Page 3 of A Hidden Hope

As David listened to his sister’s lengthy rant, it occurred to him how worn-out she looked.

Her strawberry-red hair had more white than red in it.

Dark circles rimmed her eyes. More wrinkles than he remembered lined her cheeks.

He knew she’d been on the search to add a partner to her practice for a while now, but he felt it was a half-hearted hunt.

He could see why his brother-in-law had taken the matter into his own hands.

“So let me get this straight. You have wanted to find a partner. You tried. Yet you haven’t had a single bite.

So, with Matt’s prodding, you applied to this program, but no interest. Until today.

And thanks to Matt, you’ll be able to choose the best out of two options for a partner. ”

Her brow furrowed.

“Is that so bad?”

“Yes. No.” She frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“You’re missing the point. These two med school grads aren’t qualified yet. They still have to pass their final boards to get licensed. Remember, they didn’t get matched . I wouldn’t feel comfortable having them hand out two aspirin without supervision.”

David was sympathetic, but this really wasn’t his problem.

He had a full day of problems waiting for him—half with the store, half with the church.

The store’s were much easier to solve—delayed shipments, missing boxes, spoiled produce.

Annoying but fixable. The church’s were the ones that weighed him down.

A beloved father of eight, dying of cancer.

A young couple having marital difficulties.

One of his ministers was thinking of leaving Stoney Ridge to move to a less expensive area.

“Ruth, they’re educated. Now they need experience.

Just observing you will be beneficial to them. ”

“But how does it help when it means I have to be the one to supervise them? Me! You know how hard it is for me to plan ahead. I thrive on pivoting at a moment’s notice.

Somehow, I’ll have to teach them all the basic skills while still keep on top of my practice.

You can’t just hand off patients to new residents.

Medical students have had very little hands-on experience.

They’ve spent most of their time in a classroom or in a morgue with their cadaver—”

David’s eyebrows shot up.

“—or just observing other doctors. I wanted to find a partner who can spell me, not brand-new graduates who need constant supervising.”

Fair enough. “So maybe at first you might need to do some hand-holding. But I would think it won’t be long before you have confidence in them. Start small. Give them duties you know they can handle. Like...”

Her eyes squinted, like she was starting to buy in. “Like ... filling out insurance forms.”

David smiled. “Well, um, I guess that’s a place to start. And you can go from there. Give them actual patient experience.” It was past time for the Bent N’ Dent to open, and the graybeards would be arriving for coffee soon, so he gave her a pat on the arm and started to go.

“David, hold on. I need a place for them to live.”

He turned, then tilted his head. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re asking me to solve that problem?”

“Because you know so many people. And because they arrive tomorrow. Maybe you can find a place for just a short period, until they look for their own living arrangements.”

“How long is a short period?”

Ruth let out a puff of air. “I don’t know ... a few weeks? Just until I can figure out how this is all going to work.”

Still, David hesitated.

“You must know of someone with a spare room or two. Someone who’d be willing to offer room. See if they’ll include board for a reasonable fee. They’ll be paid, of course. The program lady said so. Not really sure how much, but I’ll find out.”

Ruth made it sound easy, but David knew how busy farming families were, especially during the summer.

Providing room and board to an Englisch stranger was not a small ask.

Decades ago, it would’ve been unthinkable.

But offering hospitality to non-Amish was a more acceptable practice in the last ten years or so.

“I’d have them stay with us, but Matt just demoed our spare bathroom. He needed a project after baby Gabe was ... well, you know.” Her voice drizzled to a stop.

David filled in the rest. After baby Gabe’s birth father gained full custody of him.

It had been a painful yet poignant chapter in Ruth and Matt’s life as foster care parents.

For the first time, his sister had talked about slowing down and working less.

About having more time for church work, hobbies, interests.

More time for Matt too. All good intentions, but in reality, Ruth seemed to be working harder than ever.

“Can you think of anyone? Please, David? I’m really in a bind. What about the Inn at Eagle Hill?”

“I just bumped into Rose last evening, when I was picking up our mail. She said the inn is booked solid through July.”

Ruth let out a tired sigh.

David felt himself caving in, like he always did when his only sister needed his help. “Well, maybe Fern Lapp. Luke and Izzy Schrock had to return to Kentucky to help his cousin for a few more months.”

Ruth’s eyes went wide. “Would you mind asking Fern for me? And did I mention that they arrive tomorrow?” She started backing up, as if the conversation had concluded.

He knew that particular trick. “Ruth...”

She started walking faster, still backward. “You know how that saying goes, David. You can’t say no to a bishop.” She gave him a five-finger wave and turned around, marching toward her office in that Dok-like way she’d always had, even as a young girl, striding fast like she was being chased.

David blew out a puff of air. Her problem had just become his problem.

This might be the miracle Annie Fisher had been waiting for.

She had just finished preparing an exam room for the next patient when she overheard a sort of one-sided whisper-yell conversation drift in through the open crack of Dok’s office door.

Annie stopped in the hallway, just for a moment, as she heard Dok say something about two new doctors joining the practice tomorrow.

Tomorrow?

Annie wasn’t one to eavesdrop. Not like her mother Sally, who had been working at Dok’s on Saturdays and reported back everything she overheard in the waiting room, often mixing up names and details.

Rumors started. When Sally had been “overcome” with a vague illness in mid-May and had to stop working to recover her health, Dok didn’t ask if she planned to return.

Annie was nothing like her mother. Complete opposites.

Anyway, so Annie wasn’t one to eavesdrop, but Dok’s voice had risen quite a few decibels, in that staccato way she had that meant she was not happy. It didn’t take long to figure out that Dok was talking to her husband Matt and that he was responsible for the arrival of the nurse and doctors.

If so, Annie wanted to give Matt Lehman a big pat on the back.

She knew firsthand how tirelessly Dok worked.

The practice had been inundated with patients ever since that TV news story ran.

Every single day, Annie had to respond to phone calls of people who begged, literally begged, to see Dok.

She had to tell them that Dok couldn’t take on any new patients right now, then apologize profusely, and finally offer to add their names to a long waiting list.

That list felt like a lie. There’d only been one new patient accepted and that was because old Simon Miller had died. Annie felt bad turning prospective patients away, but she had no choice. There was only one Dok to go around.

Until tomorrow. Then there would be two additional doctors in Stoney Ridge. And a nurse.

Annie smiled.

Then her smile faded.

How would it work to add two new doctors and a nurse? The office was already cramped. There was only one exam room. Dok had one office. The waiting room was tiny and always full. How could they possibly accommodate more doctors and more patients?

Even though Annie felt a bit anxious, she couldn’t ignore the flicker of excitement at the thought of Dok getting some much-needed help.

With Annie’s final EMT exam to occur in August, she had felt increasingly unsettled to leave Dok’s practice.

She loved working here. She loved being around Dok.

Leaving the practice weighed on her like an overstuffed suitcase she’d been lugging around for weeks.

She kept trying—and failing—to find the perfect moment to tell Dok.

In her mind, she’d have enough time to find the right replacement, help train them, and then start looking for an EMT job.

But so far, that perfect moment was playing hard to get.

Or maybe she just didn’t have the nerve to seize it.

Her very special friend Gus Troyer was eager for her to hand in her resignation and start interviewing—at his fire station. “Tell Dok!” he said often. “She’ll understand. She’s had plenty of assistants come and go.”

That was exactly why it was so hard for Annie to tell her.

Dok invested so much in people, and some assistants took an enormous amount of effort to properly train—the bishop’s daughter Lydie Stoltzfus, for example.

Annie had replaced Lydie and spent months reorganizing her confusing work system.

Sometimes, she thought that Dok did more for Lydie during her tenure than Lydie did for Dok.

But she did appreciate Gus’s consistent enthusiasm for her becoming an EMT, especially as her mother kept trying to change Annie’s mind.

Annie knew that Gus had more on his mind than the finishing of the EMT course.

He was eager to start courting Annie. And she was just as eager.

But they had an agreement to remain “just friends” until she finished her EMT course, to avoid becoming distracted.

Gus had not only respected her request to remain “just friends” but even offered to tutor her in the EMT classes.

It was no wonder she thought of him as Mr. Wonderful.

Becoming an EMT was extremely important to Annie. She had felt a calling from the Lord to the work, but that didn’t mean it was easy. Dok had to step in—not only to get the bishop on board but also to convince her parents.

Dok’s voice on the telephone grew so loud that Annie didn’t need to feel guilty about overhearing the private phone conversation. Everyone in the waiting room could hear her. Dok asked Matt how he’d like it if she came down to the police station and gave everyone advice about how to do their job?

Poor Matt. He might have meant well, but he was in the doghouse. Husband-wise.

Quietly, Annie returned to her desk in the waiting room. When she’d prayed for a way to resign without leaving Dok in a bind, she never imagined Heaven’s answer would be sending not one but two doctors and a nurse.

A big smile spread across her face. Ask and ye shall receive , right?