Chapter 16
Stripping the beds after their guests departed had always been Anna’s job. She didn’t have the dexterity to make up the beds with fresh linen, but she was able to pull the sheets off and trundle them down to the back porch for Bertha to wash in their gasoline-fueled wringer washer.
What would have been an easy task for someone else turned out to be quite laborious for Anna. Removing each sheet and pillowcase took a great deal of her concentration and involved walking around the bed several times…but if it took her a lot of time, then so be it. Anna would finish in her own fashion.
She was so proud of being a helpful part of running the inn that no one had ever imagined trying to take it away from her. Until now. Now, allowing her to continue with her heart condition was a worry to them all…except Anna. She was so determined to do this by herself that Lydia finally called Rachel to come help reason with Anna.
Even with Rachel there, things were not going well.
“No!” Anna insisted, tugging the sheet out of Lydia’s hands. “This is my job.”
Lydia looked at Rachel helplessly.
“Do you enjoy helping us with our jobs, Anna?” Rachel asked.
“Yes.” Anna’s voice was suspicious.
“We like helping you too,” Rachel said. “Let Lydia undo one side and you undo the other. That way you won’t have to walk all the way around each bed. It is better to work together.”
“Oh! Okay.” Anna capitulated and helped Lydia remove the sheets, which Rachel grabbed and quickly bundled up before Anna could get hold of them.
“I’ll just toss these down the stairs,” Rachel said. “We’ll pick them up at the bottom after we’re finished with the other rooms. Together.”
“Okay,” Anna said. “I am a goot worker?”
“You are a wonderful worker,” Rachel said.
“Have you had lunch?” Lydia asked Rachel as they finished stripping the beds in the other rooms. “I’m frying chicken livers with fried apples.”
Rachel shuddered involuntarily. Lydia had learned to make that dish from a relative who had embraced some of the local dishes after her Amish settlement moved to Kentucky. The aunts loved it. Although it wasn’t her favorite, Rachel normally didn’t have a problem eating it, but today the thoughts of it made her gag. Although her nausea had diminished greatly, it had not left her entirely. The right foods could still trigger a quick trip to the bathroom. Fried chicken livers was evidently one of the right foods. She tried to hide her gag reflex, but she wasn’t quick enough.
“You don’t like my chicken livers and fried apples?” Lydia sounded hurt. “You want to throw up even thinking about them?”
The one thing that could dim Lydia’s normally happy disposition was the thought of someone not liking what she cooked or baked.
“I’m just not hungry right now, Aunt Lydia. Big breakfast.”
“Oh?” Lydia said. “What did you have for this big breakfast you say you ate?”
Rachel was tempted to make something up to keep from hurting Lydia’s feelings again, but lies did not come easily to her. Not even little white ones, if there was such a thing.
“Um.” Her voice sounded sheepish, even to her. “A container of yogurt.”
Lydia stared at her. Then her eyes fell to Rachel’s stomach, which had started to push out her T-shirt just slightly. The light dawned.
“Bertha!” Lydia shouted. “Come quick! I think Rachel’s pregnant!”
She had never seen Bertha take the stairs so fast. Anna, who understood the notion that pregnancies ended with babies, was dancing in place on her tiptoes.
Next to God, babies were everything to those raised in the Amish culture.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Bertha demanded after she had caught her breath. “Are you sleeping enough? Eating well?”
Rachel laughed. “Yes, I’m taking good care of myself.”
“When is it due?” Lydia asked eagerly.
“Sometime in December.”
“Oh, I cannot wait!” Lydia said. “Maybe it will be a Christmas baby!”
“Can I hold the baby?” Anna asked.
“Yes, of course, but it will be several more months. You will have to be patient.”
“You’ve seen the doctor?” Bertha asked.
“Of course.”
“Are you taking vitamins? Because if you aren’t, our cousin Martha has special ones for pregnant women from her health food company.”
“Thanks, but I’ll stick with what the doctor prescribed.”
“Probably for the best,” Bertha agreed. “I think Martha might be getting overly interested in counting her geld since she started selling for this company. She is so enthusiastic, some of our people are starting to avoid her.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Rachel said.
“Have you told Bobby yet?”
“Not yet. We were planning on telling him tonight.”
“I know that is the Englisch way,” Bertha said. “But there is wisdom in waiting awhile.”
“True,” Lydia said. “Sometimes it is best.”
“Why?”
“Time feels so much longer for a child than it does for us,” Bertha said. “Waiting so many months for a little brother or sister can seem like forever to the child who is waiting.”
“I know that many Amish mothers choose not to tell the younger children they are pregnant so the baby can show up and be a surprise,” Rachel said. “But Joe and I feel differently about it. We want Bobby to experience the pregnancy with us.”
“But what if…” Lydia sounded worried. “What if something happens?”
“What do you mean?” Rachel asked. “What if what happens?”
Bertha glanced at Lydia, who was suddenly fighting back tears.
“I think what Lydia is trying to say is…” Bertha hesitated, as though trying to choose her words carefully. “Not all pregnancies go as the mother hopes. If anything happened…well, it might be best for Bobby if you wait until a little longer before you tell him about the pregnancy. Things usually settle out after the third month and the chance of a miscarriage lessens.”
Miscarriage. Of course. Rachel had forgotten. Lydia had endured the grief of not being able to carry a child full-term. Of course that would be the first place Lydia’s mind would go.
Rachel put her arm around her aunt’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, Aunt Lydia, and I think you are right. I’ll talk to Joe and we’ll wait awhile to tell Bobby.”
Bertha nodded approvingly. “Now, if I could just have that talk I’ve been wanting to have with you?”
Rachel glanced at the clock. She really did have to leave. “I’m so sorry, Aunt Bertha. I have to go to work now. Can it wait?”
“Yes.” Bertha sounded resigned. “What I need to say can wait.”
As Rachel went downstairs, Lydia called after her. “We will have a full house tonight. If you would like to come tomorrow morning to help with the baking, I would not mind…and we can talk about the baby!”
Chapter 17
A man could only spend so much time polishing pews, floors, and windows.
The church at night was a lonely place. Apart from fixing himself a sandwich in the church kitchen or walking to the local IGA to pick up a few groceries, there was little to occupy Carl’s time after he quit work in the late afternoon. The only events happening at the church were on Sunday evenings when there was a worship service or on Wednesday evenings when there was a Bible study.
There were a couple of bars in town, though. In his isolation, he had considered going in and watching TV—most bars had at least one mounted on a wall—but Carl had months to go before he would feel free enough to do something that risky.
Drinking had once been a problem to him. It brought out the anger he tried to keep buried. He didn’t want to risk getting into a bar fight. Someone fresh out of prison had to be on high alert at all times. One ill-advised decision under the influence could make the difference between freedom and
prison. He may not be currently living his dream life, but it surely beat the past twenty years.
The need to be careful sometimes made his freedom feel almost as restrictive as his incarceration. But he did have a larger area in which to live, and he could listen to the comforting sounds of the old church settling at night instead of men cursing, screaming, or crying themselves to sleep.
The respite from that was a great blessing.
George had invited him home for dinner one evening, but it had not been a success. George’s wife, a faded but still-pretty woman with a kind face, had tried to be cordial, but making conversation was uncomfortable for both of them. The poor woman had no idea what to talk with Carl about and his previous life was so alien to her that they were both tongue-tied as they tried to work their way through dinner.
He did enjoy the good food she had prepared and the ball game he watched with George later, but neither had suggested a repeat of the evening. That was fine with Carl. Trying to socialize with respectable people was a strain. He felt like he had to carefully measure every word he uttered.
Some evenings, now that it was June and the weather was getting warmer, he would go out on the front steps and sit there. He liked watching people go by on the sidewalk, and sometimes he caught interesting snatches of conversation. Millersburg attracted quite a few tourists in the spring, and Carl amused himself by trying to place the various accents he overheard.
Sometimes the people would nod at him in friendly greeting, and he liked the way that made him feel—as though he were a normal part of the human race. Evenings when George and his congregation had church were okay. Some of the people went out of their way to try to talk to him, but he knew that they knew who he was and what he had done and where he had been for the past two decades. That knowledge made getting to know them an uncomfortable proposition. He much preferred being an observer to trying to make small talk, no matter how well-meaning.
Besides coffee with George most mornings, a friendly nod from a fellow human being was about as much social interaction he could handle right now. There was a lot to get used to, and he was taking it one step at a time.
The one bad thing about sitting outside on the church steps was that people sometimes gave him funny looks, as though wondering whether he was homeless or lurking.
After some thought, Carl solved this problem by purchasing a package of cigarettes. He had never developed the habit, but sitting on the church steps while holding a lit cigarette in his hand made him look like a man just having a smoke. With all the bans against smoking inside public buildings, this was an understandable reason for someone to sit on the steps. He no longer looked like someone who had nothing to do and nowhere to go.
One evening, an elderly woman stopped and gave him a short lecture on the evils of smoking. She was very intent on her mission because a loved one had recently died of lung cancer. He found her unexpected involvement in his life heartwarming, and he promised her that he would try to quit. He chose not to break it to her that he had never started.
Her earnest lecture made him smile every time he remembered it. The old lady had been quite the mother hen as she scolded him. He envied whatever kids she might have had. She was so impassioned about a stranger’s health that he could only imagine how carefully she had looked after her own children’s.
Of course it was not George’s plan, nor Carl’s, for him to live the rest of his life inside the church. It was nothing more than a safe place to stay with a small salary to care for his basic needs while he waited to fulfill his parole obligations. He would live here for a year, proving that he could be trusted to be a law-abiding citizen.
Eventually he would find some sort of a job, perhaps another custodial position, and rent a small apartment. At that point he would be allowed to leave the state if he wanted to. Carl had given this some thought, and there wasn’t any place he particularly wanted to go. Nor did he have anyone out of state that he wanted to see. His mom had died years ago from a drug overdose, and he’d never known his father. Morality had not been a strong point in his home.
There was one person he wanted to visit, though—someone he needed to thank. He alternated between savoring the thought of visiting this person and nervousness over how he would be received. One thing he knew was that he was not yet ready for that meeting.
Yes, a man could only spend so much time polishing pews, floors, and windows. Carl had gone over everything twice and yet he’d run out of things to do by noon on Friday. Without a wedding, a funeral, or a scout meeting to tidy up after, the afternoon had felt dull and endless.
Being lonely was a great fear to many, but Carl did not fear being lonely—he endured it. After all, he had lived with it most of his life.
Chapter 18
“They did what?” Ed said.
“Someone deliberately cut the fence at Naomi and Luke Yoder’s last night,” Rachel told the police chief. “Their cattle got out, and Luke has cancer. He’s dealing with a lot of weakness and nausea from the chemo treatments. The neighbors had to help Naomi repair the fence and get the animals back in.”
“I’m sorry to hear that about Luke,” Ed grabbed a notepad and a pencil and began scribbling down the information she had just given him. A computer would have been faster, but Ed was old school.
“Last week we talked about those hay bales that were set on fire at Samuel Yost’s place.” Ed tore the page off the notebook, rose, and thumbtacked it onto the cork bulletin board he kept on the wall behind him. “Have you heard any more about that?”
“I’ve asked around,” Rachel said. “No one seems to have heard or seen anything. There are also the sheep that were spray-painted out at Peter Hochstetler’s a couple of months back. Peter had to trash much of his wool crop.”
“Sounds like we’re having an epidemic of pranks aimed at the Amish community. Any ideas who might be doing this?”
“Who knows?” Her hands in her front pants pockets, Rachel leaned against the door. “It always happens at night, and it’s always at a different place. There’s no pattern to it, no particular time or day of the week. I’ve talked to some of the town kids I know, but they seem to be as clueless as I am.”
“You can add to the list the fact that John Yoder discovered the metal teeth in his mower blade bent and ruined before he went to cut hay.” Ed tapped another page stuck to the bulletin board. “He lives next door to me and called yesterday to see if I could help him find some new parts. He’s nearly eighty and doesn’t know how he’ll repair it. Those old horse-drawn mowers are hard to find these days, and it’s even harder to find parts.”
“Why would anyone want to vandalize an old mower?” Rachel said.
“Your guess is as good as mine. But you know that even if we discover who is doing this, the Amish will probably refuse to press charges,” Ed said.
“But if we could find out who’s doing it, maybe we could convince them to stop.”
“Scare them into stopping?” Ed said.
“If we have to,” Rachel said. “I’m guessing it’s some local Englisch teenagers.”
“It could also be Amish kids. They do some strange things during their ‘running around’ time,” Ed said.
“But Amish teenage pranks tend to run along the lines of dismantling someone’s buggy and rebuilding it on top of their barn. They don’t usually do real damage.”
“I know. These pranks aren’t funny. If anything, they are particularly mean-spirited. You’re our expert on the Amish. Can you see any connection between the families who are being hit? Could there be some sort of weird vendetta going on?”
“It’s spread out between families, but they are all from the same church as my aunts. I wonder if the church itself is being targeted,” Rachel said.
“That would be something I’ve not dealt with before,” Ed said. “People who are only from a particular Amish congregation being targeted for harassment. Tell your friends and relatives from that church to let us know the minute anything
else happens. Maybe we can get there in time to discover something.”
“I’ll try,” Rachel said. “But I can’t guarantee they’ll do it.”
Chapter 19
Thursday morning was one of the two days Carl carried out the trash. The church had Bible study every Wednesday night, and that involved doughnuts and coffee. George had recently started a twelve-step addiction group on Friday nights, and a great deal of doughnuts and coffee was consumed then, too.
Carl attended that last group. Sometimes he even participated. He often went to Wednesday night Bible study as well; it broke up the week and made him feel as if he was somewhat part of things even though he sat in the back row in silence.
He continued to wish he could have a television in his room. Watching an occasional baseball or basketball game would have been an excellent way to pass the time, but he hadn’t been able to save enough yet and he didn’t want to mention it to George, who would probably try to get one for him. George had already done more than anyone had a right to expect.
In fact, George’s interest in Carl had been a mystery in the beginning. He did not know why this minister, whom he had never met, would come into the prison and ask for him by name. At first, all George told him was that he was coming at the request of a friend. This made Carl suspicious. He didn’t have any friends—at least none who would know a Mennonite preacher. Nor did he have any friends who would care whether he received a visit. But since Carl had no place else to go or anything better to do, he had tolerated George’s occasional visits. He didn’t expect to look forward to them, but George was different from the people Carl had known in the past. There was a rugged peace about the man that intrigued him.
There was seldom anything Carl wanted to contribute to the conversation in the beginning of their relationship, so George began telling him about his own life—and the people to whom he ministered and the small struggles many of them were having.
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