Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

all the meals that will never again be shared.
    While Bishop Troyer helps Mattie into a chair, I go to the sink and run tap water into a glass. Crossing to the table, I hand the water to Mattie. She’s gone quiet and accepts the glass as if she’s lapsed into a trance. She sips and then looks up at me. “How is David? Is he all right?”
    “I don’t know,” I say honestly.
    “I have to get to him.” She rises without finishing the water, then looks around the kitchen as if she’s found herself in an unfamiliar place and doesn’t know what to do next. “If Paul were here, he would know what to do.”
    I go to her side and gently take her arm. “We’re here,” I tell her. “We’ll help you.”
    Bishop Troyer douses the lantern and we start toward the door.
    *   *   *
    Mattie, Bishop Troyer, and I arrive at the Emergency Room of Pomerene Hospital in Millersburg only to be told David was taken to surgery upon his arrival. Most hospitals won’t perform any kind of surgery on a minor patient without parental consent unless it’s a life or death situation. That the boy has already been taken into the operating room confirms his injuries are life threatening. I keep the thought to myself.
    Mattie is barely able to hold it together as we take the elevator to the second floor. We garner a few curious stares as we make our way to the surgical waiting area. It never ceases to amaze me that there are people living in this part of Ohio who react as if they’ve never seen an Amish person.
    It isn’t until we’re beneath the bright fluorescent lights of the surgical waiting room that I realize the stares aren’t directed at the bishop, but at Mattie, and it has nothing to do with her Amishness. I’ve been so absorbed in the situation at hand, I hadn’t noticed how strikingly beautiful she is.
    Mattie was always pretty. When we were teenagers, her loveliness made her somewhat of a curiosity among our brethren. I remember the boys on rumspringa going to great lengths just to catch a glimpse of her. Mattie was demure enough to pretend she didn’t notice. But she did, of course, and so did I. In contrast, I was a rather ordinary-looking girl. A long-limbed tomboy and a late bloomer to boot. I didn’t begrudge Mattie her beauty; I wasn’t jealous. But there was a part of me that secretly envied her. A part of me that wanted to be beautiful, too. I remember trying to mimic the way she laughed, the way she talked, even the way she wore her prayer kapp, with the ties hanging down her back just so. Generally speaking, the Amish have very little in terms of personal expression, especially when it comes to clothing. But where there’s a will there’s a way, especially if you’re a teenage girl and determined to establish your identity; we found creative ways to express our individualism.
    Even after bearing three children, her body is slender and willowy. Though she spends a good deal of time in the sun, her skin is flawless and pale with a hint of color at her checks. Her eyes are an unusual shade of gray and fringed with thick, sooty lashes. All without the benefit of cosmetics.
    She doesn’t go to the gym or get her hair colored at some fancy salon. Her clothes are homemade, and she buys her shoes at the Walmart in Millersburg. But when Mattie Borntrager walks into a room, people stop what they’re doing to look at her. It’s as if a light shines from within her. A light that cannot be doused even by insurmountable grief.
    I buy two coffees at the vending machine and take them to Mattie and the bishop, who are sitting on the sofa in the waiting room. A television mounted on the wall is tuned to a sitcom I’ve never watched and turned up too loud, but neither seems to notice.
    “I’ll see what I can find out,” I tell them.
    At the nurse’s station, I’m told David is listed in critical condition. He was taken to surgery after his blood pressure dropped. The physician believed he was bleeding internally—from an organ or perhaps a blood vessel that had been damaged—and went in to repair it.
    Back in the waiting room, I relay the news to Mattie. Closing her eyes, she leans forward, bows her head, her elbows on her knees. It isn’t until I notice her lips moving that I realize she’s praying. When you’re Amish, grief is a private affair. Generally speaking, they are stoic; their faith bolsters them in the face of life’s trials. But they are also human and some emotions are too powerful to