Between You and Me

Reese sheepishly acknowledged that a few of the reasons might have to do with an unusual man with piercing eyes, and a sweet, broken boy.

She accompanied Caleb back up to the SICU, stopping at the nurses’ station to see when the doctor would be by to talk to him again. Outside Jonah’s suite, they stood together, looking at the boy through the thick safety glass of the window.

“He’s still sound asleep,” Reese said.

“Any idea when he’ll wake up?”

“You can ask the doctor when he comes on evening rounds.”

“Aren’t you a doctor?”

“Almost. I’m a fourth-year med student. I was with the trauma team when they brought Jonah in, but he’s not my patient. I just thought you might want somebody around in case you have any more questions about Jonah.”

He leaned his hand on the upper frame of the window and kept his eyes on Jonah. His whole body tensed. “It’s good of you to take the time for us, Reese.”

It felt strange to hear him call her Reese. Patients and families often addressed her as “Doctor,” unaware that she hadn’t graduated yet.

She pressed her forehead to the glass and gazed at the small, still form amid the tubes and monitors. The huge bandage on the elevated arm stump dominated the scene. There would be nothing simple about this boy’s life now.

“Did anyone talk to you about what you might say to Jonah when he wakes up?” she asked.

“No. But I’ve thought about it plenty. How do you tell a little kid that he’s lost his arm? How do you tell him he’ll never throw a baseball with that hand again or hold a sandwich in his fingers, or pick up a tool to work? How do you tell him he’ll never properly shake hands with his bride’s father or pet his dog on the head with that hand?”

She winced at the pain she heard in his voice. “You just tell him. I wish there was another way, or a different outcome, but there’s not. You’ll simply have to tell him, directly and honestly, that he’s lost a limb and he’ll learn to get on without it. It’s terrible, but the worst part is over and he survived. A different sort of life is waiting for him now.” She felt surprised to hear herself speaking to him with more confidence than she felt. Speaking like the sort of doctor she hoped to become.

“What sort of life will that be?”

For the first time, Reese sensed anger in him. “With proper therapy and prosthetics, he’ll manage,” she said. “The technology is so advanced nowadays that a prosthetic arm with a properly fitted artificial hand can function very much like a natural one.” She bit her lip, wishing the words could be more reassuring.

“So you’re saying he’s going to get an artificial limb?”

“That’s the recommended protocol. It’s the best way to give him the most functionality,” she said. “The stump will need time and therapy to heal properly to accept a permanent prosthesis. Once he’s fitted with that, he’ll undergo more therapy to learn how to use his new hand.” She turned to him. “I know it’s hard. That boy’s life changed in an instant. But kids are incredible. I’ve worked with many of them in my rotations. They’re amazingly resilient. They can adapt to almost anything.” She resisted the urge to put her hand on his arm. “The ones who do best are those with a supportive family. Judging by how devoted you are, I’d guess Jonah has that.”

When he didn’t answer, a disturbing thought occurred to her. “Don’t tell me an artificial limb is against your religion,” she said.

“As far as I know, it’s not.”

“Good,” she said.

They stood together for a few quiet moments, then stepped into the room. The nurse at the computer terminal acknowledged them with a nod. Reese tried to picture Jonah playing in a baseball game, helping with farm chores, petting his dog.

“Do you feel like talking about the accident?” she asked.

“I already told everything to a woman from some agency. She wrote it all down and made a voice recording, too.”

She was probably from Child Protective Services, Reese guessed. “It’s standard to get a detailed report of an accident.”

“I see.” His face was somber. He was practically radiating guilt.

“Well, if you ever want to talk—not for a report or anything—I’d be happy to listen.”

To her surprise, he nodded slowly. When he spoke of his nephew, his reserve fell away. “I was in the kitchen when it happened. I was with Hannah—she’s Jonah’s big sister. We were just washing up after breakfast. I could see him across the field working at the neighbor’s silo, and everything seemed to be going just fine. He’s helped fill silo dozens of times. All kids pitch in with chores. Then I guess I got busy with something else, and a bit later, the neighbor came running over, said there’d been an accident.” His hand curled into a fist. “The way they told it, something got hung up in the shredding machine. Jonah was trying to push a stalk through when the blades caught him. It all happened fast. Real fast.”

Reese kept her gaze fixed on the red and blue monitor lights that gave a constant readout of Jonah’s vital signs. She was beginning to understand that even a boy Jonah’s age played a vital role on a family farm. He had lost more, perhaps, than a non-Amish boy.

And suddenly her cheeks felt hot with a deep sense of outrage. With all due respect to the Amish ways, she seriously questioned the practice of letting a boy do the work of a man. She wondered if there would be any further investigation, if Caleb would be questioned for putting a child at risk.

Then she bit her lip to keep herself from speaking out. Now was not the time and she was not the one to judge or comment. She reminded herself of the things she’d learned in her medical compassion classes. Even after the worst of accidents, a doctor must never point the finger of blame at the patient, or at any friend or family member. That was the role of social services. And more often than not, an accident was exactly that—an accident. In her ER rotation, she’d seen any number of adored, protected children who’d suffered accidents. A bad landing in a gymnastics competition. A cupboard door slammed on a finger. A fall down the stairs.

Guilt was a powerful force. It didn’t need any help from an outsider. No doubt Caleb Stoltz was feeling plenty guilty already.

Glancing sideways at him, she noticed the tension in his clenched fists and angular face, and in the way he held his neck and shoulders. She tried to imagine the sudden shock of an ordinary day turning into a nightmare.

Finally he spoke again from a place of deep anguish; she could hear it straining his voice. “I yelled at him this morning,” he said in a quiet, flat tone. “I yelled at him for teasing his sister. I told him to get on over to the neighbors’ to fill silo.”

“What would you have done if he hadn’t been teasing his sister?”

Caleb looked down at his fisted hands and flexed them open. “I would have sent him over to the neighbors’ to fill silo,” he conceded.

“Then you can probably quit trying to claim responsibility for an accident. As awful as this is, you should understand that things like this happen.”

“I’m his guardian. I love this boy more than my own life. But I failed him. I didn’t keep him safe.”

“Don’t keep torturing yourself about Jonah’s accident,” she said, though she knew words of comfort didn’t always allay the guilt. “Lots of people seem to do that in the ER, and it’s not helpful. Things happen. It’s awful, but the only choice is to go on.” An idea occurred to her. The Amish were a people of deep, abiding faith—or so she assumed, since they had created an entire way of life around it. “I’m sorry, I don’t know much about your church. If you’d like to pray, there’s a chapel.”

“I’m not a prayerful man.”

She was surprised to hear him say that, having assumed his faith was what bound him to the Amish community. Not a prayerful man … and behind his reserved expression she detected a peculiar sadness. He represented a world so different from her own. She wondered what that world was like.

He stood unexpectedly close, and his nearness flustered her in a way she wasn’t prepared for. She detected no danger from him, it wasn’t quite like that; yet she felt something profoundly physical that she hadn’t experienced in a long time, maybe ever. And something spiritual as well; yearning mingled with hope, as though he represented a long-buried desire. Despite her exhaustion and the fact that she had canceled dinner plans with her parents for his sake, despite the fact that she had a policy against connecting too closely with a patient or his family, she felt drawn to this man with a strange affinity that was more than curiosity. When she looked at him, a gentle, peaceful feeling settled over her. Her vital signs seemed to slow down; the relentless pressures of the ER ebbed away.

She wished the social services counselor or someone from the chaplain’s staff—anybody—would show up. She left another message at the extension on the house phone.

The charge nurse came in to do a routine check on Jonah. Though she worked swiftly and efficiently, Reese could see her sneaking glances at Caleb Stoltz. Women seemed to stare at him the way people stared at a work of art, or an exhibit at the zoo. He appeared to have no notion of the feminine interest he sparked. Negligently handsome, with a body sculpted by hard, honest work, he looked far more intriguing than the doctors and staff who populated the halls of Mercy Heights.

She shared a look with the nurse and realized they understood each other perfectly.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. What on earth was she thinking? Hospital fatigue must be getting to her. Maybe she was experiencing some sort of end-of-rotation ennui. She had absolutely nothing in common with an Amish farmer. Maybe, though, the unbreachable differences between them actually piqued her interest. She found him as exotic and baffling as he seemed to find the big-city hospital.

She tamped down a barrage of nosy questions. Her schedule was crammed, and she needed to sleep at some point. It was time, past time, to move on, to re-establish that professional distance. “Well,” she said, unsettled by her own thoughts, “I should go.” She made a point of checking Jonah’s chart. “Your nephew’s stable but still critical,” she said.

Caleb pressed himself as close to the bed as he could get. He eyed the bandaged stump of Jonah’s arm, and the look on his face made Reese’s heart freeze.

“I’m sure in the next few days, you’ll learn a lot more about the therapy and prosthetics I mentioned,” she tried to reassure him. “Really, Jonah will be able to live a normal life.”

He was silent for so long that she wasn’t certain he’d heard her. Then he looked up. “What’s a normal life?”

“I suppose it’s different for everyone. Jonah will have to find the answer on his own.”