happened there.

  Realizing he was already standing on their front lawn, and simply staring at the front door, he shook himself out of his reverie, grabbed the white-and-red first aid kit, and strode to the door. Mentally preparing himself for whatever was on the other side, he knocked on the door.