Big Jim must have been so happy to hear the call that Gideon saw him bump into Dale and the second horse stumbled. Gideon called out to them, waiting for them to settle into rhythm again.
Then a wheel hit a rut, the world tilted sickeningly, and he flew through the air, slamming into the hard, unplowed ground. The plowshare swerved up into his view, and he threw up his arms to protect his face. Pain exploded in his head, and then the world went black.
The lines on the shop order form were blurring. Anna decided to take a few minutes’ break and rest her eyes.
She hadn’t slept well after she talked to Gideon. It had just been too upsetting, and nothing had really been resolved before Sarah Rose had come home. After she’d gone home, she’d tried to relax but eventually went to bed, where she’d tossed and turned, tossed and turned.
Following her usual pattern, she’d finally gotten up, fixed a cup of chamomile tea, and knitted for a while. Finally, she returned to lie in her bed, wide awake, but forcing herself to rest. Working in the shop meant being on her feet many hours of the day so her body was tired even if her mind raced.
Now she was having trouble getting through her day.
Naomi stuck her head in the back room. “Phone call. It’s Sarah Rose, and she sounds upset.”
Anna picked up the phone. “Sarah Rose? Slow down, I can’t understand you.” She listened, feeling colder by the second. “I’ll go to the hospital right now.”
She hung up and stood there for a moment, trying to think what to do. Then she realized Naomi was trying to get her attention.
“What’s wrong, Anna?” She turned and called for their grandmother.
Leah rushed in. “What is it?”
“Sarah Rose said Gideon’s been hurt. He’s in the hospital.” Anna pressed her fingers to her temples. “I need to go there.”
“I’ll get you a driver. Get your things. I’ll go with you.”
Anna didn’t argue with her grandmother. Fear had her in its grip, and she wasn’t going to pretend she couldn’t use some support.
It seemed like hours before a driver got there, but it was only minutes. Anna and Leah rode to the hospital holding hands and praying.
Only when they got to the hospital did Anna think about how quickly she’d dropped everything to come to see him . . . what if he didn’t want to see her?
Gideon’s parents were waiting at the hospital. They embraced her like a daughter. Obviously, Gideon had either not told them that they were having problems, or they were simply too upset with what was happening.
“Gideon’s neighbor called us. She saw his horses in the field and Gideon lying on the ground,” Amos said heavily. “They called 9-1-1 and brought him here. He lost a lot of blood. Broke an arm and his left leg. He’s been in surgery for several hours already.”
“And will be for hours more.” Tears filled Esther’s eyes. “We’ve been praying since we heard.”
“Us as well,” Leah said, and Anna felt her squeeze her hand.
They sat and waited, drinking cups of coffee Esther would fetch them. They formed their own little world insulated from the swirling, noisy one of the hospital, sitting in a circle in a corner of the room to hold hands and pray.
Every so often, a nurse would come to tell them how Gideon was doing in surgery. He was “holding his own,” they were told. Such a strange expression. But it was good news, the nurses assured them.
Anna knew that things could change in the blink of an eye, but it seemed impossible to connect Gideon with such a devastating accident. Both Mary and Samuel had fought the battle to live for months before dying. Gideon was such an energetic, vital man. He’d been doing the same work he’d done for years, carefully plowing his land, and something had gone wrong and the equipment had thrown him and then when the horses panicked, the metal from the plow had—
“Anna?”
She stared up, trying to focus. “Yes?”
Amos put his hand on her shoulder and smiled at her. “Gideon got through the surgery. They’re taking him to the recovery room now.”
“Thank You, God,” Anna whispered through trembling lips. She turned to her grandmother, and the tears began.
Leah rocked her like a babe and patted her back. “Sssh,” she soothed. “He’s going to be all right. Don’t cry so. You’ll make yourself sick.” She dug in her purse for a tissue and pressed it into Anna’s hand.
Anna watched as Amos and Esther talked with the doctor. They listened intently, and then they walked over to join Anna and her grandmother.
“It’s going to be at least another hour or two before family can see him,” Esther said. “The doctor said one of us can see him for five minutes each hour as long as he’s stable.”
She leaned forward and touched Anna’s hand. “We want you to go first.”
19
Anna tried to argue with Gideon’s parents, but they insisted she be the one to see him first.
“I—I can’t do that,” she told them quietly. “It wouldn’t be fair to either of you. The last time we saw each other we argued.”
Esther turned to Amos. “When was the last time we argued?”
“This morning,” he said with a slight smile.
“Like I always tell him, it’s all right if he doesn’t agree with me. I can’t force him to be right.”
They were trying to make her feel better. She loved them for it, for the way that they looked past their own worry and pain. But it didn’t change what had happened between her and Gideon.
Anna stood and paced. “You don’t understand. We talked about not seeing each other again.”
“I know how Gideon feels about you,” his mother told her. “All couples go through rough patches. Let’s get through this, and you’ll see. Everything will be fine.”
Her grandmother patted her shoulder. “Esther is right.”
They sat there, waiting, and when Leah smothered a yawn, Anna glanced at the clock on the wall and realized how late it was getting.
“You need to go home,” she told her grandmother.
“I’m fine. I’ll stay with you until you get to see Gideon.”
“It might be hours.”
“We’ll see.”
Not long after, a nurse came to get Anna.
“We don’t expect him to wake up for hours,” she told Anna. “Don’t be alarmed by the swelling in his face. It’ll go down in the next day or two.”
“But he doesn’t have a concussion?”
The nurse shook her head. “The biggest worry right now is infection. He had some nasty cuts they cleaned out, and he’s taking antibiotics intravenously.”
Even with the warning it was a big shock to see Gideon lying so still in the bed. Casts encased his left arm and leg. His face looked pale and swollen against the pillow. A line of stitches ran along one side of his forehead; bruises bloomed on one cheekbone.
Anna’s knees went weak, and she sank down into the chair beside the bed, barely registering the nurse reminding her that she could visit for five minutes.
He was such a strong person, so full of life . . . what a shock to see him like this. Surely, at any minute his eyes would open, and she’d be accusing him of trying to decide everything and dominate.
As she sat there and listened to the machines recording his vital signs, all she could think about was that she wanted to turn back time. She knew she loved him, but she’d thought she couldn’t continue to go on the way she had feeling that she couldn’t be herself in a relationship with him. But now . . . now she wondered if God was testing her to see if she really meant it.
It was as if He said, Oh really? Maybe you’d like to see what it’s like to be without Gideon?
No, God didn’t work that way. Her anxiety and her imagination were running away with her.
She didn’t want to wake him, but she needed to tell him that she was sorry—not for what she’d said. An accident didn’t wipe away her frustration, her concern about how they were getting along exactly. She
was sorry for the pain he was feeling, the worry he’d undoubtedly feel the minute he opened his eyes.
Some said people could hear when they were unconscious. Several times when Samuel seemed out of it, he’d told her later what she’d said to him.
Leaning over, she whispered his name. When he didn’t stir, she raised her voice a little. Still nothing. She felt a little guilty. After all, if he woke, he’d likely feel a lot of pain from the broken bones and the surgery.
“It’s Anna. I’m here.” She lifted his hand that lay on the bed, held it with hers. “Sarah Rose got your neighbor to call me.”
He didn’t move, didn’t say anything, but she hadn’t really expected him to. They had been seeing each other for months, moving slowly as she’d asked. Now, she wondered if God was taking him. There’d be no more taking it slow or telling him—like the last time she’d seen him—that she just didn’t know if she could handle someone being so dominant in the relationship.
She felt helpless, something that had been too much a part of her life near the end with Samuel. Then, she’d prayed to keep him, prayed so hard, but he’d still slipped away.
Now she bent her head and prayed as she’d been doing since she’d heard that Gideon had been seriously hurt.
She opened her eyes and took a deep breath. “You’ve got to get better. Your daughter was scared to death when I talked to her. She needs you. Your parents need you.”
Her lips trembled, and she touched them with her fingers. “Okay, and maybe I need you, even as aggravating as you can be.”
She heard footsteps approach the door. The time she’d been given was up. She hadn’t been ready to say it before, and maybe she still wasn’t. Once she’d given her heart, and it had hurt so badly to be left behind. She couldn’t bear it if it happened again.
But if she never said it and he left this world tonight, could she live with that? Tears burned behind her eyelids as she leaned forward, willing him to wake and hear her. “I love you.”
“You should go home and get some rest,” the nurse advised. “He’s probably not going to wake up until late tomorrow morning.”
“I don’t think his parents will leave until they’ve seen him, so I’m going to stay until then.”
The nurse checked an IV drip and then walked with her out of the room. “When are you getting married?”
Anna didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know.”
“Oh wait, don’t I remember that the Amish get married in the fall, after harvest?”
“That’s right.”
Anna thanked the nurse and rushed from the room. She wanted to just keep going and leave the hospital, but it wouldn’t be fair to Gideon’s parents. They had given up that chance to see how he was doing first. She owed them.
So she tried to steady herself and walked into the waiting room to tell them how their son looked.
Gideon woke slowly, floating and trying to figure out where he was. The last thing he remembered he’d been lying on the ground, staring at the sky, feeling his plow horses had fallen onto him.
A face swam into view.
“Well, hello there. Decided to join us, eh?”
“I’ll tell the doctor,” someone he couldn’t see said.
“You’re in the hospital,” the beaming face over him announced. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been run over.”
“From what I understand, that’s pretty much it. Except it was by having a piece of farming equipment rolling on you, not a truck.”
“Sarah Rose!” he croaked, wondering why his voice sounded rusty, as if he hadn’t used it in a long time. “I have to make sure she’s all right—”
He thought he sat up, but he was flat on his back and couldn’t move. The woman wasn’t holding him down. Under the pain, he felt something hard pressing on an arm, a leg. What was going on?
“That your daughter? Don’t you worry. She’s just fine. You should be able to see her in a few days when you transfer to a different unit.”
Gideon tried to look down. “How bad?”
“Broken arm, broken leg, lots of cuts and bruises,” she rattled off, ticking the injuries off on her fingers. “Lost a lot of blood. Took two transfusions. You wouldn’t believe how many friends and family came to donate.”
He groaned.
“Don’t worry. We’re going to get you well,” she assured him.
“I need to see Sarah Rose today,” he said, fighting the dragging need to go under again. “Today.”
“I can’t—”
“She lost her mother two years ago,” Gideon told her. “She’ll be so scared.”
He lost the battle and slipped under.
The next time he woke, he could hear whispering. He opened his eyes and he saw her—saw them. The two most important people in his life.
“He’s awake,” Sarah Rose said, her voice rising in excitement.
Anna looked over at him, her expression doubtful, and then he watched it change to joy.
He lifted his free hand, and Sarah Rose slid from Anna’s lap to run to his side and clasp it in hers.
“Be careful. Don’t bump him.” Anna came to stand beside the bed, resting her hands on Sarah Rose’s shoulders. “I’m glad you woke up. They’ll only let us stay for a few minutes. You’ll have to thank Vickie—that’s the nurse who was on duty earlier. She insisted you get to see Sarah Rose.”
He listened to his girl chatter, letting it wash over him as he and Anna stared at each other. “Thank you for bringing her.”
“Your parents picked me up on the way here. She’s staying at their house.”
“Mamm will be worn out in a couple of days,” he said with a rueful laugh that turned into a wince of pain.
“Don’t worry. I’ll watch Sarah Rose for a while to give her a break.”
A nurse entered the room and smiled at the child. “Would you like to give your daddy a hug before we make him take a nap?”
She laughed. “Daddy never takes a nap.”
“He has to this time. Doctor says. That’s how he’ll get well. Here, I’ll show you how you can hug him without hurting him.”
It still hurt a little to be hugged, even though the nurse held his daughter carefully and showed her where to slip her little arms around his neck, but Gideon embraced the pain. Feeling pain meant he was alive. Feeling her hug meant love. No one needed to tell him things could have gone very differently . . .
“We’ll say good-bye then,” Anna said, backing away from the bed. “Your parents will want to come in and see you.”
It was easy to see the signs that his mother had been crying. But Gideon saw the moisture in his father’s eyes as well, the way he turned and wiped his nose on a bandanna he took from his pocket.
“We finished the field you were working on,” his father said gruffly.
Something was coming back to him. “Big Jim. I need you to have Doc Wells take a look at him. Seemed like something was wrong with him just before things went haywire.”
His father patted his shoulder. “Don’t go getting upset,” he told him. “It’s not good for you right now.”
“The planting—”
“God will provide, sohn. Rest.”
His mother leaned over him and kissed him on the forehead. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
He reached for her hand and squeezed it. “Thank you for everything.”
“Especially for bringing Sarah Rose and Anna,” she said, nodding and smiling.
“She’s upset with me. Anna, not Sarah Rose.”
His mother squeezed his hand back. “Things change. If she was upset enough to break things off with you, she wouldn’t have come to the hospital.”
“Well, she did that because you asked her to.” Gideon shifted, trying to get comfortable.
“Today we did. Not the first night. Now, we have to leave, or they won’t be letting us come visit again.”
Shocked, Gideon stared after them. Anna had come to the hospital when she h
eard about his accident?
The time for indecision was over.
Anna sat in the drive of Gideon’s house and told herself she needed to get out and go talk to him. He’d been home for several days, and there was no more putting it off. Several weeks had gone by since they’d had that last talk before his accident.
She’d gone over what they’d said so many times. When she’d gone to talk to him that day, she’d felt frustrated at the way she felt he just charged ahead in decisions that affected them both. She knew that she still guarded her heart, afraid of the pain giving it and having it bruised might cause. But she hadn’t felt he’d understood.
“I need to feel I’m a partner in a marriage,” she’d told him.
He’d reacted with surprise when she said that she didn’t feel that he and Mary had been partners. Theirs had looked to be very traditional with him being the one in charge and Mary being a submissive wife.
That was fine if that’s what both people in the relationship wanted, but that hadn’t been what she and Samuel had and that wasn’t what she wanted the next time she married. Being widowed and working at Stitches in Time had forced her to become independent.
Well, forced wasn’t exactly the word she was looking for. No, it hadn’t been a step that she’d willingly taken—only when Samuel had died had she taken those first steps to independence. It hadn’t always been easy or what she’d have done if there’d been a choice, but so much good had come of it. Now she was proud of the woman she’d become—especially when she’d stopped being angry with God and started trusting Him with her life again.
Gideon had asked her if she wanted to stop seeing him, and she hadn’t known what to say. Finally, she’d stammered that maybe they needed to back off a little, and then she’d rushed out of there.
It hadn’t taken long for her to wonder if he’d been upset, distracted, and that had been why he’d had the accident. After all, it had only been a day, hadn’t it? She’d been so upset it was hard to remember.
But men didn’t let things upset them the way women did, did they?
Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3 Page 21
