A Harvest of Hope (14 page)

Deborah assigned jobs to the others, and they all went about their duties as if they did this every day. Astrid sat down in her office and leaned back in the chair. With her eyes closed, she walked herself through every detail of the coming surgery: the blood vessels, muscles, nerves, incising the layers of skin and muscle, tying off both veins and arteries, separating the uterus, lifting it out, and closing the site, leaving in a drain. She pictured the anesthesia. Miriam would be in charge of that, with Deborah assisting Astrid.

A knock at the door and Deborah announced, “Mr. Bach is here.”

“Send him in.”

A sturdy young man, his hands mangling his hat, stepped into the room, just barely. He moved when Deborah closed the door.

“Please sit down.” She pointed to the chair. When he sat on the very edge of the chair, she asked, “How well do you understand me?”

“I say English better than my wife.” In spite of a heavy accent, she could understand him. Probably thanks to Amelia's teaching.

“Your wife is bleeding and has an infection.”

His brow wrinkled. “What? Bleeding but . . . ?”

“Infection. Very sick. I want to do an operation to help her.”

He shook his head and shrugged. “No, uh . . .”

“No to the surgery?”

“Surgery. Uh . . . cut into her?”

“Yes. If I do, she cannot have more children.” Astrid paused and rephrased. “I cut—no more babies. I do not cut—she may die.”

He stared at her a long, long moment. “Ja, cut.” He leaned forward. He pointed to her. “You make her good. Ja?”

“I will do my best.”

“Best, ja.” He collapsed against the back of the chair, obviously
understanding that. He shook his head and pointed at her again. “You do.”

“Just a minute.” Astrid stood and went to the door. “Is Mrs. Geddick still here?”

“She went home.”

Astrid returned to her mission. “I will do my best.” If only she could understand him better. “You will wait here?”

“Ja, wait.”

“Did Mrs. Geddick learn what country they are from?”

Deborah looked at the chart and shrugged. “Wherever Osterreich is.”

“I think it's Austria, so we're probably struggling with German here.” Astrid took the chart from Deborah. “Someone show him where he can wait. I sure hope someone else comes to be with him.”

“Reverend Solberg will be here. And your mor.”

And God. That thought did bring comfort. A quote from Sunday's sermon wandered into her mind. “God inhabits the praises of His people.” That brought her more comfort. He would use her hands.

As soon as everyone was scrubbed and the patient prepped, Astrid closed her eyes. “Dear Lord God, I know you are right here with us. Guide us all, our hands, our hearts, our minds. And please bring healing to this young woman. And, Lord, we will give you all the thanks and praise.” She opened her eyes and looked around at her team. “Ready?”

They all nodded. Astrid made the first incision on the line she had marked. The lights heated up the room, along with the tension, as she blocked out the world and concentrated on the job at her hands. The muscle layers. Almost no fat at all. Most people had at least some abdominal fat.

Astrid gasped as she reached the uterus. It was red, angry, ready to burst with the poison in it.
Get it out
of there!

Miriam and Deborah followed her instructions well, as did
the others. When sweat blurred her vision, Corabell wiped it away without being asked. Deborah was like another pair of her own hands. What a blessing, these women.

Finally, finally, Astrid stood erect. “You close,” she said to Deborah when the area was cleared with no further visible bleeders and disinfected again.

Deborah gave her a startled look but went ahead as Astrid had taught her.

“Corabell, you and Vera do the dressing. Miriam, let her begin to come around. But as soon as she comes out of the ether, we will keep her sedated with morphine for at least the next twenty-four hours.”

“She is breathing well,” Miriam reported. “Heart rate as to be expected.”

Astrid watched as her nurses worked. Splendid nurses! When they were all finished, she said, “I thank our God and I thank each of you for doing a fine job. We have done our best. Now we will do all we can to help her recover. Gray Cloud, please bring in the gurney, and we will transfer her. Each of you take a corner of the sheet, and we will repeat what we did in the beginning. Then we'll do the same in her room.” They had prepared one of the two private rooms.

Once they had her in the bed, they heaved a collective sigh of relief. “Vera, you and Dawn stay with her now. She is not to be left alone, even for a minute, so we will all do shifts tonight. I am going to talk with her husband, and I am sure he will be in here too.”

She fought off the exhaustion that threatened to knock her to the floor and entered the office where Reverend Solberg, Ingeborg, and Mr. Bach all stood at her entry.

“Mrs. Bach made it through the surgery and is now in her room. Mr. Bach, we have a comfortable chair in there for you.”

“She . . . she is good?” The fear in his eyes made her take his shaking hands.

“Ja, but sleeping.”

He nodded. “Sleeping. I see her?”

“Ja, come with me.”

Reverend Solberg smiled at her and went with them. Mr. Bach took his wife's hand, tears streaming down his face. He looked to Solberg. “You pray?”

Astrid nodded and kept herself on her feet until the amen. “I will be back.”

Back in her office, she collapsed into a chair and leaned against her Mor. “Thank you.”
Please, God. Please.

S
orry I'm late.” Reverend Solberg paused in the doorway to the crowded newspaper office. All the chairs were taken, but there was a bale of newsprint. He sat on that.

“Glad you got here. How is that young woman doing?” Thorliff asked.

“She came through the surgery fairly well. We can be proud of our hospital and those who are working there. They all were pushed beyond what they thought they knew or were able to do. Astrid told me her team did as well in the operating room as any she has worked with. We prayed that God would guide their hands, and He most certainly did, their minds too.” He blew out a breath, puffing his cheeks out. “Do any of you know anything about Mr. Bach?”

Trygve nodded. “He's on Toby's crew and a hard worker.”

“My mother says he's been faithfully attending her English class,” Daniel said. “She didn't realize he had a wife with him. They are sharing a tent with an older couple. They came with the last group of immigrants and had not been in the United States very long before they came here.” Daniel Jeffers leaned back. “The four of them have put in for one of the apartments. I have a feeling there might be more than one family in some of those.”

“If we can finish the building. I can't carry it much longer without more cash.” Thorliff felt the anger rising. “Would you start us with prayer, John? God knows I need plenty of that.”

John Solberg waited for what seemed an interminable time before he began. “Lord God, Creator of all that we have and all that we dream of, we praise and thank you that we can ask for your help and guidance, that you have promised us in your Word you will always answer, that you will always love us and be with us. We really need your wisdom here, because ours is too small and too narrow. And, Lord, our feelings get in the way. We want everything to be fair and all your people to be loving. But you know us far better than we know ourselves, so we ask you to guide and guard us. Thank you for your work in the hospital surgery today. Our hope lies in you. In your Son's name we pray, amen.”

“Thank you.” Thorliff looked around at the men gathered. “You all realize this meeting is private. Please keep the things we discuss tonight to yourself. I cannot say you shouldn't talk it over with your wives, for we all know that they are praying for us as we meet.” He sat down, as the others already were. “Any questions, clarifications?”

“You tried to reason with him?” Daniel asked.

“I tried, yes.”

“Part of the problem, the way I see it, is that we have given him the authority to make decisions through the years.” Lars spoke slowly and gently, as usual.

“But has he ever abused his authority before?” Daniel asked. “I mean, do you know of anyone else turned down for a loan?”

“I don't think so.” Thorliff's jaw ached from keeping what he wanted to say under control. “The freedom we have given him has created a tyrant.”

“Is there sufficient liquid cash in the bank for the loan to be approved?”

“That's a good question, one we usually get the answer for in January at the bank meeting.” Thorliff stared up at the ceiling.

“But the building boom has happened since then, right?” Garth asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Are there loans in arrears?” Daniel asked.

“Again, that would be in January's report. I've not ever heard of any.”

“It's a shame Hjelmer isn't here. He keeps better track of the bank than anyone.”

“I say we ask for an accounting.”

“I think we have to call for a special meeting first. And if we do that, this will get out to everyone, and that could be even more divisive.”

“The Word says that if you have a problem with a brother, you go to him, and that is what you did.” Reverend Solberg nodded to Thorliff.

“No, actually I blew up at the time, and I have not gone back to talk to him. Because he was being so self-righteous and pompous, I was afraid I would talk with my fists. I don't remember ever wanting to hit someone like that before.” Thorliff propped his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands through his hair. “Elizabeth believes Anner is out to get even with us for taking Manny in and for paying for his horse.”

“But he's way out of line on the church issue too. The way he treated Thomas Devlin and then that young nurse. Like he thinks those of us who've been around for a long time are somehow better than the folks who have come here more recently to work and start new lives.” Garth sat shaking his head.

Thorliff sat up straight. “We can't afford to stop on that building. Too many people are counting on living there. I'll go to Grafton for the money if I have to, but we have all tried to keep our businesses in Blessing, for the betterment of the whole town. But this is like a cancer that grows unseen until it erupts.”

“What are the choices?”

“Fire Anner and appoint someone else to run the bank.”

“How and who?”

“I say we follow the biblical way first,” Reverend Solberg said. “You go to talk with him, Thorliff, and take me and one other with you. We all commit to praying about this before then, and if God suggests any other way in the meantime, we listen carefully for God's leading. We have to give Him time to work.”

Thorliff stared at his pastor. “Do you think I haven't been praying?”

“That's not what I said. There are others praying too: Ingeborg, Astrid, Elizabeth, Kaaren. We pray specifically for Anner to listen to God's Word and to root out the quack grass of bitterness and pride. As our God forgives us, we must forgive others and be merciful, as He is merciful.”

“I tell you, I don't think this will work, and after next week, I can't ask those men to work and not get paid.” Fury screamed to be let loose. They should be planning for other things that needed doing in Blessing, like a new school, and here they were spending their time on the mess Anner made. He looked up. “Pardon me, my mind got away.”

“I said, then we pray for God to provide the funds for wages too. He has unlimited funds, you know.” Solberg looked around the table. “Are we all agreed? Or are there any questions?”

Thorliff pushed his chair back so hard that it tipped and crashed to the floor. He leaned over to set it upright again. He shook his head, gently at first and then more emphatically. “I can't do it.”

“Do what?”

“Pray for Anner Valders and then go see him.” Arms rigid, braced against the tabletop, his head hung and still shook no. “He has caused this and is creating more hate-filled feelings. I don't want to see him, be polite, hear his angry voice.” He looked up. “I'm sorry. I can't do it.”

Lars pushed himself to his feet and came around the table. He laid an arm over Thorliff's shoulders. “You won't have to. We'll all just watch and pray. Our God has never let us down.”

“I'm not so sure about that. Right now He seems to be loading an awful lot on all of us.”

“Haakan always said, ‘God will provide. He always has, so why would He stop now?'” Lars squeezed and then slapped Thorliff on the shoulder. “Reverend Solberg, how about you close this meeting, and we'll see what God is going to do next.”

All the men stood and bowed their heads.

“Father in heaven, we know you are right here, for you said where two or three are gathered together in your name, you will be there in the midst of them. You know our concerns. Thank you that you will make clear to us the way you would have us go. We have agreed to pray and wait, to watch to see the way you will unfold this plan. We trust that you know best. And now we pray together the way you taught us to pray. Our Father . . .”

The others joined in, and at the amen, Solberg added, “The Lord bless us and keep us and give us His peace.”

When Thorliff and the pastor were the only ones left in his office, Solberg stepped to his side. “I know Haakan is so proud of you. I'm sure he's bragging to everyone around, ‘That's my son.' You see, Thorliff, all these years you've had both of your parents praying for you, and they still are, but now God is treating you like a man, a son He loves dearly and is determined to grow into real manhood, the God variety. Growing is always painful. Come on, let's close this up. I promised to return for one of the praying shifts at the hospital for Mrs. Bach. She's barely more than a child herself.”

Thorliff nodded. “Ja, when Trygve and I carried her on the stretcher, we figured that.” He stopped at the gate. “I meant what I said, you know.”

“I know. Good night, son.”

Thorliff watched his pastor and friend go whistling up the street, then turned to head to his own house. He checked on Elizabeth, who was sleeping soundly in her room downstairs, kissed her forehead, and mounted the stairs. He looked in on
Inga. Moonlight fell in window shadows across the floor of her room. She slept with arms and legs flung out as if ready to leap up and charge into the new day. He kissed her cheek and made his way down the hall to the room he used to share with Elizabeth. Until she was given orders not to climb the stairs.

Once in bed, he stared at the moonlight patterning the floor. Maybe he was too drained, but right now he couldn't even be angry at Anner. Instead, he felt empty, like a jar that all the juice had been drained out of. He could still feel Lars' arm on his shoulders.

“Oh, Far, how I need your wisdom and experience right now. I think I understand trust, but . . . Well, I sure don't trust Anner Valders.” He paused, waited. And nodded. “Ja, Lord God, I choose to trust you.”