Читать книгу Between You and Me - Susan Wiggs, Susan Wiggs - Страница 12

When Reese got to her apartment that night, she stepped inside, locked the door, turned, and realized she wasn’t alone. Something strange and intrusive hung in the air—an unfamiliar energy, a sense of things out of place.

Muttering under her breath, she made her way to the kitchen. The man she was expecting to see sat at the scarred maple table, drinking a glass of wine and reading the latest issue of Vanity Fair, the Young Turks of Hollywood edition she’d stolen from a hospital exam room. It was the closest thing she’d had to an actual date in six months.

Her intruder was a slender, handsome man several years older than her, with soft eyes and a cheeky grin.

“Hey,” she said. “You know, I gave you that key to use in case of emergency.”

“It is an emergency,” said her across-the-hall neighbor, Leroy Hershberger, who had been steadily nudging his way toward a true friendship with her since he’d moved in the previous year. “I ran out of wine.”

She grabbed the bottle and poured herself a glass. “Very funny.” She clinked her glass against his and took a sip.

“I was pretty sure you wouldn’t mind,” Leroy said. “I signed for this package that came for you.” He indicated a thick clasp envelope from Johns Hopkins in those large gentle hands that made him a gifted physical therapist. “Another residency program for you to go into a cold sweat over.”

“Thanks,” she said and drank more wine, eyeing him over the rim of her glass. He had a fresh haircut from the expensive salon he frequented, and he was dressed in Abercrombie & Fitch, indulgences he claimed kept him sane by reminding him that he had a life beyond scrubs. “You look nice. Plans for the evening?”

“I got stood up. Hence the drinking.”

“No way. Who was the culprit? And how dare she stand you up?”

“Some girls have all the nerve.” He stretched his legs out, looking nonchalant, though Reese knew he was struggling with disappointment. Leroy was single and lonely. Though the two of them were not a match romantically, they often commiserated over their uneventful love lives.

“Spending a quiet evening at home is underrated.” She glanced around the room. This apartment had potential, but it didn’t feel like home. Her place had a transitory atmosphere, as if someone were just packing to leave. She’d never gotten around to hanging a picture or two on the wall, or properly shelving her collection of textbooks and favorite novels.

A few touches of her personality lingered here and there, glimmers of a need for more depth and permanence. There was a quilt made for her by a former patient, draped over a painted wooden chair, and a cuckoo clock that had once belonged to her grandmother. Her kitchen tools included an embossed rolling pin and a pie fluter, which she’d never had a chance to use. She had a working fish tank with nothing but water and plastic plants in it.

She kept meaning to make the place feel more lived in, but work and studying kept getting in the way. If she followed her parents’ plan for her, she’d eventually be able to afford a fabulous house on the river, or a highrise condo, or maybe a colonial tract mansion in the suburbs. The trouble was, she didn’t seem to fit into the picture of her own life.

Like Caleb Stoltz didn’t fit, she thought, remembering the image of him standing hat in hand in his nephew’s hospital room.

She took another quick sip of wine. How much would the Amish man tolerate of the therapy Jonah was going to need?

Leroy stood up and walked around behind her, using his gentle, talented hands to massage her neck and shoulders. A skilled physical therapist, he had a way of digging into the source of tension. “I think rigor mortis has set in,” he said. “You’re stiff as a … stiff.”

“Very funny.”

“Rough day?”

“You could say that. Strange day.”

“I thought you were having dinner with your parents tonight,” he said.

She glanced at the calendar stuck to the refrigerator. “Nosy.” Every single day, it seemed, had something written in it. Interview with Jacobson. Study group, 6:00 P.M. Board review, 6:30 A.M.

“Jesus,” Leroy said. “Look at the way you schedule yourself. It’s not normal. I bet you schedule your bowel movements.”

She finished her wine. “Who has time for that?”

“There’s one thing missing on that calendar,” he said.

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“A social life. A life of any kind at all. In case you haven’t noticed, it’s something most people aspire to.”

“I’ll get a life once I get through the Match.”

“Sure you will. Except once you get yourself placed in the first residency, you have to make it into the next one, and once you find that, you have to apply for another, and after that you need to concentrate on your specialty, and then your subspecialty, and then—”

“All right, all right. You made your point.” She went over to the refrigerator, picked one of the few dates that wasn’t taken, and scrawled Get a life in the empty space. “At least I wasn’t stood up by—who was it this time, Roberta the caterer, right?”

“Roberta, yes. And yes, she’s a caterer. The rest of my day was fine. Two stroke patients, some back therapy, an accident victim with a major chip on his shoulder. He was no picnic, but I made him channel his rage into getting around in a wheelchair.”

She sat back down, poured more wine into her glass. “Have you ever worked with an amputee?”

“Sure. I have a certification in prosthetics.”

“There was an amputation in trauma today,” she said. “A little boy lost his arm.”

“That sucks. Poor kid. What happened?”

“It was a farming accident. He stuck his hand in a grinder or shredder of some sort. Amish kid,” she added. “I’d never treated an Amish kid before today. I’ve never even met anyone Amish.”

A funny look came over Leroy’s face. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”

She didn’t get it at first. And then, all of a sudden, she did. “Holy crap, Leroy. Do you mean to tell me you’re Amish?”

“I was. Not anymore, obviously.”

In an odd way, Reese felt betrayed. “How can you be Amish and never have told me? You’re my closest neighbor. I’m supposed to know everything about you.”

“I knew you for six months before you told me you were a test-tube baby,” he pointed out.

“I didn’t think it was important,” she said with a distracted wave of her hand.

“Oh, right. Being the result of your parents’ medical specialty has defined you, princess. The petri dish princess.”

“And being Amish has obviously defined you. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” She stared at him as if regarding a stranger. Leroy? Amish? How could Leroy be Amish?

There was nothing remotely Amish about this man. Yet now that he’d said something, a few facts became clear. Since she’d known him she’d never met anyone in his family. When she’d asked about it, he’d said his family shunned him because he’d refused to marry a girl he was promised to and had moved to the city.

“You weren’t kidding,” she said, “about the shunning you once told me about. Your family really did shun you. In the Amish way.”

A bitter laugh escaped him. “Nothing like a good old-fashioned Amish shunning. They’re better at it than a group of seventh-grade teenyboppers.”

“Does that mean you never see or speak to your Amish friends and family?”

“That’s the general idea. It’s complicated. Those who’ve been baptized aren’t allowed to speak to me or share meals. Folks who haven’t been baptized yet have a little more latitude. But for all intents and purposes, I’m persona non grata in the community where I grew up.”

“I can’t believe you were Amish,” she said thoughtfully, still studying him. Clean-shaven, with soulful eyes and manicured hands, he looked every inch the modern male. “I keep trying to picture you Amish, but the picture just won’t form.”

“Oh, I did it all.” That edge of bitterness still sharpened his voice. “The bowl haircut and flat-brimmed hat, the drop-front trousers and suspenders, not a zipper within a five-mile radius. I have nine brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews I’ve never met. I haven’t been in contact with my family in years.”

“That must be so heartbreaking for you,” Reese said. “And for your family.”

“They got over it. There’s not a doubt in my mind that they got over it. It’s the Amish way.”

“Did you?”

He emptied the bottle of wine into his glass. “So tell me about this kid today.” His change of subject was deliberate and unbreachable. “He was probably filling silo, wasn’t he?”

“How would you know that?”

“It’s that time of year. The Amish year is determined by the seasons and the farm chores that go along with them. The corn and other grains are ripe and need to be harvested. On an Amish farm, the whole community gets involved.”

“I’m hearing a decided lack of affection and nostalgia in your voice,” Reese said.

“Let’s just say my experience with the Amish would not fit in the pages of National Geographic.” He drummed his fingers on the tabletop.

“Was your family cruel to you? Did they neglect you? What?”

“I’m through talking about it, princess. Where did you say the kid was from?”

She forced herself to drop the subject of Leroy’s upbringing. “A place called Middle Grove. Do you know it?”

“Actually, I do. It’s up on Highway Fifty-Seven, same area as my hometown of Jamesville. Beautiful part of the state, near the Poconos. The Amish of Middle Grove are super restrictive. I remember they wouldn’t fellowship with our community because we were a bit more liberal.”

“I hope they’re not restrictive when it comes to Jonah—the amputee. But he might be in for rough times if they prohibit a prosthetic arm. Do you think they’d do that?”

“Hard to say. The Amish take care of their own. I guess it depends on the support he’ll get.”

Reese thought of Caleb Stoltz and the way she’d felt, watching his face as he stood over his injured nephew. “I don’t know about the whole family,” she said. “He’s got a loving uncle who’s raising him. An incredibly loving uncle,” she added. “He came in on life flight with the boy. The flight nurse said it was a near thing, with some of the locals at the scene claiming it was against their religion to fly.”

“But not against their religion to let a boy bleed to death. I’m glad the uncle was reasonable.”

“He was,” Reese said, propping her chin in the palm of her hand. “He is definitely reasonable. The boy’s parents are dead, and Caleb—that’s the uncle—is raising Jonah and … he mentioned that there’s a sister.” She pictured the big man and the life he’d described, somewhere out in the country, and the image brought a sigh to her lips.

“Oh my God,” Leroy said. “Can this be? You’re smitten.”

She pushed away from the table. “Bullshit. The guy’s kid is suffering a major trauma.”

He laughed at her indignation. “The hunky Amish farmer and the urban-American princess. It’s too precious.”

She scowled at him. “How do you know he’s a hunk?”

“I know your type. You like ridiculously good-looking guys.”

“Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?”

“Nope, I’ve been stood up, remember? You’re supposed to help me hobble through the evening. But for once, your life is more interesting than mine.”

“You just accused me of not having a life.”

“That was before I found out about the Amish guy.”

“There’s nothing about the Amish guy,” she said defensively. “Quit with the Amish guy.”

“Tell you what,” Leroy said expansively. “I’ll drop in and visit with the kid and his uncle tomorrow. Is he in the SICU?”

Nodding, she picked up their empty wineglasses and carried them to the sink. “That would be good.”

“See? I’m nice.”

Caleb awakened to the quiet sucking rhythm of hospital machinery. A bitter smell hung in the air, mingling with the coppery scent of blood. Although he came fully awake, he didn’t move, not right away. Instead, he sat very still in the hard, too-small chair made of molded plastic and crammed into the corner of the small cubicle where Jonah slept. A chaplain had offered to find him a bed for the night, but Caleb had declined, preferring to sit close to Jonah. The ever-present nurse stood in the dim glow of a computer monitor, gazing steadily at the screen. By looking out the display window past the nurses’ station, he could see the gray glimmer of a new day.

His hat sat on the floor beneath the chair. He hadn’t found anywhere else to put it. The glass, linoleum, and steel cage allowed no extra room for personal items.

“Good morning,” said the nurse at the computer.

“How’s he doing?” Caleb asked.

“He’s stable. He had a quiet night.” The Asian woman peered at him, her hands constantly busy on the keyboard. “Can I get you something?”

“Thank you, no.”

Caleb stood and went over to the bed. Jonah didn’t appear to have moved in the night. Throughout the dark, endless hours, nurses, health aides, medical students, and at least one doctor had come in to check Jonah or, more accurately, to check the equipment hooked up to his poor, broken body. Through it all, the kid hadn’t stirred, hadn’t even blinked an eye as far as Caleb could tell.

He rested the palm of his hand on the cold steel bars of the bed’s guardrail. Something had happened to Jonah in the night. The lost hours had diminished him, sucked the spirit out of him. The boy was smaller, paler than he had been only a short time ago. There was simply … less of him.

Maybe that was what a place like this did to a person. Drew things out of him, turned him into a ghost. Of course, Caleb told himself, Jonah would be dead if they hadn’t brought him to this hospital.

Looking down at the smooth, gray-white face, Caleb felt a painful surge of terror and love pushing at his chest. They had shaved Jonah’s head on one side and repaired the gashes with what appeared to be string and glue. His face was mottled by bruises and flecked with tiny cuts. A bit of blood had pooled and dried in the hollow of one ear. Caleb resisted the urge to clean it out.

Did I do this? he wondered. Did I let a terrible thing happen to an innocent little boy? He felt eaten alive by guilt.

In the wake of his brother’s death, Caleb hadn’t been sure he’d be able to raise Jonah and Hannah properly. And maybe he wasn’t doing such a good job, but right away he had learned how to love a child. It was the easiest thing he’d ever done. He loved Jonah with all his heart, and every second of the boy’s suffering belonged to Caleb, too.

Under such extraordinary circumstances, a man of faith would surely pray. He’d pray for this beautiful child to heal; he’d thank the Lord for sparing Jonah’s life. But Caleb Stoltz wasn’t a man of faith, not anymore. Maybe he’d never been one.

He found himself thinking about John, his older brother, Jonah’s father. John’s faith had been as deep as a well, as endless as the sky. He would have known how to pray for his son.

“I’m sorry, John. I’m real, real sorry about your boy,” he quietly murmured. “I’m going to do the best I can, the best I know how. I hope it’s enough.” But even as he spoke, Caleb feared it wouldn’t be.

His stomach rumbled, the noise loud and profane in the unnatural hissing quiet of the hospital room. He felt slightly embarrassed by the urges of his body. When something this terrible happened, it just didn’t seem right that Caleb would feel hungry, that his whiskers would grow, that he’d have to take a piss. And yet, that was the case.

He went to the men’s room down the hall, relieved himself, and washed up with thin, watery soap from an old wall dispenser, drying off with flimsy brown paper towels. He was startled by his own reflection in the mirror above the row of sinks. There were no mirrors in an Amish household, of course. Mirrors implied pride and vanity, which had no place in an Amishman’s character. He rinsed the taste of sleep from his mouth, snapped his suspenders into place.

But there were no suspenders. He was still wearing the green shirt and loose trousers Reese Powell had given him.

He hurried back to Jonah’s room. Another hospital worker stood by the bed, marking things on a glass tablet device. A dark-skinned fellow. He smiled politely when Caleb came into the room. “Your son’s been stable all night,” he said. “That’s a good sign.”

“When will he wake up?” Caleb asked.

“That’s up to him, mainly,” said the man. “The doctors can tell you more during rounds. But you can go ahead and talk to him. He’ll be groggy at first, but if everything goes well, he’ll be awake and chattering away in no time.”

When the health aide left, Caleb returned to his vigil beside the bed. “Jonah.” He spoke the boy’s name a few times, just Jonah, and nothing more. Then, since the nurse seemed absorbed in her monitoring, he spoke some more. “Jonah, it’s me, your uncle Caleb. I’m here waiting for you to wake up, because we’ve got lots to talk about. Can you hear me, Jonah? Can you?”

The boy lay as still as a rock. He resembled a graven image carved into a gray headstone like one of those stone angels the English favored in their cemeteries.

“Jonah, can you hear me?” Caleb tried again. “It’s me, Uncle Caleb. Can you feel my hand on your leg? It’s right here on your knee. I’m sure worried about you, Jonah. I sure do wish you’d wake up so we could have a talk.”

He kept standing there, gazing down, his big thumb absently circling Jonah’s knee. Then he saw it. The tiniest flash of movement. The flicker of a shadow on the boy’s cheek.

“Jonah?” Caleb leaned a little closer. “Come on, little man. You can do it.”

The boy blinked again, then opened his eyes. He stared up, then squeezed his eyes shut as if to hide from the glare of the ceiling lights. Caleb kept saying his name, gently touching his knee and right shoulder, taking care not to focus on the thickly bandaged truncated arm. Jonah opened his eyes again—a squint of confusion. This time, he didn’t look at the lights, but at Caleb. He moved his lips, his bluish cracked lips, but no sound came out.

“You can give him a little water,” the nurse said. “He can have sips of water and ice chips if he wants, until the doctor says it’s okay to eat and drink again.”

Caleb grabbed a paper cup from the tray by the bed. “Here you go,” he said, angling the straw to Jonah’s lips. He shifted to their German dialect. “Easy there. Take it easy.”

Jonah drew weakly on the straw. Most of the water trickled out the sides of his mouth and down into the hospital pillow under his head.

“You can raise the bed with this.” The nurse handed him a remote control on a cord.

Caleb fiddled with the automatic controls until he figured out the button that caused the head of the bed to slowly raise up. Jonah looked almost comically startled by the motion, but when he saw what was happening, he relaxed. Caleb raised the bed only a few inches, just enough so the boy could swallow rather than spill. Jonah took one more sip then and finally whispered, “Uncle … Caleb.”

“That’s me,” Caleb said too loudly and too cheerfully. “I’ve been sitting around wondering when you’d wake up.”

“How long have I been asleep?”

“All night long, and then some.” Caleb looked right down into Jonah’s bewildered eyes. “Do you know where you are?”

The boy’s gaze darted to and fro. His poor face looked as though it had been slashed by vicious claws. “No.”

“We’re at the hospital,” Caleb said. “You got hurt bad, Jonah. Real bad. You had to have an operation. Do you remember getting hurt?”

“Um, not so much. I’m having trouble remembering,” Jonah said.

A nurse had warned Caleb about this. Victims of trauma often lost all recollection of the accident. Sometimes they never regained their memory of the specific event. It was a protective reaction. The mind didn’t want to remember a pain so deep and harsh.

“Do you remember going over to the Haubers’ to work?”

“Sure I do.”

Caleb was ashamed to realize that he’d been wishing Jonah would forget the entire morning. “Then you probably remember how I yelled at you,” he said. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you, Jonah. I should know better than yelling.”

“Your yelling doesn’t bother me, Uncle Caleb.”

“It bothers me that I yelled.” Caleb took a deep breath. “Do you remember the shredder?”

“The shredder?” Jonah frowned slightly. “I know how to work it. I know how to work all the equipment. You taught me yourself.”

The trusting expression on his face pierced Caleb’s heart. “Something got fouled up in the blades.”

“It happens,” Jonah said. “And I know how to fix it, too. I grab a longer stalk and push it real hard—” He stopped abruptly. His frown deepened and then softened. He shut his eyes. His lower lip trembled. “Uncle Caleb?”

Caleb would have given his own life to avoid speaking the next words. “A terrible thing happened, Jonah. You got hurt bad, liebling. Real bad.”

The boy’s eyes opened very slowly, as if he knew somehow what he was about to face. With an even slower motion, he lifted his right hand from beneath the blue blanket. Blood had dried in the seams of the short, stubby fingernails. He opened and closed his hand.

Caleb took hold of it, cradled it between both of his big hands, and carried it to his lips. “I’m so sorry, Jonah. I’m so, so awfully sorry.” He felt resistance as the boy tried to free his hand from Caleb’s grip. And with shattering clarity, Caleb knew why.

He felt an urgent need to intervene before Jonah discovered the unthinkable all on his own. “Jonah, son, look at me.”

The serious blue eyes settled on Caleb’s face. There was bewilderment in those eyes, and a sense of betrayal. Jonah was a child; he’d given a child’s trust to those charged with looking after him, and he’d been betrayed.

“Your other arm’s gone, son,” Caleb said quietly. “It got cut off.”

They both fell silent. Caleb imagined the realization sinking like poison into the boy’s mind. Jonah didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He didn’t speak a word for several agonized moments while he looked at his bandaged stump, wrapped in layer after layer of cream-colored gauze. There was a cap or spigot of some sort protruding from the bandage.

“Gone?” he asked, his voice cracking.

“It got all mangled in the shredder. There was so much damage that it couldn’t be fixed. They had to cut it off in order to save your life.”

“Gone?” Jonah said again. “It’s my arm. How can it be gone?”

“It’s a lot to take in, I know,” Caleb said. “I’m still … I can hardly believe it myself, except that I was there. The emergency workers saved your life. They came out right away, did what they could to stop the bleeding, and then they called a rescue helicopter. Life flight.” It had all happened just twenty-four hours ago, yet it seemed as though a lifetime had passed. “They brought us here to the hospital in the helicopter,” Caleb added. “You and me both.”

“We flew.”

“Yeah, we flew. Right up into the sky, like a bird or a dragonfly.”

“Isn’t that against Ordnung?”

Caleb pushed up one side of his mouth, an attempt at a smile. “Just like your daddy, you are,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I was more worried about you bleeding to death than I was about church rules.”

Jonah flinched and pulled his gaze away from the terrible, bandaged limb. His face was a picture of dull, uncomprehending shock. He had that look you might see on the face of a mother who’d just lost a child. Miriam Hauber had worn that look long after she’d lost a baby just hours after its birth. That same dazed, hollow nothingness, as if the world had suddenly become a place he didn’t recognize.

“Then what happened?” asked Jonah.

“Everything went real fast,” Caleb said. “I’m not even sure I remember everything right myself. They took you off the chopper while the blades were still going around, and they rushed you down to the emergency ward. Then it was like flies at a picnic, and you were the main dish. I had no idea such a crowd of folks could swarm all over a little old tadpole like you. They hung blood, and put in lines, and yelled stuff at each other, stuff I couldn’t begin to understand. Everyone worked real hard to save your life, Jonah. What happened was, the folks in the trauma center, the doctors and nurses and interns and so forth, they got you stabilized. What that means is they made sure your heart was okay and your blood pressure, and your breathing, so they could take you up to surgery.” It felt strange, speaking of such unfamiliar things, but Caleb saw no point in hiding anything from Jonah.

Jonah looked at the ceiling. “Where is surgery?”

“It’s … it’s a place where they took you to do an operation to save your life.”

“Is it where they cut off my arm?”

Caleb pinched the bridge of his nose, surprised to feel the throb of a headache. He didn’t often get headaches. “Yes, son. Yes.”

Jonah turned his attention back to the bandaged arm. “Were you there?” he asked. “I mean, when they were cutting off my arm, were you with me?”

“What? No.”

“I wonder if they used a saw, like Eli Kemp when he’s doing the butchering.”

Good Lord almighty. “I was in a waiting room, thinking about you the whole time. When the operation was done, they put you here in this place called the surgical intensive care unit. Hospital folks have been checking on you all night long. I reckon the doctors will be real pleased to see that you’re awake and talking.”

Caleb left a gap of silence for Jonah. Sometimes silence was needed, not more talking. Caleb had learned this when, in a single terrible moment, he became responsible for Jonah and Hannah.

Yesterday, though, when they’d rushed the boy off to surgery, he had been grateful for talk. He remembered pacing the waiting area of the emergency room, wondering what was going to happen next and not knowing whom to ask. That was when Reese Powell had approached him. Caleb could not remember what had been going through his head when she’d arrived. But he remembered turning to her, and feeling a small but noticeable measure of relief when she offered a change of clothes and then helped him navigate his way through the labyrinthine hallways of the hospital.

He wasn’t sure why she had taken an interest in him. Everyone else in the emergency room seemed to race from crisis to crisis, darting and feinting through an obstacle course of equipment, coworkers, frightened patients, and families.

Reese had looked very young to Caleb, though she projected an air of confidence. She was different from anyone he’d ever met, man or woman, in a way that tempted him to stare, like he’d stared at Niagara Falls or a shooting star. Her short hair was as black and shiny as the wing of a raven, framing a face he could look at all the livelong day. Of course, he had no call to be noticing the beauty of a woman, especially at a time like this, but noticing her like that wouldn’t change what had happened, no matter who was bleeding on the operating table.

When she’d started talking to him he had realized the source of that beauty was something simple yet powerful—compassion, combined with a fierce and earnest intelligence. She had this way of looking at him as if she knew how scared he was for Jonah and how much he needed to understand what was happening to his nephew. As she’d explained the terrible injury, Caleb had sensed the smallest glimmer of hope. He knew a medical student was only at the beginning of the practice of doctoring, like an apprentice carpenter learning from a master craftsman. Yet there were things that she knew, things he couldn’t even imagine. Things about the human body and the way it worked or failed to work. Through yesterday’s endless hours, Reese Powell had seemed absolutely determined to stick with him, answering not only the questions he asked but also those he didn’t even know how to.

All this seemed to be a lot to notice about a woman he’d only just met. But Caleb was like that sometimes. He’d meet someone and see exactly what that person was like based on a few minutes’ conversation.

It hardly mattered now. He probably wouldn’t see her again. She was one of the many strangers passing through. Yet for some reason, his thoughts kept drifting back to Reese Powell. In addition to her fierce, intimidating intelligence, he also sensed something sterile and lonely about her. When they’d gone to the cafeteria, she hadn’t talked to anyone along the way. It was probably out of character for her to take the time to help him through his first night in the city.

Jonah gazed at him in silence, and Caleb felt guilty for dwelling on his encounter with a woman. Jonah’s face took on a soft, sleepy look, his eyes half-lidded. “Where’s Hannah?” he asked softly.

Caleb pictured Jonah’s sister, crumpled in a tragic heap as the helicopter bore her brother away. “Back home in Middle Grove. I left word with Alma at the phone box that you were going to be all right. And you are, little man, I swear.”

“How can I be all right if my arm’s gone?” Jonah’s voice was the tiniest whisper.

“Because you’re Jonah. My best good boy. And I swear by all that I am that we’ll get through this.”

His throat felt thick with the lie. There was no getting through a loss like this.

“Hannah knows about my arm? Did you tell Alma to tell her?”

“I told Alma you’re going to be all right,” said Caleb. “She’ll let Hannah know.” He had not said anything about the arm, only that Jonah was going to get better. Given what Hannah and her brother had already lost, he owed her the full story, but not until he could see her, hold her hand, and reassure her.

“You’re wearing funny clothes,” Jonah said.

Caleb looked down at the borrowed shirt and trousers. “A lady named Reese loaned these to me.” He didn’t want to explain that his other clothes were covered in Jonah’s blood. “They’re called scrubs, which is curious, since they don’t seem to be used for scrubbing anything.”

Jonah nodded, then yawned. His eyes fluttered shut.

“You rest now,” Caleb said, gently stroking his brow. “You rest as long as you like.”

Caleb, too, shut his eyes, but he didn’t sleep. Instead, his mind wandered back over time, touching on moments forever enshrined in memory.

When he was a boy about Jonah’s age, Caleb used to loiter around the village phone box, hoping against hope to hear the phone ring and his mother’s voice on the other end. Hoping she would explain why she had walked away from him and his older brother, John, never to return.

Of course, it never rang. Caleb had tried to find her name in the phone book, a slender paperbound directory with scenic pictures of the Poconos on the cover. He remembered sitting on the floor of the small shelter and methodically reading every name in the book, searching for Jenny Stoltz or Jenny Fisher, her maiden name. Finally, John had come along and explained that the book only listed folks who had their own telephones.

“Mem could be a million miles away,” John had explained. He was seven years older than Caleb, and he knew things. “You won’t find her name in any book around here.”

Some time afterward, Caleb recalled, John had made the big leap, determined to end his life by jumping off the hanging bridge at Stony Gorge. Until that day, no one had understood the terrible demons that haunted John, tormenting him to the point where he wanted to end his life. Caleb hadn’t grasped the connection between their mother’s absence and John’s desperation.

But that day, a miracle had occurred. Despite falling a hundred feet, John had not died. He’d walked away with nothing but bruises and scratches and a broken arm. Folks who witnessed the incident talked about it in hushed and reverent tones.

John himself had been transformed by the fall. A man reborn, no longer an angry rebel, John declared that it was the hand of God above that had saved him. In the time it took for him to fling himself off the swinging bridge, his life had been remade and given back to him. In gratitude, he declared that he was going to spend the rest of his days serving God. And he set himself to the task with a devotion that was almost fanatical. He had returned to the community, accepted baptism with a humble heart, married Naomi, and set himself on a new path.

After the kids came along, everyone seemed to feel the bad times were finally behind them. Caleb still thought about his mother, but time dulled the gnawing ache of missing her. He admired the way his brother had put his life back together after that desperate day at Stony Gorge.

Yet Caleb often found himself wondering about the world. He used to daydream about the jet planes soaring overhead or the cars roaring down the highway. In defiance of his father’s edicts, he borrowed books from the county library and read novels about imaginary worlds and far-off places, and people grappling with matters he could only imagine. When he turned sixteen, he knew he needed to go out into the world. His father had forbidden it, of course, but Caleb had been determined.

The thing about being Amish was that kids were not only allowed but encouraged to experience life beyond the confines of the community. There was even a name for it—rumspringa. Running around. Most youngsters came running back to embrace baptism and Plain life. Folks thought Caleb would spend his rumspringa the way most kids did—riding around in cars, smoking tobacco and weed, listening to loud music, going to shopping malls and movies.

Caleb had known he would be one of the small percentage of Amish kids who left for good. He knew he’d never join the church, never marry an Amish girl, never raise a family the way his brother was doing. He was forever yearning, one foot out the door, poised for flight. He wanted to see the ocean one day. Wanted to fly in a plane. To learn the calculus and study science and literature and things of that nature. He wanted to experience the world in all its messy, confusing glory.

Most of all, he wanted distance from his father.

Instead of partying, Caleb spent his time at the library. He learned to use books and computers as sophisticated information systems to find out all he could about anything imaginable.

That was how he’d eventually found his mother. A grueling bus ride had taken him to central Florida, where the air was so hot and muggy he could scarcely breathe. The town was nowhere near the ocean or the Gulf of Mexico, but hunched at the side of a highway that bisected the long, narrow state. His search ended at a street lined with modest houses surrounded by scrubby grass and trees decked with little orange bittersweet fruit called calamondin. He still remembered the expression on her face when she had opened the front door. Complete and utter shock had drained her cheeks of color, then blossomed into wonder.

“John?”

“Caleb,” he said. For the love of God, she couldn’t tell her sons apart.

“Who is it, Mom?” called a voice. A young girl came to the door. She stopped and stared at Caleb. Although he wore English clothes, she stared as if he were an alien from outer space.

Mem leaned her back against the doorframe and tipped back her head, looking up at the sky and then closing her eyes.

He’d scarcely remembered her face. There were no photographs of her. He used to try drawing the image he had of her in his mind, but the picture never turned out. Now he saw Hannah in the curve of her cheek and in the wavy blond hair. He saw Jonah in the bright blue eyes and the busy hands.

She mouthed some words, but no sound came out. Her legs seemed to give out and she slid down to the mat, hugging her knees up to her chest. A dry sob heaved from a place deep inside her, and then the floodgates opened.

He remembered this from his childhood. Mem used to cry a lot. The girl—Caleb later learned her name was Nancy—backed away, her eyes round with fright. “Mom,” she said. “Mommy, what’s the matter?”

“You’d best pull yourself together, Mem,” Caleb said in Deitsch.

Maybe the sound of the old dialect caught her attention. She took in a deep breath and picked herself back up. Caleb pushed open the door. “Let’s go inside.”

He entered the strange house. It had a vinyl floor and shabby furniture, and it smelled of something damp, like mildew. The girl called Nancy sat on a barstool in the corner, and Mem took a seat at the end of the sofa. Caleb stood in the doorway, waiting. He crossed his arms over his chest. “We woke up one morning and you were gone,” he said.

A long silence stretched out. Cool air blew from a vent in the ceiling, a magic wind that turned the hot day cold.

“Nancy, honey, you run along and play outside,” Mem said. “I need to speak with Caleb for a bit.”

The girl’s chin tilted up slightly. “I want to stay.”

Mem regarded her steadily. “Run along,” she repeated. “I’ll speak with you later.”

Nancy hesitated for a beat. Then she climbed off the stool and left. The snap of a screen door punctuated her exit.

Finally, Mem began to talk, and she seemed to talk for hours. “I couldn’t stay. I was drowning—or choking. That’s how it felt, day and night. I couldn’t breathe, living in fear of what Asa would do to me next. I was so young and naive, I didn’t even know what to call the things he did to me.”

Caleb hadn’t known what to say to that. He hadn’t been quite certain of what she meant, although knowing his father’s temper, he had an idea.

“I ran away in the night with nothing,” Mem continued. “Asa had hurt me bad. I thought I might die, but I didn’t. I survived and went off on my own for the first time in my life, and it was awful. But not as awful as staying. At first, I lost the will to live. Wandered out onto a busy highway without a thought for what might happen to me. I was lost. So very lost.” She turned her face to the window and stared outside. “I made a lot of stupid mistakes, but I made my way, bit by bit. Found work here in Florida and started over.”

“It never occurred to you to take care of your own kids?” Caleb asked. “Did you think it was all right to leave us with the same man you ran away from because you were so scared of him?”

She studied him with pale, tear-filled eyes. “There was no way Asa would have let me take you, and staying was impossible. I didn’t have a penny to my name. I knew nothing but Plain ways, and I’d never set foot outside the community. I could only hope you and John would be all right.” She stared at him, her eyes swimming with pain. “Did he … did your father …?”

“You mean, did he beat me? Yah, sure, until John got big enough to stand up to him.”

Their father didn’t seem to have the first idea about how to raise two boys. He’d always been strict and stern, with a fearsome temper, but Caleb had no memory of the terrible things Mem had suffered. However, he had witnessed his father’s fierce outbursts. John bore the brunt of the beatings. Yes, they were beatings, not spankings—with a belt, a shovel, a hacksaw, or any other weapon their father might grab. Caleb used to cower, shivering, under the cellar stairs when his father laid into John. At night, he’d hear his brother sniffing, trying not to make a sound as he wept, because if their father caught wind of crying, the beatings would start again.

One Sunday, Caleb overheard John asking the bishop for help. The bishop said a man was obligated to discipline his family to achieve the peaceable fruit of righteousness.

Later that same day, Caleb raided the apple bin and ate as many apples as his belly could hold. When his father discovered him, Caleb explained that he was tasting the fruit of righteousness. Asa flew into a rage and dragged Caleb out to the yard for a beating. That was when John stepped in, at fifteen already a full hand taller than their father. He planted himself like a wall between Caleb and Asa.

“You’re not to lay a hand on my brother,” John said. “Not today. Not ever. If you’re going to hit anyone today, it’s going to be me.”

Now Caleb’s mother deflated, curled into herself. “John, he was always the protective one. Knew how to stand up to his father. And look at you. How handsome you are. I knew John would look after you, and you would be all right.”

“If that’s what you want to think.”

“You look wonderful,” she said, her gaze devouring him. “It’s a miracle, seeing you again, Caleb. I never thought it would happen, but I dreamed of this day. Why, see how tall and handsome you are, just like John. So confident and smart. How is John doing now?”

“John tried to take his own life,” he told his mother.

She went completely still. “Oh, dear heaven,” she said. “No. No.”

“He jumped off the bridge over Stony Gorge—”

“No,” she said again, a horrified whisper.

“He was seventeen years old. And he didn’t die. He wasn’t even hurt too bad. According to folks who saw it happen, he got up and brushed himself off and walked all the way back to Middle Grove. Dr. Shrock set his broken arm. The only thing he lost was his hat.” And himself, Caleb added silently. After the incident, John was so different. He looked the same—though after the baptism his face had been fringed by a beard. Yet there always seemed to be less of Caleb’s brother. Yes, John had latched onto his faith with a powerful fervor, but he was altered, somehow. Not himself. Almost like a clockwork John, mechanically reciting proverbs from Rules for a Godly Life.

“My poor darling John.” A tear squeezed from Mem’s eye and slipped down her cheek. “He wasn’t hurt. It’s a miracle.”

“He’s married now. He and Naomi have two kids, Hannah and Jonah.”

“I wish I could see him,” said Mem. “And those children …”

“You’re under the Bann,” Caleb said. “Now that he’s in the church, he won’t speak to you. We needed you years ago, and you weren’t there. Eventually, we learned to get along without you.”

She flinched and started to cry again. Caleb looked around the room, dim and chilly with the musty-smelling air blowing in. There were photographs on a shelf of Nancy at different ages, and another shelf with a collection of books of the self-help variety—Survival After Abuse. Change Your Brain, Change Your Life.

Even now, Caleb still flinched at the memory of his father’s face, twisted by fury, and John’s steadfast refusal to budge. If John hadn’t stuck up for his younger brother, maybe Caleb would have been the one teetering on the cable bridge over the gorge, not John. He owed his brother devotion and loyalty. It was a debt he could never repay.

In the mechanical hospital bed, Jonah stirred and opened his eyes wide as he seemed to shake himself awake. His gaze darted immediately to the bandage, then to Caleb. “I wish I still had my arm,” he said.

“So do I,” Caleb told him. “I was just thinking about your dat, my brother, John. He was the bravest, strongest, kindest man in the world, and you’re his flesh and blood. It’s going to be real hard, but you’ll be just like that one day.”

“What if I can’t be brave and strong?”

“You can be. I’ll help you, the way your dat helped me.” Caleb reached out and gently touched Jonah’s head. “And that’s why I will never leave you.”

There was no door on the SICU suite where Jonah lay, just a wide doorway open to the nurses’ station. A nurse was always present at the computer in the suite monitoring everything on the screen. At each shift change, the nurse asked Caleb if he needed anything, if there was anyone he wanted to call, but he always politely declined. He did help himself to a book about snorkeling in the Caribbean, and he read it cover to cover by the dim, artificial light in the room.

He was just about to share some of the pictures with Jonah when Reese Powell showed up. She wore loose blue trousers, a shirt to match, and a hip-length white jacket over that. She carried a number of steel and rubber objects in her many pockets, and when she came into the room, she brought with her something Caleb had not expected: the smell of flowers. Must be the soap she used, he thought, then felt guilty for noticing the way she smelled at all.

“Good morning,” she said. “I came to see how Jonah is doing.”

“He woke up a few minutes ago. He’s waiting for his breakfast.” Caleb’s nephew had awakened in a state of fear and anger. Everything about the hospital was strange and new to him, and he was still struggling to accept the loss of his arm.

She fixed her gaze on Jonah, her eyes soft and friendly. “Hi there, Jonah.”

The boy regarded her with narrow-eyed suspicion as he mumbled, “Morning.”

“I was hoping I would get to meet you,” she said. “My name is Reese Powell. I was working in the emergency ward when you came in. Everyone worked hard for the best outcome.”

“This is not a good outcome,” said Jonah.

“It’s not,” she agreed. “I’m sorry.” She gave Caleb a paper-wrapped parcel. “Your clothes. I had them cleaned for you.”

He studied the label on the parcel—City Wash & Fold—and wondered what she would make of the ancient washtub and hand-crank wringer back at the farm.

Jonah glared at her with uncharacteristic anger. “Reese,” he said in a caustic voice. “That’s not a name. It’s a candy.”

“At least I never got swallowed by a whale,” she shot back.

Caleb stood there, amazed. He was amazed because Jonah had never in his life spoken rudely to a person until now. And he was amazed because Reese didn’t seem to care one bit. And in spite of everything terrible that was happening, he couldn’t stop himself from feeling a glimmer of amusement.

Jonah settled back against the pillow, and Caleb could see his fear go down a notch. “I always liked that story,” he muttered. “Are you a doctor?”

“Almost. I wanted to stop by, because I thought you might have some questions. You’ve got a super-talented care team. I’m not on that team, because I work in a different department, but I can talk with you about your arm if you want.”

“Why is it gone?” asked the boy.

“It was so badly injured. They wanted to save it, but there was too much damage.”

“Where is it?” Jonah asked.

She caught her breath. “Your arm, you mean.”

The boy nodded.

“It—the part that had to come off was taken away.” She shifted her stance and stuck her hands in her coat pockets.

“Taken away where?” Jonah persisted.

“I don’t know the exact location, but the hospital has a special way to take care of it.”

“What’s the special way?”

“Well, there are rules. It had to be incinerated and then disposed of. That probably sounds horrible.”

“We incinerate the trash back home.”

“Your arm wasn’t trash, Jonah.”

“I wish I had my hand back.”

“We all wish that. Now you have to work with what you’ve got. You’ll get what’s called a prosthetic arm and hand. Maybe more than one, depending on what you need. It’s going to take a while, because there are lots of steps involved. You have to heal and have physical therapy. I promise, you’ll get lots of help from your care team.”

“What’s my care team?”

“The doctors, nurses, therapists, and all the people who are going to help you. It’s a different world today than the one yesterday, that’s for sure. Eventually, you’ll be stronger than ever. I know it doesn’t seem possible right now, but it’s true. I’ve seen it.”

“How do you know?” Jonah persisted.

She folded her arms and looked him in the eye. “I know stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” Jonah asked her, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“When they move you to the ward, I’ll introduce you to some kids who are going to amaze you with their superpowers. Do you know what a superpower is?”

“Course I do. And I know they’re just made-up stuff in books.”

“Ah. That’s where you’re wrong. There’s one patient who had a heart transplant, and he still comes in every week to make balloon animals for the other kids, just to see them smile. If that’s not a superpower, I don’t know what is.”

“The surgeon said I was lucky,” Jonah said. “Do you think it’s lucky to get your arm cut off?”

She looked from side to side, then bent toward him. “Let me tell you something about surgeons. When they say you were lucky, you weren’t. What it really means is they thought you were going to die and you didn’t. So maybe your superpower and the surgeon’s superpower were working together.”

Jonah’s eyes widened. Caleb could see his fear go down another notch. Could be Reese Powell’s blunt honesty was what the boy needed. He liked her compassion, and the way she spoke plainly to Jonah, not trying to sugarcoat the troubles he faced.

She turned to him and seemed a little flustered at the way he was staring at her. “How did you do last night?” she asked. “Did a social worker come, find you a place to stay?”

When Caleb didn’t answer right away, Jonah angled his gaze at the molded plastic chair in the corner. Caleb’s hat still lay beneath it. “I bet he was right there all night,” the boy said.

“You were, weren’t you?” she asked Caleb.

He didn’t want to get anyone in trouble, so he merely shrugged and said, “I wanted to be here in case Jonah woke up.”

She bit her lip. She had very white, straight teeth and soft-looking lips he had no business noticing. “You’re not going to be good for anything if you don’t eat and sleep properly,” she said, her female bossiness reaching across any and all cultural lines between English and Amish. There was much to admire about this woman—her thoughtful gestures, taking the time to help him through his first evening in the city. And she had a clear, honest way of explaining things to Jonah.

He wondered what her world was like outside the hospital. Did she spend time with her family and friends? Did she live nearby? What did she do when she wasn’t working?

He pictured her in English clothes, driving a car, getting her fingernails polished by someone in a salon—a concept so foreign to the Amish it was almost inconceivable. Did she go out to bars with friends? Surf the Internet? Study her phone as if it held the secrets of the universe?

One of her pockets emitted a buzzing sound. She took out a flat mobile phone with a shiny screen. “I have to go,” she said.

“I wish you could stay,” Jonah said.

“That’s nice to hear. But I work in the ER, not surgery. I just came up here to see how you’re doing.”

“Oh,” said Jonah, clearly not understanding the difference between emergency and surgery.

She backed toward the door, still talking. “Tell you what. At the end of my shift, I’ll come back to see you again. If they move you to the ward, I’ll find you. And you know what else? We’ll figure out a place for your uncle to stay. Maybe get him a more comfortable chair.”

That drew a flicker of a smile from Jonah. “Yeah, that would be good, Reese.”

She gave him a look that even a wounded boy couldn’t resist. “You’re going to be okay, Jonah Stoltz,” she said. “That’s a promise. And you know what?”

“What?”

“Keeping promises is my superpower.”