The Tempted Soul

by Adina Senft

  Let her be all right. Let the baby be all right. Please let help get here in time. she chanted, half under her breath, in time with her jogging steps. Please, Lord. Please don’t let them be hurt.

  A horse snorted in the dark and its hooves clattered. She’d startled it, running up on it. “It’s all right, boy. It’s okay, it’s only me.”

  By some miracle the buggy had righted itself as the horse had pulled it out of the ditch and back onto level ground. But she didn’t have time to make sure the animal was all right. It was too dark to see, anyhow.

  “Lydia? Lydia, where are you?” If she had been frightened before, the silence terrified her. “Lydia!”

  Tracks. Gashes in the snow. Ah, the snow. It had probably cushioned the buggy so it hadn’t gone all the way over—just enough to make the girls slide violently against the door and fall out. There were no locks on them, after all, not like Englisch cars.

  She followed the deep scoring through the bank and down into the ditch. Ten steps away was a patch of darkness deeper than the blue of abused snow.

  “Lydia!” Carrie fell to her knees beside her and put a chilled cheek next to her open mouth. Breath fanned against her cold skin.

  “Thank You,” she whispered. “Oh, thank You.” She patted Lydia’s face—almost as pale as the snow. Her eyes were open. That was good. “Lydia, can you hear me?”

  She groaned—as welcome as a choir of angels singing. Carrie shook out the quilt and tucked it around and under her as best she could. Her instinct was to slip her hands under Lydia’s armpits and haul her up to the highway, but she didn’t dare. If her back was hurt—or her ribs—or the baby—

  Lydia groaned again, and it ended in a shriek. She said a word Carrie had never heard any Amish woman say before, no matter how provoked.

  “Lydia?”

  “It hurts!”

  “Where does it hurt?”

  “I’m having a baby!” She shot Carrie a glare of disgust and stared up at the starry sky. “I got to ninety-two. Where am I?”

  “You were thrown out of the buggy. Do you know who I am?”

  Her eyes rolled in Carrie’s direction, then closed as the contraction—or some other, more terrible pain, Carrie couldn’t tell—receded. “Carrie. Where—”

  “You’re in the ditch on the county highway. Our drive is closest. Sarah came and got me. The ambulance is on its way.”

  “I don’t want this.”

  “Of course you don’t.” She kept her tone low, soothing, the way she’d spoken to the edgy horse. “Nobody wants to be in an accident. But it wasn’t your fault.”

  “The baby! I don’t want it to come.”

  “Oh Liewi. Wait until you hold him in your arms. We’ll get you into the—”

  “Nei! ” Her voice rose to a shriek. “Don’t—want—”

  In the cold and the misery and the darkness, Carrie’s heart broke for the poor little Bobbel. Unwanted from the very beginning. Could the baby hear its mother screaming such words? Would they pierce its heart the way they pierced Carrie’s now? Would they go deep, and come up in some awful way in its later years—a memory long buried but waiting to do some terrible damage?

  “Breathe, Lydia.” She’d been with Susan for her last delivery. Being number four, little Silas had come much faster than any of them had expected. “Little short breaths. Lots of oxygen to help you ride through the pain. Go on. Like this.” Carrie panted—no hard task, since she was still half out of breath from running.

  In the distance, she heard the wail of an approaching siren. Thank You, Lord.

  “You breathe, Lydia. Don’t stop panting. I’m going to go tell them where you are.”

  “Nei! ” Pant, pant. “I don’t want it!” Pant, pant, pant.

  Good enough. Carrie scrambled up the slope, snow falling into her boots and going up the sleeves of her coat. Flashing lights crested the hill and she waved her arms.

  Headlights flooded her and the ambulance tried to stop, skidded on the ice, and began to swing sideways. Carrie screamed as the rear bumper missed the horse by a shin’s width, then rocked to a halt on a patch of asphalt that had managed to dry from passing traffic earlier in the day.

  The EMTs jumped out, one of them swearing a blue streak and the other hollering at him about the horse.

  “Over here!” she shouted. “She’s down the bank!”

  They yanked a stretcher out of the back and tossed a big red case on it, then followed her, their boots pounding in syncopated time.

  What a blessed relief it was to hand over the responsibility to men who knew what they were doing. “She’s having a baby,” she told the nearest one, who was checking Lydia’s pulse. “I don’t know how badly she’s hurt.”

  “Never rains but it pours,” he said cheerfully, apparently recovered from nearly wiping out the Grohl horse and buggy with his ambulance. “Are you the one who called?”

  “No. Sarah—”

  “Lydia?” came a call from up the slope. “Carrie?”

  “Is that the broken arm?” the other man asked. “Tell her to stay by the truck—we’ll take them both in soon as we get mommy here stabilized.”

  Carrie struggled up the hill and told Sarah what the man had said. “Is she all right?” Sarah’s eyes were huge, and her face pale and drawn in the light from the interior of the ambulance.

  “She’s awake. She talked to me. I have to get back down there. Don’t move.”

  They had worn such a path in the snow that she got down the second time much faster than the first. The EMTs had put a big thick collar around Lydia’s neck and were just lifting her onto a hard board. As she watched with a kind of incredulous horror, they pulled big pieces of tape off a roll and ran it across her forehead, then across the collar. She’d lost her Kapp somewhere in the snow and Carrie hadn’t noticed until now. With a tearing sound, they pulled straps across her chest, her hips under her huge belly, and her legs.

  “Ready, honey? We’re going to carry you up the hill. Don’t worry, you won’t fall off. The C-collar’s to keep your head still in case your neck is hurt. Here we go.” The two of them lifted the board as though she weighed nothing, and, carefully placing their boots in the snow and mud, carried her up the slope.

  “Carrie,” Lydia called weakly.

  “I’m here, Schatzi.” She fumbled for her hand. How cold it was—cold as the snow itself.

  “Don’t leave me.”

  “I won’t. I’m right here. Sarah’s here, too.”

  They slid her into the back, where one of them grabbed a blanket and began rolling it up. Shouldn’t they be covering her with that? They’d left her quilt in a heap in the snow, so it wouldn’t do much good, but—

  “I’m going to tilt the backboard a bit, honey, and slide this under it. We don’t want the baby cutting off your circulation, okay?” He glanced at Carrie and Sarah. “Josh, do something with that arm while I get her on oxygen.”

  In moments the second one had Sarah’s arm in a temporary sling while the first one slid the prongs of plastic tubing into Lydia’s nose. Then the second one ran to the front, and Carrie heard him put the vehicle into gear.

  “You ride here, ma’am, if you’re going with her. We don’t have any time to lose.”

  Carrie climbed into the back of the ambulance and hung on.

  Chapter 23

  The EMTs wheeled Lydia through the double doors of Whinburg Township Hospital, and Carrie gritted her teeth and ran beside them, hoping no one would grab her, tell her she was out of her place, and send her away.

  Someone had obviously called ahead, because a man in green cotton pajamas and a couple of women in shapeless pants and tunics were waiting for Lydia. Carrie fell back against the wall. If she got in the way, they’d send her out. And even though she had no idea what was going on, she couldn’t leave.

  “BP one-eighteen over sixty-seven,” the EMT said to the man in the pajamas, who couldn’t have been much older than Brian Steiner. This must be the doctor.
“Heart rate one-fifteen, respiration twenty-three.”

  She’s having a baby! Carrie wanted to scream. Why were they worried about a bunch of numbers when Lydia’s stomach was the biggest thing in the room?

  The EMTs folded up their gurney. “She was conscious and totally ticked off when we got there. The broken arm’s in the next room.”

  “Get the ortho resident paged and have him set it.”

  And they jogged out, their duty done. Carrie supposed it would only be a few minutes before a call came and they’d have to go right back out on that highway.

  “Now, honey,” the doctor said. “I’m going to have a look at you and see what we’ve got. What’s your name?”

  Carrie opened her mouth to answer, but Lydia got there first. “Lydia Zook.”

  “Okay, Lydia, tell me what hurts.”

  Lydia rolled her eyes.

  “Lydia? Do you hurt anywhere?”

  “I’m having a baby. Ja, it hurts!”

  “Okay, clearly there’s nothing wrong with your breathing. Airways good. Circulation’s not great. Do you remember what happened?”

  “Ja. The buggy tipped. Sarah landed on me. Or maybe I landed on her. I forget. I couldn’t get up. Then Carrie came.”

  “Neck hurt?”

  “Nei. The baby—my stomach hurts.”

  “We’ll get to the baby real soon. First we have to make sure you’re going to be okay. Tell me what happened before the buggy tipped.”

  “Those Englisch boys honked the horn. Poor Jessie—the Grohls’ horse—jumped sideways. It’s not her fault.”

  “I know, honey. And after you landed on the ground? Did you fall asleep?”

  “It was too cold. I counted stars until Carrie came. I got to ninety-two.”

  “Okay. I’m going to take this collar off you.” He made short work of the tape and Lydia’s head fell back on the pillow.

  “Nothing broken,” the man said, moving her arms and legs. “That’s a miracle. Not concussed. Nurse, get these clothes off her.”

  Before Carrie could move, the nurse picked up a huge pair of scissors and cut everything off Lydia—dress, apron, and underthings. She hooked her up to a monitor that began to emit beeps at rapid but regular intervals. “We have a fetal heartbeat.” She frowned. “Wait—”

  “We have some blood here. If she’s hurting from more than contractions—nurse!” He turned to the one with the scissors. “Ultrasound.”

  “Right here.” She ran to a machine on a cart and wheeled it over. Carrie couldn’t see what they were doing past their backs, but on a screen, a cloud of fog swirled into being in a black field. The doctor made a whooping sound and Carrie started forward as though she’d been pushed. “You heard right, nurse. We’ve got twins, people. Good news—one’s moving, though I don’t like the look of—”

  Twins!

  The doctor’s voice faded in and out as Carrie sagged against the wall. Lydia’s mother had been Priscilla Bontrager’s twin. No wonder Lydia looked so big! Twins! How could she not have suspected? How could they all have been so blind?

  “Give me some room. How’s that BP?”

  “Dropping, Doctor.”

  This was bad, from the look on the doctor’s face. Then he said something that sounded like “abruption” and suddenly the energy level in the room doubled.

  “Where’s the OB?” he snapped. “Wasn’t she here earlier?”

  “I think she might have gone home,” the nurse ventured.

  “Well, get her back here, then! I’m going to need some help. We’ve got to get these babies out of there.” He turned to the second nurse as the first one ran from the room. “Four liters of oxygen and a non-rebreather. And I want four units of packed red blood cells, stat.”

  “Yes, Doctor. It could take a little while for the blood to—”

  “Then get going! And send that resident in. Good grief, did everyone pick tonight to go to the movies? We’ve got to get those babies delivered before we lose them.”

  Carrie felt the blood drain out of her head. Do not faint. If you do, you’ll take time and attention away from Lydia and if the babies die, it will be your fault.

  She dragged in as much of the antiseptic-scented air as her lungs could hold, and the black spots dancing on the edges of her vision faded.

  Another man, in blue pajamas this time, ran in. The doctor didn’t even look up. “Get me two grams of magnesium and a tocolytic. We’ve got to stop these contractions or the placenta will peel off even more. Did we find the OB?”

  “She was in the cafeteria. She’s scrubbing now.”

  “Well, thank—look out! She’s crashing!” The machine on the wall was blinking frantically, and both doctors bent over Lydia with needles.

  A woman ran in wearing a smock and a pair of jeans. “We got an abruption and twins in here?”

  “About time,” the doctor snapped. “Hope you enjoyed your dinner.”

  The prayers in Carrie’s head no longer even formed sentences as the two doctors sniped at each other and finally got down to business. She wasn’t praying anymore—it was more like a gabble of fear that the Holy Spirit was just going to have to translate for the Lord.

  “We don’t have time to get her up to L and D,” the lady doctor said. “We’re going to deliver these babies right here, right now. Get her ready for a C-section with anesthesia. Where’s that blood?”

  And suddenly both doctors seemed to be on the same side. Carrie turned from the door to find a nurse reaching for her arm. It was all she could do not to cry out. “Are you with the patient, miss?”

  “Ja. I came in the ambulance with her.”

  “Carrie?” Lydia stirred at the sound of her voice. “I want Carrie.”

  “Is that you?” the nurse asked. When Carrie nodded, she said, “I’m sorry, Carrie, but they’re going to put her under to do a Cesarean section.” She glanced over her shoulder as though checking how much time she had to talk. “You’ll need to wait outside.”

  “But she wants me.”

  A new doctor ran in. Carrie watched him set up yet another machine, while the nurse said, “If this were a normal birth, you’d be her breathing coach, but that’s the anesthesiologist, so that’s our cue to get you outside. Okay? I promise, she’ll be fine. I’ll let you know when we transfer her to Recovery and you can see her.”

  That was all she could do to help? Wait outside? She’d known they would make her leave at some point. But there was nothing she could do other than nod and obey.

  So she stood outside the door and watched and prayed, like the watchman on the wall.

  The blood came, and she prayed it would strengthen Lydia for the fight ahead. Someone inside shouted, “Where’s the other warmer? We need two!” and she prayed for the little lives struggling to make their entrance into the world. Toward the end, it was possible she left off praying and opened her heart directly to God, until she heard a sound behind the door that made everything fly straight out of her head.

  A baby’s cry.

  The door banged open while someone rushed past her and Carrie heard someone say, “Apgar five at one minute.” She got a glimpse of a nurse standing next to an apparatus that looked like a bubble. The doctor said, “And here’s her brother. Aw, man.” Both of them, man and woman, swore, and a second nurse said, “Apgar zero at one minute.” The woman doctor shouted, “Resuscitate!” and the door banged open again as the second nurse pushed the bubble-shaped apparatus out and ran it into another room.

  What did it mean? Why were they taking the baby away? What was Apgar?

  Just before the door swung shut, the first nurse said, “Apgar seven at five minutes. She’s pinking up just great.”

  Carrie’s throat closed up and her knees finally gave out. She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the cool linoleum, her hands clasped in front of her mouth.

  Please let them be all right. Please let all three be all right.

  An eternity crawled by on leaden feet, though the clock abov
e the nurses’ station down the corridor showed it was only half an hour. Then the nurse who had taken the bubble-thing away came out, followed by two other girls in blue pajamas. The nurse was wiping tears off her cheeks with the palms of her hands.

  Tears. That couldn’t be good. Carrie pushed herself up the wall so she was standing, and the nurse caught the movement and looked up. “Is the—is—” Carrie couldn’t get the words out.

  “You’re the friend?” Carrie nodded. “I’m sorry to say that we couldn’t save him. We did everything—even CPR on his tiny chest—but—” She drew a shuddering breath and straightened her spine. “We lost him. I’m sorry.”

  The little boy hadn’t survived the trauma of his own birth. A huge lump rose in Carrie’s throat and hot tears spilled over and down her cheeks.

  Tears of grief. Tears of frustration. Tears of mourning for the little life that would never see the sun or play in the creek with his sister or hit a baseball in the schoolyard with the other children.

  “And the other?” Her voice didn’t even sound like her own. “The little girl?”

  “Let me find out for you. They’ll be taking the mother up to Recovery now. Would you like to be with her when she wakes up?”

  “Oh, yes, please.” And by then maybe God would have given her the words to tell Lydia about her little son, about how sorry she was that she would never get to know him.

  And maybe they would let her hold him. Even if it was only to say good-bye.

  After another interminable wait during which no one would tell her anything, one of the girls in pajamas of an awful green took her upstairs to a room where Lydia lay in bed, tubes running every which way and monitors blinking in the background.

  A nurse stood next to her as her eyelids fluttered open.

  “Lydia?” Carrie whispered. “Can you hear me?” She groaned and turned her head. Their gazes caught. “Do you know me?”

  “Carrie. My head. It feels like a balloon.”