There was such desperation and fear in his bruder’s voice that at first Aaron thought he must be playing a joke. Could anyone become that distressed in the space of an hour? They’d just all had dinner together.

  He jogged toward the front porch.

  One glance at Aaron’s face told him this was no joke.

  “Beth is bleeding. Run to the phone booth. Call an ambulance.”

  “Okay. Sure.” He didn’t turn back, didn’t ask any questions, simply ran as fast as he could into the darkness. The nearest phone booth was only a quarter of a mile down the road. He placed the emergency call, made sure they had the correct address, then ran back to the farm.

  As he hurried down the lane, he noticed that bright lantern light spilled from every window.

  He hustled up the porch steps. “They’ll be here any minute.”

  Bethany was lying on the couch and smiling weakly. “Thanks, Ethan.”

  “Of course. You just...just rest.”

  She looked pale and scared. She looked a lot like Ada, and when he thought of that, a new grief tore through his heart. Ada had been so worried about Becca, and now this. It seemed like too much. It seemed like a very bad dream. And then he noticed the thin trail of blood leading from the bedroom to the couch. His heart beat faster and his palms began to sweat, and he wondered what was taking that ambulance so long.

  Aaron walked into the room, carrying a canvas bag.

  “Did you get my nightgown?”

  “Ya.”

  “And...” She glanced at Ethan, then back at her husband and shook her head as if she couldn’t believe what she was about to say. “My underthings?”

  “Ya. I got it all.”

  “And the knitting?”

  “I got the knitting, but Beth...”

  “And my Bible.”

  “Ya.”

  The scream of a siren split the night and then everything happened very fast. The ambulance came to a stop right in front of the house. Two paramedics...one young woman whose name tag said Vicki and an older man whose name tag said Grant...hustled into the room as if they’d done this a thousand times, and maybe they had. Ethan prayed they had and that they knew exactly what they were doing.

  “I’m Aaron, and this is my fraa, Bethany.”

  “I’m in my third trimester,” Beth said softly.

  The woman knelt next to the couch and fastened a blood pressure cuff around Beth’s arm. “Bethany, I want you to try and breath slowly. While I take your pressure, Aaron can tell me what happened.”

  “I was doing up the dinner dishes—”

  “Good man,” Vicki teased in a low voice and Bethany smiled.

  Surely, if the woman could joke around then this wasn’t as serious as it looked.

  “Then Bethany called out and I walked into the bathroom and saw her standing there...bleeding.”

  “Can you tell me how much blood there was?”

  He looked at her blankly.

  “Teaspoonful or cupful?”

  “Something in between.”

  Ethan nearly fell over at that—she’d lost half a cup of blood? That was a lot, wasn’t it? Why weren’t they giving her a transfusion this very minute?

  As Vicki worked and asked questions, the older paramedic called in an update to the hospital. “Our ETA is twenty minutes.” They both helped Bethany onto a stretcher and rolled her out to the ambulance.

  Vicki poked her head out the bay doors of the vehicle. “Climb in with me, Aaron. I’m sure your wife will feel better if you ride along.”

  Aaron glanced at Ethan then, who said, “Go. Go with her. I’ll see to everything here and then call a driver.”

  Aaron climbed into the back of the ambulance with Vicki and Bethany. Grant slapped the doors shut. He opened the driver’s-side door, hopped in and then rolled down his window. “We’re taking her to Goshen Health. Do you know where that is?”

  “I’ll find it.”

  There was the blip of the siren, the lights throwing bars of red across the fields, and then they were gone.

  And Ethan was left, wondering how his world had turned upside down, and how he’d possibly thought he’d had problems before. He hadn’t had any real problems. He’d had problems that he’d created out of thin air.

  Adding on an extra room?

  Worrying about next year’s rain?

  Kissing a girl?

  Those things were so trivial. What mattered was family. What mattered was taking care of each other, and Ethan vowed in that very minute that he would stay focused on the important things. And he would remember to be grateful. Just let her be okay, Gotte. Let the boppli be fine. The prayer was more than just words muttered under his breath. The prayer was from the deepest part of his heart.

  * * *

  The Yoder family was sitting in the living room when Ethan called. Ada had been to the hospital with her dat. It had helped ease her worries to see Becca smiling, to see her acting like her old self. If she continued to improve, she’d be able to come home the next day.

  Then her dat’s emergency phone rang.

  It was Ethan.

  Something was terribly wrong.

  Ada could only hear her dat’s side of the conversation, but it was definitely about Bethany. She was at the hospital. Ethan would call them with updates. If Ethan had thought that their family was going to be satisfied with updates over the phone, he was mistaken. They’d stayed home when Becca had first gone to the hospital because Becca and Gideon had both insisted. Also because Becca had needed to rest. This was different. This was a whole other kind of emergency.

  Forty-five minutes after the phone call, they had contacted the driver who had just brought them home, and he’d agreed to take them back over to Goshen.

  They all packed into the van and Ada thought that there was some comfort in being bunched between Sarah and Eunice on the seat. There was a sweet consolation in going through this together. They were a family. They would be there for one another. Wasn’t that what she and Ethan had just been talking about? And then he’d kissed her.

  He’d kissed her.

  She pushed that memory from her mind. She could not think about that right now. She had to think about Bethany and Becca and the bopplin.

  After what felt like an interminably long ride—much longer than the recent ride home along the same road to and from the same places—they arrived at the hospital and rushed into the waiting room.

  “Aaron’s back with her,” Ethan said. “And Ezekiel is on his way.”

  “Gut. That’s gut.” Amos motioned to a corner of the waiting room. Though the other seats were empty at the moment, the corner gave the illusion of being at home. They pulled a few chairs over to make a circle and then Amos reached for Sarah’s hand, Sarah reached for Eunice’s, Eunice reached for Ada’s and Ada reached for Ethan’s.

  Ethan stepped into the circle as if he belonged there.

  Everyone bowed their head as Amos began to pray.

  “Gotte, Our Father, we trust Bethany and her child to Your care as we trust Becca and her child. We ask You to bless the doctors and nurses, to calm our hearts and the hearts of Gideon and Aaron. Give us courage where we’ll need it, patience as we wait, and grace through all things...”

  The word “amen” flowed around the circle.

  Ada snuck a glance at Ethan as she dropped his hand. “Are you okay?”

  “I guess. It was...it was pretty intense.”

  “Everything is going to be fine, Ethan. You didn’t drop the racquet here.”

  “Huh?”

  “She means ‘drop the ball,’ and Ada’s right.” Eunice flopped into a chair and picked up a magazine from the side table, but she didn’t open it. She simply stared at the cover. “This isn’t your fault or anyone else’s. This is what they call trying times. Everyone goes through them.”

  Eunice sighed the sigh of a much older person.

  Ada perched on the chair next to Ethan, wondering what could possibly happen next. It seemed like her family was falling apart, but she refused to believe that. It felt like a new disaster popped up every few moments.

  Would the ceiling fall in on her head next?

  Possibly an early blizzard would trap them in the hospital.

  Or she could come down with the measles. What if she had them already? What if she’d exposed everyone?

  “I need to walk.” She popped up and was halfway across the room before she realized that Ethan was with her.

  “Sarah thought I should keep you company.”

  “Okay.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “I have no idea.”

  It turned out the corridor made a sort of circle through the facility. They plodded past the closed cafeteria, past the vending machines, past the window that peeked in on the new babies. Ada didn’t dare look in that window. She’d start crying for sure and certain if she did. Better to stare straight ahead and keep walking. They were finishing their third lap when a doctor stepped into the waiting room and headed toward her dat. Ada and Ethan made a beeline to catch up. They arrived as the doctor was saying, “Well, it’s nice to see you all again, though, of course, the reason for seeing you isn’t what any of us would wish for.”

  Gideon had joined the group. He offered Ada a small wave then turned his attention to the doctor.

  “Same doctor that Becca has,” Ada whispered in response to Ethan’s questioning look.

  “Let’s talk.” The doctor’s name was Tam Nguyen and she had a pleasant though serious nature about her. “First, I want you to know that Bethany has stabilized and the baby is fine.”

  Ada’s knees felt suddenly weak.

  She must have stumbled back a little because Ethan nudged her toward a chair. “You should sit,” he whispered. When she did, he stood behind her, hands on the back of the chair.

  “Bethany has a condition caused placenta previa. It’s basically where the placenta is low in the uterus.” The doctor was holding a tablet. She began tapping on its screen until she found the graph she wanted. It showed a baby lying upside down in a bubble—in a uterus, as it was plainly labeled.

  “In Bethany’s situation, the placenta is only partially covering the cervix.”

  “That’s gut?” Amos asked.

  “It is. I’m not going to sugar-coat this. It can be serious, and in some cases it requires an emergency C-section. In nine out of ten cases, though, the situation will resolve on its own.”

  Sarah was nodding, but she looked worried. “Will she be on bedrest? Like Becca?”

  “No. In these situations, complete bed rest could increase the risk of blood clots. Instead, we’ll restrict her activity...no hanging clothes on the line or carrying anything over five pounds, and I’d like someone to be with her at all times.”

  “Aaron and Ethan are there with her,” Amos said.

  “Ya, we live together in my parents’ home.” Ethan cleared his throat and tried to sound more confident than he felt. “Aaron and I are there every morning, every night, and on weekends, too, of course.”

  Now the doctor turned her attention to him. “You live on a farm?”

  “Ya. Just outside Shipshe.”

  “No cell phone?”

  “Nein.”

  “Would your bishop allow one?”

  “I most certainly would.” Ezekiel smiled as he joined the group. “Sorry I’m late. Had a little trouble finding a driver. I would certainly allow for Bethany to have a phone in her home if it’s medically necessary.”

  “It is,” the doctor assured him.

  “I’ll pick one up tomorrow,” Amos said.

  The doctor smiled then continued. “I’d also prefer that someone is with her at all times. We don’t want her bleeding to start again and her be on the farm alone—even with the phone, it might be in the other room, or she might have trouble getting a signal. Someone should be there, if that’s at all possible.”

  “It’s possible,” Sarah assured her. “We’ll work it out.”

  Dr. Nguyen stood and studied the group. “The next two months may require a lot from each of you, but by the time we ring in the new year, you’ll have two healthy babies.”

  After she’d walked out of the waiting area and back through the double doors that led to the emergency ward, everyone started talking at once. After a few minutes of that, Ada’s dat raised his hand to quiet them. “Family meeting?”

  “Ya,” Ezekiel agreed. “Family meeting.”

  Amos waited until everyone was seated—including Gideon, Ethan and the bishop. “As the doctor said, the next two months will require a lot from each of you, but we have a strong family. We will get through this.”

  Tears pricked Ada’s eyes and she blinked furiously to prevent them from falling. She would not cry. She wasn’t the one hurting here—Becca and Bethany were.

  “Someone needs to stay with Bethany,” Sarah said. “That seems to be the most pressing issue.”

  “But... Aaron and I are there.” Ethan shook his head, not comprehending what she was suggesting. “Maybe one of us could stay home mornings and the other in the afternoon...”

  He didn’t seem to comprehend what the doctor had said.

  But Ada understood. “One of us. One of us needs to stay with her.”

  “Exactly,” Sarah agreed. “Help with the cooking and cleaning, be there during the day while Aaron and Ethan are at work.”

  “I’ll go.” The words popped out of Ada’s mouth. She couldn’t have explained why she’d volunteered, why it was suddenly so important to her to be the one staying with Bethany. She’d been rescuing animals for nearly a month, and it had taught her a lot. Mostly, it had taught her that she could do a thing if she set her mind to it, and she could do this.

  Sarah and Eunice were looking at her in surprise.

  Amos was combing his fingers through his beard.

  It was Ezekiel who sealed the deal. “I think it’s a wunderbaar idea. Ada will stay at the King farm. Sarah and Eunice will stay at the Yoder farm. Amos, Ethan, Aaron and Gideon can continue to work at the market...though if you need a break, if you need anything, our church members will be willing to step in.”

  Amos started to say something but Ezekiel stopped him with a small shake of his head. Ada had never seen anyone stop her dat before. It was an odd thing to witness.

  “Accepting help is important, Amos. I don’t mean only monetary help. I understand that you are blessed in that way, and your generosity when others have been in need has reflected that blessing. But I suspect that, in this current situation, there will be other things you will need. Help can come in many shapes and forms. It will be up to you to let me know when and where it’s needed.”

  Amos nodded in appreciation, then said, “Ya. Of course, you are right, Ezekiel. Danki.”

  “Gem gschehne.”

  Ada didn’t even notice that Ethan had become quite still...and completely silent. Gideon left to update Becca, Sarah and Eunice went to fetch coffee and snacks, and Ezekiel went through the double doors to pray with Bethany.

  All that was left in the corner of the waiting room was Amos, Ethan and Ada. Ethan coughed then said, “Amos, if I could, I’d like to speak with you privately.”

  Amos studied him then Ada. Finally, he said, “We’re family, Ethan. Whatever you have to say...you can say in front of Ada.”

  What wouldn’t he want to say in front of her?

  Why did he have that sour look on his face again?

  “All right. It’s only that I’m worried about this arrangement.”

  “‘Arrangement’?”

  “I’m concerned about having Ada stay at our home. I assume you mean she would be there day and night.”

  “Yes, that would probably be best. We want someone with Bethany at all times, and you know as well as I do...life on a farm often causes you to be out of the home at odd hours and for a dozen different reasons.”

  “I understand, but...we only have the two bedrooms.” His face colored as he tossed another glance at Ada. “The house is quite small.”

  Amos laughed for the first time that evening. “Do you remember when you and Aaron stayed with us? After your house had nearly burned to the ground?”

  “I remember.”

  “Four girls in one room. Isn’t that right, Ada?”

  “Ya. I thought it would be the best sleepover ever, but then I realized being packed in like shrimp...”

  “Sardines?”

  “That it wasn’t easy. A couple of times I considered going out to the barn just to have a little privacy.”

  “But you all survived. You survived and you became closer as schweschdern. Gotte used that experience for your blessing, ya?”

  “Ya.” Thinking back on those days when she could not wait to have a little time alone again, Ada understood that she’d taken many things for granted. She’d taken her schweschdern for granted. She’d taken her family’s health for granted. She’d even taken the simplicity of the times for granted.

  Her dat stood and adjusted his suspenders, his gaze on something outside the windows, though he was plainly still addressing Ada and Ethan. “You two have come a long way from the day that you came into my office worried about a litter of beagles. You’ve learned to work together.”

  Ada thought that was true.

  She thought of visiting the farms with Ethan. Had that really been the day before? It seemed like a lifetime ago.

  She remembered the kiss.

  Ethan didn’t look like he wanted to kiss her now. He was still frowning, still looking sour as an old green apple, but he nodded in agreement with Amos.

  Standing, Ethan muttered, “Think I could use some fresh air,” and he walked out of the room, leaving her sitting there, wondering what had just happened.

  Why had she volunteered in the first place? Plainly, Ethan would be more comfortable with someone else...with anyone else. Sarah could have gone. Or Eunice. Why had she jumped up and thrown her name in the circle?

 

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