A Simple Hope: A Lancaster Crossroads Novel (8 page)

“James!” Doc held up his cell phone, a twinkle in his eyes. “I just checked in with Alec Finley, the doctor doing the experimental spinal cord treatment—epidural stimulation, it’s called. He’s gone over your X-rays and scans, and he says it’s a go. He wants to see you in his office Monday morning.”

“That’s great news,” Haley said brightly.

Dylan grinned, and even Mamm seemed happy, her hands pressed to her lips in a gesture of prayer, as if she were silently thanking Gott.

“It’s good.” Warmed by hope, James nodded, trying to keep the excitement buried inside him. This study had helped previous patients learn to walk after similar injuries, and it didn’t require any medication or surgery. But he kept his hope hidden. He didn’t want to give Dat a reason to buck against yet another Englisher treatment.

“Let me give you Finley’s number right now.” Doc Trueherz tapped his cell phone. “Edna, can I trouble you for a pencil and paper?”

“Mmm.” Jimmy grumbled as the doctor wrote the information on a notepad Mamm produced. “We’ll take the number, but we must give this some thought before we rush into anything. James has already had two expensive surgeries. We can’t keep going back to the hospital, hoping for something that the Almighty has not willed.”

“I can’t speak for God,” Dr. Trueherz said, “but I can tell you that Dr. Finley’s study will not cost you any money. You just need to get James to the rehab center in Paradise.”

“That’s not too far,” Edna said, but her lips clamped tight when Dat turned stern eyes on her.

Jimmy’s broad, friendly face was tight with disapproval. “We’ll
see. It’s a busy time in the orchard. It would be hard to spare James and someone to drive him.”

“How about if we hooked James up with some transportation?” Dylan suggested.

A flame of hope sparked in James’s chest, but Dat’s scowl snuffed it out. “No. Don’t need any more help. From now on, the Amish community will give James the support he needs.” And quick as a lightning bug’s flash, Dat had dismissed the Englishers.

James wanted to point out the good things about the study. The potential. The fact that they had accepted him. The fact that it was free. The hope of standing and walking on his own again. But he knew better than to argue with his father, especially in front of the Englishers.

Silence swallowed the group that only minutes ago had been joking and laughing. Clearly, the visit was over.

“I’ve got a few more house calls to make.” Doc Trueherz checked his watch. “Thank you for the pie, Edna. And I hope you folks give Alec Finley a shot. I’ve read up on this procedure. In one of the early trials back in 2011, the patient was able to stand on his own within three days of the treatment. It’s not often you see results that quickly.” He clapped James on the shoulder. “Think about the study, son. I think it’s worth giving it a try.”

James was a drowning man reaching for a lifeline. He looked to his parents, but they were miles away, no doubt concerned about what the bishop and others would think about their son trying yet another Englisher medical procedure.

Dylan rose from his chair, but then dropped down on one knee so that he was eye level with James. “I’d like to keep checking up on you, if that’s okay,” he said directly to James. “Haley and I want to keep the strong ties we’ve made here in your community.”

James nodded, aware of his father’s eyes burning a hole into his
back. “You’d best not come around here anymore. Don’t take offense, but my father, he’s had bad experiences with the English. It’s not about anything you’ve done.” The words were sour on James’s tongue, a bitter pill. James knew his father had been crushed by a bad experience, but why couldn’t he let bygones be bygones? “But I’m grateful to you, and to Haley.”

“Just doing our jobs,” Dylan said casually, though James knew it wasn’t true. They had given help and coaching and consolation in their personal time, and now … now Dat wanted to send them both away.

Haley and Dylan said their good-byes and headed out.

Without looking back at his parents, James followed them, rolling himself out the door and onto the porch. Once outside, he breathed deeply, trying to find calm in the cool spring air. Steering the right path through Dat’s obstacles was exhausting.

“You okay, buddy?” Dylan asked, his brows lifted in concern.

James glanced back at the house. At least Jimmy and Edna had not followed them outside. “There’s an expression folks around here say: ‘If you get to the end of the rope, tie a knot and hang on.’ ”

Dylan pursed his lips, thoughtful for a moment. “So you’re tying a knot.”

James nodded. “Every day.”

“That’s the way, one day at a time.”

After the visitors left, James returned to the house to find his parents sitting in the living room—a rare event for any afternoon.

“James.” Dat’s voice summoned him, and from the grim slash of Mamm’s mouth, James knew the weather was not improving.

“I’m glad that’s the end of the visits.” Jimmy stroked his beard. “No more Englishers in our home.”

“I wanted to ask you about that. What if just Haley and Dylan kept coming out?” James asked, his voice thin as a dying wind. “Just for physical therapy and counseling.”

“Counseling.” Dat winced over the word. “Why not get counseling from Samuel or Preacher Dave? When you were baptized two years ago, you agreed to live in this world, but not of it. You should be looking to the church leaders for answers. Not to fancy folk, who are putting dreams and notions of walking in your head.”

“Dat, please,” James begged. “Don’t blame them because I want to heal. It’s my dream, my plan. And you know how I am. When I set my sights on something, I don’t back down.”

“We can’t have the Englishers here anymore,” Dat said.

“But that means I’ll have to stop physical therapy.”
The therapy that got me out of bed … out of the stew of dark thoughts
.

“You can go see a doctor if need be, but I won’t have the Englishers in this home anymore.”

“So then …” James pushed back. “I’ll be doing the experimental therapy with Dr. Finley.”

“Just as long as you don’t go riding in a car.”

James sank back into the chair, feeling like a hollowed-out tree, a mere shell of life, solitary and decaying. “You know I can’t climb into a buggy just yet.”

“Maybe that’s Gott’s way of telling you to stay home,” Dat said.

James set his teeth, staring at his father. He had always known that Jimmy Lapp had backbone, but he’d never bumped up against this solid wall of resistance. He looked to his mother for help, but Edna was staring down at the floor. Did she agree with Dat?

He didn’t want to think about the days and weeks ahead without visits from Dylan and Haley. Physical therapy had gotten him out to the orchards again. And sometimes, talking with Dylan was the one thing that kept fear from flapping in James’s chest. Dylan had a way of helping James break the knot of tension in his chest so that
he could line his ducks up in a row. It was a wonder, the things that Dylan could do, just by talking.

“So, that much is settled, then.” Dat’s eyes were dark as shiny lumps of coal. “No more Englishers in the house, and you’ll begin to see that this is where you belong. Walking or not, this is where the Almighty wants you to be, living Plain with your family.”

James gripped the arms of his chair, longing to push himself up and stand before his father.

Look at me, Dat
, he wanted to say.
I am here, living Plain, and I’m not going anywhere, trapped in this chair
.

Anger tasted sour on his tongue, and James worked hard to swallow it as he relaxed his arms and sank back. If he was going to be stuck in this chair, half a man forever, he would shrivel and dry like a fallen leaf.

But he could not say this to Dat, who already thought that James was acting fancy. For now, James had to swallow the bitterness, and hope that, in time, Dat would see his oldest son in a new light.

T
hey had been driving in circles.

Gary was still trying to make it sound like they would be turning toward home any minute, but Shandell had figured out his game.

He wanted to stay in Lancaster County because it was so easy to steal from the Amish. Both Gary and Shandell knew that Amish people wouldn’t fight him or get violent. The Amish were pacifists; fighting back went against their beliefs. That made them an easy target.

So far they had spent the day driving from one Amish town to another so that Gary could snag things while vendors were looking the other way. He had stolen a brick of cheese and popcorn and a leather belt. He had made off with a quilt that had to be worth a lot, and a wooden cradle that he had absolutely no use for. When she’d asked him about it, he’d told her that he would sell it off, just like the flowers. While they’d been parked at a rest stop, he had traded some lady the entire carton of hyacinths for five dollars.

“This is found money,” he’d told Shandell.

More like stolen money
.

The cherry pie filling stolen from the roadside stand had been his dessert last night. Watching him pluck out a fat cherry with a long white plastic spoon, Shandell had felt sick about how low he had fallen and worried about how she would extract herself from his crime spree.

“We could be just like Bonnie and Clyde,” he had said last night. “Except that instead of robbing banks, we rob the Amish.” He’d laughed at his own joke. “I just wish we could come up with a way to get free food from that Amish diner in Halfway. They’ve got good eats. I would dine and dash, but it might attract too much attention. You never know if there’s a cop nearby.”

A cop … that would be a relief. Shandell could turn herself in and ask for help getting home. Right now, she was beginning to doubt that Gary would make good on his promise. Even worse, when she had asked him to drop her at a bus stop, he had squinted at her as if she was the crazy one.

She had almost called him on it.
Oh, I’m not allowed to go home? I can’t go off on my own? What, am I a prisoner? Is this a kidnapping now?

She thought that Gary might back down if she confronted him, but she wasn’t sure. And what if he didn’t? Would he stick her in the trunk, along with the stolen quilt and cradle? Fear shivered down her spine, despite the warm sunshine streaming into the car. She didn’t know how low Gary would stoop, but she wasn’t going to stick around to find out.

He turned off Halfway’s Main Street and pulled in to a parking lot shared by the library and the ice-cream shop.

“I’m gonna hit the restroom in the library,” he said. “You coming along?”

He was giving her a choice. This was her chance. “Nah. I’ll wait here. All those books remind me of school.”

Gary snickered as he slung the car door open. “I told you, you don’t have to go back to school at all. You’re eighteen now.”

But she wanted to go back to school. Even with all those floating, angry equations in algebra, even if she had to go back over the summer to get her degree, school was better than the guilt and shame of tearing through these peaceful hills and valleys to rob the Amish. She would spend hours sprawled on her bed, studying. And then hug her pillow and slip under the comforter covered with puffy white clouds on a background of blue …

Oh, she missed the comforts of home!

“I’ll be right back,” Gary said, slamming the car door.

She nodded, pretending to be distracted by searching for a radio station as he went through the parking lot to the front of the library building.

Watching him from the corner of her eye, Shandell calculated. The sheriff’s office was just down Main Street, over to the right, but she would have to cross in front of the library to get that way. No, she couldn’t take the chance that Gary would see her through the library’s floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out on Main Street.

She would have to run in the other direction. The back of the parking lot stretched out to the other side of the ice-cream parlor, allowing plenty of extra room for Amish buggies and horses. In fact, there were two buggies parked there now, their horses nickering as they waited in the mild afternoon sun. She would cut over that way, around the far side of the ice-cream place, and then run like crazy.