by Susan Wiggs
A few touches of her personality lingered here and there, glimmers of a need for more depth and permanence. There was a quilt made for her by a former patient, draped over a painted wooden chair, and a cuckoo clock that had once belonged to her grandmother. Her kitchen tools included an embossed rolling pin and a pie fluter, which she’d never had a chance to use. She had a working fish tank with nothing but water and plastic plants in it.
She kept meaning to make the place feel more lived in, but work and studying kept getting in the way. If she followed her parents’ plan for her, she’d eventually be able to afford a fabulous house on the river, or a high-rise condo, or maybe a colonial tract mansion in the suburbs. The trouble was, she didn’t seem to fit into the picture of her own life.
Like Caleb Stoltz didn’t fit, she thought, remembering the image of him standing hat in hand in his nephew’s hospital room.
She took another quick sip of wine. How much would the Amish man tolerate of the therapy Jonah was going to need?
Leroy stood up and walked around behind her, using his gentle, talented hands to massage her neck and shoulders. A skilled physical therapist, he had a way of digging into the source of tension. “I think rigor mortis has set in,” he said. “You’re stiff as a . . . stiff.”
“Very funny.”
“Rough day?”
“You could say that. Strange day.”
“I thought you were having dinner with your parents tonight,” he said.
She glanced at the calendar stuck to the refrigerator. “Nosy.” Every single day, it seemed, had something written in it. Interview with Jacobson. Study group, 6:00 p.m. Board review, 6:30 a.m.
“Jesus,” Leroy said. “Look at the way you schedule yourself. It’s not normal. I bet you schedule your bowel movements.”
She finished her wine. “Who has time for that?”
“There’s one thing missing on that calendar,” he said.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“A social life. A life of any kind at all. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s something most people aspire to.”
“I’ll get a life once I get through the Match.”
“Sure you will. Except once you get yourself placed in the first residency, you have to make it into the next one, and once you find that, you have to apply for another, and after that you need to concentrate on your specialty, and then your subspecialty, and then—”
“All right, all right. You made your point.” She went over to the refrigerator, picked one of the few dates that wasn’t taken, and scrawled Get a life in the empty space. “At least I wasn’t stood up by—who was it this time, Roberta the caterer, right?”
“Roberta, yes. And yes, she’s a caterer. The rest of my day was fine. Two stroke patients, some back therapy, an accident victim with a major chip on his shoulder. He was no picnic, but I made him channel his rage into getting around in a wheelchair.”
She sat back down, poured more wine into her glass. “Have you ever worked with an amputee?”
“Sure. I have a certification in prosthetics.”
“There was an amputation in trauma today,” she said. “A little boy lost his arm.”
“That sucks. Poor kid. What happened?”
“It was a farming accident. He stuck his hand in a grinder or shredder of some sort. Amish kid,” she added. “I’d never treated an Amish kid before today. I’ve never even met anyone Amish.”
A funny look came over Leroy’s face. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
She didn’t get it at first. And then, all of a sudden, she did. “Holy crap, Leroy. Do you mean to tell me you’re Amish?”
“I was. Not anymore, obviously.”
In an odd way, Reese felt betrayed. “How can you be Amish and never have told me? You’re my closest neighbor. I’m supposed to know everything about you.”
“I knew you for six months before you told me you were a test-tube baby,” he pointed out.
“I didn’t think it was important,” she said with a distracted wave of her hand.
“Oh, right. Being the result of your parents’ medical specialty has defined you, princess. The petri dish princess.”
“And being Amish has obviously defined you. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” She stared at him as if regarding a stranger. Leroy? Amish? How could Leroy be Amish?
There was nothing remotely Amish about this man. Yet now that he’d said something, a few facts became clear. Since she’d known him she’d never met anyone in his family. When she’d asked about it, he’d said his family shunned him because he’d refused to marry a girl he was promised to and had moved to the city.
“You weren’t kidding,” she said, “about the shunning you once told me about. Your family really did shun you. In the Amish way.”
A bitter laugh escaped him. “Nothing like a good old-fashioned Amish shunning. They’re better at it than a group of seventh-grade teenyboppers.”
“Does that mean you never see or speak to your Amish friends and family?”
“That’s the general idea. It’s complicated. Those who’ve been baptized aren’t allowed to speak to me or share meals. Folks who haven’t been baptized yet have a little more latitude. But for all intents and purposes, I’m persona non grata in the community where I grew up.”
“I can’t believe you were Amish,” she said thoughtfully, still studying him. Clean-shaven, with soulful eyes and manicured hands, he looked every inch the modern male. “I keep trying to picture you Amish, but the picture just won’t form.”
“Oh, I did it all.” That edge of bitterness still sharpened his voice. “The bowl haircut and flat-brimmed hat, the drop-front trousers and suspenders, not a zipper within a five-mile radius. I have nine brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews I’ve never met. I haven’t been in contact with my family in years.”
“That must be so heartbreaking for you,” Reese said. “And for your family.”
“They got over it. There’s not a doubt in my mind that they got over it. It’s the Amish way.”
“Did you?”
He emptied the bottle of wine into his glass. “So tell me about this kid today.” His change of subject was deliberate and unbreachable. “He was probably filling silo, wasn’t he?”
“How would you know that?”
“It’s that time of year. The Amish year is determined by the seasons and the farm chores that go along with them. The corn and other grains are ripe and need to be harvested. On an Amish farm, the whole community gets involved.”
“I’m hearing a decided lack of affection and nostalgia in your voice,” Reese said.
“Let’s just say my experience with the Amish would not fit in the pages of National Geographic.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop.
“Was your family cruel to you? Did they neglect you? What?”
“I’m through talking about it, princess. Where did you say the kid was from?”
She forced herself to drop the subject of Leroy’s upbringing. “A place called Middle Grove. Do you know it?”
“Actually, I do. It’s up on Highway Fifty-Seven, same area as my hometown of Jamesville. Beautiful part of the state, near the Poconos. The Amish of Middle Grove are super restrictive. I remember they wouldn’t fellowship with our community because we were a bit more liberal.”
“I hope they’re not restrictive when it comes to Jonah—the amputee. But he might be in for rough times if they prohibit a prosthetic arm. Do you think they’d do that?”
“Hard to say. The Amish take care of their own. I guess it depends on the support he’ll get.”
Reese thought of Caleb Stoltz and the way she’d felt, watching his face as he stood over his injured nephew. “I don’t know about the whole family,” she said. “He’s got a loving uncle who’s raising him. An incredibly loving uncle,” she added. “He came in on life flight with the boy. The flight nurse said it was a near thing, with some of the locals at the scene claiming it was against their religion
to fly.”
“But not against their religion to let a boy bleed to death. I’m glad the uncle was reasonable.”
“He was,” Reese said, propping her chin in the palm of her hand. “He is definitely reasonable. The boy’s parents are dead, and Caleb—that’s the uncle—is raising Jonah and . . . he mentioned that there’s a sister.” She pictured the big man and the life he’d described, somewhere out in the country, and the image brought a sigh to her lips.
“Oh my God,” Leroy said. “Can this be? You’re smitten.”
She pushed away from the table. “Bullshit. The guy’s kid is suffering a major trauma.”
He laughed at her indignation. “The hunky Amish farmer and the urban-American princess. It’s too precious.”
She scowled at him. “How do you know he’s a hunk?”
“I know your type. You like ridiculously good-looking guys.”
“Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”
“Nope, I’ve been stood up, remember? You’re supposed to help me hobble through the evening. But for once, your life is more interesting than mine.”
“You just accused me of not having a life.”
“That was before I found out about the Amish guy.”
“There’s nothing about the Amish guy,” she said defensively. “Quit with the Amish guy.”
“Tell you what,” Leroy said expansively. “I’ll drop in and visit with the kid and his uncle tomorrow. Is he in the SICU?”
Nodding, she picked up their empty wineglasses and carried them to the sink. “That would be good.”
“See? I’m nice.”
Caleb awakened to the quiet sucking rhythm of hospital machinery. A bitter smell hung in the air, mingling with the coppery scent of blood. Although he came fully awake, he didn’t move, not right away. Instead, he sat very still in the hard, too-small chair made of molded plastic and crammed into the corner of the small cubicle where Jonah slept. A chaplain had offered to find him a bed for the night, but Caleb had declined, preferring to sit close to Jonah. The ever-present nurse stood in the dim glow of a computer monitor, gazing steadily at the screen. By looking out the display window past the nurses’ station, he could see the gray glimmer of a new day.
His hat sat on the floor beneath the chair. He hadn’t found anywhere else to put it. The glass, linoleum, and steel cage allowed no extra room for personal items.
“Good morning,” said the nurse at the computer.
“How’s he doing?” Caleb asked.
“He’s stable. He had a quiet night.” The Asian woman peered at him, her hands constantly busy on the keyboard. “Can I get you something?”
“Thank you, no.”
Caleb stood and went over to the bed. Jonah didn’t appear to have moved in the night. Throughout the dark, endless hours, nurses, health aides, medical students, and at least one doctor had come in to check Jonah or, more accurately, to check the equipment hooked up to his poor, broken body. Through it all, the kid hadn’t stirred, hadn’t even blinked an eye as far as Caleb could tell.
He rested the palm of his hand on the cold steel bars of the bed’s guardrail. Something had happened to Jonah in the night. The lost hours had diminished him, sucked the spirit out of him. The boy was smaller, paler than he had been only a short time ago. There was simply . . . less of him.
Maybe that was what a place like this did to a person. Drew things out of him, turned him into a ghost. Of course, Caleb told himself, Jonah would be dead if they hadn’t brought him to this hospital.
Looking down at the smooth, gray-white face, Caleb felt a painful surge of terror and love pushing at his chest. They had shaved Jonah’s head on one side and repaired the gashes with what appeared to be string and glue. His face was mottled by bruises and flecked with tiny cuts. A bit of blood had pooled and dried in the hollow of one ear. Caleb resisted the urge to clean it out.
Did I do this? he wondered. Did I let a terrible thing happen to an innocent little boy? He felt eaten alive by guilt.
In the wake of his brother’s death, Caleb hadn’t been sure he’d be able to raise Jonah and Hannah properly. And maybe he wasn’t doing such a good job, but right away he had learned how to love a child. It was the easiest thing he’d ever done. He loved Jonah with all his heart, and every second of the boy’s suffering belonged to Caleb, too.
Under such extraordinary circumstances, a man of faith would surely pray. He’d pray for this beautiful child to heal; he’d thank the Lord for sparing Jonah’s life. But Caleb Stoltz wasn’t a man of faith, not anymore. Maybe he’d never been one.
He found himself thinking about John, his older brother, Jonah’s father. John’s faith had been as deep as a well, as endless as the sky. He would have known how to pray for his son.
“I’m sorry, John. I’m real, real sorry about your boy,” he quietly murmured. “I’m going to do the best I can, the best I know how. I hope it’s enough.” But even as he spoke, Caleb feared it wouldn’t be.
His stomach rumbled, the noise loud and profane in the unnatural hissing quiet of the hospital room. He felt slightly embarrassed by the urges of his body. When something this terrible happened, it just didn’t seem right that Caleb would feel hungry, that his whiskers would grow, that he’d have to take a piss. And yet, that was the case.
He went to the men’s room down the hall, relieved himself, and washed up with thin, watery soap from an old wall dispenser, drying off with flimsy brown paper towels. He was startled by his own reflection in the mirror above the row of sinks. There were no mirrors in an Amish household, of course. Mirrors implied pride and vanity, which had no place in an Amishman’s character. He rinsed the taste of sleep from his mouth, snapped his suspenders into place.
But there were no suspenders. He was still wearing the green shirt and loose trousers Reese Powell had given him.
He hurried back to Jonah’s room. Another hospital worker stood by the bed, marking things on a glass tablet device. A dark-skinned fellow. He smiled politely when Caleb came into the room. “Your son’s been stable all night,” he said. “That’s a good sign.”
“When will he wake up?” Caleb asked.
“That’s up to him, mainly,” said the man. “The doctors can tell you more during rounds. But you can go ahead and talk to him. He’ll be groggy at first, but if everything goes well, he’ll be awake and chattering away in no time.”
When the health aide left, Caleb returned to his vigil beside the bed. “Jonah.” He spoke the boy’s name a few times, just Jonah, and nothing more. Then, since the nurse seemed absorbed in her monitoring, he spoke some more. “Jonah, it’s me, your uncle Caleb. I’m here waiting for you to wake up, because we’ve got lots to talk about. Can you hear me, Jonah? Can you?”
The boy lay as still as a rock. He resembled a graven image carved into a gray headstone like one of those stone angels the English favored in their cemeteries.
“Jonah, can you hear me?” Caleb tried again. “It’s me, Uncle Caleb. Can you feel my hand on your leg? It’s right here on your knee. I’m sure worried about you, Jonah. I sure do wish you’d wake up so we could have a talk.”
He kept standing there, gazing down, his big thumb absently circling Jonah’s knee. Then he saw it. The tiniest flash of movement. The flicker of a shadow on the boy’s cheek.
“Jonah?” Caleb leaned a little closer. “Come on, little man. You can do it.”
The boy blinked again, then opened his eyes. He stared up, then squeezed his eyes shut as if to hide from the glare of the ceiling lights. Caleb kept saying his name, gently touching his knee and right shoulder, taking care not to focus on the thickly bandaged truncated arm. Jonah opened his eyes again—a squint of confusion. This time, he didn’t look at the lights, but at Caleb. He moved his lips, his bluish cracked lips, but no sound came out.
“You can give him a little water,” the nurse said. “He can have sips of water and ice chips if he wants, until the doctor says it’s okay to eat and drink again.”
Caleb grabbed a paper cup from the tray by the bed. “Here you go,” he said, angling the straw to Jonah’s lips. He shifted to their German dialect. “Easy there. Take it easy.”
Jonah drew weakly on the straw. Most of the water trickled out the sides of his mouth and down into the hospital pillow under his head.
“You can raise the bed with this.” The nurse handed him a remote control on a cord.
Caleb fiddled with the automatic controls until he figured out the button that caused the head of the bed to slowly raise up. Jonah looked almost comically startled by the motion, but when he saw what was happening, he relaxed. Caleb raised the bed only a few inches, just enough so the boy could swallow rather than spill. Jonah took one more sip then and finally whispered, “Uncle . . . Caleb.”
“That’s me,” Caleb said too loudly and too cheerfully. “I’ve been sitting around wondering when you’d wake up.”
“How long have I been asleep?”
“All night long, and then some.” Caleb looked right down into Jonah’s bewildered eyes. “Do you know where you are?”
The boy’s gaze darted to and fro. His poor face looked as though it had been slashed by vicious claws. “No.”
“We’re at the hospital,” Caleb said. “You got hurt bad, Jonah. Real bad. You had to have an operation. Do you remember getting hurt?”
“Um, not so much. I’m having trouble remembering,” Jonah said.
A nurse had warned Caleb about this. Victims of trauma often lost all recollection of the accident. Sometimes they never regained their memory of the specific event. It was a protective reaction. The mind didn’t want to remember a pain so deep and harsh.
“Do you remember going over to the Haubers’ to work?”
“Sure I do.”
Caleb was ashamed to realize that he’d been wishing Jonah would forget the entire morning. “Then you probably remember how I yelled at you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you, Jonah. I should know better than yelling.”
“Your yelling doesn’t bother me, Uncle Caleb.”
“It bothers me that I yelled.” Caleb took a deep breath. “Do you remember the shredder?”
