The Longing by Beverly Lewis Read Free Book Online Page A

several telephones and a vase of flowers, too. One of the nurses did a double take as he and Elias walked past.
    Then, seeing the words Intensive Care , he and Elias located the room where Elizabeth Yoder and her two older sisters kept watch over David, hovering near the bed.
    Reuben paused at the door, catching Elizabeth’s eye. She seemed to crumple at the sight of him.
    “Elias King is here with me,” he said, sensing Elias behind him.
    David’s head was all wound up in white cloths, and his puffy eyes were closed. He lay flat in bed on the near side of a pale blue curtain room divider. Elizabeth straightened, nodding for Reuben to come closer.
    “He’s under heavy medication for pain . . . and other things. Now that he’s survived the night, they say blood flow to the spine is the biggest worry,” she explained, looking smaller than he remembered. “David prob’ly won’t even know you’re here.”
    Reuben stood motionless at the foot of the bed, aware of the length of David’s body taking up the whole of it. Various tubes ran in and out of him, and the effect made the shrewd farmer look even more helpless. All the men in David’s family were strong dairy farmers—his grandfather, father, brothers, and every one of his uncles. In the years Reuben had known them, he’d never once heard a Yoder complain about being tied down to the twice-daily milking or any of the other demanding work required.
    “He’s had lots of tests—X rays and whatnot—to find out more about his brain injury,” Elizabeth said. “He isn’t able to move his legs at all. The doctor says the longer his legs are paralyzed, the less likely he’ll be able to walk
again.”
    Reuben absorbed the news—such a tremendous blow to this proud man. “It’s still early yet,” he said, wanting to offer hope.
    She bowed her head silently.
    “Is there anything we can do for you, Elizabeth?” he asked.
    The two older women looked at him suddenly, as if he’d misspoken.
    “What I mean is . . .” He paused as David’s eyes fluttered and then blinked open.
    All heads turned, and Elizabeth bent low to speak softly, “You have visitors, dear.”
    David frowned, his gaze falling first on Reuben and then on Elias before returning quickly to Reuben. “Did ya say . . . you want to . . . help out?” David’s voice was raspy, and he struggled to breathe.
    “That I did.”
    David lifted his hand to his forehead and held it there, eyes squinting shut momentarily. Then he said painstakingly, “Have someone get word . . . to Caleb.”
    Reuben nodded, not sure what David meant.
    “Tell him to return home,” David added.
    Elizabeth looked pained suddenly but never took her eyes off her husband.
    With that, David lowered his hand, placing it on his chest, and his eyes closed once again.
    Reuben wished he might lead out in prayer right here in the quiet of the dim room. He was fairly certain Elias was already praying silently yet fervently, even as Elizabeth reached for David’s hand.
    Chris Yoder leaned both elbows on his father’s desk in the landscaping office late that afternoon. He twirled his pencil over the ledger—the week’s garden sales. But he couldn’t focus. How could he dismiss his attraction to Nellie Mae Fisher? There was no denying it; he liked her more than he should. She was, after all, Amish. Like Suzy.
    True, Nellie Mae was different from Zach’s girl in that she appeared more conservative than her younger sister, who’d seemed eager to push beyond the boundaries of her Old Order traditions.
    Nellie must be dating someone . . . or even engaged, sweet as she is. She was also pretty, though not in the obvious, dolled-up way of most of the girls in his high school.
    Thumbing through his father’s receipts, he considered the upcoming graduation events at both school and church. The banquet sponsored by their church youth group to honor the high school grads was the most interesting.
    He leaned back in the chair to stretch