The Middlefield Family Collection

by Kathleen Fuller

  “Whew. I’m glad he’s gone.”

  She looked at him. He strolled on the road while she walked on the outer edge of it. Behind him was a cornfield, picked clean, the dry, brown spears of dead stalks protruding from the ground. Above the field the sky stretched endlessly, awash with Emma’s favorite colors—cool lavender, warm peach, delicate pink. “Why are you glad he’s gone?”

  “I don’t trust him.” Adam scowled. “He’s up to something, Emma. And it’s not gut.”

  The peace she’d briefly felt disappeared. “What do you mean?”

  “Can’t you see he’s faking you out?”

  Emma stopped. “Excuse me?”

  “It’s Yankee talk. It means . . .” Adam rubbed the back of his neck.

  “I know what it means.”

  “He’s not being truthful, Emma. He’s pretending to like you.”

  “Because he couldn’t possibly really like me.” She stepped away from him.

  Adam shook his head. “Nee, nee. I’m not saying that at all. He wants something.”

  “But not me.” She handed Adam back his jacket, but he didn’t take it. “I need to get home.”

  Adam blocked her way. “Emma, that’s not what I meant. Don’t twist my words.”

  “I’m not twisting anything.”

  “Ya, you are. I’m trying to protect you—”

  Emma laughed bitterly. She looked up at the sky. “You’ve been here two weeks, and now you need to protect me? From the one mann who’s shown interest . . .”

  She clamped her mouth shut. How pathetic she sounded. “I don’t need your protection. I don’t need anything from you.”

  Adam moved closer to her. “This is about more than Mark. We both know it.”

  She stared at him, afraid to speak. Memories from two years ago sharpened, piercing her mind and heart. She turned from him. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  He grasped her arm. “Ya, Emma. It does.”

  “You made your choice.”

  “What if I told you I made the wrong one?”

  What did he mean? That he shouldn’t have left the Amish? That he shouldn’t have rejected her?

  She swallowed, her throat suddenly parched. “That depends,” she whispered. “Did you?”

  He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Not a single word.

  She had her answer.

  “Gut nacht, Adam.” She handed him his coat and hurried back home. Before he could see how he had devastated her all over again.

  Adam watched Emma rush toward her house. He stayed put, on the edge of the quiet road, dusk surrounding him. Why hadn’t he answered her? Why had he let her believe a lie, yet again?

  He shook his head, tempted to throw his hat on the ground. But the only thing that would do is make him look like a fool. Which he was. A fool and a coward. Always running away from everything. Church. His family. Emma.

  God.

  Adam slogged his way back home. Leona had told him to get things right with God. He’d been thinking about that a lot.

  But had he done anything? No. He was living in limbo. No job, mooching off his parents, pretending he was here to help his mother and protect Emma. But he hadn’t accomplished a blasted thing. His mother and father were still distant, even with each other. Emma was still . . .

  He sighed. Emma was still Emma. Everything he wanted. At least he could finally admit that to himself.

  But she was also everything he didn’t deserve.

  Darkness had descended by the time he reached the house. He ran his hand along the side of his truck and remembered the pride he felt the day he bought it. The liberation. Life on wheels was so much easier. He could get to work and the grocery store. Go to the movies. Listen to the booming stereo that made the bed of the truck rock.

  But did any of that bring him closer to God? Closer to discovering who he was? His purpose in life?

  He went inside, expecting to find his parents asleep. Instead he saw light glowing from the basement stairs. He went downstairs and found his mother sitting in an old rocking chair. Alone. A tall gas lamp hissed a few feet next to her, casting the room in pale yellow light.

  “Mamm?” He moved toward her. She didn’t respond until he called her name a second time.

  “Oh. Adam. I didn’t realize you were here.” She turned and looked at him. Her eyes were glassy, distant. She blinked a couple of times. “Did you want me to heat up the chicken stew for you?”

  His hunger had disappeared long ago. He knelt beside her, putting his hand on the arm of the chair. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Thinking.” She stared straight ahead.

  The basement was lined with wooden shelves, filled with canned fruit, vegetables, sauces, even meats, some smoked, some salted. The wringer washer sat in the corner, a small clothesline strung taut from one side of the basement to the other, to hang clothes in the winter. A coal stove in the opposite corner filled the room with warmth.

  Adam touched his mother’s hand. It was icy. “Thinking about what?”

  “Things.” She turned to him, slipped her hand from underneath his fingers, and touched his face. “How nice it is that you’re back. Even if it’s for a short time.”

  How he longed to tell her he was staying for good. Each day he spent in Middlefield, he leaned more toward that decision. But as with Emma, he couldn’t say the words. Not until he was absolutely sure. Not until there was no possibility he’d have to take them back. “Why don’t you come upstairs? I’m sure Daed is wondering where you are.”

  She shrugged. “I think I’ll stay down here for a little while longer.”

  Adam rose. His mother stared at her lap, her gaze not moving. An alarm went off inside him. Whatever was troubling her, she wasn’t going to tell him. Then again, why would she? He hadn’t proved the most trustworthy of sons.

  He had always known he’d disappointed his father, yet assumed his mother felt differently about him. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  Emma intended to go straight to her room, to nurse the wound Adam had reopened. Somehow she had to be free of him. She couldn’t keep living like this, pretending not to love him. Not as long as he stayed in Middlefield.

  She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and touched her forehead to the banister. Maybe there was only one way to get Adam out of her mind and heart. She’d have to marry someone else. Devote her life to another man.

  A man like Mark.

  Her stomach churned at the thought. She didn’t believe Adam’s claim that Mark was up to no good, and yet she felt awkward around him. They had little in common. Her skin didn’t tingle and her blood didn’t warm when he was near. Not like with Adam.

  Emma heard a low moan, followed by a hacking sound, and a chill ran through her. She scrambled upstairs to her grandmother’s room. As she entered, the old woman was sitting up in bed, wheezing. She reached out toward Emma.

  “Grossmammi?”

  Her grandmother didn’t answer. Another round of coughing seized her, and it sounded as if her lungs might burst. She pressed a handkerchief to her mouth. When she drew it away, it was stained with—

  Blood.

  CHAPTER 22

  Adam was halfway up the stairs when he heard pounding on the front door. He opened it to find Emma, panting and terrified.

  “Grossmammi.” Her breathing came in spurts. “Something’s . . . wrong.”

  “Emma, catch your breath.” He pulled her into the house and put his hands on her trembling shoulders to steady her. Adam heard his mother ascending the basement stairs behind him. “Is Leona okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Adam said. He turned to Emma again.

  “She’s bleeding.” Emma’s words were nearly a sob. “Coughing up blood. Wheezing. Really hard. I need to use your phone. Have to call an ambulance.”

  “The phone is in the barn. I’ll go.” Carol started for the door. “Adam, run upstairs and wake your father.”

  “I’ll take Leona in my truck. By the time the am
bulance gets here, we’ll already be at the hospital.” He turned to Emma. “Is it all right if she rides with me?”

  “We’ll both ride with you.”

  His mother pushed Adam’s back. “I’ll let your father know. Hurry!”

  Adam dashed to his bedroom and grabbed his keys off the dresser. He took the stairs halfway down, then vaulted over the banister, grabbed Emma’s hand, and ran with her to the house and up to Leona’s room.

  “Get anything you think she’ll need,” Adam said. Emma went to Leona’s dresser while Adam rushed to the old woman’s bedside. His stomach lurched when he saw the bloodstained handkerchief in her hand. “I’m going to take you to the hospital in my truck, ya?”

  Her eyes barely opened, but she didn’t hesitate. “Ya. Hand . . . me . . . cane . . .”

  “Nee.” He scooped her featherlight body into his arms. “Get the quilt off the bed, Emma. We’ll wrap her in it.” He rushed downstairs, holding Leona against him, cringing with every wheezing breath she took.

  “Mrs. Shetler, we have to admit you.” The petite doctor, her straight black hair pulled into a tight bun, wrote something on the chart. “You have severe pneumonia.”

  “I . . . just . . . need . . . my . . . tea.” Emma’s grandmother tilted her head toward the bag of IV fluid to her right. “Not . . . all . . . this . . . stuff.”

  Emma sat in the chair in the corner of the small examination room. “Stop being so stubborn. Dr. Chang is trying to help you.”

  “Take . . . me . . . home.”

  Emma shook her head and looked at the doctor. “She must be feeling a little better. She didn’t put up a fight when we brought her in here.”

  “That’s because she’s getting some fluids and a powerful dose of antibiotic.” She looked at a computer screen situated above Grossmammi’s head. Emma didn’t understand what the numbers meant. Or what the white clamp was on her grandmother’s finger.

  Dr. Chang checked the instruments and frowned. “She’s resting. Can I speak to you outside?”

  Emma followed the doctor into the emergency room hallway. A nurse passed them and entered the room beside her grandmother’s. The beeping sound of all the machines pounded in Emma’s brain.

  “We need to take your grandmother to Intensive Care,” Dr. Chang said. “Pneumonia can be deadly for patients her age.”

  “Admit her, then.”

  “I can’t, not without her consent.”

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  Dr. Chang nodded. “Once she’s in ICU she’ll have excellent care. It’s her best chance for survival.”

  Emma nodded and went back into the examination cubicle. She held her grandmother’s hand. Grossmammi’s eyes opened.

  “You have to listen.” Emma wiped her eyes with her free hand. “You need to stay here. Just for a few days. Until you get well.”

  She shook her head. “Want . . . to . . . geh . . . home . . .”

  Emma couldn’t hold back the tears. “Please, Grossmammi. Please listen to the doctors. I want you to come home too. But I can’t lose you. Not now.” She pressed her forehead against the frail, veined hand. “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Lieb . . .”

  She lifted her head, gazing into her grandmother’s pale eyes.

  “You will never . . . be alone.” Grossmammi took a breath. It racked her chest. She trembled, yet somehow continued to speak. “You will always have God.”

  “I know.” Emma sniffed, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.

  “And you will always . . . have your . . . familye. Clara. Peter.”

  “It’s not the same.” It’s not enough.

  The old woman looked into Emma’s eyes. “Don’t . . . cry. I’ll stay. For . . . you.” Her grandmother managed a small smile. “God isn’t ready for me . . . yet.”

  Adam paced the length of the empty emergency waiting room. A slow night. Lucky for Leona. No, not luck. God’s hand. Adam was sure of it.

  The silver doors opened and Emma came out, her eyes red and puffy. “Is she all right?”

  She nodded. “She agreed to stay in ICU. She has pneumonia. The doctor wouldn’t tell me what her chances were. Just that she wouldn’t survive if she wasn’t hospitalized.” Emma put her hands over her face.

  Adam pulled her close, pressing his hand against her kapp, gently nudging her to lean against him. “She’ll be okay, Emma.”

  She pulled away. “They told me Mammi would be okay too. That they’d caught the cancer in time.” She turned her back to him. “I can’t lose someone else I love.”

  He came up behind her. “You won’t.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  He turned her to face him. “Then let’s pray.”

  Her eyes widened. “Here?”

  He reached for her hands. “I can’t think of a better place.” Closing his eyes, he silently spoke everything on his heart. He felt Emma clasp his hands tighter as she offered up her own silent prayer. A short time later they both opened their eyes.

  “Adam?” Emma looked up at him, her eyes filled with wonder.

  “Ya?”

  She reached up and wiped his cheek with her finger.

  He stared at the moisture glistening on her fingertip. Until that moment he hadn’t realized he’d been crying.

  Emma sat next to Adam in the waiting room. She looked at his long, slender fingers intertwined with her stubby ones. He hadn’t let go of her hand since they’d prayed together.

  As they waited to hear more news about her grandmother, she had to remind herself that Adam held her hand out of compassion. Friendly support, and nothing else. Still, his touch comforted her in a way she’d never experienced. She wished she never had to let him go.

  The outside doors to the emergency room swished open, and Clara and Peter came rushing in. Adam and Emma stood up. Adam dropped her hand and Clara moved toward Emma.

  “Where is she?” Clara demanded.

  “She’s okay,” Adam said, holding up his hand. “She’s—”

  “I wasn’t talking to you.”

  “Clara,” Peter said, touching her shoulder.

  “It’s all right.” Adam stepped back.

  Emma felt the emptiness of her hand, the lack of warmth at her side as Adam and Peter moved to the other side of the room to talk.

  Clara turned to Emma. “What happened?”

  Emma explained everything. Including the ride in Adam’s truck. That news seemed to disturb Clara more than their grandmother’s illness.

  “You let him bring Grossmammi here? He’s in the bann.”

  “It was either that or wait for an ambulance.”

  “Maybe you should have waited.”

  “There was nee time!” Emma lowered her voice. “You should be thanking Adam instead of being angry with him.”

  Clara glanced at Adam and Peter, who were still speaking in hushed tones. She focused on Emma again. “How long will she have to stay?”

  “They didn’t say. Probably several days, maybe more.”

  “Then we’ll have to get the shop open as soon as possible.”

  “Is that all you can think about? The stupid fabric shop?” Emma shook her head, let out a weary sigh.

  “Nee,” Clara said, her jaw clenched. “I’m thinking about bills. We can’t afford to pay for this.” Her lower lip shook.

  Normally Clara’s fears mirrored her own. But not this time. Emma looked at Adam, who had turned his gaze from Peter. Their eyes met. “God will provide,” she whispered, too softly for Clara to hear.

  And suddenly Emma realized that she believed the words as deeply as her grandmother did. “God will provide.”

  “Danki for bringing Leona, Adam,” Peter said. “Your daed came over and told us that she was at the hospital, but he didn’t mention you had brought her here.” He glanced at his wife. “Probably a gut thing, seeing Clara’s reaction.”

  Adam shrugged. “I know.”

  “I understand the reasoning behind meidung. But in th
is case you did the right thing. I’m sure the bishop, if he hears about it, will understand as well.”

  The last thing Adam was worried about at the moment was the bishop’s reaction. “Where are the kinner?”

  “With our neighbor Julia.”

  “And Mark?” Adam was surprised he hadn’t come with Peter and Clara. This would be a prime opportunity for him to show Emma how much he cared.

  “He wasn’t home. Took a walk after supper. He’s been doing that a lot lately.” Peter glanced at his wife, who was still talking to Emma. “To be honest, I’m glad he left.”

  “Ya?”

  “He seems to get along with the buwe well enough . . .” He rubbed his temple. “Let’s just say I’d rather mei kinner be with Julia right now.”

  Peter’s words fueled Adam’s own suspicions. His own cousin didn’t trust Mark with his children. Adam didn’t trust the man with Emma. He was positive Leona didn’t trust Mark at all.

  Clara and Emma approached. Clara stood by Peter and ignored Adam. “There isn’t much we can do here tonight. Emma said she’d stay while they get Grossmammi admitted.”

  “Ken is still outside waiting.” Adam assumed Peter was talking about the driver who had brought them to the hospital. “I told him not to leave until we knew what was going on.”

  Clara turned to Emma. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

  Emma nodded. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll stay with her,” Adam said. Clara wouldn’t approve, but he didn’t care. Emma didn’t need to be alone right now. To his surprise, Clara nodded. She and Peter left.

  “You don’t have to stay.” Emma sat down on one of the chairs. “I’ll be all right here. Dr. Chang will let me know when Grossmammi is taken to ICU.”