A Home for Lydia (The Pebble Creek Amish Series) (22 page)

“Then I’m glad I came.”

“Afterward, I’d like you to take me by to see Lydia at the cabins.” Abigail pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders, though the day was warm. “I’d like to see what they are doing. Everyone’s talking about the improvements.”

“Maybe we should wait and see whether you’re up to it. We should listen to what Doc Hanson says.”

Abigail gave her
the look
, and Miriam wanted to laugh but she couldn’t…not with the stone of fear tumbling around in her stomach.

“Miriam Miller. Regardless what Dr. Hanson says, I believe I know when I feel
gut
enough to visit neighbors, and visiting is what I plan on doing later this morning.”

“Yes,
mamm
. It’s only that—”

“Miriam.”

“Yes, Mother.”

The soothing
clip-clop
of Belle’s hooves filled the morning. A bird called from its perch in the woods. And the sound of Pebble Creek provided a pleasant harmony behind it all.

“Rachel is smiling at me.”

“Is she?”

“I believe she heard me scolding you.”

“Perhaps she did.” Now Miriam was smiling, along with her mother and her daughter. The worry hadn’t left her stomach, but it
had been wrapped in something she was familiar with—the constant reminder that she should appreciate this moment, this day.

It wasn’t in her nature to worry. When she did, when she gave into it, she felt almost as if she had a terrible stomachache. Like when she used to eat too much of her
aenti
’s pie or when she stayed up too late reading with the aid of a flashlight hidden under her blankets. In the first case, the sugar went to work on her, leaving her stomach roiling. In the second, it was guilt, pure and simple—knowing she was disobeying the rules and also realizing she would be very tired the next day.

Worrying was much the same. It seemed like it went against her system, and it also felt like she was disobeying.

Rachel chortled.

“Now she’s blowing bubbles.” Abigail seemed satisfied with her granddaughter’s progress.

Belle trotted down the road, and an
Englisch
car slowed as the passenger snapped a picture of their buggy. Miriam knew they meant no harm. She understood that her black mare made a pretty sight indeed this summer morning.

By the time they pulled into the doctor’s office, a sharp smell was coming from the baby carrier and Rachel had begun to fuss.

“She’s wet through and through,” Abigail said.

“I’ll take care of her while you check in.”

The waiting room was filled with Amish and
Englisch
, aged preschool to elderly. By the time Miriam returned from the ladies’ room, Abigail was deep in conversation with the wife of one of the
Englisch
pastors. Abigail had seen her in town before but couldn’t remember the woman’s name or what congregation her husband guided.

They were talking about a benefit for a child with cancer that was to be held at the hospital in Eau Claire. Miriam caught bits and pieces of the conversation as she settled into the chair with Rachel. She couldn’t hear what her mother promised to do, but she did hear the pastor’s wife say, “I’ll stop by your home next week to pick them up.”

Before she could ask what the woman was going to pick up, the doctor’s nurse appeared at the door and called “Abigail King.”

Miriam’s heart rate kicked up a notch, which was ridiculous. Why did doctors make her
naerfich
?

Dr. Hanson had always treated them kindly. Still, her palms began to sweat as she gathered Rachel’s things and stood.

Then the thought occurred to her that perhaps her mother would rather go inside alone. She stood there, indecisive and sweating, as Abigail made her way toward the nurse.

“Do you want us to wait here or come with you?” Miriam realized too late that she sounded like her father.

Abigail paused and turned her head like a small bird listening for something important in the breeze. “Better to come. Then I won’t have to explain to you what he says, and you can be the one to tell it over again to your
bruders
. That will save me a lot of trouble.”

Ever the practical one
, Miriam thought, following in her mother’s wake as she proceeded around the chairs, through the doorway, and into the inner room. A moment later the nurse was holding her mother’s shawl and weighing her.

Virginia had been Dr. Hanson’s nurse for the past three years. She was almost as round as she was tall, and she was short by any measure. A very motherly type, she put patients at ease immediately. Miriam judged her to be in her mid-thirties, but it was hard to tell with
Englischers
. Her skin was a beautiful ivory white and her hair, tumbling free down the back of her scrubs, was a bright red.

The scrubs featured Dalmatian puppies. They frolicked about completely unaware of how serious this visit might be.

“Let me check that one more time, sweetie.” Frowning, Virginia motioned for Abigail to step up onto the scale again. When she had, the nurse tapped the number into a device the size of a book.

“What happened to my chart?” Abigail asked.

“We’ve gone digital. Everything’s on computers now. This way if you go to the hospital, they’ll have access to your records.”

“I don’t plan on going to the hospital.”

“Patients rarely do. That’s why it’s helpful to have the data transfer automatically.” Virginia glanced up, caught sight of Rachel, and beamed. “We haven’t seen this one yet.”

“No, she’s a little young for Doc Hanson.”

“True. We’ll have to wait a few years, I suppose.” She stepped closer as they moved toward the examining room, reached out, and cupped her hand around the back of Rachel’s head. “Did you birth her at home?”

“I did. At my
mamm
’s, actually.”

“Oh, Abigail. You helped to deliver her?”

“Most natural thing in the world, and you know that, Virginia. Didn’t I hear that you’ve been assisting our midwife in your off-hours?”

A smile crept across Virginia’s face as she directed Abigail to sit on the examining table and motioned Miriam toward the extra chair. Slipping the blood pressure cuff on Abigail’s arm, she admitted, “I’m working on my master’s degree.”

All conversation halted as she took Abigail’s blood pressure and noted it on the small computer. “For one of my projects this semester, I was studying home births among the Amish.”

“
Ya
, and what did you learn?” Abigail asked.

Virginia’s expression turned suddenly serious. “Five of the six births I attended went off without a hitch. I learned that childbirth is, as you say, a very natural thing. One birth though, had complications. We had to call in an ambulance. If the emergency medical personnel hadn’t arrived in time, I’m not sure the baby would have lived.”

“I know the family you mean, and the woman should have seen a doctor beforehand. Several of us visited her and tried to talk her into going, but she refused.”

“And yet they let me attend the birth.”

“It’s hard to understand people sometimes, whether they are Amish or
Englisch
.”

Miriam listened to this exchange as she held Rachel to her
shoulder, rubbing tiny circles along her back. Her mother was so caught up in the conversation that she seemed to have forgotten why she was in Doc Hanson’s office. Or perhaps her mother was so involved in all of the lives around her that she often dismissed her own problems.

“Doc will be in soon.”

Then it was only the three of them, waiting.

Abigail didn’t even pretend to read the magazines next to the bed. Instead, she opened her handbag, pulled out her knitting, and set to work. Miriam continued to lull Rachel to sleep as she stared at drawings done by young patients and tacked to the doctor’s wall. In most of them his head was quite disproportionate to his body. In many of them, probably the ones drawn by Amish children, his
Englisch
car was in the background. In all of them he had his stethoscope around his neck, had bushy eyebrows, and was smiling.

The door opened, and for a fraction of a second Miriam’s and Abigail’s eyes met.

“Hello, Abigail. Miriam. And this must be Rachel.” Doc’s hand brushed the curly brown hair at the top of her
boppli
’s head. Like Gabe, he had big hands. Miriam’s father often said if Doc had been born Amish, he’d have made a fine farmer with those hands.

Virginia walked in behind him and shut the door. She was still carrying the small computer and set it on the counter where the other medical supplies were.

Doc sat down on the stool with the wheels, and then he took the knitting from Abigail and placed it on top of her bag. He cocked his head, looked at her, and waited.

“Joshua insisted I come see you,” she finally admitted.

“Ahh.” Doc Hanson scrubbed a hand down his jaw line. “What’s got him worried?”

“I’m still losing weight.”

“How much since last time, Virginia?”

“Eleven pounds,” she said softly.

Miriam felt the stone within her stomach grow.

“Don’t suppose you’re dieting.”

“
Nein
. I don’t believe in such silliness unless someone has a health issue, and you know I have no diabetes.”

“Do you have any appetite? Do you eat?”

Abigail’s hands came out in front of her, as if she were blind and searching for her way. “
Ya
. I think so. At least I am hungry at first, but then…then when I sit down to dinner not so much. That’s probably normal for my age, though.”

“Maybe. Why don’t you lay back for me. I’d like to check your stomach.”

Virginia took Abigail’s shawl as she stretched out on the table.

“Nice shawl, but it’s a warm day. Do you find you’re cold a lot?”

“Oh,
ya
. I guess that’s the
change
.”

Doc glanced over at Virginia, and she shook her head no. “You went through the change already, Abigail. That’s a one-way road. Don’t have to go down it twice.”

The doctor continued to touch her stomach gently. Miriam tried to watch his hands, his expression, Virginia’s response, and her mother’s reaction all at the same time.

“Feeling any pain when I do that?”

“
Nein
.”

“How about here?”

“Still no. Joshua, he worries more now that he’s old.”

Doc Hanson smiled as he rolled his stool to the other side of the exam table, then he looked up and winked at Miriam. The stone in her stomach shrank a little.

“Do you worry?”

“
Gotte’s wille
is fine with me, Grady Lee Hanson. It’s not my place to be questioning what His plans are for this old woman.”

He smiled at the use of his full name, which Miriam had never even heard. “Uh-huh. You can sit up now. How long has your hand been shaking?”

“Started a while ago. It comes and goes.”

After asking her a few questions about her diet and activities, he
stood behind her and felt her throat. “Could be thyroid or any number of things, Abigail. I’ll be honest with you. I can’t tell you why you’re losing weight, but I’m concerned. When you combine the weight loss with the hair loss and the tremors, it suggests an aggressive change of some sort.”

Sitting again, he rolled the stool back in front of her and placed his hands on his knees.

“I’m glad you came in. Glad you listened to Joshua. I respect your beliefs about
Gotte’s wille.
” He pronounced it with an Amish accent, pausing until he saw the smile on her face he was waiting for, and then he pushed on. “But I happen to believe that
Gotte
brought me to this community for a reason, and one of those reasons was to look after fine folk like yourself.”

“Humph. That’s a fancy way of saying what?”

“I want to do some blood tests, and I’d like you back in here next week.”

Abigail clasped her hands together in her lap. It was rare that Miriam had ever seen her mother’s hands still—at church perhaps, but then they were usually holding the Bible or were held together in prayer. Folded there, in the light coming through the single window, Abigail seemed her full fifty-five years. Miriam could make out the blue veins and the delicate bones even from where she sat, and they reminded her of a small bird. But more than that, they reminded her of all the times her mother had tended her—made meals, applied bandages, cut herbs for teas she did not want to drink, canned food, and wrapped Rachel in a blanket.

Miriam blinked away her tears and tried to focus on what her mother was saying.

“Why blood tests? What are we looking for, Doctor?”

The list was long and included most of the fears Miriam had wrestled with since Sunday—cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s, and hyperthyroidism. Some she hadn’t even heard of, like Hodgkin’s, and Addison’s disease.

“Do you have any other questions?” Doc asked.

“Are these treatable? Because if they’re not, I see no point in knowing. You understand I won’t abide long vigils in a hospital. I’ve been clear how I feel about that topic.”