20

Breakfast was scorched scrambled eggs, orange juice with frozen lumps that hadn’t dissolved, and undercooked pancakes. There were rumblings of thunder and lightning, which meant the boys had to remain inside until school started.

And that meant that Mim couldn’t concentrate on her book. Luke and Sammy were stomping around their bedroom, which was next to Mim’s. They were like a hurricane, Mim thought. Those two would never stop joshing each other and trying to outdo each other. Finally, downstairs, Bethany had enough of the big thumping sounds. She told them to clean up their rooms and throw their collections out. Usually, Bethany barked commands that nobody obeyed. But she was serious about getting rid of those collections. She complained they were stinking up the whole upstairs and she couldn’t stand them one more minute. Those boys collected all kinds of things—anything useless. Birds’ feathers, pebbles, eggshells, snake skins, the skeleton of something that might be a bat. They were regular packrats.

The boys burst into Mim’s room without a knock. “We need you to make a sign for us,” Luke announced. Sammy nodded.

“What kind of a sign?”

“We want to sell stuff.”

“That’s ridiculous. No one will buy your useless stuff. It’s junk.”

Luke was insulted. “They might.”

She put down her book. “I’m all for you cleaning out your collections and I’m all for you making money, but you need to find a way to make your things desirable to someone else.”

Sammy brightened. “Like . . . buried treasure?”

She laughed. “Oh sure! Just tell folks you’re selling rare antiques and your junk will sell like that.” She snapped her fingers in the air. She was joking.

The boys looked at each other, then their faces lit up like firecrackers and they vanished back into their bedroom.

“I was joking!” she called out.

Later that night, Mim lit the small oil lamp on her desk. There were definitely moments when she missed flipping a switch and having electric lights, but she couldn’t deny that there was no pleasanter light than the soft glow of an oil lamp. She read once that whale oil gave off the nicest flame, but she didn’t know where a person would buy whale oil.

She couldn’t sleep tonight, not with her mother away in Philadelphia in a hospital with her grandmother. Too many worries bounced through her mind. Tomorrow would be a very big surgery for her grandmother. She might die. Mim hoped she wouldn’t die, but she might. In such important matters, Mim always felt it was best to prepare for the worst.

She uncovered the typewriter and polished her glasses. Then she set to work on answering Mrs. Miracle letters. She found the questions about love to be the trickiest to answer. Love was a mystery. How could she try to explain the shaky-excited feelings she got whenever she was in close proximity to Danny Riehl?

Dear Mrs. Miracle,

My boyfriend cheated on me. Should I cheat on him to teach him a lesson?

Signed,
Angry in Arizona

Dear Angry,

I am sorry to hear that your boyfriend had such bad judgment. But no, you should not cheat on him to teach him a lesson. Two wrongs don’t make a right. However, I do think you should break up with him and find a new boyfriend. A faithful one.

Very truly yours,
Mrs. Miracle

Satisfied, Mim pulled the letter out of the typewriter with a flourish and folded it. She typed the address on the envelope, put the folded letter inside, licked it, stamped it, and set it on her nightside table. Time for the next letter:

Dear Mrs. Miracle,

I would like to know, according to all your experience, if love can overcome everything.

Lonely in Love

Dear Lonely,

If love is true, it will overcome almost everything.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Miracle

Mim stopped and stared at the page. Wasn’t that the answer to her own dilemma? If Danny were her true love, then even if he moved away, that wouldn’t change anything, would it? She smiled. Mrs. Miracle had solved her problem. She took out a blank piece of paper, rolled it into the typewriter, and started typing . . .

Dear Mrs. Miracle,

My mother doesn’t see me. She doesn’t hear what I say. She thinks she does, but she doesn’t. She is busy with my grandmother, my sister, and my brothers. I would welcome your exceedingly wise counsel.

Very truly yours,
Miss Invisible

Mim pulled the paper out of the typewriter and held it up. To see a problem in black and white made it seem less like a conundrum and more like a situation waiting for a solution. Almost like a math formula. Not quite, but almost. No wonder she was so inspired in her new role as Mrs. Miracle.

Rose felt such a shock at the sight of Vera getting wheeled out for surgery that she had to steady herself against the wall. The pre-operative area was a large, busy room. Nurses and doctors were rushing here and there, machines beeped, worried families gathered in clumps and murmured quietly, gurneys slid by with patients on their way to surgery. One of those gurneys held Vera. Seeing her mother-in-law with head shaved, tubes going everywhere, a big IV bag filled with saline by her side—the sight made Rose’s stomach twist. For Vera’s sake, she tried not to let on how she felt. It was no time to be weak. She squeezed Vera’s hand as she walked alongside the gurney.

The orderly stopped the gurney at the operating door and gave a nod to Rose. “This is as far as you can go. Wish her well.”

Rose leaned over and brushed a tear leaking down Vera’s cheek. “I’ll be praying the entire time and I’ll be here when you get through it.”

Vera squeezed her eyes shut. “Dean’s the lucky one. He’s missed a lot of heartache.”

“He’s missed a lot of joy too.”

Vera opened her eyes. “I wish I could be as strong as you.”

“Why, Vera, you’re the strongest person I know,” Rose said, in a gentle tone. “I couldn’t manage without you. We’ve weathered all kinds of storms together. We’ll get through this one too.”

“Rose, I don’t really think you’re the worst daughter-in-law in the world.”

“I know you don’t.”

A sharp little spark lit Vera’s eyes. “The first one Dean brought home—she was the worst.”

Rose sighed.

As the orderly pushed Vera’s gurney through doors that led to the operating room, Rose decided to try to find a quiet place, maybe a chapel, to pray. To pray away some troubles that just weren’t willing to leave.

Trust, from Galen, came slowly. When Delia Stoltz asked him if he would like to drive to the hospital with her, he hesitated. His mind raced through all the potential disasters that could occur in his absence with Jimmy Fisher in charge. He knew he kept Jimmy on a short tether—he thought the boy had a talent for horses, but he also knew his tendency toward the lazy when unsupervised. And if Bethany happened by, Jimmy couldn’t keep his mind on the task at hand.

But Galen did see glimmers of maturing in Jimmy. In fact, he was learning so quickly and developing into such a skilled hand that Galen felt a little guilty for holding him back from more responsibility.

Still, leaving Jimmy Fisher in charge of his Thoroughbreds for an entire day? The boy couldn’t even keep track of the one horse he had bought.

It was Delia who said just the right thing to convince him to set aside his worries and go to the hospital. “I think Rose might need to have a special friend like you by her side.”

Galen looked at her sharply but didn’t answer right away. He had never so much as mentioned Rose’s name to anyone—how could Delia know Rose was on his mind? It was disturbing to him to have one’s thoughts suddenly plucked out of the air. Women could smell feelings as a dog could smell a fox.

Would Rose be glad to see him? He wasn’t really sure. But he knew he needed to do this.

A full day of waiting stretched out in front of Rose. To wait and wait. She hadn’t eaten breakfast and was starting to feel a little weak, close to tears, as the what-ifs crept into her mind. What if Vera’s brain was damaged in the surgery? What if the tumor was cancerous? What if she didn’t survive the surgery? Vera may not be the easiest person to live with, but she was family. She was loved.

Sitting on that uncomfortable chair in the sterile room, Rose felt so alone. Tears welled in her eyes, and her throat ached. A deep sense of loss rose up in her, so forceful, woven of so many memories. Vera had a saying: Oh, das hahmelt mir ahn. Calling to mind poignant memories with such vividness that they brought pain.

Such scenes rolled through her mind: Dean’s happiness on the day he brought Rose home to meet Vera, Tobe, and Bethany. The children’s small faces, so hopeful as they looked at her, eager to have a new mother. Luke and Sammy as toddlers, wrestling like two bear cubs. Serious Mim with her arms filled with books. The children’s shocked faces as they stood by their father’s graveside, newly turned earth, the raw wind cutting through their coats—Mim hated wind from that day on. Bethany’s stoic face—she never shed a tear for her father. Not that day, not since. Someday, Rose knew those tears of hers would need to spill.

But after the funeral . . . they all buried their grief and carried on. Got back to the business of living. That was the way of things.

Too much. Sometimes, it was just too much.

The whoosh of the automatic doors startled her and she raised her head. She hadn’t known she was crying until she felt the air from the outside cool the wetness on her cheeks. In strode Galen King with his black hat on, coming through the doors as if he walked through that hospital door every day of his life. In one hand was a cup of coffee, in the other was a brown bag.

“Are you all right?” he asked, peering at her with concern. “Are you okay, Rose?”

She nodded, still not quite trusting herself to speak. The truth was that she had never felt so glad to see anyone. All her nervousness and sadness squeezed right out of her. “Galen!” she said at last, whispering the words. “How did you get here?”

“Delia Stoltz drove me in. She dropped me at the door and went to park. She’s going to go see if she can find out how the surgery is going.” He handed her the coffee. “We thought you might need a little moral support.”

She took a sip of the coffee. A dollop of cream, just the way she liked it. “I’m glad you’re here, Galen. I have to admit I’m scared of today’s outcome.”

He looked at her with one of those quiet smiles that touched only his eyes and said, “You always seem as calm as a dove.”

“That’s on the outside,” Rose said. “On the inside, I’m a bundle of raw nerves.”

He sat in the chair next to her and stretched out his legs, crossing one ankle over the other. “There’s no outrunning fear. It comes on you and you have to face it.”

She just looked at him, then, taking her time and thinking. He held her eyes, then looked away, as if embarrassed. He lifted the brown bag. “Delia stopped by a store and bought a package of one-bite doughnuts.”

He opened up the bag of cinnamon sugar one-bite doughnuts and offered one to Rose. She found them amusing. Delicious too. As Galen filled her in on the news from Stoney Ridge, she found herself feeling weepy again. She knew what it had taken for him to give up a day of work just to sit here with her. He was not a man who sat and kept vigil.

She wasn’t sure what the end of the day would bring, but she decided that from now on, she would savor sweet moments, like this one, as much as she could. Like one-bite doughnuts.

Galen and Rose had gone for a walk outside to get some fresh air. Delia stayed in the waiting area, flipping through an old copy of People magazine. They had invited her to walk with them but she said no. It was an ideal opportunity to give them time alone. There was precious little of that in their lives.

Delia had a sense about matchmaking and she could just see that there was more to Galen and Rose’s relationship than friendship. She didn’t think they realized it yet—certainly not Rose—but Delia could see it clearly. Galen and Rose spoke the same language, thought the same thoughts. True, he was younger than Rose, but in all the important ways, he seemed older.

As they drove in this morning, she had expected it to be a silent drive, but Galen was surprisingly talkative. Granted, she peppered him with questions, but he didn’t freeze up like she thought he would. He answered her questions about his horse training business, Naomi’s headaches, his other sisters and brothers who had married and moved away. The very fact that he steered any and all conversation away from Rose only led Delia to believe that he was in love with her.

Time passed in an instant. The last thing Vera remembered, she was fighting back tears as her hair was getting shaved off. She had never had her hair cut. Not once in her entire long life. And this morning, it was all shaved off.

An instant later, she woke up in a recovery room, feeling like a hen caught in the middle of a killing neck twist. What had happened? Her head was bandaged in gauze like a foreigner’s head wraps. She saw such a thing once on a bus trip she took to Sarasota, Florida, to visit her cousin. What was the word for it? And underneath the gauze that was wrapped around her head were staples and glue. Staples!

There was one bright spot she hadn’t expected: brain surgery was relatively painless. The nurse explained that even though there were many nerves in the brain, they were nerves that thought, not nerves that felt. “You’ll be off those pain meds by tomorrow,” she told Vera. “And I think you’ll like the effects of the steroids the doctor will give you to control swelling. They’ll make you happy and hungry. You might even like our hospital food.”

Vera opened one eye to peer at the tray she had brought. “Doubt it,” she mumbled. “That would take more than drugs.” Who ate blue Jell-O? Before she left this hospital for home, she might try to get into the hospital kitchen and show the cook a thing or two about how the Amish managed to cook for big crowds.

Then that fine-looking doctor came in and asked her to count backward from one hundred. She couldn’t. Each moment of silence that passed caused Vera’s fears to grow. She had never been good at arithmetic. He asked her what day it was and who the president of the United States was right now. How should she know? She never voted. Rose did, but she never did.

Tears started to fill her eyes. The doctor’s hand clasped hers and squeezed. “Right now there’s tissue swollen from the surgery,” he explained. “As the swelling goes down, everything will improve. It’s too soon to worry, but I’m not expecting significant implications from the surgery.”

It was never too soon to worry, Vera thought bitterly. How infuriating to have this invasive, frightening surgery, only to have it do nothing for her! She was in worse shape than she was before she had it. She should have never agreed to it.

The doctor wrote down a few things on her chart and told her he would be back later in the day to check on her. Then he sailed out of the room and left her alone with beeping machines.

A turban. A turban. That’s what the gauze on her head felt like.

She remembered!

After the surgery, Rose was allowed into Vera’s intensive care room for ten minutes. No longer. Vera looked peaked and drawn, but there was some fire in her too. “Get me out of here,” she whispered to Rose.

“Not quite yet. As soon as Dr. Stoltz says you can go home.”

Amazingly, that could be as soon as a few days, he had said, when he came into the waiting room to tell Rose that the surgery had been successful. He had walked through those swinging doors in his blue scrubs, a big grin on his face, and stopped abruptly. In the waiting room was not just Rose, but seven Amish people from Stoney Ridge, a crowd, peering at him with concerned faces under their black hats and bonnets. “Everything went very well, better than expected,” Dr. Stoltz told the group, sounding satisfied. “We won’t know more until she wakes up. I’m hopeful for a complete recovery as the swelling recedes, but, of course, I’m not the ultimate healer.”

“I believe that position is already taken,” said a woman’s voice from the back of the Amish crowd. It came from Fern Lapp.

Fern had organized a Mennonite driver to take a few church members into Philadelphia and stay with Rose during the surgery. At the sound of her voice, Dr. Stoltz’s dark eyebrows shot up and his entire countenance changed. That serious, extremely confident man suddenly seemed like a small boy who’d met up with a stern librarian with an overdue book in his hand.

But then, Fern Lapp—thin as a butter knife, wiry and active—had that effect on nearly everyone, with one exception: Vera. Those two women tried to outdo each other in everything: quilting, cooking, baking, gardening.

Fern offered to stay the night at the hospital so Rose could return home and rest. The driver was waiting in the parking lot for Galen and the others. “I’ll stay the night so you can go on home,” Fern said, after Dr. Stoltz made a hasty exit. “You look terrible. Awful. Like something the cat dragged in.”

Rose hadn’t slept a wink—partly because of that awful padded bench, but mostly because Vera kept hollering out things through the night she wanted Rose to know about . . . just in case. In case she died, she meant.

“Write this down: The farm goes to Tobe. I promised him!”

“Yes, Vera.”

“Make sure Bethany gets A Young Woman’s Guide to Virtue. She loves that book.”

“Yes, Vera.”

“My mother gave me that book. It was her book. Did I ever tell you that?”

“Yes, Vera. Try to sleep now.”

But of course, Vera didn’t want to sleep. As far as she was concerned, it might be the last night of her life on earth. Why spend it sleeping? she told Rose. Finally, Rose turned on the light and read the Bible aloud to her. Psalm 23, then 139. Vera quieted at those ancient words of comfort. Soon, she was snoring loud enough to rattle the windows. Rose closed the Bible, turned off the light, and tried to sleep.

After such a long night, the thought of Rose’s own bed sounded heavenly, but she knew Vera needed her. “Thank you, Fern, but I’ll stay.”

Later, trying to get comfortable on the awful chairs in the waiting room for the ICU floor, she regretted that decision. Tomorrow night, if Vera continued to improve, she would take Delia up on her offer to stay at her house for the remaining nights until Vera was released. She spread a gray blanket over her that a nurse had brought out. Its color mirrored the reflective mood Rose was in. She thought of the kind and considerate friends who had waited with her all day in the hospital. Of Fern Lapp, who said she would take a meal over to Eagle Hill for tonight’s supper. Of Delia Stoltz, who was staying at her own home tonight and promised to check in first thing in the morning. Of Hank Lapp, who kept everyone entertained with the box of dominoes he had brought with him.

Her mind traveled to Dean. His chief focus, especially in the last few years of his life, had been on making more and more money, but did money bring any greater happiness than friendship? She thought not.

Then she thought of Galen. He had given up a day of work to stay by her side, and she knew what that meant to him. And she had ended up hurting him.

Before Fern and the others had arrived, she and Galen had gone outside to get some fresh air. They stopped at a bench, blanketed in sunshine, and sat down. Out of the blue came the question, “Rose, have you given some thought about letting me court you?”

She had been dreading this conversation. “I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought about it plenty.” The smile she gave him came a little shakily. “Can’t things just go on between us the way they’ve been going? As good friends?”

“You don’t know what you’re asking of me. You might as well tell the grain to stay green. The way we are now might be fine for you, but not for me. I want more, Rose.”

“I’m not right for you, Galen.”

“What you really mean is . . . I’m not right for you.”

She raised her head. Those piercing green eyes were looking down at her under the brim of his black hat, searching her face, trying to see into her heart. “Yes,” she said softly. She felt him stiffen beside her and look away. It pained her to say those words to him—nearly as much as she knew it pained him to hear them, but it was the truth.

Slowly he turned back to her. His face was flat and empty, but a muscle ticked in his cheek and she could see the pulse beating in his neck, fast and hard. “I’ll go see if there’s any word about Vera.” He walked to the door that led to the hospital waiting room, half turned at the door, then swung back. “The hard truth is that I’m not the one who’s too stubborn and independent and unbending. You are. You won’t let anyone help you. You don’t mind having people rely on you, but you don’t want to need anyone. If that’s not pride, I don’t know what is.”

He waited, but there was nothing more she had to say to him, or at least she hadn’t within her the words he wanted to hear. The silence hung between them, waiting for someone to act—but then they heard someone call Galen’s name. They turned and saw a group of Amish church friends, climbing out of a Mennonite taxi at the curbside, who had come to help stand vigil. Galen walked over to meet them.

Pride? Pride? He thought she was prideful?! Rose was stung.

It was unfortunate that Bethany’s first day of work at the Sisters’ House happened to fall on the day Mammi Vera ended up having surgery. In a way, though, it helped Bethany to keep her mind from fretting about her grandmother. She couldn’t do any good by just walking the walls of the hospital, anyway.

Early that morning, Bethany was met at the door of the Sisters’ House by Ada. She led Bethany into the living room and told her to start from one corner and go from there. “Use your own judgment about what to keep or what to get rid of.”

“Are you sure?” Bethany asked. “I don’t really know what you might need.” Not that there was anything worth salvaging, in her mind. Maybe a box of fabric for quilt scraps. A ball of yarn. Everything else? Out!

“Maybe you’re right,” Ada said. “We do use everything, sooner or later. I just hate that feeling of when you throw something out and—” snap! she clicked her knobby fingers—“next thing you know, you’re looking high and low for it.”

Bethany looked around the room. “I need three boxes,” she told Ada. “One for things you want to keep, one for things you want to donate, one for things to discard.”

Twenty minutes later, Ada returned with four boxes. “I thought it might be wise if we leave one for things we can’t decide about. Just in case.”

All right, Bethany told her, and soon regretted it. One sister after another would mosey in and start weeding through the Donate and Discard pile and quietly move things into the Keep and Undecided boxes. By lunchtime, they had undone all the morning work Bethany had done.

Okay, this wasn’t working. She decided to take a break and eat her lunch on the front porch. It was a pleasant day and she couldn’t work with the sisters in the same room. Since there were five of them, they acted like slippery barn cats, oozing their way in and out of the living room, making off with something from the discard pile. When she finished her lunch, she went back inside and found Ada bent over the Undecided box, rooting through black sweaters. So many sweaters! All black.

“Maybe I’ll just go tidy up the kitchen,” Bethany said. Stick to the dishes, she decided.

Ada was thrilled by that suggestion which, Bethany knew, was because she worked too fast and made her nervous. Too many treasures ended up in the wrong boxes.

By day’s end, Bethany was exhausted. She stopped by the phone shanty to check messages—hoping there might be word about Mammi Vera from Rose. And maybe a word from Jake.

She tried her very best not to call Jake every single day. She knew, from reading chapter 13 in A Young Woman’s Guide to Virtue, that she should restrain herself. But each day, she found a reason or two to slip around the hard and fast rules of the book. Today, she wanted to talk to him about her grandmother’s surgery, about losing her job at the Bar & Grill and taking the job at the Sisters’ House. She hoped he might feel disappointed that she had committed to a new job, even if it was part time and very casual. She hoped he had plans for the two of them. But, like always, he didn’t pick up. Before she thought twice, she left a message that she needed to talk to him and hung up.

As she was closing the door to the shanty, the phone rang. She lunged for the receiver. “Hello?”

“Bethany! Did you find the books?”

Not even a howdy. “No.”

“You said you needed to talk to me. I thought it was about the books.”

“I do need to talk to you, but I haven’t found them yet.”

“Are you looking?”

“Of course I’m looking! I’ve gone through the entire house, top to bottom. Mim mentioned that a lot of Mammi Vera’s junk was hauled out to the hayloft, so I’ll start there soon.” She shuddered to think of spending hours in the dusty hayloft. She hated mice with their beady little eyes and long skinny tails. Hated them. “I do have other obligations, I hope you know.” Like, a job with five certifiably crazy old ladies.

His voice softened. “I wish I could help. I’m sorry to leave this job to you.”

“So . . . why can’t you help?”

“Bethany—I told you. If your family were to see me, if Rose were to know about Tobe’s problem, it puts her in a terrible spot.” He let out a sigh. “Besides, I’m miles and miles away, looking for work.”

The discouragement in his voice made her feel a tweak of guilt. It didn’t seem right to talk to him about her new job at the Sisters’ House when he had lost his job and couldn’t get hired anywhere else—all because of her father.

“Honey, what did you need me for, then?”

She loved it when he called her honey. “I . . . just wanted to hear your voice.”

“That’s sweet. I sure am missing you. As soon as you can find those books, I will hightail it back to Stoney Ridge. Once we get Tobe cleared . . . then . . .”

She held her breath. Then what?

“. . . everything else will come together.”

She let out her breath.

“I need to get going. Bye for now, honey.”

For a long while, she stared at the receiver before she set it back in the cradle. She loved it when he called her honey. Loved it!