A Widow's Hope. Vannetta Chapman
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thought she wouldn’t answer. She glanced at him and then her gaze darted out over the area where construction had not yet begun. “The doctors said that the steroids might suppress his appetite, but that it was best to encourage him to eat more.”
“And what purpose do the steroids serve?”
“They’re supposed to decrease swelling around the spinal cord.” She placed the plate on the tray and transferred the empty lemonade glasses to it, as well. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bore you with the details.”
“Do I look bored?”
She sat on the picnic bench then, staring back toward the house, seemingly lost in her worries over Matthew. “The last thing we needed is him losing weight. Then there are the other complications...”
“Such as?”
“Children with spinal cord injuries often struggle with pneumonia and other breathing disorders. Secondary infections are always a worry—it’s why I was afraid for him to help you. If he were to get a cut or take a nasty fall, it could spiral into something worse.”
“It must be a lot for you to monitor.”
“Matthew needs all his strength, even when it comes in the form of oatmeal cookies.”
“I’d like to ask what happened, but I know from personal experience that sometimes you feel like sharing and sometimes you don’t.”
Hannah jerked her head up. She seemed to study his scars for a moment and then she nodded once. “It’s true. Sometimes I want to talk about it, need to talk about it, but then other times...”
“I’m listening, if today is one of those days you want to talk.”
She pulled in a deep breath and blew it out. “There’s not really that much to tell. David and I bought a farm in Wisconsin, after we were married. Life was difficult but gut. Matthew came along—a healthy baby boy. My husband was out harvesting, and Matthew was riding up on the bench seat with him. This was a year ago...one year next week.”
“What happened?”
“There was a snake coiled in the grass. The work horse nearly stepped on it. He reared up, throwing both David and Matthew. David was killed instantly when the harvester rolled over him. I suppose because he was smaller, Matthew was thrown farther. Otherwise he would have been killed, as well.”
“Instead he was injured.”
“He suffered a complete spinal cord break.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Jacob allowed silence to fill the hurting places between them. Finally he asked, “Surgeries?”
“Ya—two. The first was for the initial diagnosis, to evaluate and stabilize the fractured backbone. The second was a follow-up to the first.”
“And you had to handle it all alone.”
“Of course I didn’t.” Now her chin came up and when she glanced at him, Jacob saw the old stubbornness in her eyes. “My church helped me, my sister came to stay awhile and then...then my parents suggested I move home.”
“Family is gut.”
“Ya, it is, except that our being here is a drain on them.”
Jacob was unsure how to answer that. He didn’t know Claire or Alton Beiler well, but he was certain they didn’t consider Hannah and Matthew to be a drain. It was plain from the way they interacted that they wanted their daughter and grandson at home with them.
“I’m happy to have Matthew working with me, Hannah, but only if it’s okay with you. I promise to be very careful around him.”
She didn’t answer. Instead she nodded once, gathered up the tray and followed her son into the house.
Leaving Jacob standing in the afternoon sunshine, wondering what else he could do to lighten the burden she carried, wondering why it suddenly seemed so important for him to do so.
He needed to stay focused on his business, on making enough money to pay an accountant before the audit was due, on the other playhouses he would build after this. But instead, as he went back to work, he found himself thinking of a young boy with dirt smeared across his nose and a beautiful mother who was determined to keep others at arm’s length.
Hannah was grateful that she was busy the next morning. Maybe it would take her mind off of finding a job, which was becoming all she thought about. She’d spent an hour before breakfast going over the Help Wanted ads once again, but nothing new had appeared. There wasn’t a single listing that she felt qualified to do, and she doubted seriously that anything new had been listed in the last few days. So instead of obsessing over what she couldn’t change, she focused on helping her mother.
Tuesday was baking day. They mixed bread, kneaded dough, baked cookies and prepared two cakes. The kitchen was hot and steamy by the time they were finished. Her mother sank into a chair and said, “You’re a big help, Hannah. I wouldn’t want to do all of this alone.”
Of course, she wouldn’t need so much if they weren’t there.
And Hannah knew that her mother rarely baked alone. Most weeks her niece Naomi came over to help. Still, the compliment lightened her heart as she called to Matthew. She’d helped him change into clean clothes after lunch, and he had promised not to get dirty. Now he was sitting in his chair, watching out the window as Jacob raised the walls of his playhouse.
“Looks like a real train, huh?” her mother asked.
Hannah cocked her head left and then right. “Can’t say as it does.”
“To me it’s plain as day.”
“Which is all that matters.” She reached out and mussed her son’s hair. “We should get going so we won’t be late.”
They made it to the PT center in downtown Goshen twenty minutes before their appointment. For the next two hours, Hannah sat in the waiting room and crocheted, or attempted to. Her mind kept wandering and she’d find that she’d dropped a stitch and then she would have to pull out the row and start over. After an hour, she’d made very little progress on the blue shawl, so she decided to put it away and flip through some of the magazines.
The center served both Amish and Englisch, so the magazine selection was varied. There were copies of the Budget, but there were also copies of National Geographic, Home & Garden and even People magazine.
She reached for Home & Garden.
On the cover was a picture of a sprawling country home, with flowers blooming along the brick pavement that bordered the front of the house. Orange, yellow and maroon mums filled containers on the porch. Pink begonias hung from planters on either side of the door.
“It would be nice if life were like those pictures.” Sally Lapp sat down beside her with a harrumph and a sigh. Sally was plump, gray and kind.
“How’s Leroy?”
“Gut. I suppose. Ornery, if I were to be honest.”
Sally reached into her bag and pulled out a giant ball of purple yarn and two knitting needles. She’d shared the previous week that she was expecting her forty-second grandchild, and they were all sure it would be a girl. If by some strange twist of fate it was a boy, she’d save the blanket for an auction and knit another in an appropriate shade of green or blue.
“Is Leroy able to get around any better?” Hannah asked.
“Old coot tried to move from the living room to the bedroom by himself, without his walker. I was outside harvesting some of the garden vegetables when he fell.” She glanced over her cheater glasses