Sarah's Orphans

by Vannetta Chapman

  Returning the pen, he thanked the shop clerk and walked back out into the brisk February morning. The bus destined for Sarasota was just pulling out. As it passed him, Deborah Yoder glanced out the window, and for a fraction of a second, her gaze met his. Before he could think whether he should wave or not, she abruptly turned away.

  That evening, as he was finishing dinner with his brother and sister-in-law, he pulled out the scrap of paper and handed it to Joseph.

  He studied it a moment before passing the scrap to Rebecca, and then he reached for his pipe. For as long as Paul could remember, his brother had enjoyed a pipe after dinner—never during the day, never more than one bowl full—and yet he seemed to take great pleasure from such a small thing. Since the surgery he no longer smoked the pipe, but he still carried it in his pocket and took it out occasionally to study it.

  It occurred to Paul that his brother was completely satisfied with his life, in spite of the fact that he’d nearly lost it during the heart attack. Or maybe because of that fact. Who could say?

  “This is a gut price.” Rebecca tapped the scrap of paper. “And eighty-seven acres, it’s big enough but not too large.”

  “That’s what I was thinking, and it’s nearly half the price the same amount of land would be back home.”

  “Ya, La Grange County is a tourist mecca now.” Joseph grunted and smiled around the pipe. “Our bruders seem to enjoy that.”

  “Sure. It’s nice to have the restaurants.”

  “Pie from the Blue Gate tastes even better than mine,” Rebecca admitted.

  “But for a farmer, it’s not so gut. I suppose since I’m the youngest, I felt the weight of that more than our bruders.”

  No one spoke for a few moments. Joseph studied his pipe. Rebecca stood and cleared off the dishes. She washed, Paul dried, and they both insisted that Joseph remain in his chair.

  “You’re spoiling me and treating me like an old man,” he grumbled. He walked over to a small desk, pulled out a sheet of paper, sat at the table, and began to make some notes.

  When Paul and Rebecca had finished the dishes and returned to the table, he rotated the sheet toward them.

  “You told me that you had saved this amount.” He pointed at the top number.

  “Ya. That’s right.”

  “And we owe you this much at least for your help since I’ve been sick—”

  “You owe me nothing.”

  Joseph tapped the second number. “I would have paid anyone this amount, and we’ve made enough with the Christmas rush to cover it.”

  Paul nodded, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to accept money from his brother. The doctor bills had been exorbitant. The community had held several auctions to help pay off the debt. He wondered if the money Joseph planned to give him would be better spent returned to the benevolence fund. Instead of arguing, he waited for his brother to continue.

  “As far as I remember, the place has been empty for at least a year.” Joseph glanced at his wife for confirmation.

  “Ya. It has, and I don’t remember the home being in such good shape even before Leon Fisher passed. Actually, we never saw much of the inside of the house. When it was Leon’s turn to host church service, we always had it in the barn.”

  “So the barn was in gut shape?” Paul asked.

  Rebecca and Joseph shared a look, which told Paul all he needed to know. Instead of depressing him, it made his palms itch. He hadn’t realized how restless he felt until that moment. Definitely time to get to work, and not inside his brother’s dry goods store. He’d enjoyed his time staying with them, but he longed for his own land, for the feel of dirt sifting through his fingers, even for the ache of sore muscles from a long day in the fields.

  Joseph returned his pipe to his pocket. “Call this number tomorrow. Let’s set up a time to go and take a look. You won’t know what you should offer until you see the place.”

  Paul felt good about the plan. As he prepared for bed, he tried to tamp down his enthusiasm. There was no use getting excited about a place that might turn out to be a dump. On the other hand, Joseph would soon be well enough to return to the store, and Paul was more than ready to own a place of his own.

  CHAPTER 9

  Mateo sat watching the lights in the building across the street. He’d been able to figure out that the tall man and the woman lived upstairs in an apartment over the store. He’d also seen another man up there, sitting by the window during the day. As he watched, one by one the lights went out.

  He felt more alone then.

  His mind wanted to tussle with the questions he’d been trying to ignore. Questions like where was his mom? What if something had happened to her? And what was he going to do about Mia? His sister couldn’t grow up in an abandoned barn or a dilapidated trailer.

  The night before, he’d pulled out some of the boxes from the trash dispenser behind the store. The old trailer they were hiding in provided some shelter, even if there were holes in the roof and the glass in the windows had cracked and spidered. With the empty boxes, he’d created a sort of fort that he hoped would keep them a little warmer. That’s where Mia was sleeping.

  At least she wasn’t hungry. He’d found cans of beans and loaves of bread in the Dumpster as well. Why would anyone throw out good food? He couldn’t imagine. He’d stuffed as much as he could into the pockets of his ragged coat and hurried back across the road.

  No, he wasn’t worried about Mia being hungry.

  But he was worried about the persistent cough that had begun earlier that morning. Touching her forehead, he thought maybe she had a fever. Wasn’t it enough that they were homeless and alone? Did she also have to be sick?

  It wasn’t fair.

  Mateo brushed away his tears, angry at himself for being weak.

  Girls cried. Women cried.

  He was supposed to be the man of the family. It was his responsibility to watch over his little sister.

  The last thing his mother had said was, “Cuidado con tu hermana,” and taking care of his sister was exactly what he planned to do.

  CHAPTER 10

  Once Sarah was sure that Isaac and Luke were in bed and asleep, she put on her coat and made her way out to the barn. Andy had been there since dinner. Henry had joined him soon after. Basically, they’d been hiding out.

  During the meal, the younger boys had asked after their mother. When Sarah said, “She’s gone away for a few days,” no one questioned her. The subject was dropped, and everyone returned their attention to their food.

  When she walked into the barn, she found Andy and Henry staring under the hood of the tractor.

  “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” She reached up and tousled Henry’s hair. He looked the most like their father. He was also the most even tempered among them. Henry had that rare trait of being able to accept and roll with whatever came their way. He reminded Sarah of a kite in the wind, refusing to be overcome by its force.

  “Nein. Tomorrow I am only a farmer, not a Dutch Pantry employee.” He straightened up, combed back his hair with his fingers, and said, “Would you be sure you wouldn’t like to try some of our fresh cheese with that?”

  “Putting on the accent kind of thick.” Andy didn’t look up. Instead, he continued to hover over the tractor’s engine.

  Sarah smiled. “And you sound more Irish than Amish.”

  They all laughed, and then she marveled that they could. Perhaps they were past the point of grieving. Perhaps this latest blow was the one that would tip them over into some dark abyss. Or maybe they were simply enjoying a lighter moment, something they’d had far too little of in their life.

  “I’d like to talk to you both about Mamm.” Sarah upended a feed bucket and sat on it.

  “That means she’s staying, bruder,” Henry said to Andy as he winked at her. “You may as well get your head out of that tractor.”

  But once they were all seated in a circle, the light from Andy’s lantern slanting across the floor, Sarah couldn’t think of h
ow to start.

  Fortunately, Andy saved her. “I told Henry what you told me—all of it.”

  “And I can’t say I’m surprised. Mamm…well, she hasn’t been quite right for a few years now.” When no one responded to that, Henry pushed forward. “What I mean to say is, it seems to me that she emotionally distanced herself from Dat and at the same time from us. She’s like a house with the shutters closed tight against a storm.”

  “But shutters also keep out the light,” Sarah murmured.

  “Indeed. But tell someone inside that—someone who is terrified and quivering.” Henry shrugged his shoulders when they both stared at him.

  “Our bruder may be only sixteen, but he has the makings of a bishop,” Andy said.

  “Or at least a preacher.”

  Henry was sitting on a bale of hay. He smiled and then reached down, plucked out a single straw, and stuck it in his mouth.

  “Do you think she’ll come back?” Sarah asked.

  “Can’t know for sure.” Andy looked at Henry, who shook his head.

  “But she has to come back eventually.”

  “Women have left the faith before, Sarah. Surely you know that.” Andy held up a hand as she started to protest. “I know Mamm said that she left to see her cousin, but she wouldn’t give you a name—that’s suspicious. The only Florida community I know of is Sarasota, and it’s like Amish Disneyland.”

  “Some share your opinion,” Henry agreed. “Others say that even the Amish need a week’s relaxation from rules and such.”

  Andy ran a hand across the back of his neck, spreading grease there that he obviously didn’t realize had stained his fingers. “We could write some letters to family. See what they know.”

  “Not sure what good they can do. Most of them live in Ohio.”

  “And they might descend on us in droves.” Sarah wrapped her arms around her middle. “I feel better taking care of things ourselves.”

  “I agree,” Henry said. “Remember Onkel Herbert? Do we want him showing up on the doorstep offering to live here?”

  Onkel Herbert had visited for their father’s funeral. He’d brought his pet goat on the bus, though Sarah couldn’t fathom how he’d managed that. He’d even insisted on bringing the animal in the house to sleep on a straw bed in his room. No, it didn’t bear thinking about Uncle Herbert descending on them.

  Mammi had attended the funeral as well, but she’d left somewhat abruptly. Sarah rather thought she could get along well with her father’s mother. Still, it was a chancy thing, calling on family. There was no telling who would insist on helping them.

  “Perhaps we should wait on any letter writing,” Sarah said.

  “Tell the bishop?” Now Andy leaned forward, his elbows braced on his knees.

  “But she could come back! She could change her mind, and then…” Her brothers were staring at her as if she were hiding Herbert’s goat behind her back. “And then we would have worried him for nothing.”

  Andy stood and picked up a grease rag off the workbench. “It’s Friday. I think this is not an emergency, and it can at least wait until Sunday morning. If we haven’t heard from her by the time the service is over, I’ll speak with Bishop Levi.”

  Sarah returned the feed bucket to where she’d found it and dusted off the back of her dress. At least they had a plan, and they were all sticking together.

  “You done here?” Henry asked Andy.

  “Almost. Go on without me. I’ll be in soon.”

  As they walked back toward the house, Henry shoulder to shoulder with Sarah, she asked, “Do you think we’ll be okay?”

  “Honestly?” He opened the back door for her, stomped his boots on the mat to knock off the mud, and headed straight for the plate of fresh baked peanut butter cookies. “I think we’ll do better than when she was here.” He stuffed an entire cookie in his mouth.

  “How can you say that?” It felt like a betrayal to Sarah, though she’d had the same thought herself.

  “Because it’s true. Look, I know you love her. We all love her.” Henry opened the fridge, pulled out the milk, and raised his eyebrows.

  “No thanks.”

  He poured a glass full, returned the milk, and promptly drank half of it. Reaching for another cookie, he rested his back against the kitchen cabinet. “We all love her, Sarah. It’s not as if I’m being disloyal by saying what we know is true.”

  When she still didn’t respond, he glanced slowly around the room. “No broken dishes. No yelling or crying. No awkward silences where we wonder what she’s going to do next. Maybe she wasn’t as bad as Dat, not as violent, but she was as unpredictable.”

  “And now?”

  “Now we have a chance to make the kind of home we’ve never had. I’m not saying it will be easy, but it will be better than what it was before.”

  “Are you sure you’re only sixteen?”

  “I’m wise for my age. Didn’t you hear Andy? I might even be bishop material.” Laughing, he rinsed out his glass, removed his shoes, and bounded up the stairs.

  Leaving Sarah in the kitchen, studying a plate of cookies and envisioning a peaceful family life.

  CHAPTER 11

  The next day didn’t start peacefully.

  A coyote had found its way into the chicken coop. Several of the hens were killed, and the rest were scattered. Isaac was more than happy to look for them, but in the process he brought a lizard, a snake, and a rabbit into the kitchen. Each time Sarah shooed him out. Each time he stuck the critter in his pocket with a smile as he walked away.

  Luke, on the other hand, was determined to sulk all day.

  “It’s not my fault you got into an argument at school,” Sarah reminded him.

  “It was about sports. Sports, Sarah. You’re supposed to argue about sports. I was only saying that if Oklahoma had its own NFL team, we would have to endure less news about the Cowboys and the Saints.”

  “How would you even know that?”

  “Guys talk.”

  “But we don’t subscribe to a newspaper, and we certainly don’t own a television.”

  “Tell me. The only way to see a ball game around here is to go to Ethan’s.”

  “Do you think that Ethan could be part of the problem?”

  “I thought you liked him.” Luke finished wiping off a pair of boots and set them well away from the bucket of water.

  “Ya, for sure he seems like a nice kid. But he’s not Plain, Luke. We’re different, and I wonder if your spending so much time with him is a gut thing.”

  Instead of being angry with her, he offered his slow, charming smile.

  “Are you worried about me, Sarah?”

  “Of course I am. You’re my little bruder.”

  “Not so little now. Only four more months of school, and then I’ll be free.”

  “Free to do what?” She handed him another pair of boots to clean.

  Instead of answering, he changed the subject. “There are only five people left in our family. This is my sixth pair of muddy boots to clean.”

  “Andy has a couple pairs. Just, you know, in case he needs them.”

  Luke groaned as if he had a terrible stomachache, but he dipped his brush into the pail of soapy water and began to scrub. The sun was again shining on their snow-covered fields, and mud was everywhere. Though it was only ten in the morning, the temperature had risen to the midforties. With no wind at all, it was a beautiful day to be outside.

  Luke’s task was somewhat futile. They both knew the shoes would be muddied again as soon as someone slipped them on.

  That was Andy’s logic. To teach Luke the futility of arguing and also for using inappropriate language in school. Apparently, he’d had quite a row with one of the other boys. Had it all been over football, or was there more to the story? Isaac was still looking for hens. Andy was mending the wire around the coop, trying to make it coyote-proof. Sarah looked up to see Henry walking back across the pasture. He’d let Dusty out for some time in the field and had w
alked the perimeter to check the fencing.

  “Problem with the fence?” Andy asked as he hammered more goat fence to the south side of the pen. They couldn’t afford a new chicken coop. He was doing his best to mend the breaks in the board with old materials he’d found in the barn.

  “No problem. It looks gut.”

  “Did you forget that you’re supposed to be cleaning out Dusty’s stall?”

  “I didn’t forget, bruder. But I thought you’d like to know someone is looking at old Leon Fisher’s place.”

  Sarah had been attempting to coax one of the hens out of a tree. Andy was hammering the fencing. Isaac was adding a spider to the collection in his pocket, and Luke was scrubbing the last muddy boot. Everyone stopped and turned to stare at Henry.

  “Fisher’s place?” Andy readjusted his grip on the hammer. “It’s been for sale a long time.”

  “Ya. I know.”

  Henry leaned against the chicken coop, and Sarah had the absurd notion the entire thing might fall over under his weight. But it didn’t. It was sturdier than it looked, sort of like her family.

  “Amish or Englisch?” Andy asked.

  “They’re in a buggy.”

  “Could you tell who it was?” Sarah asked.

  “Nein. Too far away.”

  “Fisher’s place is a mess.” Sarah stood up on the tip of her toes, as if she would be able to see the old, dilapidated house, but it was on the opposite side of the adjacent farm. She couldn’t see a thing except for fields. “I remember going with Mamm once to take Leon some fresh bread when he was ill.”

  “Mamm made bread for neighbors?” Isaac squatted down to study something under a rock.

  “Actually, I made the bread, but it was her idea I take it over there. Then she didn’t want me going alone and all you boys were helping Dat in the field, so we went together.”

  “What was the house like?” Henry asked.

  “Falling in, practically.”