He said he’d been praying. He said he was sorry he called so late. He just wanted to tell me “sweet dreams.” I was too tired to ask him about classes or the orchard or anything else. After we said our farewells, I realized I felt a peace I hadn’t for years, as if someone were tucking me into bed. Was it Mama I was feeling in my sleepy state? Or Dad? Maybe it was James. And then I realized it was none of them. After Mama died, when I used to talk to God nonstop, it was almost as if I could feel Him tuck me in at night—not physically but spiritually, right before I drifted off.
“I’ve missed You,” I whispered, as I slipped into sleep.
The next morning Ada sent me a text at five thirty saying to pick her up at the end of the lane at nine twenty. I left the house with a few hairs from the locks tucked inside an envelope in my purse.
After I discreetly handed Chuck the envelope, he swabbed Ada and me and then we both hurried up to the pediatric ICU. So far that morning, Sophie and James had both texted me to ask how Caroline was, and Mrs. Glick and Mr. Miller had each left a voice mail message on my phone, asking the same. I needed an answer so I could get back to all of them.
Ada waited outside while I checked in with the nurse and then slipped through the door. I gasped at first—the isolette was empty. But then I spotted Esther in a rocking chair off to the side of the big room, holding Caroline in her arms, the tiny infant still hooked up to an IV and oxygen and bundled in a blanket.
“How is she?” I knelt down in front of Esther. She wore the same pair of sweatpants and pink T-shirt from the day before.
“Doing better,” she answered. “She had a couple of rough moments during the night, though.”
“You must be exhausted,” I said, patting her hand.
She nodded and then went back to staring at her baby.
“You should go home and rest.”
She didn’t answer me.
When I went back out into the hall, Sean was talking to Ada. They looked like quite the pair, he in his lab coat and dress slacks, she wearing a burgundy dress, white apron, and cap. They seemed to be chatting up a storm, and Ada must have explained what I’d been doing.
“I didn’t realize you knew the baby who came in yesterday,” he said.
“I delivered her,” I answered, surprised he would have heard about Caroline. I knew my voice sounded defensive, but I could imagine the talk going around the hospital about the home-birth baby. “And it’s viral pneumonia caused by a respiratory infection,” I said, needing him to know that the source of her illness was a common cold, not a bacterial infection from birth.
He held up both hands and grinned, his blue eyes dancing. “Whoa. No one’s said otherwise.”
I relaxed, a little.
His voice dropped and he leaned closer, as if he were going to tell us an important secret. “I was thinking about the praise meeting going on in the lobby last night. All sorts of people praying and singing, ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord’ and stuff like that. It was a little weird. I felt like I was back home.”
A nervous smiled crossed my lips and I glanced at Ada. She had a blank expression on her face.
“No harm intended,” Sean said quickly to Ada.
“I don’t think the Amish have prayer meetings like that,” I said.
Ada agreed and Sean shrugged, grinning again.
“Anyway,” I said, desperate to change the subject, “Ada and I both got swabbed.”
“So I heard,” Sean said. “Chuck will get right on it. You’ll know in a couple of days.” He turned to Ada, charming as ever. “It’s so nice to meet you,” he said. “I hope I’ll see you again soon.” He started down the hall but then pivoted around.
“Hey, have you heard anything on your house?”
“Nothing yet.” Darci hadn’t called me and, frankly, I was too anxious to call her.
“That’s too bad.” He grinned. “I accepted the offer on mine.”
I gave him a smile and big thumbs-up, and then he turned back around and continued to walk away.
TWENTY-SEVEN
He seems really nice,” Ada said as I drove down Queen Street, heading out of town.
I agreed, though I was still a little taken aback