Annie Weaver threw her coat and scarf into her locker,
slammed it shut, and twirled the lock—once, twice, three
times as Jenny had shown her.
Turning to go, she nearly ran over her best friend. “Tell me
you are not headed out on the floor.” Jenny’s voice sounded
like Annie’s first-year teacher—stern and low and slightly
disappointed. Sporting short blonde hair and a figure even
slimmer than Annie’s, Jenny looked nothing like an Amish
schoolteacher.
“I’m not?”
“You are, aren’t you?”
Blue eyes laughed at her, even as Annie tossed a panicked
look at the clock—six fifty-seven a.m.
“Ya. Why?”
“Cap.”
Annie’s hand flew to the top of her head and met only a
mass of curls. Searching, she found her nursing cap slid to
the back and side of her head.
“Scope.”
Looking down, she realized she’d left it—
“I.D.”
Left them both in her locker.
As she turned and fumbled with the combination on her
locker, Jenny re-pinned Annie’s nursing cap firmly in place
on the top of her long, chestnut hair.
“I’m running late,” Annie explained.
“Sleep in?”
Annie shook her head. “I was up early enough, but I made the
mistake of turning on the radio. The music reminded me that
it’s December.”
“They’re already playing Christmas songs,” Jenny fussed. “I
still have leftover turkey in the fridge.”
“When I heard the music I realized I hadn’t written home
this week. I thought I had enough time, but then a letter to
my parents was followed by another to my schweschder.”
Annie’s voice trailed off. How could she explain that the
Christmas decorations popping up everywhere were making her
homesick?
Garlands hung from the halls of her boarding house.
Colorful displays crowded the store windows lining her walk
to work. Lights blinked above the streets, and Santas rang
bells at nearly every door.
She longed for the simple celebrations of home.
Home.
Annie grabbed her I.D. and stethoscope, allowing her fi
ngers to brush over the engraving, marveling that it bore
her initials.
She had actually earned her R.N. degree. One year she had
studied and earned her high school equivalency, then for two
years she had been enrolled in and graduated from the local
nursing program.
Three years of living with her aenti.
Three years working among the Englisch.
Three years away from her family.
She spun around to face Jenny. “I shouldn’t have spent so
long writing my mamm and dat this morning, but ya—I was a
little homesick because of the holidays.”
“Your mother and dad will appreciate the letter. Why don’t
you stop by my place after your shift ends? I’ll make baked
ziti, a giant salad, and fresh rolls—your favorite meal.”
Annie blinked through the tears that suddenly sprang to her
eyes, accepted the hug Jenny offered, and hurried out to the
floor, glancing again at the clock as she passed underneath it.
Only one minute late.
“Good morning, Annie.” Jeffrey’s voice was as sweet as
shoofly pie, too sweet.
She’d been dodging his flirtations for weeks. Though he was
a nice enough co-worker, his attention left her confused. As
did the smile he shot her way.
“Gudemariye,” she mumbled, pretending to check her pocket
for pen and stethoscope.
“Careful––you know I love it when you talk plain to me.”
Tall and redheaded, Jeffrey winked, then walked over to the
copier machine. “Don’t tease her, Jeffrey.” Shelly issued
her command in a don’t-mess-with-me voice. “Annie just
arrived, and you know it takes her a few minutes to readjust
to our ways.”
Peering over her reading glasses, Shelly waited for Jeffrey
to return his attention to his work, which he did. She was
their shift supervisor, and she was the perfect mother hen.
Dark ebony skin, tall and somewhat on the heavy side—no one
doubted she could handle whatever presented on their floor.
She waved Annie toward the little boy in room 307. “Go on,
honey. Kiptyn has been asking for you since his five a.m.
check.”
“Danki,” Annie replied, glancing up at the status board. “I
mean, thank you. I had hoped to check on him first. He
rested well last night?”
“As well as can be expected.” Shelly’s face took on the
protective look Annie had come to love so well over the past
six months. “Remember, Annie, care for your patients, but
don’t let them break your heart.”
“Ya. I know. You have warned me before.” Annie smiled, felt
in her pocket for the item that had arrived in the mail
yesterday.
Christmas music played softly over the hospital sound system
as she hurried down the hall toward Kiptyn’s room.
She entered quietly.
The boy didn’t seem to hear her over the buzzing and beeping
of medical apparatus. An oxygen machine hummed beside his
bed. A heart monitor beeped with the rhythm of his heart.
And cartoon characters fought to save the world on the
television set.
Kiptyn didn’t seem to notice any of it.
The eight-year-old boy sat staring at the wall. Annie could
see, even from across the room, what an effort it was for
him to breathe. She pulled in a deep breath, as if it would
fill his lungs as well as her own, and cleared her throat,
alerting him to her presence.
“Good morning, Mr. Kiptyn. It seems you are my first patient
today. You must be very important indeed.”
“Annie.” The little boy’s voice reminded her of a song, one
that could tear at your heart while still making you smile.
His blue eyes brightened as he struggled to sit up
straighter in his bed.
But even from the doorway she could tell that the sixteen
hours since she’d last seen him had taken their toll. The
circles around his eyes were a bit darker, his skin even
paler, and— though it didn’t seem possible—she wondered if
he might have dropped below the forty-four pounds she’d
recorded yesterday.
“Let me help you, kind.”
Moving effi ciently to his side, she gently repositioned the
pillows behind him with one hand and used the controls to
adjust his bed with the other.
“What does kind mean? Is it an Amish word?”
“Ya. It means child. Sometimes I slip back into the plain
language.”
“I like when you speak Amish.” Kiptyn rubbed his nose,
knocking his oxygen plugs askew.
Annie reached forward and adjusted them, taking a moment to
let her hand rest on the top of his shiny bald head. She’d
seen the pictures his mamm had brought, so she knew the boy
had once had curly blond hair. Kiptyn’s parents took turns
staying with the child each night, then hurried off to their
respective jobs early each day.
“Actually what my people speak is Dietsch.”
Kiptyn laughed even as he fought for a full breath. “Don’t
you mean Dutch?”
“It’s a type of Dutch,” Annie agreed, slipping the blood
pressure cuff over his small arm. “Actually Dietsch means
Pennsylvania Dutch.”
“‘Will you teach me more Dietsch today?” Kiptyn asked. “Do
you remember what I taught you yesterday?” Annie took his
pressure manually and noted the numbers on her chart.
The monitor could have done it electronically, but she’d
noticed that he had begun bruising where the machine
tightened the cuff around his arm. After speaking with
Shelly, she’d received permission to take his pressure
manually during the day.
Annie also felt a person’s touch was more personal than a
machine—anything to make his stay easier. It was her
responsibility to care for these precious children.
“Gudemariye.” Kiptyn said the word as if he were practicing
for a presentation in front of a classroom.
“And good morning to you,” Annie responded. She placed her
stethoscope in her pocket, then tapped her chin, as if she
were having trouble remembering any other words in her
native tongue.
“I heard my parents talking last night. They thought I was
asleep.” Kiptyn’s voice grew softer.
His hand crept out, and he traced the pattern of dark blue
material on her sleeve, letting his fingers run down to her
hand until it rested there on top of hers. “They’re thinking
about having another baby. Something about how a brother
could help save me. How’s that possible?”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t be eavesdropping, boppli.” Annie
corrected him gently. She moved to check his IV drip.
“I’m not a baby, Annie.” Kiptyn smiled up at her again. “You
taught me that word on Monday. What I’d really like is to
have a brother—someone I could play ball with when I’m well.
Do you have a word for brother?”
Kiptyn’s question caused a pressure to form around Annie’s
heart, and she felt as if tears were being wrung from
it—tears she couldn’t show this precious kind.
She sat gently on the side of the bed, taking the boy’s hand
in her own. Earlier in the week, the doctors had told
Kiptyn’s parents the chemotherapy wasn’t effectively
battling his cancer. They wanted to move on to a new
experimental drug treatment, felt it was his only hope of
survival.
“Ya, we have a word for brother. I have a brother, did you
know that?”
“How old is he?”
“Twenty-two. He is a grown man.” Annie hadn’t been able to
visit her family in the fall, and now for the second time
since waking she was nearly overcome with homesickness. Adam
would be married next year. She looked out the hospital
window at the snow that had begun falling and thought of
Leah, the pretty, slim girl who would soon be her schweschder.
“So how do you say it, Annie?” Coughing wracked his thin
frame, and she reached forward to rub his chest. “How do you
say brother?”
“Bruder.”
“Well, that’s easy.” Kiptyn laughed again and pulled in a
deep breath. “Bruder. Sounds like our word.”
“Ya, it does.” Annie stood and started out of the room, had
nearly reached the door when her hand brushed up against
what was in her pocket. She turned back around.
“Kiptyn, remember when I asked you if it was all right to
tell my onkel about you?”
“Your Onkel Eli, who builds things. Yeah, I remember.” “Well
I wrote him, and he sent you something.” She reached in her
pocket, pulled out the wooden horse. It was handcrafted of
maple wood and fi t in her palm. The detail was exquisite.
Walking back to Kiptyn’s bed, she placed it on his tummy.
The boy reached out, picked it up, and studied it.
“Cool beans!” A smile covered Kiptyn’s face, and for a
moment he merely looked like a little boy instead of a
cancer patient.
“Could I write him and say thanks?”
“He’d like that, I’ll—”
The door to Kiptyn’s room burst open, and Shelly stepped
through.
“Annie, could I speak with you in the hall, please?” It
wasn’t a question at all. The look on Shelly’s face was
somber, more so than Annie had ever seen before.
“Of course, I was fi nishing up here. Kiptyn, I’ll check on
you again a little later. Press your button if you need
anything.”
She followed Shelly into the hall, confusion and worry
sending beads of sweat down the back of her neck. She
suddenly wished she’d pulled her long, brown hair back into
a clip, anything to help with the wave of heat washing over
her. Shelly turned as soon as Kiptyn’s door closed, then
reached out and placed a hand gently on Annie’s shoulder.
“Annie, you have a phone call at the desk.” Concern mingled
with sympathy. “Sweetie, it’s Vickie.”
“Mrs. Brown? My landlady? I don’t understand.”
“She’s calling about your father, Annie. There’s been an
accident.”
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