Save Cassie’s life. By the way she said it, Zach knew instinctively that it was a moment-by-moment effort.
“How is my daughter?” Esther said.
The lines of Rhonda’s face looked severe, as if she were made out of hard, unyielding stone. “She is still in surgery. I’m going back as soon as our visit is over.”
“Will she be all right?” Anna asked.
Rhonda glanced at Zach, nodded her acknowledgment of a doctor in the room, then focused all her attention on Esther. “I’m afraid Cassie has been seriously hurt. She’s lost a lot of blood. We will do everything we can to save her, but there is a real possibility that she will not survive. You need to be prepared.”
Rhonda sounded as if she were rehearsing a carefully prepared speech. She’d given it before.
“What are her injuries?” Zach asked.
“Ruptured spleen, collapsed lung, broken back. The spleen is out, but they can’t get her blood pressure up. We’re at twenty-five units of blood.”
Twenty-five units.
If Zach had been alone in the room, he would have lost it right there, but his demeanor had to give Cassie’s family hope, even when hope was slim. Rhonda turned around and walked away, and he almost followed her out the door and into the operating room, just to get a look at Cassie. But no matter how he ached to see her, he refused to do anything to distract the surgeons from their work.
Everyone’s gaze turned to Zach as if he could take charge and proclaim that Cassie would live a long and healthy life.
“What can we do, Dr. Reynolds?” Anna asked.
He recognized the helpless, hopeless feeling that overtook them. Like him, they each would have done anything for Cassie, but there was absolutely nothing they could do but wait.
“We can pray,” Felty said.
Zach took a deep breath. “Yes. We need to pray.” Cassie needed his faith right now, not his doubt. And certainly not his anger. “You can donate blood downstairs. They always need blood.” He winced. He couldn’t even do that. It had only been six weeks since he’d donated for Austin.
“Will donating blood help Cassie?” Anna asked.
If nothing else, it would be good karma, as Mom would say. “Yes. If they don’t give it to Cassie, they can give it to someone else in trouble.”
“Let’s go, then,” Anna said, already heading out the door.
“Don’t even think about it, Mamm. You’re too old,” Esther said.
“I’m not old yet,” Anna said, turning on her heels and striding out of the waiting room like an Olympic sprinter in orthopedic shoes. No one would have been able to tell she’d just had foot surgery.
“Wait for me,” Felty said. His step was even more sprightly as he walked away. Those two were amazing. Their blood could probably cure all sorts of diseases.
Luke and Linda followed the grandparents.
Norman lifted his pale face to glare at Zach. “Now do you understand why I have been so concerned about my sister? Why I begged her to stay with us?”
Zach clenched his teeth. He couldn’t stomach Norman’s preaching today. “We can have a frank doctrinal discussion when this is over, Norman. But right now, my only focus is getting Cassie better.”
“But don’t you see what you have wrought with your worldly influence? She decided to leave the church, and now God is punishing her.”
Something inside Zach snapped like a rubber band. He seized Norman by the collar and shoved him violently against the nearest wall. With grief and fear laying waste to his senses, it took every ounce of strength not to pound his fist into Norman’s mouth. “Shut up! Just shut up!”
Norman grunted and scowled with every muscle in his face. “You have no right . . . Let go of me. I am a man of peace.”
“What you are is a spiteful, despicable hypocrite, and a sorry excuse for a human being.” He shoved Norman away from him. “Get out of here. I can’t stand to look at you.”
Esther surprised Zach again when she laid a gentle hand on his arm. His temper came to rest when he looked into her eyes. “This will not help my Cassie, will it, Doctor?”
Zach took a step back and shook his head.
Esther pinned Norman with a stern eye. “Did the good Lord take your fater because he was a wicked man? Are you saying he deserved to die?”
“Nae, Mamm. I did not mean—”
“I know what you meant, Norman, and it does not reflect well on you. God is the only righteous judge of men.” She put her arm around Norman’s shoulder. “God would never take my Cassie as a punishment. If He punished His children that way, we would all be dead. We are all sinners.”
“If she dies, my heart will break,” Norman said.
“Mine too,” Esther said, her voice cracking. “But we will accept the Lord’s will.” She wrapped her fingers around Norman’s arm and pulled him in the direction of the elevator. “Let’s go pray. And then we will give blood.”
Zach was torn between prayer and a good battle with the punching bag at the gym. Would his prayers help or hurt Cassie’s chances? He felt raw and angry, scrubbed from the inside out with a wire brush. His truce with God was fragile indeed.
There was nothing he could do but pray. God already knew how mad he was. Maybe Zach should give God a chance to soften his heart. Maybe God would see Zach’s meager offering of faith as enough to save Cassie.
He took the stairs to the little chapel in the basement of the hospital. The room seemed dark and lifeless as if even God had abandoned it. Zach sat in one of the folding chairs and bowed his head.
Jesus said that all things are possible to him who believes. Could his faith save Cassie? If his faith was weak, would he lose her? Did her life hang on the strength of his faith? The thought was almost too horrible to contemplate.
Leaning his arm against the back of the chair in front of him, he prayed. “Heavenly Father, I want to believe. Help me believe. I’ll do anything You want if You will just save Cassie. I love her. Please, spare her life.”
He wept until he was spent, until every muscle in his body trembled with exhaustion.
After several bleak minutes, someone slipped an arm around his shoulders. He glanced up. Felty sat beside him.
“What does God want from me?” Zach said. “What more can I do?”
“God uses tribulations to strengthen our faith.”
“So you mean that Cassie has to suffer to test my faith? That doesn’t seem fair. If my faith is to be tested, I’m the one who should suffer.”
“That’s not what I mean. God doesn’t make bad things happen to test our faith. More people are made bitter by trials than are made better. Bad things happen. How we respond to a trial is up to us, but if we let Him, God can teach us something in the process.”
Zach leaned his head in his hand. “What am I supposed to learn? I can barely think, let alone open my heart to God.”
“You think if you have enough faith Cassie will be healed?”
“Yes. Jesus said it’s possible if I believe.”
Felty folded his arms. “Do you remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego yet?”
Zach nodded. There weren’t many Bible stories he didn’t remember. “The king threw them into a fiery furnace, and God saved them.”
“What did they tell the king right before he threw them into the furnace?”
Zach pressed at the space between his eyebrows. “They told him that they wouldn’t worship his gold idols. They said God would deliver them.”
“They said that God was able to deliver them. And then they said something that everybody forgets. They said, ‘But if not . . .’”
Zach furrowed his brow. “What does that mean?”
“They told the king that God was able to deliver them, but if God chose not to deliver them, they would still believe in Him.” Felty tightened his arm around Zach. “You might have enough faith for Cassie to be healed. Do you have enough faith for Cassie not to be healed?”
“I don’t understand.�
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“Will you still believe even if Cassie is taken? Because that is the true test of your faith.”
Zach wanted to jump to his feet and yell and shout and break every rickety folding chair in the chapel. He would never agree to letting God take Cassie. That wasn’t faith. Felty didn’t know what he was talking about.
Felty seemed to sense Zach’s inner turmoil. “Jesus said, ‘Thy will be done.’ Can you say the same and mean it?”
Zach thought of Jesus on the cross. He told His disciples He could have saved Himself, but He didn’t because it wasn’t the will of God. He had the power and didn’t use it.
Zach’s budding faith had taken a crushing blow when Austin died, but looking back, what had his faith been but a misguided hope that God was his own personal genie who existed only to grant his wishes? And when God hadn’t granted his wish, he’d stopped believing.
God had given him a test, and Zach had failed miserably.
He drew in a shaky breath. “Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.”
A tear rolled down Felty’s cheek and disappeared into his long, gray beard. “Me too, Lord. Me too.”
It was Zach’s turn to comfort Felty. He wrapped his thick arms around Felty’s thin, eighty-five-year-old shoulders. “Will you pray with me?”
“There’s nothing I’d rather do.”
“Dear God,” Zach began, his voice strong and clear as if God were giving him the words. “I want Cassie to live. I know you can heal her. Please heal her. But if not, I will still believe.” He swallowed hard. “Thy will be done,” he said, and meant it.
Chapter Thirty
The pain was nearly unbearable. She held perfectly still so as not to make it worse. The left side of her body could have been on fire. Her head throbbed as if it were stuck in a vise, and a sharp pain down her spine almost took her breath away. She was too tired to open her eyes, but if someone knew she was awake, maybe she could get something for the pain.
If someone knew she was awake . . .
Where was she?
Was she dead?
No, she didn’t think she’d be in this much pain if she were dead. And it hurt. Bad.
Must have pain medication.
There was nothing else to do. She’d have to open her eyes.
It was dark outside the window and the lights were dim, but she could see enough to know she was in the hospital. Had there been an accident?
Zach Reynolds sat on a chair close to her bed fast asleep. Her heart raced at the sight of him. Oh, how she loved him!
Did this mean he’d gotten her text?
Her text. Her mad dash to the hospital in the buggy. An accident. She didn’t even know what had hit her.
She wanted to reach out and smooth the hair from Zach’s forehead. She wanted to lean over and give him a kiss. He was so incredibly good-looking and so incredibly good. How could she resist?
Okay, leaning over and kissing anybody was not a good idea. When she moved her head a fraction of an inch off her pillow, the pain flared to life. She groaned softly. No moving for her.
That slight noise startled Zach awake. He looked at her, and his smile could have guided ships into the harbor. “Cassie,” he whispered.
“Sir Galahad,” she whispered back.
He reached out as if her touch could save him from drowning and slipped his hand into hers. He bowed his head and gently pressed his lips to her fingers. She felt his tears on the back of her hand as his body shuddered and he disintegrated into gut-wrenching, heart-cleaving sobs. He wept as if he’d just walked out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.
“Thank You,” he said. “Thank You, God.”
With her heart overflowing, she held very still and let him weep.
Chapter Thirty-One
Zach had been living off little more than coffee and prayer for three days. Dr. Mann had all but ordered him to get some sleep and a good meal or threatened to ban him from the hospital. After he made sure Cassie rested comfortably, Zach had sprinted down to the hospital cafeteria to grab a quick bite. He never wanted to let her out of his sight again.
Only when he had smelled the chicken noodle soup had he realized how famished he was. He’d ended up eating a club sandwich, two bowls of soup, a roll, three cookies, and a piece of pie. Plus a cup of green Jell-O in Austin’s honor. He had practically been able to hear Austin giggling with every bite.
After polishing off his third cookie—nowhere near as good as anything Cassie made—he leaned back in his chair and took a swig of coffee. He should call Mom. A twinge of guilt stabbed him right between the shoulder blades. Mom had probably been pacing the floor since he had texted her that Cassie had been in an accident. He should have called way sooner than this.
He pulled his phone from his back pocket and punched in Mom’s number. She answered on the first ring.
“Zach. Finally.”
He winced. Mom sounded more than a little annoyed. “Sorry I didn’t call sooner.”
“No offense, son. I’ve tried not to be pushy, but really? It’s a good thing I didn’t hold my breath waiting for your call. I get a text—Pray for Cassie, she’s been in an accident. Then four hours later—She’s out of surgery. She’s going to be okay. I’ll call you as soon as I can. It’s the curse of a mother with boys to never get the details of her children’s lives.”
“I’m sorry a text was all you got, but considering my state of mind, you’re lucky it wasn’t a call from the insane asylum.”
“I called all my ladies from church and from the auxiliary. We prayed like crazy.”
Zach’s heart felt as if it had grown three times larger in the past few days, and it only kept growing. “Thanks, Mom. It really helped.”
“How is Cassie?”
“She had a punctured lung, a broken back, and a ruptured spleen. They took out her spleen and put a tube in her chest. Her back had a minor fracture. No permanent damage.”
“Thank the Lord for that.”
Zach couldn’t keep his voice from cracking. “I almost lost her, Mom. I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I know.”
“But you should have seen all the people. Her family put out word that Cassie needed blood, and within an hour there were two hundred Amish people waiting in line at the hospital to donate. I bought every doughnut in town to pass out.”
There was a brief silence on the other end. “You sound terrible. How long has it been since you’ve had any sleep?”
Zach’s hand seemed to automatically go to his forehead where the headache had been lingering for days. “I don’t remember, Mom. I just . . . I couldn’t leave, you know?”
“Of course not, but it would be better if you didn’t end up in the hospital yourself.”
“Mom, I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
An even longer pause. “Are you converting?”
He chuckled. “She’s decided not to be baptized after all.”
“Well, that’s good. I’d probably go years without hearing from you if you couldn’t even text.”
“I’m wondering if I should wait until she’s out of the hospital before I pop the question. I don’t want to rush her, but I don’t want to wait too long either.”
“There’s no universe where the hospital is an appropriate place to propose to a girl,” Mom said. “Find the most romantic spot in Shawano.”
“I’m terrified just thinking about it,” Zach said.
“If she has any sense at all, she’ll say yes. You’re a catch. All the auxiliary ladies think you’re hot.”
Zach groaned. “Mom, please. Too much information.”
Mom giggled. “You can tell Cassie I said so if it will make her more likely to say yes.”
“No thanks.”
She sounded so close, and he wished he could reach out and get a hug. He felt as if he’d been put through the wringer on Anna’s washing machine.
“What are you going to do about a ring?” Mom said. “All your dad’s insurance money we
nt to medical school. You’re living off hot dogs and ramen noodles.”
“I don’t know. I thought maybe I could give her my class ring until I can afford something really spectacular.”
“Absolutely not,” Mom said. Her voice seemed to echo throughout the entire cafeteria.
Zach chuckled. “Okay, bad idea.”
“I want her to have the ring your dad gave me.”
Zach felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around to see his mom standing there in all her motherly wonderfulness. His heart swelled as big as the sky as he leaped to his feet and wrapped his arms as far around her as they would go. “Mom!” he shouted, not caring who he disturbed in the small cafeteria. The tears ran down both their faces as they stood there making up for months of hug deprivation.
“You look terrible,” Mom said.
“You look wonderful,” Zach replied. They laughed through the tears. “I can’t believe you came,” he said.
Mom retrieved a tissue from her purse and mopped up her face. “Yesterday, after forty-eight hours of not hearing a thing, I went a little crazy. I hopped on a plane this morning. Thank goodness for American Express.”
Zach draped an arm around Mom’s shoulder. “I’m so happy, I think I’m going to pass out.”
Mom lifted her eyebrows as she eyed Zach. “You might pass out from exhaustion and starvation. It looks like I got here just in time.”
“Just in time.”
She nodded and rolled up her sleeves. “I’m here to help. Put me to work. And when can I meet Cassie?”
“Let’s go see if she’s awake. If not, you can at least meet her grandparents. Since the accident, they’ve been at the hospital almost as much as I have.”
“I’ve been dying to meet them. They’ve taken good care of you. I owe them my deepest gratitude.” She cupped her hand over his cheek. “They brought my son back to himself.”
Zach shook with happiness. “Mom, God is good, and I’m never going to leave Him again.”
Mom got all soft and mushy around the eyes. “Pop would have liked hearing that.”
“He already knows.”
Huckleberry Hearts Page 32
