The Outcast

by Jolina Petersheim

Rachel

  I am furious when someone raps on the door. This is the first time Eli has slept without whimpering in two days. Springing from the chair, I cover the hospital room in four steps and fling the door wide. I begin to say, “No visi—” but cannot finish the word.

  “Judah?” I ask, although it can be no one but him. His hair is longer, his face harder, the skin pulled across his cheekbones coarse and burned as if he has been someplace that, even in winter, sees the sun. Because of these changes, or because of the guarded expression in his eyes, he looks more like a man than the boy who walked off Ida Mae’s porch into the rain three months ago.

  Even though I opened the door ready to send whoever had come to visit right back home again, my emotions are so unstable that I now cross the hospital room’s threshold and bury my face against Judah’s chest. All I can hear is his thundering heart keeping time with the beeping machines behind us, and then he eases both arms around me. I begin to weep as he does, for I don’t know how long it has been since I have been held and not the one doing the holding. Turning his torso, Judah slips something into his pocket and closes the hospital door with one hand. Judah moves this hand up between our bodies and uses the rough pad of his thumb to skim the tears from my cheeks. It is a simple gesture, a sweet gesture, yet the same one his brother did the night I realized the full magnitude of what the two of us had done.

  This memory brings me to my senses. I step away from Judah and watch as his face falls; then his arms fall in slow motion back down to his sides.

  “You cut your hair,” he says.

  I turn my head so that his outstretched hand doesn’t touch my severed locks. I lace my arms to hide their shaking. “And I see that you haven’t cut yours.”

  Judah grins, and I think nothing in him has changed, that he is still that same mischievous boy I knew from before. But that shadow in his eyes soon returns, and he glances over at the hospital bed where my tiny child is struggling to recuperate even as more chemo is being pumped into his system.

  “How is he?” Judah asks.

  I move over to the bed and fold Eli’s blankie down so that it doesn’t come in contact with the plastic tubes snaking from his port.

  “It’s hard to say.” I am relieved to drop my upbeat performance for the people who barely know us, who just ask about Eli so they’ll have the details of another sad story to tell. “We’re almost through treatments. But every time we come back here, it feels like Eli’s closer to dying.”

  “That’s how chemo works, isn’t it? The doctors kill off the good cells with the bad, then let the good ones rebuild themselves again?”

  I shrug. “Most of the time I don’t know what’s going on. I just have to trust that these complete strangers know what they’re doing when they take my son’s life in their hands.”

  “I’m so sorry, Rachel.”

  I have heard those rote words so often, I usually don’t hear them anymore. But this time I do.

  I can tell by the pained expression on Judah’s face as he looks at my son that if he had the power to scoop Eli up from that hospital bed and make him well again, he would; if he had the power to take me in his arms and heal my heart again, he would.

  I sit in the chair again. In my shattered state, I do not trust myself to keep from going over and leaning against Judah in an attempt to absorb the strength his presence exudes. I do not know what has happened to me or to him in the time since he’s been gone, but looking at Judah now—leaning against the door of the bathroom with his hands sunk in the pockets of his faded jeans and his wavy blond hair brushing the hood of his hunter-green jacket—is like looking at a stranger. Besides the color of his eyes and the crooked angle of his smile, I can see no semblance of the boy I knew in childhood, the boy for some reason I never thought could turn into a man until he was gone.

  “Where did you go?” I ask. “I mean, after here?”

  Judah strolls over to the window and splits the blinds so he can look down on the happenings of Music City. Taking his other hand from the pocket of his jeans, he folds his arms and turns back toward me. “Wyoming,” he says. “Cody, Wyoming. I was a farrier for the rodeo.”

  “But how’d you get out there? How did you get that job?”

  “I hitchhiked. And had some money saved. So when I got to Wyoming, I got my driver’s license, then bought a truck and drove over to the rodeo and told them I knew a thing or two about horses.”

  Maybe it’s the way he won’t look in my eyes, or the way his sentences are so halted it is as if he’s making them up one fragment at a time. But something about his story doesn’t ring true. Or maybe there is something about his story that he is not telling me. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I realize what it is.

  “You’ve met someone?” I ask. “From Wyoming?”

  “Nobody’s from Wyoming,” Judah says. His gaze remains fixed on the few stubborn wisps clinging to Eli’s scalp that I haven’t had the heart to cut. “At least not in the rodeo.”

  My cheeks grow hot; I realize he has evaded my question. It is all I can do to keep still, not to pace and fidget like Judah is doing in front of the window. I am grateful that he didn’t look me in the eye as he said this, won’t even look my way now. If he could see my face, he would know the envy that is inside my heart.

  I hate myself for these fickle emotions. I am acting like a normal young woman with boy problems even though I am sitting next to a hospital bed occupied by my diseased son. I hate myself because this envy is rooted in selfishness, letting me know that I have not changed much at all. My dear childhood friend deserves to find someone who will cherish him for the man he is, not a woman who couldn’t stop self-destructing long enough to realize what a treasure she had before it was too late to claim it.

  I am opening and closing my mouth, attempting to dispel the tension between us but not finding the right words, when Ida Mae taps the door, then comes in. “How’s our little man?” she asks, bending down in front of the miniature fridge to replenish the juice boxes and carrot sticks I ate yesterday.

  “He had a solid BM this morning, and they’re taking him down for a PET at noon,” I explain. Ida Mae nods. She and I often communicate in medical acronyms that would never make sense to anyone listening from the outside world.

  “Your mom and Norman been by yet?” she asks, then closes the fridge and turns. “Oh, hey there, Judah. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

  My own eyes flit between them. Ida Mae doesn’t seem the least bit shocked to see Judah standing here after months away, and I never did find out how he’d known of Eli’s sickness and which hospital room he was in. The moment I start to ask these questions, Ida Mae tosses a juice box at me. “Now, you two are too young to be inside on such a pretty day. Why don’t y’all go take a walk around town?”

  “Aren’t they calling for sleet?” I waggle the plastic straw into the juice box and take a sip. “I saw it on the news.”

  Ida Mae waves her hand. “Those doom-and-gloom weather reporters don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  Judah turns toward me and shrugs. Getting up from the hospital chair, I place the juice box in the fridge, kiss Eli’s forehead, and retrieve my coat and scarf from the closet. Judah holds the door open, and I pass under his arm into the hall. We ride down the elevator in charged silence, our unspoken words electrifying the air. When the automatic doors of the hospital open, ushering us out into the street, I gulp the biting wind and let my lungs fill until they feel like they will splinter.

  “I haven’t left the hospital since Dr. Sengupta put Eli on a supplemental IV,” I explain, working my fingers into my red mittens and coiling the matching scarf around my hair, the first red items I have ever been allowed to own. “Even this freezing cold feels wonderful.”

  Judah touches my arm, looks down both sides of the street. “Where you wanna go?”

  “Anywhere.”

  Nodding, he takes one of my mittened hands and tucks it in the bend of his arm. We walk wit
hout speaking up Children’s Way and cross Twenty-First Avenue onto Vanderbilt’s deserted campus, receiving inquisitive looks from the few students brave enough to face the harsh elements. I guess it must appear unusual for a Plain-dressed woman to have her hand wrapped around the arm of a man who is garbed like an Englischer, but in the light of Eli’s illness there are certain things that do not matter to me anymore. Keeping up with appearances is one of them.

  We’ve traveled less than a block when sleet begins to spritz from the muted sky, the icy granules bouncing across the sidewalk like translucent pearls.

  “Seems those weather reporters do know what they’re talking about,” I quip.

  Judah says nothing. If not for the steady pressure of his hand over the one I still have tucked in the crook of his arm, I would think he has forgotten I am even here. I study him from the corner of my eye as we retrace our steps, but the hood of Judah’s jacket is pulled up. I cannot see his face except for his reddened nose and the frosted sweep of his lashes.

  “Do you want to go up there?” He points to a wrought-iron pedestrian bridge burnished with gold that links the university’s historic section to Peabody College. It seems an odd choice of shelter as the structure has no solid covering that I can see, but Judah is acting so strangely, I agree without question.

  I climb the slick steps in front of him. I can feel his palm against the small of my back as he attempts to keep me from falling. We reach the top; Judah strides over to face the four streams of traffic passing slowly beneath the bridge. Despite being midmorning, almost all the vehicles have their headlights on and their windshield wipers whipping back and forth, brushing sleet into double arches that condense at the sides before spattering the blacktop that is turning gray beneath the thickening sheen of ice.

  I stare at Judah’s back—at the way his bare hands clutch the iron railing and the sleet that glitters on his green hood.

  Coming to stand beside him, I am silent before asking, “You okay?”

  The driving wind and sleet make it hard for me to discern my own words, but somehow Judah hears them. He releases his grip on the rail as if his strength is responsible for holding the bridge together, yet he has no choice but to let it go. Sweeping back his hood, Judah looks over at me. For the first time, I see the tears that are melting trails down the frozen skin of his face.

  He drags his coat sleeve across his eyes and shakes his head. “I never should’ve left,” he says. “If I had stayed—”

  “If you had stayed, nothing would have changed.”

  The sentence has barely left my mouth when the hurt flickering in Judah’s eyes tells me that he has misinterpreted my meaning and I have misinterpreted his. I thought he was crying because he felt responsible for Eli’s cancer. Now I realize his tears are because he believes if he had remained, I might have relied on his strength over these past three months and that reliance—given time—might have turned into love.

  What he doesn’t realize is that the moment he walked out of my life was the moment I knew I already loved him. Have always loved him.

  Judah is grappling the railing again with his broad shoulders hunched to ward off the cold or the impact of my words; I cannot tell which. Stretching out my mittened hand, I place it over his. “Nothing might’ve changed had you stayed, Judah, but I know that I am glad you have returned.”

  He changes direction so abruptly that I step back. As he trails his hand over one side of my red scarf, the thawed sleet beads across his fingers. He places these cold, damp fingers to my cheek, but his touch feels more like a burn. Sliding his other hand down the base of my spine, he presses my body against him, as if I am a piece of fine china whose unseen fractures might crack. “There’s no one else, Rachel,” he whispers, patching my temple with a kiss whose tenderness forces me to close my eyes. “There’s never been anyone but you.”

  As the wind unspools my scarf and the sleet lashes our unprotected skin, Judah leans down and touches his frozen lips to mine.

  Though I am painfully aware that nothing and no one can take precedence over my battle to reclaim my son’s health, I cannot stop myself from twining my fingers into Judah’s wet hair and leaning into his kiss, into this moment stolen on a bridge where two people are suspended in a world fraught with ice and fire.

  16

  Rachel

  Ida Mae and I are drinking the tea I heated in the microwave of the family lounge when there is a quiet knock on the door. I call out a welcome, and Norman Troyer comes limping in. Looking between the two of us, he takes off his black hat and feeds the brim around and around in one square hand. “I wanted to check on Eli,” he says, still staring at the hat. “See if there was anything you might need before I left.”

  “You’re heading back to PA?” I ask.

  He nods. “Jah, I put Leah and Tobias out long enough.”

  “I’m sure they didn’t mind. We all loved having you here.”

  Ida Mae snorts. When I look over with wide eyes, she just smiles and takes a sip of tea.

  “Do you care if I take one more look at him?” the holistic doktor asks, motioning to my son.

  “No, please.” I move to give Norman more room. “I’d feel better if you did.”

  Ida Mae knocks the tea back although the temperature must scald her tongue. Setting her mug on the food tray table, she gathers her belongings and stuffs them into the Salvation Army backpack she uses like a purse. “You think they’ll release Eli in the morning?” she asks.

  I shrug. Dr. Taizeen Sengupta can change his mind about Eli’s being released or being forced to stay as quickly as the wind can shift its course. I keep telling myself that the doctor is keeping my son in the hospital for his own good. Sometimes, I even believe it.

  “Welp,” Ida Mae says, “give me a call when you need picked up. If I’m running the store, I’ll send Russell to fetch ya.”

  “He’s back in town?” I ask.

  Ida Mae nods, keeping her eyes away from Norman Troyer. Her ex-husband has been away for a month and a half, the same amount of time that Norman, her first husband’s bruder, has been in Tennessee. I don’t know why Russell Speck has made an effort to avoid such a docile man, but I’m sure it is the same reason Ida Mae has avoided talking about Norman whenever I’ve found the chance to ask why he’s no longer a part of her life.

  Norman Troyer keeps staring at the door long after Ida Mae has said good-bye to us and left. He then turns and shuffles toward the hospital bed. Taking a flashlight from his pants pocket, Norman rests his weight on the railings and guides the beam down into Eli’s eyes. My son is asleep, but the instant his eyelids begin to flutter, Norman shields the flashlight’s brightness with his hand and peers around it. Norman only looks at his eyes for a few seconds before clicking off the light and returning it to his pocket. Immediately, the pain medication filtering through Eli’s port causes his eyes to shutter into sleep again. I wipe tears as my son’s slack mouth opens and drool dangles from his sore-crusted lips.

  Drying my eyes, I ask, “How is he?”

  Norman doesn’t respond. I cannot tell if it is because he is afraid to, or if he does not know how to tell me what he sees.

  I push the chair that Ida Mae had occupied closer to the bed. Norman rocks back into it with a sigh. “You should get another scan done,” he says. “I don’t like how yellow his eyes are.”

  “They did a PET today. They’ll probably have the results tomorrow.”

  Norman bobs his head and lays his braces over one knee like canes. “That’s good,” he says. “Let me know what they find out. If I need to come down again, I will.”

  These past two months spent watching Eli battle cancer have sapped my confidence in both conventional and holistic medicine. Because of this, I do not really care if Norman Troyer makes that long journey from Pennsylvania to Tennessee regardless of Eli’s scan results, but considering that Norman is an old family friend, I cannot reveal how my faith has waned regarding his abilities.

  “I’l
l let you know,” I say. “Or I can send a message through my mamm.”

  “That’d be fine. She calls to order herbs anyway.”

  “Why don’t you ever call Ida Mae?” I have so many questions, I cannot help asking the one that has plagued my mind since I discovered Norman Troyer’s signature on the bottom of Ida Mae and Russell’s marriage certificate. “Your bruder might be dead, but she’s still your schweschder-in-law, right?”

  Norman stares at my son before replying. “Jah, Ida married my younger brother, Henry. But after Henry died and Ida was shunned, I was still in the church and—”

  “And,” I interrupt, “you couldn’t talk with her and keep from being shunned yourself?”

  “No, it wasn’t that. Ida hurt us not by leaving the church like she did, but by marrying the man who killed her family.”

  The man who killed her family. I remember Russell’s hands clasping the steering wheel as he said, “In one day, I took everything from that woman, and I’ve spent every day since trying to patch her life back together . . . to make it whole again.” I murmur now, hoping my words are true, “Surely it was an accident.”

  Norman nods. “We never should’ve been out that day. It was getting too dark, but we were on a deserted road, and I thought the triangle reflectors were bright enough to keep us safe.”

  “It was a horse-and-buggy accident?”

  Looking over, Norman tilts his head. “What kind of accident did you think it was?”

  “I—I wasn’t sure.” I am too embarrassed to admit I thought it might have been an armed robbery attempt before Russell found the Lord.

  “Russell was driving truck for Dutch Valley at the time.” Norman lowers his arm braces to the floor and rests his upper-body weight on them. “He was going too fast for the narrow road, but—like I said—it was too dark and we shouldn’t’ve been out. I had both my nephews with me . . . and my bruder Henry’s familye was up visiting from Ohio, and we were in a hurry to get home because my mudder was cooking a special esse in their honor. But then we came around that corner and saw headlights. Headlights that made the inside of that buggy look like day. The semi was coming so fast, we had no time to get off the road and Russell had no time to brake. If we had been in a car, I could’ve swerved. We might’ve been fine.”