Lifted Up by Angels (17 page)

His quiet voice and simple pleas practically unraveled Leah. “I’ll take you for a ride in my
car,” she promised the child on the bed. “Wouldn’t you like that? You can ride up front and wave at all your friends.”

“Little sister,” Ethan said. “I will let you hold the buggy reins. I am sorry I have always told you no before. But now they will be yours. I will ride beside you and you can make old Bud step high.”

Their ten minutes were up. Rebekah had neither moved nor responded. Shakily Leah left with Ethan and returned to the waiting room. Leah slumped into a chair and buried her face in her hands. “When we were in the hospital together last December, it was different,” she told Ethan, “Rebekah was sick, but she could talk and smile. Now she’s completely helpless. I’m afraid.”

“Many people are praying for her,” Ethan said. “There is a constant prayer vigil, day and night.”

The news comforted Leah. And it gave her hope. Surely, if so many prayers were being said on Rebekah’s behalf, how could a loving God turn a deaf ear to them?

———

Throughout the next day, Amish friends and neighbors came to check on Rebekah and comfort her family. Women brought food-filled baskets so that the Longacres would not have to buy food in the hospital cafeteria. Church elders came, somber men in dark suits, holding their hats in their hands, offering quiet prayers with Jacob and his sons. Leah watched it all, like a parade that she didn’t belong to and couldn’t get in step with. She knew she stuck out in her English clothes. But she couldn’t leave. And she felt that Ethan wanted her with him. They talked little but simply sat in the corner together, their arms and shoulders touching. It comforted Leah to be near him. She hoped her presence offered him some measure of comfort too.

Jonah arrived around noon. He was dressed Amish, and Leah realized it was the only time she’d seen him dressed that way. He looked big and rawboned, ill at ease in the confines of the hospital. Charity went to him, and they stared mutely into each other’s eyes. Jonah did not go in to see Rebekah, but when Charity returned from a visit, he sat with her, shielding her protectively with his large body.

Several doctors came to check on Rebekah:
an orthopedist, a neurologist, a critical care physician, and an internist. Each doctor told the family the same thing. “No change. The next forty-eight hours will be her most critical.”

That evening, Jacob sent his exhausted parents home. “Your collapse will not bring Rebekah back to us,” he told Opa. And to Sarah, he said, “Go get some rest, daughter. You must think now of your own child.” Baby Nathan had been taken away earlier by friends who would care for him until the family returned home.

In the early hours of the morning, unable to sleep on the lumpy sofa, Leah ventured down the quiet halls to the elevator. On the ground floor, she found a small chapel, dimly lit and as quiet as a tomb. Sighing, she slid into one of the short rows of pews and bowed her head. Her mind went blank. She wasn’t sure what to say to God anymore. She’d already made a hundred promises to him if he’d only make Rebekah well. Now, in this place dedicated to prayer, Leah felt empty and desolate.

She thought about her stay in the hospital and her terror when she’d been told by the doctors that they wanted to amputate her leg. And she remembered how Rebekah and Charity and
Ethan had come into her life and made her less fearful. Now she felt helpless and useless.

“Leah.” Ethan’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “How are you?” He slipped into the pew.

“Not too good,” she answered truthfully. “I’m really scared, Ethan. I’m scared that Rebekah isn’t ever going to wake up.”

“She hasn’t once acted as if she’s really here with us,” he admitted. “But I will not give up hope.”

“I keep thinking about Gabriella and how she kept showing up last December. Where is she now when we need her? She’s an angel! So why doesn’t she
do
something?”

“What if she wasn’t really an angel?” he asked. “What if there is some other explanation?”

Leah shook her head. “I was so sure she was. And you told me that you thought so too.”

“All we know for certain is that we cannot explain her strange comings and goings. But even if she is an angel, you cannot expect her to show up in every crisis.”

“I’m not asking that she show up in every crisis. But Rebekah needs her now. She should be here. What kind of a guardian angel is she
anyway? Why wasn’t she on duty when that truck went out of control?”

“Angels are not servants of people. They are servants of God.”

“Then God should have sent Gabriella to stop the accident from happening in the first place.”

Ethan took a deep breath and smoothed Leah’s hair. “But God did not. I do not understand why either. But he did not stop the accident.”

Leah laid her head against Ethan’s broad chest and began to cry softly.

On Sunday, while the Amish community attended church and prayed for Rebekah and her family, the Longacres remained in the ICU waiting room. Leah stayed also, knowing she couldn’t return to her apartment as long as Rebekah was in a coma. The medical tests on Rebekah continued to be discouraging, but still Leah clung to hope. That evening, she called Mrs. Stoltz and quit her job.

“How is the little girl?” Mrs. Stoltz asked.

“No change,” Leah said sadly.

On Monday morning the doctors arrived, their expressions unreadable, making Leah feel especially uneasy. She had once seen such carefully guarded looks on the faces of her own doctors before they’d delivered the devastating news that she had bone cancer.

The neurologist held a clipboard and spoke directly to Jacob and Tillie. “We’ve repeated tests on Rebekah for days now,” he said in a kind but firm voice. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Rebekah has no higher brain activity. She hasn’t had much since she was brought in, but still we wanted to give her every opportunity for recovery. Medically, your daughter is brain dead, Mr. Longacre. The only thing keeping her alive is the machines. I want your permission to turn the machines off and let her body join her spirit.”

In the stunned silence, no one spoke. Leah wanted to scream at him. She wanted to strike him. She wanted to knock him down and step on him. She stood frozen to the floor and watched Tillie’s face crumble with grief and a trail of tears run down Jacob’s craggy cheeks. “You are sure of this?”

The doctor held out a long piece of paper with computer-drawn squiggles on it. “This is
her EEG, a measurement of her brain activity from the time she was brought in. As you can see, the line gets progressively flatter. And her reflexes are gone. Plus, her pupils are fixed and dilated. All these factors convince me of the diagnosis,”

Jacob stared long and hard into the doctor’s face. Tillie hung on his arm, as if it were her sole means of support. “We will tell her goodbye,” Jacob finally said.

Leah trembled. Why didn’t he fight? Why didn’t he yell no? How could he accept the doctor’s word so completely? Doctors could be wrong. Tests could be incorrect. Hadn’t that been true in Leah’s own case?

The doctor said, “Take all the time you need.” As Jacob turned to lead his family toward their final visit into the ICU cubicle, the doctor added, “Even if Rebekah had awakened, sir, she would never have been normal. There was simply too much damage.”

Jacob nodded, then stepped inside the cubicle.

Leah trailed behind hesitantly, acutely aware that she was not family but only a bystander in Rebekah’s life. So she stood outside the enclosure, her palms pressed against the glass, watching. One by one, each member of Rebekah’s
family bent and kissed the little girl’s cheek. They surrounded the bed, hovering like darkly dressed angels, holding hands and bowing their heads. Leah could hear them murmuring in German, and she could see the expressions of quiet acceptance on their faces.

Leah felt numb all over, as if all the blood had been drained from her body and replaced with ice water. She couldn’t accept this. It was horrible and undeserved sentence on a sweet, loving child with her whole life ahead of her. Perhaps the Longacres could see it as God’s will, but Leah could not. God was unfair!

When the family finished praying, they sang a hymn in German, then touched Rebekah one last time and left. Leah rode down with them in the elevator. In the parking lot, she blinked in the bright sun. She had not been outside in days. She heard Opa say, “The buggy is over here, Jacob.”

As they started toward it, Leah took Ethan’s hand, holding him back. “Ethan, please, don’t go yet. Tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do now.”

He stroked her cheek. “Now we go home and prepare for Rebekah’s wake and funeral.”

“May I come?” she asked in a small voice.

“Certainly, you may come. For now, go home, get some rest. Come to the house tomorrow morning.”

“I—I’m not one of you—”

Ethan silenced her by placing the tips of his fingers against her lips. “Rebekah would want you with us,” he said. “Charity and I will help you. You will not be alone.”

“Should I tell anyone? I—I was thinking of your brother, Eli.”

She felt Ethan stiffen. “There is no way to tell him.”

“I guess it wouldn’t make sense, would it? I mean, he never knew of Rebekah in life. Why should he know of her now that she’s—” Leah stopped, unable to say the last word.

The buggy pulled to a stop beside them, and Ethan climbed aboard. His father handed him the reins. Leah heard Ethan say, “
Ya,”
and watched him slap the reins on the horse’s rounded rump. She stood in the parking lot, in the hot August-sunshine, and listened to the clop of the animal’s hooves on the asphalt. Ethan guided the plain black buggy into the flow of auto traffic. Leah watched it wind its way slowly up the road toward the outskirts of town.

Numb, Leah went to her car. The surface looked dull. She could barely see her reflection in the chrome and mirrors, and what she could see looked distorted. Just as she felt on the inside—deformed and misshapen. Rebekah Longacre was gone. For her there would be no miracle, no restoration of her life to those who loved her. The heavens were silent. God had turned a deaf ear to the prayers and pleas of Amish and English alike. Rebekah was dead. Dead.

L
eah slept fitfully, waking with sudden starts, and, remembering that Rebekah was dead, cried herself back to sleep. Early in the morning, she gave up on sleep, dressed in dark, somber clothes, and drove out to the farm.

When she arrived, the yard was already full of black carriages. Realizing that her red convertible stuck out like a sore thumb, Leah left it at the very edge of the property, on the far end from where the accident had happened. At the site of the accident, Leah saw that every scrap of wood had been cleaned up. All that remained as witness to the horrible event were the smashed rows of corn.

Leah walked toward the farmhouse. Even so
early in the morning, the air seemed stagnant. The heat rose off the ground in waves, making her hair stick to the back of her neck. She found Charity in the front yard, sitting beside the wagon wheel, hugging her knees, her eyes red and puffy. Leah sat down beside her. “Hi. I couldn’t stay away any longer.”

“I miss Rebekah, Leah. All night, I kept waking up and looking over to her side of the bed. It was empty. Only Rose sat up on the pillow. Like she was waiting for Rebekah to come to bed. I could not bear to even look at her doll.”

Fresh tears pooled in Leah’s eyes as Charity talked. “I didn’t sleep much either.” Leah sniffed hard. “Will you tell me what’s going to happen? I—I’ve never been to an Amish funeral.”

“The ones I’ve been to have been for old people. They are expected to die.” Charity dabbed at her eyes with a white handkerchief. “But I will tell you what to expect.” She sat up straighter. “The Amish undertaker has taken Rebekah’s body from the hospital. Papa and Ethan and Opa worked most of the night to build her coffin in the barn. Usually, coffins are
made by others, but Papa wanted to make Rebekah’s with his own hands.”

Leah stared off toward the barn, imagining the sad sound of hammers banging long into the night.