The Healing

by Linda Byler

  John experienced a fair amount of hope, doing chores, helping around the farm, cleaning stables until he had to lean on a gate, breathing hard, keeping the weakness at bay, determined, this time, to beat any returning symptoms.

  He returned to his bedroom at night, often spending hours lying awake, or falling into a restless half-awake stupor, suspended between sleep and mental alertness. He pushed himself out of bed every morning by a sheer force of will, tried to keep up some semblance of normalcy.

  Abner was thinking of marriage by mid-February. John heard him ask his mother how soon he should ask Ruthie if they wanted a November wedding.

  “Abner! My word. You haven’t been dating very long,” she breathed.

  “Long enough. A year. Over a year. She’s not too young.”

  Mam stretched her features into her prophetess from the Scriptures face, as John secretly called it. It was the expression she had when she felt calm and good and wise, then set out to liberally douse her sons with the accumulated enlightenment of her years. It was the face of answers, good in her own sight, and one that made John grind his teeth in irritation. She was a good mother, and John knew he loved her very much. It was just that she was so dreadfully full of herself half the time. If she wasn’t worrying, or panicking about stupid worthless stuff like bugs on her marigolds, slugs on her cabbage, or if Samuel was ever going to ask Lena Zook for a date, she was philosophizing.

  How did she ever consider any of her sons, even the most handsome one, good enough for Lena? She was by far the most beautiful girl John had ever met. Not that beauty ever had anything to do with it, Mam reminded him from time to time, which was another thing she figured she’d better tell her boys, but didn’t mean at all.

  Ever since he had had Lena Zook for his teacher in eighth grade, he compared every other girl to her, and they all fell woefully short.

  It wasn’t just the fact that she was beautiful. She may not even be as pretty in the classic sense as many others. It was the aura of sweetness and light, her constant enthusiasm and joy, that drew John from his ongoing battle with darkness, the weakness that kept him bogged down in the sticky mud of depression. Just thinking of her helped him to look ahead to the future, harboring a kind of hope. Not that he could ever have her, of course, but perhaps someday he would find someone who would instill in him that same longing, that same promise.

  Her blond hair, combed back so sleekly, like a glistening, satin cloth. The white covering, the V of her neckline, where her cape was pinned to her dress, the many different colors she wore like a field of wildflowers. She pinned her apron high on her waist, perfectly, her small feet encased in all manner of shoes or sneakers, one pair as neat and classy as the one before.

  She fascinated John—the lightness with which she moved, playing baseball or volleyball, kickball with the lower grades, an athlete if he ever saw one.

  And he could only bumble around the playground on oversized feet and the grace of an ox, squinting from behind his thick lenses, his rabbit teeth exposed every time he’d smiled or laughed. He’d dressed carefully, been picky with the shirts he wore, as if that made any difference.

  John gritted his teeth when he heard Mam wondering aloud why Samuel wouldn’t ask Lena for a date. She seemed to have already picked her out for a future daughter-in-law.

  Well, if he could help it, she’d never find out how he felt about Lena. He couldn’t bear to have his feelings analyzed, picked apart, talked about, until not one smidgen of his life was viewed with respect.

  In the spring, when March winds had subsided and the rain had soaked the good earth with necessary moisture, John developed a fever, followed by a red rash over his chest and down his arms.

  He lay on the couch, warding off his mother’s breathless ministrations by his anger, the one thing he could handily use to protect his dignity.

  “But John, it can’t be the measles. Or mumps. Or chicken pox. You had all your immunizations. The booster before school.”

  But John . . . but John . . . on and on.

  “Which do you prefer, Tylenol or ibuprofen? Let’s try aloe vera juice for the rash. Do you mind? What about this?”

  She drew a bath for him with water hot enough to cook a chicken. Steam rolled from the bathroom in great, wet clouds, the odor of vinegar overpowering.

  “What is in that bath water?”

  “Epsom salt, vinegar, and baking soda?”

  Why did she put a question to a simple answer? She sounded like she was trying to talk like a teenage girl.

  “Mam,” John explained patiently, “I’m not getting in that tub of hot water with this high temperature. It can’t be good.”

  “Sure it is. It’s a detox. Gets the toxins out. Now listen to me.”

  John closed the bathroom door, then sat down on the lid of the commode, his elbows on his knees, his head bent, shaking and freezing cold, then so hot the sweat ran down his face. There was no way he was getting into that boiling cauldron. His temperature would soar to 106°, then 107°, and he’d get seizures or something.

  He got off his perch on the commode, to riffle the hot water with his hands, to make her think he was actually in it, and after the allotted time she’d told him, he opened the drain to let the water out, returned to the couch, and turned his back.

  She was in the garden, so what she didn’t know didn’t hurt her. When the fever stayed over a period of three days, and no home remedy did anything to bring it down, he was trundled off to Doctor Stevenson’s office in town. Again, the same bright conversation with the driver, the same ushering into the room, the same piercing questions.

  Yes, he had been better. Yes, he was working.

  Good. Good. A bout of the flu. Leftover bug from the winter months. Tylenol for fever. A prescription for the rash.

  And with that he was sent home.

  With the spring work in the fields, cows having calves, the manure pit full to overflowing, Dat worried, working from dawn to dusk, literally.

  John moved from the couch, after his temperature slid back to almost normal, was given light work, but felt the weakness creep back into his arms and legs. He told no one, willed himself forward, the soles of his feet as if on fire with pain. The rash receded, his chest and arms appeared normal.

  When the summer sun shone so hot it felt like a heater turned directly on his back, Dat found his son passed out beside the hay rake, the sensible horses obedient to John’s single “whoa” before tumbling off the seat, crawling away so sick the world turned sideways.

  “John. John . . .”

  The words crept like an unwelcome invader into John’s consciousness. Slowly, the long, hot grass waving in the bright summer sun made him return to the world he had blissfully escaped. His father was bent over him, his face ruddy, his eyes calm, kind.

  No questions, merely a waiting.

  John struggled to sit up, willed back the waves of nausea, groaned loudly, before turning his head aside and relieving himself of his half-digested breakfast.

  He wiped his mouth, shook his head.

  “I don’t know, Dat.”

  “I don’t know, either.”

  “Too hot, I guess.”

  “Could be.”

  “You think there’s something seriously wrong with me?”

  “I doubt it.”

  Three words etched in gold, outlined in crystal cut diamonds. John hung on to every word, tucked them securely away. If his father thought he would be all right, then he probably would.

  “You’re a growing boy. You’re like a horse in his fourth year. The hard year, my father used to say. Your body is changing, growing fast, using up all the nutrients, likely leaving you with the scraps.”

  John smiled weakly. “Hm.”

  The following morning, it happened again.

  He sat up in bed, the whole room went vertical, and everything went black. He was brought back by the banging of the bathroom door, heated words from Allen to Daniel, then made his way to his clothes closet, han
ging on to the bed frame, the doorknob, anything to support his weight, with legs like quivering jelly.

  At the breakfast table, his face was ashen.

  Abner was kind, spreading peanut butter on toast, dunking it into his black coffee.

  “Only daudies eat that slop. Ruthie ever seen you eat that?”

  “Look, you eat your eggs, and mind your own business.”

  “Pass that sausage gravy before you eat it all.”

  “’S wrong with you, John? You look like a scared rabbit.”

  Abner stopped chewing, his eyes rested on John’s face.

  “You still sick?”

  “Nah.” A shrug of the shoulders.

  “You need a dose of horse wormer. Skinny looking.”

  “He’s just losing his baby fat.”

  Of course, Mam heard everything, came over to the table with another stack of pancakes, piping hot. They disappeared, followed by liberal squirts of the Aunt Jemima syrup that Mam bought by the gallon and put in plastic squeeze bottles.

  “You know, someone should take a picture of this. Perfect stack of pancakes. Someone could use it in a magazine as an advertisement for pancake mix.”

  “I don’t use mix, and you know it, Marcus.” Mam said from where she stood at the stove. “I make all my pancakes from scratch. Nothing store-bought about them.”

  She put her hands on her hips saucily, joking with her boys.

  “No pancakes, John?”

  His mother hovering, questioning. A hand to his forehead.

  “You OK?”

  “Of course he’s OK. All this coddling since Christmas. No wonder he’s sick and tired half the time.”

  Samuel spoke with his mouth full, glared at John. He had no time for weakling younger brothers.

  Samuel was impossibly handsome, even at the breakfast table. He had clean-cut features, a youthful vitality, a no-­nonsense approach to life, pushing forward to get the job done, but often running dangerously low on patience and compassion. B and S Structures was already looking into his climb up the ladder from foreman to manager.

  His father entered the kitchen, giving him a stern reprimand.

  “Enough, Samuel. Till we know what’s going on with John’s health, I’d thank you to keep your opinions to yourself.”

  “Father has spoken,” Marcus said, ducking his head to his pancakes but glancing up to watch Samuel’s reddening face with interest.

  The day was sultry, humid, the kind of day that taxed man and beast alike. The whole valley lay in an uncomfortable stupor, the sky brassy with heat, the air still and hot, buzzing with blowflies and mean wasps that stung anything within reach. Cows waded into the pond for relief, the flies’ torment a ceaseless thing they tried to quell with backward swings of their massive heads, tongues stretching like heavy pink rubber.

  Horses hitched to hay wagons and balers had to be rested beneath overhanging branches, fear of overexertion taking first priority for sensible farmers.

  They sat beneath the shade of some massive tree, watched a faraway English neighbor barrel along in his latest acquisition, a huge Ford tractor with a baling machine that spewed perfect round bales at regular intervals, which would be gathered up with a skid loader outfitted with forks and loaded on trailers.

  Oh well, it was the way of the Amish, clinging to tradition.

  Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s tractor. And they didn’t. Better to remain content, at peace with the brethren. You couldn’t put a dollar value on that.

  Storms in the air, Dat thought to himself. He saw the hairs on his forearms raise, felt the friction on the metal seat. He hoped the humidity would be banished from the valley, driven by a good strong thunderstorm, the kind that brought an inch or two of rain, a clear sunrise, and refreshing winds.

  He heard the sound of clinking buckles on harnesses as he drove the rake to the barn. He viewed his fields with satisfaction, eyed the sturdy, deep green stalks of corn, imagined the yellow ears, kernels crowded, dented, deepening to a maize color. He could smell the pungent aroma of the cut stalks and ears, chopped into corn silage, blown into the silo by the power of the PTO shaft.

  Nothing like good silage to boost milk production and lift a man’s spirits.

  He was thankful for the good times. He was grateful for his own good health, the ability to run the farm with help from his wife and John.

  John was the one thing that worried him immensely, with a sick kind of anxiety that bordered on dread. Clearly, there was more going on than anyone cared to admit, but his refusal to see a doctor, in the face of those bouts of losing consciousness, was worrisome.

  To force him to go was the answer. Or was it?

  Some things in life simply couldn’t be spelled out in black and white, so he’d give it another week or two, see if he’d have another stint of passing out.

  He just wished the older boys would go easy on him. Good-natured ribbing was one thing, but these accusations of babying him were another. He had a deep-seated hunch about John’s anxiety, remembering his own spiritual awakening around the same age John was now.

  He’d lived in fear of Jesus returning in the sky, and him a blackened sinner, unable to secure a space in Heaven. He had lived in fear of the devil, thought he might become visible, to him alone, scaring himself witless.

  He, too, had lain awake, cried at night, begged God to forgive his sins, all to no avail. At first. Then, slowly, grace filtered through, light and love and acceptance came through the power of Jesus Christ. He was baptized, became an upstanding young member of the church, and never had any reason to doubt this conversion of faith.

  The thing that bothered him most, though, was the presence of actual physical symptoms—a fever, a rash, his joint pain, all that crippling exhaustion. No Lyme disease, so what, exactly, was going on?

  He found his frustrated wife with two bushels of tomatoes and flies swarming through the house, wash on the line, the kitchen thermometer revealing a mind-boggling ninety-one degrees, coupled by a severe headache.

  “You need to drink more water, Mary. I know how much you love tea, but in weather like this, you’ll become dehydrated. That’s why you have a headache. Where’s John?”

  When she didn’t answer, he knew he’d said the wrong thing. He walked up behind her, put an arm around her shoulders and said, “Sorry, Mary.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and slid away from him.

  “Don’t touch me. It’s too hot.”

  “Where’s John?”

  “I have no idea.”

  By the time the boys straggled home, one by one, slammed their lunchboxes and gallon Coleman jugs on the counter, went to see if Dat had something for them to do before supper, Mam threw her hands in the air and admitted defeat. Until she had the laundry off the line, lunches and thermoses washed and put away, there would be no energy to make supper in this sweltering kitchen.

  She’d serve cold fruit soup for her and Elmer, which was a large bowl with fresh peaches or bananas, blueberries, or whatever fruit you had on hand, liberally sugared, stale bread torn on top, with cold, frothy milk poured over it. They had been raised on Kaite sup, but the young generation turned up their noses, pronounced it gross.

  Well, tonight, they could eat cornflakes. It was too hot to cook. She felt like a can of melted Crisco. She didn’t mind being plump, but these oven-like temperatures made her feel as if she was morbidly obese. She had put on some weight, with John’s illness, whatever in the world all was going on with that boy. It just gave her the shivers. He didn’t look right out of his eyes. He was sort of wild looking, as if he was frightened. She wondered where he was, hoped Elmer would find him.

  Sweat poured off her and soaked the back of her blue dress, the usual apron discarded early in the day. She pulled on the wash line, wheeling the dry articles of clothing in toward her, expertly unclipping the wooden clothespins. A wheel line was a wonder, she thought for the thousandth time. It was a long cable that was wound around a wheel on each end, reach
ing for hundreds of feet to a sturdy tree, or a heavy metal pole, allowing the single line of elevated clothes to catch even the slightest breeze. She never had to move off the back patio to hang out loads of laundry, or to retrieve it. Wonderful.

  “What’s for supper?” Daniel and Allen had a one-track mind that revolved around food.

  “Cornflakes.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Come on, Ma.”

  “Don’t call me Ma. That’s disrespectful.”

  “Aw, Mom. Mama. Mother, dear mother.”

  Daniel moved as if to hug her.

  She drew back a handful of clothespins and said he’d better not touch her. Then she let fly with the clothespins, Daniel ducking his head, Allen running for cover.

  “It’s too hot to cook,” she shouted, but laughed along, watching the boy’s feigned alarm.

  “Let’s order pizza.”

  “Now there is a good idea. Everybody chip in, OK? You call, Daniel, and I’ll hurry up and get these clothes taken care of.”

  “I’m on my way, this very day,” Daniel sang, in an elaborate crescendo, strumming his imaginary guitar, prancing across the patio and down the steps to the phone.

  Mam rolled her eyes at Allen, but her round shoulders shook with laughter. These boys. But love welled up, overflowed.

  “Allen, would you please move the sprinkler on that stepstool in the row of lima beans? Thanks.”

  “At your service, Ma.”

  “You know there are plenty of clothespins where that first bunch came from?”

  “Your arsenal of weapons,” Allen said, grinning. “Scary, scary.”

  The patio table was laden with three large pizzas—one pepperoni, one plain cheese, and one with everything—three boxes of wings, and three twelve-inch ham subs. Everyone reached into their wallet, contributed their share, some happier to oblige than others. They knew that was the only way their father would allow a delivery of pizza. If you want a treat, then help pay for it.

  Where was John?

  In the middle of all the hubbub, the pizza delivery, the washing up, John had not been found.

  “Close the boxes, boys. Did someone call him? Upstairs?” Dat asked, a firm tone creeping into his voice.