Authors: Linda Byler
In his room, Sarah adjusted pillows and pulled a warm blanket over him. Exhaustion crept over his pale features.
“Try and get some sleep, Levi.” She patted his shoulder, smoothed back the thinning hair, and wished he could have a good, hot shower.
Levi nodded, his eyes already drooping. Turning his large head, he said, “I can sleep having you here with me, Sarah. I know you’ll watch out for me.”
He sighed, turned his head, and fell asleep almost instantly. Good. Now she’d find something to eat.
She found the elevator and located the hospital cafeteria, where she selected scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes, orange juice, and coffee with cream. She paid and found a table, collapsing gratefully into an upholstered booth.
She’d done the milking that morning with Priscilla. It was several hours of hard work, and there had been no time for breakfast. The driver had arrived at eight. She was barely out of the shower and dressed in time.
The cafeteria was crowded with people holding trays and jostling their way to and from tables. Red-eyed doctors, nurses in scrubs, anxious visitors—they all sought a moment’s rest and some food to sustain them. She looked up when someone stopped at her table.
“Do you mind if I sit here? The tables are all full.”
A shy, nervous young girl, probably about the same age as Sarah and dressed as a volunteer, stood hesitantly at her table.
“Of course. Sit down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. There’s room.”
“My name is Ashley. Ashley Walters.”
“Good to meet you. I’m Sarah Beiler.”
Ashley smiled, hesitantly, unsure, and sat down.
That was the one nice thing about being Amish in an area that was the hub of, well—being Amish. The English people around them accepted their way of life and their dress without staring or being rude. It was not unusual, then, for an Amish girl to be asked by a local English girl to share a table. The differences between them were accepted, comfortable, a part of life, as were the farms and the horses and buggies traveling briskly along the country roads.
After Ashley sat down, an awkwardness developed at the table. Ashley began eating, buttering her toast after she’d tasted it, and salting her eggs before realizing Sarah might want to pray.
“Oh. Oh. Excuse me. I…” Her drawn features looked even more pinched before she hastily laid down her fork.
Sarah shook her head and reached for her napkin.
“Don’t worry about it. Go ahead. We don’t always say grace in public. My father says it can be done in silence.”
Smiling, she took up a slice of limp bacon and consumed it in two bites. “I’m so hungry,” she remarked.
Ashley smiled. “Did you have chores to do?”
“I sure did.” She explained the milking, the driver arriving at eight, and Levi.
Ashley nodded, sympathy showing in her brown eyes.
“Poor guy. How old is he?”
“He has Down syndrome. He’s approaching thirty-two—old for someone with Down syndrome.”
“Oh my!”
She asked where they lived, and Sarah told her. The recognition in Ashley’s eyes was followed by an inquiry about their barn.
Sarah nodded and said it was April when it burned.
Ashley nodded. Her eyes clouded with sudden emotion, and she crumpled her napkin tightly and threw her silverware on the blue tray, the eggs uneaten. She whispered, “I…I have to leave now. Bye.”
“Bye,” Sarah said, but she knew Ashley hadn’t heard as the other girl rapidly wove her way through the crowd, turning sideways to squeeze between tables, apologizing, her tray held high. She disappeared as quickly as she’d arrived.
Shaking her head in bewilderment, Sarah buttered her pancakes liberally and then soaked them well with syrup from a small, glass pitcher. She cut a substantial square and shoved it into her mouth, chewing appreciatively, and followed it with a long swallow of coffee.
Mmm. She was hungry, 135 pounds or not, and she planned on eating this whole stack of pancakes all by herself.
She wondered if the mention of barn fire had anything to do with Ashley’s swift retreat. She doubted it. And yet. . . . She shrugged her shoulders, cut another buttery, syrupy chunk of pancake, and chewed contentedly.
Back in Levi’s room, the nurses were trying to find a new vein on the back of his hand for his IV, so Sarah stepped back out into the corridor, wincing as Levi began to cry pathetically.
Ach
my, Levi.
Two nurses worked—the one as short and round as Hannah, the other one tall and angular—talking nonstop. “She’s drawing into herself, I tell you. She can’t get worse. She doesn’t talk.”
This was followed by a thumbs-down gesture and a vigorous nodding of her companion’s head. “I got her to volunteer here just so I can keep her near me when I can. I’m just going crazy. I don’t know what to do.”
They smiled at Sarah as she entered the room again. The nurses had taped the IV needle to Levi’s arm and said he could soon have his breakfast. He dried his eyes clumsily and sniffled. Then he told Sarah that the nurses about killed him with that long needle.
“You’ll be okay, honey.”
The largest gray-haired nurse adjusted the IV bag and said that if that needle was not in his hand he wouldn’t get better. Levi watched her face, his features inscrutable, and then announced loudly that if he didn’t get something
chide
(right) away for breakfast, he wasn’t going to make it anyhow. They laughed in delight, both nurses chuckling together, and promised him pancakes.
“I want shoofly!” That really got them laughing, and Sarah laughed with them. “I mean it. I’m terrible hungry for shoofly.”
When his breakfast finally did arrive, Sarah watched Levi’s face as she lifted the heavy lid on the steaming plate—a small mound of lemon-yellow eggs of some questionable origin, a slice of dark wheat toast, a small pot of fruit cocktail, and black coffee. Poor Levi. It was only a fourth of his generous breakfast at home, and he began crying in earnest.
“
Vill net poshing
(Don’t want peaches).”
Sarah glanced nervously out the door toward the nurses’ station and explained hurriedly that he could have fried mush and shoofly when he got home, but would he please be good and eat this?
“
Vill chilly
(Want jelly).”
Relieved to find a packet of grape jelly, Sarah spread it on the wheat toast, which seemed to placate his despair. Levi ate the toast and all the eggs, but he refused the fruit, saying nobody eats peaches for breakfast. They are only for supper with chocolate cake and cornstarch pudding.
The small amount of food did seem to lift his mood somewhat, and he drank his coffee obediently before drifting off to sleep. Thankfully, he forgot about the promised pancakes.
Sarah settled herself in the enormous plastic-covered chair as best she could and opened an issue of
National Geographic
she’d brought from home. Dat said it was an expensive magazine but well worth it, with knowledgeable articles from around the world. Sarah loved it and read it carefully from cover to cover.
She immersed herself in an article about the Inca culture and then drifted off to sleep before waking with a start and reading on. Machines clicked and beeped, the voices of nurses rose and fell, carts wheeled past, clanking and whirring.
She was startled to see two doctors enter Levi’s room wearing ties and expensive, perfectly pressed shirts beneath their open white coats. Sarah stood up, extended a hand, and answered their greeting. Then she listened politely to their diagnosis.
Levi’s pneumonia was the result of his weakened immune system, which went with his declining heart condition. People with Down syndrome often have weak hearts. He would be given the best blood pressure medication and another pill to keep his heart rhythm as steady as possible, but exercise and diet would help as well.
Sarah’s heart sank, imagining Levi on a restricted diet. Hoo-boy.
She nodded, answered their questions, and thanked them, relieved to see them disappear. Doctors were intimidating. They were smart, wealthy men who were held in high esteem by the Amish, or most of them.
Sarah could never quite grasp the exact meaning of their medical jargon, which made her feel insecure or embarrassed, sometimes both. She was not well-informed about medical terms. She was just an Amish country girl with an overweight brother who had a bad heart, evidently.
Oh dear. Would Dat and Mam be able to pay all Levi’s medical bills as time went on? Well, one thing was sure: in these matters, when medical expenses climbed out of control, the alms of the church were always there with the deacon kindly offering assistance wherever it was needed.
Her people did not believe in insurance, choosing instead to place their trust in God and the support of the church, as in times past. But as medical costs continued to escalate to exorbitant levels, the Amish had developed their own aid plan—Amish Aid. Sarah knew that church members made monthly payments into the plan’s fund. When a family faced a medical issue requiring hospitalization or extensive care, Amish Aid stepped in to help with covering the costs. Sarah also knew that the Aid plan was somewhat controversial. While it was a necessity for some families, it was shunned by others.
Dat had been a man of means, but now? The fire damages had exceeded his Amish fire insurance and put Dat into an unexpected financial free fall. And then there had been the funeral expenses.
Well, Sarah would get a job, that’s all. She was still waiting to hear from that Emma. Likely Hannah had made it all up. She had said she needed someone to work at her bakery, but where was she now?
Levi whimpered and burrowed into his pillows. Immediately, Sarah leaped to her feet, afraid he’d pull on some needles or tubes. She watched over him carefully.
Sarah looked up with surprise when she saw Ben Zook
sei
Anna come breezing through the door, her brilliant lime green dress certainly doing nothing to hide her size. Her face was alight with interest, her pretty eyes smiling pleasantly, her white teeth gleaming evenly.
“Sarah!”
“Anna! What brings you in here?”
“Oh, that Lee. He… I couldn’t tell him a thing. Mind you, that arm is so infected, he plum down has blood poisoning. He could have died. He cut himself with the blade he used to…”
She stopped and looked at Levi. “Oh my, he looks so sick. Is he any better at all?”
“Yes. Oh yes. He was moved from the ICU.”
Anna bustled over and put her arms around Sarah. She gave her a squeeze, patted her back, and said she had to be off as they were taking Lee to his room from the ER.
“He has a temperature of 102 and everything,” was her parting line, her bright green dress disappearing with a swish.
Sarah sat back in her chair. She was staying here at the hospital until morning, which now seemed a bit unsettling somehow. Should she go see Lee? Say hello? She supposed she could walk into his room and say, I told you so, but as far as she knew, no one likes to hear that, especially men.
Oh, she’d stay right here. She wouldn’t go. It would be too bold of her with him lying in a hospital bed. He’d be ashamed of the fact that he was there, and she had no business visiting him. No, she wouldn’t go.
The day slowly wore on, the clock hands moving to the noon hour. Levi awoke grumpy and hungry, asking for shoofly pie or at least a bowl of Corn Flakes.
Sarah told him he had to wait till lunchtime, when they’d bring his dinner. The meal eventually arrived. On his tray they found steamed fish—unsalted, of course—bilious green beans, and macaroni and cheese. He threw a fit of rage, and Sarah had to call the nurses to adjust the IV tube in his hand.
Overwhelmed and tired of the too bright room, the green paint, the slippery chair, Sarah scolded him with words of serious rebuke, telling Levi if he didn’t behave she was going to call a driver and go home. The scolding left him in such a state of repentance that he ate every bite of the healthy food on his dinner tray, drank all the ginger ale, belched loudly, and said he wanted to watch TV.
“No, Levi.”
“Why?”
“It costs something, I think.”
“You can pay.”
“Dat wouldn’t approve.”
Levi’s eyes narrowed, and he told Sarah that Dat wasn’t there, that if he walked in, he’d turn it off as fast as he could. Sarah laughed but remained adamant.
The telephone by his bed rang, and Sarah answered. It was Mam, and she wanted to talk to Levi. He grabbed the receiver and proceeded to air all his grievances about the food, and how mean Sarah was, and could she bring shoofly pie in the morning?
Well, he didn’t know. Surely, Sarah could ask the doctors, he told Mam.
After Mam promised to bring him food, Levi handed the receiver to Sarah. Then as she turned her back, he pressed the call bell attached to the rail on his bed. Sarah hung up quickly when a nurse appeared inquiring about Levi’s needs.
“I want to watch TV.”
Patiently, the nurse brought the remote, showed him what buttons to press, and how to change the channels before she left. Sarah decided to keep her peace and see how well Levi would follow instructions.
First, he pulled himself upright as far as possible, then clutched the narrow, black device, and began a laborious process of selecting the button that “made it go,” muttering to himself. When nothing happened, he asked for his glasses, perched them on his nose, and bent over the remote once more. After he located the proper button, the TV flashed to life. Another round of muttering, another painstaking attempt at “something else,” and then he found a channel about wild animals.
What wonders flashed before his eyes! It was a storybook come to life, the elephants of Tanzania roaming the plains, their leaf-like ears flapping in slow motion.
He chortled and pointed and said, “
Gook mol!
(Look here!)” over and over until he simply wore himself out. He fell asleep with the remote clutched firmly in his hand.
He told the nurse later that afternoon that he had seen elephants. He hadn’t known their ears were so busy. She told him he should have ears that big to keep the flies away. Levi considered what that would be like and then told her that if his ears were that big, his wool hat wouldn’t fit to go to church.