A Rose Revealed (21 page)

She didn’t say anything more, just sobbed.

“I’ll be right there.” I hung up and called Dr. Braeborn.

“This is Rose Martin.”

“Rose?” I heard the disbelief in his voice. “I thought you were—I mean, I heard on the news—” He couldn’t make himself say it.

“It’s a long story, but I’m fine. I’m calling about Trevor Stoltzfus.”

“Bring him in no matter what,” Dr. Braeborn said. “I’ll meet you at Lancaster General.”

I grabbed a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. I threw on some sneakers, grabbed my coat, and ran for the car. I drove down the road and raced up the Stoltzfus’s front walk, my emergency medical bag in hand.

The Stoltzfus house was dark except for a coal oil lamp in the living room. I let myself in and saw Annie seated in her rocker, Trevor in her arms, and Becky in her nightgown on her knees beside her, her head in Annie’s lap. One of Annie’s hands stroked the weeping girl’s head.

Annie looked at me with such sorrow in her eyes that the breath went out of me. I felt a spiral of pain whip through my chest, settling in my breastbone.

I walked to the chair and held out my hand to the baby. He was already cold to the touch.

“Let me look at him,” I said to Annie.

She nodded and wordlessly handed me the infant. I took him to the kitchen table and removed his blankets, then his clothes, then his diaper. His little body looked so fragile, so perfect except for the great weal of a scar on his chest. I turned him over and studied him. I could see no external cause of death. I put his clothes back on and took him to Becky.

“Dr. Braeborn says we’re to bring him, no matter what,” I said softly.

Annie rose and took her great-grandson from Becky. “Go get dressed, child.”

She held Trevor while Becky hurried to the beautiful blue and yellow bedroom.

“Thank
Herr Gott
that I got to love
mein bubbli
,” Annie’s voice trembled. She sank to her rocker.

“Do you want me to get Rachel?” I asked. “So you won’t be alone when we leave?”

She shook her head. “We decided not to wake Rachel and the others,” she said. “They wouldn’t understand.” She laid her warm, wrinkled cheek on Trevor’s cold one. “Becky knows I loved him. She doesn’t know I would go up and hold him when Nate was in the fields and she was busy. I didn’t mean to sin, but he was
mein bubbli
. No matter how much I held him, it was never enough.”

She sighed from a place of pain deep in her heart. “Now it has to be enough.” Tears trailed down her cheeks, following the furrows of the years, dripping onto the still body in her arms.

Becky appeared and took Trevor. Her hand curled around his head.

“Schloff, bubbli, schloff”
she whispered, her voice breaking. “May your dreams be forever fine.”

Annie stood in the door and watched us as we walked to my car. I held Trevor while Becky got in and buckled her seatbelt. Then I placed the child in her arms. I got in and turned the key.

We had barely left the farm lane when Becky said, “Call Samuel.”

I nodded and got out my cell phone. I dialed Jake.

“Hello? Is that you, Rose?” said a very alert voice.

I started. “How did you know?”

“I heard you leave. What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Jake.” I started to cry so hard I could barely talk, let alone drive.

“Rose? Is it—?”

“It’s T-Trevor.” I couldn’t go on.

After a brief pause Jake asked, “Dead?”

I sniffed. “Yes.” That huge stone pressing on my breastbone was getting heavier by the moment. I couldn’t even imagine Becky’s pain. “Becky and I are on our way to LGH. She wants Sam to come.”

“Sure she does. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

I hung up and turned onto 340. I barely noticed an Amishman racing down the road on his scooter. It wasn’t until we went under the railroad underpass and I saw another man on his scooter as well as three cars with lights flashing that I realized there was a calamity somewhere else tonight, too. The volunteer firemen were responding to a call.

“Are you all right, Beck?” I asked when I was certain there were no more volunteer firemen lurking for me to accidentally run over.

She didn’t answer, and I didn’t blame her. Dumb question.

“It’s so hard to think he’s gone,” she said as we passed the light in Smoketown. She held Trevor cradled in her arms like he was nursing, and I thought that soon she’d also have physical pain to endure when her milk came in.

“Talk to me about him, Becky. Tell me some good Trevor stories.”

She was quiet so long, I wasn’t certain she heard me. Then: “When I first realized I was pregnant, I couldn’t believe it. I was so upset! But as time went on, I grew to love the child inside. He was my baby. Mine and Samuel’s. It didn’t matter when or how he was conceived. He was mine, ours. I talked to him and prayed for him. I gave him to
Herr Gott
.”

Her voice thickened, and it was a few minutes before she could continue. “Then he was born so sick, and he had that terrible operation. I pleaded with
Herr Gott
to let him live. He lived, but I knew he would die. I decided I would love him with everything that was in me every day that
Herr Gott
let me have him.”

“Most people would be furious at God for letting their baby be so sick,” I said.

“Oh no,” she said, cuddling Trevor close. “I was too busy being thankful that
Herr Gott
gave me Trevor. If it weren’t for Trevor, I never would have gone to Mrs. Trowbridge like I did. I never would have learned about grace. I never would have believed in Jesus. Trevor was a gift, a wonderful gift.”

I was moved by her sincerity and couldn’t help but wonder if I’d feel the same way if he were my baby.

“A lot of people have told me that Trevor’s illness is
Herr Gott’s
punishment for what Samuel and I did. But I know
iss
not so.”

“How do you know this?” I glanced at this child-woman of uncommon grace.

“Because fine people have sick babies too, don’t they? And terrible people, people much worse than Samuel and me, have fine babies, all beautiful and healthy.”

“So you think anyone can have a sick baby?”

“I do. Or a healthy one. And if I ever start to get mad at
Herr Gott
for letting Trevor die, I will remember that God let his Son die, too.”

We drove through the silent clusters of houses, past Anderson Pretzels, and into Lancaster City. We went past the old prison that looks like a castle with crenellated towers and along the narrow city streets until we reached the hospital. I drove up to the Emergency entrance.

“You get out here, Becky. I’ll go park and be right back.”

She nodded and got out. When I came back to the entrance, she was huddled under the portico, Trevor held against her heart. We went inside and were shown into a cubicle immediately by Nancy, an ER nurse I frequently ran into on late nights as we passed our victims off to the hospital staff.

“Rose?” she said. “It is Rose?”

I looked at her strangely. Of course it was me. Then I drew the curtains around the cubicle and stood beside Becky as she sat on the lone chair holding her baby. She talked to him, crooned to him, sang to him. She kissed his forehead, his nose, his hands, all the time letting her tears wet his blankets.

Dr. Braeborn, a small man who took illness as a personal affront and who fought for the lives of his small patients with unfailing energy, arrived minutes after we did. He walked up to Becky and laid his hand on her head.

“I’m so sorry, my dear.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “I failed.”

Becky looked at him and shook her head. “No,” she said softly. “I gave him to
Herr Gott
, Dr. Braeborn. It was His choice. Not yours.”

The doctor blinked at her words, then took Trevor and laid him on the gurney. He started to unwrap Trevor’s blanket when he stopped. “Would you undress him for me, Becky?”

I watched the grateful look that spread over her face. She rose and slowly, for the last time, removed her son’s clothes. The doctor examined him as Becky and I stood watching, wrapped in each other’s arms. He, as I, found no overt cause of death.

“I know this is a hard question for you, Becky, but may I perform an autopsy on Trevor?”

Becky opened her mouth to answer when a frantic voice yelled, “Becky! Becky! Where are you?”

I came out of the curtained cubicle where Trevor lay just as a nurse came up to Sam and tried to shush him.

I hurried forward. “It’s okay, Nancy. I’ll take him.” I looked into Sam’s wild eyes.

“Rose?” Nancy said again. “Rose?” But I ignored her.

“They’re over here, Sam.” I led him to his family.

He fell to his knees beside the gurney and sobbed as he looked at the little body. Becky came up behind him and wound her arms around his neck. She laid her cheek on the top of his head and her tears wet his hair.

“Thank God I held him,” Sam said over and over. “Thank God I held him.”

I looked at Dr. Braeborn, who nodded. I wrapped Trevor in his blanket and held him out to Sam. Tears streamed down his face as he looked at his baby

“Take him, Sam,” I said. “Say good-bye to your boy.”

Dr. Braeborn and I backed out of the cubicle and left the three of them together. Both he and I were sniffing and blotting tears with our sleeves.

A familiar voice said, “Rosie?” and I came undone.

Jake opened his arms, and I fell into them. For the second time in less than a week, I sat on his lap, my face pressed to his chest, and sobbed.

Chapter 11

W
hen I finally calmed down, I sat up and climbed off Jake’s lap. I felt Jake’s hand remain on my waist and was grateful for his support. Poor man. He’d catch his death of cold if he went outside in his tear-saturated shirt.

Sniffling, I began searching through my pockets for a tissue and could find none. I began to feel desperate. “You don’t have a handkerchief, do you?”

“I didn’t exactly have lots of time to dress,” he said, running his hand through his sleep-tousled hair.

I glanced at his jeans and T-shirt, then at my clothes and knew what he meant. I didn’t even want to think about my hair.

Nancy came up just then and shoved a box under my nose.

“Thanks,” I muttered through a clogged nose as I pulled a tissue free.

“No problem.”

I smiled at her, then buried my face and blew. Relief! When I finished, I looked up to find her standing in exactly the same spot, staring at me. I grabbed another tissue, certain my nose was dirty.

“Oh, Rose!” Nancy’s eyes suddenly teared. “Oh, Rose!” She threw her arms around my neck. “I thought—I thought—” And she began to cry in earnest.

I automatically hugged her back. Then it hit me. I looked at Jake in consternation as I patted Nancy on the back. “I forgot I’m supposed to be dead.”

“But you’re not!” Nancy said, pulling back. “How did the news get it so wrong?”

I smiled wanly. I didn’t know what to say.

“There was nothing you could have done differently tonight, Tiger,” Jake said. “Becky needed you.”

I nodded. He was right. Still, the fact remained that I’d blown my story.

“Look, Nancy,” I said. Maybe I could convince her to forget she’d seen me, talked to me. Maybe when the larger emergency care family commiserated about my death, she’d be able to bite her tongue.

I sighed. That was a lot of maybes and called for an inhuman amount of discipline. If the situation were reversed, I’m not certain I’d have the strength to keep quiet. Things would just slip out.

And then there was Dr. Braeborn. And the nurse staring at me from across the room, looking like she was seeing a ghost. And the receptionist who waved three fingers at me from her desk.

Just then the door flew open, and an ambulance crew surged in with an accident victim strapped to a gurney. Everyone in the emergency room was galvanized into action, even Nancy, who wiped at her eyes, thrust the tissue box at me, and grabbed the victim’s flailing wrist.

“Auto accident with fire, victim trapped against steering wheel,” the EMT shouted. “BP 90 over—” And he froze mid step, staring at me.

“Hi, Harry,” I said softly.

“Rose.” He breathed my name as the gurney bumped into him hard.

“Harry!” yelled Alice Moyer, his partner for the run. “Move it!”

He blinked and turned back to his work. “BP 90 over 50 and falling,” he shouted as they wheeled the victim into a cubicle across the room from Becky and Sam.

“Fat’s in the fire,” Jake said.

I nodded. “Wait until Lem hears.”

Harry peered out of the cubicle for just an instant, like he was checking to see if he’d seen what he thought. I sent him a small wave. He shook his head like a dog that’s been out in the rain and moved back behind the curtain.

Poor Harry.

Jake touched my arm, and I turned to him.

“Why don’t you give me your car keys? I’ll give them to Sam so he and Becky can leave whenever they want,” he said.

I nodded and fished them from my pocket. “The doctor should be finished with them soon.”

He took the keys and started to roll across the floor but then paused and turned. “I’ll wait and take you home when you can finally get free from Harry and the others.”

I smiled. “I know.”

He wheeled off to do his errand just as Harry and Alice stepped out of the cubicle where the accident victim lay. Harry stared at me as he walked across the room.

I rushed to him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’m sorry, Harry. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to do it. They made me.”

He hugged me back, his arms like bands of iron. “My heart’s going a million miles an hour, kid. My BP is probably through the roof.”

He pulled back and stared at me, then laughed. “Oh, God, thank You, thank You,” he shouted to the ceiling. And he hugged me again. Alice patted me on the back.

“You have no idea the hell you’ve put me through, girl,” he said. “I’ve been so upset, so angry.” Suddenly that anger licked across his face. Harry, my gentle Mennonite, looked ready to explode.