Lifted Up by Angels

by Lurlene McDaniel

  He watched as she passed a semitrailer. “You drive well.”

  “I like to drive. Honestly, if you ever want to get your license, I’ll let you use my car to take the test.”

  “Papa would never approve.”

  To Leah, it seemed that there was very little Jacob Longacre approved of. “Jonah drives.”

  “I am not Jonah.” He reached over and turned on the car radio, listening intently to several stations before settling on one that played country music.

  “You rebel, but you don’t really do anything too far out in left field,” Leah said, shaking her head. “I don’t understand you, Ethan. Why don’t you go all the way? Like Jonah does?”

  “I cannot,” he said, turning his attention to the countryside passing outside the window.

  Leah realized he was closing the subject. She warned herself not to pry. He would always be an enigma to her. In English clothes, he appeared to be a regular guy. But she knew her world was still foreign to him, and despite his testing of the English lifestyle, he was Amish at his core.

  Once they arrived at the hospital, Leah went to the X-ray department, filled out paperwork, and sat with Ethan in the adjacent waiting room. She was scheduled for both bone scans and MRIs of her leg and hand. Since the original X rays had shown that cancer had eaten away bones in these places, these were the areas the doctors were most concerned with. “The doctors make me feel like I’m parts of a puzzle,” she told Ethan while they waited for her name to be called. “Like these few pieces of me are all that matter. Sometimes a doctor hardly even looks at my face. He just stares at my knee and finger as if they’re separated from the rest of my body.”

  “But your face is so pretty. How could he not stare at you?”

  Ethan always said things that touched her. She gave him a smile. “Have I ever told you how much I appreciate you?”

  When it was Leah’s turn, she squeezed Ethan’s hand, took a deep breath and followed the technician into the X-ray room. The procedures took about an hour, and when both were over, she and Ethan went to another lab, where she filled out more paperwork and waited to have her blood drawn. “This is my least favorite part,” she told Ethan. “During my chemo treatments, they were always sticking needles in me and testing my blood. I think they wanted to see if the chemo was helping me or killing me.”

  He looked alarmed. “The chemo could have harmed you?”

  Hastily she added, “It’s all right. Sometimes you have to take a little poison and kill off good cells along with the bad ones. The important thing is killing off the bad guys.”

  He seemed to understand her point. “In farming, it is the same. Some of the chemicals used to kill insects and blight can be harmful to healthy things. Once Rebekah’s chickens got into rat poison and several died.”

  “I’ll bet it broke her heart. I know how much she cares about those chickens.”

  “She never knew. When I found the dead ones, I quickly took them away, went to a neighbor’s, and bought others to replace them.”

  Ethan’s confession endeared him to Leah even more. Who else would have tried to protect his sister’s sensitive heart so discreetly? “I think that was sweet and caring.” To prove it, she kissed him on the cheek.

  He pulled back, his eyes twinkling. “If I am to get such a reward for substituting chickens, I will tell you about every good deed I do.”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  “I probably did her no favor,” he added thoughtfully.

  “Why’s that?”

  “Death is part of the cycle of life, Leah. We learn that lesson very early on a farm. We see it in the changing of the seasons. We see it in the birthing of new calves. Only the strongest ones survive. We help all we can, but if it is too much expense, it is better to let the weak ones die.”

  His point of view surprised her. “You mean you allow money to decide whether or not a calf lives? That sounds kind of cruel.”

  “Feed is expensive, and a farm must be productive. It is the way of things.”

  “Good thing you don’t feel that way about people.”

  “People are different. People have souls. Animals do not.”

  Leah thought about her dead father and grandmother. She still missed them and hoped their souls had found peace after death.

  Once her testing was complete, Leah returned with Ethan to the floor where she’d spent so many days just before Christmas. As they rode the elevator up, Ethan asked, “Why do you want to visit this place? It is depressing you.”

  She wasn’t sure herself. “I’ll never really understand what happened to me here, Ethan. But something happened. I think I’m still trying to sort it all out.”

  “You had an extraordinary experience, that’s for sure,” Ethan told her. “But perhaps it is better not to think upon it too much.”

  Leah knew he was right, but she couldn’t help herself. The days and nights she’d spent there; the fear she’d felt; the mysterious appearances by Gabriella, whom Leah had assumed was a nurse but who wasn’t; finding the diary of Molly’s dead sister—all came back to her in a rush. She couldn’t let go of any part of the experience.

  Leah and Ethan got off the elevator and went to the nurses’ station. Nobody behind the desk looked familiar. She asked one of the nurses, “Is Molly Thrasher working today?”

  “Molly’s taking a patient down to the lab,” the nurse explained.

  “We must have just missed her down there,” Leah told Ethan. Then she said to the nurse, “Would you please tell her that Leah LewisHall is here and that I’ll be in the rec room for the next thirty minutes?”

  Leah and Ethan walked down the hallway, stopping at the door of the room she and Rebekah had shared. Two young patients were in the beds, each watching TV. The room looked smaller than she remembered. She had no desire to go inside.

  In the recreation room, in the corner where the magnificent tree had stood, children’s artwork was taped to the wall. “I loved that Christmas tree your father brought,” Leah said. “It was the prettiest tree I ever saw. When I couldn’t sleep at night, I’d come down here just to look at it. And I’d imagine the woods where it came from.”

  “And now you have seen the woods with your own eyes.”

  “With you,” she said, the memory of that night with him still bright.

  Ethan slid his arm around her waist, and she snuggled against his side. “This seems a good time to ask you,” he said. “My friends are having a party on the Fourth of July. Will you go with me?”

  “Do you think it’s a good idea? They tell me I’m welcome, but sometimes I’m not so sure.”

  “They do not know you as well as I,” Ethan said.

  And they don’t want to, either, Leah thought. She would always be English in their eyes. And she’d never forgotten what Kathy had told her that first day at work about the Amish sticking with their own kind. She said, “Tell me about the party.”

  “We will go to the county fair. After the late fireworks, there will be a camping party on the Yoder farm property. I would like to have you with me.”

  “Camping? You mean, like staying in tents outside all night?”

  “The summer nights are warm. We will only use sleeping bags. It is something the group does every year. Even my father and his friends did it when they were growing up. I have not gone before, but this year I would like to go. But only if you will come with me.”

  “I’m having trouble imagining your father taking a fling,” Leah said seriously.

  “He is not such a stern man, Leah. But he does not bend easily. My father is an elder in the church and feels he must set an example for others.”

  “If you say so. Will Charity be at the campout?”

  “Only if I go.”

  “So, in other words, if I don’t go, neither of you will go.” The invitation didn’t seem as appealing cast in that light.

  “I would not want to go if you do not come,” he said. “Being with you is more important than bein
g with my friends.”

  Now Leah felt she would be acting petty to care whether the others liked her or not. The important person was Ethan, and he wanted her with him. “I’d like to go,” she told him. “I’ve never camped before, but I’d like to be with you too.”

  “Then it is settled. We will go to the fair on the Fourth of July, watch the fireworks, and spend the night camping with the others.”

  She gave him a smile that she hoped conveyed more enthusiasm than she felt.

  Leah urged Ethan into the patient library that adjoined the rec room. It hadn’t changed much. The books looked more dog-eared than ever, and someone had left the card catalog drawer open. She closed it and went to the shelf where she and Ethan had discovered Emily’s diary.

  She fingered the bindings, half expecting to see some reminder of Gabriella. There was none. Nothing at all to reflect that strange and wonderful night when the woman had come into her room, talked to her and touched her. “For a long time, the Gabriella mystery drove me crazy,” she said to Ethan, her thoughts turning away from the July Fourth party. “I read everything I could about the supernatural. About ghosts. About angels.”

  “I do not believe in ghosts,” Ethan said. “But I do believe in angels.”

  “Do you believe that each of us has a special guardian angel?” she asked.

  He looked thoughtful. “I am not sure about that. You ask so many questions, Leah. Do you believe in angels or not?”

  “I do now,” Leah answered emphatically. “Did you know that a lot of people think that when they die they will turn into angels?”

  Ethan looked at her and said, “I saw it in a movie, when I first began to try English things. It was a story about a person who dies and comes back as an angel so that he can make up for bad things he did to people while he was alive.” He shook his head. “I knew it was not true. People get new bodies in heaven, but they do not turn into angels. Angels are separate beings from people.”

  Leah continued to tell him what she’d learned in her reading. “I read about people who were miraculously healed. Or rescued. Some unexplainable things have happened to people—like what happened to me.”

  “Why do you need an explanation? Can’t you just accept the gift you’ve been given?” Ethan toyed with the ends of her hair, curling long strands around his finger.

  “I guess I’ll have to. But I still can’t help wondering, why me?”

  Just then the door opened, and they turned to see Molly.

  “How are you?” Molly asked excitedly. “I sort of had a premonition that I’d be seeing you soon.” She gave Leah a hug.

  “I think I’m doing fine, but Dr. Thomas hasn’t checked me over yet.”

  Molly turned toward Ethan, smiled pleasantly, then asked, “So, Leah, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  TEN

  Leah and Ethan exchanged glances. Ethan said, “I am Ethan Longacre.”

  “I—I didn’t recognize you,” Molly stammered. “I’m sorry.” Leah realized that Molly had never seen Ethan dressed English-style before.

  “It is all right,” he said. “I guess I do look different to you.”

  “But very good,” she added quickly. “How’s your sister Rebekah doing?”

  “She is well. Recovered from her spider bite.”

  “Good. She is such a sweet little girl.” Molly looked at Leah. “I’m so glad you stopped by to see me. I’ve thought of you a hundred times since you were here. Come, sit.” They pulled out chairs at the reading table, Molly on one side, Leah and Ethan on the other. “Tell me, what are you doing this summer?”

  Leah told Molly about her summer job and living arrangements.

  “Your own apartment,” Molly said, obviously impressed. “I was twenty-two before I had my own place. Then I got married and had kids, and I may never have the place to myself again.”

  The three of them laughed. Leah said, “Tell us about Christmas at your parents’, and about reading Emily’s diary.”

  “It was a very special time,” Molly said, folding her hands on the table. “Imagine hearing someone speak to you from the grave. That’s how we all felt as we read Emily’s entries. It was as if she were in the room with us, looking over our shoulders. It brought back a hundred memories … good memories. She was a wonderful girl who died before she should have. I’ve been looking into having her diary published.” Molly glanced from Ethan to Leah. “I think her insights, her feelings about her cancer and what she was going through, would be a help to kids today.”

  Leah nodded slowly. “Probably so. I know I sure would have liked to read something by a person my age when I was told I had cancer. You feel so alone. If it hadn’t been for you, and Ethan and his sisters, it would have been a whole lot harder.”

  “Thank you,” Molly said. “Medical procedures may change over time, but human emotions don’t. Being told you have a disease must be some of the hardest news in the world to hear. Especially when you’re young, like Emily was. Her diary was really clear about how isolated and lonely she felt.”

  “Getting her diary published is a good idea,” Ethan said. “I hope you have good luck.”

  “Thanks. And I haven’t forgotten the role that strange woman Gabriella played in all this. I never have been able to figure out how she came to have my sister’s diary.” Molly leaned back in the chair. “Have you ever seen her again?”

  “No. And neither has Rebekah, because I asked her.”

  “Well, unless she surfaces again, I’ll never know. I guess that’s not what’s important anyway. The fact is, I have Emily’s diary. I’ll always be grateful for that.”

  Leah glanced at her watch. “I guess we should be going. I don’t want to keep Dr. Thomas waiting.”

  They stood, and at the door, Leah hugged Molly goodbye. “It was sure nice seeing you again.”

  “You too,” said the nurse. “Anytime you’re here, please stop by.” She looked at Ethan and said, “That goes for you too. By the way, I like you in those clothes.”

  Ethan’s face reddened, but Leah could tell he was pleased by Molly’s comment.

  When they reached Dr. Thomas’s office, the receptionist ushered them into an exam room. The doctor entered, shook Ethan’s hand, then placed the newest set of Leah’s X rays on the light board. He said, “Your X rays look good. Any complaints?”

  Leah licked her lips nervously. She told him about how her knee sometimes ached after work. He examined her knee, massaging the kneecap while studying the X rays. “I do see some inflammation.”

  Leah braced herself for bad news.

  Dr. Thomas continued. “Such swelling is common among athletes when they strain their knees or elbows. Have you been bending a lot? Playing a sport before properly warming up?”

  She told him about her job.

  “That could explain it. I’ll give you a cortisone injection at the site. If you keep having trouble, let me know. Take it easy for a few days and give it time to heal, all right?”

  “All right.” Leah didn’t want a shot in her knee, but she’d been afraid it was more serious.

  Dr. Thomas left and returned with a syringe. Leah gritted her teeth as he slid the needle into her knee. She saw Ethan turn his head. When the ordeal was over, she asked, “Am I cured? From the cancer, I mean.”

  Dr. Thomas put his hand on her shoulder. “Now, Leah, you know I can’t say this soon after your treatment. You just completed chemo a few months ago.”

  “But you told me that the dark spots had started to shrink even before I started chemo.”

  “That is true,” Dr. Thomas said. “And I have no medical explanation for it. But cancer is still a mystery in many ways. The more we find out about it, the more we realize we don’t know.” He removed the X-ray films from the light board. “My job is to keep watch over you. I want to see you again in the fall, so stop at my receptionist’s desk and she’ll make another appointment for you.”

  Leah got off the exam table. It wasn’t th
e answer she had wanted, but for now it would have to do.

  The doctor smiled. “I think your prognosis is very good, Leah. But remember, with cancer, it’s one day at a time.”

  In the elevator, Leah sagged against the wall. “I’m glad that’s over with.”

  “I can tell you are not happy with his words,” Ethan said.

  Leah felt tears of frustration building behind her eyes. “I guess I wanted him to tell me I was completely cured and he didn’t ever want to see me again. I hate thinking every little ache and pain might be cancer returning.”

  Ethan ran his knuckles softly along her cheek. “You want to believe in a miracle, but you cannot. But that is what faith is, Leah. Believing in what we cannot see.”

  She sniffed hard. “You’re right. I need more faith. And right this minute, I’m tired of talking about it and thinking about it.”

  “You were very brave when he gave you the shot,” Ethan said. “You need a reward. I know, I will buy you supper and a present.”

  Leah fumbled for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. “What kind of present?”

  “Something to make you happy again. Something to make you smile for me.”

  They drove to a gigantic mall in one of the city’s suburbs. The parking lot was crammed with cars; inside the mall, summer sales were announced by colorful signs decorated in red, white and blue. Flags sprouted out of merchandise displays. Aisles were thick with shoppers. Leah watched Ethan’s reaction to the stores, crowds, and noise—a far cry from the sleepy little town of Nappanee.

  They walked through the mall, stopping in front of store windows whenever something caught Ethan’s eye. “Why are there so many stores selling clothes?” he asked.

  “People like to buy clothes. It’s fun.”

  He looked at her blankly. “I see that a person needs summer clothes and clothes for winter, but this is practical. In winter it is cold. In summer, hot. The same clothes will not do for both.”

  “People like to have clothes for lots of different things.” Leah’s closet was packed with clothes and she always thought she needed more. She added, “Plus, styles change. You can’t wear the same old things year after year.”