“Bobby won’t be scarred if he doesn’t go to Disney World.”
“That’s not the point, Rachel. You thought you were marrying a rich man. Instead, you are married to a man who allowed someone to steal everything he’d ever earned.”
She rinsed and loaded their few dishes into the dishwasher. Then she faced him, crossed her arms again, and leaned against the sink.
“Joe, look at me,” she said.
He did. Big brown eyes. Lovely hair. Perfect skin. A face and a figure that could make a man forget his own name…but compliments were not what she was after.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
If there was one person on the earth in whose hands he would place his life and the life of his son, it was this woman.
“When you came to Sugarcreek, you were searching for two things. Do you remember what they were?”
“Privacy and a normal life for Bobby.”
“I remember the exact words you used. You said you were sick of being in the spotlight. You said you wanted to go to a grocery store for a carton of milk without having to sign autographs in the checkout line. You said you wanted to be an ordinary guy with an ordinary life.”
“I did,” Joe agreed.
“Well, here it is—exactly what you asked for. A normal, ordinary life. You have a wife and a son and friends, and you’re living in a small town where both of us work ordinary jobs, earning just enough to pay our bills, and staying in a cramped house that’s hardly big enough for the three of us. This is what an ordinary life looks like, Joe. Congratulations. You’re finally living your dream.”
“But I want more for you than just getting by.”
“ ‘Getting by’ is enough for me if I get to live it with you. I can be happy with what we have. What worries me is whether it’s enough for you. Has living an ordinary life lost its appeal?”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s not fair or unfair. Is wanting to do that commercial really about the money? Or are you, deep down, tired of being ordinary and want to feel like the great ‘Miracle Micah’ again?”
Her accusation stung.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said.
“That’s probably a good idea.” She turned and put the hardened candles into the cupboard.
At first, he simply strode the darkened streets of Sugarcreek, burning off hurt feelings and nervous energy. How could she accuse him of wanting to go back to the invasion of privacy he had endured for so many years? It was a relief to live below the radar of constant public interest. Hadn’t she noticed that he had chosen to live with her in this small Ohio town that rolled up the sidewalks at five o’clock each evening—when he could have lived anywhere?
Yet he was honest enough with himself to ponder her question. She knew him almost better than he knew himself. Did he miss all the attention he’d once had? Did he miss being the athlete known as Miracle Micah?
His missionary parents had optimistically named him after two minor biblical prophets as they lay side by side in a hut in Africa, holding hands and dreaming dreams for their newborn son, Micah Joel Mattias. None of those dreams had come true.
Instead, he had been given the gift of extraordinary athletic ability. He’d been recruited for the LA Dodgers during his junior year of college in the States and shot up through the farm teams. With two of his main pitchers sidelined by injuries during an important game, the coach stunned much of the ball-playing world by putting Joe, a rookie, on the mound. He’d seen enough of Joe’s skill and steady nerves under pressure to take a gamble. Neither the coach nor the fans had been disappointed.
Joe coolly threw a no-hitter under conditions that would have shaken the most confident of players and sent everyone in the sporting world into a frenzy. It was the kind of story baseball fans loved. The people in the press box had called it a “miracle,” and soon people were calling him “Miracle Micah.” It was a heady time.
He had strayed from his parents’ religious teachings for a while, but more and more Joe saw the validity of those principles and realized how deeply their teachings were imbedded within him.
One of the principles he saw played out was that pride could ruin a man.
This, he knew firsthand to be true. Too many top athletes had been destroyed by being treated like young gods. Too many broken marriages because of inflated egos. Too many bankruptcies by those who refused to acknowledge that prowess as a ballplayer was not a permanent state.
That’s why he despised the nickname “Miracle Micah.” He was a skilled ballplayer—perhaps even a great one—but he was also aware of his limitations. He reminded himself of that whenever fans acted awestruck over meeting him.
When his first wife was murdered and the press wouldn’t stop hounding him at a time when he most needed to be left alone, he started calling himself “Joe” and tried to disappear from the scrutiny until both he and his little son could begin to recover from Grace’s death.
Discovering the Village of Sugarcreek and the gentle people within it had been a gift from God.
No, he did not have some deep-seated wish to ever become Miracle Micah again. He did not need the adoration of fans to feel whole. The only miracle in his life, in addition to Bobby, was finding himself married to a woman who could absorb such devastating financial news and not fall apart or want to leave him. He’d seen too many of his ball-playing buddies deserted by spouses and significant others when they could no longer bring home multimillion-dollar contracts—to not value Rachel’s reaction.
If she would rather live on a reduced income than allow him to advertise jock-itch cream on TV…then so be it. His steps turned toward home—where the woman he loved most in this world waited.
Rachel was wiping down the kitchen counters when he came through the door. She glanced up, and her gaze was steady as she waited for his answer.
“No.” He continued the conversation as if there had been no break in it. “I have no desire to be ‘Miracle Micah’ again, but you and Bobby deserve better than what I can provide on my part-time coaching salary alone.”
“We’ll be okay.” Rachel folded the dish towel and laid it on the counter. “We’re young and strong. We won’t go hungry, and we won’t be homeless. We’ll figure things out…and we’ll make a good life for our son.”
Joe felt the quarter-of-a-million-dollar contract fade from his future as he pulled his wife close. His woman had beauty, brains, and heart. He had definitely won the wife lottery. Although he was pretty much broke, he had never felt richer.
Chapter 6
George Milo was a Mennonite minister who visited the Mansfield Correctional Institution on a routine basis. The first time Carl saw him, he wondered what on earth had possessed the man to come here. After a few conversations, he realized that George’s motivation had nothing at all to do with earth. He came solely because he believed in obeying the scripture about visiting those in prison—even when it was not much fun to do so.
At first glance, George looked like the kind of person who, were he a prisoner here, would get eaten alive on his first day. With his kind face, humble attitude, and thick glasses, Carl judged him to be the kind of man who would spend his first night at the prison sobbing into his pillow. The more Carl got to know him, however, the more he realized that not only would George not be sobbing into his pillow, he would probably spend the evening trying to encourage the man in the cell next to him.
Over the years, George and Carl had developed a careful relationship—careful because George had been around a lot of inmates over the years and was not easily fooled. He knew how skilled some prisoners were at manipulation. And Carl was careful because he had yet to meet a person he could trust.
But as much as Carl ever trusted anyone, he trusted George. Over the years, the murderer and the minister had come as close to becoming friends as Carl had ever experienced.
And as Carl’s spiritual advisor, George had been allowed by the prison to be
the first to break the news.
“You’re up for parole in a couple of weeks,” George said.
“What?”
“You’re up for parole.”
“If this is an April Fool’s joke, it’s a bad one.”
“April Fools’ Day was three weeks ago, Carl. I’m telling you the truth.”
“I’m a lifer. You know that.” Carl was not amused. “Don’t mess with my head.”
“Yes, I know. But you’ve served twenty years, and you could have been considered for parole as early as fifteen years. There are some who think you’ve been rehabilitated enough. They asked me what I thought…and I told them that I agree.”
Rehabilitated. That was the word the dog handlers used when they talked about the abused dogs they brought.
“Oh.”
“You don’t seem excited.”
“I won’t be finished working with Beauty by then.”
“You would rather stay in prison and work with your dog?”
“No, but it took three weeks to get her to trust me. I don’t know what will happen to her if someone else takes over her training.
“There are no guarantees,” George said. “Most prisoners don’t make it out their first time at parole, anyway.”
“That’s true.” Carl immediately felt better.
“Seriously,” George prodded, “don’t you want to be free?”
In order to emotionally survive the past two decades, Carl had trained himself to never think in terms of “getting out” or “freedom.” That kind of thinking could drive a man crazy. It would be foolish to get his hopes up now, after all this time.
“I’m a sixty-two-year-old con,” Carl said with disgust. “What do you think I’d do on the outside?”
One of the things he valued about George was the man’s honesty. Once again, George didn’t disappoint him.
“I have no idea,” he answered.
Chapter 7
Aunt Lydia poured whole coffee beans into the old cast-iron grinder and turned the handle. The aroma of freshly ground coffee soon permeated the kitchen. The Sugar Haus Inn’s reputation for the freshest coffee and the best breakfasts in Ohio’s Amish Country would not be tarnished today, not as long as Lydia was in charge!
Rachel stifled a yawn. After Joe had broken the news to her last night about their financial difficulties, they had stayed up until after midnight discussing job possibilities and what they should do. Now, it was four thirty in the morning and she was kneading dough for cinnamon rolls in the dim gas-lit kitchen of her aunts’ Old Order Amish bed-and-breakfast. They had guests this weekend and she knew Lydia needed the help.
She did not want to be kneading dough in what felt like the middle of the night. She wanted to go home, burrow beneath her soft quilts, and get some more sleep before she had to go on duty. Her and Joe’s late-night talk hadn’t brought them any closer to a resolution—it had just made her sleep-deprived.
“And how is Bobby doing today?” Lydia asked.
“He had a sleepover with his friend, Ezra, last night. He’s probably still sound asleep.”
“Ezra Yoder?”
“Yes.”
“Luke and Naomi’s son?”
“Yes.” Rachel stifled another yawn.
“Ach. Such a fine Amish family. He will be well cared for there. Naomi is a goot mother.”
“And as a bonus, with no television in the house, he won’t be asking to watch Saturday morning cartoons while he’s there. Ezra has a pony and pony cart now, and Bobby is enthralled.”
“A pony cart!” Lydia nodded knowingly. “He will have much fun. Remember the pony cart your father bought you when you were a little girl?”
Rachel smiled at the memory. “I do.”
“Let’s see, what was that pony’s name?” Lydia said. “My memory is not what it was, but I do remember the look on your face when we gave him to you.”
“I named him Fireball.”
“Ah yes. He was a good pony but not nearly as fast as his name would suggest.”
“I was seven,” Rachel said. “The name could have been worse.”
Lydia started to pick up the heavy cast-iron skillet in which she liked to fry bacon for her guests, and Rachel saw her face settle into the stoic expression she wore whenever she was in pain and trying to hide it.
“Here, Aunt Lydia.” Rachel quickly wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Let me.” She grabbed the skillet from the shelf where Lydia kept it, setting it on the stove.
“Danke,” Lydia said. “But I could have gotten it.”
“Of course you could have,” Rachel said. “But I don’t mind helping.”
It was getting harder and harder for Lydia to fix breakfast for their guests every morning. She never complained, but her arthritis was getting worse. Rachel ached when she saw her aunt grimace over the pain from some small task or noticed how swollen Lydia’s knuckles were after a day of baking.
Which was why Rachel found herself kneading bread at four thirty in the morning—and it was one of the reasons she had talked her aunts into closing the inn two years ago in spite of their great reluctance to do so. They had finally agreed, but only after Rachel conceded that they could still take in someone occasionally if they felt God was sending them an “angel unaware.”
The inn hadn’t been closed for more than a day before Joe and Bobby showed up and Bertha decreed that not only could they stay but even offered Joe a job! There had been a small trickle of guests ever since. All of them, of course—if one listened to Bertha—sent to them straight from God.
Rachel had given up trying to protect her aunts from themselves. They were old, but they were women who had worked hard all their lives and could imagine no other way. The Amish work ethic was apparently too deeply ingrained for them to ever retire as long as they could put one foot in front of the other and had the use of their minds and hands. To her Amish relatives, work was a gift from God.
Her aunts’ Sugar Haus Inn was authentically Old Order Amish, and because of that, it tended to draw a different type of guest than most B & B’s. It appealed to those who longed for simpler times and an atmosphere of peace. It was a house in which quietness was not considered an enemy to be slayed by television and electronics.
Sometimes older guests, who had memories of bringing firewood into their own mother’s kitchens, would carry in an armload for the inn’s wood cookstove, acting as though it was an honor to do so. During certain times of the year, some visitors also helped Lydia when she was canning produce from the garden.
Then there were the gentle old books that her aunts had gathered over the years, dog-eared and well-thumbed, which comprised most of the reading literature within the inn.
Rachel had seen the stress and worry drain from people’s faces when they stayed at the Sugar Haus Inn. Perhaps it was the simplicity of the furnishings or the lack of ambient noises of electricity-driven appliances. Or maybe it was the unfinished quilt and quilt frame Lydia kept in the living room, available to anyone who wanted to try their hand. Many women and a few men enjoyed plying a needle and thread once they knew they were welcome to do so. Some spent hours in the quiet act of rhythmic sewing as they healed from the various cares they had brought with them.
The aunts loved company—and they especially loved hearing about the lives of their guests. Sometimes retirees who could afford it stayed for weeks and became close friends with the three sisters. Aunt Bertha’s handwritten correspondence with former guests was a major hobby for her.
“It’s as good as having television,” Bertha had once said. “We hear so many stories from our guests. Some sad, some happy, but everyone has something interesting to tell us.”
Rachel was certain that having listeners like Lydia, Bertha, and Anna was a blessing to some of their guests as well. She often wondered if her aunts had any idea what a sanctuary they provided to so many—including her.
On the other hand, it was a business. All the quilts hanging on the walls or draped ove
r the couches and beds had small price tags pinned to them, and it was rare for one of the quilts to stay around longer than a few days during tourist season.
As Bertha often quoted, “Whatever your hands find to do, do it with all your might.”
And in their practical, Amish mind-set, it did not hurt if one made a little extra cash while doing so!
The turnover of quilts had been so great that they were presently supplementing their stash with surplus from their other Amish friends’ quilts. There was no danger of running out of quilts in the Sugarcreek area. If there was one thing the Amish women loved to do, it was to have quilting “frolics.” Or “gossip frolics,” as Eli enjoyed calling them, teasing his cousins.
Rachel was technically not Amish, but she wasn’t exactly an outsider, either. Her father had been raised Amish along with his three sisters, but he had chosen not to join the church long before Rachel was born. She often wondered if he would have become Amish had he not fallen in love with a local Englisch girl.
She would never know, of course.
“We need to hurry,” Lydia said happily, jolting Rachel into the present. “Both rooms are filled this morning. We have two couples with us. One of them has traveled to China! They promised to tell us all about it after breakfast.”
Rachel yawned again.
“Did you not sleep well, Rachel? You seem a little sleepy headed.”
“It’s not even five o’clock yet, Aunt Lydia. It is still pitch-dark outside. My body thinks it should still be in bed.”
“Ach! It is goot to get a head start on the day.”
Most B & B’s in the area took at least a few shortcuts in their breakfast preparations by freezing breakfast pastries to be warmed up in the morning or ordering goodies from one of the many excellent bakeries in the area.
Not Lydia.
Rachel never stopped hoping that her aunt would see reason someday.
“There’s a new bakery in downtown Sugarcreek,” Rachel said. “An Amish woman from your church owns it. If you purchased your baked goods from her, it would give you at least an extra hour’s sleep in the morning. I’ve heard her products are very good and she opens early.”
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