The Outcast (27 page)

Judah touches my arm, looks down both sides of the street. “Where you wanna go?”

“Anywhere.”

Nodding, he takes one of my mittened hands and tucks it in the bend of his arm. We walk without speaking up Children’s Way and cross Twenty-First Avenue onto Vanderbilt’s deserted campus, receiving inquisitive looks from the few students brave enough to face the harsh elements. I guess it must appear unusual for a Plain-dressed woman to have her hand wrapped around the arm of a man who is garbed like an
Englischer
, but in the light of Eli’s illness there are certain things that do not matter to me anymore. Keeping up with appearances is one of them.

We’ve traveled less than a block when sleet begins to spritz from the muted sky, the icy granules bouncing across the sidewalk like translucent pearls.

“Seems those weather reporters
do
know what they’re talking about,” I quip.

Judah says nothing. If not for the steady pressure of his
hand over the one I still have tucked in the crook of his arm, I would think he has forgotten I am even here. I study him from the corner of my eye as we retrace our steps, but the hood of Judah’s jacket is pulled up. I cannot see his face except for his reddened nose and the frosted sweep of his lashes.

“Do you want to go up there?” He points to a wrought-iron pedestrian bridge burnished with gold that links the university’s historic section to Peabody College. It seems an odd choice of shelter as the structure has no solid covering that I can see, but Judah is acting so strangely, I agree without question.

I climb the slick steps in front of him. I can feel his palm against the small of my back as he attempts to keep me from falling. We reach the top; Judah strides over to face the four streams of traffic passing slowly beneath the bridge. Despite being midmorning, almost all the vehicles have their headlights on and their windshield wipers whipping back and forth, brushing sleet into double arches that condense at the sides before spattering the blacktop that is turning gray beneath the thickening sheen of ice.

I stare at Judah’s back—at the way his bare hands clutch the iron railing and the sleet that glitters on his green hood.

Coming to stand beside him, I am silent before asking, “You okay?”

The driving wind and sleet make it hard for me to discern my own words, but somehow Judah hears them. He releases his grip on the rail as if his strength is responsible
for holding the bridge together, yet he has no choice but to let it go. Sweeping back his hood, Judah looks over at me. For the first time, I see the tears that are melting trails down the frozen skin of his face.

He drags his coat sleeve across his eyes and shakes his head. “I never should’ve left,” he says. “If I had stayed—”

“If you had stayed, nothing would have changed.”

The sentence has barely left my mouth when the hurt flickering in Judah’s eyes tells me that he has misinterpreted my meaning and I have misinterpreted his. I thought he was crying because he felt responsible for Eli’s cancer. Now I realize his tears are because he believes if he had remained, I might have relied on his strength over these past three months and that reliance—given time—might have turned into love.

What he doesn’t realize is that the moment he walked out of my life was the moment I knew I already loved him. Have always loved him.

Judah is grappling the railing again with his broad shoulders hunched to ward off the cold or the impact of my words; I cannot tell which. Stretching out my mittened hand, I place it over his. “Nothing might’ve changed had you stayed, Judah, but I know that I am glad you have returned.”

He changes direction so abruptly that I step back. As he trails his hand over one side of my red scarf, the thawed sleet beads across his fingers. He places these cold, damp fingers to my cheek, but his touch feels more like a
burn. Sliding his other hand down the base of my spine, he presses my body against him, as if I am a piece of fine china whose unseen fractures might crack. “There’s no one else, Rachel,” he whispers, patching my temple with a kiss whose tenderness forces me to close my eyes. “There’s never been anyone but you.”

As the wind unspools my scarf and the sleet lashes our unprotected skin, Judah leans down and touches his frozen lips to mine.

Though I am painfully aware that nothing and no one can take precedence over my battle to reclaim my son’s health, I cannot stop myself from twining my fingers into Judah’s wet hair and leaning into his kiss, into this moment stolen on a bridge where two people are suspended in a world fraught with ice and fire.

Rachel

Ida Mae and I are drinking the tea I heated in the microwave of the family lounge when there is a quiet knock on the door. I call out a welcome, and Norman Troyer comes limping in. Looking between the two of us, he takes off his black hat and feeds the brim around and around in one square hand. “I wanted to check on Eli,” he says, still staring at the hat. “See if there was anything you might need before I left.”

“You’re heading back to PA?” I ask.

He nods. “
Jah
, I put Leah and Tobias out long enough.”

“I’m sure they didn’t mind. We all loved having you here.”

Ida Mae snorts. When I look over with wide eyes, she just smiles and takes a sip of tea.

“Do you care if I take one more look at him?” the holistic
doktor
asks, motioning to my son.

“No, please.” I move to give Norman more room. “I’d feel better if you did.”

Ida Mae knocks the tea back although the temperature must scald her tongue. Setting her mug on the food tray table, she gathers her belongings and stuffs them into the Salvation Army backpack she uses like a purse. “You think they’ll release Eli in the morning?” she asks.

I shrug. Dr. Taizeen Sengupta can change his mind about Eli’s being released or being forced to stay as quickly as the wind can shift its course. I keep telling myself that the doctor is keeping my son in the hospital for his own good. Sometimes, I even believe it.

“Welp,” Ida Mae says, “give me a call when you need picked up. If I’m running the store, I’ll send Russell to fetch ya.”

“He’s back in town?” I ask.

Ida Mae nods, keeping her eyes away from Norman Troyer. Her ex-husband has been away for a month and a half, the same amount of time that Norman, her first husband’s
bruder
, has been in Tennessee. I don’t know why Russell Speck has made an effort to avoid such a docile man, but I’m sure it is the same reason Ida Mae has avoided talking about Norman whenever I’ve found the chance to ask why he’s no longer a part of her life.

Norman Troyer keeps staring at the door long after Ida Mae has said good-bye to us and left. He then turns and shuffles toward the hospital bed. Taking a flashlight from his pants pocket, Norman rests his weight on the railings and guides the beam down into Eli’s eyes. My son is asleep, but the instant his eyelids begin to flutter, Norman shields the flashlight’s brightness with his hand and peers around it. Norman only looks at his eyes for a few seconds before clicking off the light and returning it to his pocket. Immediately, the pain medication filtering through Eli’s port causes his eyes to shutter into sleep again. I wipe tears as my son’s slack mouth opens and drool dangles from his sore-crusted lips.

Drying my eyes, I ask, “How is he?”

Norman doesn’t respond. I cannot tell if it is because he is afraid to, or if he does not know how to tell me what he sees.

I push the chair that Ida Mae had occupied closer to the bed. Norman rocks back into it with a sigh. “You should get another scan done,” he says. “I don’t like how yellow his eyes are.”

“They did a PET today. They’ll probably have the results tomorrow.”

Norman bobs his head and lays his braces over one knee like canes. “That’s good,” he says. “Let me know what they find out. If I need to come down again, I will.”

These past two months spent watching Eli battle cancer have sapped my confidence in both conventional and holistic medicine. Because of this, I do not really care if
Norman Troyer makes that long journey from Pennsylvania to Tennessee regardless of Eli’s scan results, but considering that Norman is an old family friend, I cannot reveal how my faith has waned regarding his abilities.

“I’ll let you know,” I say. “Or I can send a message through my
mamm
.”

“That’d be fine. She calls to order herbs anyway.”

“Why don’t you ever call Ida Mae?” I have so many questions, I cannot help asking the one that has plagued my mind since I discovered Norman Troyer’s signature on the bottom of Ida Mae and Russell’s marriage certificate. “Your
bruder
might be dead, but she’s still your
schweschder
-in-law, right?”

Norman stares at my son before replying. “
Jah
, Ida married my younger brother, Henry. But after Henry died and Ida was shunned, I was still in the church and—”

“And,” I interrupt, “you couldn’t talk with her and keep from being shunned yourself?”

“No, it wasn’t that. Ida hurt us not by leaving the church like she did, but by marrying the man who killed her family.”

The man who killed her family.
I remember Russell’s hands clasping the steering wheel as he said,
“In one day, I took everything from that woman, and I’ve spent every day since trying to patch her life back together . . . to make it whole again.”
I murmur now, hoping my words are true, “Surely it was an accident.”

Norman nods. “We never should’ve been out that day.
It was getting too dark, but we were on a deserted road, and I thought the triangle reflectors were bright enough to keep us safe.”

“It was a horse-and-buggy accident?”

Looking over, Norman tilts his head. “What kind of accident did you think it was?”

“I—I wasn’t sure.” I am too embarrassed to admit I thought it might have been an armed robbery attempt before Russell found the Lord.

“Russell was driving truck for Dutch Valley at the time.” Norman lowers his arm braces to the floor and rests his upper-body weight on them. “He was going too fast for the narrow road, but—like I said—it was too dark and we shouldn’t’ve been out. I had both my nephews with me . . . and my
bruder
Henry’s
familye
was up visiting from Ohio, and we were in a hurry to get home because my
mudder
was cooking a special
esse
in their honor. But then we came around that corner and saw headlights. Headlights that made the inside of that buggy look like day. The semi was coming so fast, we had no time to get off the road and Russell had no time to brake. If we had been in a car, I could’ve swerved. We might’ve been fine.”

I murmur, tears filling my eyes, “But you weren’t in a car.”

Norman wipes the sorrow that pools in his own eyes, even after all these years that are supposed to lessen grief. “The impact splintered the buggy into matchsticks. Killed the horse instantly. Along—” Norman chokes, clears his throat, and tries again—“along with my
bruder
and my
younger nephew. My legs were so badly mangled in the collision that I couldn’t move. I would’ve died in that buggy if Russell hadn’t helped us. I told him to get my nephew first. The one who was still alive . . . Daniel. I 
begged
Russell; I
screamed
at him, but he saw the blood covering Daniel’s face from having broken off his teeth in the wreck, and Russell thought he was too injured to save. So he helped me out of the buggy first.”

Norman shakes his head, as if trying to dislodge the painful memories. I want to reach out to him, to somehow ease his suffering, but I know that remaining quiet and still is the kindest thing I can do.

“Russell carried me over to the side of the road and carefully laid me on the grass. Something must’ve sparked in his truck that ignited the gas spilling from it, because by the time he turned around to get Daniel, the buggy had burst into flames. I wailed there along the side of the road. I wailed so hard, veins ruptured in my eyes. Since my legs didn’t work, I tried dragging myself over to the buggy with my arms. I remember how the fire was so hot, even the blacktop seemed to melt beneath my hands.

“It seemed like a long time, but it was probably only seconds that I didn’t know where Russell was. I thought he’d been killed in the fire, but then he came walking out of the carnage with this wall of flames behind him. He was carrying Daniel in his arms, and even from that distance across the road, I could see how his blond hair was singed to the scalp and the clothing branded onto his skin.”

Norman is crying harder now. I get up and rip some toilet paper off the roll in the bathroom. Coming back, I pass it to Norman just like Ida Mae passed it to me, knowing from experience how the simplest gestures provide the greatest relief.

Norman wipes his face and blows his nose. I sit with my back straight and hands folded as the details of this horrific recounting play on the silver screen of my mind.

He clears his throat. I open my eyes to see that Norman is ready to continue. I sense then that this is not just a story he is telling me; more than that, it is a story he has long needed to tell. “Ida would’ve kept Daniel on life support forever, but he was so badly burned, if he ever
did
come out of that coma, he would never have lived a normal life.” Norman sighs, lifting the shackles of his braces. “A life even harder to live than mine.

“The Amish church, as you know, shares medical expenses. Even after Russell’s trucking company paid their part through insurance, there were plenty of bills rolling in long after the accident. And once the church heard that Daniel was probably never coming out of his coma, they decided they didn’t want to pay the medical expenses of someone who was only alive because of machines. Ida fought them. She fought the Amish church like it was a matter of life and death. In her eyes, that’s exactly what it was.”

Norman swallows, wets pink lips surrounded by white beard. “Russell was really scarred after the accident. Not physically, but emotionally. He started drinking, lost his
job—which he didn’t even want anymore—but once he sobered, he moved from Tennessee to Pennsylvania to fight alongside Ida. I guess it was his own kind of penance. The church did not agree with fighting at all, but especially against them. Ida was asked to repent for rising up, but she was so angry that this only made her fight harder. She and Russell tried pooling what little money they had and hiring a lawyer, but the only lawyer they could afford was an inexperienced one who doubted a case could be won against a group of people who would never fight back. The wheels of the
meiding
were put into motion then. Ida Mae knew it, but she didn’t care. She’d already lost those she loved most, so she left the church before she could be shunned.”

“So her
kind
, Daniel, was taken off life support?” I whisper the words, as if that will negate their meaning.

“That’s just it,” Norman says, seeming surprised by the unfolding story, although I am sure he has rehashed the nightmare countless times. “Ida is the one who took Daniel off life support,
not
the Amish. Eventually it had to happen, but it was as if once she’d lost everything—fought everybody—she was at peace to do what needed to be done.”

I remember how angry I was after Tobias blackmailed me into leaving Copper Creek, an anger that caused me to reject to the same extent I had been rejected. I am thankful that I did not have to lose everyone I loved before I was willing to make peace with my past.

One of the night nurses, Leslie, knocks on the door and
opens it without waiting for my reply. She must sense that Norman and I are in the middle of a deep conversation, because she doesn’t pause to start one with us. Walking over to the computer monitor, Leslie rolls out the keyboard beneath it and types in the information required before she can give Eli his treatment. She slips on a pair of latex gloves she has pulled from the cardboard box next to the bed, extracts from her scrubs pocket a capped syringe, then reaches into her other pocket for a glass bottle shaped like a baby food jar.

Taking off the cap, Leslie stabs the syringe’s needle into the top of the jar filled with clear medicine, then expertly pulls the plunger back until she has the specified amount. With a fingernail that glows lime green even through her latex gloves, she points the syringe to the ceiling and taps the barrel to make sure no air bubbles are trapped inside. Leslie leans over the bed and inserts the filled syringe into the color-coded lines trailing like serpents from Eli’s port. She does this same routine three more times—reaching into one pocket for a capped syringe, reaching into another pocket for a jar of medicine—and each time I wince, although I am told that Eli cannot feel the poisonous medication slithering through his veins.