Lavinia stared at him. She was relieved he was awake and obviously not suffering from all the things she had imagined a head injury could cause.
And she could tell that even despite all he’d gone through, that humor she loved about him seemed to still be there. There might be a look of puzzlement on that handsome face of his, but she heard the teasing tone in his voice.
So she called on the drama skills she’d perfected in schul plays and worked up tears and made her lips tremble. “You don’t?”
That threw him off balance. He stared at her, looking uncertain. “I—nee.”
She laughed and then sobered and felt her lips tremble for real. “We’re not. I lied yesterday. The paramedics assumed I was your fraa, and it was the only way I could come with you in the ambulance and be here until I could call your eldres.”
“Then I owe you my thanks.”
“I don’t want your thanks. We’re friends. You’d have done the same for me if I’d been hurt and my familye was out of town.”
She stood and paced the room, then turned to look at him. “I didn’t know what else to do. Now I’m going to have to confess to what I’ve done.”
“Perhaps you could wait to do that.”
“Wait?”
He nodded, then winced as the movement brought pain. “I want you to be able to visit. If your not being a member of my familye means you can’t visit, maybe you could wait on that confession.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “Do you want me to come see you?”
“I do.” He yawned and looked like he was having trouble staying awake.
A nurse came to the door and tapped the watch on her wrist. Lavinia nodded. She turned to tell Abe that she had to leave for a while, but he’d already fallen asleep.
She walked over and picked up her purse, which she’d set beside the chair, but she couldn’t resist going back to the bed and stroking the thick mahogany-colored hair back from Abe’s strong, handsome face. It was something she’d always wanted to do.
With a sigh, she drew her hand back, walked out of the room, and made her way to the waiting room. She’d have time for one more visit before she had to go to work.
“Lavinia! There you are!” Waneta Stoltzfus rushed in, followed by her mann, Faron, who was moving slower and leaning heavily on a cane. “We got here as quickly as we could!”
She stood. “Abe will be happy to see you. He woke up this morning and he’s talking normally. The doctor seemed very encouraged.”
Waneta’s round face was drawn and pale. She took a deep breath. “We stopped in here before we went to the nurse’s station, since you said you’d be here.”
“Abe’s still in the ICU, and they’re only allowing short visits right now. Just fifteen minutes.” She paused, bit her lip. “Abe was feeling very discouraged about not being able to feel his legs when he woke up.”
Waneta swayed, but when Faron wrapped his arm around her waist, she insisted he sit down before she would take a seat.
“We talked about this on the way here,” he murmured to his fraa as Lavinia rushed to get her a cup of water from the cooler in the corner of the room.
“I wanted it to be a bad dream,” Waneta said, taking the cup from Lavinia and sipping.
“He’s doing so much better than I expected,” Lavinia assured her.
She didn’t tell the woman she’d been afraid Abe wouldn’t wake. Waneta didn’t need to hear it. Abe’s eldres were older than her own, in their sixties, and Faron had become frail the last couple years after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
“Give yourself a few minutes to catch your breath, and then I’ll take you to the nurse’s station. When you see Abe, I think you’ll feel better.”
“Danki, Lavinia.” Waneta patted her hand. “Abe was so lucky you were there to get him help. Who knows how long he might have lain there until someone came by.” She glanced at her mann. “Just like his dat did before his MS, climbing up on the roof without having someone near. Always thinking he can do everything by himself.”
“Now, Waneta, I never fell off the roof, did I?” he asked with a grin.
“Nee, or who knows how bad your MS would be now?” she said with a shake of her head. She took a deep breath and tossed the paper cup in the wastepaper basket. “Let’s go see our sohn.”
Lavinia sat on the chair next to her and took her hand. “Waneta, I don’t want you to be alarmed when you see Abe. He got banged up quite a bit, and it was a bit of a shock for me to see him the first time. And when he woke, he was so scared when he couldn’t feel his legs. But we have to hold out hope for him. We need to remind him the doctor feels it’s temporary.”
Waneta met her gaze levelly. “I understand, dear one. But I think as a mudder, this is kind of what I expected for years while raising a rambunctious bu.” She gave Faron a tremulous smile. “He’d tell you that. It’s just a lot later than I thought it would happen.”
She got to her feet. “And I do believe the paralysis is temporary. I’ve been praying hard since you called us, and I do believe God listens.”
Lavinia stood and hugged her. “I do as well.”
She walked with them to the nurse’s station, watching the way Waneta matched Faron’s slower pace. She saw them exchange a loving look as they approached the station and thought how wunderbaar it must be to have a partner to face life with.
“These are Abe’s parents, Waneta and Faron Stoltzfus,” she told the nurse.
She beamed at them. “Nice to meet you. Abe’s woken up several times this morning, and the doctor’s very encouraged. Let me take you in to see him. I’m afraid we have to limit visits to fifteen minutes, and no more than two of you at a time.”
“I’ll wait for you,” Lavinia told them.
She returned to the waiting room and called her mudder to tell her she was going to be a little late. “Abe’s eldres just got here. I’d like to stay a little while longer to talk to them.”
“No problem,” her mudder told her. “It’s a little slow at the shop. I’m glad they got there safely. You stay with them and take care of anything they need. I know Faron’s not in the best of shape with his MS. The stress of hearing about Abe and the bus ride can’t have been easy on him. Let me know if you feel you need to stay at the hospital the rest of the day.”
“Danki, Mamm.”
After she hung up, Lavinia fixed herself a cup of hot tea and sat waiting for Abe’s eldres to return.
When they came back into the room, Lavinia’s heart sank. They looked older somehow. Waneta’s lips were trembling, and she barely made it into the room before she burst into tears.
Lavinia snatched up the box of tissues from a nearby table and rushed over to her.
“I didn’t cry when I saw him,” Waneta sobbed. She took a handful of tissues and mopped at the tears streaming from her eyes. “I was afraid I would upset him. But I didn’t cry.”
“You did gut,” Faron told her as he patted her hand.
When she saw him begin to weave on his feet, Lavinia quickly urged him to sit down.
“Can I get you some coffee?” she asked.
They nodded, so Lavinia went to the machine on the beverage table and poured it.
“Waneta? Sugar? Cream?”
“Two sugars, just a little cream.”
“Black, danki,” Faron told her.
The coffee seemed to revive them a little.
“When’s the last time you two ate?” she asked them.
Waneta shrugged. “Our schwardochder packed us some sandwiches and coffee for the trip,” she said vaguely.
Her mudder had told her to take care of them. She knew what she needed to do. But before she could, a nurse stuck her head in the door and looked at Lavinia.
“Mrs. Stoltzfus? I wanted you to know that we’re taking your husband for some tests. He’ll be gone from his room for a while.”
“Thank you.”
She watched the woman hurry away, then looked at Waneta and Faron. Their gazes were avid on her. “It’s a long story. Well, maybe not that long,” she amended. “Let’s go get something to eat in the cafeteria.”
* * *
“We won’t be gone long,” Susan, his nurse, assured him as she pushed his bed down the hall. “Then you can see your family again.”
He frowned. While he’d been glad to see them, it had been so hard to watch them try to hide how scared they were when they walked into his hospital room.
“So, your mother said she and your father have been out of town visiting relatives,” Susan went on cheerfully, nodding at other staff as she passed them. “It’s nice to get away this time of year when it’s so hot.”
He remembered how hot it had been fixing the roof before he fell off. And summer was far from over.
But he wouldn’t be climbing up on that roof anytime soon. He knew Wayne and other men in the community would be taking care of his farm while he was in the hospital. But what about after he got out? The doctor said he thought that the paralysis was probably temporary, but feeling hadn’t come back yet. And even when it did, how long would it take for his broken arm to heal? Just how long could others take over his responsibilities, especially when it was the busiest time of year for farmers as harvest neared?
The nurse stopped at an elevator and they waited. “Sorry it’s taking so long,” she said. “It’s always slower in the daytime when more staff and visitors are using them.”
“It’s not like I have anywhere to go.”
She nodded sympathetically. “It’s hard being down when you’re active. You’re a dairy farmer, right? Bet that’s a lot of work.”
“It is.”
The elevator doors slid open with a pinging noise. “Here we go.”
They went down several floors, and when they exited the elevator, she took him into a section labeled MRI Diagnostic. There, two male technicians helped transfer him to a machine that reminded him of a tunnel. He was strapped in and told he had to lie still. He wanted to ask them if they were joking, but he could see they weren’t.
“What kind of music do you like?” one asked, and then he frowned. “Sorry, are you allowed music?”
“We sing hymns.”
“Hmm. How about I put on some Christian music? It’ll help you relax.”
“Sure.”
The music wasn’t familiar, and it didn’t really help him relax, but it did seem to tune out the weird sound the machine made.
The test seemed to take forever. He wondered what Lavinia and his eldres were doing. He felt guilty for the time everyone was spending on him. If he got back to being himself, he was going to find some way to repay Lavinia, his eldres, his helper Wayne, and the church members for all the time and the worry.
At last, the music and the machine noises stopped, and the technicians transferred him back to his hospital bed. Then he had to wait for the nurse to come for him.
“So sorry, we had an emergency on the floor,” she said when she rushed in. “I bet you can’t wait to get back in your room and have some lunch.”
“It’s no problem.”
She pushed the bed toward the elevator. “I know the food’s probably not as good as what you’re used to, but we try. And maybe I can stretch your visit with your family a little longer to make it up to you.”
“Thanks.” He yawned.
“So how’d you do?”
“Okay. Fell asleep for the last part of it.”
“I couldn’t do it the time I had to have one. Too claustrophobic.”
The elevator opened and she pushed the bed inside. The doors closed and the elevator began moving.
“You keep doing as well as you are, and we’ll lose you to a regular unit in no time.”
He wanted to ask her how long he’d be here, but the nurses always answered his questions with, “Ask the doctor.” He hoped that was because it was hospital policy for them not to answer such questions and not because they didn’t want to discourage him by telling him he’d be with them a long time.
Susan chatted easily as she pushed the bed from the elevator toward his room. He didn’t know where she got her boundless energy and optimism. It didn’t seem to flag, even through twelve-hour shifts of caring for seriously ill or injured people like him.
“Now, let’s get you all hooked up again, and then you choose: quick visit with your family or lunch first?”
“Family.”
She beamed. “I knew you’d say that.” She worked quickly to attach the monitors to the machines that blinked and beeped, then hurried out of the room.
A few minutes later, his eldres walked in. Abe thought they looked a little better than they had earlier. He wanted to ask where Lavinia was but figured it would sound rude—as if he wasn’t happy to see them.
“So how was your test?” his mudder wanted to know. “I hope they didn’t stick a bunch of needles in you.”
“Nee, just put me in this big machine that made strange noises. I still managed to fall asleep for part of it.”
“Rest is what you need so your body can heal,” she told him.
“Bu used to spend too much time sleeping,” his dat said with a snort as he sat down on a chair by the bed.
Abe thought his dat looked thinner and frailer than he had when he and his mudder left for their trip. He felt a stab of guilt thinking how hard the bus trip must have been on him.
“That was years ago when he was a teenager, Faron,” Waneta responded as she brushed Abe’s hair back from his forehead. “Can I get you anything?”
“Just hand me that cup of water, please?”
“Schur.”
She insisted on holding the cup while he sipped from the straw. He wanted to tell her that his hands worked fine—or at least one of them did. It was his legs that weren’t cooperating.
He glanced at the doorway when he heard a cart being pushed past the room. It was loaded with lunch trays.
Waneta noticed his gaze shift from the cup. “Lavinia insisted on taking us down to the cafeteria and buying us lunch.”
“That was nice.”
“Ya. That was right after the nurse came in and called her Mrs. Stoltzfus,” Faron said.
Abe choked on a mouthful of water and reddened. His mudder moved the cup away from him and frowned in concern. “You allrecht?”
He took a deep breath. “Ya. About that.”
“Don’t tease the bu, Faron,” Waneta admonished as she used a tissue to dab at the water on Abe’s chin.
“But it’s fun,” he muttered as he met Abe’s gaze.
“Don’t mind your dat. Lavinia explained everything.” Waneta glanced at the clock, then walked over to Faron and held out her hand. “We need to go.”
“We just got here.”
“Nurse said fifteen minutes, and it’s been fifteen minutes. We can come back in a little while.”
Faron got to his feet and patted Abe’s hand before walking out of the room.
A few minutes later, Lavinia stuck her head in the door. “I thought I’d just come say hi before I go to work.”
She had to go to work. Of course she couldn’t sit around all day just so she could come in for the short visits the hospital was allowing. He felt his spirits plummet. “Come in.”
“I got you something to keep you company,” she said as she walked up to his bed and handed him a small bag from the hospital gift shop.
He reached into it and pulled out a black-and-white-spotted stuffed cow with a silly grin on its face. The tag on her collar proclaimed she was Molly Moo Cow.
A laugh escaped him as he stared at it. “Looks a little like Bessie.”
“I thought so, too.”
“Can you stay a few minutes? Molly’s great, but she’s not as gut as a visit with a fraa.”
Lavinia blushed as she sat down in the chair beside the bed. “About that.”