13
David was in the barn, brushing down Thistle after a long buggy ride, when he realized Birdy was standing by the open door. He stilled when he saw her, knowing from the look on her face that she had something important to tell him.
“It’s Thelma. Katrina sent word that she thinks the time is short. They want you to come.”
He looked down at the brush in his hands. Birdy walked over to him and put her arms around him. “I’ll go with you.”
“I’d like that.” He returned her embrace, grateful for a woman who saw his ministry as hers too. Their marriage was a true partnership, beyond anything he could have ever hoped. He stroked her back. “Will you call Dok and ask her to stop by?”
David asked for a few moments alone upstairs before they left for Moss Hill. He wanted to pray before he did anything else. He knelt briefly by his bed and lifted Thelma up to the Lord. “Precious in his sight is the death of his saints. Lord, Thelma is precious to us and precious to you. Receive her spirit. Restore her soul.”
Katrina met their buggy out in the yard with little Anna clinging to her leg and a baby in her arms. “Andy called Dok. She should be here any minute.” Her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
“How are you holding up?” Birdy asked.
“Truth be told, I’m exhausted. Between the baby coming and Thelma . . . passing, I’ve hardly slept.”
“What happened to the mother’s helper you hired?”
“Someone paid her twice what I had offered to pay her.”
Birdy’s mouth dropped. “Why didn’t you let us know? I would have come right away.”
“Everything was happening too fast. There wasn’t time. Thelma started going downhill last night.”
“Well, we’re here, now. I’ll send Ruthie right over.”
“No,” Katrina said quickly. “Not Ruthie. She has no patience with children.”
Birdy swallowed a smile. “Molly would love to come and stay with you. She had asked if she could be your mother’s helper weeks ago.”
Katrina nodded. “Molly would probably be the best choice. I just hoped to have someone with experience. But there’s no one available, at least not in Stoney Ridge.” She opened the door and they followed her into the living room, where Thelma lay on the couch. “She wants to be in the middle of things, even now.”
Thelma’s labored breathing filled the small room. David was glad it was morning, with the sun streaming through the windows, and not night. Thelma loved the light.
He pulled a chair to the couch and took Thelma’s age-spot-speckled hand in his, noticing how crinkled her skin was, crepe-paper thin. She was lying with her head propped up slightly on a pillow, as if she’d wanted to sit upright but hadn’t the strength. Her eyes fluttered half open, lighting faintly with recognition, before closing again.
“Glad you got here in time,” she panted through blue lips. “You always did run late, David. Your sermons too.”
How he would miss Thelma! She was the one who had convinced her husband, Bishop Elmo, to invite David to Stoney Ridge. She was like a mother and aunt to him, all wrapped up in a ninety-pound package of spunk.
She mumbled something to him.
He leaned closer. “Thelma, can you say that again?”
“The music. Do you hear the music?”
He didn’t, but it wasn’t the first time he had sat by the deathbed of someone who heard music as the curtain of heaven opened. What was Thelma hearing, seeing, sensing? It was such a holy mystery, this business of dying. Of a soul leaving earth and bound for heaven. He often wondered if unseen angels might be surrounding them, waiting to accompany the soul through the realms, protecting it from the Evil One, until it reached its final destination. Yes, death was a holy mystery, yet one that filled him with reverence and praise for God.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced up to see his sister Dok. He hadn’t heard her come in.
“I’d like to listen to her heartbeat,” she said, warming the stethoscope in her palm.
Her voice was calm, there was no sign of alarm in her expression. He had to hand it to her—she was not a woman ruled by emotion.
David stood and pulled the chair away to let his sister move in closer to Thelma.
Dok crouched down beside her. “How long has she been like this?”
They all looked to Katrina to respond. “Much worse since yesterday.”
Dok frowned. “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”
“She wouldn’t let us,” Katrina said. “She was afraid you’d put her in the hospital.”
“She might be more comfortable there. They could give her oxygen that would help her breathe more easily.”
“No,” Thelma gasped. “No hospital.”
“She thinks it will only prolong her dying,” Katrina said. “She said she’s ready. She’s said all her goodbyes. Let her stay, please.” She handed the baby to Birdy and little Anna to David and knelt by Thelma, gently massaging her wrists.
David realized that this was a significant moment for his sister. Despite being raised with the Amish view of death as a normal part of living, she had been trained in modern medicine, which perceived death as not normal. This issue was a constant tension between Dr. Finegold and his Amish patients, resulting in having patients avoid calling him unless it was a dire emergency. So this, David knew, this was the moment that could endear Dok to the Stoney Ridge Amish . . . or alienate her.
Dok took Thelma’s pulse, her blood pressure, listened on her stethoscope to her abdomen, all with her chin tucked to her chest. She lifted her head and looked around the room. “Well, then, let’s keep her as comfortable as possible.” She nodded to David to follow her and walked into the tiny kitchen. “It won’t be long. The aneurysm has burst. Blood is filling her abdominal cavity. I’m going to set up an IV.”
“Thank you. You can’t imagine how much it means to everyone to have Thelma stay here in her own house and die surrounded by those she loves. If she were in a hospital, she’d be restless and anxious and unhappy. You don’t know what it means to us.”
Dok looked David straight in the eyes. “Oh, but I think I do.” She swept past him to head out to her car. He watched out the window as she bent over the open hatch and rummaged through her medical equipment.
Dok was going to do just fine.
It was a good death. The best.
Katrina and Andy, Birdy and David, and Dok stayed with Thelma through her last hour. David read Psalm 90 aloud, Thelma’s favorite, the only psalm written by Moses. As she died, they were all able to be with her, touching her. And God was with them.
When he finished reading the psalm, he looked up and realized that Thelma was unmoving, too still to be sleeping.
Katrina knelt beside the old woman and touched her cheek. “Oh, Thelma, I’ll miss you.”
Yes. Yes, David thought, fighting back the sting of tears in his eyes, she would be dearly missed.
As the undertaker removed Thelma’s body from her home, an osprey circled above the hilltop, giving its distinctive cry. Birdy said she thought it was a special gift from God, provided as a benediction for a life lived well.
Three days later, Thelma Beiler’s funeral took place on a beastly hot, utterly breezeless day. The little Amish church of Stoney Ridge stopped their daily obligations and responsibilities to acknowledge the passing of a fine woman.
After the funeral, while everyone gathered back at Moss Hill for a meal, David offered to rock Katrina’s baby to sleep in a back bedroom. He tucked the baby into his crib, then sat on the bed, not ready yet to return to the gathering. It was David’s third funeral that year, but the loss of Thelma hit him deeply. She’d always had more confidence in him than he had in himself.
After a while, Birdy came in and quietly sat beside him. He took her hand and held it, unable to speak. “All these people had their time to grieve, David,” she said softly, rubbing his back with her free hand. “Now it’s your turn.”
He tried to hold back his tears, then gave in, let them come. For the first time in a long, long time, David wept.
Jesse always thought that the world got two for the price of one in David Stoltzfus. His father put in staggeringly long days at the store, then he would tend to the well-being of others. As busy as he was, as weighed down by responsibilities, you never felt as if he didn’t have time for you.
But that only happened if you could find him. It took Jesse four days before his father was available to him. There was the funeral for Thelma Beiler, which meant that everything in town stopped for three days. His father was constantly in demand during the funeral period.
But on the fourth day, Jesse went to the house as soon as he finished breakfast. He found his father in the barn, checking the cow’s hoof. “Dad, there’s a problem.”
His father didn’t even look up. “I know. I’m going to have to call the vet.”
“Not with Moomoo. With the store.” His father looked up from his task. At long last Jesse had his full attention. “Why in the world did you hire Jenny Yoder?”
“Because I need help and not one of my children want to work at the store. Not even Molly.”
“Dad, Jenny Yoder has an ulterior motive.”
His dad rose to his feet, grabbed a rag from the stall door, and wiped his hands. “Son, just what has got you so tied up in a knot?”
“Jenny’s got designs on me.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You? You think you’re the reason why Jenny is working part-time at the Bent N’ Dent?”
Jesse nodded knowingly. “It came as a shock to me as well.”
His father did not seem to be quite as shocked by the revelation as he had expected. A smile crept over his father’s face. “And just what leads you to believe this?”
Jesse lifted his hand and pressed down fingers as he rolled off his reasons. “She arrives out of the blue at a time when Mim Schrock is away. She lives at Windmill Farm where I happen to live. Now she works at my father’s store. It’s so obvious.”
David leaned against a bale of hay. “I thought Mim Schrock was devoted to Danny Riehl.”
“Maybe for now, but I’m just biding my time for Mim to come to her senses.”
“One thing I’ve always wondered about your interest in Mim Schrock . . .”
Jesse was all ears.
“It’s always seemed like a pretty safe bet, considering she’s Danny’s girl.”
A sense of umbrage poked Jesse’s pride. Did his father think he wasn’t aware that Danny Riehl continually edged him out with Mim? “What exactly is your point, Dad?”
“Have you ever wondered if you’re devoted to Mim Schrock because she’s not available?”
“Interesting point,” Jesse said agreeably, as if he had wondered it himself. He had not wondered. “However, let’s not get sidetracked and ignore the crisis that sits before us. Jenny Yoder has set her sights on me.”
“Has she said as much?”
“No. But she’s everywhere I am. Everywhere.”
“It’s a pretty small town, Jesse. Hard to avoid anybody.”
“Especially when they live at Windmill Farm.”
David folded his arms against his chest. “And you think she arrived because she heard you were there.”
“Yes. Probably.”
“Why do I feel as if there’s a Hank Lapp ‘theory on women’ behind this?”
Because there was, but Jesse didn’t feel the need to admit that.
“Sounds like Jenny Yoder has really gotten under your skin. She is a lovely girl, isn’t she?”
“Yes. No! I mean, she’s always been an irritant. A pebble in my shoe. A thorn in my side. A cloud in—”
“I get it. In fact, I well remember. I also remember how bothered you were when she left Ohio that one summer.”
“Only because there was talk at the schoolyard that she’d been kidnapped and brutally murdered. I’m not heartless, Dad.”
“Obviously not.”
“Every time I turn around . . . there is Jenny Yoder. Everywhere. Don’t you think it’s more than a coincidence?”
“In fact, I don’t.” His father crossed one ankle over the other and leaned forward. “I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but Fern invited Jenny to come live with them at Windmill Farm.”
“Oh.” Jesse squeezed his eyes shut. This was worse than he thought. “So Fern’s in on the scheme with Jenny.”
His father rolled his eyes. “Jesse, Fern invited her to come because she needed a little extra help.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you noticed that Amos doesn’t seem himself lately?”
No, Jesse hadn’t. Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen Amos doing heavy fieldwork in the last few weeks, only hired hands. Did everybody know everything? “Is it his heart?”
“No, thank heavens. It’s a back injury. He’s in a lot of pain.”
“They could’ve just asked me for help. I do live there.”
“And yet you didn’t notice Amos hasn’t been himself?”
No.
“Jesse, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but it’s not all about you.”
“I know that.” Sort of.
“Son, what all are you doing for other people?”
“Building and repairing buggies.” He lifted his eyes to the barn rafters. “I’m thinking of getting a sign built for the repair shop: Stoltzfus Buggies. Built to Last. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Maybe one day your grandchildren will be talking about Stoltzfus buggies.”
His father winced. “I don’t mean what you’re doing for a profit. Only what you’re doing for others out of kindness.”
Jesse felt his shirt collar grow tight. This physical response to uncomfortable moments was becoming a habit. “Speaking of buggies, I’d better get back to the business.”
“Son. Hold up. It feels pretty nice to do something good for someone else. There’s nothing like service to get our minds off ourselves.”
The direction of this conversation had veered off into an entirely different direction than Jesse had planned. “Right.”
“Jesse, has it occurred to you that all service is worship?”
Oh no. Jesse could sense a sermon about to unfold. One of the many drawbacks of having a father who was a bishop. Sermons seemed to be at the ready, on the top of his mind at all times, just waiting to be delivered to the helpless victim. Jesse lifted a finger in the air. “A scintillating topic for another time. I’m off before Fern goes looking for me. She’s been threatening sudden death if I don’t fix her buggy’s storm front wipers by the time the next rain rolls in. And you know as well as I do, inclement weather can hit at any moment.”
As he flung open the barn door, he had to blink hard and fast against the too bright, too hot summer sun.
Ed Gingerich walked into Dok’s office unannounced and unexpected, raised his eyebrows, and gave her a Have-I-got-a-surprise-for-you smile, one of his facial expressions that Dok found hard to resist. “I’ve been searching everywhere for you.”
Odd. He knew where she was.
He waved two airline tickets in the air. “You. Me. New York City. This weekend.”
“Ed, you do understand what I’m in the middle of, right?”
There was a long silence, long enough that Dok thought perhaps Ed hadn’t heard her, and she was about to repeat it when he said, “There’s nobody in the waiting room. You aren’t in the middle of anything but an empty practice.” He walked toward her. “Come on, what’s one weekend?” He was giving her his sensitive expression now, which she also liked. Ed did have a sweetness to him, although it appeared only rarely.
This one weekend . . . it was Emily’s and Lydie’s birthday, and Dok was going to do blood pressure screening at the Bent N’ Dent on Saturday morning. And then there was church on Sunday. She hadn’t been to church in far too long. Dok needed the weekend, to keep moving forward. “I’m sorry, Ed. I can’t. I do appreciate the gesture, though.”
“You’re still mad about that little girl’s appendix. You blame me for getting fired.”
“No. Honestly, I’m not mad. I would tell you if I were.”
“Look, Ruth, I blew it. I admit it. I’m trying to make it up to you. Why do you have to make it so difficult?”
What kind of an apology was that? His terms only, that’s what. “Ed, if you really want to make it up to me, then stay here this weekend and help me finish setting up my practice. Go with me to my nieces’ birthday party. You’ve never had time to spend with my family. You’ve got a free weekend. Spend it with me, here in Stoney Ridge.”
He fixed an intense gaze on her. “They’re pulling you back in, aren’t they?”
“Who’s they?”
A horse and buggy rolled by her window and he pointed at it. “Them.”
She let out a laugh. “That’s what you think this is all about?” She swept a hand around her office. “You think I’m feeling tugged back to the Amish?”
“I do. I’ve seen it coming for a while. Using Penn Dutch with patients at the hospital, becoming known in the ER as Dok. There’s something inside you that won’t let it go.”
“Let me get this straight. You think I should let it go?”
“Absolutely. You’ll never be the doctor you’re meant to be if you stay out here in this cow pasture, treating uneducated farmers and their bounteous offspring.”
No matter how wrong he was, he was right.
Something had to change between Ed and her. The more time she spent away from him, the more clearly she could see the problems they had.
She tried to keep her voice calm and controlled, though she wanted to smack him. “Ed, have yourself a great weekend in New York City.”
A startled look came over his face. He wasn’t accustomed to being dismissed. He walked to her door and turned back at the jamb. “I will.”
The kitchen smelled strongly of the sour tang of vinegar. Ruthie wrinkled her nose and glanced around, and that was when she noticed Birdy half in and half out of the oven. Her hands were clad in yellow rubber gloves up to the elbow, and she was vigorously scrubbing the interior of the oven with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar.
It hadn’t been easy for Ruthie to relinquish being the female head of the household to Birdy, but she didn’t miss oven cleaning. Or cooking. Or gardening. Or shepherding her little sisters. Now that she thought about it, there were a lot of things that Birdy took care of that Ruthie would never miss.
Birdy craned her head around and lit up at the sight of Ruthie, cheerful as all get-out. How could anyone be so relentlessly cheerful? Wringing her sponge out in the vinegar and baking soda solution, she returned her attention to scrubbing the oven door.
Ruthie hoisted herself lightly onto the countertop. “Birdy, have I ever told you I’m glad you married my dad?”
Birdy froze. She put the sponge down and slowly rose to her full height, 6’2”. Her face started to crumple and Ruthie thought she might be trying to hold back a sneeze—which wouldn’t have surprised her because the vinegar odor was that strong. But no! Birdy’s eyes flooded with tears. She was crying.
“Oh Birdy! I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset,” Birdy said, wiping tears off her cheeks with her yellow rubber gloves. “These are tears of joy.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you for telling me that, Ruthie. You’ve just . . . well, you’ve made my day.” She patted her hand over her heart. Then—back to work!—she took another gulp of air and dove back into the oven to continue giving it a thorough scrub down.
Ruthie sat on the counter, watching Birdy, startled that she was so oddly moved by the compliment. She was so happy, Birdy was. So content. She didn’t have huge goals for herself, other than encouraging everyone to become bird-watchers, but she had the ability to focus on whatever task lay before her. Like now. She was zeroing in on that oven like it was the most important job in the world.
But at the same time, Birdy didn’t force anything. She waited for it.
Let things come to me instead of rushing at them as I usually do.
Patrick’s journal entry danced through her mind, and suddenly she understood what he meant by it.
Birdy let things come to her; she didn’t rush at them. She had a sense about what it would take to be a stepmother, a job that couldn’t be easy. She met each girl where they were, and offered them what they wanted from her. Nothing more. The twins needed a mother, Molly did too. Ruthie didn’t want a mother and Birdy respected that. She never talked down to Ruthie, and gave her the space she needed. Somehow, Birdy seemed capable of absorbing whatever came her way with a gracious acceptance.
A few years ago, Birdy’s brother Freeman—at the time, he was the bishop before the big scandal blew him right out of the job—insisted that she quit her job at the Wild Bird Rescue Center, something she loved, and become a teacher. Birdy had zero desire to teach but she stepped up to the task. It wasn’t easy for her, Ruthie remembered, especially with Luke Schrock pulling pranks in the classroom that were often targeted at Birdy. But she persevered and, in the end, she was beloved.
Birdy didn’t trouble herself with trying to be important or significant. Oddly enough, she was.
“A man’s heart deviseth his way, but the Lord directeth his steps.” Ruthie thought of her father’s words from their talk the other night. It means that whatever we think might be the right direction for us, the right path, God has the final say.
Ruthie had a sinking feeling. She did not want to teach school next year. She didn’t want to do it.
Not at all.
Early Saturday morning, Dok opened the door to the practice and propped it open with a box to get some fresh air in the waiting room. She had just turned on her computer in her office when a voice called out, “Hey there, Dok.”
Dok walked out to the waiting room. It took her a second to recognize Matt Lehman because he wasn’t in uniform, nor was he in a suit and tie like the one he wore to church. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Normally, he seemed so serious, so official. Today, he looked kind of . . . casual. Kind of cute, actually. “I’m here to build those shelves you said you needed for your supply closet.” He lifted his toolbox in one hand, and in the other hand was a caffè latte. He handed the coffee to her as he passed by, heading straight to the supply room.
She followed right on his heels, assuming he wouldn’t know where she had stashed the shelving kits, but he found them in her office, grabbed them, hoisted them over his shoulder, and walked to the supply closet. He got right to work, tackling the shelving kits she had bought that promised to be easy for a novice to put together, but proved impossible. They worked together companionably for the rest of the morning. She talked about one of the cases she’d had this week—three children with snakebites from running barefoot through cornfields. He told her about the camping trip to Yellowstone he had planned with his favorite cousins. “It’s taken six months of planning,” Matt explained. “We had to get special permits to go camping.”
As she watched him bolt the heavy shelving pieces together, she wondered why he hadn’t remarried after his wife died. And how had she died? She had no idea. Birdy would know Matt’s backstory.
By lunchtime, he had built sturdy floor-to-ceiling shelving for her. As he packed up his toolbox, she offered to pay him for his time, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He didn’t even press her to go out with him, as she thought he might. He just wanted to help, he said.
Matt was simply the best, truest, most excellent guy.
“Matt,” she said, as he started toward the door. “Come with me to Emily and Lydie’s birthday party this afternoon.”
His grin could have lit the room.
David Stoltzfus chopped the corn off each cob, picked fresh from Birdy’s kitchen garden, and sautéed it in a large frying pan, adding butter and salt, stirring until the corn was tender. David knew that if any male church member arrived at the door and found their bishop standing at the cookstove with an apron pinned around his waist, bushy eyebrows would be raised in alarm. But David liked to cook, was a better cook than all five of his daughters, though Molly showed promise in the kitchen. And quite frankly, he had always liked to be in the kitchen. It was something else he appreciated about his wife: she gave him the space to do the things he liked to do. Some wives would chase a man out of the kitchen. Birdy welcomed him in.
Today, he was making Emily and Lydie’s annual birthday meal, which always coincided with the ripening of the first sweet corn of the summer. The entire meal had a corn theme: sautéed corn, creamed corn, corn fritters, corn pudding. Even a cornbread cake.
His daughters had been talking about it for days and had invited Patrick to attend, as long as he brought Nyna the Mynah. When Patrick arrived, he prompted Nyna to sing “Happy Birthday.” David’s daughters squealed with delight, as ear piercing as Nyna. Patrick said he had just taught it to Nyna that morning. He said he had discovered that her short-term memory was best—she could mimic best what she learned that day. “But if I don’t keep up her vocabulary,” Patrick said, “she loses it.” They practiced every day and Nyna knew over one hundred words.
Amazing!
But David decided that if he had to spend a lot of time around Nyna the Mynah, he would have to start wearing winter earmuffs. She spewed out constant noise—screeches and whistles and words.
Dok and Matt Lehman had arrived with gifts for the girls, which set off more squeals of delight. As the girls showed off Nyna to Matt, and as David and Birdy finished up with meal preparation, Dok asked Patrick how he enjoyed being around the Amish.
“I quite like it in Stoney Ridge”—and here Patrick turned to look directly at Ruthie—“Everyone’s been so extraordinarily kind to me.”
David turned toward Ruthie, expecting some snappy retort—“See how you feel about being Amish in the middle of a winter storm when you realize your buggy doesn’t have a car heater” or “Talk to me after you’ve handwashed five hundred dishes after a funeral”—but she was preoccupied doing something he would never have anticipated.
Ruthie was blushing.