by Senft, Adina
“What would I have to do?”
“Travel to Mexico City. Stay there for two to four months while you undergo the treatment. And begin a course of exercise and vitamins afterward to bring your immune system up to snuff.”
“I can’t be away from my boys for four months!”
She lifted her shoulders, as if to say, Your choice. “Maybe the boys could stay with family members. Maybe a family member could come with you to look after them. There are ways to accomplish it. Think about it.”
Amelia had already thought about it. It was out of the question, something so outlandish. But then she heard herself say, “What would it cost?”
“Other than getting down there and a place to stay, it would run you about fifty grand.”
Well, that was that. “I don’t have fifty thousand dollars.”
“There is the church fund.”
Amelia opened her mouth to say they would never let her have that much money when she remembered Old Joe Yoder’s cancer treatment in Costa Rica, years ago when she’d been a girl. The elders had taken nearly a week talking it over, but in the end they had agreed to fund it, and it had come to over a hundred thousand. And here he was, decades later, hale and hearty, with grandchildren and great-grandchildren like bunches of cherries on the branches of his family tree.
Maybe there was a chance.
No, no. If she thought that extracting myelin from cows was quackery—and possibly against God’s will, having an animal’s parts inside you—what would Bishop Daniel think?
Dr. Stewart waited quietly across from her, which Amelia appreciated. Dr. Hunter had made her feel rushed and foolish. At least this woman made her feel calm, even if all these odd suggestions tempted her to smile.
“Think it over,” the doctor said quietly. “Talk about it with your family. And then let me know if you want to go ahead with something like that or stick with the mainstream and take medication for the rest of your life.”
Amelia left the office with a big packet of papers and brochures, feeling even more confused than when she’d gone in. A second opinion was one thing. But choosing between a well-trodden path that others had been down versus a path that led to the wilds of Mexico…That was something else again.
She needed to talk to her family. And her friends. Carrie hadn’t been able to come with her this time, but thank goodness she could see her and Emma in just a couple of hours. While they laid out their quilt blocks in neat, pleasing rows, they would help her decide what to do with this disruption in the order of her life.
And speaking of disruptions…how was her new employee getting on back at the shop?
Daisy had waited patiently outside the doctor’s office, but she was ready to lengthen her stride when she realized they were heading back to Whinburg. Slowly, awkwardly, Amelia unhitched her in the shed the Steiners kept for their horses behind their cabinet shop and hurried around the side of the building to her own shop. A quick glance around the office as she struggled one-handed with her coat told her that no disasters had happened there. But a cold feeling sank into the pit of her stomach as she hung up her away bonnet and opened the door to the back of the shop.
David straightened as he saw her. “Hallo.”
“Hi, David. Where’s Melvin?”
A board slapped the concrete floor behind the stack of waiting lumber, and she jumped. “Right here.” Melvin came around the stack holding a board and handed it to David. “Try this one. Amelia, what’s wrong? You look very pale. Did it go badly at the doctor?”
Her gaze jumped from one to the other. “Yes. I mean, no. It would be hard to say. Is everything all right?”
Melvin smiled, a smile so humble and filled with pain that she dropped her gaze. “Did you expect me to burn the building down on my first day?”
He may as well have struck her, she felt so sick. What did she think? That he would live down to her expectations? That was her sin. Judging people before giving them a chance.
“No, of course not, Melvin. I’m sorry. It’s just that with the power tools—and when I didn’t see you just now—I thought…”
David rescued her. “It’s okay, Amelia. He’s doing fine. I was showing him how to fit the pieces together, and we split a plank, that’s all.”
Breathe. Bad enough you think so little of him. Much worse that you showed it. He is your best friend’s husband, and when you think critically of him, you do the same to her.
“Sorry,” she said again. “Of course. Do you need me to help?”
Both men shook their heads, and she got the message. Leave us to our work and go organize your papers.
Back in the office, she collapsed into her chair behind the desk. She must really be rattled if she was showing her emotions so clearly. Orders and invoices would settle her. She pulled a stack toward her and began to sort them by due date, but the numbers faded in and out, competing with the pictures in her head.
“Amelia, concentrate,” she whispered.
But she could not.
Finally she pulled the phone book out of the bottom drawer and flipped through the yellow pages in the back.
There.
“Strasburg Travel, may I help you?”
“Ja, I wonder if you could tell me how much it would cost to take the train to Mexico City from Lancaster?”
There was a pause. “Ma’am, did you say Mexico City? As in Mexico? A train?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you want to do that when you could fly?”
This had been a very bad idea. What had possessed her? “Because I am Amish, and we do not fly in planes.”
“I see. I should have known that as soon as you said the word train.” Another pause, filled with the clacking of keys. “Ma’am, you might want to choose another destination, then, because Mexico suspended all its passenger train service about ten years ago. The only way to get to Mexico City is by bus, and, frankly, our government doesn’t recommend that people do that. It’s not safe, especially for a woman on her own.”
“I would not be on my own. I would have my two boys and a friend with me.”
“A male friend?”
Amelia felt herself blush. “No. Female.”
“If you’re set on going, then, it would be much safer to fly. For all practical purposes, it’s the only way to get there from Pennsylvania.”
Amelia gave up. All she wanted was a number, not a lecture. “Fine, then. How much would it cost to fly?”
The young woman sounded much happier when she replied briskly, “Departing when?”
“Um. Does it make a difference?”
“It sure does. It’s much more expensive if you go in the winter versus the spring or summer.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t think I can wait until spring. Next month?”
“Christmas is a very popular time to travel. Do you have a special reason to fly then?”
I need to go before I lose my right hand, too. No, she couldn’t say that. “How about early January? Would that cost less?”
“Quite a bit less. How long would you be going for? A week?”
“Oh, no. Four months. Maybe five.”
“Lucky you. Well, to give you a ballpark price, let’s say you leave January sixth and come back on May sixth.” Keys tapped in the background, and someone in the travel office let out a great boom of sound. Maybe he’d just been handed his bill. “We could get you there for as little as five hundred dollars a person, round-trip.”
Two thousand dollars. The price of the MRI, which Daed had wound up taking to Dr. Hunter in its brown envelope.
“And you’d need somewhere to stay. I don’t recommend a hotel for that length of time. There are plenty of condos available. You could probably get a nice one for six or seven hundred a month, give or take.”
Amelia added up the column in her head. Thirty-five hundred dollars. She could almost buy a new buggy for that, or a good band saw and a new air compressor both.
This was foolish. Crazy.
&nb
sp; “Ma’am? Are you still there? Do you want to book the trip?”
“No. Not right now. I have to think about it. Thank you for your help.”
“Anytime. Give us a call back when you decide.”
She had already made up her mind. Leaving the flying out of it, how could she stay in a strange country for five months, bewildered by strange customs, strange language, and no fellowship? And what would they eat? It wasn’t likely she could find beef and potatoes and root vegetables there, was it? Didn’t they have palm trees? Wasn’t it hot? And she’d be injected with cow myelin, and who knew what that would do to her?
Amelia shuddered and pushed the phone book back into its drawer.
It might cost more, but she’d best stick with the pills. At least then she could stay at home where God wanted her.
Chapter 10
Mexico?” The sewing machine stopped while Carrie stared at her and, out in the kitchen, Emma turned from the coffeepot to hear what she would say.
Lena Stolzfus had asked if the quilting frolic could be at the Daadi Haus that day so that she could help, so Amelia had set her to pairing triangles. Lena didn’t fuss about the fact that Amelia couldn’t get the edges to match up. She didn’t have the control in her hands now even to put two small pieces of fabric right sides together, but she would not let Lena suspect that she envied the skill in those thin, frail fingers that did what she could not. It was for the best to meet here today, despite the fact that Lena’s presence kept them quiet on certain subjects. They could piece twice as many blocks, and they would be able to keep Lena company.
Up until now the girls’ feet had kept a steady rhythm on the treadles.
“Ja, Mexico.” After a second or two, Carrie bent to her task, pairing the triangles and sewing them down their long sides in a continuous chain, which she snipped apart afterward. Amelia went on, “This Dr. Stewart says that the treatment would be four or five months, and I might go into remission.”
“As opposed to taking pills for who knows how long,” Emma finished. She filled the coffeepot and put it on the stove.
“I know how long. The rest of my life.” Amelia told them everything the doctor had said, and she ended with a laugh. “I’ll never say it to my niece, but I probably won’t go and see her wonderful lady doctor again. Mexico and cows! Who would believe it?”
“And besides the strangeness, think of the expense,” Carrie said. “The Gmee might be able to handle a hundred and twenty thousand over all those years. But fifty thousand all at once?”
“It would be more, Amelia,” Emma put in, joining them. “These things always cost more in the end. Trust me.”
Amelia nodded. “Mamm told me that if it’s God’s will for me to endure this disease, then I should set my mind to enduring it. There must be a purpose for it. At least if I take the pills, I’ll be right here at home. I may never know until I see Him in heaven what the purpose was, but if I have to endure, it would be easier here.”
“What did the doctor tell you about the other patients who went to Mexico?” Lena’s voice was so quiet that Amelia almost couldn’t hear it above the flywheel.
“She said that in many of them the disease was arrested. But not all.”
“So you would rather live with it and go steadily downhill than do something to try to stop it?”
Amelia halted the sewing machine’s movement and turned the flywheel so the needle went down into the fabric to hold it. Those few seconds let her say what had to be said with respect. “I would rather be treated here at home by doctors our folks trust than go on a wild-goose chase.”
“Those geese aren’t wild. It seems they’re curing people down there. Or close to it. I think you should go.”
“Mamm!” Emma sounded shocked.
“You do?” Carrie looked from one to the next. “But the money.”
Lena calmly paired triangles as if she had not just tossed a rock into the pond of Amelia’s hard-won calm. “You can try to do this thing and see results within the year. Or you can go for years and years paying for pills and losing your muscles and wonder the whole time if you should have done something different.” She looked at Amelia over the metal rims of her glasses. “It may be God’s will for you to endure this disease. But it seems to me He has also provided a way of escape. He has worked through your mother before.”
Amelia thought that Dr. Stewart might have more claim to that than her mother did, who had made a phone call because she couldn’t resist meddling in people’s medical affairs.
“I … I never really thought seriously of going,” she said at last. “What if the elders say no? And how will I get there if I can’t fly?”
“How do you suppose Old Joe got to Costa Rica? Do you think he swam?” Lena’s eyes twinkled. “They will seek God’s will in this matter, just as they did for Old Joe, and when they find it, you would of course accept what they say. But you should at least try. You owe it to your boys to do what you can.”
The boys had been first in her mind from the very beginning. But this was a new way to look at it. A way of escape. She wasn’t sure what this experience would teach her, but if the elders said yes, then that was a clear indication that she should take the way of escape, no matter how strange it seemed to her. Because there were other people in her situation, and they had gotten well. Some of them at least.
Oh, if only Enoch were here to talk this over with! The ache in her heart, which had dulled over the months to the pain of a bruise, now flared up again as if someone were pressing fingers against it. She could ask people’s opinions until the cows came home, but his was the advice she’d always sought first. He had such a reasoned way of looking at things, and he was smart when it came to worldly matters like travel and getting things done.
If only…
But there was no sense in longing for “if only.” That was like chasing a hat down a river—always just out of reach.
“I’ll talk it over with Mamm and Daed,” she said when she realized that Lena was not going to let her get back to work without an answer. “And I’ll tell them what you’ve said.”
Lena nodded and turned her attention back to her triangles. Amelia glanced at Emma, who was looking at her mother as if she’d never seen her before, and it was only because she was sitting in the same room that she kept her mouth firmly shut.
But her eyes told a different story. And in them Amelia saw the same fear and doubt that lay in her own.
There was no point in wasting time. She practically invited herself to supper at her parents’ house, and when the boys had gone outside to see if they could follow the barn cat to the litter of kittens they were sure it had hidden somewhere, Ruth spoke up.
“What’s on your mind, Amelia? You sat through my pork and kraut like that chair was covered in tacks. Here, that bread pudding needs more caramel sauce.”
Amelia let her pour some more over her untouched dessert. Then she picked up her spoon and toyed with it while she told them the whole story—Mexico, cows, money, everything. “I talked it over with Carrie and Emma, and they agreed with me that I shouldn’t go, that I should just accept God’s will and start on the medication.”
“Ah.” Ruth sat back. “So that’s what you’ve decided.”
“Well, I thought so. But then Lena spoke up and said that if God had provided a way of escape in the form of this Mexico plan, then I should take it. Otherwise I’d spend the rest of my life”—however long that turns out to be—“wondering if I’d done the right thing.” She dug into the pudding, still warm from the oven. “So now I’m back at the beginning, not knowing what I should do. I have to make arrangements to pay for medication either way. But do I ask for the money for this treatment? Or for the medication, which might end up costing more over the long run?”
“Amelia,” Daed said.
“Ja?”
“Put the pudding in your mouth and eat it.”
Amelia looked down at her spoon. “Oh. Right.” The pudding tasted delicious—bu
t then Ruth’s favorite part of any meal was dessert, so she always put extra care into what she made.
“We should go to the bishop and ask what is best,” her father went on. “I saw Daniel Lapp in his yard yesterday and stopped in to say hello. He asked after you, and we talked a little. I think you’ll find Moses and the others prepared when we go to speak with them.”
Amelia felt the burden slip a bit from her shoulders. “Do you think so?”
“I would be very surprised if they have not already been praying about it. How soon would you like to go?”
“This week would be wonderful gut. But I know that Daniel is probably busy with wedding season, and doesn’t one of the ministers have a girl getting married soon?”
“I think they can spare an hour for you, if you don’t mind giving a little to come when they’re available.”
She’d give quite a lot if it meant finding out which path to take and getting some peace. “I’ll come, no matter when.”
So when her father called her at the shop on Thursday to say that the elders would gather on her behalf on Saturday at eleven at her parents’ farm, she didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be there. Denki, Daed. I know it took some wangling on your part.”
“And what better reason to wangle than my own daughter? Bring the boys, too. Your mother wants to take them to Shoe Barn and get new gums for them.”
“She doesn’t have to do that.”
“Ja, but she wants to. Until Mark and his wild bunch get here, she misses having little ones around the place to cuddle and spoil.”
“But—”
“Amelia,” her father said quietly. “Let her do something for you. You’re so independent sometimes, I worry.”
