Linda walked her out to the van when it arrived and handed her money for the fare. Mary Elizabeth didn’t argue. She felt so rattled she couldn’t remember if she had any cash in her purse. She prayed the whole ride to the hospital and had to stop herself from jumping out before the driver stopped the car at the entrance.
“Wait, you gave me too much,” he said and handed back a twenty.
She looked at the bills in her hand and exchanged them for the bigger bill. “Thank you, Phil.”
“You call when you need a ride home. Doesn’t matter how late,” he told her kindly.
She’d memorized the room number Mamm had given her and found it, but stopped for a moment just outside, drawing in a breath to calm herself and say a quick prayer. Sam wouldn’t need her to be hysterical when she saw him.
Still, it took her breath away when she walked into the room and saw big, strong Sam looking pale and in pain, one of his legs encased in a cast and hanging in some contraption.
“Good. You’re here,” John said. He stood. “He’s been driving me crazy asking when you were coming.”
Sam opened his eyes. “Mary Elizabeth? There you are. Both of you.” He grinned.
“Both of me?” She glanced at John.
“Concussion’s giving him double vision.”
“Two of you beats two of my dat.”
She reached for his hand. “Well, I guess that’s gut. How are you feeling?”
“Like I fell down a flight of stairs.”
John nudged her toward the chair he’d vacated. “I’m going to let the two of you have some privacy and get something to eat in the cafeteria.”
“Mamm packed us each a sandwich,” Mary Elizabeth told him. She handed him the cloth lunch bag. “There’s bottled water in there, too.”
“Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.”
“Mamm is.”
“Right. Back in a while.”
She sat and looked at Sam. He was being so quiet. She supposed he was in a lot of pain. But it was more than that. He looked . . . depressed.
“I’m sorry” he said at last. “I’ve messed everything up.”
“How did you do that? It was an accident.”
“I was upset, and I wasn’t careful,” he told her, sounding disgusted with himself. “I didn’t see there was a puddle of water from the roof on the floor near the stairs. I know better than to not pay attention when I’m working.”
“It was an accident,” she said again and she squeezed his hand. “Anyone can have an accident.” She thought about what he’d said. “Sam, what were you upset about?”
“Sarah said no. She doesn’t want to hold the mortgage for the farm. We’re not getting the farm.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I know you wanted it.”
“I wanted us to start our life together there.”
“I know. There must be something better God has in mind.”
“But how am I going to buy something else if no one wants to hold the mortgage?”
“I don’t know. But Sam, it’s not our job to know, to figure everything out. We just have to trust God.”
“I think He’s forgotten me.”
She winced at the bitterness and the pain in his voice. But before she could say anything, a nurse came in and gave him medication. Soon Sam’s eyelids were drifting shut.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice slurred.
She gathered up her jacket and purse. “It’s getting late. I’ll be back first thing in the morning. Is there anything I can bring you?”
“Just you. Both of you.”
She smiled, leaned down, and kissed his cheek. “Maybe the double vision will be gone in the morning when you wake up. One of me is enough for anyone.”
“One of you is more than I deserve.”
“Don’t talk like that. Tomorrow’s going to be better.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” She truly believed God had a plan for everyone but sensed Sam was in too much pain, feeling too much despair to hear such right now.
John joined her in the hallway and handed her the lunch bag. “Give me a minute to say good night to him and I’ll walk you out.”
When he returned, he looked worried. “I hate to leave him here by himself. He’s in a lot of pain, and he’s really bummed out.”
She studied him as they rode down in the elevator. He looked so Englisch with his haircut and clothes and had even picked up the slang they used. She could see why Rose Anna had said he was enjoying his rumschpringe and was unlikely to return to the Amish community.
“See you tomorrow,” he said as they arrived in the lobby.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“But you haven’t called for a driver.”
He reddened. “I can walk. It’s not that far.”
What if he didn’t have the money for a ride home? John was a lot like Rose Anna—both were absorbed with self but had kind hearts.
“Share a ride with me. Keep me company for part of the way. You’ll do me a favor. I’ve had a day, John. Lavina acted like she was in labor earlier today, and I’d just gotten home after dropping her off at her house when Mamm told me about Sam.”
She handed him the driver’s card. “Call Phil for us? He said he’d be happy to come back for me.”
John hesitated and then he walked to a nearby courtesy phone. She sat on a bench and closed her eyes, willing away the tension of the day.
She opened her eyes when she heard footsteps approach.
“Phil says he’s on his way.” He sat beside her on the bench. “Sam told me the two of you are finally getting married. I’m glad, Mary Elizabeth.”
“Danki.”
“So what do you think Sam’s going to say when he finds out I got my driver’s license and I’ll be driving him around until he gets his cast off?”
A laugh bubbled up, the first all day. “Oh my, John, wait until he hears that!”
She laughed until tears ran down her cheeks and then she was crying and she couldn’t stop. John put his arm around her waist and pressed a bandanna into her hands.
20
Sam’s color was a little better the next morning.
But although he said he was happy to see her—and said he only saw one of her—he looked as depressed as he had the night before whenever he thought she wasn’t watching him.
She was his sole visitor. He said John had come by to see him, but he’d insisted his bruder go to work.
“I don’t know when I’ll be able to go back to work,” Sam told her quietly. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
She found herself holding her breath. “What, Sam?”
“We can’t get married.”
“That’s crazy, Sam. Have you forgotten we have a place to stay? We can live with my parents, same as other newly married couples do.”
“But I don’t have a job.”
“Well, I do, and we’ll get along fine until you’re able to work.”
“I won’t live off my wife.” He stared at his hands on the blanket covering him.
“What if I’d been the one hurt, Sam? Are you saying you wouldn’t take care of me?”
“I’m the man, I’m the one who is supposed to provide.”
“Oh, so you’re invincible—you’re supposed to take care of not only yourself but your fraa no matter what? And are you the only one who gets to honor the vows of ‘in sickness and in health’?”
A doctor came in then and she had to step outside while he talked to Sam. She walked out and shut the door quietly behind her. Then she decided it was best if she kept walking until she could calm herself. It was too much, just too much to handle. She could have lost him forever and here he was being stiff necked about getting married and staying at her house until he went back to work and they got their own place.
She felt a little calmer by the time she returned to the room and found the door open and the doctor gone.
“I won’t let you do this to us bec
ause of pride,” she announced before he could say anything. “We’re getting married and that’s that.”
A nurse started into the room and then she backed out again.
“Mary Elizabeth—”
Another nurse—a man—came in pushing a cart with glass tubes. “Excuse me, folks, gotta get some blood.”
“I’ll come back later when you’ve had a chance to recover your good sense,” she told Sam, and she stalked out.
“Wow,” she heard the male nurse say.
She got into the elevator and punched the button for the lobby with a little more force than was necessary. Fortunately, it went straight down without stopping because she felt she would have had trouble being polite to anyone.
The doors opened with a swish. She walked out and got as far as a few feet outside. And then she turned around and went back up to Sam’s room. He was alone and looked miserable as he stared up at the ceiling.
She walked in and sat down in the chair beside the bed. “I’m sorry I got angry with you. But I’m not going away, so you can just forget that.”
He turned his head and winced at the effort. “Oh, yeah?”
“Ya.” She folded her arms across her chest.
“You can do better.”
“Maybe. But you’re the one I love, and we’ve lost enough time to your pride.”
He winced again, but this time she could see it was because her words hit home.
“So you need to get better fast and get out of here so we can get married.”
“Bossy,” he muttered, but she heard the humor under his complaint.
She lifted her chin and gave him a direct look. “I can be if needed. I want a life with you, Sam. It seems to me we got yet another chance at it. God didn’t promise us easy, but we can make it something special.”
He held out his hand, and she put hers in it. “Danki for reminding me.”
* * *
“Where are you going? You were supposed to turn back there.”
David glanced at him as he drove his buggy. “I know where I’m going.”
“Oh?” Sam felt a sinking in his stomach. “And where is that?”
“Home.”
“My apartment’s in the opposite direction.”
“We’re going to my house. You can’t take care of yourself right now. And have you forgotten you live on the third floor of your building and the elevator’s broken half the time?”
He had, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “So what? It’s not like I’m going to be going anywhere for a while.”
“What about food? Medicine? Doctor visits?”
“John—”
“Agrees with me.”
Sam managed to turn in his seat in the front of the buggy to stare at his younger bruder. John had been so strangely silent in the back seat that Sam had almost forgotten he’d come with David to bail him from the hospital.
John sat slumped in the back seat. “David’s right.”
“Have you forgotten that nightmare I had a couple weeks ago?”
“David said Daed’s changed.”
Sam turned to stare ahead. “He’s changed toward David. He hasn’t blessed us with a kinder attitude yet.” His headaches had faded some in the past week in the hospital, but now he felt the pain returning. “Daed couldn’t have agreed to this.”
“He did,” David told him. “And even if he hadn’t, it’s my haus, my farm now.”
“If it makes you feel any better, you won’t be suffering alone.” John’s tone was disgruntled.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Why?”
“I can’t afford the apartment on my own.”
“You could get a roommate.”
“Not fast enough.”
The headache was pounding now. His accident was forcing John back into the home the three of them had fled . . . nothing could make him feel worse.
He felt a hand on his arm and looked over to see the sympathy in David’s eyes. “It’s going to work out.”
“I don’t see how,” he said bleakly.
“Trust.”
Sam sat there staring ahead at the familiar road he’d traveled so many times, depression deepening as they grew closer to the farm. “It’s too much work for Lavina with the boppli coming,” he said, casting desperately for a way out.
“Mamm’s there to help. Daed, too. And me. Relax, you’re going to get well and in no time you’ll be getting married and living at Mary Elizabeth’s with her.”
“That’s the first positive I’ve heard so far.”
David grinned. “You’re welcome.”
“I’m sorry, I should be thanking you for helping me out.”
“No thanks necessary.”
“Does Lavina still make that great pot roast?” John leaned forward to ask.
“You bet. Sometimes once a week now that the weather’s cooled off.”
“That’ll beat ramen noodles,” Sam said.
John gave Sam a playful punch to his shoulder.
“Another positive,” David agreed and earned a punch as well.
“What’ll we do with our things?”
“John and I’ll take care of it this Saturday.”
It seemed there was nothing to do but make the best of it.
“Oh, how could I forget?” Sam burst out. “My truck’s still parked at the Smith house.” He looked at David. “I have to get it moved.”
“Don’t look at me. I don’t have a driver’s license as you well know.”
John leaned forward and pushed his face close to Sam. “Look at me. I have a driver’s license now.”
Sam stared at him, horrified. “You have a driver’s license? When did you get it?”
“Couple days ago. After you told me you were getting married.”
“What’s my getting married got to do with a driver’s license?”
John grinned at him. “You’re passing the truck down to me like David did to you, bro.”
“I bought the truck from David, bro.”
“I’ll pay you for it. ’Course you know it should cost me less. Has another year of depreciation. Anyway, it’s parked at the farm, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
Sam clutched his head. The day was just getting weirder and weirder.
“You allrecht?” David asked him.
He leaned back. “The hospital doesn’t seem so bad anymore.”
“Hey, we can take you back. Let them stick a few more needles in you, draw some more blood. Feed you whatever that was on your tray this morning when we came.”
There were few times Sam had felt like crying in his adult life but now was one of them.
“Relax. It’s going to be allrecht,” David said. “We’ll get you home, put you in bed with one of your pain pills, and let Lavina or Mamm make you a meal and you’ll feel a lot better.”
They were treating him like he was a child that had to be babied, like he couldn’t make his own decisions.
As David pulled the buggy into the driveway of the farm, Sam saw Mary Elizabeth sitting on the front porch.
She stood, walked down the steps, and opened the buggy door. “Welcome home.”
He grimaced. “Were you in on this? Deciding they should bring me here?”
“Everyone wants to help you.” She held out her hand to help him get out of the buggy.
John emerged from the back seat with a pair of crutches. Sam took them and carefully maneuvered his way to the stairs. It wasn’t easy even with the help of a brother on each side. By the time he got to the top of the short flight of porch stairs, he was out of breath, sweaty, and shaky.
He’d never have made it up the three flights of stairs to his apartment.
“Here, sit down for a minute and catch your breath,” Mary Elizabeth told him.
He sank into the chair she pushed over and watched his brothers return to the buggy and drive it back around the house to the barn. John would probably sit in the truck for
a while if he knew him. He remembered how he felt when David turned over the pickup truck. Bliss.
“How are you feeling?” Mary Elizabeth asked him. “The truth.”
“Like I fell down a flight of stairs. Like I had to move back into my parents’ home.”
He felt her take his hand and squeeze it.
“You’ll get better. You’ll move out.”
“I don’t know if I can walk down the aisle without these.” He gestured at his crutches.
She shrugged. “So you’ll use crutches. Or a wheelchair. It doesn’t matter.”
He sighed. “No, it doesn’t.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. “I love you.”
“And I love you.” She hesitated for a moment. “Sam, I told them about us when you were in the hospital.”
“How did they take it?”
“They’re delighted.”
“Especially my dat.”
She looked at him, surprised. “How did you know?”
“I told you, my mudder said he felt you’d bring me back to the community like Lavina did David.”
“God brought you back.”
He nodded.
“Let’s go inside. It’s cold out here, and you need to get to bed and rest. Your mudder invited me to have supper with all of you.”
“Just a few more minutes.” He couldn’t get enough of looking at her.
“A few more,” she agreed with a smile.
His mudder came to the door a little later, peeked out, smiled, and went back inside. And then, just as Sam realized he was wearing down, his dat came to the door.
“Time to come in.”
He’d been gearing himself up to standing but now, perversely, didn’t want to move. “I’ll be in in a minute.”
“Your mudder’s worrying.”
“Go,” said Mary Elizabeth. She squeezed his hand, then released it. “I’ll see you later.”
His dat held open the door. Their gazes met, held. Sam saw no welcome in his eyes, but when his crutch tip caught on a board on the porch and he lurched, his dat stepped forward and grasped him by the arms.
“Careful,” he said gruffly.
He walked Sam inside and called David.
“I’m allrecht now,” he told them, but both men stayed close.
“Mamm and Lavina fixed up the downstairs bedroom for you.”
Seasons in Paradise Page 24