THE AFTERNOON HAD begun much as usual in the woodworking shop. Matt had gone out on a delivery and John was helping his daed with the biscuit joinery on an oak desk that an English woman had requested to match her primitive kitchen.
It was quiet but for the turn of a lathe here and there, and John knew his fater was thinking of his leaving the next day.
John wanted to say something, to explain somehow, but no words would come. Then his daed said softly, “A true pleasure it’s been working with you, sohn, all of these years.”
John felt emotion choke his throat. “Danki, Daed. I feel the same.”
“But Samuel will give you a truly authentic experience with the wood that I cannot. Lumbering is tough business, but you’ve got the back for it and . . .”
John looked up from his work to see a strange expression on his fater’s face.
“Daed, what is it?”
“My—chest,” his fater breathed, dropping his tool and suddenly sinking to his knees.
John thrust the desk out of the way and slowly eased his daed back on the wood shavings of the ground.
“It’s going to be all right, Daed,” he soothed, opening a few buttons of his fater’s shirt. “I’ll let Mamm know and go get help.”
“Don’t—don’t upset your mother,” his daed managed to say, and John decided to make the run for the phone shack without wasting time stopping inside the house. He prayed as he ran, knowing that the Holy Spirit made intercession for him as he could barely concentrate beyond a few words.
It was then that the storm had begun in earnest, and he was soaked by the time he reached the shack and grabbed the dark green rotary phone receiver. He dialed 911 with trembling fingers and connected to the dispatcher. He hardly recognized the voice that came out of him as he explained the situation and named the address.
At that moment Tabitha had opened the door.
His heart leapt even more into a tumult as he gazed into her blue eyes, but now the dispatcher was telling him an ambulance was on its way.
“I’ve got to get back,” he gasped, hanging up the phone.
“I’ll run with you,” Tabitha said. “He’s going to be all right, John.”
He nodded and took her outstretched hand, and then they ran together back over the sodden field.
They got to the workshop just as the wails of a siren could be heard in the distance. John dropped to the ground near his fater, relieved and deeply thankful to see that he was still breathing. Tabitha ran into the house and now brought his mamm and Esther as the ambulance swung into the lane and jostled to a stop, spewing mud.
And then John watched as his fater was loaded onto a stretcher and carried to the ambulance. His mamm and Esther insisted on traveling with the crew to the hospital.
“I’ll stay here and tell Matt, and then I’ll get a van ride in,” John called as the rear doors closed on his mamm’s anxious face. Then he stood, aware of Tabitha next to him in the pelting downpour, feeling as though the sky itself was weeping with him as he prayed.
“Child!” Elizabeth exclaimed. “Where have you been?”
Tabby had come shivering in through the back door just as Beth was getting supper on the table.
“Runnin’ around with that Miller buwe, no doubt,” Fram growled.
Elizabeth wheeled herself over to Tabby and caught one of the girl’s cold hands in both of her own.
“Daniel Miller had a heart attack. They took him by ambulance to Lancaster General Hospital.”
“Ach, the poor family! We must pray—”
“Not before supper,” Fram called.
Elizabeth ignored her bruder and bent her head, praying on the spot for the Miller family. When she was through, Tabby leaned down to kiss her cheek.
“Danki, Aenti Beth.”
“Of course, my dear. You’ll see . . . everything will be as Derr Herr wills. Now, run and change out of those wet things and I’ll keep a plate warm for you. It’s chicken pot pie and fresh brown bread.”
Elizabeth watched her niece nod and walk quickly to the stairs.
“I need my supper,” Fram insisted, tapping his knife and fork handles on the surface of the wooden table like a petulant child.
Elizabeth sighed and wheeled round and into the kitchen to begin serving the meal.
She took her own serving once Fram was settled and began to eat, still praying inside for the Miller family.
“You know, Lizzie, it beats me how you can cook so gut but never caught yourself a husband. Though I suppose that chair would be a burden to any man.”
Beth continued to chew, opting for “a quiet answer turning away wrath” as her defense.
But Fram rambled on. “’Course it could be that you’re always willing to settle for someone else to have what you might . . . take when grossmuder died—sure, you got the house and land, but what is it really worth? And that auld recipe box . . . remember how she treated that like a treasure? She said you had to pick who it goes to before you die . . . imagine, a recipe box! You might as well bury it with you, Lizzie, ’cause I’ll have no use for it, truth to tell.”
Elizabeth looked up from her plate, longing inside to lob a piece of brown bread at her bruder’s gray head, but then she composed herself. “It’s good, Fram, that you enjoy my cooking. I’ll miss your—uh—compliments when you go back to Ohio.”
“Well, as to that, I thought I’d stay on for a while.”
Beth closed her eyes for a moment, listening to him chew like a jackrabbit, then looked at him squarely.
“That will be fine, Fram. Just fine.”
Tabitha knelt by her bed in her wet clothes and prayed for John’s fater. She had never seen someone look so poorly, so awfully pale, and it scared her inside. She was afraid Daniel Miller might die.
She’d had experiences with death in her young life but had never gazed upon someone so sick. It gave her a consciousness of the brevity of life and the preciousness of every moment. She longed to share this with John, tell him that she loved him. But she knew she could not, especially not now with his father so ill.
“Derr Herr, please show me how to minister to John, to share my love with him without a word. Sei se gut, please Fater. . .” She bowed her head for a moment, and then the spark of an idea came to her, bright and light as a flame. And she knew what she would do.
The English surgeon looked grave as he approached John and his family in the waiting room of the hospital.
“You’re the Miller family?” the man asked.
“Ya. . . yes,” John answered, standing for a moment to shake hands with the other man.
“I’m Dr. Caulder. I operated on your father, but it was a bit tricky. His aortic vessel is displaced, probably a congenital defect and—”
“I’m sorry, Doctor Caulder,” John interrupted, seeing the confusion on his family’s faces. “But could you speak—uh—English, please? We don’t understand . . .”
The doctor smiled. “I’m sorry. I get carried away. Basically, your husband, your father, will need to spend some more time in the hospital. We’ll need to run more tests, see if another surgery is possible, and then he’ll have rehabilitation or services that will build up his strength to get him back home.”
“How long?” John’s mamm asked timidly.
“I don’t know . . . several weeks perhaps—perhaps less. He’s a strong man, and I expect he’ll do well. Thank you all.”
Dr. Caulder left in his light blue surgeon’s clothes, leaving John with an impression of how weak man’s power was compared to the glory and strength of Derr Herr. He turned to his family.
“Daed will be well to bring glory to Derr Herr,” he said with quiet strength.
But his mamm shook her head. “But you cannot know for sure, John, You must think as Derr Herr wills.”
John smiled and lifted his head. “But we must have faith as well, Mamm. And I will use my faith, as we all should, to believe that Gott will heal Daed.”
His mother nodded slowly. “Ya, perhaps you are right, John, and I will do as you say.”
“Excuse me.” An English woman in a light pink skirt and top approached them. John noticed she was wearing a hospital badge. “Are you the Miller family?”
John rose once more to make introductions.
The woman smiled warmly. “I’d like you all to know that the hospital has a hospitality suite—free rooms to stay overnight while your husband is here. It would make it much easier on you than traveling, I think.”
“Ach. . .” John’s mamm breathed a sigh of relief. “What a blessing. I would want to stay, and John, what do you think of Esther staying with me?”
John smiled and nodded. “Of course.” He knew what a comfort Esther was to his mamm. “Matt and I can batch it for a while. It’ll improve our cooking skills.”
He put an arm around his mother and looked deep into her eyes. “It will be well, Mamm. I know.
She rested her head briefly on his chest, and he met Esther’s worried eyes over the top of his mamm’s head.
“All right,” he murmured again, and Esther nodded.
Then the pleasant hospital worker led them through a myriad of halls to a comfortable suite where John felt reassured at leaving his family in peace.