A Little Bit of Charm (30 page)

“That was great! What an inspiring message. And to think I once asked if you were Christian. What a goose I was.” She skipped down the stone path, dodging puddles of standing water along the way.

Jake tried to keep up with her, feeling like a phony. She pegged him as genuinely spiritual, but wasn't he just a poser, going through the motions?

Donna arrived at work dreading the meeting with her boss. She had avoided him for as long as possible, communicating through text messages and e-mails, and was conveniently out in the field whenever she knew he would be in the office. But Phil Richards refused to be put off any longer. When she walked into his office at nine o'clock, she was armed with a twenty-ounce cup of coffee and a stack of archived news printouts for ammunition.

“There you are, Cline!” he barked from behind his desk. “I started to think you skipped town with some Latin dance instructor and have been fudging your paperwork to keep the paychecks coming.”

“That might not be a bad plan, except I have two left feet.” She took the chair across from him.

Phil did not laugh. He didn't even smile. “What's going on with the Amish? Where are your numbers for new inoculations?”

“I'm here to update you.” She forced a smile. “The state techs and I finished our door-to-door canvass of the Amish and Mennonite homes in the county. Some agreed to have their families checked for the virus, but many refused to submit samples for the test.”

“I already know that much. That's how we found the four new cases. How many vaccines did you administer?”

“Less than half a dozen.”

“That's not good enough. What's wrong with these people?” His face scrunched into an unappealing frown.

“There's nothing wrong with them, Phil. If you will calm down, I'll try to explain their logic.”

He appeared surprised at her response, but he clamped his mouth shut and settled back in his chair. “You have the floor, Mrs. Cline.”

“Most felt the collection of stool samples to be embarrassingly invasive of their privacy, even after I explained about the new cases of polio. They asked if any of the children had become paralyzed and I had to say no.”

“Why are you giving them reasons not to immunize?”

“I'm not, but I researched this to the best of my abilities. These children don't have the wild polio virus that can paralyze. The last case of wild polio in the US was in 1979, and three of the four children in Charm are asymptomatic, like ninety-five percent of all infections. Even in the sick little girl, no one would have discovered polio if she hadn't been hospitalized from other conditions.”

“What about the five percent who do catch polio?” Phil leaned across his desk. “You wouldn't want one of your kids to be one of them.”

“True, but the virus so closely resembles the flu that most parents don't realize what they have. The children recover completely within a week and will have lifetime immunity. Less than one percent of cases result in paralysis, and even many of those recover eventually. More American children drown each year taking baths, but the CDC hasn't banned bathtubs.”

Phil narrowed his eyes. “I hope you haven't been spouting your
research
to the county residents.”

“No, I haven't, not unless someone asks a direct question. But with people leery about potential toxins in vaccines, how could I just ram this down their throats?”

“Maybe because it's
your job
.”

Donna sucked in a deep breath. “For the record, Phil, I had my kids immunized and have never regretted the decision. But there are two sides to this issue.”

He squinted as though focusing on small print without his glasses. “But you only work for one side.”

“One Mennonite woman asked me how the first child contracted the virus. I said I didn't know but I would look into it.”

“Well, as the hospital researchers and pediatricians don't even know, what did you come up with, Sherlock Holmes?”

“We'll never know for sure, but tests show the child's virus was almost identical to the oral polio vaccine given throughout the world, but not in the US since 2000. Based on how the virus mutates, it's been circulating for two years. Yet the little girl never left the country.” She crossed her arms.

“I read all this, Donna. Get to your point.” Phil picked up a folder from the stack.

“The child had been shuffled between four hospitals while trying to figure out what's wrong with her. That's where she caught it—in the hospital. Maybe a foreign health care worker didn't receive enough vaccine to trigger immunity and passed the virus to her. Now this little girl is a carrier. Why should the Amish, who choose to separate from the world, trust our system? And with the girl's compromised immunity, her polio might very well become paralytic.”

Phil scraped his face with his hands. “You're making a lot of assumptions, Cline. And even if the child caught it in the hospital, what does it matter? Folks travel, including the Amish. Nobody can remain separate in the world anymore. You'll never know if that person sitting next to you in the bus station is a carrier or not. People who don't know they're infected can spread it for two months. If twenty-five people got sick, twenty thousand more could have the virus if they haven't been immunized. Our job is prevention, period.”

She sighed heavily. “I can't argue with that.”

“Then go back there and give them the worst-case scenario. You need to explain that this can turn into a powder keg down the road. I want every family tested so we know exactly where we stand. Go to their leaders. No disease is eradicated as long as Americans travel overseas.”

She rose slowly to her feet. “I'll call on the bishop again.”

“Donna, your job is to protect the health and well-being of county residents, and testing won't endanger kids or step on anybody's toes.”

“I understand, Phil.” She tried to keep her frustration out of her response.

“I want a full report in two weeks detailing your success rate. If you don't like your job, you could look into cake decorating or telemarketing.”

He was only half joking. But what did she expect?

That afternoon she stopped on her way home from work to talk to her pastor. Although her church didn't use a small, wooden enclosure to divulge sins and shameful behavior like the Roman Catholics, nevertheless, Donna needed to purge a guilty conscience. She had allowed her desire to respect Amish autonomy to cloud her judgment as a nurse and medical professional. So she sat knee-to-knee with her minister, pouring out the crux of her inadequacies.

When she finished, he placed his hand atop hers. “It sounds as though you've had a change of heart since beginning this project.”

“My boss made some valid points, but I want to do what's right. This just isn't as black and white as I'd like it to be.”

“Few things in life are, Donna. You've been using Internet research and medical statistics to deal with this. Maybe it's time to consult the Lord. Then listen to what's in your heart instead of only what's in your head. God will help if you seek direction.” He patted her hand as though she were a child.

When she left his office she felt disappointed. Send the matter up in prayer? Wasn't that always a clergyman's answer? Did he really think that worked with everything?
But why not give it a try?
She'd already talked the subject into a circle.

Maybe it was time to try another approach.

FOURTEEN

He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures

W
ash day had its own cadence and rhythm. Rachel and Sarah would fix a large pot of soup to cook all day that would be ready for supper. The women coordinated tasks to have laundry and linens washed and dried by noontime. After their lunch of sandwiches and canned pickled vegetables, Sarah would bundle up and head to the barns to gather eggs, unable to stay away from her beloved birds for long. While Isaac tended other endless chicken chores, Sarah spent hours washing and sorting eggs by size and color.

Rachel gratefully stayed indoors—a good place to be in cold weather—and appreciated three hours to herself. While ironing dresses and Isaac's shirts, she thought about yesterday and her future in general. It was easy to let things happen, to drift along
through life-changing events with only minor consideration. But those minor changes eventually added up to a new identity for Rachel King.

Plugging in the electric iron, she thought about how even one household appliance impacted her life. Sarah's Mennonite district permitted electricity from the grid for both homes and businesses. Although they still farmed with Belgians and drove horse and buggy rigs, electricity provided convenience and leisure Rachel hadn't known in Lancaster County. With so many electric lights, families stayed up longer in the evening. Candlelight or kerosene lamps turned low caused eyelids to droop soon after sunset. Although the King family used a propane refrigerator, stove, and washing machine, they hung laundry on outdoor clotheslines in fair weather and on ropes strung across porches in foul. They used no vacuum cleaner, toaster, or food processor. They heated the house with three wood-burning stoves—one in the kitchen, another in the living room, and a third in her parents' bedroom. They used a small potbelly only with a newborn at home, or on days with single-digit temperatures. Vents cut in the downstairs ceiling allowed heat to rise into the upstairs bedrooms, but she and her sisters had often slept wearing socks under heavy quilts.

Was Rachel becoming spoiled? No doubt about it. Life would take some readjustment when she returned to Lancaster. But it wasn't easier chores that worried her this chilly December afternoon. She and Jake had taken another step toward the irrevocable chasm separating their two worlds. One step closer to the point of no return every Amish youth was warned about.

She had loved the Baptist church service down to the last detail—voices raised in songs of praise, folks giving testimonials about how the Lord had worked in their lives, even the minister's sermon. His message had convicted her of self-absorption and inspired her to try harder during the upcoming week. Who could ask for more? Not that she found Amish preaching lacking in any
way, but standing by Jake's side had felt…right. Rachel gave her Sunday dress a few more swipes with the iron and hung it on a hanger. That was the long and short of it—Jake Brady. She never would have attended an English church if not for him.

When she returned home, Sarah and Isaac had studied her carefully, as though she might have grown an extra appendage. “What was so special about the Charm church?” Sarah had asked.

“Louder music.”

“Did people inquire about your clothes?”

“
Nein
. I drew a bit of attention, but everybody just smiled or nodded at me.”

“Did they have a big potluck afterward?” Sarah's curiosity escalated.

“Not today, but Jake said they sometimes have church picnics in the summer. Everyone brings food to share to the pavilion behind the church.”

“Jake.” The tone of Sarah's one-word reply changed the mood of their conversation. “Jake Brady had no business asking you to join his family as though you were his girlfriend.” She stomped off to check on her brooding hens, ending further discussion about Sunday afternoon.

Rachel didn't mention she'd accompanied the Brady clan to a sit-down restaurant near the interstate. Half the Baptist congregation had been there or arrived during the meal. Everyone had waved or called cheery greetings. She also didn't speak of the stroll huddled under a huge umbrella, enjoying the last autumn foliage in downtown Charm. Their kiss, shared beneath a glorious red oak, would also remain a secret. Rachel would savor the tender memory well into old age while bouncing
kinskinner
on her knee.

Just like it was easy to become spoiled by the electrical appliances in Sarah's home, Rachel could effortlessly slip into Jake's world. She already felt too comfortable with him and too much part of the Brady family. It would be easy to stop at the discount
store on her day off for a few English dresses or skirts to wear to Jake's church services. Or maybe buy a few pretty sweaters and certainly an extra pair of jeans for future trips to Somerset or to Bread of Life.