My Amish Boyfriend

by Melody Carlson

  “I’m not saying this to hurt you.” His tone is a little more gentle now. “But you need to know, Shannon. You need to understand.”

  “I know what you’re doing.” I glare at him.

  “What?”

  “You’re acting like this is all about being Amish, but what you’re really saying is that you don’t love me . . . that you will never marry me. Even if I succeeded at being Amish, it would make no difference to you.”

  “You will not succeed at being Amish.” He says something in Pennsylvania Dutch—it sounds like a curse. “I was born in this world and I cannot even succeed at it.”

  “But you are Amish.”

  “You know that’s not how it works,” he says sharply. “I have not committed to the faith. I have not asked to be baptized.”

  “But you could,” I point out. “It would be easy for you.”

  “You do not know everything about me, Shannon. You don’t know that I was ready to leave last winter. My best friend, Josiah, and I made plans to leave together in January.”

  “You were really going to leave—never come back?”

  He nods. “Josiah’s brother left three years ago. He lives in Missouri now. He has a good job and a place to live and a car. He said we could join him there.”

  “But you didn’t go.”

  He grimly shakes his head. “No. Josiah went without me.”

  “Why did you stay?”

  “You do not want to know.” His eyes narrow as he watches the road ahead. I can’t tell if he is angry or something else.

  I study him closely as he twists the reins between his fingers, and now I can see what I feel certain is pain in his eyes. As if he’s been deeply wounded. Maybe as deeply as I’ve been wounded today, although that seems impossible. He is right; I do not want to know. I suspect his pain is related to my cousin. But I really, really hope he doesn’t tell me.

  “You will not become Amish, Shannon.” His words sound gentler now, almost apologetic. “I will leave to join Josiah and his brother in Missouri. Right after harvest.”

  “You plan to leave? How long have you known this?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess I’ve known it since . . . for a while.”

  “Since Rachel rejected you?” I can’t stop myself from saying this, but the words come out sounding flat and dead.

  Ezra doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to. It is written all over his face. He still loves Rachel. Maybe he will always love her. There is nothing I can do about it. She has hurt him, and now he has hurt me. Maybe that’s just how love works.

  I turn away, watching a cornfield going by on the right. The tall green stalks blur together as tears slide down my cheeks. I have been such a little fool. A complete and utterly lovesick little fool. And now I am a brokenhearted fool.

  Neither of us speaks for the duration of the trip. It feels like the longest hour of my life. I check on Mom frequently, almost hoping that she’ll wake up and need my help, but she does not stir. In fact, she is lying so still and quiet that I begin to wonder, What if she is dead?

  Oh, I know she’s not, but the thought of this sets me to crying all over again. I try to hide my tears from Ezra, but then I decide I don’t really care. What difference does it make now? After a while I can’t even be sure what I’m actually crying about. Is it because Ezra does not love me or because I fear my mother is dying? Or both?

  18

  I am somewhat recovered, at least on the surface, when Ezra parks the buggy in front of a medical complex. He hops down and secures the reins to a post, then offers me a hand to get down. “They told me I can get a wheeled chair for your mamm,” he says. “I will go and find it now.”

  “Thank you,” I say solemnly as I start to rouse my mom. I don’t even want to look at him. Not because I’m angry, but because I don’t want to start crying again. “We’re here,” I tell Mom. She sits up fully with an anxious expression.

  “Where?” She holds her head in her hands. “What is happening?”

  I remind her about coming to Hochstetler to see the doctor. “It’s a woman doctor,” I say as cheerfully as I can. “I think she’s going to really help you.”

  “Will she give me more pills?” Mom asks in a shaky voice.

  “I think she will,” I assure her. “Ezra has gone to get a wheelchair for you.”

  “Who is Ezra?”

  I explain once again who he is and that he brought us here. I’m just finishing up when he returns with a wheelchair. He helps me to load Mom into it and then proceeds to push the chair. “I’ll show you where the doctor’s office is,” he says as we go into a building.

  Eventually we enter a waiting room, and Ezra politely introduces me to a gray-haired receptionist who looks like she’s been sucking on a lemon. Without further ado and to my relief he excuses himself, promising to return in a couple of hours. The receptionist hands me a clipboard with paperwork. “Can your mother fill out these forms?” she asks. “Or should you do it for her?”

  “I’ll have to do it,” I say.

  “You have your insurance information?”

  “We don’t have insurance.”

  She frowns at my clothing as if that explains everything. “No, of course you don’t have insurance,” she says in what seems a slightly superior tone. “Well, just fill out the rest of the spaces. Do the best you can. And make sure you give us the correct billing address. And a phone number where you can be reached, if you have one.”

  I roll Mom’s chair over to the seating area, then sit down and start filling out the forms. It’s not that difficult, except that I feel rattled—like my brain’s not fully functioning. I’m not sure if it’s because my heart just got trampled, or because my mom is slumped in her chair like a marionette whose strings have been cut, or because that snooty old receptionist seems to be putting me down for being Amish—even though I’m not! I eventually get the form filled out correctly, and with fairly neat penmanship as well. I take it up to the grumpy receptionist, setting it on the counter and waiting.

  “The doctor will be with you as soon as she’s available,” she says curtly.

  “Thank you.” I return her curtness with a forced smile. I am suddenly aware that I am my mom’s advocate. I’m all she has, and I recognize it’s vital that everyone in this office, including this receptionist, respect me. “I’m very grateful that the doctor could see my mom on such short notice,” I say politely. “She’s had a really rough time with this illness. Before we moved here, so her parents could help out, she was diagnosed with BPPV.” I pause, seeing that the receptionist looks fairly surprised by my little speech. “I’m sure you know what BPPV is—benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. The diagnosis seemed plausible since she was so dizzy and unstable that she had to quit her job. But then her doctor changed the diagnosis to Ménière’s disease, which also causes a form of vertigo. He prescribed diazepam for her, and although it does relieve some symptoms, she has never improved. Lately she’s been much worse. So I hope Dr. Hoffman can give her a more thorough examination, and maybe even suggest a different form of treatment.”

  The receptionist looks surprised and slightly perplexed. “Yes, well, I hope so too.”

  “Thank you for your help,” I tell her.

  “You’re welcome.” She smiles at me as if she’s suddenly realized that I’m human and have feelings.

  “Oh, by the way, would you mind if I plugged my cell phone into an outlet? It’s been dead for weeks, and I’d really like to charge it.”

  “No problem.” She points one out to me.

  I thank her again, then plug in my phone and go back to sit with my mom. She’s still pretty out of it, but being here and talking to the receptionist like that renews a spark of optimism in me. Despite my agonizing morning with Ezra, I feel surprisingly hopeful. I’m not even sure why, but I suspect it has to do with these past few weeks of talking and acting Amish. I know it’s impossible, but it almost feels as if my brain cells had been shrinking. As if I was forge
tting how to think. I’ve always been considered fairly intelligent in school, but it’s almost as if I’ve been playing dumb.

  Okay, dumb is not the right word, but I was definitely not being myself. Maybe the word is suppressed. Because it’s crystal clear to me now that I was pretending. There is no denying it. I was so smitten with Ezra and my unrealistic dreams of our future together that I was willing to suppress my personality, my intelligence, even my spirituality, just to please him. I totally compromised myself simply to fit into his world. And here is the irony: it is a world that Ezra doesn’t even want to fit into. Or so he says.

  “Anna McNamara?” a nurse calls out.

  “Yes,” I say eagerly. “We’re over here.” I push Mom’s wheelchair toward her. “It’s time to see the doctor, Mom,” I quietly tell Mom, but she doesn’t respond.

  As I go by the front desk, the receptionist gives me a thumbs-up sign. “Good luck,” she says quietly.

  “Thanks.” I give her a sincere smile, then follow the nurse into what appears to be an examining room.

  “Are you going to stay with Anna?” The nurse peers curiously at my slumped-over mom and then back at me.

  “Yes,” I say. “She needs me.”

  She hands me a pale blue gown. “I guess she can remain in her chair for the exam. Just have her remove her upper clothing,” she says. “The doctor will be in shortly.”

  As I help Mom take off her T-shirt, she seems to be growing more alert. I explain what’s happening, but as I’m helping her into the cotton gown, I can’t help but notice that besides being thinner than before, she also has a lot of bruises on her arms and torso. “Are these bruises from falling down so much?” I ask with concern.

  “I don’t know,” she mumbles. “I fall a lot.”

  As I tie the gown behind her neck, I am assaulted with guilt. My poor mom! So sick and dizzy, and although Mammi was probably trying, she wasn’t really caring for Mom in the best way. If I hadn’t been so distracted with my pathetic love life, so obsessed with Ezra, so caught up in becoming Amish, I might’ve noticed. I might’ve done something sooner.

  A tall, dark-haired woman in a white coat comes in and introduces herself as Dr. Hoffman. She has kind eyes and a gentle voice as she asks Mom some preliminary questions. When Mom struggles to answer, I try to explain. I basically tell her the same thing I told the receptionist, only with more detail this time. I can tell the doctor is carefully listening as she writes things down.

  The doctor asks me some specific questions about Mom’s behavior and symptoms and the timeline of her illness as she begins her examination. She does all the typical things, checking her blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing. She taps Mom’s elbows and knees and asks about the bruising. I explain how the dizziness makes her fall.

  “She’s been staying with my grandparents, and I’m not sure my grandmother understood how sick she really is. You see, my grandparents are Amish, and, well, they don’t have much respect for modern medicine.”

  The doctor gives me a puzzled expression. “Aren’t you Amish too?”

  I glance down at my clothes. “No, I dress like this to fit in better. But I am definitely not Amish.”

  “I see.” She looks into Mom’s ears, mouth, and eyes, but she seems most interested in her eyes, particularly the right one. “Did your other physician run many tests on you?” she asks Mom. “Any MRIs or CAT scans?”

  “Cat skins?” Mom gives her a confused look.

  “Did you go to a hospital to get your head looked at?” the doctor says simply, pointing to Mom’s forehead. “To see if something was inside there.”

  “Besides my brain?” Mom asks. I don’t think she’s trying to be funny.

  “Yes.” Dr. Hoffman nods. “Did you lie down in a machine?”

  Mom frowns. “No . . . no, I don’t think so.”

  The doctor looks at me. “Do you know if she’s had any scans done?”

  “I honestly don’t think so.” I try to remember. “Our neighbor was a retired nurse, and she had said the doctor needed to do more.” I sigh. “But we didn’t have insurance. Maybe that’s why he didn’t. And he said she had Ménière’s disease, so maybe he thought that was that. I put his name on the form in case you need to contact him, but I don’t have his phone number.”

  “Well, that’s ridiculous.” Dr. Hoffman stands up straight. “Something is going on in there. We need to find out exactly what it is.” She reaches for a pad and starts writing something down. “And I intend to see that we do.”

  “Do what?”

  “Get your mom an MRI. As soon as possible.”

  “Really?”

  She nods as she continues writing. “I wish she could have it today, but I know that’s not possible. Still, I’ll call right away and tell them it’s urgent.” She hands me a slip of paper. “This is for the scan. Stop by the receptionist on your way out and Betty will give you some more forms to fill out. Hopefully we’ll get it scheduled before the end of the week.” She hands me another slip of paper. “This is a prescription for more diazepam. If I didn’t think Anna was getting the scan this week, I’d change her to a different med, but as it is, I don’t want to rock her boat too much.” She smiles at Mom. “We’re going to get you well, Anna.”

  “Thank you,” Mom mumbles.

  “Yes,” I tell the doctor eagerly. “Thank you!”

  “The paperwork Betty gives you will explain exactly what you need to do to get your mom ready for her MRI.”

  “What about not having insurance?” I ask hesitantly. “We don’t have much money either.”

  She sighs. “Don’t worry about that yet.” She explains that the nurse will be back in to draw some blood as well as gather some other information. “While she’s doing that, I’d like a word with you.”

  When the nurse returns to the examining room, I go find Dr. Hoffman.

  “I don’t want you to be alarmed,” she tells me as I sit in her office. “But I think this is very serious. I’m almost certain your mom doesn’t have Ménière’s.”

  I nod. “I thought so.”

  “The MRI will show us more, but based on everything I saw today, I’m concerned it might be a tumor.”

  “A brain tumor—as in cancer?” A wave of fear rushes through me.

  “Yes, but don’t assume the worst prognosis here. There are dozens of kinds of brain tumors, some benign. Or it could even be a cyst or a clot. But don’t get me wrong—all of these left untreated are dangerous.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s clear your mother is suffering. The MRI will help us determine what the next step is, and it’s possible it will be surgery. I’m telling you this now so you can prepare yourself, Shannon.”

  “Thanks,” I say in a shaky voice. “I appreciate that.”

  “You seem like an intelligent and caring girl. Your mother is blessed to have you helping her like this.”

  I nod.

  “As I was saying, after the MRI, depending on how it turns out, it’s very likely that your mother will be scheduled for surgery.”

  “Will you do it?”

  “No,” she says quickly. “I’m only a general practitioner.” Her eyes light up with a smile. “However, I can recommend an excellent neurosurgeon who goes by the same name as me.”

  “There’s another Dr. Hoffman?”

  “My husband—Dr. Mitch Hoffman.” She grins. “And if I do say so, he is good.”

  “Oh. That’s reassuring.”

  “So even though this is very serious, your mom is in good hands now. It’s fortunate you brought her in here when you did. I’ll have Betty request copies of all her medical records from her doctor in Indianapolis before she has the MRI. Although, based on what you’ve both told me, I doubt they’ll be too helpful.”

  The nurse is finishing up when I return to the examination room. It’s a good thing because I can see that my poor mom is completely worn out, and her pill has completely worn off as well.

  I act perfectly n
ormal as I help Mom get dressed. I assure her that things are looking up and that help is on its way. Of course, her biggest concern at the moment is getting her next pill. She is feeling dizzy and nauseated. I find a bag for her to hold on to as I wheel her chair back to the reception area. I settle her into a dimly lit corner, then go over to speak to Betty, the receptionist. First I give her Mom’s debit card to settle today’s bill, which saves us 15 percent, and then she hands me the paperwork for the MRI appointment.

  I quickly fill out the MRI form and hand it back to Betty. “My mom needs her prescription filled ASAP,” I explain. “She’s feeling really miserable, and she still needs to make the buggy ride back home.”

  “How long is the buggy ride?” Betty asks with concern.

  “Almost two hours,” I say glumly.

  She grimaces. “Probably less than fifteen miles, I’ll bet.”

  I nod.

  “What if I can get someone to give you a lift?” Betty offers. “In a car.”

  “Oh, wow!” I feel like hugging her. “Could you really do that?”

  “I think so.” She reaches for the phone. “Why don’t you run down to the pharmacy. Walgreens is two blocks down on the right. You get that prescription filled while your mom stays here with me. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can find you girls a ride home.”

  I quickly thank her, then grab up my cell phone and explain to Mom that I’m off to get her pills. “We might even have a car ride back to the dawdi house,” I say hopefully as I reach for the bag Mammi gave me.

  “Really?” She makes a little sigh.

  I pull a wrapped sandwich from the bag, as well as a sugar cookie and a bottle of water, and set them in her lap. “I want you to do your best to eat some of this,” I tell her. “Otherwise you won’t be ready to take a pill when I get back.”

  “Okay,” she agrees reluctantly. “But hurry, Shannon. I need that pill.”

  “I’m on my way.” Looping the strap of the cloth shopping bag over my arm, I rush out of the medical center and down the street to the pharmacy. Unfortunately, there is already a line ahead of me. I’m not sure how much time passes until it’s my turn, but when I reach the counter I tell the pharmacist that this is urgent.