A Time for Peace (2 page)

J
enny knelt beside her grandmother. Phoebe lay lifeless on the floor, her face white, her small, thin body motionless.

Her fingers shaking, Jenny touched the vein in Phoebe's neck and felt for a pulse. It was thready but it was there.

"
Grossmudder?
It's Jenny. Wake up. Please, wake up."

But Phoebe lay still, her eyes closed, her chest barely moving beneath the apron covering her thin chest.

Swiveling around, Jenny saw that Mary was standing there, eyes wide with fear.

"Mary, go get—"

The door slammed. "Jenny?"

She turned. "Matthew, thank goodness you're here! Phoebe won't wake up. Call 9-1-1. Tell them we need an ambulance.Hurry!"

He backed up, turned, and ran for the door to go to the phone shanty next to the house.

Jenny looked at Mary. "Soak that dish towel in some cold water from the tap. Maybe she just collapsed from the heat from baking."

Mary went to the sink and did as Jenny asked her, squeezing the moisture from the cloth and rushing over with it. "Is she going to be
allrecht?"

Jenny stroked the cool, damp cloth over her grandmother's face, so frightened of the way her lashes stayed still on her cheeks. Age was so evident in the woman's face, in the way there were crinkles around her eyes from laughing and from staring into the sun as she worked in the yard hanging clothes, planting, harvesting her kitchen garden, and helping her late husband with their farm. Lines bracketed her mouth that in repose seemed so stern but which framed a smile that always warmed Jenny's heart.

She looked so old and frail, so vulnerable at that moment, tears rushed into her eyes. Furiously she blinked them back.She didn't want to upset Mary. And she prayed that it was just a faint, not something more serious. She couldn't remember a day that Phoebe hadn't bustled around working, working, working. And caring for everyone in her family. Someone that strong could have a weak moment without it being one of their last, couldn't they? Just look, she thought. The counters were covered with bread and cookies and a pie she'd baked just that afternoon from the looks of it.

Reaching behind her, she took Mary's hand. "Where's Annie?"

"She went
for Daedi.
I'll find her and make sure she's safe."

They both turned at the sound of sirens in the distance. The sirens grew louder and then were shut off.

"They're here!" Matthew called and he hurried in with paramedics carrying their equipment.

Jenny stood. "Annie found her on the floor. She's breathing but she won't wake up."

Matthew took her hand and drew her into his arms, offering wordless comfort.

Together they watched as all through the steps of their exam Phoebe didn't move a muscle, not even after her oxygen level was checked with a pincher thing on the tip of her finger and an oxygen tube was hooked up.

One of the paramedics set a laptop on the kitchen table and began asking Jenny questions. Another opened cupboard after cupboard and rooted around inside.

"What are you looking for?" Jenny asked, confused.

"We're supposed to look around for any medications the person is on. Do you know if she's taking anything?"

"I've never seen her take anything, not even an aspirin."

"Sometimes the family doesn't know, even if they live in the same house. Where's her medicine cabinet?"

"I'll show you," Matthew said.

Jenny wanted him to stay, to continue to hold her. Instead, she watched him leave the room with the paramedic, and when the men returned, the other man was holding several prescription bottles.

Two men came in with a gurney and Phoebe was gently lifted onto it.

"Ma'am? Do you want to go to the hospital with us?"

"Yes, please." She looked at Matthew and he nodded.

"Go. I'll take care of the
kinner
until Hannah gets home and then I'll see you at the hospital." He hugged her and then set her from him. "She'll be
allrecht,
Jenny."

Phoebe's gurney was being loaded into the ambulance as Jenny ran outside and climbed into it. Gathering her skirts, she climbed inside and sank onto the bench seat opposite Phoebe.

Then the doors were shut, making her feel claustrophobic.The driver accelerated out of the driveway and turned onto the road in the direction of the hospital. He activated the siren and the noise reverberated in her head.

Being inside such a vehicle brought back memories, such painful memories of riding in one in pain and terror after the car bombing overseas, and later, stateside, going from hospital to hospital. Jenny forced them away, took one of her grandmother's still, cold hands in hers.

Silently she watched as the paramedic stood next to Phoebe and took her blood pressure, inserted an IV with fluids, and checked her pupils, swaying but never losing his balance like a sailor on a shipboard deck as the vehicle sped up and turned.

He called ahead to the hospital, relaying Phoebe's condition.

It was the longest ride of her life.

But when they arrived at the hospital, Phoebe was taken away and instead of being able to stay with her, Jenny was urged to go to admissions and fill out paperwork and then sit in the waiting room. It was then that she knew the time in the ambulance wasn't going to be the worst of her life because the wait was going to be longer.

A nurse came out, looked around the room, then signaled to Jenny. "Your grandmother's awake."

Jenny closed her eyes, said a silent prayer of thanks, then opened them. "Can I see her?"

"Sure. Come with me."

Phoebe still looked entirely too pale when Jenny walked into the cubicle but she was awake and talking to the doctor. She looked up and smiled at Jenny. "I'm sorry I gave you a scare. I'm fine now. I'm just trying to persuade the doctor to let me go home."

Jenny looked at the doctor and saw that he was frowning.

"I don't advise it," he said bluntly. "With your history—"

Puzzled, Jenny glanced from her grandmother to the doctor and back again at her grandmother. "Her history?"

The doctor looked at Phoebe then and it seemed to Jenny that something passed between then.

"Her age, the approximate amount of time she was out, her blood pressure reading," the man said. "I'd like to run some tests. We've ruled out a concussion from her falling. But I'd like to know what
caused
her to be unconscious."

Phoebe opened her mouth and as she did, the doctor straightened and looked stern.

"Fine," she said at last. "I'll stay for your 'observation time,' young man. For twelve hours and no more."

"You drive a hard bargain," he said.

He offered his hand and they shook on it.

Jenny moved to Phoebe's side as the man left the cubicle."You frightened me."

Phoebe held out her arms and Jenny went into them. "I'm sorry,
liebchen.
I just got warm and fainted. It's never happened before. And it's not going to happen again."

"You don't know that."

"I do. Now, don't fuss. You get back home and make sure the
kinner
aren't upset."

But Jenny wouldn't let her shoo her out of the cubicle. She fluffed the pillow behind Phoebe's back, unpinned her
kapp
and laid it on the folded bundle of her grandmother's clothes lying on the nearby chair, and generally fussed over her until the nurse came to ready her to be transferred to a room.

"Go, now!" Phoebe ordered sternly but Jenny saw the kindness in her eyes. "I'll be fine. Just remember to send someone to fetch me home in the morning."

"Matthew and I will be here for you," Jenny promised.
Leaning down, she kissed her grandmother's pale, lined cheek and then, unable to prevent herself, she gathered the woman up in a hug again, careful of the tubes and IV bound to her, and held on. "I love you. I'll see you in the morning."

Turning her head, she rushed from the cubicle so that Phoebe wouldn't see the tears in her eyes.

She was so grateful to see Matthew rise from a chair in the waiting room when she walked out.

"Where's Phoebe?" he asked, looking around her.

"The doctor wants to keep her for observation."

Matthew nodded. "Since she was unconscious? Did she hurt her head when she fell and get a concussion?"

Jenny shook her head. "She doesn't have a concussion. I don't understand why she's here. She won't let the doctor tell me anything."

"Your grandmother is a strong, independent woman," he said. "I'm sure she's going to be
allrecht."

Jenny wasn't so sure. "I hope you're right," she said, taking his hand and walking with him through the waiting room and out of the hospital.

They'd been here several times since they'd married, always for some emergency for the children. Joshua had had stitches for a gash in his arm once because he'd fallen and landed on a rock. Matthew liked to tease that Joshua was growing so big and so fast he tripped over his own feet as he walked across a room. Mary had a high fever last winter when she got the flu.Even Annie had had her turn here when she slammed a door on her fingers and broke two of them. She tended to be a little klutzy because she was always thinking about something she was writing and didn't look where she was going.

But Jenny had never had to leave a loved one here at the hospital to be cared for by strangers. She'd never had to worry about why one of them had come to the hospital. Or what might happen while she stayed. Things happened sometimes when people stayed in the hospital.

Something didn't feel right.

Matthew had never seen Jenny in such a state.

He knew why she was so upset, of course. She'd lost her mother in her early teens, her father in her twenties. Phoebe was the only family she had left of her birth family. They'd grown so close since Jenny had come to heal here after being so grievously wounded in a car bombing overseas where she'd served as a television reporter.

They'd talked often of God's will, he and his
fraa,
as she struggled to understand why such a horrible thing had happened to her when she thought she was doing good, when she thought she was doing what God wanted her to do. She'd healed here, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually.

And both of them had come to realize that they were being given a second chance to renew the love they'd had for each other when they were younger. Jenny had spent two summers here visiting her grandmother and he was what she often teasingly called "the boy next door."

They were from such different worlds—she, from the
Englisch
world, he an Amish man. But she'd slipped seamlessly into the way of life here, into the Amish way of looking at life and God when she visited those summers. He'd been on the verge of asking if he could court her. Something had happened to prevent that—someone—but in the end, things had turned out as God willed. She'd been brought back here to him, they had realized how deeply they loved each other, and they had married. Now they lived as a family with the children he'd had with his late first wife.

He knew how she struggled with God's will again after they were married; these past couple of years when she didn't conceive had been a spiritual challenge for her. He knew how much she wanted a baby; she battled unhappiness so often because each month she was presented with proof that she hadn't conceived.

Now, as they traveled back home after leaving Phoebe in the hospital, he tried to comfort his beloved, wrapping one arm around her, letting her rest her head against his shoulder, and listening to her worry aloud about a woman he'd come to think of as his own
grossmudder.

"I don't understand why she couldn't come home," Jenny was saying. "They let me go home even when I had a concussion, remember? She looked after me all night. I'd have taken care of her."

"I know you would," he told her. "You'd take good care of her. I've seen how you care for the
kinner
when they've been hurt or sick."

He pressed his lips to her forehead and looked ahead to their farmhouse coming into view. "The doctors know what they're doing. There must be some reason why they want her to stay."

Jenny looked up at him and she frowned. "It was so strange. The doctor started to say something and I felt he stopped because she looked at him."

"What was he saying?"

"Something about her history." Jenny fell silent. "But what could that be? I don't remember even seeing her take an aspirin even though I've seen it's more difficult for her to move around these days. But—"

"But what?"

"That paramedic found prescriptions in her medicine cabinet. Did you see what they were for?"

He shook his head. "Sorry."

Matthew guided Daisy into the drive and the
kinner
spilled out the door, their young faces expectant.

Suddenly Jenny thought about how the children considered Phoebe their own great-grandmother. "Oh, Matthew, I didn't think about—what do we tell the children?"

He kissed her cheek. "The truth. We tell them the truth. They're old enough to understand and not be frightened."

D
aedi, where is Phoebe?" Annie, the youngest, asked, her forehead puckering in a frown as she peered inside the buggy.

"The doctors wanted her to stay tonight," Matthew told them.

"Did she need an operation?" Mary asked. She was gnawing at a fingernail, something he hadn't seen her do for years.

The newest member of the family, Hannah's husband Chris, strode onto the porch. "Where's Phoebe?"

"They wanted to keep her overnight."

"Why? What's wrong with her?" he asked and held open the door for Jenny to walk inside.

"They didn't seem to know why she passed out. She was conscious not long after she got to the emergency room but they're concerned that she was out for a while."

"
Kumm,
children, let's go put Pilot and the buggy up and start getting you ready for bed," Matthew said.

"But we want to find out about Phoebe," Mary began.

He put an arm around her. "I can tell you. Let's give your
mamm
a chance to sit down and rest."

Jenny sank down in a chair at the kitchen table, boneweary.

"Are they back?" Hannah called down the stairs.

"Yeah, they're home!"

Hannah rushed into the room and looked around. "But where's Phoebe? Has she gone to her room? I'll go see if she needs—"

Chris grasped her arm as she started past him. "They're keeping her overnight."

Hannah stared at him, then Jenny. "What's wrong with her? She's going to be okay, right? She was fine when I left this morning to teach my quilting class in town and then when I come home this afternoon I hear she's been taken off in an ambulance. Did she have a heart attack or something?"

Chris pulled out a chair and made her sit down. "Hannah, calm down. It can't be good for you or the baby to get so upset."

Nodding, she drew in a deep breath and exhaled as she rubbed a hand over her protruding stomach. "I know. I'm sorry."

"Jenny? Was it her heart?"

"What?" Jenny blinked, aware that she'd been staring at her sister-in-law's stomach.

"Was it her heart?" Chris asked again, his gaze intent.

"He said she didn't have a heart attack."

Chris sat back, looking relieved. "That's good to know."

Jenny found herself staring at the place on the floor where she'd found her grandmother earlier that day.

"I just don't understand," she said. "If she fainted because of the heat then why didn't she wake up sooner? She didn't until we got to the hospital. She's one of the healthiest people I know—I've never seen her take any medicine and yet the paramedic found pills he took to the emergency room."

She sighed and looked at them. "I don't know. I feel like something's going on but I don't know what it is. Has she said anything to either of you?"

"No," Chris said and he stood. "Let me fix you some tea." He looked at Hannah and she shook her head.

"Hannah? Did Phoebe say anything to you?"

She shook her head. "No."

"The paramedic went through her medicine cabinet. He said they always take any medications to the emergency room so the doctors can see what the person was taking. But I didn't see what he took."

Hannah patted her hand. "You look exhausted. I fed the
kinner
and saved supper for you and Matthew. Let me get some for you."

"Thanks, but I'm not hungry. I'll just have the tea." She smiled gratefully at Chris when he set a steaming cup before her.

"You have to eat." Hannah rose, pulled a casserole from the oven, and set it atop the stove.

And then, to Jenny's surprise, she handed the oven mitts to Chris who carried the casserole to the table.

Hannah shrugged when she saw Jenny's expression. "I gave up on fighting him over whether I can carry a casserole."

Chris turned from setting it on the table. "Wise woman, eh, Jenny?"

Rolling her eyes, Hannah brought over a plate and began spooning a serving of the chicken and rice onto it. "I'm lugging around a considerable amount of baby. A little casserole is nothing."

Chris placed a hand on her stomach. "Since, as you say, you are lugging around a considerable amount of baby, you shouldn't be adding more to the burden." He kissed her cheek and sat down at the table.

Even as distracted as she was by worry over her grandmother, Jenny couldn't help noticing how the interaction between the two of them had changed so much since they'd fallen in love and gotten married. Hannah was outspoken, unlike her brother, and there'd been some tension when Chris had arrived here.

It had taken Hannah a long time to believe that Chris hadn't come to pursue Jenny after he met her at a veteran's hospital.Jenny hadn't known until much later that Hannah had given Chris a hard time about that. If she had, Jenny would have let her know that wasn't going to happen. She and Chris had become friends after they met at the hospital—nothing more. Matthew was the love of her life.

Two worlds in one house, she thought, just like her own. So much for cranky Josiah, a church elder who didn't think the
Englisch
and the Amish should mix. Not only had she and Matthew just celebrated another anniversary, his sister and this man who'd served as a soldier and come here for healing had found happiness together.

The chicken and rice casserole was delicious. Once she started eating, Jenny realized that she was, indeed, hungry. Lunch had been a lot of hours ago.

There was a knock on the door and Joshua came inside. "I told
Daedi
I'd walk you home when you're ready."

"Thank you,
Sohn,"
she said, feeling her eyes tear up. He was so like Matthew with that quiet, intense manner; neither of them said much but their actions spoke loudly.

He wrapped his arms around her and patted her back. "Phoebe will be fine,
Mamm."

Phoebe had been a surrogate great-grandmother to him, Jenny knew. "I'm just so worried."

Releasing her, he stood back and regarded her. "Remember what Phoebe likes to say."

She smiled and felt her lips tremble. "She always says, 'I try not to worry about someone. After all, it's arrogant to do so when God knows what he's doing. He has a plan for each of us.' "

Phoebe would be upset with her if she knew that she was worrying now.

"How about some pie?" Hannah asked.

"No, thanks. I'm full." She looked at her plate, surprised to find that she'd eaten all that Hannah had put on it. "This was delicious."

She got to her feet and embraced Hannah, then Chris, before turning to Joshua and laying a hand on his shoulder. "Let's go home."

"Hannah sent supper home for you."

Matthew took the plastic container from Jenny and set it on the kitchen table. "Thanks. I'll eat in a little while."

She started to object, to say that he needed to eat right then because he'd worked so hard in the fields that day before being summoned to help with Phoebe. But she realized that he was simply holding out his arms, inviting her into them.

"I know you're concerned," he said. "But God's in charge. Phoebe's a strong woman. Now, why don't you go upstairs and say good night to the
kinner
and then come down and keep me company while I eat?"

She smiled and nodded, then climbed the stairs. Annie's room was first because as the youngest she could never seem to keep her eyes open long after supper. When she peeked in, Annie's bed was empty. Her heart skipped a beat and then she took a deep breath and looked in on Mary. Sure enough, Annie was tucked up fast asleep in Mary's bed.

"She wanted to sleep in here," Mary whispered. "I told her I thought it would be okay."

"Sweet girl. Thank you." Hannah bent to kiss Mary's cheek. "See you in the morning."

"
Mamm?
You're sure Phoebe will be back tomorrow?"

No matter how many times one of the children called her mother, she got a funny little pang in her heart.

"That's what I was told," she said carefully.

She sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to jar the mattress and wake Annie. Reaching over, she took Mary's hand.

Looking down, she saw how small Mary's hand was in hers. Mary was nearly twelve now. She'd grown but was still more finely boned than Joshua. Like her brother and sister, she had big blue eyes that were regarding Jenny with too much seriousness right now.

"Did what happened today make you think about your
mamm?"

When Mary nodded, she squeezed her hand. The children had lost their mother at such a young age to cancer.

"It made me think about my mom and my dad, too," Jenny told her. "I don't want to lose someone else, not for a very long time. We're just going to have to trust that God will send Phoebe back with us soon."

She released Mary's hand and pulled the quilt up to cover both girls. "See you in the morning."

Matthew was standing in the hall when Jenny came out. "I just checked on Joshua. He's asleep."

He took her hand and drew her down the hall, down the stairs, into the kitchen. A pot of tea sat in the middle of the table, steaming and sending out the scent of chamomile. Her favorite.

She smiled at him. "Thank you."

They sat down and Jenny enjoyed a cup of tea while her husband ate his dinner. It was quiet, so quiet.

"There's some pie."

He grinned at her, his eyes lighting up. "I never turn down pie. You know that."

"I know." She went to get it but when she reached into the refrigerator, her hand shook as she touched the pie plate.

"No," she said, bringing it to the table.

"There's enough for both of us," he said with satisfaction.

Jenny's bottom lip trembled. "Phoebe baked the pie."

"Yes," Matthew said slowly, watching her steadily.

She looked at him with eyes brimming with tears. "What if it's the last one she makes?"

Jenny came awake with a snap.

She lay there, wondering what had awakened her. Matthew slept beside her, his arm wrapped around her. She listened, wondering if a child had cried out with a bad dream, but the house was quiet. No one needed
Mamm
to reassure them that the bad dream wasn't real. Or even that Phoebe would be back tomorrow.

Closing her eyes, she tried to will herself back to sleep. It had been a long and stressful day. Tomorrow would be here soon. Well, tomorrow was today now, she noted after a glance at the clock on the bedside table. She wanted to be up bright and early to go get Phoebe.

She pulled the quilt covering the bed up over her. Hannah and her friends had made it for her and Matthew and it was so special to her.

But as she touched the quilt, she thought of another one and wondered what would have happened, what her life might have been like, if her grandmother hadn't sent that quilt to the hospital where Jenny lay wounded. On the verge of sleep, she hoped that Phoebe was resting comfortably, that she wasn't lying there feeling scared or lonely or in pain like she'd been that day.

"
You have a package," the nurse had said, placing it on the table beside Jenny's bed.

"
Help—help me open it?"

"
Sure, honey."

The nurse had lifted out a quilt and stroked it. "Oh, look what we have here," she murmured. "Isn't it lovely? I can't imagine how much work went into this."

Jenny watched the woman unfold it and spread it over her hospital blanket.

"There must be a card in here," the nurse said, searching through the tissue in the box. "Here, I found it."

She handed the card to Jenny. But no matter how much Jenny tried to read the writing, the lines blurred. "Can't read."

Frowning, the nurse took the card. "I forgot about your double vision. It's taking some time to go away but it will, honey, it will."
She patted Jenny's hand. "Here, I'll read it for you."

The words inside had been simple and direct: "Come. Heal." It had been signed "Your grossmudder, Phoebe."

So she came back here as soon as she could, the moment she was released from the hospital. She'd come here and the first morning she was back this man beside her had come over to see Phoebe, his next-door neighbor, and through the maze that her poor hurt brain had become, the memory of being in love with him had emerged.