by Beth Wiseman
Abram sat up in bed. “Need some help?”
Sarah took a deep breath and reminded herself not to take offense. Abram loved her, and he just wanted to take care of her. But was this how it would be for the rest of her life? Everyone always trying to help her?
Abram slid his legs over the side of the bed and started toward her. She held up a palm. “I’ve got it. I don’t need help.” She’d allowed him to help her in and out of the wheelchair during her stay at the hospital, but Abram would head off to work in the morning, and Sarah needed to learn to get by on her own. As she rolled the wheelchair to the side of the bed—which she noticed was lower now—she positioned herself in the way she’d learned at the hospital, then tried to heave herself onto the bed, her legs not participating in the effort, as they hung lifeless, like they belonged to someone else. All the while, the fragrant lavender made her want to throw up.
“Here, Sarah, let me—”
Abram was rounding the corner of the bed when Sarah yelled, “Stop! I can do this myself.” She lifted herself onto the bed as Abram froze beside her, probably praying for his old wife to return, the one who could walk, who wasn’t bitter, whom he didn’t have to overhaul his home for. It was a wicked thought. They’d grown up together, dated for an eternity, and Sarah had always believed they were soul mates, an Englisch term she’d heard used in more than one of the movies they’d watched. But as she spit her words at him, there was no denying—the Sarah she used to be was gone, replaced by someone who couldn’t seem to capture the hope she’d once carried around like a precious gift. But the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Any hope for the future they’d planned had been snatched away.
She was a smart woman, though, and she would settle into her new life. But it was a life that wouldn’t include children. Sarah was worried about just being able to take care of herself. How could she possibly take care of a child now? She’d had a recurring dream in the hospital. She’d fallen out of the wheelchair. A little girl—a toddler—was walking toward the stove, which had been lowered even in her dream. Steam rose from a pot of boiling water as her baby girl reached for it. Sarah tried to crawl across the living room floor, dragging her dead legs behind her. But she couldn’t get to the child, who pulled the pot off the stove each time. Sarah always woke up, sweating, consumed with anxiety. If she had a child, that’s how it would always be.
Abram stood perfectly still until Sarah had tucked herself in, then he walked to his side of the bed and got underneath the covers. He snuggled up next to her, his head resting on her shoulder as he kissed her on the neck.
“It’s raining again,” she said softly as she lay still and closed her eyes, recalling the time a couple of years ago when she and Abram tried to rustle up three of Abram’s goats that had gotten loose. Abram’s mother was sick, and it was just Sarah and Abram running around the yard trying to get the goats penned. And it had started pouring. Abram was so mad that Sarah had thought he might curse. That’s when she’d broken out laughing, and eventually Abram laughed, too, and they’d danced around in the rain like children. They eventually got the goats back in the pen, but it was well after dark. It seemed funny to Sarah that she’d think of that now. A day running around in the rain, something she’d totally taken for granted at the time. What she wouldn’t give now to run around in the rain like a silly child.
“I missed you so much,” Abram whispered as he continued kissing her on the neck.
Sarah stiffened, unwillingly and unintentionally, as if in an automatic reaction to his touch. “I missed you too,” she breathed in a whisper, forcing herself to relax. The doctor had said there was no reason for them not to carry on as husband and wife in the bedroom. Sarah hadn’t lost the feeling in her legs, only the ability to move them due to muscle damage. But Abram wanted to start a family, and even during Sarah’s time in the hospital, he’d never veered from his desire for this. “We will have plenty of time to make babies when you are well and at home,” he’d told her. And she’d never argued.
Her husband had walked into her hospital room every day, trying to hide the bags beneath his eyes, and he’d always stayed cheerful and hopeful. She wanted to fall into the safeness of his embrace, to feel him love her. But her new fear about getting pregnant had put up an invisible shield around her, a barrier she hadn’t even known was present until now. She eased away and put a hand on his chest, wishing her heart could just speak to his without any words, but the sorrow in her husband’s eyes deserved a verbal response.
“I don’t feel well.” It was all she could come up with. Even though she felt all right physically, she didn’t feel well emotionally at all, so she decided it was a justified tiny white lie.
Abram cupped her chin as he leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. Then he smoothed her red hair back from her face and said, “What can I get for you? Do you want some hot tea? Or maybe something else?”
Sarah gazed into her husband’s eyes, knowing he’d do anything for her. And as much as she wanted to make him happy, she couldn’t. Not tonight.
Abram smiled sweetly. “What can I do for you?” he asked again.
Can you pray that I’ll walk again? It was a hollow prayer that would never be answered. Sarah had already gone through that with the doctors, told them miracles happen, that maybe she’d walk again. They’d all been adamant that Sarah would never take another step. It had seemed cruel at first, to so despondently write off the power of the Lord. But deep down, God had chosen not to fix her. He’d taken from her, and it was her duty to accept His will.
She stared at Abram for a while before she said, “Can you blow out the candles?”
Abram’s expression dropped, like she’d kicked him in the teeth. But he recovered quickly and lifted his jaw, offering her another smile. “Ya. Sure.”
She extinguished the lantern while Abram blew out the candles, then he got back in bed beside her and found her hand. He brought it to his mouth and kissed her fingers, then they both lay quietly, lost in their thoughts. Sarah wondered what it would be like to be lost in Abram’s thoughts.
It was quiet. The rain had stopped. The crickets and frogs had put themselves to bed, and there wasn’t a breeze anymore, no rustling of leaves outside their bedroom window. Just darkness and silence.
Sarah closed her eyes, even though she doubted sleep would come. It was only nine thirty, and that was their normal bedtime prior to the accident. But during Sarah’s time in the hospital, her sleep schedule was anything but routine, and now she found herself wide-awake as Abram started to snore.
A few minutes later, she heard her husband’s cell phone ringing in the kitchen. Sarah had never owned a mobile phone. They had a phone in the barn for emergencies, and it was easy enough to hear from the house when the windows were open. But Abram had gotten a cell phone while Sarah was in the hospital so that he could call and check on her throughout the day. Her first instinct was to run to answer it, but she quickly ruled that out as an option. If it was an emergency, the caller would try the barn phone, and Sarah would hear it. She reasoned that a call coming in on Abram’s new phone must have something to do with work, so she opted not to wake her husband.
But when Abram’s phone rang again in the other room, she nudged him. Then the phone in the barn started to ring.
“Abram.” She nudged him harder until he moaned. “Wake up. Your phone in the kitchen is ringing, and the phone in the barn is ringing too.” Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. “Something is wrong.”
CHAPTER THREE
ABRAM CLOSED THE BARN DOOR BEHIND HIM AND WALKED toward the house, shining the flashlight in front of him as he tried to sidestep the standing water still in the yard. Once he hit the sheets of plywood leading to the ramp, he picked up the pace as he neared the porch, but paused at the front door. He didn’t want to lie to his wife. But he also wasn’t going to burden her with the truth. Abram was surprised that the creditor man was calling so late, but he was even more startled by the way the ma
n had spoken to him.
When Abram had hit his credit limit on the only credit card he had, he’d gone to a place in town that loaned people money. He’d been so grateful to the man who’d helped him and thanked the Englischer repeatedly. But now the same fellow was calling because Abram was a week late making a payment. Abram had explained that he hadn’t been able to work much, that his wife had been in the hospital, and that he would make the payment when he got paid the following week. The man told Abram that was unacceptable and that if Abram didn’t pay on time, they’d take him to court. Abram had never owed anyone money, so he explained to the man that he promised not to be late again if he could just give him some extra time this once. The man had grumbled but eventually said that would be okay.
He opened the screen door and walked inside, deciding to head toward the kitchen. He shined the flashlight toward the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of orange juice, freshly squeezed and left at the house by Sarah’s mother. Abram’s mother-in-law had kept the refrigerator stocked while Sarah had been away. He drank from the pitcher, knowing Sarah didn’t like it when he did that, but hoping that she’d be asleep when he got through stalling. But she was sitting up in bed with the lantern lit when he shuffled back into the bedroom.
“What’s wrong?” She tucked strands of long red hair behind her ears.
Abram wanted to lie, but he decided on a version of the truth that he hoped both God and his wife would be okay with. “I borrowed some money while you were in the hospital. It was a man at the company calling to talk about payments.”
Sarah stared blankly at him for a few moments. “How much money?”
Abram swallowed hard, avoided her gaze, and got back in bed. “Not much.” He cringed, reckoning that not much could mean different things to different people. To Abram, twelve thousand dollars was a lot. He’d only had a five-thousand-dollar credit limit on his credit card, and he’d hit that amount when he purchased his first round of supplies for the remodel.
“How much is not much?” Sarah turned her head toward him, frowning.
Abram shrugged. “Just enough to finish up the modifications on the house.” He rolled onto his side and faced away from her, squeezing his eyes closed, hoping she wouldn’t ask any more questions. Abram had already asked Mr. Hinkle at the hardware store if he could work extra hours for the next few months, and the older man had said he could.
“I could have made do, Abram,” Sarah said softly in a trembling voice.
Abram rolled over to face his wife. She was still sitting up in bed, the lantern on beside her. “I don’t want you to make-do, Sarah. I love you, and I want things to be as easy as possible for you. The house needs to be accessible, especially when we have kinner. Don’t worry about the money. It’s my job to worry about that.” And I’m a little worried. But not only was it his job to take care of his family, he owed Sarah—for the rest of his life—for putting her in a wheelchair.
“We decided when we got married that we were a team.” Sarah folded her arms across her chest. “Did that change?”
“Nee, of course not. But as the head of the household, I’ll handle the money.” Abram waited for the argument he suspected was coming. He closed his eyes, hoping she’d let it go.
“You sound like mei daed and the elders, pulling that card—head of the household. I thought we were going to be different, a team.”
Abram kept his eyes closed. “We are a team. Let’s go to sleep. We’ve got worship service in the morning.”
Sarah stared at her husband, tempted to push the issue, but she reminded herself that she wasn’t the only one adjusting to changes. She extinguished the lantern and scrunched herself down into the covers, moving her legs with her arms. For the past few weeks, her legs had become more and more foreign to her, like she needed to introduce herself to her own limbs. Hello, I’m Sarah. You must be my legs. I can feel you, but you’re useless to me.
She rolled onto her side and snuggled against her husband, surprised that he was still mentioning children. How did Abram think she would take care of a child? And surely he didn’t still want four kinner like they’d talked about.
As good as it felt to be in her own bed with her husband, she was still having trouble falling asleep. But when she finally did, she dreamed she was running. Through a field. But then suddenly she stopped at the edge of a cliff. A little voice in her head screamed, “Jump.” When she turned around, she was back in her house, pulling herself along the living room floor toward the stove. She woke up crying.
After a few brief naps during the night, she decided to get up early and familiarize herself with her new kitchen. Maybe she’d surprise her husband by having breakfast ready when he woke up, showing him—and herself—that she could function effectively, even from a wheelchair. In the darkness, she reached for her wheelchair and pulled it as close to the bed as she could. The wheels swiveled, allowing the chair to be pulled in any direction. Glancing at Abram, she considered waking him for help, if only because her arms were sore from lifting her weight, but she decided to make the attempt on her own.
She surprised herself by getting into the seat without making too much noise. She wheeled herself to the bathroom, then turned on her flashlight. After she’d brushed her teeth, she shed her nightgown and eased on a freshly pressed dress that was folded over a hanger, noticing the hook in the bathroom had been lowered. It took forever to get the dress on, but she felt a sense of accomplishment once it was done, and she quietly left the bathroom. The flashlight didn’t offer as much light as a lantern would have, but everyone was in agreement that it wouldn’t be safe for Sarah to balance a lantern in her lap as she used both arms to wheel herself around.
When she got to the kitchen, she found some matches and lit the lantern in the middle of the dining room table, happy that she could sit comfortably at the table, and that Abram hadn’t felt the need to shave some height off the legs. Then she rolled to the lowered cabinets and lit two more lanterns, brightening the room enough to start breakfast. She raised the green blinds on the two windows in the kitchen so she’d be able to see the sun rise, then rolled herself to the refrigerator. Surely over time her arms wouldn’t be so sore. She pulled the refrigerator door open, but had to stretch to reach the eggs, which were pushed toward the back on the top shelf. For all her husband’s planning, he hadn’t thought about the challenge of reaching into a full-sized refrigerator.
But as she glanced around her modified kitchen, she couldn’t complain. Abram and Johnny had worked hard to make her life easier, and she was going to do her best to stay positive. She latched onto the carton of eggs and placed it in her lap, then found a package of store-bought bacon. Her father wouldn’t like that, but Sarah was thankful her mother had stashed some in the refrigerator. Most of the meat Sarah and Abram had was kept in a frozen storage locker in town, the way it had been done for generations. Many of their people had opted to run small deep freezers using propane, like it was done with the refrigerators, but Abram and Sarah wanted to keep some things the way they had been done by generations before them. As she glanced at her legs, she realized she and Abram might need to rethink that. Hitching the horse for travel wouldn’t be easy for her, maybe impossible. But for today, she decided to take baby steps. She moved a stack of cookbooks, clearing a space on the counter to prepare the eggs.
“Look who’s up early.” Abram walked into the kitchen, wearing a pair of boxers and a white T-shirt, rubbing his eyes. “Need some help?”
“Nee. You go get ready for worship service. I’ll have breakfast ready soon.”
Abram yawned, but she caught a hint of a smile. “Ya, okay.” He nodded at the cookbooks Sarah had put together before the accident. “I bet you’ll sell a lot of those.”
Sarah shrugged. “Maybe.” She’d enjoyed designing the covers and gathering her favorite recipes, but there were a lot of Amish cookbooks for tourists to choose from.
Abram dried off after his shower and breathed in the smell of bacon coo
king. Smiling, he slipped into his Sunday slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt, then took a wet rag and wiped down his black shoes, which were dirty from the recent rains and mud. He tossed the rag into the basket in the laundry room before heading to the kitchen, but when he rounded the corner, he stopped abruptly. Sarah’s face was in her hands, her shoulders shaking. In her lap sat a half carton of eggs, most of them broken. On the floor were two or three in a pile of yellow mess. She didn’t say anything, but took one hand and pointed to the spill. Abram took a few slow steps toward her and squatted down, gently putting a hand on her leg.
“It’s okay, Sarah.” He paused when she still didn’t look up. “It’s just eggs. There will be at least a dozen more in the barn when I go out to collect them.”
She slowly lifted her head, her face wet with tears. “It’s not your job to collect the eggs. It’s mine.” Her voice was barely above a shaky whisper. “I cleaned up as best I could, but I couldn’t get them all. I can barely reach the floor to wipe up the mess.”
Abram hurried to the counter and found a roll of paper towels. “Everyone drops eggs sometimes.” He hurried to sop up the mess, collecting the shells in one hand, wiping with the other. “And you know how much I like bacon. I can make a meal on just that.” He smiled as he looked up at her. “No crying over spilt milk, so no crying over dropped eggs either.”
