The Outcast

by Jolina Petersheim

  In the store, Rachel continues serving customers who continue to stare. What would they think, she wonders, if they could see the scarlet stain hidden beneath her Plain clothes? The Plain clothes that evoke in Englischer minds a naiveté and innocence, when it is they themselves—believing the gentle people infallible—who are naive.

  “Rachel!” Ida Mae yells. “You’re spilling!”

  Rachel looks down. Grossmammi Meltzer’s wassail has overflowed the Dixie cup and splashed onto her cape dress. But Rachel just smiles, watching the red beads roll off the slick cotton without leaving a stain. Perhaps there is hope that her own scarlet stain can be washed from her soul as well.

  At ten o’clock, when the Open sign flips to Closed, the cinnamony dregs of wassail are all that remain in the bottom of the Crock-Pot. A few cheese crumbs and slick spots where circles of bologna have rested are all that’s left on the silver platter. But only ten of the twenty hummingbird cakes have been touched.

  Staring morosely at these cakes that have forced Ida Mae to sacrifice her conscience, she says, “I can’t freeze them again. They been setting out so long, I can’t sell them full price. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

  “Sell ’em half price,” Russell says, holding Eli, who is a little blip on the radar screen of his chest.

  Ida Mae is too tired to come back with her typical sassy remark. “You think it’d work? We’ve only got two days ’til Christmas. I don’t even know if the cakes’ll last that long.”

  Russell says, “If they don’t, let me buy them off you. I could eat them with my Christmas dinner.”

  “And what’s that gonna be?” Ida Mae rolls her eyes. “A bucket of KFC and a six-pack like last year?”

  Rachel clears her throat. “Actually, I invited Russell to eat here with us. I’m going to cook.” She turns to the man, who is as shocked by this news as his ex-wife. “You’ll be here at six o’clock? And you’re going to bring boiled custard, right?”

  Russell keeps nodding because he is imitating Rachel. Ida Mae is staring holes through Rachel’s skull, but Rachel decides she’ll just have to deal with her later.

  “Hey. What’s wrong with him?” Russell jerks his chin down at Eli. “Why’s he making that funny sound?”

  Taking her son and placing her ear against his shuddering rib cage, Rachel can hear a watery rattle coming from deep inside his chest.

  “That’s not the croup, is it?” she asks Ida Mae.

  Ida Mae steps closer and listens. “I don’t know, Rachel-girl, but I never known a young’un to be so sickly. Wintertime or not.”

  “I’ve been meaning to make a doctor’s appointment. I’ll do it first thing tomorrow.”

  “You can’t. No place is open tomorrow. And I wouldn’t wait ’til Monday.” Ida Mae’s eyes are filled with concern. “No, Rachel-girl. This’s gone on long enough. Insurance or no insurance, I think we should take him in tonight.”

  Dr. Riordian, a silver-haired Irishman with the swaggering aura of a retired horse jockey, is used to harried young mothers bringing their children to the emergency room at two and three in the morning when a good night’s rest would set their small immune systems right again. Because of this, he is unconcerned when Rachel places Eli on the table and tells the doctor to please take a look at him. Of course, the situation is unusual from the beginning since the mother is dressed like she just stepped off the Mayflower and speaks with an accent to boot.

  Clutching the paper wrapping the examination table, she says, “Before you do anything, I want you to know that I don’t have insurance. I was in an Old Order Mennonite community, and we always shared medical expenses through the church. But now I don’t go to that church. I don’t live in that community.”

  The more words that leave her mouth, the more flustered the mother becomes until it is everything Dr. Riordian can do not to reach out and calm her. “It’s okay,” Dr. Riordian says instead. “We’ll figure everything out as we go, but you should know that we never turn away someone needing medical assistance.”

  Rachel smiles for the first time since Russell was holding Eli and asking what was wrong. Watching that smile, Dr. Riordian is taken aback by how young she is, when her eyes appear so old. Dr. Riordian shakes his head, gets Rachel to lay Eli on the table, takes the stethoscope from around his neck, and plugs the rubbery ends into his ears. He places the disk on Eli’s chest and listens. Moves the disk farther down and listens again. Taking the stethoscope out of his ears, the doctor begins to run freckled fingers over the sides of Eli’s neck.

  “He has a bump,” Rachel says, as if embarrassed by the bump, when what she is really embarrassed about is the fact that she hasn’t brought it to a doctor’s attention before now. “It’s over here.” She trails a finger over Eli’s clavicle and dips it down into the hollow between skin and bone.

  Dr. Riordian places his finger where hers was and traces the same area.

  “How long since you noticed this?” he asks, his voice as void of emotion as his features.

  “Two weeks,” she whispers, looking down. “I found it when I was visiting family.”

  “That’s good,” the doctor says.

  “Good?” Rachel lifts her head. “Why is it good?”

  Dr. Riordian knows he cannot say anything to give Rachel either alarm or reassurance. “It’s good that you found it so soon,” he says. “I don’t know what this is. But I promise you that Mandy Vaughan is the person who can find out.”

  Rachel

  I cannot sleep, so I pass the time listening to the hourly trains and wondering where each car is destined to be dropped. I like to imagine that, rather than hauling coal as many trains these days do, this is a passenger line that whisks people to places that have been untouched by fear, disease, or death. Even just thinking this causes tears to well in my eyes, the tears I have been forcing back since tonight’s visit to the emergency room, where I realized my son might be sicker than I thought. Climbing down the bunk ladder, I stare at Eli asleep in his bed. The strange part is that although he is sweating, he is not tossing or turning as much as I have been and his breathing is unencumbered by the watery rattle we heard before. Dr. Riordian did give Eli a steroid shot, which he said would make it easier for him to breathe, but I cannot stop hoping that my son’s mysterious ailment has somehow cured itself. If Norman Troyer hadn’t crossed my path when we were in Pennsylvania, I know I would not be taking Eli to the pediatric hematologist, Mandy Vaughan, regardless of how highly Dr. Riordian recommends her. All my life, I’ve been taught that natural remedies are the only true cure. But now, after I know that even a renowned holistic doktor believes in the power of modern-day medicine, I find my whole point of view has become skewed right at the time I need clear vision the most.

  I nestle the afghan around Eli’s body, then reach out and take his hand, which curls around my fingers although he is asleep. When the unthinkable happened and I became with child, I stopped allowing myself to yearn for the companionship of a mate. I knew that Plain men would not yoke themselves with a woman whom the community perceived as damaged goods, even if one in the community had helped inflict the damage. Although I mourned the union I had always dreamed of but would now never have, I got through it by telling myself that I would have the resilience to bear whatever hardships came my way, even if I had to bear them alone.

  All of this made sense at the time. But tonight, staring at Eli—who is oblivious to the cares of this world such as insurance and blood tests—I feel the vulnerability of our situation more than ever before. If Judah King were still here and his offer of marriage still stood, I would be sorely tempted to accept.

  But would it be out of convenience—simply to make hardships like this one easier to bear—rather than out of love? Or maybe hardships scrape away life’s dross, allowing us to clearly see in hindsight the person who was always meant for us . . . until he grew weary of being taken for granted and was gone.

  I don’t go with Ida Mae to her Pentecostal church th
e next morning because two inches of snow and sleet fell during the night, and the gray sky seems frozen solid with cold—conditions I shouldn’t take a sickly child out in. I want to let Eli sleep as long as he needs to, but as the hours pass in silence, I find myself entering our bedroom and putting a hand to his chest to make sure I can feel its steady rise and fall. Bored at ten o’clock, I put on my warmest dress and tights and make my bed, wipe down the kitchen counters, and sweep the floor. I go into the bathroom to clean because it looks about as necessary as getting an ox out of a ditch on the Sabbath. After scouring the tub, I work on the sink and rinse the flotsam of hair and toothpaste down the drain. I glance up into the mirror to see if it’s been spattered with toothpaste as well, and that’s when I notice my haggard reflection.

  Taking out my bobby pins, I uncoil my waist-length hair. The strands are lank and darkened from a winter of barely seeing the sun. Years ago, when I started noticing the boys starting to notice me, I would spritz my hair with lemon juice and hydrogen peroxide and lie out on the back porch with my hair swirled across the hot boards. For hours, I would let the UV rays penetrate deep into my scalp, sometimes burning the skin of my center part a vermilion that peeled and made it look like I had dandruff—which more than canceled out any pretty highlights the sun might’ve bleached. My parents never knew about this vanity of mine because I always waited until they had gone into town to do it. But my sister sure did. Although Leah never uttered one word of censure, the pinch of her lips relayed her disapproval. When I asked her about it, Leah said she disapproved of my secrecy more than the act itself.

  Now, spooling my hair around my fist, I curl my hand under to see how my hair would look at shoulder length. The mere thought of it gives me a foretaste of freedom that is inexplicably sweet. I envision my ears pierced with the silver baubles I have always admired, shining through short, frosted locks framing an Englischer woman’s made-up face. I bite my lips and scrub my cheeks, giving them the rosy glow they haven’t had in more than a year. Carried away by my girlhood dreams that are now within reach, I rifle through the cupboard above the toilet, searching for forgotten makeup or perfume to try.

  I don’t find anything except a tube of cherry-flavored ChapStick and an aging bottle of Love’s Baby Soft. Swiping my lips with the tube, I spray some of the perfume and wonder whether Ida Mae has any jewelry I can borrow. I never see her wearing any, but I imagine all Englischer women have a stash somewhere. Feeling abnormally bold, I walk into Ida Mae’s bedroom and look at the wooden jewelry box sitting on top of her bureau. I check the top section for a pair of clip-on earrings, so I can see what I’d look like with pierced ears, but there are just a few strands of cheap beads that have pieces cracked or shattered. Tugging open the shallow drawer beneath the top section of the jewelry box, I am disappointed to find no jewelry—only a pair of glasses with the thick lenses so shattered, they cannot be of use. That piques my curiosity, because Ida Mae doesn’t even need glasses for reading.

  Finally, in the back of the little drawer, I discover a large, thick piece of paper, tightly rolled up with a thin gold wedding band around it. I pause and peer out into the living room. My search has moved beyond an innocent hunt for jewelry, and I wonder if I should stop. But my hands seem to have a mind of their own. I carefully slide the wedding band off the paper. My fingers shake as I unroll it, not because I am scared of what the paper might reveal but because I am scared that I am going to be caught. I furtively scan the document: a gold-embossed wedding certificate declaring that holy matrimony took place between Russell Maynard Speck and Ida Mae Troyer on September 15, 1992, at the Cumberland County courthouse. There is a woman’s name, Erin Speck, as one witness; Norman Troyer is the other.

  My eyes flit back up to that last spidery signature and read over the names again. Ida Mae Troyer? Norman Troyer? I know the odds are that this is not the same Norman Troyer as the holistic doktor in Lancaster. That last name is as common among the Amish and Mennonites as Smith is throughout the rest of the nation. But as I roll the marriage license up and slide the wedding band over it, I have to wonder: Are Ida Mae and Norman somehow related? And if they are, how? And how can I ask Ida Mae about him, since the only way I could have found this out was by rooting through her private things?

  Before I can damage my character even further, I hear Eli begin to stir in his bed. Glancing back at the jewelry box and inside the bathroom, I reassure myself that everything is in its place and walk over to the blue room to comfort my son.

  The morning of Eli’s appointment with the pediatric hematologist, I am unusually silent. I know that if I begin to speak, I will have to tell Ida Mae about the second lump that I discovered when I was changing Eli’s diaper last night. It was larger and firmer than the lump on his neck, and I had so quickly felt alongside Eli’s other leg with my cold, panicked hands that he startled and began to cry. But even before I found that second lump, my maternal instincts were telling me that my son’s sickness is from more than a wintertime cold, that Eli’s slight body is being inhabited by an illness threatening to overtake it. Throughout childhood, my mamm said that I was far too independent, that I made decisions based on feelings rather than on sound judgment. That was true the night Eli was conceived, and though I try to fight my tendency to be rash, sometimes that is true still. But now it is not my life hanging in the balance according to the decisions I make, but my son’s. What if the doctor needs to run some kind of test on Eli that I refuse because of my holistic beliefs? What if my attempt to protect him only thwarts his ability to get better? What if I make the wrong decision, and it is too late to turn back and find the right one?

  Ida Mae pulls up in front of the clinic and slips her truck into park. Last night, we agreed that I would go into the appointment by myself and then call her when it was over. But now, knowing that I am to face this all alone, I begin shaking so badly I cannot unhook the fastenings of Eli’s car seat.

  Stretching across the seat, Ida Mae puts her sandpapered hand over mine. “Rachel-girl,” she says, her voice softer than I have ever heard it, “you go on in. I’ll call Russell and tell him to open the store; then I’ll come in to be with ya.”

  I stare at my son’s legs flailing in the car seat, then nod and blink hard to keep tears from falling onto my cheeks.

  In the waiting room, the receptionist with jet-black hair cropped like a boy’s and sparkly pink lipstick passes me a clipboard layered with papers that I must fill out. Sitting down, I realize that a majority of the information the papers ask for I cannot provide. Eli has no primary care physician; he has not had any of the immunizations listed. I do not have a telephone number; I do not even have Ida Mae’s address memorized. I obviously cannot write Eli’s father’s information down. In doing so, I would be wreaking havoc in more directions than I can name. As my anxiety increases, so do the jolting feelings inside my body. I look up from the papers at the jacketed children sitting on their mothers’ laps or playing with colorful plastic toys on the floor. I then notice that about half of these mothers are observing Eli and me as though we are some strange specimens trapped in a jar.

  The vibrations of fear reverberating throughout my body morph into anger. I slam the clipboard in my lap. “Don’t you know it’s considered rude to stare?”

  The women who were watching us drop their eyes to their children or to their clipboards like my own. The ones who weren’t looking glance up, searching around the room for a face to match to the sound of the voice. When their flittering eyes alight on me in my conservative cape dress and black lace-up shoes, their mouths gape open like they have forgotten how to breathe. Embarrassed by my flash of temper, I draw Eli close and act like I am filling out information when I don’t know how to begin.

  “Eli?” a nurse says. “Is there an Eli Stoltz—” she looks down at her clipboard—“Stoltzfoos here?”

  “Yes. We’re here.” I stand and look out the window toward the parking lot, where Ida Mae’s leaning against the brick wall, talking
on her phone. When she sees me, she mutters something and snaps the phone shut.

  “You’ll come in with me?” I ask once she enters the clinic.

  But Ida Mae is already moving past me toward the nurse. “What?” she says, looking over her shoulder. “You think I’m gonna let my young’uns go through this rigmarole alone?”

  12

  Rachel

  Dr. Mandy Vaughan smiles when she comes into the antiseptic room and sees our unusual trio waiting there: Ida Mae, with her flanneled arms crossed, watching the doctor’s every move through distrustful brown eyes; Eli, happily gnawing on a wooden block carved with the letter D; and me, wearing a cape dress whose somber hue contrasts with the bloom of fear in my cheeks.

  Taking the stool opposite us, Dr. Vaughan crosses her legs and moistens her lips. She smiles again.

  Eli’s cooing and the ticking of the black-and-white clock are the only sounds in the room.

  “Miss Stoltzfus . . .”

  I nod to reassure Dr. Vaughan that I am listening, but it takes effort to register my own name.

  “Miss Stoltzfus, your son’s blood work came back showing that his white counts are abnormally high.” She stops and clears her throat.

  My eyes will her to continue, as my mouth is too stunned to work. Finally, she swallows hard and looks back at us. “Because of this and because of a small mass that showed up on the chest X-ray, Dr. Riordian and I have agreed that he should be tested further. Tomorrow, I would like to schedule an FNA—that is, a fine-needle aspiration biopsy—for the lumps in Eli’s neck and groin and a CAT scan for this Friday.”

  “A cat scan?” Ida Mae’s question is distorted by the ringing in my ears. “What on earth’s that?”