He tipped his hat back enough to peer at her. “Seriously? We just got here.”
“The storm seems to be coming in sooner than they predicted. I wouldn’t want to get caught.”
“Can you stop worrying for a few minutes?”
The words came out sharper than he’d intended, and he could tell that he’d hurt her feelings by the way she pulled in a breath and sat up suddenly—her posture ramrod straight.
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Get your feelings hurt because I have a big mouth.”
“Oh, do you, now?”
“We both know I do.” He found her hand and entwined his fingers with hers. He glanced at the girls, still standing with their backs to them, staring at their fishing line. Could he sneak in a kiss before they turned around? Because Susannah suddenly looked quite kissable.
Susannah’s voice dropped. “I do realize that I tend to be a bit too serious. You’re not the first one to suggest such a thing.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it. Only that I wish you could relax.”
“You mean you want me to be more like you?”
“Yes! Exactly. Then there would be two of us renegades in the Goshen Amish world.”
When she laughed, Micah knew he was forgiven.
“Perhaps we should eat before this storm soaks everything.”
Micah’s stomach gurgled, and he realized he’d not eaten breakfast. He’d been too busy worrying over his daddi’s ultimatum. He helped her to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, then convinced the girls to leave their poles resting on the bank.
“What if we catch a big one?” Sharon was jerking her pole up and down in the water. “I want to be here to pull him out.”
“I promise to run and catch him if some whale starts to pull your pole into the water.”
Which caused Sharon to laugh. They joined Shiloh and Susannah on the blanket and the next hour was spent enjoying the food while playing a game of I Spy. It was only when he noticed Susannah attempting to hold down the corners of the blanket that he noticed the wind had picked up quite a bit.
“I truly think we should go back.” Susannah began loading the leftover food back into the basket, the wind tugging at her kapp and her skirt and the edges of the blanket.
It was in that moment that the weather abruptly changed.
“It stopped, Susannah.” Sharon clapped her hands. “The wind stopped. So we can stay. Right? Please...”
But suddenly Micah wasn’t thinking about fishing or picnics or even finding a private moment to kiss Susannah. He jumped to his feet and strode away from the picnic, away from the trees, where he could have a better view of the sky.
The edges of the storm had turned an ominous olive green. He checked the tops of the trees again, as if to confirm what the back of his brain was telling him. Maine only averaged two tornadoes a year, but he vividly remembered 2017, which had been one of their worst years in terms of weather. An unusually high number of tornadoes—seven in all—had touched down that year, one within sight of his parents’ farm.
He knew the signs.
A green sky.
Sudden drop of wind.
Unnatural stillness.
And then he saw it, dipping down from the western sky.
“We need to go.” He ran back toward the picnic, grabbed Shiloh in one arm and Sharon in the other. “Leave that, Susannah. We need to go now.”
And then they were running across the field and toward the abandoned barn.
Chapter Thirteen
Susannah saw Micah running toward them, hollering at her, though she couldn’t make out his words. He’d picked up the girls and was urging her to do something. She put her fingers to her ears, attempting to yawn and pop them, and that was when she heard the freight train bearing down on them.
Then he’d run back and was shouting in her ear, “We need to go.”
She dropped the basket and ran with him. How was he able to carry both girls? She’d tried to pick Shiloh up just that morning, to set her on a chair and tie her shoes. They’d laughed that she’d staggered under her schweschder’s weight.
They were halfway across the lower field, Micah leading the way, still holding both of her schweschdern. Susannah stumbled, dropped to the ground, and that was when she looked back. The funnel cloud seemed to be nearly on top of them. She sat there on the ground, gawking at it, frozen.
The noise was tremendous.
The sight was terrifying.
She barely realized that Micah had once again turned back and was squatting beside her and yelling something. It was the sight of Shiloh and Sharon that brought her back to her senses. Both girls were wide-eyed, their arms wrapped around each other, tears streaming down their faces.
Susannah jumped to her feet.
“The barn,” she screamed.
And then they were running, Micah again carrying Sharon and Shiloh. He didn’t put them down until they’d reached the barn door. He struggled against the wind to pull it open, and Susannah thought, This is it. We’re going to die here because the door is stuck.
Her heart cried out to God then. It wasn’t so much a prayer, not words that she would later remember. It was the cry of her heart—for Shiloh and Sharon and Micah and, yes, for herself, as well. Because she realized in that moment that she wanted to live. Her fear of cancer and the uncertainties of life were whisked away and she felt an actual pain in her heart.
She wasn’t ready yet.
She didn’t want this to be it.
She wanted to live and embrace life and see her schweschdern grow into fine young women with families of their own.
The door didn’t open so much as it flew out of Micah’s hands, and then they were tumbling inside.
Susannah didn’t know if it had been a good or bad idea to shelter in the decrepit barn, but there wasn’t time to second-guess herself, and there wasn’t anywhere else to go. Her eyes met Micah’s for a brief second, and she saw there the same fear and yearning and love that she was feeling.
But before she could process anything, before she could attempt to speak or reassure Shiloh and Sharon, Micah knocked them all to the ground. He threw himself on top of the three of them, and then the noise seemed to become an entity unto itself—roaring and crashing and colliding. And the structure—the barn that she had such fond memories of—simply broke apart.
She must have passed out.
She gradually became aware of Micah shaking her. She opened her eyes to find his tearstained face close to hers.
“You’re alive.”
“Ya, I think so.”
She attempted to sit up. The world seemed to tilt, and she dropped her head into her hands. “I think I’m going to...”
And then she vomited up everything she’d eaten sitting on the old patchwork quilt as the girls fished in the river.
The girls...
She jerked upright, and a tremendous weight shifted from her head to her heart.
Sharon sat beside Shiloh, crying and holding her schweschder’s hand. Shiloh’s arm was twisted at an awkward angle, but it was the blood running down her face that caused Susannah to gasp.
She didn’t run so much as crawl over to Shiloh’s side.
“She’s still breathing.” Micah squatted beside her. “I tried... I tried to stop the bleeding.” It was then she noticed he’d taken off his shirt, compressed it into a bandage and placed it against Shiloh’s head. “Her arm, it’s broken, but it’s the cut on her head that I’m worried about.”
Susannah glanced up at the roof, but it was gone. Instead of the storm they’d fled, she saw clouds broken here and there by blue sky.
“How long...”
“Fifteen minutes. I’ve been trying to wake you. I didn’t want to leave them.”
“Go.
Go now.”
“Are you...”
“I’m fine, Micah. Go and get help for Shiloh.”
Susannah didn’t watch him leave. Her attention was completely focused on Shiloh and Sharon. Shiloh had yet to move or open her eyes. Sharon was crying so hard that she’d begun to hiccup. Susannah pulled the young girl into a hug.
“She’s going to be okay, Sharon. Micah has gone for help.”
“I was so...so... I was so scared.”
“We all were.”
“Uh-uh.” She wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. “You weren’t scared. You stood up and ran, just like Micah. But I was so scared that Micah had to... He had to carry me. And now Shiloh is... Shiloh is dead.”
She broke down into sobs. Susannah put a hand on top of her head. She’d somehow lost her kapp, and her hair was a tangled mess, but none of that mattered. “Micah didn’t carry you because you were too scared to run.”
“He didn’t?”
“Nein. He carried you because his legs are longer, so he can move faster.”
“He saved us.”
“Ya. He did.” Susannah took Sharon’s hand, opened her small palm and placed it gently on Shiloh’s chest. “Can you feel her breathing?”
“Uh-huh.”
“She’s going to be okay.”
“But she’s bleeding.”
“Something must have hit her on the head. She’s going to need stitches, and she’ll probably have a big headache.”
“She will?”
“Ya.”
“Her arm looks funny. What’s wrong with her arm, Susannah?”
“It’s broken.”
“Broken?”
“The doctors can fix that, Sharon.”
“Micah went to get help?”
“He did.”
“What can we do?”
“We can pray. Do you want to do that with me?”
Sharon had been crouching on her knees. Now she plopped onto her bottom, placed her palms together and squeezed her eyes shut. Together, they began to pray.
* * *
A part of Micah’s mind noted the destruction that he ran through. A line of fencing, gone. The chicken coop to the side of the garden was now sitting in the middle of the lane. He skidded to a stop at the garden, where they had all been sitting just hours ago. It looked as if the ground had been freshly tilled. Every plant, every seedling, every tomato post had simply vanished.
Which was when he glanced up at the house and saw that the side of it facing the garden had no wall at all. He could peer inside, like an Englisch dollhouse he’d once seen in a store. He craned his neck back, stared up at the second floor and into Susannah’s room.
What if she’d been there?
What if they’d all been there?
The question paralyzed him for a few seconds, until sirens began to echo through the air.
How many had been hurt?
Were his grandparents all right?
And how was he going to get help to Shiloh?
He sprinted to the east pasture. Percy, the buggy horse, was gone—of course he was. Susannah’s parents had taken him to visit church members. He put his hands on his knees, attempting to draw in deep breaths, and when he glanced up he saw it—Susannah’s bicycle leaning against the side of the barn.
Micah jumped on it and sped off down the lane.
Later he wouldn’t remember bicycling the two miles or dashing into the phone booth. He didn’t recall picking up the phone, dialing 911 or dropping the receiver.
The ride back to the old barn was a blur.
All he knew for certain was that he had to get back to Susannah. He had to be there with her and he needed to help with the girls.
He pumped the pedals of the bicycle, sailing back down the road, turning into the lane, jumping off when he reached the yard and sprinting back across the field, back to the old barn.
He skidded to a stop in the doorway of the barn, though there was no longer a door. There weren’t even walls so much as there were piles of debris. The roof was gone completely, the windows blown out, glass glittering on the ground.
What if the glass had blown in?
What if the entire thing had collapsed on them?
He understood in that moment that he would never forget what he saw when he stepped into the main room of the barn. Susannah was holding Shiloh in her lap. The head wound had bled through the shirt he’d pressed against her head. Shiloh raised eyes that were dazed, that seemed not to see him, but then she smiled, and the fear that had seized his heart melted away.
“Micah, I hurt my head.”
“And her arm. Her arm is all wrong.” Sharon darted toward him, snagged his hand and pulled him across the room—toward Shiloh and Susannah.
He knelt beside them, and that was when Susannah raised her eyes to his. When she reached out and touched his face, the tears that he’d been holding back, that had been strangling his voice and blurring his vision, began to flow freely.
Micah didn’t know how long they sat there, huddled together. He was suddenly aware of the sound of a vehicle approaching and the blip of a siren. He kissed Susannah on top of the head, squeezed Shiloh’s hand and said to Sharon, “Let’s go tell them where we are.”
By the time they stepped out of the barn, two paramedics were jogging across the field, carrying a child’s gurney and a medical box. They’d left their vehicle on the side of the road. Micah could just make out the strobe of its red lights.
It wasn’t until they’d placed a splint on Shiloh’s arm, put a clean compress on her head and were loading her into the back of the ambulance that Micah thought to ask, “Are there more injured?”
“We’ve had a lot of calls, but so far no fatalities.”
Micah put a hand on the back door of the ambulance to keep the paramedic from shutting it. Sticking his head inside, he assured Susannah, “I’ll stay with Sharon. We’ll find your parents and tell them. We’ll all be right behind you.”
Susannah seemed about to say something, but instead she nodded her head and turned her attention back to Shiloh.
And then the door was slammed shut, the ambulance was pulling away and Micah was left standing on the side of the road, Sharon’s hand clutching his.
* * *
Susannah knew her way around a hospital. She’d spent enough time in one when she’d gone through her cancer diagnosis and treatment. She understood the reason for the X-rays that the doctor insisted on taking. She wasn’t bothered by the IV they started in Shiloh’s arm or the fact that they had to shave a swath of hair to clean the wound and stitch it up.
“Now our hair will match,” she assured her schweschder, which earned her a smile.
She was able to explain the machines that beeped, noting Shiloh’s heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, respiration and temperature.
“What does it all mean, Susannah?”
“It means you’re going to be okay. Are you feeling better?”
“I didn’t like that needle.”
“Ya, needles are no fun.”
“And now I’m so—” she paused for a huge yawn “—sleepy.”
“Close your eyes and rest.”
“But...”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’ll wake me when Mamm and Dat get here?”
“If you want me to.”
“I want you to.”
Shiloh’s right arm was still in a splint. She turned onto her left side, placed her hand under her cheek and closed her eyes. She was asleep before the clock on the wall had ticked off another minute.
A thousand questions crashed through Susannah’s mind.
Was their house okay?
Had anyone else been hurt?
What about Percy and the chickens and the barn cats?
What about her neighbors?
For the first time in her life, she wished that she had an Englisch phone so that she could know what was happening. But then she realized she didn’t need to know. Gotte knew. Gotte was in charge, just as He had been when He’d watched over them. She didn’t need to know every detail this minute. She only needed to trust Him.
So she did what she’d done in the barn with Sharon. She prayed—for her parents, her neighbors, for Micah and Percy and her freinden. She prayed for the doctors and nurses. She prayed that the break in Shiloh’s arm wouldn’t be too painful.
By the time the doctor came in—a young woman sporting a name tag that read Dr. Emir—Susannah felt calmer and ready for whatever news the doctor brought. She was petite with long black hair pulled back in a simple ponytail holder and large owlish glasses.
After introducing herself and confirming that Susannah was Shiloh’s relative, Dr. Emir said, “Your sister was very lucky. The head wound wasn’t too terribly deep, and the arm was a fairly clean break.”
“So both will heal quickly?”
“It’s amazing just how fast young ones heal. If it was you or me, it would take a while, but Shiloh shouldn’t have any trouble at all. We’ll need to cast her arm, of course.”
“Her favorite color is purple.”
Dr. Emir smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Then the doctor cocked her head and asked, “Are you sure you’re okay? I can have someone look at...” She raised a hand to her own face, and that was when Susannah remembered that she’d been cut from some of the debris.
“Oh, I think it’s fine.”
“Best to clean it up anyway. You wouldn’t want infection to set in. You’re going to have your hands full taking care of your schweschder.” And that—the doctor’s use of their word—eased Susannah’s heart more than she could explain. They were Amish and Englisch; of course they were. But they were also one community that pulled together in times of trouble.
As the doctor turned to go, Susannah asked, “Have you heard anything else? About injuries, or...” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word deaths.
“The emergency room has been pretty busy. They’re saying it was an F2 and that it left a pretty wide swath of destruction. Fortunately most of it was farmland.”
An Unlikely Amish Match Page 17
