Page 19 of A Hidden Hope

The summer heat had settled over Stoney Ridge like an unwelcome guest who had no plans to leave anytime soon.

Humidity clung to the air so thick you could practically wring it out of your shirt.

David Stoltzfus wiped his brow, knowing the only thing that could chase this swelter away was a good rainstorm.

And unless the skies decided to be merciful, it looked like the heat was here to stay—hanging over the town like a damp quilt.

David walked into the Bent N’ Dent and stopped short when he saw a line of customers at the register. Where was Sarah Blank? His gaze swept the store. No sign of her. He hurried toward his office. “I’ll just put my mail on my desk,” he said to the first customer in line, “and be right with you.”

Opening the door of his office, the first thing that caught his eye was the backside of Sarah as she leaned out the open window. “Sarah,” he said, in a tone that clearly conveyed What in the world are you doing?

She whipped around, guilt in her eyes. “Just trying to catch a breeze.” She waved her hand in front of her face. “So hot in here!”

“Good idea,” David said, “but there are customers in the store.”

Sarah quickly crossed the room and through the door to return to the cash register.

David tried to dismiss a familiar wave of annoyance. Every time he stepped out of the store, Sarah seemed to take it as a green light to stop working. Boxes that should have been unpacked stayed untouched, and the peanuts scattered on the floor by the graybeards never got swept up.

But opening a window was an excellent idea.

David’s office in the back of the store could get stifling hot.

He set down the mail on his desk and opened another window to get a cross breeze.

As he did, voices floated up, carried by the air.

Peering out, he spotted Wren Baker sitting at a picnic bench outside, sharing iced tea with a sharply dressed pharmaceutical representative—one whom David recognized.

He came around frequently to fill Dok in on his company’s latest products and usually stopped at the Bent N’ Dent for a cup of coffee or cool drink.

Abgharicht. Eavesdropping. So that’s what Sarah had been up to when David interrupted her, why she looked like she’d been caught red-handed. He frowned.

And yet ... he couldn’t pull himself away.

There was something about the scene that made him uneasy.

He couldn’t quite catch their conversation, but it was very clear that Wren was peppering the rep with questions.

The man was lapping up the attention, answering questions with a touch of bravado.

It was hard not to notice how the rep puffed up under Wren’s focused attention, clearly enjoying the back-and-forth.

David’s chat with Fern at Windmill Farm had only confirmed his impression that Wren Baker had a strong sense of her own importance. This rep, to David, had always seemed eager to impress. Not a good combination.

He wondered if he should mention this to Dok, but then he realized how silly he seemed, as bad as Sarah Blank with her nosy ways.

Wunnernasse un Schneckeschwenz. Nosy and curious.

The very thought made him cringe. His sister didn’t need another wild tale-teller to dismiss, like Sarah’s algae in Blue Lake Pond theory.

What was it his sister said about Sarah?

Sie spricht als wenn sie heissen Brei im Munde hatte.

She talks as though she has mush in her mouth.

A little harsh, but true.

He decided to close the window and stay out of it. Better to focus on his own work, even in a breezeless office, and leave the gossip to the experts. Like Sarah.

During her lunch breaks, Annie hopped on the bus to Lancaster, each time convinced that this ride would be different.

She’d sit in the first seat, on the right side so she had a wide-open view in front of her.

She had read articles about motion sickness in Dok’s medical journals and tried out different strategies.

She rode the bus on a completely empty stomach.

Didn’t work. She tried nibbling on saltine crackers.

No help. She sipped ginger tea. It didn’t even stay down.

She dabbed peppermint essential oil on her wrists.

No help at all. Wristbands with pressure points? Useless.

Day after day, she ended up yanking the cord, desperate to get off the bus before her stomach turned inside out. She barely got off before vomiting on the side of the road.

Her motion sickness was more stubborn than she was. It was relentless.

As Annie scootered home after work that afternoon, she barely noticed the breeze rustling through the trees.

Her mind was caught up in a whirlwind of worry about her job, her future with Gus, and how they were all tangled together.

Everything about her relationship with Gus revolved around becoming an EMT.

It was how they met, how she learned about being an EMT, how they spent time together.

He’d helped her study, cheered her on, and made plans for their future as soon as she finished the course.

But what if she couldn’t get past her motion sickness? If that didn’t change, she’d never be able to become an EMT. And if she couldn’t be an EMT, what might happen to her and Gus? That worry left her just as unsettled as the fear of failing her own dream to be an EMT.

Was she going to lose them both?

No!

Determined to find a solution, Annie buried herself in Dok’s textbooks, searching for any remedy that didn’t involve medication.

But time and again, the answer was the same—pills.

Unwilling to rely on those, she focused on non-drug alternatives, mostly trying to condition herself through sheer will and practice.

The bus driver, now recognizing her routine, offered suggestions.

He told her to lie down on the back bench of the bus and close her eyes. That only made things worse.

If “worse” was even possible, it found Annie.

Today, her queasiness started up immediately as the bus pulled out of Stoney Ridge.

One mere half mile down the road, she had to pull the cord, alerting the driver to stop.

With a long-suffering sigh, he let her out, and she barely made it before she doubled over by the side of the road, heaving.

When she finally straightened up, wiping her mouth, she turned around—only to see Sarah Blank standing there, watching her with wide, concerned eyes.

Self-doubt was practically Evie’s middle name.

She had chosen not to go to college after high school, and the main reason, she convinced herself, was because her grandfather suffered his first stroke and her parents were missionaries in Belize.

Somebody needed to be there to help her grandmother care for her grandfather.

Evie chose to forgo college and remain with them.

She never regretted it. Not for a minute.

But if Evie were being honest with herself, she was relieved to have an excuse not to apply to college.

The truth was, she was certain she wouldn’t get in anywhere.

Her schooling had been all over the place—years spent bouncing around mission schools in Central America, twice dropped into boarding schools, then jerked back to the US during her parents’ furlough, only to head back out again.

It was her grandmother who worried about the toll of being a missionary kid.

Her parents were deeply committed to their mission work, fervently pursuing their careers with a divine purpose in mind.

The constant upheaval had left Evie withdrawn, introverted, riddled with insecurities.

Her grandparents finally insisted she live with them to finish high school instead of starting over in yet another country.

That’s where she met Darcy, her pushy, well-meaning best friend.

And it was Darcy, now a nurse, who kept nudging her to go to college. After Evie’s grandmother passed away, Darcy’s nudges turned into full-on shoves. “Apply! Just apply,” Darcy would say. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

So, Evie applied. And when she got accepted—with a full scholarship—she had never been so astonished in her life.

Suddenly, she was out of excuses and off to college with dreams of becoming a nurse.

She loved it from day one. The satisfaction of making even a small difference in someone’s life gave her a sense of purpose.

But the self-doubt? That didn’t magically disappear. Surrounded by nurses and doctors, younger than many of them, Evie constantly felt like the odd one out. They acted confident in all they did, while she was busy second-guessing everything she did, convinced she’d never measure up.

This last spring, the hospital offered her a job after graduation.

But Darcy had other plans for them—she was ready for an adventure and she thought Evie was too.

“You spent years taking care of your grandparents, then nursing school,” she had told Evie.

“But now it’s your time. This is why nursing is such a great career.

We can do all kinds of things as a nurse and go all kinds of places. ”

Darcy’s relentless drumbeat convinced Evie to join her as a traveling nurse. She’d chosen for them to spend the summer in Alaska. One of the best perks for the long distance, she stressed, was that it would help Evie get over her ridiculous crush on Charlie King.

In the meantime, Evie happened to see the TV news story on Dok Stoltzfus, and she changed her mind. Not about the adventure-as-a-traveling-nurse part and not about the end-her-obsession-with-Charlie part, but the Alaska part. She applied to go to Stoney Ridge, to the Amish.

At that, Darcy seriously questioned Evie’s mental health.