A Harvest of Hope (13 page)

“Where's Freda?”

“Gone over to help Kaaren with something. How's Elizabeth?”

“Feeling better. She has some color back in her face and wants to come to the hospital. I said no. So she is not happy with her doctor right now. I am not taking any chances. That's all there is to it. She's worried about Thorliff, and he's worried about her, and I might have to go poke a hole in that Anner's head and let all the swelling drain out.”

Ingeborg rolled her lips together. Then when Astrid gave her an innocent look, she laughed outright.

“You're laughing, Mor. I've not heard you laugh since . . . for too long.”

“It would take a mighty strong needle.” Ingeborg barely kept a straight face.

“Are you saying Anner Valders is hardheaded? Along with a swelled-head syndrome?” The two grinned at each other. Oh, the laughter did indeed feel good.

Strange how not many hours ago she was teetering on the edge of the pit and crying her eyes raw but now she was able to laugh. Was this God's comfort and healing in action?

Ingeborg hoped so. She needed it so badly.

I
'm sorry, but I am doing what my doctor ordered.” The tone was polite but underlaid with glass shards.

Astrid watched carefully as Elizabeth slammed her pillows against the headboard. She had been doing so well. Was this a step backward or just a puddle like those left by the rain yesterday? The lowering skies today hinted at more weather. The thunder on the brow more than hinted at Elizabeth's frame of mind.

“Peace goes a long way toward gaining strength.” Astrid kept her tone mild and conversational.

“What are we going to do about Anner Valders?”

Astrid ordered herself not to throw kerosene on the fire. “So that is what is bothering you?”

“One of several things, yes!”

Astrid felt like her mor as she sent her request for peace and wisdom heavenward.
A kind word turneth
away wrath.
How many years ago had she memorized that one? True, the correct word was
soft
but she thought
kind
fit too. “I don't have any idea. The men are meeting tonight?” She beat off the nagging thought that women should be included also.

“Yes.” Elizabeth sucked in and released a deep breath and
then leaned her head back against the pillows. Eyes closed, she nodded slightly. “One of the things I have always loved about Blessing is that mostly people care for one another here. Sure, there have been minor scuffles and hurt feelings, but nothing like this. First the bank robbery, and now what I think is vindictiveness, bitterness.”

“But why? Why would Anner be bitter toward Thorliff? I know he gave a business reason, but you believe it is more than that?”

“Oh, I do. You know how furious Anner was when we wouldn't sell Manny's horse? Well, before that, it was because we took the bank robber boy in. He took that bank robbery as a personal attack on him.”

“Well, he was wounded trying to save the money.”

“True, and he was given a hero's thank-you by the town. But . . .”

Astrid watched and waited. Was she so naïve she didn't suspect that? After all, she had grown up with respect for the man. He did a good job with the bank and the community trusted him, but he'd never been one of the real leaders of the town. Just Anner Valders who managed the bank, a quiet man. But bitter? Vindictive? Hildegunn had always seemed to be the mouth of the two, the bossy one.

“And he was furious because so many threw in money to pay the fifty-five dollars back to the bank so Manny could keep his horse.” She nodded, aware she was thinking out loud. “But why Thorliff? Mor put in money too. I don't even remember who else. I thought it was a real show of community caring.”

“Thorliff started it. He was the one who really confronted Anner.”

“But it wasn't even Anner's money.” Astrid shook her head in confusion.

“But
his
bank.”

“I guess I am having a hard time understanding this. He's
not even one of the town leaders.” Her thoughts took off to explore the idea.

The real leaders were Haakan; Lars; Reverend Solberg; and now Thorliff, who ran the newspaper; Hjelmer; Daniel Jeffers, who brought in the machinery company; and Garth Wiste, who ran the flour mill. The real business owners of the town were mostly women: Sophie with the Blessing Boardinghouse; Penny owned the Blessing Mercantile; Ingeborg, the Blessing Cheese Company; Rebecca, the Blessing Soda Shoppe; Tante Kaaren started the deaf school; and now Dr. Elizabeth and herself. Blessing was indeed an unusual place.

The bank was community-owned. Those whose money was there were the owners, and that was most of the town. Astrid thought back, trying to remember how it was set up. She knew she had a paper saying that because she had an account there, she had a vote at the yearly meeting. Other meetings were called as needed.

One was now needed, but who would call it? The annual meeting wasn't until the first of the year. The meeting tonight could not be about the bank situation, because all the owners had to be invited.

Thelma knocked at the half-closed door. “You have a patient here, Dr. Astrid. In room one. From the tents.”

“Thank you.” She rose. “Don't go away,” she told Elizabeth. “I'll be back shortly, so hang on to these thoughts, and we can talk some more.”

“As if I dared.” Elizabeth's mutter seemed more complaint now than angry.

Astrid knocked on the door and entered the examining room. “Good morning. I'm Dr. Bjorklund.”

Two women were waiting for her—one curled up in a fetal position on the bed, the other clutching a bag that might have been a reticule. “Mrs. Sorvito said we had to come.”

Astrid listened hard to decipher the heavy accent. What
language were they speaking? She nodded to encourage the woman speaking, all the time her attention on the younger woman. Pale, obviously in lower abdominal pain, since she clutched both arms around herself. Was that blood on her legs?

“Good. Her name?” She pointed to the sick woman.
Lord, please,
wisdom
.

“Leona Bach.”

“Mrs. Bach?”

A nod and more information that Astrid did not understand.

“What country are you from?” Astrid spoke slowly and enunciated clearly.

“Osterreich. Os—, Os—, Osterreich.”

“May I examine her?” She pantomimed as she spoke. If this was Germanic, she should be able to pick up some words. Perhaps it was some dialect.
Think, Astrid.
She stepped to the woman, a girl really, and laid a hand on the one clutching. “How long has she been bleeding? Short time? Long time?” She motioned to the stains on the dress and leg.

“Long.” Vigorous nodding and hand waving.

Purple circles under the eyes, skin so pale as to be transparent. So thin, no wonder she shivered sporadically. Hot to the touch. Astrid reached under the table for a sheet and a blanket. She needed to examine her female parts but how to say that? She signaled she'd be right back and went out the door in search of Thelma.

“Do you know if the Geddicks have a telephone?”

Thelma shrugged and shook her head. “Please ask Gerald, and if not, please go fetch Mrs. Geddick for me. Ask her to come right away.” She returned to the room, already sure of what she had to do. Get her moved to the hospital, where she could have some help.

She made sure she smiled reassuringly when she returned to the room and checked heart and lungs and pulse. Thready. It felt like forever before she heard Mrs. Geddick talking to Thelma.
Astrid stepped out of the room to greet Mrs. Geddick. “Thank you for coming. I think they are from Europe and maybe you can understand and talk with them. I need to know when the bleeding started and if she is pregnant, and I want her at the hospital as soon as possible.”

“Ja, I do that.” Mrs. Geddick asked something, then repeated it, listening intently. Even Astrid could tell she was having a hard time.

She turned to Astrid after some back and forth. “Her husband is a carpenter here. She lost a baby early on, a month or so ago, I think, and has been bleeding off and on since then. The older woman half carried her here.”

“Thank you. I will find someone to help get her over to the hospital. Please stay with them and find out whatever more you can.” She relayed her need to Thelma, who picked up the receiver before she finished. If one needed something done, Thelma was the one to ask.

Astrid stopped in to tell Elizabeth what was happening, and within minutes, Thorliff and Trygve showed up, grabbed a stretcher out of the closet, and carried the young woman to the hospital.

“Easier and quicker than a wagon,” Thorliff said when they laid the stretcher on the gurney.

Mrs. Geddick followed along, just in case she was needed.

“Thank you. Talk about a need met quickly.” Miriam welcomed them.

Trygve touched his hat and left with a smile for Miriam. The two men were teasing each other as they went out the door.

“Danke, danke,” the woman kept repeating. By now they had more information, and Mrs. Geddick answered Miriam's questions for the chart while Astrid and Deborah undressed the close-to-comatose patient.

“Why do they wait so long?” Miriam shook her head while Astrid nodded her agreement.

“I'm going to do an examination, and then we'll clean her up. I fear we have both bleeding and infection here, as if the miscarried fetus was expelled but not all of the placenta.”

The woman was dirty as well as malnourished. Not a careless sort of dirtiness, rather the dingy look that comes of not having enough water to wash in.

An hour later Astrid left the hospital and returned to sit down with Elizabeth.

“Call Chicago and ask for their advice,” Elizabeth said when Astrid described the symptoms. “How I wish I could assist you.” Sitting in the chair by the window, she lifted her cup of tea. “How badly dehydrated is she?”

“That's the least of our worries. We are pushing fluids and have her covered in wet cloths to both bring down her temperature and hydrate her.”

Astrid looked up. “Mor, what are you doing here?”

“Thelma called me. Reverend Solberg will come when school is out.”

“We've given her something for the pain, and she relaxed not long after that. She is cleaned up, the bleeding is packed, and Gray Cloud is spooning broth while Dawn Breaking keeps changing the cloths. Mrs. Bach's husband has been notified. At least they have no small children for her to worry about.” She poured her mother a cup of tea from the teapot kept warm over a candle. “I'm calling Chicago. I will return with their suggestions.” She paused in the doorway. “How did the quilting go?”

“Hildegunn wasn't there. She sent a note saying she couldn't find anyone to take over the post office.” Ingeborg shook her head. “The rest of us had a blessed and lively time. I just got home a short while ago.”

“Wonderful. And your devotions?”

“Would you believe I used Jesus on the Great Commandment, but the person who needed to hear it most wasn't there?” Ingeborg smiled at Elizabeth. “Still a few of us squirmed when we
talked about loving our neighbors as ourselves. We all fall so far short on that. It is a good thing we have a merciful God. Lord have mercy on us—it's so easy to say and so easy to forget our need. Like right now. Lord have mercy on that young woman and on each of us who God calls to help her.”

“Takk. I needed that reminder too.” Elizabeth heaved a sigh. “Right now I am fighting to be merciful to Anner. He shows no mercy, but that is beside the point. How do we do this and yet make him realize what he is doing?”

“What if making him realize is God's job and not ours?”

Astrid felt her jaw drop. “Mor!”

Ingeborg shrugged. “I don't know. Those words just came out. I am as shocked as you are.”

“But Anner Valders is not listening to God or anyone else!”

“And our God is not stronger than Anner Valders?” Ingeborg closed her eyes and slowly, heavily, her head moved from side to side.

Astrid made her way to the telephone, her mind back on the bleeding woman, her steps slow as if weighted by the spring mud, which could stop wagon wheels. The woman's only solution was probably a hysterectomy, removal of the uterus.

She had a lengthy conversation with Dr. Whitaker, the surgeon she had trained with when she went for her surgery rotation before she became an accredited physician. The conference did not give her peace of mind. While he assured her she was capable of performing this much-needed surgery, the thought of it made her shake. So many what ifs. She'd asked him several times about the infection present, but she asked once more.

“I agree with your analysis,” he told her, “that when the aborted fetus was expelled, part of the afterbirth remained and festered. My opinion is that you should go ahead. She will most likely die if you don't.”

That was not at all what she'd wanted to hear. “But—”

“Dr. Bjorklund, these are the kinds of calls all doctors hate to
make, but our goal is to do all we can to preserve life. You can stand by and do nothing, or you can act and give her a better chance. One of the sad things is that when she does recover, she will not be able to have children.”

Astrid hung up the receiver and rested her forehead against the oak box. He had recommended doing it as soon as possible, but she would not proceed until she spoke with the husband. She had asked Thorliff to get a message to him to come to the hospital as soon as he got off work. And that could be soon. She told Elizabeth and Mor what Dr. Whitaker had said.

“I'll walk over with you.” Ingeborg smiled at her daughter.

Elizabeth smiled too. “And I will be praying from here. God has given you great skill in surgery, Astrid. Trust that He will guide your hands and heal this woman.”

“Ja. Thank you. Would you please tell Daniel what is going on? I hope to be done in time for the meeting tonight, but we shall see.”

“Have you done this before?” Ingeborg asked as she locked arms with her daughter.

“I have only assisted and closed up. There were never any female cadavers to practice on.” When they stepped through the front door of the hospital, she inhaled and set her shoulders and mind. Letting her shoulders relax along with outgoing air, she motioned to Miriam. “I know your shift ends soon, but I would appreciate your staying late to assist with this surgery. You and Deborah both.”

Deborah nodded. “Dr. Whitaker said to go ahead?”

“He did. So please get the surgery prepared, along with the patient, and we will begin as soon as I have permission from Mr. Bach. Thorliff sent a message for him to come here right after work.” She let out a sigh, praying the weight would be gone from her shoulders. Right now she felt like she was about to sink into the floor because of it.

“Deborah, will you please telephone our other two nursing
students to come in now or as soon as they can get here. We may need their help, and they need this experience.”