Lavinia felt giddy riding the elevator down from Abe’s room.
Abe was feeling something in his legs!
She’d been in the room when his doctor had come in with a big grin, saying, “I told you so!”
“It’s only a sort of a tingling,” Abe explained as the doctor approached the bed. “I thought Lavinia was tickling my foot when she put a sock on it.”
Lavinia slipped from the room while the doctor performed an exam. When she was allowed back in, she could have sworn Abe was blinking hard to hold back tears.
She would’ve liked to stay longer, but she’d asked Liz to pick her up at eight p.m. and she had to hurry to make it to the front door of the hospital on time.
Liz was waiting and grinning at her when she climbed inside the van. “Well, you’re in a good mood.”
She nodded. “Abe is doing well. We hope he’ll get to go home soon. Maybe end of the week.”
Then she fell silent. She didn’t feel she should say more. She’d been taught from childhood that discussing personal things wasn’t done, and besides, this was Abe’s business. Only her familye and Abe’s knew that the fall had caused temporary paralysis.
“You let me know if I can be of help driving him home, all right? My treat.”
“That’s very generous of you. I’ll tell Abe. I know he’s looking forward to being back home.”
She watched the passing scenery and debated stopping by Waneta and Faron’s house to talk to them.
“Liz, would you mind dropping me off at Abe’s house instead of mine? I think I’ll visit with his parents for a few minutes before I go home tonight.”
“Sure.”
Liz glanced in the rearview mirror and their gazes met. Then Liz glanced back at the road.
Lavinia figured that the woman guessed something was going on, since she didn’t usually ask to be taken to Abe’s house. But the Englisch who drove the Amish respected their privacy and didn’t ask personal questions.
As Liz pulled up at Abe’s house, Lavinia felt her heart beat faster. She fairly jumped out of the van the minute Liz stopped, and then felt herself blushing when she turned back and handed her the fare.
Liz just grinned. “See you tomorrow morning!”
“Tomorrow!”
She started up the walk to the house, but Liz tapped on her horn. When Lavinia turned around, Liz pointed to the back seat. Lavinia looked in the window and saw her lunch tote sitting there. Now she was really embarrassed. She collected it, said thanks, and walked up to the house. Usually she just called out as she entered, but since it was getting dark and they weren’t expecting her, Lavinia knocked.
Waneta opened the door. “Lavinia! What a surprise.” She threw open the door. “Abe just called to tell us the wunderbaar news!” She hugged Lavinia, then called over her shoulder, “Faron! Lavinia’s here!”
“Well, have her come on in!” he yelled from the back of the house.
“We were just having a snack in the kitchen,” Waneta told her as she shut the door. She kept her arm around Lavinia’s waist as they walked to the kitchen.
“I was hoping you and Faron were still up.”
The older woman chuckled. “Lavinia, it’s not late.”
Faron looked up with a smile as he sat at the kitchen table. “So we finally got some gut news, eh?”
She nodded and smiled. “I wanted to make schur you knew.”
Waneta urged her into a chair. “Sit. I’ll make you a cup of tea.” She walked over to the stove to turn the gas on under the kettle. “We’re just so grateful for all you’ve done to help our sohn.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she said quickly. “But there is something I’d like to do. I wanted to see what you thought about it.”
They listened, absorbed, as she began to tell them of her plan. Waneta held up her hand to pause Lavinia when the teakettle whistled. She quickly made a cup of tea for Lavinia and then resumed her seat. “Go on,” she urged.
They both beamed at her when she finished. Lavinia drank the tea and then stood. “I need to get home. I’ll call you tomorrow and we can talk some more.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Waneta said, and heaved herself to her feet. She turned and gave Faron a look. “And no more cookies.”
He held up his hands. “Haven’t touched them.”
Waneta rolled her eyes. “Now you can’t say Abe ate them like you always do,” she said as they started out of the kitchen.
“Woman counts them in the cookie jar,” Faron complained as they walked out of the room.
Lavinia thought she heard the scrape of a chair, the clank of pottery.
“Ya,” Waneta said with a grin when Lavinia glanced at her. “He’s in the cookie jar again. I hate to warn you, dear, but men don’t grow up.”
She chuckled, and as Lavinia left their house, her mind raced. Now that they’d approved what she had in mind, she needed to get others on board.
She hurried to get home and talk to her own eldres.
* * *
Abe woke up feeling like ants were crawling all over his legs.
He tried to raise himself in his bed and slap at them, but with his broken arm still on the pulley, it was just too awkward. Desperate, he hit the call button for his nurse and asked for help.
Doreen came in a few minutes later. “Ants? Oh my goodness.”
“They’re crawling on both legs, but the right one seems worse.”
She peeled back the sheet and blanket covering his leg and inspected it. “No ants. I think it’s the tingling getting worse. I know it’s irritating, but it’s a good sign, remember? Feeling is coming back.” She covered his leg again and gave him an encouraging smile. “I can get some lotion and put it on your legs if you want, but the feeling you’re having is inside, not on your skin.”
He shook his head. “No, thanks. Sorry to bother you.”
“No bother at all. You’re doing physical therapy this morning, right? That’ll help some as they get the circulation moving.”
“Then it’ll feel like bigger ants?”
She laughed. “Let’s hope not. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
He glanced at the clock. It was way too early for Lavinia to visit.
“I know boredom’s the worst part of being here. But you won’t be our guest for much longer.”
Inherent good manners kept him from saying he was glad for that. She left him to take care of other patients, and he tried to find something to take his mind off the ants.
Breakfast came. He poked at it. His appetite was off. No doubt it would pick up when he got home and his mudder—one of the best cooks in his community—cooked some of his favorites.
A staff member, a lanky young man who liked to talk about baseball, came to collect the tray and frowned. “Not a fan of sausage gravy on biscuits, eh?”
“Not real hungry today.
“I noticed you always order milk.”
“Grew up with it. I own a dairy farm.”
“That’s cool.” He jerked his head toward the stuffed cow Lavinia had bought him. “Your cows look like that?”
“Not exactly.” Looking at Molly, he found himself missing old Bessie, who was as cranky as she could be.
Two physical therapists came for him a few minutes later. Double trouble, he couldn’t help thinking. They performed their torture, and the crawling ants on his legs became biting flies.
The therapists beamed. “This means your body is healing itself,” one proclaimed, and the other nodded vigorously. “Nerve endings are waking up.”
By the time it was over, he was exhausted and sweaty. He was never so grateful for the male nurse who helped him clean himself since he couldn’t take a shower because of the cast. He wondered what he was going to do about bathing once he got home.
Worn out, he slept, then woke when something tickled his nose. He batted at it with his hand and it tickled again. He opened his eyes, and his dat was leaning over him, using the stuffed cow to tickle him.
“Faron, leave the bu alone,” he heard his mudder saying.
His dat just grinned at him. “It’s boring sitting here watching him sleeping away the day.”
“I’m awake,” he said, and his dat sat back in his chair, looking pleased.
His mudder stood and leaned over him to brush her lips against his cheek. “It was so gut to hear your news. Lavinia stopped by the house yesterday to make schur you’d called and we knew.”
“She did?”
Waneta nodded and sat again. “Such a sweet, considerate maedel.”
He nodded and glanced at the clock. He saw he’d slept two hours, but it would be hours still before Lavinia would be visiting.
“He’s counting the hours until he sees her,” his dat said.
Abe’s gaze flew to him. Was he that easy to read?
“I was a young man myself once,” Faron told him with a wink.
Waneta chuckled and patted her mann’s hand. “Many, many years ago.”
“Seems like yesterday.”
“Oh, Faron, when you say things like that, I remember what it was like to be a maedel.” She sighed and gave him a fond smile.
Abe had seen them showing their love for each other, but somehow it touched him more today than usual. He wanted this for himself—this love and support between a mann and his fraa. A bond that lasted decades through so many gut times and not-so-gut times, forged with love and faith.
Would he be able to recover enough to keep his farm afloat and to have a life one day with Lavinia?
“Abe? What’s going on in that busy mind of yours?” his mudder asked.
“Sorry. Just a little distracted.” He told them about the sensation of crawling ants, the physical therapy, and his concern about how he was going to manage when he got home.
“Well now, you know we’re going to be right there in the dawdi haus to help you, sohn.”
“I don’t want to be a burden, Mamm. You shouldn’t have to be taking care of me.”
“That’s what familye does, Abe. We help each other. And it won’t be long before you’re back on your feet.”
“Wayne is doing a fine job,” Faron added. “He said he can keep giving you the hours he’s been working while you’re here for as long as you need him.”
“That’s gut, but it’s not going to be easy to pay him if milk prices continue to fall.”
“Well, we’ll take it one day at a time and know God’s got a plan.”
She reached into her tote bag and pulled out a container. “I brought you a treat.”
He enjoyed the treat—chocolate chip cookies this time—and their visit. His mudder did most of the talking, like usual, but he enjoyed hearing what was going on in the community. They left when hospital staff began delivering supper trays.
They hadn’t been gone long when his doctor came in. “Well, are you looking forward to going home?”
“Am I ever!”
“How does tomorrow sound?”
“Tomorrow? I thought you said end of week.”
“Well, if you’re enjoying it here that much,” he teased.
“No! I want to go home!”
The doctor smiled. “Then let your family know they should expect to come bail you out of here around two or three o’clock tomorrow.” With that bit of good news, he turned to leave. He nodded as he passed Lavinia entering the room.
“You’ll never guess,” Abe said as she approached the bed. “The doctor just said I can go home tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Her steps faltered. “But—”
“I know. It was a surprise to me, too. I can’t wait to call my eldres and tell them. They left a little while ago.”
She sat and seemed quiet, but maybe that was because he couldn’t stop talking about how excited he was to be going home. He was disappointed when she didn’t stay as long as usual, but he understood when she said she wanted to go by his farm and see if his eldres needed any help getting things ready for him.
“Ready?”
“Well, you know, you’ll be staying in the downstairs front bedroom,” she said as she stood and picked up her purse. “I’ll make schur the bed’s made, whatever your mudder needs done.”
“Oh, ya, right.”
“Liz said she’d be happy to give you a ride home free of charge. So I’ll see you tomorrow at your house after work.”
“Two o’clock can’t come soon enough.”
“Two o’clock,” she repeated. “I’ll make schur they know.”
Abe lay wide awake most of the night, wondering if it was really going to happen…if he was really going to be discharged the next day.
Bright and early the next morning, his day nurse came in and began talking about him going home. His physical therapists visited for another session and explained that an outpatient physical therapist would visit him at home to continue the work.
It was really going to happen. He was going home.
And Lavinia showed up instead of his eldres. She said they stayed home to get things ready for him. He didn’t think that was necessary—all he figured they had to do was put sheets on the bed in the downstairs bedroom like she’d said the day before—but he was glad she’d come.
A nurse helped him into a wheelchair and pushed him in it as Lavinia walked alongside. Liz was waiting in her van in front of the hospital.
It was really happening. It was not a dream.
It seemed to Abe that Lavinia had an air of suppressed excitement about her. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes sparkled, and her hands fluttered as she talked to the nurse wheeling him to the front door of the hospital.
The automatic doors slid open, and as he was pushed toward Liz’s van, he took a deep breath. The day was warm and humid, but the air smelled fresh—not antiseptic like it did inside the hospital. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. It felt like freedom, even though he was still trapped in a body that wasn’t working normally for him and he had to ride in a wheelchair.
It took some doing, but he was helped inside the van and buckled in with the stuffed cow beside him on the seat and Lavinia in the front with Liz.
And then they were on their way. He leaned back against the seat, exhausted from the effort.
“Okay back there?” Liz asked.
“More than okay, thanks.”
Lavinia was quiet on the drive home, and Abe thought she seemed distracted. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Your parents will be so happy to see you.”
Before he knew it, Liz was pulling up in front of the farmhouse. Abe peered out his window, wondering why there were so many cars and buggies parked in the drive and people crowded on the lawn and porch.
And then he saw the banner stretched across the front porch. It read WELCOME HOME, ABE!