Between You and Me

by Susan Wiggs

  “Some, yes. Not enough to go back. But oh, the sounds of the farm at daybreak. Eggs fresh from the henhouse, milk and cream straight from the cow. Of course, then I remember it was my job to wash down the milk house every day, even when it was freezing out. In the winter, I had to carry a pail of hot coals out to the well just to get it going. Do you know what a luxury it is to have hot water straight out of the tap?”

  “I’m sure it’s one of the thousand things we take for granted every day.”

  “The Amish don’t take anything for granted. They know how to be thankful for their blessings. They’re better at it than the English.” He checked his watch. “You need to get to your interview. I’m going to grab some things from the farmers’ market to bring back for dinner.”

  Reese expected to feel like a fish out of water the moment she entered the Humboldt Division Regional Care Center. Instead, she stepped into the foyer of the aging building, and a feeling of excitement washed over her. There were familiar elements shared by hospitals everywhere, but the small size of the place made it seem more personal and accessible. After spending the past two years getting lost at the massive hospital in the city—to this day, she still did sometimes—this slightly old-fashioned building was a confidence booster.

  Doctors Penelope Lake and Mose Shrock met with her in a sunny office that might have been a scene out of a Norman Rockwell illustration, with a hand-pieced quilt on one wall, an old-fashioned washstand, and a spindly wooden chair, painted red. She had a seat on the chair and set down her bag, facing her interviewers across an antique desk. She realized she was clutching her phone, so she quickly stashed it away.

  Dr. Lake was willowy and intense, and she got right to the point. “We train only four residents at a time,” she said. “Why should you be one of them?”

  Reese was prepared for the blunt question, because she knew she’d be asked. “During third year, I did a rotation at the Upper Appalachia Medical Center. The variety of procedures—C-sections, colposcopy, M-Is, endoscopy, setting fractures, running traumas—it was the best rotation I’ve done so far.”

  Dr. Lake had apparently memorized Reese’s background, asking about her medical education, her goals, her role models. Dr. Shrock was older, bearded and bespectacled, with a quirky way of speaking. “That chair you’re sitting in,” he said. “Tell me about that chair.”

  A trick question? She touched the wooden surface. “It looks handmade. And it’s a few inches lower than normal.”

  “It is,” he said. “It was once used for powwowing. Are you familiar with the practice?”

  Shit.

  “Sorry—powwowing? No, I’m not. But it sounds like some of the granny doctoring I came across during the rotation in Appalachia.”

  A glimmer of approval. “It’s something you’ll need to be familiar with if you work in this community. The chair is imbued with symbols—the red color for the blood of Christ, the double rail for the two tablets of Moses, the vertical stiles for the pillars of the church, the spindles for the Holy Trinity . . .” He glanced at Dr. Lake. “What am I missing?”

  “Judas the Betrayer is in there somewhere,” she said.

  “And the low seat is to humble the patient.”

  “Trust me,” said Reese, “I feel humble right now. So ‘powwowing’ is a thing? Folk healing?”

  “Braucherei is an old practice. You’ll still encounter it from time to time. As a boy, I got rid of warts with a potato and a penny, but only when the moon was waning. The point is, you’ll find these practices among our patients. I was raised in the Mennonite faith,” he said. “In my younger, wilder days, I lost my way and turned to drink. Nearly lost my license. Eventually, I found redemption and fulfillment in the medical arts.”

  She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “I can’t say I’m looking for redemption. Fulfillment, yes. When I first started med school, I thought I’d be a surgeon.” Her parents still thought that. Expected that. “I love the practice of medicine,” she told them. “I love seeing patients. Doing procedures. A rural program wasn’t something I considered until I realized that primary care is what I want to be best at. What I love.”

  Dr. Shrock smiled. “That’s the magic word. Love.”

  As Leroy and Reese drove back to the city, she fretted about the interview. “It’s the one option I haven’t discussed with my parents,” she told Leroy.

  “Oh boy. If I discussed every decision with my parents, I’d be harnessed to a plow being dragged across a field,” he said.

  “I feel as if I’m deceiving them by not telling them. It’s silly, I know. But they’ve supported every aspect of my education—my life. They’re entitled to know.”

  “And you haven’t told them because you don’t want them to talk you out of it.”

  “You’re pretty sharp, for a guy.”

  “I know you better than you think.”

  Her face heated. She knew he was thinking of Caleb Stoltz again. “I wonder what will happen to Jonah when he returns to the community with a prosthetic arm.”

  “Caleb and I spoke of it. He favors the prosthesis, and he loves that kid like crazy. But Jonah has to live in the community, so it could be tricky. One thing that would help would be to get Jonah back home sooner rather than later so he can adjust to his new circumstances in a familiar place.”

  “Will he get the therapy and training he needs?”

  “I’m looking into it and making some calls. A three-hour bus ride to the city isn’t the best option.”

  “It’s really nice of you to take a special interest in Jonah.”

  “Let’s stop by the hospital when we get to the city,” he suggested.

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  In the lobby of Mercy Heights, workers and visitors rushed to and fro. In the middle of the bustling crowd stood a lone, still figure of a young woman in Amish clothes. She held a bus ticket in her hands, turning it over and over with nervous fingers.

  Reese nudged Leroy. “I bet that’s Jonah’s sister. She looks lost. Let’s go talk to her.”

  Leroy spoke to her briefly in German mixed with English. She regarded him, wide-eyed and fearful, as she mumbled an answer.

  “Reese, you were right. This is Hannah Stoltz,” Leroy said. “Jonah’s sister.”

  As they approached the girl, Reese noticed a subtle likeness to Jonah—similar features, blue eyes, a sprinkling of freckles. Yet where Jonah was skinny and wiry, the girl seemed heavyset, though it could just be the shapeless clothes she wore in uncomfortable-looking layers. She looked very plain, which was probably by design. In a different outfit with a different hairstyle, she could be any teen. She was very pretty, with blue eyes and pale skin, a sweet constellation of freckles across her nose, just like Jonah’s. She wore her blond hair in a coiled braid, a small, wispy black bonnet pinned to the back of her head, the untied strings hanging down past her shoulders. She was completely covered in a long-sleeved, shapeless dress of dark blue. The hem skimmed the tops of her scuffed brown boots.

  “Reese was part of the team that took care of your brother when he was brought in,” Leroy told her.

  “Can I see him?” Hannah asked, her voice soft and timid, with the lilting accent Reese now recognized.

  “Of course,” said Reese. Questions crowded her mind. “Did someone call you? I mailed a card from Jonah, but that was only this morning.” She’d sent the card via express mail, unable to fathom the sense of uncertainty his loved ones must be feeling, but it couldn’t have been delivered the same day.

  “I’ve been so worried about my brother,” she said. “I came as soon as I worked out how to get here on my own.”

  Leroy said something else in German, and Hannah nodded. He spoke again, and she dropped her gaze to the floor, shaking her head.

  “This way,” Reese said, and led them to the elevator. Hannah seemed to shrink from the glare of the elevator lights. When the car surged upward, the girl gasped. Her eyes shone—not with fear, but with wonder.
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  The moment they reached Jonah’s room, a gusty sigh and a stream of German erupted from Hannah. Propped up in his bed, Jonah smiled at her with a sweetness that touched Reese’s heart. He was such a lovely little boy, beautiful in the most natural sense. Nothing about him ever seemed to be artificial or forced.

  Hannah approached the bed and stood there, shoulders shaking. “Look at you,” she said, and then said it twice more. “Look at you. Look at you.” Cradling his face between her hands, she kissed him with such tenderness that Reese had to glance away. These poor motherless kids, thrust into an alien environment. They must be so scared.

  “Where is Caleb?” Hannah asked.

  “He went to get me another book, because I finished the last one,” Jonah said. “I’m reading Harry Potter. Say, maybe we can read them together.”

  “Hannah,” said Caleb from the doorway. “What are you doing here?” He held out his arms and she rushed to him.

  Reese realized he shared that genuine trait with his nephew—his face hid nothing. His expression radiated love as his generous hug all but swallowed the girl up. He was looking semi-Amish today in his plain trousers and white shirt, the collar open and sleeves rolled back. Hannah visibly relaxed against him, and he murmured something to her in their language, his big hands gently cupping her shoulders. After an emotional moment, he stepped back, holding her at arm’s length. “Did you come on the bus, then?”

  “I had to, Caleb. I couldn’t stay away. Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad.”

  Leroy pulled in a couple of rolling stools. Together, they told Hannah what had happened to Jonah and what to expect. She listened quietly through most of it, and in the end, she asked the expected question. “When can Jonah come home?”

  “We’re working on that,” Reese said. “He has a care team helping him. First his arm has to heal, and then he’ll learn how to use a prosthesis. Your brother’s really smart and strong. He’s going to do all right.” She felt Caleb’s gaze on her and caught a glimpse of warmth in his eyes. Then, noticing Jonah’s lengthy yawn, she added, “One of the most important things is rest.”

  Caleb stood and stroked the boy’s head. “She’s right. You get lots of rest, little man.”

  Reese and Leroy waited outside as Hannah and Caleb told the boy good night and tucked him in with his new book. Leroy wore a thoughtful frown. “What is it?” she asked.

  “There’s something . . . Caleb’s different.”

  “In what way?”

  “Just an observation. The Amish aren’t usually demonstrative. You don’t find parents hugging their kids the way he does.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Probably nothing. It’s just . . . curious.”

  After Jonah was settled for the night, they walked through the ward.

  On a whim, Reese routed them across the skybridge to the maternity wing. A few family members lingered outside the nursery, focused on the new arrivals. “Most of the babies room in with their mothers these days,” Reese said, “but the nursery is still used for procedures. Do you like babies, Hannah?”

  “Oh, yes.” She stood in front of the display window, gazing at the bassinets with their tiny, precious bundles. “Nine babies,” she whispered. “They’re all safe and sound here, aren’t they?”

  “Sure,” said Reese. It seemed an odd observation to make. Hannah leaned close to the glass and held herself very still. She seemed guileless as she watched the babies with wide-eyed wonder.

  A couple nearby, the new mom in a wheelchair, gazed lovingly through the glass at a tiny bundled infant.

  “Your first?” Reese asked.

  The woman shook her head. “I have four kids.”

  On purpose? Reese wondered, but held her tongue. She had to resist becoming the world’s judgiest doctor. “Congratulations. Your baby is so cute.”

  Behind them, Caleb and Leroy were murmuring to each other in German. She turned. “Everything all right?”

  “There’s no bus back to Middle Grove tonight,” Caleb said.

  Hannah whirled around to face him. “I don’t want to go back anyway.” She stared down at the floor. “I didn’t bring hardly any money.”

  “You can stay with me,” Reese said quickly. She didn’t know what else to do. She couldn’t foist the girl on Leroy. And there was no way Hannah was going to a hotel. She led the way to the elevators.

  “It’s a great imposition,” Caleb said.

  “Not at all,” she said. “Okay, a small imposition, and I’d consider it a privilege to help.”

  Caleb gave her that smile again. The one that melted her in all the right places. “Well, then. Thank you, Reese.”

  “I have my car today,” she said. “Is that . . . I assume you’re all right with riding home in a car.”

  Caleb and Hannah exchanged a look, and both broke into wide grins. “That’d be just fine, Reese,” he said.

  It was a singular experience to drive everyone back to the parking garage. They’d missed the evening rush hour and now the sun was going down, and the heat of the day lingered in the air. With the top down, she took the road along the river. Caleb and Hannah sat in the backseat. Hannah, in her long skirt and black bonnet, looked as if she’d wandered off the set of a movie. With her seat belt in place and Caleb beside her, she looked around with shining eyes.

  “A car with no top,” she said. “It’s wonderful.”

  “It’s called a convertible,” Caleb told her, then said something else in German.

  Reese drove slowly, not wanting to alarm them. She was surprised when Hannah leaned forward and said, “We wouldn’t mind going fast.”

  Reese glanced over at Leroy, who shrugged. “As you wish,” she said, her favorite quote from her favorite movie. She pressed the accelerator and the car surged forward. Hannah let loose with a laugh of delight. Glancing in the rearview mirror, Reese saw the girl throw her arms into the air, tilting her head back as if she were on a roller coaster. The bonnet flew away like a small black bird.

  “Oh, sh— gosh, your hat,” said Reese, slowing down.

  Hannah clapped a hand on her head. “My kapp.”

  “Should we go back for it?” asked Reese, watching the wisp of fabric swoop through oncoming traffic.

  “It’s gone for good,” said Leroy, twisting around in his seat. “No point getting killed over a kapp.”

  “If you’re sure . . .”

  “Leave it,” Caleb said. “Wearing it is a custom, not a commandment chiseled in stone.”

  Reese glanced at Hannah again. The girl looked the opposite of distressed as her long braid uncoiled and flew in the wind. She watched the scenery whipping past—pedestrians and buses, modern buildings, statues and fountains.

  “It’s good that you came for Jonah,” Caleb said to Hannah. “But tomorrow you will have to go back to Middle Grove.”

  She cut her gaze away. “I wish I could stay.”

  “You can’t. You’re needed at Alma’s shop, and there’s no place for you here.”

  She flinched. “But—”

  “Hannah . . .” He lapsed into German. She exhaled a loud sigh and was silent for the rest of the ride.

  Reese parked the car and opened the trunk, which was filled with their parcels from earlier in the day. Hannah’s hair stuck out every which way, long blond strands escaping from her waist-length braid. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes, the same cornflower blue as her uncle’s, sparkled with pleasure.

  “Thank you, Reese. That was my first ride in a car.”

  Reese could hardly get her mind around that—a sixteen-year-old who had never been in a car. “You’re kidding. Wow. So you liked it.”

  She nodded emphatically. “I surely did.”

  “And how about you, Caleb? Have you ridden in a car?”

  “Not in a long time,” he said simply.

  “My grandfather said Caleb got in trouble driving a car when he was younger. Didn’t you, Uncle?”

  “It was a long time a
go. I was a foolish boy.”

  “That’s what Grandfather says too.”

  Reese smiled at the rapport between them. “You’ll have to tell me more about your foolish uncle,” she said to Hannah.

  “So it’s good news,” said Leroy, unloading shopping bags from the trunk. “When we were in New Hope today, we bought everything we need for dinner. So no one has to do any work.”

  They walked to the building together. Hannah regarded everything with wide-eyed wonder. Sheltered in a tiny community, with only an eighth-grade education, no TV or media, living on a rustic farm, the girl marveled at everything—the car, the busy neighborhood, the keypad on the door, even the apartment itself, messy as it was.

  “Such a beautiful place to live,” she said.

  Reese smiled. “Thanks. I sometimes wish it was more homey, but I never seem to have time to do anything about it.” She saw Hannah studying the quilt draped over the back of a wooden chair. “That’s from a former patient, and it’s one of my favorite things.”

  “It’s a very nice one,” Hannah said.

  “Quilting is Hannah’s superpower,” Caleb said.

  “Really? I’d love to see your work one day,” Reese said.

  “There’s a mercantile in town that sells my quilts,” Hannah said, simultaneously blushing and beaming. “And at the mud sales in the springtime.”

  Leroy caught Reese’s clueless expression. “A mud sale takes place before the spring planting, when the weather makes for muddy roads.”

  It was hard to believe such a different world existed only a couple of hours’ drive from here. “Mud sale,” Reese said. “I’m going to have to check that out.”

  Leroy gestured Hannah over to the table. “Give me a hand here?”

  “Sure.”

  He handed her plates and cutlery. As she laid the table, Leroy asked, “Do you like cooking, Hannah?”

  Her cheeks turned red as she looked over at Caleb, who regarded her with a teasing grin. “Not so much, to tell you the truth.”

  “There are worse things than not being good in the kitchen,” Reese pointed out.

  “It’s women’s work,” Caleb said. “And she’s the only girl in the household back home.”