The Girl in a Coma (6 page)

Eleven

Allison

I have dark brown hair and hazel eyes. I wear a size four. My shoe size is 8, my bra size is 34B. My preference is for bright clothes with solid colors. Sometimes I dress a little skanky, but when I do, I know I'm doing it. I'm about three feet tall, including the bed.

Okay, that last bit was a joke.

If I could stand up, I would be about average height.

Why am I telling you my data? Just to establish I'm me.

I wonder if it gives my midnight stalker satisfaction, seeing me like this? I mean, I'm not even a zombie. They have no mind but they can move. I have a mind, and can't.

Yeah, well, I'm alive! Maybe not kicking, but I'm alive! As that woman in the States used to say, the one from Alaska who ran for President or whatever:
You betcha
!

I couldn't have voted for her, anyway. Only Americans can vote for the President. Which doesn't seem fair, since their President is pretty much the boss of the world.

If my Pennsylvania Dutch ancestors did not come up during the Revolution, or soon after, I would have been an American. But they did, they crossed over at Fort Erie near Niagara Falls. My family became Canadians before Canada existed. Nana Friesen used to tell me about them. She could remember things that happened before she was born. Maybe you don't need a bullet in the head for the blood to remember. Sometimes, the past is just there, within us.

My ancestors were known as United Empire Loyalists. They packed as many of their belongings as they could into what they called Conestoga wagons. They hitched up plow horses and oxen to pull them. And they came north. Some of them had been in Pennsylvania since 1683, so it wasn't easy to leave. They had been there for over a hundred years. They had buried grandparents and parents and children in the cemeteries of Lancaster County.

But the British had promised them they would never have to fight in a war. The British King had the power to enforce God's laws. But King George was losing the battle. So my family came north to Upper Canada because the King was still in charge up here and everyone was free—slavery was against the law here, over seventy years before it was illegal in the United States.

Upper Canada became the Province of Ontario in the Dominion of Canada. And I became a vegetable in a hospital in Peterborough, with a bullet hole in my brain.

I don't think Russell Miller wanted to hurt me. I've decided it must have been Russell Miller. He just wanted me dead.

In his screwed up mind, then I would be his.

But he would have had to kill
himself
to join me. I wonder if he thought of that?

Good question, Allison. When I get better, I'll have to ask a shrink. Meanwhile, he watches over me. Russell does. It must be him. I don't know what he's told the night nurses. They must know he's here.

They probably think he's my long lost lover, on a deathwatch
.

Rebecca and her people had their God. I have Russell Miller.

But what about the witness, the other guy in the car, the guy who yelled “Stop?” Where'd he get to? Maybe I just made him up, maybe I want to imagine Russell has a conscience, so in my memory I've created the other guy to try and save me. He's what they call a
figment
of my imagination. I thought of fig newton cookies when Mrs. Muratori first told us about making up things on purpose. She could have just said, “intentional hallucination.” Sometimes words have no meaning, sometimes they mean too much.

I'm thinking in circles, like a figure skater going faster and faster as the circles get tighter, the closer I get to the truth.

I'm drifting off to sleep. Where is he? It must be evening. Yeah, David was here a couple of hours ago. My mom didn't come in.

The door into the hall opens and closes. I can feel the air in the room moving. I can hear him breathe.

His breathing is getting louder.

Is this it, Allison? Is this the end?

The breathing is slowing down. He must be sitting in a chair. I listen and listen. Good grief, he's snoring.

My night stalker is asleep.

He snores again.

Oh, my good glory! I'd recognize that snore in a hailstorm.

It's Jaimie Retzinger.

Rebecca

By the time Washington's army reached Philadelphia in pursuit of the British, Rebecca was trudging through familiar landscape. She had found Madge to say goodbye but missed Edward. Madge had put together a respectable outfit for her from borrowed clothes and packed up some brown bread and fillets of smoked fish caught in the Schuykill River. She had hugged her when they parted, like Rebecca was her own daughter.

As Rebecca entered familiar country, she thought about her mission. She knew enough of the world by now to realize it would do no good to announce Jacob's innocence, simply because he didn't know his father was dead. Peter Jonas had told her to follow the horse. Somehow, Old Bess could prove that Jacob had committed no crime—apart from leaving his community, defying their God, and joining the forces of a great revolution.

Rebecca stopped at the end of the long lane into her family's farm. She was wearing a blue muslin skirt and a blouse of light green cotton. She had the gray woolen shawl, the one she had taken with her when she left home, draped over her shoulder.

The fields were lying fallow. They hadn't been plowed or planted. The barn doors were open. In the distance, she could see her brothers and sisters. Daniel, Luke, and Matthias. Sarah, Rachel, and Ruth. Christian would still be away in Massachusetts, studying at Bible College in Concord outside Boston.

They were busy loading up two Conestoga wagons. Her mother came out of the house and gazed in her direction. Her mother waved.

It was a friendly wave to a stranger. Rebecca knew it would not have crossed her mother's mind that her own daughter was standing at their gate, wearing bright blue and green, with flowing brown hair and no bonnet.

Rebecca waved back. She took the shawl and laid it over the fence post. Her mother would be able to use it in Canada. Then she turned and walked toward the community that had grown up around the white painted Mennonite church—the church where she and Jacob Shantz had shared her first and only kiss. The kiss on his cheek when they parted at Valley Forge wasn't really a kiss.

Warwick had three churches and a hostelry called The Warwick Hotel. Rebecca went to the hotel, which had been bought a few years earlier by a man who owned two slaves—a man and a woman. The Mennonite elders had told him he could not run his business there if he had slaves. So he sold them.

Rebecca paid for a room for one night with some of the money Madge de Vere had given her. After cleaning up, as a treat she went to Nixon's Dry Goods store and bought some clothes. She returned to the hotel to leave her parcel of clothes and then walked down the main street in the direction of the British garrison.

She passed many Mennonites as she walked, people she had known all her life. The men and boys looked straight through her. The women cast their eyes to the side. Girls her own age or younger blushed and pretended not to see her.

Rebecca walked with her head down. She nearly bumped into a woman dressed in black. She moved to the side. The woman moved the same way.

“Excuse me,” Rebecca said.

The woman, who was carrying a gray shawl over her arm, stood her ground.

“Look at me, girl. Won't you look at your mother? Did you not know I could recognize my own child? Hold your head up, Rebecca.”

Her mother was defiant.

“Let those who are without sin be our judges. Only them.” She seemed to sigh. “We are going to Canada, Rebecca. I am sorry you cannot come. Your father would forbid it. We will be among our brethren, just across the river near the great Falls. But when this war is over, you will come to visit. I will see that your father allows it.”

“
Danke,
Mutter
.”

Suddenly, Rebecca realized her mother had been speaking to her in English. Standing on Main Street. Looking her straight in the eye. Without shame.

“Thank you, Mother,” she repeated in English.

“And do you know who killed Noah Shantz, Rebecca? That is why you are here, yes?”

“That is why I am here.”

An idea was beginning to form, but she couldn't be certain.

“I will go with you,” her mother announced.

Together, they marched down the street to the outskirts of town. They found the commanding officer of the garrison. He was busy. The British had fled from Philadelphia when George Washington arrived. The commandant was packing up to join his fellow Redcoats in retreat.

He seemed surprised to see a Mennonite woman accompanied by a girl who was obviously not Mennonite.

“Captain, I am here about Jacob Shantz,” Rebecca announced.

“He did not murder his father,” her mother declared.

“And how do you know that?” the officer demanded, speaking to Rebecca.

“
How do you know that
?” her mother asked Rebecca in German.

Suddenly, it all became clear. If Jacob did not take Old Bess, like everyone thought, then someone else did. The soldier with the scar had been trying to tell her, the person who took Bess murdered Noah Shantz when he tried to stop him.

“There were two soldiers who came looking for Jacob,” said Rebecca. “But, earlier that morning, did someone sell a horse to the British Army? Do you keep records?”

“I don't have to look at the records. The answer is ‘yes.' Private Panabaker sold us a horse. We had not eaten meat for three weeks. It was a life saver and very tasty.”

“Old Bess!” Rebecca exclaimed. “Poor Old Bess.” She took a deep breath. “Your soldier stole him.”

“Well, I'm sorry for that. But I'm not surprised.”

“And he killed Noah Shantz.”

The officer looked shocked. Then he offered a grim smile.

“Well, he won't be hanged,” said the officer.

“And why not?” Rebecca's mother seemed almost afraid to ask. She did not approve of hanging, but she believed in stern justice.

“Private Panabaker tried to leave us. It was the day after the soldier with the scar on his face got away. Corporal Jonas.”

“And what happened to Private Panabaker?” Rebecca demanded.

Her mother had never heard a woman, never mind a girl, talk to a man as his equal. She gazed at her daughter with proud concern.

“Private Panabaker cannot be hanged because he was shot for desertion,” said the captain.

“Oh,” said Rebecca.

“I will tell the elders that Jacob is innocent,” said her mother.

“It is war. Mistakes are made. People die,” said the British officer. “I am sorry. If I live to see the end of it, I will join you in Canada.”

“You are a Mennonite?” Rebecca couldn't believe it.

“No, I am a Loyalist from Connecticut. My family is already in Halifax. But I am a soldier first. I know my duty.”

Rebecca and her mother exchanged looks of puzzlement. They excused themselves and walked close beside each other down Main Street and out of town. Jacob Shantz was redeemed.

“I will tell his family,” said her mother. “Perhaps now that his father is gone, he will come back.”

“
Mutter.
Jacob Shantz is dead.”

“
Ja,
” she exclaimed. “
Es ist so
.”

When they reached the gate of the Johannes Haun farm, Rebecca and her mother briefly touched hands. As Rebecca leaned forward, her mother looked down at the silver medallion on her bosom, with the amber gleaming at the center. Her eyes widened but she said nothing. She reached out and touched the medallion with her fingertips. She smiled shyly, then turned and walked slowly down the lane to help load the Conestoga wagons. She stopped suddenly and turned back.

“Rebecca!”

“
Mutter?
”

They approached each other. They touched hands but did not embrace.

Her mother whispered: “I am not permitted to talk about Christian. You must look out for him.”

“I don't understand.”

“He left Bible College last year. He is a soldier, an officer.”

“For the British?”

“No,
meine
liebchen
, my little sweetheart. He is a Captain in Mr. Washington's Army. He fought in the very first Battle at Concord. We do not talk of Christian, now. It breaks my heart.”

Suddenly, her mother hugged her. She wrapped the gray shawl around Rebecca's shoulders. Then she turned and walked briskly down the lane.

Rebecca returned to the hotel.

The next morning she set out for Philadelphia.

Twelve

Allison

It is an exciting world for an intrepid potato! Certainly not boring. It's exciting for a girl of sixteen walking back into a war. Rebecca has cleared the name of her friend, Jacob Shantz. She will find her Captain William de Vere.

And I am still alive!

Wait. You're going to want to hear this.

Jaimie Retzinger is sitting beside me, yapping away. He hardly used to say anything at all. Now he won't stop talking. I want to go to sleep and finish the walk to Philadelphia with Rebecca. We've been through a lot together. And if she's going to be my great great great, great great grandmother, I'd like to be there when she falls into her lover's arms.

But Jaimie Retzinger has a pretty good story about me and I nearly missed finding how it turned out. He saved my life.

Here's what happened, as far as I can tell.

He has been visiting me almost every night since I was shot. He comes late because he's going to night school. He wants to get his High School Equivalency. The smartphone I'd sometimes hear was a laptop. He was studying, and this is the quietest place he knows. Sometimes he'd just doze off. He wants to be a chef. Like me! He works in the daytime at Home Depot. He knows a little about everything. He moves around from section to section when the regular staff go on holidays. It's all pretty exhausting, especially for Jaimie Retzinger.

So, I guess it was him all along. My night stalker.

Last night, Jaimie Retzinger was sitting here, reading his computer. Who knew Jaimie Retzinger could read? And he fell asleep, but he woke up real quick because in walks Russell Miller.

Now Jaimie didn't know Russell Miller from Adam, but he didn't look like a doctor. Jaimie was on the other side of my bed-light, so he was hidden by the glare.

I guess Russell Miller stood there, staring at me. He leaned over and kissed me on the lips. I might have stirred but I can't tell a kiss from a bag of jellybeans. I think he must have cried. I felt his tears, I think I did. I'm sure I did. Then he took out a Swiss Army knife.

Jaimie Retzinger, my ex-boyfriend, watched. He couldn't believe what he saw. And before he could do anything, Russell Miller used the knife to cut some of the tubes going in and out of my body. He then held the knife to his own throat. He was going to slit it and bleed to death, right there.

That's when Jaimie Retzinger, my ex-boyfriend, finally sprang up from his chair and dived right over my bed and knocked Russell Miller to the floor. I guess he knocked me out of bed, too. Russell didn't fight. He just lay there. But Jaimie Retzinger held him down, anyway.

There was a lot of noise. Nurses came running. Orderlies came running.

Doctors were called.

They got me back into bed and hooked me up again. I was still alive, not that they could see much difference from me being dead.

My tumble from bed might have sent me back into a full coma. Jaimie Retzinger might have killed me. But he saved my life. And he saved Russell Miller from slitting his own throat.

He told me this, himself, even if he didn't think I could hear.

Rebecca

By the time Rebecca caught up with George Washington's army near Philadelphia, the Battle of Monmouth was over. The British soldiers had been pushed back. Both Captains de Vere had fought with great courage.

France and Germany were now officially part of the Revolution. The war had become international. With George Washington's organization and Baron von Steuben's training methods, the Continental Army was a powerful force. The conflict had become a war of professional soldiers fighting on both sides.

The Regimental Camp Followers were disbanded, although many stayed around to do what they could. Madge de Vere made the decision to return home to Boston. From there, she could do good work by raising money. She could organize women to knit and to sew and to make bandages and to nurse the wounded. Her days in the battlefield were done.

Madge insisted that Rebecca go with her to Boston. It was understood that Rebecca would one day be the bride of Captain William de Vere, if the war ever ended. And if he survived. Rebecca would sometimes sit for hours on the window seat at the front of the house, rubbing her fingers over the silver medallion. Madge had insisted she keep it. It reminded Rebecca of William's bright amber eyes.

“It was given to me by a very dear friend, Mr. Paul Revere,” Madge explained. “He is a silversmith and, after my husband was murdered, Paul made this medallion as a token of my love for the man I had lost. I had my portrait painted, a widow dressed in black with the medallion hanging proudly at my neck. It is in my bedroom. Paul made a silver bowl at the same time to honor the Sons of Liberty who continued to resist British tyranny over the colonial people—who are also British, I should remind you. Or
were
. We'll see how this war turns out. Paul knew my husband was not a revolutionary but they were both Freemasons. That was very important, perhaps more important than politics or religion.”

Rebecca was startled to think there might be something more important than religion. Even here, in Boston, her Mennonite God was a presence not to be taken lightly. Madge explained the Freemasons were an ancient secret society and George Washington belonged, as did Paul Revere and his obstreperous friend, Mr. Samuel Adams.

After explaining that
obstreperous
meant “loud and unmanageable,” Madge smiled when Rebecca suggested she might better have said just that, rather than use such a bewildering word. Madge pointed out a small mark stamped on the back of the medallion which contained the word REVERE inside a rectangle etched into the silver.

“It is a treasure,” she repeated. “I want you to keep it forever.”

Soon after they had settled in, not long after discussing the origins and destiny of the medallion, Captain Edward de Vere turned up for a visit. His face was as smudged and his uniform was as grubby as ever. Edward, or Edwina, had another young officer with her.

“Oh, mein Gott,”
Rebecca declared when she saw who it was. She was not sure if she were swearing. “Christian,
mein Gott
,
bis du es?
Is it you?”

The last time she had seen her oldest brother, he had been wearing a coarse black woolen suit. His hair was cut like a skinned badger. He had a scowl etched into his face. That was three years ago.

Now, he looked dashing and handsome. There was a war on, and he was a soldier. He looked absurdly happy!

He gave his sister a big hug. They had never touched before, not since they were very small.

And then he did the most unusual thing.

He took Captain Edward de Vere's hand and held it. He leaned over and kissed Edwina's cheek, even though it was dirty. Then Christian turned to Madge and to Rebecca.

“When this war is over, Edwina and I shall be married. With your permission, Mrs. de Vere. And, Miss Rebecca Haun, you are my only family now. We would like your blessing, as well.”

The two officers stood side by side. One in a clean blue uniform with light brown pants and polished boots, and the other in a tattered uniform covered with mud and dust.

“Until the fighting is done,” Christian announced, “we will be fellow officers and the best of friends.”

Rebecca smiled. She longed to see her own Captain de Vere. It seems the de Veres and the Hauns were going to join together, one way or another.

Madge de Vere smiled. She had lost her husband. A war was raging that would change the world. But she, too, seemed content.

Allison

And that is how Madge de Vere became my great great great, great great great grandmother. Six greats, one grand.

David is here. Last night was disturbing but I'm feeling fine. Well, I don't feel anything exactly. Not so I can pin it down. But there's feeling and there's feelings. There
are
feelings! I am feeling wonderful.

We've solved the murder of Noah Shantz. We've given Jacob back his good name. Sort of. He left Warwick and his Mennonite community so he's still an outlaw. But he died a renegade hero in the service of a great Revolution.

When I say
we
solved the murder, I mean Rebecca and me. I think I'll leave her to live out her life, I think my dreams will move on.

And we solved who shot me.

When I say
we
, I mean the cops who explained things to David and my mom. I'd mostly figured it out for myself.

I feel sorry for Russell. The police determined he only visited me that last time and that was to put me out of my misery. That's why he was crying. I knew it, I knew I felt tears. David tells me they've sent him to a special hospital for treatment. I hope something can be done to help him. He sort of confessed to the shooting. At first, he raved about a sinister man who made him do it, a stranger who wanted something mysterious from me. Russell didn't understand what it was. A key of some sort. And he talked about Sharon. No one seems to know that Sharon was his little sister, the one who died in Grade Three. Then he got all quiet, and now he says nothing.

As for the mystery man, no one has turned up. Echoes of yelling, of banging on the car window, resound in my head, as if the bald man in the car was trying to prevent Russell from shooting. But if there was a witness, whether he tried to save me or rob me or wanted me dead, he has disappeared.

If he ever existed.

Russell is in a hospital cell. He's locked inside a tiny world as much as I am. Since his mind has collapsed, his is even smaller.

And
we
, meaning me, we've saved Jaimie Retzinger from a wasted life.
Maybe.

He told my brother that when he saw me in the hospital he fell for me all over again. He can't say “love.” He never could. But, get serious, Jaimie Retzinger, what kind of person falls for
a potato!

That's what he said, though. And it changed him forever—he promised.

David is not his biggest fan.

Before I drifted off to sleep last night, I tried to remember what Nana Friesen told me about where I came from. I never used to pay much attention. I'd listen because it made Nana feel good. But the past before I was born, well it didn't interest me very much. That was before I got shot in the head, before I ended up here, before I remembered the life of Rebecca Haun.

Nana was my mom's mom. She once told me the family brains skipped a generation, then she apologized for telling me that and said my mom was just one of those people in life who is always
distracted.
I'm not sure what that means but that's Mom, for sure. She's never completely in the moment; she's distracted.

Nana is proud to be Pennsylvania Dutch. And to be from Boston, back when it was British, more than two centuries ago.

She used to talk about our Mennonite ancestors from Lancaster County. But Rebecca Haun wasn't a Mennonite anymore, and William de Vere was a Boston Protestant, so, I'm confused. My good glory!

Of course.

My direct Haun ancestor was Christian, it wasn't Rebecca.

I have to stop for a moment, I need to think. I have a horrible feeling that her beloved William died in the war. I'll have to check when I get out of here. But there are some things you just know.

I wonder if she ever married.

I don't think so.

I don't think she had children of her own. If she did, the silver medallion would have gone to them.

Rebecca was Christian's sister and my ancestral aunt but I am
actually
the great great great, great great granddaughter of Christian Haun and Edwina de Vere. Five greats and a grand.

Rebecca and I are like blood sisters.

Just when I'm getting really upset, thinking about Rebecca and William, David leans close. Then I feel something cool. I can't tell where. I feel a weight. I know what it is. David is talking to me, he's whispering.

“I thought you'd like this, I brought it from home,” he says. “As potatoes go, you're the best.” And he fastens the silver medallion around my neck. I know he does. It's a gift from my Great Aunt Rebecca, from Becky. It's a gift from Nana Friesen. It's a gift from my brother.

Well, angels couldn't ask for more. That's what Nana says. I never knew what it meant until now. It means, it doesn't get any better than this!

Jaimie Retzinger has come in while David's here. That's unusual. He's always tried to avoid my family. He's leaning right over my face. I can feel his breath. I can feel the medallion. Last night I could feel Russell Miller's breath, I know I could.

What's Jaimie Retzinger doing? Is he showing affection? No, just curiosity.

Still, I've got to start thinking of him as Jaimie
.
Not Jaimie Retzinger.
I mean, we're not a couple but it's kind of nice, having him here. Even if it's just because my room is a good place to study and snooze. Peace and quiet, that's the best I can offer.

But, oh glory, His voice is trembling. He's saying something important.

Listen!

“Her eyelid moved! She opened an eye.” He takes a deep breath. “Only one eye but she's in there! I knew it!”

Me, too, Jaimie Retzinger. I knew it all along.

I can see the light.