The Christmas Quilt: Quilts of Love Series (4 page)

Mattie’s hands fluttered over his chest, his beard, his cheeks. “Ohhh. Ohhh, he’s dying isn’t he? I know it. Oh, my sweet Jesus. He’s headed home.”

“Mattie.” Annie automatically fell into the role of nursing. She kept her voice calm but firm. “Mattie, look at me.”

Samuel was back. Annie had to pull Mattie out of the buggy so Samuel could squeeze in and use his stethoscope to check Jesse’s heart rate.

“He’s dying, Annie.” Mattie’s voice rose to a near wail. “He promised never to leave me, and he’s dying.”

“Mattie, I need you to help us. Can you do that?”

The older woman swiped at the tears flowing down her face, pushed her hair back into her
kapp,
and nodded.

“I need you to go into the house and wet a cloth. Wet two. Wring them out well so they’re not dripping and bring them back. Also, bring me a glass of water. Samuel will have some aspirin for Jesse to take and he might like a sip of water.”

Mattie nodded but remained frozen in place.

“We’ll stay with him, Mattie.”

“What if he goes? What if he goes while I’m gone?”

“We’re with him, honey. You go for the cloth. And don’t forget the glass of water.”

As soon as Mattie was hurrying toward the house, Annie pushed her head back into the buggy. Samuel was crouched in the floor area and Jesse was still lying across the seat. “Heart attack?”

“Appears to be. Jesse, how are you feeling?”

“Not so
gut
.” He didn’t open his eyes, but his voice had gained some strength.

“Blood pressure’s too low,” Samuel muttered. “Jesse, have you been prescribed any nitroglycerin pills?”

Jesse shook his head no.

Annie heard the front screen door to their house slam shut. She glanced up in time to see Mattie running toward them, running with the cloth and glass of water.

Samuel pulled the bottle of baby aspirin from his medical bag. “I want you to chew two of these for me. They’re going to help.”

Jesse struggled to sit up. Annie hurried around the buggy in order to position herself behind him. As she rushed around the back of the buggy, something told her she might be too late. When she arrived at the other side and saw the expression on Samuel’s face, she understood then what had started as a beautiful winter Saturday was turning into one of tragedy.

4

A
nnie stared at Samuel as Jesse clutched his chest.

Mattie hadn’t quite reached the buggy, but she would in another few seconds. She would see Jesse was having another heart attack.

“Annie, run to the barn. Use the phone to call 9-1-1. Go now!” Samuel’s voice was calm, but it received no argument. He’d dropped the unopened bottle of aspirin back into his bag and had already begun loosening Jesse’s collar. When Jesse slumped back against the seat, slumped back lifeless, Samuel began to administer CPR.

Annie backed out of the buggy, nearly tripping over her dress.

Mattie saw her and stopped. She dropped the glass of water and the dish towel in the dirt. “Where are you going?”

“To the barn. Help Samuel!” Annie ran, thanking
Gotte
as she did that the bishop had allowed the phone installation a year ago. It was a phone much like those in the shacks dotting the countryside throughout the community. Bishop Levi had decided that with Annie and Samuel married, and with them both helping meet the medical needs of their district, it was prudent to allow the exception to their rule of no phones.

She ran and placed the call even as she heard Mattie’s crying. And as she went through those motions, she prayed—for
Gotte’s
help. For Samuel’s strength, so he could continue performing CPR until the ambulance arrived. For Mattie, so she would feel a sense of calm. For Jesse, so his heart would beat again. For herself, so she would know how to help.

For
Gotte’s wille
.

The emergency dispatcher informed her it would take ten to twelve minutes for an ambulance to reach their address.

She hung up the phone and returned to Samuel, but this time she didn’t run. This time she was more mindful of the child she was carrying inside her, though she didn’t think running would hurt her. Many pregnant women were joggers, but she wasn’t used to running—and this was a stressful and emotional situation. So, instead of running, she walked quickly and focused on remembering all of her training on the cardiac ward.

It had been a mere six weeks’ rotation.

And it had taken place over three years ago.

In the hospital, they had an external defibrillator, which she had used one time. She and Samuel weren’t equipped with any such device. There would be no way to administer an electrical shock to Jesse’s heart if it had stopped beating completely. No, they could only do their best to provide what medical care they were able and continue the CPR, which she could see Samuel was still performing.

“I can do that,” she whispered. “They trained me at Mercy Hospital.”

“
Nein.
I’m
gut.
” Sweat was beading on his brow. How long had he been at it? Three minutes? Four?

Mattie sat on the ground beside the buggy, weeping and praying. The German words flowed out of her, out from her heart and onto the cold ground.

Annie crawled into the buggy, placed her fingers gently against Jesse’s wrist though she didn’t expect to find anything. “Samuel! He has a pulse. It’s weak, but—”

Samuel stopped pumping on Jesse’s chest and placed his stethoscope there. “
Ya.
His heart is beating. How long until the ambulance arrives?”

“Five, maybe six, minutes.”

“Try to get a blood pressure for me.”

She was already slipping the cuff over his arm.

Jesse began to stir, though he didn’t speak.

“Glad to have you back, Jesse.” Samuel knelt beside him in the buggy, next to Annie in the floor area, which was no easy task. “You gave us a quite a scare.”

Jesse said nothing, but he did chew the aspirin Samuel slipped into his mouth. Mattie popped up at Jesse’s name.

“Is he alive?”

“He is, Mattie. It would seem that
Gotte
heard your prayers.”

Pressing the top of her head to the top of her husband’s, she began weeping in earnest.

Annie raised her eyes from Jesse, from monitoring him, to glance at Samuel. They shared one of those priceless moments, a heartbeat of life she understood was precious. It would stand out in her memory even when she was old and the curls beneath her prayer
kapp
were gray. It reminded her of the time they had helped to birth Faith and Aaron’s baby—the first miracle they had witnessed together. Surely, this was another.

At that moment, the ambulance hurried down the lane, lights flashing and siren blaring.

“You update them.” Samuel nodded. “I’ll stay here.”

She ducked out of the buggy and met the paramedics as they were pulling their equipment from the rig. Two young men in their twenties, they didn’t seem surprised to be treating a heart attack victim in a buggy or being updated by an Amish nurse. Annie imagined they had seen it all.

Within fifteen minutes they had Jesse stabilized and Mattie in the back of the ambulance beside him, holding his hand. An intravenous drip had already improved his color.

“What about our horse and buggy?” Mattie said, as the paramedics prepared to close the doors to the ambulance.

“We’ll take care of both,” Samuel assured her. “And we’ll send word to your place for someone to tend to the other animals. You stay with Jesse. They’ll most likely need to do surgery.”

As a look of anxiousness washed over Mattie’s face, Samuel stuck his head farther inside. “Keep praying and so will we. I imagine the bishop will arrive at the hospital before the surgery. You’re not alone in this, Mattie.”

He helped shut the door on the back of the ambulance, and then it pulled away and left behind a river of silence.

They stood there, a few feet apart, watching it go.

Samuel turned and studied her until Annie grew self-conscious—suddenly aware of the dirt on her apron, the way her curls had escaped her
kapp
, and how sweaty she had become, even in the cold.

Finally, he closed the gap between them and laced her fingers in his, before leading her up the porch steps.

“You did very well, Nurse Annie.”

The blush started slowly, until it crept all the way up her neck and along her cheekbones. When had Samuel last teased her by calling her
Nurse Annie
?

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“You were quite professional during that crisis.”

“As were you.”

“For a moment there I thought we were going to have two heart attacks on our hands—both Jesse and Mattie.” He led her inside and insisted she sit at the table as he poured them both a glass of water.

“Can you imagine it though, Samuel?”

He didn’t answer, only waited and watched her.

She pushed on. “It was as if her heart was breaking as his was stopping. It was as if they were one.”

Annie sipped the water. “I suppose such a long marriage creates a strong bond.
Ya
?”

Samuel finished his water and set the glass in the sink. Instead of sitting beside her, he squatted in front of her chair, pulled her hand forward, and kissed her palm. “I think each year that passes, two hearts become more entwined, like two vines growing side by side. Eventually it must become difficult to know where the beat of one stops and the beat of the other begins.”

Tears blurring her eyes, Annie nodded.

Samuel reached forward and kissed her on the forehead.

“Now I have three buggies to see to,” he said, standing and grinning. “If I’m not mistaken I saw some quilting items in your bag.”

“For Leah’s
bopplin
.”

“I’ll fetch it for you. Unless you’d rather nap?”

“
Nein.
I think I’d like to sew. I prepared dinner before we left. I’ll place it in the oven, then go upstairs and work on her quilt.”

“
Wunderbaar
. How long does the food need to cook?”

“It’s chicken. I’ll set it for about two hours.” Annie went to the gas-powered refrigerator and began foraging around in it, but as Samuel crossed the kitchen to head out the front door, she had to call out to him.

It wasn’t their way to speak of feelings openly. It was enough to work beside each other every day. But after this, after so close a brush with death, she felt a strong need to express what was pushing up against her heart, against her baby.

He stopped, his hand on the door, an expression of surprise on his face.

Her eyes met his as she cradled the chicken casserole in her arms. “I love you, Samuel.”

“And I love you, Annie.”

Thirty minutes later, she was upstairs sitting in what she thought of as her sewing room. The top floor of her and Samuel’s house had the staircase coming up through the middle section, surrounded by three bedrooms and a bath. He’d purchased it years ago from an Amish farmer who had a growing family—there were four bedrooms, including the one downstairs. There were also two bathrooms—one upstairs, one downstairs. Annie realized many Amish still used outhouses. Leah’s family had recently moved to Wisconsin and some of the communities there didn’t allow indoor bathrooms. She’d always had indoor facilities and thought it would be a big adjustment to use the outdoor ones—though, of course, theirs was nothing like the
Englisch
. The water came out slowly when you turned it on and sometimes there wasn’t as much hot water as she would have liked, but it was still better than an outhouse!

Their bedroom faced the north, with windows peering out over the yard and the lane. Annie loved the view. She adored waking up each morning and imagining what might be in store, what might be coming down the lane. The bedroom next to theirs, the one with the windows facing east, she had decided to make into their nursery. Although she planned to keep her infant in a cradle in their room for the first month, she didn’t intend to keep her there for long.

It didn’t take
Englisch
training to convince her of the need for babies to be in their own bedrooms. Her mother had been quite free with advice! “Parents need privacy, Annie. You keep your infant close until her feedings are down to once a night, then put her in her own room at night. You’ll hear her if she cries, and you and Samuel will still have your time for intimacy.”

Annie smiled at the memory as she laid out her material for Leah’s quilt. The third bedroom, the one across from theirs and with a small window facing south, had seemed perfect for a sewing room. She’d argued they might need it for another baby, but Samuel had said, “One year at a time, Annie.”

So he and Adam had carried the heavy treadle machine up the stairs, and he’d made her a fine table for laying out her patterns and cloth.

The pattern. She’d set her heart on a nine-patch crib quilt. Her mother had made an all-hearts naive crib quilt for the other twin. That pattern called for three squares across, four rows down, and hearts appliquéd in every other square. Annie had seen it last week, and she wanted to complement the traditional Amish colors her mother had used.

In fact, remembering the pattern her mother had chosen, and studying the pattern in front of her, she thought it might be nice to put a heart somewhere in the quilt she was making and she did happen to have a template for a heart appliqué.

Her nine-patch pattern called for her to alternate a Sunbonnet Sue and Overall Sam in each square. Perhaps she could adjust her pattern so that she could place a heart in one of the squares, then it would coordinate with what her mother had sewn. After all, she was following a pattern, but more than that, she was making something special for her niece, or maybe her nephew.

She smiled at the thought.

And her mind darted back to Jesse Lapp.

How was he? Was he even now on the surgery table?

Was Mattie alone in the waiting room or had Bishop Levi made it there to stay with her—to pray with her, strengthen her and be a comfort?

Annie propped her chin in her hand and gazed out the window, toward their barn. The door was open. Samuel had moved both of their buggies inside, but the Lapp’s mare was giving him some trouble. Samuel stood there, between the house and the barn. He appeared to be talking to the animal, holding a bucket of oats in one hand and brushing her mane with the other hand.

Life was like that, wasn’t it? Sometimes easy. Other times difficult. The unexpected happened, and then you did your best to help each other through it.

She was worried about Mattie, and she was also concerned about Leah and her babies. Maybe she could pray while she quilted, pray, and put her concerns aside as she decided which colors to place on which pieces of the quilt. Adding the heart appliqué was a good idea. It would help to convey to Adam and Leah how much these children were going to be loved.

The ray of sun through the window had slid down the wall, and Annie realized her time for sewing was coming to a close for the day. She needed a few more minutes to finish planning her quilt—choosing which colors she would use for which pieces of the pattern on Leah’s quilt. She had enough light to find what she needed.

She searched through her basket of fabric again. Where was the dark blue? She had some left over from the quilt she’d sewn for the charity auction last summer—at least a yard, which would be enough if she cut her pattern carefully. Maybe it had fallen behind the sewing table Samuel had constructed for her.