Anna's Healing (40 page)

She walked slowly back to the kitchen, which was only a dozen steps away.

Peggy had placed a bottle of water and assorted cereals on the table along with a half gallon of milk. “Did you eat?”

“I didn't, not since our luncheon.”

“Better do so now then. You've a long ride back ahead of you. I still can't believe he would be stupid enough to—”

“I'm going back?”

“Well, honey, we can't keep you here. Have you seen how small this place is? I have to step outside to change my mind.” She pushed a bowl and spoon toward Anna. “Sorry, but we don't keep a lot of food on hand. This will at least give you something in your stomach, though Spencer doesn't choose the healthiest kind of cereal. He's still a little kid as far as that is concerned.”

Anna stared at the boxes—something with a rabbit on the front, another with a leprechaun, and one with cinnamon toasted oats. She chose the last and filled her bowl, adding milk, and diving into the food. She hadn't realized how hungry she was.

Peggy poured herself a cup of the coffee and held up another cup to Anna, but she said, “No, thank you.” The last thing she needed on her stomach was day-old coffee.

Peggy glanced down the hall, and then she sat down across from her again. “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing.”

“You don't even know why he brought you here?”

Anna scooped up another spoonful of cereal, but paused with it halfway to her mouth. “Someone's sick?”

“His wife, Karen. She's been a good friend to me these many years.” Peggy stared out the small window beside the table, as if she were
seeking answers from the darkness. “She has cancer. Not much time left now. Maybe a week.”

Anna set down her spoon and placed her hands in her lap. “I'm sorry.”

Peggy nodded. “Thank you. And keep eating. The living need to eat.”

“He thinks I can heal her?”

“He isn't thinking. That's the problem. But he probably hopes you can. That man's mind shut off when he found out she had cancer and couldn't beat it.”

“I doubt I can help her. I don't even understand what happened to me, not completely.”

“It's true, though? You were handicapped?”

“
Ya.
I was driving a wagon, pulling our harvester when the tornado hit.”

“And you couldn't walk?”

“Spinal break. I couldn't use my legs at all.”

“But you woke up nearly a year later, and you could walk?”

Anna nodded.

“I heard your story. It's all over the local news. Some are saying it's a miracle, and others are claiming it was all a hoax. Spencer is banking on it being the real deal.”

Anna didn't know what to say to that, so she resumed eating.

“It's been too much, is all. Too much for him to handle.” She ran her fingers through her curls. They straightened before bouncing back into place. “They've been replaying the story of when that tornado hit on the news because of your miracle. That same week of your tornado, Spencer bought this motor home. He'd finally retired from his job.”

“What did he do for a living?”

“Maintenance man for the school district in Paris. He was good at it too. Nothing to be ashamed of doing maintenance work. He always showed up, always on time and willing to do what needed to be done. I went to his retirement party, and even the superintendent was bragging on old Spence, saying what a dependable person he was.”

Anna realized she didn't want to eat any more. She pushed the bowl away and focused her attention on the middle-aged woman across from her.

Peggy, for her part, seemed to be talking to herself as much as she was to Anna. “I wish you could have seen him then. He had all these brochures—different kinds of motor homes, different states they were going to visit. Karen, she was tickled pink. That's the way it's always been with her. Spencer's dreams became her dreams, and who could blame him for wanting to get out of Texas after forty years of cleaning up other folk's messes?”

“So they bought this trailer?”

“Sold their home, went down to the factory, and paid cash for it. They made it all the way to Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. You know, the place where the presidents' heads are carved into the mountainside? I've heard it's quite a sight.”

“I saw a picture of it once in a magazine.”

“That's about as close as I've been too. Anyway, that was when Karen first got sick. It was last September, about the time you were wrestling with the tornado. By January, he'd called me to come and help. Taking care of her full-time was too much of a strain. I arrived to find he'd settled down here, even built a handicap ramp for her chair, though she's been bedridden for weeks now.”

Peggy stood and put the boxes of cereal back into a cabinet. She returned to the table, sat down, and stared at her hands. “I don't blame you for judging him. What Spence did—grabbing you and bringing you here—that was totally out of line.”

She glanced up at Anna. “But he loves her, and love sometimes causes you to do things you'd never imagine. He even gave up smoking for her. Twenty-five-year habit, and he stopped cold turkey the day they delivered Karen's oxygen machine. I thought he'd accepted the inevitable, but he's still clinging to the hope there's a way to rid her body of the cancer. Last week it was an herb he'd ordered from South America. This week… well, this week it's you.”

“What kind of cancer does she have?”

Peggy waved away the question. “It's spread. The stuff has eaten her up.”

“She's dying?”

“Yes. She is. And after forty years of marriage, I'm pretty sure that Spencer is dying with her.”

CHAPTER 61

F
ive minutes later, Spencer walked down the short hall and stopped at the doorway. He nodded toward Anna, motioning for her to join him. Because she had no idea what else to do, and hoping that in Karen's room there might be a way out of the motor home, she followed him down the hall.

“I told her who you are, but she's on a pretty heavy dose of painkillers. Not sure she'll remember.”

“What exactly—”

“I wanted to go in with you, but Karen wants to see you alone. She can be… stubborn, to say the least. A mite of a girl like you, I don't think you can hurt her. I don't believe you would hurt her.” Spencer shook his head. “Go in. Do what you can.”

He began to turn away but stopped with his back to her. “She's everything to me.”

Without another word, he walked toward the kitchen.

Karen's room was nothing like what Anna had expected, though it wasn't as if she'd ever been in a motor home before. From the looks of things, this was a top-of-the-line model. She'd known a few men back in Indiana who had gone to work in the RV factory outside of Shipshewana. They had mostly done cabinetry work. The jobs paid well, but once a man married, he'd rather be working near his home and not in a factory all day.

Karen's room was much tidier than the other rooms in the trailer.
Small windows on both sides of the bed were positioned near the top of the ceiling. At less than six inches, Anna couldn't have fit through them even if she managed to hoist herself up that high. Toward the back of the room was a skylight. One wall of the room was an oak cabinet—complete with shelves and built-in drawers. She stepped closer and ran her hand over the cabinet face. It looked like Amish work to her, so maybe this motor home had been built in Shipshe.

The large-sized mattress was tucked into the shelving unit so that it made a sort of headboard across the top of the bed.

An oxygen machine and IV drip were crammed next to Karen's side of the bed, and beside that was a small, straight-back chair. There wasn't room for anything bigger.

But Anna saw Karen's touch in the bedroom. Apparently, she'd decorated it before falling ill. The spread on the bed was a paisley print with red, gold, and purple designs. Short curtains that coordinated with the spread adorned the windows. And on the shelf nearest her was a worn Bible and a hand-stitched embroidery piece, which was placed inside a white wooden frame. It read, “God is our refuge and strength.”

Anna picked up the frame and studied the verse, one from the Psalms that she recognized all too well.
Mammi
had reminded her of it often enough in the last year.

“You're a believer?” The voice was a mere whisper, but the eyes that studied her seemed alert enough. Karen was probably Spencer's age, certainly in her sixties. She'd lost her hair, and her shiny head reminded Anna of the new niece she had back in Indiana. Would she ever meet her? What would Spencer do when she couldn't heal his wife?

“
Ya
. I was baptized a few years ago, back at my church in Indiana.”

Karen nodded. “That's good, child.”

Anna couldn't tell much about the woman. The bedspread was pulled up nearly to her chin. However her eyes were the light blue of an early morning sky. Her face sported plenty of wrinkles, even laugh lines around her mouth and eyes. Anna suspected she would have liked this woman if she had met her under other circumstances. The clatter of the oxygen machine and the occasional beep of the IV unit faded into the background as Anna sank onto the chair.

“It's true, then?”

Anna didn't have to ask what she was referring to. Evidently Spencer had told Karen why he'd brought her to their home. “
Ya
.”

“That's wonderful. I'm glad for you, Anna—that you'll be able to live a normal life. A young girl like you—” She paused to cough up phlegm caught in her throat.

Anna jumped up to pull a tissue from the box on the shelf. She handed it to her and asked if she would like a sip from the pitcher of water.

Karen ignored her question. “Spencer thinks you can save me.”

“I know he does, and I would if I knew how. I can see how much he loves you, and his sister does too. It's… it's very obvious that you all mean the world to one another.”

“Sometimes that much love can smother a person.”

Anna understood that. She'd felt that way when she was confined to her wheelchair, when everyone wanted to help so badly. But sometimes what she needed most was to be alone. Was that what Karen wanted?

She seemed to drift into a light sleep.

Anna was debating whether to stay or walk back down the hall when Karen said, “Tell me about it. Tell me what it was like.”

So she did. She told her about the accident—how frightened and angry she had been. She explained how her family had cared for her, prayed for her, never left her side.

“Like Spencer.”

Anna wasn't sure whether Spencer and her family were very much alike. One thing was certain, though. They both loved and cared for their family. In Spencer's case, he'd become lost in that love, or perhaps in the grief that accompanied it.

Karen was staring at Anna, the look in her eyes calm but curious.

“And you never expected to walk again?”

“
Nein
. I met people in the hospital and in rehab—some who had been injured for many years. They would come back to learn to operate a new prosthetic or maybe because they had experienced a setback. Their condition never improved. Why should mine? But… there were the dreams.”

“Dreams?”

“Yes. Some I didn't understand, but most of them included family members.” She hesitated and finally added, “Though they frightened me at first, more recently they comforted the ache in my heart.”

“I've had similar dreams,” Karen said softly.

Anna didn't know how to respond to that, so she continued telling about her dreams, how they had changed when she was so sick, and she described waking and finding herself able to walk.

“God has blessed you.” Karen raised a wrinkled, weak hand and grasped Anna's. “He's blessed me too. Spence doesn't see that, but I've had a good life. We know there's more than this. Don't we, dear?”

Anna nodded, the lump in her throat preventing her from speaking.

“And now it's my time.”

Tears slipped down Anna's cheeks. She wasn't sure why she was crying for Karen—a person she had just met, but she did understand there was no danger from the elderly woman. Perhaps it was the exhaustion in her eyes. Anna could relate all too well to that. Or maybe… maybe it was the peace she saw behind the fatigue. She thought of the embroidered verse and the Bible. Karen's faith had somehow remained strong. It was Spencer who was struggling. Spencer who had lost his anchor and was awash in a sea of pain.

“My
mammi
, she likes the Psalms. Could I read some aloud to you?”

“That would be good.”

Anna started with the first chapter and made it to the end of the fourth. “ ‘In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.'”