Between You and Me. Сьюзен Виггс
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.