Angels Watching Over Me (5 page)

Leah was disappointed. “They still don’t know what’s wrong with me?”

“Evidently, according to Dr. Thomas,” her mother said, then quoted, “you’re ‘manifesting symptoms that are consistent with any number of health problems.’ As if that’s supposed to pacify me. At any rate, they’ve scheduled more tests starting Monday morning, and once they can evaluate the results, they
might
be able to diagnose you. There’s no excuse for dragging this thing out.”

“I don’t want to spend Christmas in the hospital.”

“I’m sure you won’t have to. But until I get some sort of definitive word from your doctor, I’m not cutting my honeymoon short. That seemed okay with you the last time we talked.”

“Sure, it’s fine.” Leah forced herself not to sound disappointed.

“But don’t you worry. We’re flying into Indianapolis December twenty-third, just like we planned. We’ll come straight to the hospital and spring you. Then it’s home to the farm for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We’ll put up a tree and put out all our presents. Why, I’m even planning to cook a turkey with all the trimmings.”

“But what if they still don’t know what’s wrong with me?”

“Then we’ll find another doctor after Christmas. But I’m sure that won’t be necessary. Now, is there anything else we need to discuss?”

Leah could think of a hundred things. She wanted to say “I’m scared” but couldn’t get the words out. She wanted to say “I love you.”

“Um, Mom, I—”

“Whoops! Sorry, dear, I’ve got to run. Someone’s at the door. I’ll call you before Monday.
Ciao
.”

Leah held the receiver for a long time, listening to the dial tone that only moments before had been the voice of her mother. With tears welling in her eyes, she hung up.

She decided to take a belated morning shower and put on her makeup, hoping it would make her feel better. She was just adding the finishing touches—not easy with her broken finger—when Molly came in to take blood pressures and temps. By now Rebekah was awake, but she lay in the bed listlessly. She looked feverish. Charity tried to soothe her while Molly worked.

“Did you find the missing tree?” Leah
asked, coming out of the bathroom as she spritzed on an expensive perfume.

“Still missing,” Molly said.

Leah told Charity what had happened.

“Stealing is wrong,” Charity said, sighing. “This outsider world of yours is not a very nice place, Leah.”

Was she asking Leah to defend the world at large? “There are good people too,” Leah said. “Aren’t there, Molly?”

“A few saints. An angel or two.”

“Where’s the angel?” Rebekah asked.

“The angels are watching over you, little sister. You just can’t see them,” said Charity, smoothing Rebekah’s damp forehead.

“Can you see any angels, Leah?” Rebekah asked.

“Not really.” Believing in angels was a little like believing in fairies and elves, Leah thought. Interesting mythology, but not scientifically valid.

Molly said, “I think
you’re
an angel, Rebekah. Now, why don’t you close your eyes and let this good medicine do its work.” She adjusted the drip on Rebekah’s IV.

Rebekah sighed. Molly turned to Leah. “You look pretty. Got a date?”

Leah ran her fingers through her thick hair. “Actually, I think I missed my date with the lunch tray. I’m starved.”

“My fault,” Molly said. “I didn’t get you back up here in time. But don’t worry, there’s plenty to eat in the rec room. Pizza, sandwiches, fresh fruit—go help yourself.”

“Do you want me to bring you something?” Leah asked Charity.

“No, thank you. We ate already.” Charity smiled at Leah.

The rec room was more crowded than before. The giant-screen TV was now showing
The Little Mermaid
for a group of engrossed kids, as toddlers climbed on the plastic play equipment. Some of the children were hooked to IV lines that hung from poles standing next to them. Some were bald from chemotherapy treatments. Some had broken limbs in casts. A candy striper aide sat in a corner, overseeing the group and running interference when two toddlers had a confrontation.

Leah ventured into the kitchen and stopped short. Ethan stood in front of a vending machine, contemplating the selections.

“You have to put money in. You can’t just
wish the stuff out,” Leah said, hoping to make him smile.

Startled, he jumped back. “You surprised me.” His cheeks reddened, and he dropped his gaze. He didn’t offer her the hoped-for smile.

“Sorry,” she said irritably. Why did he always look away from her? Did his religion forbid him to look her in the eye? “Do you want me to help?” she asked.

“I—I have no money for the machine.”

“I have quarters.” She reached into the pocket of her robe. “Here. Let me treat you. What would you like?”

“I cannot take—”

“Of course you can,” she interrupted. “Buying you a candy bar doesn’t make us engaged, does it?” She popped in two quarters. “What’s your favorite?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had one before.”

“Are you joking?”

“Is this funny to you?”

“Only strange,” she said, more hesitant now, her annoyance subsiding. “I’ll pick for you.” She punched a button, and a Milky Way bar dropped down the chute. She picked it up and handed it to him. “This is one of my favorites. Try it.”

Hesitantly he took it from her, careful not to touch her hand. “Thank you.”

She tried to make eye contact, but Ethan kept his gaze on the candy bar. Again her anger flared. She spun and stalked over to the counter and a platter holding a stack of wrapped sandwiches. She grabbed one, took a fruit drink, and dropped into a nearby chair, pointedly ignoring Ethan. The guy might be good-looking, but he was a jerk as far as she was concerned.

From the corner of her eye she saw that Ethan hadn’t left the room. He just stood by the door, shifting from foot to foot. His shirt was white broadcloth. His pants were the same wide-legged style as his father’s. He wore heavy, dark boots. There was nothing fashionable about him. He was nothing like any of the boys she’d known back in Dallas. She tried hard not to look at him. Still he didn’t move.

She couldn’t stand it anymore. “What!” she cried. “What do you want? Is the candy bar poison or something?”

He shook his head, his gaze riveted to the floor.

“Then what’s wrong, Ethan? Is there something
wrong with me? Is there a particular reason why you won’t look at me or talk to me?”

“No.” He came closer until he was standing over her, staring straight down into her eyes.

His gaze was so intense that Leah felt as if it might burn her. She swallowed hard. Her hands trembled, and her heart began to race. “What is it? Do you dislike me?” Her voice quivered with false bravado.

“Dislike you?” He looked as if she’d slapped him. “I do not dislike you, Leah Lewis-Hall. I think that you are the most beautiful girl I have ever set my eyes upon.”

“Y
ou do?” Leah stared at him. “You actually think I’m pretty?”

“It is impossible for me not to think so. You
are
beautiful.”

She felt herself blush. No guy had ever been so forthright with her. In her experience, most guys liked to play head games with girls. They liked to come on strong, then back away if a girl showed any interest. She grew wary. Maybe Ethan was the same way. “I’ll bet you’ve told lots of girls they’re pretty,” she said tentatively.

He shook his head. “I have only taken Martha Dewberry home but once in my buggy.”

“You’ve lost me, Ethan. What’s a buggy ride got to do with feeding girls a line?” Leah pushed out a nearby chair with her foot, inviting Ethan to sit.

He sat. “What is this ‘feeding a line’?”

“Giving somebody a compliment in order to get something you want from her.” She wondered if she was going to have to explain every idiom in the English language to him.

“You mean
lie
?” He recoiled. “I do not lie, Leah. If I tell you you are beautiful, it is because it is so.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “Well, thank you for thinking so. I would have never guessed you felt that way. You acted as if you wanted to avoid me. That can hurt a person’s feelings, you know.”

“Have I hurt your feelings?”

“I’m getting over it.”

A smile slowly inched across Ethan’s face. “Good. I do not want to hurt your feelings.”

She measured him quietly. Ethan’s hands were large and raw; he must work hard. His face was lean, with the hint of a beard in places. His hair curled against his collar and flopped appealingly across his forehead. She wanted to touch it, but she didn’t dare. She asked, “Are
you going to tell me about Martha Dewberry and your buggy ride together?”

He regarded Leah seriously. “It is our custom that when a man is interested in a woman, he takes her home from church or community gatherings in a buggy. It is his way of telling others that he has special feelings for this person.”

Despite herself, Leah felt a tiny flare of jealousy. “Where I come from, if a guy likes a girl, he asks her out on a date and he picks her up in his car. Or his parents’ car.”

“We have no cars.”

“That’s what your sister told me. But you don’t mind riding in them.”

“Public transportation is fine for long trips, but for each one of us to own a car would be prideful. And it would break apart our community.”

Every family Leah knew owned a car. Sometimes two or three cars. Neil had given her mother a car for a wedding gift, and Leah had used it to drive herself to the hospital. But she could see how vehicles separated people. She thought of people driving on the expressways, each locked alone inside a car, cut off from
fellow travelers. “So, are you a good buggy driver?”

He grinned. “Passable.”

“And do you like this Martha Dewberry? Is she your girlfriend?”

His brow puckered while his gaze lingered over Leah’s face. “She is Amish.”

And I’m not
. She heard the unspoken message in his comment. Suddenly she wanted to turn the talk away from their differences. She liked Ethan. But nothing could ever come of their friendship; they were from two very different worlds. She moved forward. “I’ll bet you’ve never played a video game, have you?”

He shook his head. “I have not ever seen one.”

She grabbed his hand. “Come on. Let me show you how.”

She led him into the semidarkened video game room. Several kids clustered around machines, but she saw a vacant one back in a corner and took Ethan toward it. “Sit,” she directed. She positioned herself across the table from him. “I’ve played this one before back in Texas. It’s got levels of difficulty, so we can start slow, until you get the hang of it.” She
paused, suddenly stricken by a thought. “It wouldn’t be against your religion, would it?”

His features glowed by the pale purple light emanating from the game. “Play is not forbidden. We play many games. I can see no harm in trying this one.”

It didn’t take him long to catch on. Ethan’s hand flew on the trackball, spinning and turning it. Leah threw up her hands in defeat as he soared over the million-point mark. “Are you sure you’ve never played a video game before? If I didn’t know better, I’d bet you’d suckered me.”

His face was lit with a heart-stopping grin of genuine pleasure. “What do you mean—‘suckered’?”

“You know,
pretended
not to know how to play.”

“I told you, Leah, I do not lie.” His eyes twinkled. “It is an exciting game. I like it.”

“You have to admit that modern conveniences aren’t all bad.”

He leveled his incredibly blue eyes on her. “They have their pleasures.”

A tingling sensation prickled up her arms. “Too bad you need electricity to play it.”

He laughed. “Electricity is not the only need.
Time is necessary too. With so much to do on the farm, who would have time for video games?”

“It seems to me that work is all you have time for.”

“Work is a good teacher. It gives us Amish a sense of meaning and purpose.”

“Does it give
you
meaning?”

He pondered her question, and she hoped he could tell that she was genuinely interested in his perspective.

“Work helps me understand that my life is but one small part of God’s greater order,” he said. “The seasons come. They go. Harvest comes, and with it, God supplies our needs. But if we did nothing but
wish
for a good harvest, if we did no work to produce a good crop, then that would be foolish. And worse, it would presume on God’s benevolence.”

Presented that way, his point of view made perfect sense to Leah. “Don’t you ever get curious about the rest of the world, though?”

She could tell she’d hit a nerve. For all of his confidence about his lifestyle, there was yearning too. And by the way he played the video game, she guessed, there was intense competitiveness. “I cannot tell you otherwise, Leah.
Yes, I do wonder what certain things would be like among you English. Since I’ve been here in this hospital, I have seen many people who care and who help others. Like Amish ways.

“But I have also seen your newspapers and your television programs since I’ve been here. They tell terrible stories about your world. People kill others to steal their cars—even when they have cars of their own.” He shook his head. “This is not a world where I want to live.”