A Heart Made New (4 page)

“But he didn’t.” Sadie squeezed past Officer Bingham and approached her son. Her arms went up, but she stopped short of giving him a hug. “We’re fine. This poor boy didn’t hurt anything but a window and the door—and that was purely an accident.”

David’s gaze went from Sadie to Annie and back. “
Gut
. That’s
gut
.”

He crumpled to the ground.

T
he darkness enveloped David like a heavy blanket. Hot. He felt hot. He struggled to fling it off him. His arms weighed so much he couldn’t lift them. He managed to open his eyes, and a bright light nearly blinded him. He blinked and tried again. The light sent a jagged pain pinging through his head.
“Ach.”
He tried to raise his hand to rub his forehead. Tape tore at the hair on his arm. “Ouch. What is this? Where am I?”

“Good, you’re awake.” The fog lifted and Doctor Corbin came into view. He adjusted the IV tube taped to the inside of David’s arm. It snaked over his head to a bag filled with clear liquid hanging on a rack. “Feeling any better?”

The medical clinic. The brown fake leather chairs and the smell of medicines mingled with antiseptics and cleansers were all too familiar. David struggled to sit up. “Where’s my mother? Is she all right?”

“She’s in the waiting room. I’ll send her in after we talk.”

David pushed away the sheet and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His head swam, making the room rock like a boat on a pond. “I’ll go to her. She should be at home resting after what she’s been through today.”

“I checked her over thoroughly. She’s fine.” Doctor Corbin put his fingers on David’s wrist and glanced at his watch. “You, on the other
hand, are dehydrated. Until you get some fluids in you you’re not going anywhere. Do you think you can eat?”

David sank back on the bed. “It’s hard to eat when everything tastes like sawdust, and it all comes back up anyway.”

“Did you refill the prescription I gave you for the nausea?”

Prescriptions cost money. Money they could ill afford to spend. “I will. As soon as I get out of here.”

“You passed out. I’m keeping you overnight.” Doctor Corbin tapped his pen on the folder in his hand. “I’ll ask the nurse to get you something from the cafeteria. Any requests?”

David stared at the window over the doctor’s shoulder. No sun backlit the blinds. How long had he been out? A night at the clinic only meant more bills. “I did too much. That’s all. I promise to go home and rest.”

“Since I’ve heard that story from you before—too many times—I’m sticking with my original plan.” Doctor Corbin smiled and stuck the pen in the pocket of his white coat. “How about a cheeseburger and maybe some green beans? Some chocolate pudding for dessert? I know you like a good burger.”

“I don’t lie.”

“I’m not saying you do, David. I’m saying I’d rather you stay where we can monitor your condition overnight. When I see some improvement, you can go. Not before.”

David clamped his mouth shut to keep from saying something ungracious. Doctor Corbin accommodated the Plain ways, as much as it was obvious he didn’t understand them. He never pushed the cancer support group on David. Once Bliss Creek’s first and only full-service medical clinic opened in the fall, the doctor never asked David to go back to Wichita where they had places that specialized in cancer treatment. “Fine.”

“Do you want to see your mother now?”

“Yes.”

At the door, Doctor Corbin looked back. “Lie down.”

“I won’t try to escape.”

“I know. I’m asking you to lie down.”

David did as the doctor asked. The door closed with a soft squeak.

He stared at the ceiling, wishing he could do something, anything to ease the constant ache where his heart once resided. All of this meant nothing. He’d struggled through the first round of treatment with the certainty that he would be cured. Hodgkin’s lymphoma had a good recovery rate, according to Doctor Corbin. Every reason to have hope. The day Doctor Corbin announced he was in remission, David had asked Annie to a singing. Six months later, Doctor Corbin had sat across his desk from David and told him the cancer had returned.

That was that. He refused to get his hopes up again. Worse, to get up Annie’s hopes. One person out on the crashing waves was enough.

“Hi.”

Startled, David rolled over to face the door. A young child, maybe six years old, peeked through the door. Given the bald head and nondescript hospital nightgown, David couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl. The child pointed a finger at him. “Who are you?”

“David. Who are you?”

Uninvited, the child padded barefoot into the room and climbed up on the chair, the gown so long it tangled up. “I’m Kinsey. Do you have cancer too?”

Kinsey. Boy or girl name? Probably a fancy girl name.

The shadows around her eyes and the gaunt look on her face were all too familiar. “Yes.”

“I knew it.” Head cocked, Kinsey grinned. “You don’t have hair.”

David ran a hand over his slick head. He hoped his hat wasn’t lost. Last time he’d been in overnight, it had disappeared somehow. “It grows back.”

“That’s what Mommy says.” Kinsey crossed her legs and scratched her nose with stubby fingers. “I don’t care. It’s nice not to have to wash it and brush it. Besides, Grammy gave me some really cool kerchiefs to cover it up. One’s purple. Purple’s my favorite color. What’s your favorite color?”

She covered all that without taking a breath. David wanted to
smile. Instead, he carefully considered the question. “Green. I think it’s green.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the color of grass and things that grow.” And Annie’s eyes. “It reminds me of being outside.”

“Instead of being in here.”

Smart little girl. Being outside instead of looking at beige walls and shielding his eyes from glaring, fluorescent lights. “Yes. Instead of in here—”

“Kinsey Rene Navarro!” A round woman in the brightest purple dress David had ever seen burst through the door. She swooped down, grabbed Kinsey’s arm, and tugged her from the chair before facing him. “I’m so sorry. Kinsey, apologize to the man. You know better than to barge into other people’s rooms. I’ve told you a dozen times to stay put.”

“This is my mommy. Her name is Willow.”

Willow had long, shiny brown braids and dimpled cheeks. She exuded health in the middle of a building full of sick people. David tried not to resent that fact. “It’s nice to meet—”

“Don’t interrupt, Kinsey.” Willow’s tone said she had to admonish her daughter about that particular fault quite often. “The doctor wants you to stay in bed. Your immune system is weak. There are germs.”

“Grammy says there’s germs everywhere. I get bored.” Kinsey’s lips drooped. “I’m exploring.”

David tried to get a word in edgewise. “It’s no problem—”

Willow shook her head so hard her braids bounced. “This is a hospital—”

The door opened again. This time Mudder and Annie filed into the room. Willow put both hands on Kinsey’s shoulders. “Again, I apologize. You have visitors. We’ll get out of your way.”

His face on fire, David gripped a pillow to his chest. “Mudder, I told you before. No visitors.”

“Annie was so worried.” Seemingly oblivious to Kinsey and Willow, his mother rushed to his bed. She clutched a paper sack in one hand,
the faded green canvas bag that served as her purse in the other. “She just wants to make sure you’re okay. We brought you some crackers.”

The woman squeezed past Annie, headed toward the door. Kinsey threw out an arm. Her little hand touched Annie’s arm. “You have green eyes.”

“I do.” Annie smiled, a smile that was better than any pain medication Doctor Corbin could offer. “Yours are blue.”

“Like the sky—”

“Kinsey! Enough.” Willow bustled her out of the room.

David gave the quiet a second to settle around them. Annie took two steps toward the bed. Then another. And another. She smoothed back her blonde hair around her kapp, even though it didn’t need it. “The little girl was sweet. Who is she? Are you—”

David met her gaze. “You have to go.”

“I want to stay.” She sighed. “I only want to help.”

“Go.” He couldn’t keep looking at those sad green eyes. He would waver. “Go home.”

“I’m going.” She paused at the door. “If you change your mind or you need something, send Josiah for me. I can read to you. I found an old copy of
The Oregon Trail
at the used bookstore. Remember when we used to read that in school? Or if you just want someone to sit with you…”

He couldn’t let the tears in her eyes or the entreaty in her voice sway him. Hurt her now and she’d get over it sooner. Later would be worse—for her.

“No.”

“David!” The disapproval in his mother’s voice only added to his shame. “How can you be so stiff-necked?”

“I—”

Annie let the door close behind her without a sound.

D
espite being anxious to reach the buggy and start home, Josiah slowed his pace on the sidewalk that led to the shop. Annie had been lagging behind ever since they left the hospital. It wasn’t like her to be a slowpoke, but given the events of the day it didn’t surprise him. Having a stranger shoot at her. Having the man she loved—if he interpreted her stiff-jawed attempt to bottle the sobs correctly—collapse at her feet. It had been a long day and they still had chores to do at home.

If David weren’t already in a world of hurt, Josiah would be tempted to straighten him out. Not exactly the frame of mind Luke or Deacon Altman expected of him as a Plain man, but honest all the same. He had committed himself to the principles of forgiveness and grace, but he remained as human as ever. This was his sister, after all.

She needed to go home, get some food in her, and go to bed. Things wouldn’t look so bleak on the other end of a good night’s sleep. That’s what Daed always said. The thought of his father didn’t rip out Josiah’s insides the way it had for the last year. The pain had subsided to a deep, unending ache.

Annie stumbled. He grabbed her elbow and steered her around the corner onto the street that led to the blacksmith shop. “I’ll get Mooch. You wait for me at the buggy.”

Her wordless acquiescence spoke volumes.

He picked up his pace, then slowed. Miriam leaned against the side of the buggy, her head down as if she were studying the ground. As the sun descended in the west, her skin glowed against the dark navy of her dress. Despite the long white apron, he could tell she filled out the dress. The thought caught him off guard and sent hot blood coursing to his face. He might have learned to think that way in the Englisch world, but Miriam didn’t deserve it. He owed her an apology without having opened his mouth. A new low for him.

At the sound of their approach she looked up, straightened, and smiled. “Daed had my brothers board up the broken window and door at the bakery. He says not to worry—they’ll put in the new glass tomorrow first thing. Paul is going over to the hospital to tell Sadie right now. What an awful thing to happen. It’s so strange…we ate our sack lunches together at the park, and it was a perfectly normal, average day. Next thing I know we’re getting shot at and robbed. I’m just mystified at how things happen sometimes, just mystified. Mystified! And how is David, by the way? What did the doctor say?”

That was Miriam. Running at the mouth, bubbling over with words and energy and never quite running down. Usually, Josiah liked that. It kept him from having to keep up the conversation, but today it added to his own, well,
mystification
when it came to women. Where did she come up with all these words? Probably in those library books she liked to read between customers at the tack shop.

Still, the way Annie’s face brightened relieved him. His sister rushed over to Miriam. “David’s all right. The doctor says it’s a common reaction to the treatments and not being able to keep food down. He hasn’t been taking the medicine he needs for the upset stomach.”

A friendly face. As always, Josiah tried to identify why Miriam’s unwavering friendliness—near perfection—unnerved him. They’d sat in the same classroom for years, walked the same path home from school every day. He’d teased her about her the funny way she ran the bases, her long dress flapping, when they played baseball. She’d helped him with his multiplication tables and his English. He’d fixed her ice skates. When had their easy give-and-take turned into something
awkward? Her eyes, warm as hot chocolate, always seemed to be asking a question—one he couldn’t answer.

“I’ll get Mooch.”

“At least say hello.” Annie’s tart tone matched her frown. “She won’t bite.”

“I know that.” Josiah tugged at his too-tight suspenders. He’d gotten taller in the last month. When would he stop growing? It made him feel like a kid. “Miriam, are you all right?”

She shrugged and nodded.

He took the time to look at her more carefully. His hand came up. He dropped it just in time to keep from touching her sleeve. It gaped with a long tear. “You tore your dress.”

“I caught it on something. It’s nothing a few stitches won’t fix. How about you? Have you talked to Luke about getting back to farming yet?”