The Sunroom Page 2

  “Well, I don’t. For one thing, the farmers want rain . . . so maybe God’s answering their prayers.”

  Trudy had a point. Yet it comforted me to assume that the Creator of heaven and earth just might send along rain on a sobering, sad day—just because I missed my mother.

  That afternoon, something horribly embarrassing happened during science class. Mr. Denlinger, whom I secretly adored, called on me to answer a question about amoebas. I was well prepared, had finished every bit of the homework the night before. But when I opened my mouth, I couldn’t speak. My words—the answer to the science question—were trapped inside a huge, throbbing lump in my throat.

  “Miss Owens?” The teacher got up from behind his desk.

  I pointed to my throat as hot tears threatened to spill. Quickly, I looked down, dabbing awkwardly at my eyes while shuffling through blurred homework papers.

  “Miss Owens, are you ill?”

  I shook my head no, refusing to look up. It was my mother who was sick, but how could I tell him in front of my classmates? Seventh graders were supposed to be on their way to maturity, not sitting in class crying like a baby.

  I simply couldn’t reveal the true reason for my silence. I’d be the laughingstock of Neffsville Junior High if I told my teacher how hopeless life seemed, how horrible my fears.

  So to keep from receiving a low mark—or none at all—I hurried to Mr. Denlinger’s desk. Opening my homework pages, I pointed to the correct answer.

  He looked up and offered a most understanding nod, then miraculously, and quite discreetly, he handed me a hall pass. “Take as much time as you need, Becky,” he whispered.

  I’d never forget this moment as long as I lived. Instantly, the handsome, dark-haired science teacher rose ever higher in my estimation. But he was never to know the story behind the tear-streaked face or the muffled sobs in the hallway. At least not from me.

  Chapter 3

  As much as I wanted to visit Mommy, the hospital rules were strict: No visitors under the age of fifteen. Made no difference if you were family or not. Didn’t even matter if you were your mother’s over-anxious firstborn and hungry to size up the situation for herself. The policy stood, heartless and cruel.

  “Why does it have to be that way?” I asked Daddy at supper.

  “Because it is just assumed by the medical profession that children carry germs,” he replied.

  “But we aren’t sick,” Emily insisted.

  “And I’m not a child.” I picked up my knife to cut my meat.

  Daddy, however, was lost in thought and didn’t respond to my bold statement. No use trying to pierce through his private gloom on a night like this. Mommy was far removed from us—physically and in every other way.

  Emily was first to notice that our kitten was missing. Goldie, the older cat, was lapping up milk from a bowl in the corner of the kitchen. “Where’s Angie?” my sister said, pushing away from the table in earnest, going to peer out the back door window. “Oh no! It’s raining . . . hard!”

  With that, I leaped up, too. Emily was right; the weather was turning bad, and rather quickly. The willow tree swayed back and forth like a dancer in slow motion, and the cornstalks in Daddy’s vegetable garden rippled and shook.

  “There’s a weather change in the forecast. I heard it on the radio earlier,” Daddy offered, getting up to join us at the window.

  All of a sudden, I felt his arm around my shoulder, and when I looked, I saw that he was hugging Emily, too. The idea of the three of us encircled this way comforted me, unified us against the world.

  “What’ll happen to our kitty?” I mumbled. “She’ll get soaked.”

  Without a word, Daddy headed for the coat closet. “I’ll have a look outside.” He donned his raincoat and hat and was out the door in a jiffy.

  I pressed my hand against the rain-spattered windowpane, staring hard at my father’s tall frame bowed against a bitter wind. He stepped off every inch of our rural property, including his beloved gardens, in search of the wayward kitten.

  Slowing his pace, he scanned the long strawberry patch out near the split-rail fence that divided our land from the neighbors to the east.

  “Where is she?” Emily said, standing sentinel at the back door.

  “Why’d Angie have to go and run off?”

  I wanted to say that the kitten was stupid, but the frustration I felt had far less to do with Angie’s disappearance and more with Mommy’s hospitalization. Rushing to the back door, I cupped my hands and called out, “Daddy, come inside! It’s too cold to search.”

  Emily joined in. “Please, Daddy, come back!”

  “You’ll get sick, too,” I shouted.

  Like Mommy. . . .

  His deep voice responded, but not to our pleading. He was summoning the lost pet, again and again, amidst a now vicious storm— ”Here, Angie-girl. Here, kitty-kitty”— till I was afraid the pelting rain might soak through his shoes.

  Daddy had never cared two hoots about the cats. Goldie, the older feline, and Angie, the spoiled-rotten kitty, belonged solely to Emily and me. Occasionally, Mommy demonstrated a passing interest by feeding them scraps of food, especially leftover tuna. But never Daddy. He had more important things on his mind—studying Greek or Hebrew and preparing Sunday sermons—than to bond with stray mouse-catchers.

  Tonight, however, Daddy seemed bent on locating our precious kitten, beating the bushes for her, while the first ice storm of the season pounded Lancaster County.

  I made repeated requests for him to come inside and warm up, but determination, or something more, kept him outside.

  His strange behavior frightened me. He knows something about Mommy, I thought, closing the door and shivering. Something’s terribly wrong with Mommy.

  At last, Daddy came trudging indoors, hair wet and face flushed. “I wish you hadn’t stayed out so long,” I said, trying to hide my concern for Emily’s sake. “Angie’ll find her way back home on her own . . . won’t she?”

  “I certainly hope so.” Daddy offered a brief smile. But it was the blank look in his hazel eyes that multiplied my fears.

  “How was Mommy feeling today?” I blurted, unable to squash the question any longer and glad that Emily had busied herself elsewhere in the house.

  He was slow to answer, removing his soggy shoes and placing them near the floor register before pulling out a chair. He sat down with a sigh. “Your mother is very ill, Becky. The doctors plan to operate.”

  His words, clearly stated, jolted my twelve-year-old heart.

  I waited.

  Surely there was more to it. Doctors didn’t just perform surgery without a reason. They had to call the illness something. Mommy’s sickness required a name. Like measles or polio. . . .

  I thought of Billy Thompson, the boy at our former school, stricken with polio. Billy’s diagnosis had come just as we were packing up to move to the country. I remembered being terribly frightened about having lived in the same neighborhood with him, attending the same school. So when we left, I was truly relieved.

  “Why do they want to operate?” I asked. “What’s wrong with Mommy?”

  “The doctors don’t know” came the cautious reply. “That’s why they want to perform surgery.”

  I wondered why her stomach had swollen up. “Maybe she’s expecting a baby.”

  He didn’t laugh, although he might’ve. After all, fathers were supposed to know these things. “No, honey, Mommy’s not having a baby.”

  “Then what could it be?” I asked. “What’s making her so sick?” A flicker of a frown crossed his brow; it was obvious he didn’t know how to proceed. I assumed it by the way his thumb and pointer finger slid down his jawline, bunching up the skin and coming to a stop at the point of his chin. He seemed stalled, groping for a comforting answer.

  My heart sank with the silence. Knowing my father as I did, this hesitation only meant more fuel for worry.

  “Daddy?” I whispered, my heart racing.

 
He was about to speak, about to offer a fatherly word—or so I hoped—when the doorbell rang. Both of us turned and looked toward the living room, somewhat awkwardly, I thought.

  Emily flew into the kitchen. “It’s Uncle Mel and Aunt Mimi!”she declared, her cheeks flushed with delight.

  I sat still as Daddy went to the door to greet our Mennonite neighbors, Melvin and Miriam Landis.

  We must’ve been very young when Mother started referring to our Plain friends as “Uncle” and “Auntie,” because as they came into the kitchen and hugged my sister and me, then unloaded two bags of homegrown produce, I honestly couldn’t remember a time when we’d called them anything else.

  It was perfectly right for Mr. and Mrs. Landis to have been included in our extended family all these years. If ever I were to make a list of nonrelated friends, these cheerful folk would’ve been high at the top. There was something endearing about Aunt Mimi and Uncle Mel. Mommy always said it was the love of Jesus shining out of their German eyes. And I believed her.

  After a bit of small talk, including the news that the kitten was missing, Daddy took our company’s wraps and hung them in the coat closet, then led Uncle Mel and Aunt Mimi back into the living room.

  Emily, full of questions, asked, “Can a kitten live through a downpour?” “God gave cats and other animals survival instincts, darlin’,” Aunt Mimi reassured her. “That means Angie will probably be all right.”

  “Thank you, Lord!” Emily exclaimed, running upstairs to draw her bath water.

  Aunt Mimi chuckled a bit, then a more serious expression settled on her ruddy, round face.

  I excused myself to wash supper dishes, hoping to catch an occasional phrase of the hushed adult conversation. Assuming that their talk was about Mommy, I prayed that one of them might come up with a solution as to what was making her sick. Something the doctors hadn’t thought of, maybe.

  Sudden scratching on the back door prompted me to drop the dishrag and rush to greet my drenched kitty. “Oh, Angie . . . baby, you’re home!” I said, scooping her up in my arms and taking her into the living room.

  Daddy gave a good-natured nod, but it was Aunt Mimi who jumped up and came out to the kitchen with me. “Now, ya know, the poor little thing oughtn’t to warm up too awful fast,” she said, her brown eyes shining.

  “So I shouldn’t just dump her in the dishwater?”

  I joked.

  “Not on your life!” She laughed, and her jovial roundness seemed to shake all over.

  Quickly, I located a clean terry cloth towel and wrapped the shivering kitten in it, wishing we had a fireplace.

  “Some lukewarm milk would be real good for her.” Aunt Mimi gestured toward the refrigerator, then removed a quart bottle of milk. “Heat it nice and slow, stirring it all the while,” she said with a wink.

  “Thank you.” I appreciated her concern. It was entirely genuine, because I knew that Aunt Mimi was a cat person, too.

  I found the smallest pan in the house and poured in a tiny amount of milk before turning on the front left burner. Assuring her that the kitty and I would be fine, I turned my attention to playing nursemaid to my waterlogged pet, and our neighbor headed back to the living room.

  Keeping my mind on the chore at hand wasn’t easy, and I found myself tiptoeing across the kitchen every now and then, eavesdropping— kitty in tow. Daddy was doing most of the talking, though I couldn’t make out every word. Occasionally, Aunt Mimi’s voice came in short, choppy sentences.

  Straining to hear, I held my breath. One word—timid and faltering—stood out above all the others.

  Cancer.

  My mother might have cancer!

  The thought of it made me dizzy with dread. I wanted to burst into the room and confront my father, wanted to be told everything he knew.

  But I wrung the dish towel hard, till it nearly twisted in two.

  Chapter 4

  After the neighbors said their good-byes, Daddy headed for his and Mommy’s bedroom—probably to cocoon away from the world, from the bleak reality. But I didn’t want him to shut me out. I wanted him to talk to me, treat me like the young woman I longed to be.

  Hurrying to the old upright piano, I knew where I could find solace. The instrument had been in my mother’s family for many years, yet it stood tall and elegant against the shortest wall—the wall between the living room and my parents’ bedroom.

  Although we didn’t have many fine furnishings, we did have a well-tuned piano. To me, it was the prettiest piece in the house. Its dark wood gleamed, reflecting the light of the floor lamp next to it, drawing me to its familiar keys.

  Shivering, not so much from physical cold—though I felt chilled just now—I lifted out the heavy bench and sat down. I thumbed through my repertoire book and began to warm up trembling fingers with a four-octave scale, first in A-flat major, then in the relative minor.

  Mommy doesn’t have cancer! I vowed, practicing the scales as if playing them fast might chase her illness away.

  She’ll come home soon. She has to come home!

  I must’ve played the scales ten times, increasing the speed as I went, before turning to the Impromptu in A-flat by Franz Schubert—my Fall Festival piece.

  Emily appeared in her bathrobe, blond hair wet and tousled in ringlets about her shoulders. She got down and crawled under the piano bench, whispering to the prodigal kitten who lay snuggled next to Goldie, the older, wiser pet. Remaining under the bench, she coddled them for a time, then got up and slid onto the bench next to me. She leaned against my arm, the dampness from her hair seeping through my sweater, but I kept playing.

  “Aren’t you tired of Schubert?” she said just as I finished.

  I turned to face her, and she sat up straight, face serious, eyes pleading for an explanation. “If I don’t keep working on this, I won’t have it memorized and ready for competition,” I said softly.

  “Oh, you’ll get the trophy easy,” she said. “You always do.”

  I hugged her and shooed her off to dry her hair and curl it. Thankfully, Emily hadn’t overheard the frightening word regarding Mommy’s possible diagnosis. Whatever it took, I would shield my little sister from the awful truth. If possible, I’d take Mommy’s place at home . . . for Emily’s sake. Till our mother could return.

  Hours later, I lay awake in bed, on the top bunk. I could hear Emily’s steady breathing below me, and I leaned over the side to look at her. Poor little thing—stuck with a fear-ridden sister for a substitute mommy. . . .

  I shook off the notion, praying it would never be permanently so.

  Yet it was impossible to sleep. Worrisome voices filled my head, and soon it was Daddy’s voice that began to drift up from the kitchen. He was talking to someone on the telephone. Probably Mommy.

  Once again, I crept toward the source of the conversation—Daddy’s end of it, at least. I sat at the top of the steps and caught snippets of information. Mommy’s surgery was scheduled—for tomorrow!

  Leaning my elbows on my knees, I listened, wishing I were older.

  If only I were fifteen, I could visit the hospital. Then I wouldn’t feel so left out. Wouldn’t feel so alone. . . .

  Downstairs, Daddy’s chair skittered across the linoleum floor, and I dashed breathlessly to the bottom of the steps, peeking through the crack in the kitchen door. He’d hung up the black telephone, but his right hand was still resting on the receiver.

  For a time, he just stood there, staring at it. Then he sat down and leaned his head against the instrument, like a stone statue.

  A thousand fears gripped my heart, and all at once I forgave my father for his aloofness . . . his preoccupation. He was clearly suffering—as much as I was!

  I watched till I thought my heart might break. Turning, I took the stairs back up, two at a time, and slipped into bed without a sound.

  Lying there in the stillness, I wanted to cry but couldn’t. I thought of the saddest melody I’d ever played, but my eyes were stick dry. Sorrowfully, I
bored a hole into the darkness as raindrops drummed on the roof.

  Chapter 5

  Ever since her kindergarten days, my sister had taken pride in her perfect school attendance. Perfect, except for absences due to blizzards and other inclement weather—things that couldn’t be helped and didn’t get counted against you anyway. Today, by all outward appearances, was to be an imperfect attendance day.

  The cornfield across the road looked as if someone had draped a luminous silver-white sheet over its furrows. Yesterday’s rain had turned to hard sleet—a freak September storm.

  Along with the landscape, a layer of ice presented itself on the windshield of Daddy’s old blue Chevy. I felt sorry for him, having to scrape off the miserable stuff on the day of Mommy’s surgery. Yet I knew he would, because there was nothing—lousy weather included— that would keep my father from going to the hospital today.

  Surprisingly, Daddy put his foot down about Emily and me trying to make it up the hill to the bus stop, even though my sister begged not to miss school. Daddy seemed terribly protective of us, and I knew why.

  “Aunt Mimi will be over shortly,” he said. “She’ll make breakfast for you . . . spend the day.”

  “Growing girls need lots of fuel,” Emily chanted, trying to hide her disappointment about not going to school. “That’s what Aunt Mimi always says.”

  Then, after gathering us into the living room, Daddy read from the Bible and our family devotional book. He offered a prayer—longer than usual—for Mommy’s healing and for divine guidance on the part of the doctors.

  Again, I found myself holding my breath. He shouldn’t say anything about the surgery or the possibility of cancer—not in front of Emily.

  But he did. “Today . . . at eleven o’clock,” he said, pushing up his glasses, “Mommy is scheduled for surgery.”

  Emily blinked silently, taking it all in. “Is she that sick?”

  Daddy nodded slowly. “Many people are praying, people all around the world,” he said, referring to our missionary relatives and friends. “God will take care of her.”