The Keeper (38 page)

Amos made it to the doorway before he had to stop. “Whew.” He braced his arms on the walker and leaned forward. The nurse braced the walker in front of him and helped him to a chair.

“Not sure how I’ll get back up.” Amos leaned against the chair. “But I’m up and walking, and while I feel weak, I can breathe and not get dizzy.” He drew in a breath and let it out. Would he ever grow accustomed to that wonderful feeling of taking a full breath? He had been intubated for two days. How Amos hated that tube down his throat! He didn’t even mind the discomfort from the incision that ran from his throat to just below his sternum—metal stitches that looked like the laces of a tennis shoe on an X-ray. He didn’t mind the feeling that he had been hit, head-on, by a truck. But that little tube down his throat? It terrified him. He had to breathe with the rhythm that the machine established. It was hard for the mind to tell the body to let the machine breathe for you. It felt like the final stages of drowning.

When the tube was pulled from his throat, he sucked in his first full breath of air. Bliss! It felt cool. It felt sweet. Only a newborn baby, he thought, could understand the joy of filling lungs with air for the first time.

He stood and slowly made it back to his bed. As he inched into the bed, he saw Julia standing at the door.

“You all right?” Julia asked softly.

He caught a yawn and suddenly felt like a deflated balloon. “Just tired. I start to feel good and then I guess I overdo it.”

Sadie brought in a cup of ice chips. She sat next to Amos’s bed and held the cup out for him. Julia straightened up the room. The early afternoon sunshine was streaming through the blinds, capturing floating dust particles.

Suddenly, Amos’s EKG monitor started picking up its pace, faster and faster. A high-pitched alarm went off and a nurse flew into Amos’s room. She brushed past Fern, who was standing tentatively at the door with a worried look on her face.

“What happened?” she asked, checking knobs on the monitor and taking Amos’s pulse. The beep of the monitor slowed back to a steady pace.

“Nothing!” Amos said. “Fern walked in and the machine went haywire.”

“Oh,” the nurse said. Then her eyes went wide. “Oh!” She winked at Fern. “Better warn him next time you’re coming.”

Julia glanced over at Sadie, a question in her eyes.

Sadie sidled over to her and whispered, “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed!”

Amos felt his cheeks burning, as obvious as two circles of red felt. This was quite possibly the most mortifying moment of his entire life.

Rome didn’t know how Julia was holding up. She must be exhausted, trying to keep everything on an even keel. He kept hoping to find a moment alone with her. The opportunity came late Thursday afternoon, at the hospital.

“Julia.” He touched her shoulder as she left her father’s room. “Let’s go somewhere to talk.” He led her out to the hospital garden and pulled out two chairs to sit in. “Today is the third of November.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“M.K. said you told Paul no.”

She nodded again. “I’m a little surprised you’re still here, Rome.” She sounded tired. “My father is on the mend. I’d have thought you’d have left by now.”

“Julia, I’m staying.”

She tilted her head, as if she hadn’t heard him right. “You’re going to stay in Stoney Ridge?”

He swallowed hard. He managed a jerky nod. He had to do this for her. But he had to do it for himself too. He was tired of his wandering, scared of the person he might become if he kept on like this—a man with a life so small it could fit on the back of a bee wagon.

She regarded him stubbornly. “You thrive in new places. It’s putting down roots that gives you trouble.”

“You told me I needed to grow roots, and you were right. So I’m going to try.”

“Try?” Her voice sliced through him. “You’ll try? You either have the guts to take a risk or you don’t.”

“I won’t know until I try.” He took her hands in his. “I mean it, Julia. We belong together.”

She pulled her hands away, stood up, and walked a few paces before spinning around to face him. She planted a hand on her hip. “And then one morning I will wake up, and you and your bees will be gone.”

He walked over to her. “You’ll wake up one morning, and turn to me in bed and say, ‘Good morning, my wonderful husband.’”

Her bluster faded and her lower lip trembled. “Haven’t you tried to tell me all summer that you’re not the settling-down kind? Do you think I would seriously consider marrying a drifter?”

“How about a reformed drifter?” She still didn’t believe him.
Okay, Rome, it’s now or never. Say it. Say it, Rome.
“I love you, Julia. And once you get over being mad at me, I think you’ll discover that you love me too.” There. He said it.

She eyed him suspiciously. “If you leave, I’m not coming after you.”

“Fair enough.”

“I need time to think about this.”

“Take all the time you need. As long as you agree to marry me.”

A shy smile started with her lips and ended with her eyes. All her sass and strut was slipping away. He closed the distance between them in two strides, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her exactly as he’d been planning to do for a week now.

She kissed him back too.

On the day that Amos was discharged from the hospital, the weather turned cold, a hint of winter around the corner. Amos would spend the next few months making regular trips back to the hospital for biopsy tests to watch for rejection. He was grateful Windmill Farm was only thirty minutes from Hershey, otherwise he would need to remain near the hospital. He was dressed and ready to leave, with the blasted face mask on to protect him from germs, but was told to wait for someone from the hospital billing department to stop by his room.

This was the moment he had dreaded. He would be presented with a bill for eight hundred thousand dollars, less ten percent if he paid cash. It was a horrifying thought. The money from Julia’s quilt would be a start, but there would still be a sickening burden placed on his church family. But . . . it was done. And Menno would never want him to think this way. This heart was God’s good gift. It was priceless.

Still. Eight hundred thousand dollars. A staggering sum!

He heard a knock on the door and in walked his daughters—Julia, Sadie, and M.K., followed by Fern and Rome. Uncle Hank was watching over the farm. Amos’s heart felt full to the point of overflowing. His family had arrived to accompany him home from the hospital, all wearing paper face masks so only their eyes were visible. On their heels was a small young fellow with thick glasses, wearing a suit that looked two sizes too big for him. Where did the hospital get their employees? From a local elementary school?

“Mr. Lapp, I’m George Henson, from accounting.” In his hand was a fat file.

Filled with unpaid bills, no doubt, Amos thought, but he said instead, “We’re able to pay a portion of it now, and make monthly installments.”

George Henson pushed his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose. “Mr. Lapp, I just wanted to let you know that your hospital bill has been paid in full, and a fund has been established for your yearly pharmaceutical needs. And those will be substantial. About twenty-five thousand dollars a year.”

Paid in full? Amos was stunned. “But . . . how?” He looked at each one of his family members. The girls and Hank were dumbfounded. Rome and Fern kept their eyes fixed on the floor. Amos zeroed in on those two. “What do you two know about this?”

Fern and Rome exchanged a look. “I admit that I paid part of that bill, Amos,” Rome said. “But nowhere near that amount.”

“Where would you get that kind of money?” Amos asked him.

“I sold my family’s farm.” Rome looked over at Fern. “At least, I thought I did. Then, in the mail, the deed was returned to me. Someone bought it from me, then gifted it back to me.”

One of Fern’s eyebrows twitched. She eyed the small man in the suit. “When was Amos’s bill paid off? And how was it paid?”

The man looked ill at ease. “The remainder was paid off by a cashier’s check, just ten minutes ago. But that’s all that I’m at liberty to say.”

She huffed. “I
thought
I saw him down the hall!” She frowned and pointed a long finger at Amos. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

Amos sighed.

Julia didn’t know what she felt more astounded by—that her father’s hospital bill had been entirely paid in full, or that Rome had sold his family property to help her family. And to think he hadn’t even wanted anyone to know! She was touched beyond words. Life was endlessly perplexing. She looked over at Rome as he played a game of tic-tac-toe with M.K. on the back of a hospital bill as they waited for Fern to return.

Not six months ago, she would never have believed it if someone had told her how life would play itself out. To think she was in love with Roman Troyer, the Bee Man, Roamin’ Roman! And he was in love with her. It defied logic. It was strange. It was wonderful. It was strangely wonderful!

Rome glanced up at her and smiled with his eyes. Soon—maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day—she would tell him that yes, she would marry him.

Fern pushed the door open. Behind her came a man wearing a panama hat.

“You!” M.K. said. She jumped up and ran to him. “You’re the man who taught me how to play the shell game!”

“You’re the one who bought my quilt at the auction,” Julia said.

The man stood at the end of Amos’s bed, looking sheepish.

“Did you buy my farm?” Rome asked. “Are you R.W.?”

The man gave a slight nod.

Rome was confused. “Why did you turn right around and give it back to me?”

“Why?” Amos asked. “Why would you be spending your money on my family?”

“Go on,” Fern urged the man. “Tell them.”

The man looked at his feet. “Money is something I happen to have plenty of. I, well, I made a lot of money on building motor homes years ago. Money isn’t a problem for me.” The man rubbed his hands together. “But a clean conscience—that’s something I can’t seem to buy.”

“What’s troubling you?” Amos asked softly.

The man swallowed hard, but couldn’t speak. He looked over at Fern. She waited a long moment, then she, too, choked up. The man closed his eyes and tried again.

“My name is Richard Webster.” He looked at Rome to see if he recognized the name, but Rome’s face was blank. “I’m the cause of your sorrow.”

“What are you talking about?” Rome asked.

“I’m the reason they’re dead. Your family. Your uncle too—Miss Graber’s fiancé. I’m the one who caused the accident. Six years ago. I’m the one.” The man pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face.

This man was hurting, Julia could see that. A strange combination of sorrow and joy spread through her. His pain—she had seen that same raw pain in Rome. She looked at Rome. What was he feeling? What was he thinking? His face was unreadable.

“Have you been watching us?” Amos asked. “Spying on us?”

The man shook his head. “I spend my time traveling around the country in my motor home. I paid a detective to do a little research and found out Fern and Rome were both in Stoney Ridge this summer. So . . . I came here. I just wanted to see . . . if there was something I could do to help out. To make things right.”