The Keeper (35 page)

Finally, two headlights appeared on the road. The ride to the hospital felt like an eternity. When they reached the Emergency Room, they tumbled out of the car. Julia told the driver to go back to Windmill Farm to get her father. The hospital door slid open and Sadie, M.K., and Julia stepped into a crowded waiting room. Julia asked a man at the counter about Menno. He looked up Menno’s name on the computer, asked if they were family, then pointed toward a hall and said to go talk to a nurse at the station through the doors. They walked down another hall to a door that said NO ADMITTANCE. Julia had to push the button and talk into a speaker box to tell the nurse why they were there and whom they wanted to see.

A nurse was waiting for them as the door opened. “Come with me.”

“Where’s Menno?” M.K. asked, starting to cry again.

Julia held her close against her. She wanted to cry too. This all felt like a bad dream that she couldn’t wake from. How could Menno have been fine, just a few hours ago, and now he was in a hospital? How could life be so fragile?

The nurse handed M.K. a box of tissues. “I need to talk to your older sister about a couple of things first. Then I’ll take you to your brother. I promise.” She motioned to a quiet space by the nurse’s station so Julia followed her. “Were you told what happened?”

“I know there was an accident. Someone was trying to shoot a bear and they ended up shooting Menno.”

“Your brother received a bullet wound to his head. He’s on a ventilator and IV, oxygen and a catheter.”

“Is he in pain?”

“No.”

“Good.” Oh good! Oh, thank God. A wave of relief washed over Julia. “We’d like to see him.”

“Soon. You need to know, he’s in a coma. He’s unresponsive.”

Julia felt as if she might faint. She held on to the counter with both hands.

“Do you need to sit down?” the nurse whispered.

Julia breathed deeply for a moment. Was she going to be sick? She closed her eyes and tried to recite a psalm. Finally, she said, “All that matters is that he is alive.”

“Yes, but—” The nurse stopped abruptly. “Let me take you to see him.”

Julia followed her through another door and into the room where Menno lay, but the boy who lay on the bed did not look like her brother. Julia glanced around at the monitors. She recognized the jagging line for the heart, the numbers for the blood pressure and oxygen levels—it was the same kind of monitor her father had been hooked up to. Menno’s chest rose and fell, his left hand was taped to a board with the IV line in the back of his hand. His head was bandaged down to his eyebrows with a turban of white gauze. It was a horrible dream. Like someone was pummeling her with hard blows. One more and she might crumble.

It was so hard to see Menno like this. She wanted to protect him. She was
supposed
to be able to protect him. She was his older sister! She had always watched out for him. Julia curled her fingers around his right hand on top of the sheet. His hand was so cold. She had heard once that even in a coma, the patient could hear.

“Menno, it’s me. It’s Jules. Your sister. Can you hear me?”

No response, not even a flicker.

Julia sat down in the chair by the bed, still clinging to Menno’s hand. She remembered a time he’d fallen from a horse and his sweet face had been so battered and bruised she hardly recognized him. She stroked his hair that was sticking out under the gauze.

She shot a look through the window at Sadie, who had tears running down her cheeks. M.K. had her face buried in her hands. Julia glanced over to the doorway to see a doctor standing there. Had he said something to her? “Yes?” The word came out in a croak. She tried again. “Yes.”

“I’m Dr. Lee.” He held his metal clipboard against his chest, a barrier between them. “I admitted your brother.”

The doctor studied the monitors, checked Menno’s eyes responses with his flashlight, skimmed the bottom of his feet with another instrument, pulled out his stethoscope and listened to his heart and lungs. He turned to her. “Menno’s condition remains unchanged.” Another blow to Julia’s gut. “Are you Menno’s guardian?”

From some distant place, Julia could hear herself say, “Of sorts. I’m the eldest in the family. My father will be here soon, but he isn’t well. If there’s something about Menno you need for us to know, I’d appreciate it if you could tell me first.”

The doctor cleared his throat and his shoulders rose and fell in a sigh.

“Will you be taking him in for surgery soon?”

“Surgery?”

“To get the bullet out of his head,” Julia said. Just how experienced was this doctor? He didn’t seem to know what to do next.

Suddenly she felt herself shaking so hard she had to sit on a chair. She grabbed her elbows and leaned forward, head down. “You think he’s going to die, don’t you.” Julia’s voice was a dry rasp.

The doctor crouched down beside her. Then, slowly, in a gentle voice, “Miss Lapp, when your brother came into the hospital, he was already comatose. The brain function is minimal. We’ve done all we can do for him.”

At the window, Julia saw a nurse leading her father, Fern, and Uncle Hank to meet Sadie and M.K. The nurse quietly opened the door and let them file around Menno’s bedside. Fern and Uncle Hank stood against the wall. Fern gave M.K. a gentle push to go stand by her brother. Sadie leaned over and whispered something in Menno’s ear. Julia heard only the sounds, not the words. It reminded Julia of when they were young. Menno’s language was slow to develop, and Sadie, though two years younger, spoke sooner than he did. Her mother used to say that Sadie was God’s gift to help Menno along. Sadie seemed to understand what Menno wanted to say before he had words of his own to use. She would whisper something to him, like she was doing now, lean close to him, hearing something from him that only she could hear.

Amos picked up Menno’s hand in his and stroked it gently. The doctor quietly explained the situation to everyone.

“But he is breathing,” Amos said, “and his heart is beating.”

“Yes, because he is on the ventilator,” the doctor said gently. “If we turn that off, he won’t last long.”

Julia stared at the monitors. The steady
beep beep beep
, the snaking lines of tubing, the sucking sound as Menno’s chest lifted and fell. Was it true? She studied her brother’s face and his arms and hands. Beautiful Menno, special Menno. He had taught them all so much—patience, loving unconditionally, daily reminders to slow down and notice things—to
really
notice. She took his hand in hers, this calloused hand that had gently nursed so many animals back to health, this hand that had built so many birdhouses to shelter birds.

“Stay with us, Menno,” she whispered, clutching his hand even harder. “Don’t leave us.”

Julia saw Sadie lean close to Menno, matching her breathing to his shallow breathing on the monitor. “What is it?”

Sadie shook her head, a minuscule movement. She turned her head slightly, then her shoulders dropped. With tear-filled eyes, she turned to Julia. “He’s gone. He was here a moment ago, but now he’s gone. He waited until we were all together. He’s left us.”

The doctor seemed puzzled and examined the monitors. “Nothing’s changed.”

Julia and her father exchanged a look. Sadie knew.

Julia had to get some fresh air. She told Fern she would be back soon, and went out into the hallway. There was a small garden area for families and patients to sit in, so she followed the arrows leading to it and went out into the dark night air. She lifted her face toward the stars.

So many thoughts in an instant, overlapping, colliding thoughts, thoughts without words.

She sat quietly for several minutes. She was too stunned to cry. She had lost more than her brother, she had lost part of herself. She couldn’t remember a time when Menno wasn’t there. She rubbed her temples.
What are we to do, Lord?
She didn’t even know how to pray for Menno, for all of them. Words seemed inadequate for the pain that seared through her. A deep groan poured out of her soul, a wordless prayer. Was this what the Bible meant when it said that the Holy Spirit prayed for us?

She didn’t know how long she had been out there, looking at the stars, praying for Menno, when she heard a familiar voice gently call her name. She looked up and blinked. Was she dreaming?

“Rome!” She flew out of the chair and across the small space. “Thank God! Thank God you’re here.”

He hauled her up against his chest and held her so tight she couldn’t breathe. Her fists gripped the cloth of his jacket and she burrowed into him, rubbing her face against his chest. With that, the tears broke loose and she sobbed into his chest. She tried to tell him what had happened to Menno, but he shushed her.

“I’ve already been to the room. I heard all about the accident.”

“How did you know? Who told you?”

“I was heading out to Windmill Farm tonight to ask Fern . . . never mind . . . long story . . . I’ll explain later. When I passed by the Fishers’, Jimmy told me what had happened. I came as soon as I could.”

Julia wiped her tears off of her face. “The doctor said we need to take Menno off the ventilator. He said Menno’s brain is . . . he said that there’s no sign of brain activity.”

Rome led her to the garden bench where she was sitting when he came in. He sat down beside her. “Julia, there’s something you need to consider. As awful a situation as this is, something good might come out of it.”

“What are you talking about?”

He took her hands in his. “Menno’s heart. It’s meant for your father.”

Julia felt a brutal slap out of nowhere. She pulled her hands away, but he wouldn’t let them go. “You’re saying . . . that Menno’s heart be given to my father?” Her voice shook.

“Yes.” He waited a moment before continuing, letting her absorb that thought. “Think about it, Julia. If Menno were here, he would want you to consider this. I know he would. But he’s not here, and I need to do this for him. The heart may not even be a match. I’m not even sure what the protocol is about organ donation, but we need to try. You need to convince your father to try.”

Her face scrunched up again and the tears resumed.

More urgently, he said, “We should do what Menno wanted.”

She was squeezing his hands now, hard, so hard, but she couldn’t help it. She was a bundle of nerves. “I can’t make that kind of decision for him. I don’t know what he would want.”

“Yes, you do. Do you remember, a few weeks ago, when we were in your father’s room and he told Menno and Sadie and M.K. that he was dying? Do you remember what Menno asked? He asked him if a person had two hearts, like two kidneys. He said he would give Amos his heart if he could. He said those very words.”

Her grip relaxed. “I remember. He did say that.” Her hands slipped into her lap.

Rome stood. “I’ll be right with you when you talk to Amos. But it needs to come from you. He’ll listen to you, Julia.” He held his hand out to her.

She looked at his hand for a long moment, then put her hand in his.

Rome watched Amos listen carefully to Julia, and to him, but he could see it was Uncle Hank who made the difference.

Hank put his hand on Amos’s shoulder and said, “That boy’s life was a gift from start to finish. This is his final gift to you, Amos. You would be wrong not to receive it graciously.”

Amos looked at Hank with searching eyes. Hank loved Menno like he was his own. In a way, he knew Menno better than any of them. They spent hours together, hunting and fishing and talking.

“Our Menno would want this, Amos,” Hank said. “More than that, he would delight in this coincidence.” He held up his finger. “No, he would correct me. He would say that what man calls coincidences, God would call a miracle.”

Amos quietly said he needed some time alone with Menno.

Rome saw Julia cross the room and sit next to Uncle Hank. She put her hand over his, and he clasped hers tightly. They remained that way until Amos returned from Menno’s room, about ten minutes later. He told Rome to go find that heart doctor, Dr. Highland, the one who looked like he was ten. He didn’t need to tell Rome twice.

As Rome hurried through the halls, he felt an awe at God’s perfect timing. God was always in the business of redeeming, Fern had told him once, if only we let him. He prayed in the elevators, prayed in the hallways, prayed as he waited for the doctor to be paged.
Lord, let this be a match. And then let them agree to give the heart to Amos. Don’t let Menno’s death be in vain.