Bertha's Resolve: Love's Journey in Sugarcreek, Book 4

by Serena B. Miller

  Now that Joe’s baseball-themed sports restaurant was catching on and becoming a popular tourist haunt, life was becoming particularly complicated. They recently added a breakfast menu, which was flourishing, but it also created a sort of tight-wire act with Joe’s business partner, his brother Darren.

  Living so frantically could be maintained for a while, but it wasn’t good for the long run. Rachel knew how delicate the balance was in their lives. It wouldn’t take a lot to tip them over the edge into chaos. Bobby’s grades were already slipping a little.

  At that moment, Bobby came running in from school and bounced onto the bed with them.

  She wasn’t sure with whom she had fallen in love with first, Joe or Bobby, but Joe liked to tease her that she had only married him so she could be Bobby’s mother. She always told him that this wasn’t far from the truth.

  Bobby was such a tender-hearted little boy, and so brave. She would never forget the image burned into her mind the night she found her sturdy little son standing with his back against a tree, a butter knife in his hand for protection against the kidnappers whom he had just escaped. Tears had been streaming down his face as he stared into the dark woods, but he was ready to fight with nothing but a butter knife. Her heart had ached with love for him. It still did.

  Bobby had been through enough trauma in his short life. Having a baby sister suddenly appear had been a welcome surprise, but little Holly had most definitely disrupted their family’s schedule. Rachel agreed with Joe, they needed to find a way to give both children more stability, and yet…

  “I can’t give up my job to just anyone, Joe. I love this town too much. I’ll have to help Ed find someone who is a good fit before I can leave.”

  “I’m sure quite a few locals would jump at the chance,” Joe said.

  “We can’t simply pin a badge on one of our substitute deputies,” Rachel said. “I don’t think any of them have the maturity or the experience yet.”

  Bobby wasn’t paying attention to their discussion. He was too fascinated with the fact that his baby sister had curled her tiny fist around his pinky finger.

  “Aw.” Bobby was entranced. “Look! She’s already holding my hand. She knows I’m going to take good care of her.”

  That, Rachel knew, was the absolute truth. Holly was one lucky little girl to have Bobby for a big brother.

  “Sugarcreek’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the state,” Joe said. “Maybe one of the lowest in the nation. You don’t think any of the substitute deputies can handle it?”

  “It’s getting harder and harder to hold onto that low crime rate. We need someone with real-world experience. Someone who is seasoned and yet has enough sense not to point a gun at every Amish kid who gets tipsy during Rumspringa.” Rachel shook her head. “Trust me on this—the chief is not going to be happy about me leaving, but I agree with you. For our children’s sake, I need to take a break from police work for a while.”

  “Your aunts are going to be thrilled,” Joe said.

  “Bertha will be convinced that her prayers have finally been answered.” Rachel went to the closet and pulled out her black Sugarcreek police uniform.

  “Who knows?” Joe said. “Perhaps her prayers have been answered. If I were the Lord, I would definitely pay attention to whatever Bertha instructed me to do.”

  She smiled at the image of God obeying Bertha. Her aunt was, indeed, a formidable woman.

  “If you don’t mind packing Holly’s formula and diapers while I get dressed, I’ll drop her off with Bertha on my way to work.”

  “Am I going with Daddy?” Bobby asked.

  “If you want to earn a paycheck, you are,” Joe said. “Besides, Uncle Darren and I need the help.”

  “Yay!” Bobby jumped off the bed and ran to his room to get ready He seemed to enjoy feeling like he was part of the team that kept Joe’s Home Plate working smoothly. He was also saving up for a pony.

  Dressed and ready for work, Rachel secured Holly in her car carrier, kissed Joe and Bobby good-bye and strode out to the squad car thinking how much nicer it would be if she could be working with her family at their cozy restaurant tonight instead of driving around in the snow wondering how many fender benders she would have to tend to before her shift was over.

  Chapter 4

  Bertha Troyer tidied up the teacher’s desk in the one-room schoolhouse which had been built next door to her home. She and her sisters had donated the land for the building only last year. In her late seventies, she had impressed even herself today by having enough stamina to teach thirty-two children from the ages of six to fourteen.

  She was not surprised when Amos Mast, head of the parochial school board, stopped by while bicycling home from work.

  “Were the scholars well-behaved?” he asked.

  “They were very well-behaved,” Bertha said. “The children made allowances for me, and I made allowances for them, and we got along well. There is even the chance that one or two of us learned something along the way.”

  “I’m so sorry I had to ask you to come this morning,” he said. “But I couldn’t find anyone else when Naomi took ill so suddenly. You were the only one I could think of who lived close enough to get here before the children started showing up.”

  “I am grateful to be of help,” Bertha said. “Will you need me tomorrow?”

  “No, Lily Weaver says she can take over until Naomi recuperates.”

  “That will be good.” Bertha was relieved. Lily was eighteen-years-old, bright, and energetic. She would do well. “I hope Naomi recuperates soon.”

  “As do I. Let me finish up here,” Amos said. “I’ll take care of straightening the desks and banking the fire. “You go on home. You’ve done enough, and I thank you.”

  Wearily—it had been quite a long day—she donned her coat, scarf, and gloves, and walked against the frigid January wind toward the Sugar Haus Inn where she and her two younger sisters lived.

  Bertha was hungry and exhausted. She found some leftover fried chicken in their propane refrigerator, pulled out a drumstick, and as she ate it standing over the sink to catch the crumbs, her heart smiled at the memory of the noon meal she had eaten earlier.

  The frantic call from Amos to substitute teach had left her with only a few minutes to dress before rushing over to the school. There was no time to pack anything for her midday meal. Normally, her sister, Lydia, would have noticed and brought her something, but Lydia and Anna had left for a quilting that morning.

  After their silent prayer, the children tore into their food containers. Bertha watched as they unwrapped carefully prepared meals. It was quite an array. Amish mothers took their family’s nutrition seriously. To Bertha’s knowledge, no child in their settlement—or adult for that matter—ever went hungry.

  As she had sat there, watching the children enjoy their food, Francine, one of the older girls, realized the teacher had no lunch. She approached the desk holding a sandwich in a zip-locked bag.

  “I had a big breakfast, and my maam packed way too much,” the girl said, placing the package on Bertha’s desk. “It’s Trail bologna, cheese, and tomato. You are welcome to it if you want.”

  The sandwich had been made with thick slices of homemade bread and looked delicious.

  “Thank you,” Bertha said. “Your mother is a wonderful good bread baker. I hope you are learning from her.”

  “I am.” Francine smiled and went back to her desk in the back of the room.

  This set off a similar reaction with the rest of the children.

  “I have a pickle you can have.”

  “My maam made extra cookies and told me to share them.”

  “Do you want my apple? We have plenty back home in the cellar.”

  So typical of her people, Bertha thought. Amish children were very deliberately taught to share. It came as no surprise that a makeshift lunch was being created for her, and she was touched.

  She loved these children—all of whom she had known since babyhoo
d. She loved them just like she had loved the children in the Mennonite orphanage while serving in Haiti a lifetime ago. One thing she learned during her years there was that children were pretty much the same regardless of race, country, or language.

  The biggest difference between the children who inhabited her classroom today, and those she had taught in Haiti so many years ago, was a matter of nutrition. Ohio Amish children were usually well-fed and well-loved. Their cheeks were ruddy from outdoor play and sparkling good health. The children from Haiti haunted her to this day.

  She comforted herself with the knowledge that she had done the very best she could for them.

  After washing the chicken down with a glass of cold milk, she felt a little better as she climbed the steps to her bedroom.

  She closed the door, lifted off her black bonnet, unpinned her dress, and replaced it with a clean one from her closet. Two of the children had runny noses today, and she would prefer not to get sick. She would also prefer not to pass anything on to Rachel’s new baby girl whom she would be babysitting shortly.

  The slam of the back door downstairs told her that her sister was home. Lydia and her three helpers must have made quick work of pie baking today.

  While pinning the front of her fresh dress closed, from the vantage point of her window at the back of the house, she saw a young boy sneaking around the pie house.

  Unsupervised little boys and pies were not a good combination. Rachel’s husband, Joe, needed those pies for his restaurant, and this boy—an Englisch boy at that—could not be up to anything good.

  The sight of the boy carefully opening the door to Lydia’s little pie factory drove all thoughts of weariness away. She hurried downstairs to thwart whatever sort of mischief the child had in mind.

  Lydia came out of the downstairs bathroom just as Bertha was heading—full tilt—out the back door.

  “You’ll need a shawl if you are going to the barn,” Lydia called. “It is cold out.”

  “I am not going to the barn,” Bertha said. “A child just went into the pie house, and I want to see what he is up to.”

  Lydia grabbed her coat off the peg on the wall and followed Bertha outside. It was only a few steps from the back door of the inn to the pie house. Lydia was buttoning her coat when Bertha entered and stopped dead in her tracks. She felt Lydia bump against her with a soft “oof!”

  The boy, a little carrot-top with big, blue eyes, glanced up, startled. He had no eating utensils but was digging into one of the pies with his fingers and scooping the dripping contents into his mouth. He had chosen to focus his attention on a cherry pie, and it was all over his face.

  She glanced at the other pies and took a breath of relief. They were intact. She had gotten here in time. They could afford to lose one pie.

  Except for his new, blue coat, the boy looked like he was not particularly well-cared-for. He wore dirty tennis shoes, wet with snow, one with a broken shoelace and a hole developing in the toe. Why did the boy not have decent boots to wear in this weather? His faded jeans ended a full three inches above his ankles, and there was a rip in one knee.

  His red hair stuck out from beneath his black sock hat. Freckles covered his face—or at least as much of his face that wasn’t hidden beneath cherry pie filling.

  She felt her heart soften. Growing children could often be overwhelmed by hunger. Still, they needed to be taught.

  “You do not have permission to be here,” Bertha said, sternly. “And you certainly do not have permission to steal food that does not belong to you. Where do you live? Who are your parents?”

  His eyes darted wildly around the room, looking for an escape, but she and Lydia were standing directly in front of the only viable exit.

  A familiar voice behind them spoke up. “What’s going on?”

  Bertha turned. It was their niece, Rachel, dressed in her Sugarcreek police uniform. The heavy, black, police coat Rachel wore against the January cold, plus the bullet-proof vest she donned when on duty, made her look larger than she really was. She was also wearing her black police boots and hat, both of which added to her height.

  Bertha knew Rachel, in full uniform, must look very official and intimidating to the boy. The pink baby carrier dangling from Rachel’s left hand only somewhat spoiled the effect.

  “We seem to have attracted a new guest.” Lydia’s voice was kind.

  Lydia had such a soft spot for children, even when they were misbehaving. Bertha preferred a more disciplined approach.

  Rachel carefully sat the baby carrier on a nearby table. Whether it was for effect or merely a habit, she had her hand on the butt of her holstered gun as she approached the boy. He trembled at her approach.

  “What is your name?” Rachel’s voice was matter-of-fact.

  The boy, obviously terrified, backed away from her.

  Lydia, so tenderhearted she could not bear to see anyone frightened, or even uncomfortable, began to reassure him. “You are not in trouble, child…”

  Rachel held a finger in the air to stop Lydia from saying anything more.

  “I just need to know who you are,” Rachel said, kindly. “Tell me your name.”

  The boy nervously wiped the red pie filling from his hands off onto his jeans. Fear filled his eyes.

  “It’s okay.” Rachel squatted down, putting her face at the same level as his. “I’m not here to hurt you, I just need to know your name.”

  He would not meet her eyes.

  “You know it’s wrong to steal, right?” Rachel said.

  He squirmed, dug the toe of one sodden shoe into the wooden floor, and nodded.

  “Were you hungry?” Rachel asked.

  He nodded again, vigorously.

  “You did not have to steal. These ladies would have been happy to feed you if you had just asked.”

  He glanced up at Bertha and Lydia. His eyes were such a deep blue, they were startling in his pale face.

  “She’s right,” Lydia said, softly. “All you had to do was ask. We would never turn away a hungry child.”

  A look of suspicion crossed his face. As though weighing and discarding their words.

  Lydia went to the sink, ran a washcloth beneath the faucet, and squeezed it out. She approached the boy to wipe his face with the wet cloth, but he jerked his head back when she tried to touch him with it.

  “You have pie on your face.” Lydia handed the washcloth to him. “I’m sure it is very sticky. It might feel good to clean yourself up before you go home.”

  Carefully keeping his eyes on the three of them, the boy wiped off his mouth, his hands, and took a swipe at his pants leg.

  A mewling sound came from the baby carrier. Rachel stood up to reach for it, Lydia turned to go to it, and Bertha, who was standing right beside it began to remove the covering that Rachel had zipped over the carrier to protect the baby from the cold.

  With all three women momentarily distracted, the boy dropped the washcloth on the floor and was out the door before anyone could catch him.

  “It was only a pie,” Lydia said. “Poor child. From the looks of things, I have a feeling he doesn’t have the best home life.”

  “Probably not,” Rachel said. “I wish he had given me a name. I could have checked up on his situation. He’s not a kid I’ve ever seen before. I’ll see what I can find out.”

  With the boy gone, all three women surrounded the three-week-old baby girl who peered out from within the depths of the carrier with bright eyes while furiously sucking a pink pacifier.

  “Well, hello there!” Lydia said. “Aren’t you just the most precious thing?”

  Bertha glanced at Rachel. “I thought you were against the use of pacifiers.”

  “I am,” Rachel said. “Or at least I was. It’s great in theory, but the problem is that they work. It helps keeps her happy. I can’t bear to hear her cry.”

  Rachel unbuckled the carrier straps and lifted out her infant daughter. The baby was dressed in stretchy, one-piece white pajamas. Her wis
py, nearly transparent hair stood out from her head with static electricity like dandelion fluff. She was so new, her little legs were still folded up against her body as Rachel put her on her shoulder and patted her tiny bottom, which was decorated with a pink heart sewn onto the pajamas.

  Lydia and Bertha sighed in unison. There was just something about a baby, and this one was especially precious to them.

  “Lord willing, your sweet bobli will never have to experience real hunger,” Bertha said.

  “I can’t imagine the pain of not being able to feed my child,” Rachel said. “I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “Many mothers have no choice,” Bertha said. “But by the grace of God, I don’t think you will ever have to experience it. Shall we get her settled inside the house so you can go to work?”

  “I’ll just straighten up in here a bit before I come in.” Lydia picked up the pie plate the boy had attacked and held it so everyone could see. “The child was hungry. Most grown men couldn’t polish off a whole pie in one sitting.”

  “Darren will be here soon to get the pies before the dinner crowd starts arriving,” Rachel said. “You might want to lock the door just in case the boy decides to come back. We wouldn’t want him to bring some of his friends with him.”

  “Do you think he’d do that?” Lydia asked, concerned.

  “Who knows?” Rachel deposited the baby back into the carrier, covered her with a blanket, and zipped the black covering shut against the frigid wind. “The boy is Englisch. Who knows what he might choose to do. Some Englisch children are very poorly taught.”

  “True.” Bertha held the door open for Rachel. “If the boy was one of ours, I would deal with him much differently. His parents would already have been called.”

  “If the child was Amish,” Rachel said, “It would never have happened. He would already have plenty of good things to eat. A pie wouldn’t be much of a temptation. His mother would have had included a piece or two when she packed his lunch.”