The Search (25 page)

It made him feel sick to his stomach.

Dear Robin and Ally,

I haven’t written in a while because so many changes have been happening so quickly and I didn’t know where to begin. First of all, I bought a cottage with my savings. A fixer-upper would be a generous description. It’s the home I lived in as a child. And I am going to be taking in my stepfather, Simon Troyer. He’s been quite ill. I’ve told you about Bess. We’ve grown as close as . . . well, she’s like a sister to me.

And to answer your question about men: no. There are no men of interest in Stoney Ridge. None whatsoever.

Love, Lainey

For the actual bone marrow transplant, Simon had been moved from the Veterans Hospital down to the hospital in Lancaster, where a specialist worked who was skilled at performing the relatively new procedure. Bess would be given a general anesthesia, and the marrow would be removed from her hip bone. She would stay one night, just for observation, and be allowed to go home the next morning.

The night before the operation was scheduled for Bess was one of those hot late-August nights that never cooled off. She had trouble sleeping, so she got up and went outside to get some fresh air. She sat on the porch steps and gazed at the stars. Somehow, the night sky gave her a sense of the majesty of God. She seemed so small and he seemed so big. In the distance, a horse whinnied and another answered.

“Bess?”

She looked out toward the yard and saw the silhouette of a person. “Billy! What are you doing here?”

Billy hesitated. “I forgot my books.” He looked toward the barn. “In the barn. I forgot my books.” He kept his books in Bertha’s barn because his brothers teased him for being a bookworm.

“And you couldn’t wait until morning to read?”

“No. I was right in the middle of a good part. What are you doing out here?”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

He walked up to her. “It’s a brave thing you’re doing. Giving Simon your bone marrow.”

“I’m not at all brave,” she answered truthfully.

“Are you scared? About tomorrow?”

She squeezed her elbows. “Maybe a little.”

“Think it will hurt?”

“I’m not too worried about the pain. They said it’s not much more than a bad fall on ice. I’ve suffered through plenty of those. It’s more . . .”

He sat beside her on the porch steps. “What?”

“Well, I’ve never had general anesthesia before. Where do you go, when you’re put to sleep like that? I won’t even dream, the nurse said. I mean, where does your soul go?”

Billy didn’t answer for a long time. “Caleb Zook said once that our great hope is when we’re absent from the body, we’re present with the Lord.” He looked over at her.

She thought about that for a while in the quiet of the night. That answer satisfied her. It gave her peace. “Thank you, Billy.”

“Bess?” Billy asked, husky-voiced.

She turned her face to him to see what he wanted. He held her face in both his hands and kissed her very softly on the lips. Then he drew away. She could hardly breathe, so stunned by the kiss.

He tucked a loose strand of hair under her cap, and then gently grazed her cheek with the back of his hand. “Good night.” He stood and took a few steps down the walkway before turning slightly. “I’ll see you in the morning. I’m going to the hospital.”

His tone was so sweet that it made her heart flutter. She was just about to tell him that he forgot his books again, but then she realized that he hadn’t come over for the books at all. Billy had come over this night because he was worried about her. It gave her the shivers, even on a hot night like this.

It was the longest day Jonah had ever known. As soon as Bess arrived at the admitting office, the hospital machinery moved into action. She was whisked away in a wheelchair with barely time enough to wave goodbye to everyone who had come with her that morning: Bertha, Billy, Sallie and her boys, Mose. And Lainey, who was keeping a considerable distance from Jonah.

Jonah waited with Bess in the pre-op room. Machines hummed softly and white-soled shoes whispered up and down the halls. A nurse came into the room. “We just got word that the doctor is getting prepped.” After she left, Jonah and Bess sat in silence. Suddenly, this was real.

Jonah leaned down to smooth her hair from her face. “You,” he pronounced, “will wake up and still be the same girl who cannot be bothered to study for a math test and vanishes when there are chores to do and goes to sleep reading with the light on.” But all he heard himself say was the first part of the sentence: “You will wake up and be the same girl . . .” That’s all he was praying for.

The anesthesiologist came in and put the mask over Bess’s mouth and nose. He told Jonah to count aloud to Bess, but instead, Jonah recited the Lord’s Prayer in Deitsch. It was Caleb Zook’s suggestion. He recommended having Bess hear the words “Thy will be done” before she fell asleep. When her eyes drifted shut, the nurse ushered him out to the waiting room.

Lainey looked so worried that Jonah wanted to take her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right. But of course he couldn’t.

And there was part of him that wasn’t sure everything would be all right. A terrible fear came over Jonah, a feeling he struggled to disown. He knew he must yield absolutely to God’s will and trust in his ultimate mercy. “Not my will but Thine be done,” he had told Bess before she slipped into unconsciousness. He had spent a lifetime reciting that prayer and wanted to believe it. But the fear of God’s will was there, nonetheless. He still struggled against yielding to God’s will, and he prayed desperately that God would bring Bess back to him, whole and well.

He looked over at his mother, sitting in a plastic chair with her head tucked down and her hands clasped together in her lap. He wondered if she felt worried too. She was more a woman of action than of words and worry. Her eyes were closed, either praying or meditating or . . . she let out a loud snore. A laugh burst out of him, Lainey too. He looked at her then; his brown eyes met hers, and they shared a smile. Sallie had been telling Mose something and caught the look that passed between Lainey and Jonah.

She stopped talking. Sallie Stutzman stopped talking. Her eyes darted back and forth between the two of them.

Jonah felt like he was a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Guilt washed over him and he made sure he didn’t look in Lainey’s direction again.

It seemed like an eternity, but it was really less than an hour before the doctor came to the waiting room, searching out Jonah. The doctor seemed a little startled to find a large group of Amish jump to their feet, eyes fixed on him.

“She’s fine,” the doctor reassured everyone. “Bess is awake now. We’re just going to observe her for a while, make sure no complications develop, and then we’ll put her in a regular room for the night.”

“Can I see her?” Billy asked.

Jonah turned to Billy with an eyebrow raised.

“Uh, I mean, can her father see her?” Billy stumbled.

“In a little while,” the doctor explained.

“What about Simon?” Bertha asked. “When will he be getting Bess’s marrow?” Simon had been in isolation for over a week and hadn’t been allowed any visitors because of risk of infection.

Jonah felt shamed. He hadn’t even given a passing thought to Simon.
Forgive me, Lord
, he prayed quickly.

“It’s actually easier for him to receive the marrow than it was for Bess to give it,” the doctor said. “A needle is inserted into the cavity of the rear hip bone where a large quantity of bone marrow is located.”

The doctor became quite animated with such a rapt audience. “We harvested about one to two quarts of marrow and blood. Bone marrow is actually a spongey material, found inside the bones. While this may sound like a lot, it really represents only about 2 percent of a person’s bone marrow, which the body replaces in four weeks.”

Billy looked as white as a sheet. Bertha told him to go sit down and put his head between his knees so he wouldn’t faint.

“Men don’t faint,” he said in a weak and pale voice, but he let her help him to a chair. “They might pass out, but they don’t faint.”

“Whatever handle you want to call it by, you look like you’re just about to do it,” Bertha told him.

“Everything’s getting ready for Simon now, and I’m going to head in and take care of that.” The doctor clapped his hands together. “Hopefully, the donation will ‘take’ and make its way into the central shaft of larger bones to restore stem cell function.”

Billy groaned, then stood abruptly and hurried down the hall, in need of a men’s room.

Bertha watched him weave down the hall and shook her head. “That poor boy’s going off his feed again.”

Early the next morning, Billy went over to Rose Hill Farm to finish chores as fast as he could. Billy had told Bertha he would take her to the hospital to meet everyone for Bess’s release this afternoon. For the last two days, he had felt an odd anxiety and he hadn’t been sleeping well, as if something wasn’t quite right and he didn’t know what.

He was walking up the tree-lined drive when he heard Boomer barking up a fury in the rose fields. He glanced at the house and was surprised there was no buttery glow from a lantern light in the kitchen. Usually, he could see Bertha at the stove and smell something delicious frying. Even though he had just eaten a full breakfast at home, his stomach would begin to rumble in happy anticipation. Not today, though. The farmhouse looked dark and cold.

He jogged over to see what Boomer’s ruckus was about, then slowed as he approached him. A chill ran down his spine when he saw the frantic, wild-eyed look in the dog’s eyes.

Then he discovered what Boomer was troubled about. Bertha Riehl was lying on her side, as if she had laid down to take a nap among her roses. Billy rushed to her and rolled her on her back. Her eyes were closed, her lips were blue, her face was white, and he could see she wasn’t breathing. She’d been gone for a while. She had been out spraying Coca-Cola on her roses when she passed. She looked utterly at peace. He held her hand for a while, tears streaming down his face, unsure of what to do next. Boomer rested his big woolly head on Billy’s shoulder.