“Thank you,” he said. “I’m not sure why Calvin is so dead set against riding the bus, but I figure the exercise won’t hurt him. The town seems safe enough.”
“Right.” She thought the exercise wouldn’t hurt the child if he had decent boots and gloves and if he wasn’t abducted on his way home. She’d been through one kidnapping and was no longer under the illusion that Sugarcreek was entirely safe for a child. Safer than most, of course, but no place was utterly immune to people with evil on their minds.
Since this was nothing more than a short investigatory visit to make certain that Calvin was in no immediate danger, she didn’t point any of that out.
Tiring of the adults, and seeing that she wasn’t going to tell on him after all, Calvin ducked into the house, leaving her and Alex standing at the open door. Dressed as he was, Alex had to be cold, but he didn’t show it as he patiently waited for her to either say something or leave.
“Calvin says you are his cousin and guardian?”
“I am,” Alex said.
“I haven’t seen you around,” she said. “Do you have family in Sugarcreek?”
“No.” His relaxed demeanor didn’t change. This was a man who was not uncomfortable with silence, nor was he going to offer any more information than she’d already gotten…which was zilch.
“Well, good meeting you,” she said. “Welcome to the town. Let me know if the two of you ever need anything.”
“Thank you, Officer,” he said, closing the door. “I appreciate that.”
She walked back to the squad car, musing about the meeting. She didn’t get the impression that something was wrong. Nothing was setting off the bells of what she called “cop’s intuition,” and Joe called her “spidey sense.”
But there was a troubled expression behind Alex’s eyes. Something was wrong, and whatever it was could have been the reason he had ended up in a run-down rental on the outskirts of Sugarcreek.
“Is Calvin okay?” Bobby asked when she got back.
“I think so.” Rachel slid into the front seat of the squad car.
“The big kids pick on him,” Bobby said. “That’s why he doesn’t want to ride the bus.”
“Calvin’s a good bit older than you,” she said. “How do you know that?”
“The boy who picks on him is Eddie’s big brother.”
“And who is Eddie?” She turned to back out of the driveway and saw that Bobby was looking out the window at the forlorn house.
“Eddie’s my friend. His big brother picks on him, too.”
“Thank you for telling me that,” she said. “It helps.”
Before heading home, she glanced at her cell phone. Somehow she had missed a call from Bertha. Hitting the speaker icon, she listened to Bertha’s voice as she drove the short distance to her and Joe’s home. It was something about wanting to talk with her. It didn’t sound urgent, so she went home to take over Holly’s care so Joe could go help Darren prep for the evening at the restaurant. The suppertime crowd would be coming in soon.
“She’s been fed, burped, bathed, and has fresh diapers. Should be getting ready for a nap any time now,” Joe said as he grabbed his keys.
Rachel took their fresh-smelling daughter from him and gave him a quick kiss as he headed out the door. It was hot dog night at the restaurant, and they had already decided that Bobby would go with his father for supper.
“I’ll pick you up later,” she told her son, interrupting him as he chattered to his father about how many hot dogs he planned to eat.
As soon as they left, she went to the kitchen. She was tired already, and her second shift had just begun. Protein. She needed protein. With the baby in one arm, Rachel headed for the refrigerator where she grabbed two cheese sticks to eat on the way to her aunts. If her aunts’ phone was inside, she could have just called, but it wasn’t inside and probably never would be. She did not want her call to be the one that caused one of them to fall outside trying to answer it.
The other reason she needed protein was because Lydia always had food ready—but too much of it tended to be sugar-laden. It seemed to Rachel like she was constantly battling the desire to please Lydia by happily eating whatever treat she’d recently made while attempting to keep from putting on weight.
“Your great-aunt Lydia is trying to kill me with sugar,” Rachel kissed Holly. “But in a couple of years, you are going to love her cookies!”
Thanking God that Holly was such a good-natured baby, she tore the plastic off a cheese stick with her teeth, took a bite, chewed, and swallowed while she put Holly in a tiny snowsuit. The cheese stuck in her throat. She grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge and downed half of it before putting the baby in the car seat carrier and then headed back out the door to see what Bertha wanted to talk to her about.
Rachel loved her two children desperately. She loved her life with Joe. She loved her job and her aunts and this community. She was grateful for the unexpected success of their restaurant. But, as Joe had recently pointed out, it was beginning to feel as though their lives had turned into passing Holly back and forth like a little football before one of them started running down the field with her. The problem was—they seemed never to reach the goal. They just kept running.
Chapter 23
Bertha enjoyed reading The Budget. It was a remarkable newspaper and there was always a copy lying around the inn. Their occasional Englisch guests who read it for the first time sometimes expressed surprise when they saw how far-flung all the Amish and Mennonite settlements were.
She usually took the time to explain that moving to new places was one of the earmarks of the Amish and the Mennonites. They moved for so many reasons. More fertile land, or cheaper. Sometimes they moved to escape a bishop in their church who might be more conservative or less conservative than they wanted.
They moved when a church outgrew the two-hundred member number that was conducive to meeting in one another’s homes. At that point, there would often be a discussion about which families would leave and start a new church somewhere else. Sometimes no one wanted to leave and they would have to draw lots.
And sometimes they moved simply out of curiosity about what it would be like to live in a new place. The grass, even for the Amish and Mennonites, often looked greener in another state or county.
Because of this willingness to move, The Budget served a great purpose. Each settlement had a “scribe” who would write letters to the newspaper about the goings-on in their community. Everything from reports about the weather and crops to the sad news of tragedies and deaths. Visits from relatives from other churches were often reported.
The only problem with The Budget, in Bertha’s opinion, was that there was so much of it. She seldom had the time to read everything in it before the next one arrived.
“Anything interesting?” Lydia asked as she cut out quilt pieces at the kitchen table.
Bertha scanned the pages for news from the settlements where various relatives had settled. “Looks like Cousin Bert got in a new batch of baby chicks down in the Gallipolis settlement. He’s planning to go into the organic free-range egg business.”
“Free-range is all we’ve ever known,” Lydia said.
“Apparently a lot of people are wanting to buy those kinds of eggs. Maybe we should go into the organic egg business, too.”
Lydia looked at her over her glasses. “You’re joking.”
“I am.”
“Anything else?” Lydia went back to her quilt pieces.
Bertha turned the page. “Cousin Ada up in the Evert, Michigan settlement broke her leg.”
“Poor Ada,” Lydia clucked her tongue. “Does it say how it happened?”
“It says here that she fell off the wagon during a hayride.”
“Oh, poor woman!” Lydia gasped. “What was she doing going on a hayride? She’s no spring chicken. She’s only two years younger than me.”
“It says here some of the youngies had teased her into riding along, and Ad
a did. The youngies are very sorry. They are asking for a card shower for her.”
Bertha gave the rest of the paper only a cursory glance, ready to fold it up and place it in the pile that Lydia used to get the cookstove fire started in the mornings. Then her eyes snagged on a missive she had not noticed. It was news from a Mennonite church in Sarasota, Florida. She was surprised to see that she knew the scribe.
“I will temporarily be taking over writing reports for the Budget from our sister, Mary Miller, who is having eye issues. Cataract surgery has been scheduled, and she asks for your prayers. The temperatures have been holding well here in Sarasota, which makes the orange farmers happy. It looks like a good crop this year. We had visitors at church this morning from a new settlement in New York State, the Timothy Hochstetlers. Jenny Yoder had her baby, a little boy. The mother and child are doing fine. Jenny’s husband, Mark, reports that the baby has a healthy set of lungs. On a personal note: This week is the first anniversary of the death of my dear wife, Charlotte. She continues to be greatly missed by her family and all who knew her. Respectfully, Dr. Anthony Lawrence--scribe.
Charlotte Lawrence--the woman whose letter to The Budget about dirt cookies--was gone?
“What’s wrong?” Lydia asked. “Are you all right?”
Bertha could not answer. At her age, so many friends and relatives had died that she thought she had almost developed immunity to grief. She was wrong.
She hadn’t even known that Charlotte and Anthony were living back in Sarasota. The last she had heard, they were involved in a work in Honduras. Had they moved to Florida because of Charlotte’s illness?
It was, of course, none of her business. She and Charlotte had not spoken in years. Still, there had been a time when she felt as though they were as close as sisters. The knowledge that Charlotte was gone hit her harder than she could ever have predicted.
She heard Rachel’s car pulling into the graveled driveway.
Bertha did not want to cry in front of Rachel or Lydia, but she feared she would if she stayed in the kitchen one moment longer.
She grabbed her coat, shoved her feet into her galoshes, and hurriedly filled a pail with warm, soapy water.
“Chores.” She mumbled to Lydia as she headed out the back door.
By the time Bertha got to the barn, she was trembling and her knees felt so weak that she nearly collapsed before she could sit down on a bale of hay. She leaned her head back against the rough-hewn wall and gulped great breaths of air, grateful she had made it to the barn without falling apart.
There was much she had not told her family about those first months in Haiti. There was much she never intended to tell them--things she had kept hidden in her heart for over fifty years.
Chapter 24
Haiti
1963
The man waiting to greet the three nurses as they got off the military transport at Bowen Airport was tall, dark, and not particularly handsome. At least he wasn’t to Bertha’s eyes. She was used to Amish farmers and carpenters—men who were ruddy and muscular. This man was tall, gangly, and ever-so-slightly hunched as though he had spent too much time sitting at a desk.
“Good day!” he shouted in a British accent over the sound of a prop airplane ready to take off. “You girls are a sight for sore eyes!”
Bertha and her friends clung to the handrail as they climbed down the mobile steps an airport worker had shoved up to the airplane. The weather had been iffy, and the flight—the first any of them had ever experienced—had been frighteningly bumpy. Even Bertha, the strongest of the three, felt her knees wobble as she made her way down toward the tarmac.
She swayed slightly as she stepped onto firm ground. It felt like she had walked into a blast furnace. The heat waves shimmered, and the smell of hot asphalt rising to greet her was nearly overwhelming. Nothing she had ever experienced in Ohio could have prepared her for this.
Their greeter, unperturbed by the heat, saw her sway and flew to her side to steady her. The shock of feeling this stranger’s arm gripped tightly around her waist brought her back to her senses. Surprised and ashamed by her unexpected weakness, she shook off his help.
“I’m fine now,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You’re sure?” He studied her face for a moment. “It sometimes takes a bit of time to get used to the heat.”
“No. Really. I’m fine.” She felt her cheeks grow pink. It was the first time she had ever been held so closely by a grown man. Especially one who towered over her. It was rare for her to even stand next to a man taller than she.
“Dr. Anthony Lawrence, here.” He dropped his arm from around her waist and shook hands with the three nurses. “I’m the Assistant Director of the Schweitzer Albert Hospital in Desjardins. It appears that we will all be working together. Welcome to the country of Haiti!”
“I’m Bertha Troyer.” She willed herself to regain some dignity. “This is Darlene Johnson and Jane Porter.”
She was a little worried about Darlene. The woman had been airsick on the ride here and was still a bit green. She looked even worse than Bertha felt.
Dr. Lawrence noticed Darlene’s discomfort.
“Don’t worry, Miss Johnson,” he said. “My wife is at home getting your beds ready and fixing a light supper. You’ll all be able to lie down soon and rest.”
The idea of lying down seemed wonderfully attractive. It had been an extraordinarily long day for all three women.
The ride to the Lawrence’s home took place in a dusty jeep into which he crammed Jane, Darlene, Bertha, and all their luggage. They hung on for dear life while he swerved this way and that, avoiding giant potholes in the primitive, rutted roads.
From the backseat of the jeep, she got a bird’s eye view of the countryside, which was even bleaker than she expected. It was a dusty, dirty, impoverished country in which she and her friends had arrived.
The Lawrence’s house was on a street near the hospital. Half-naked children ran about laughing and playing some sort of kickball. One child carried a live chicken—apparently a pet—beneath his arm. Or perhaps it was his family’s dinner. She had no way of knowing. Her knowledge of the culture was shallow at best. Even though she had tried to read up on the country, there simply wasn’t that much written about it that she could find.
The house was peeling stucco with a rusted tin roof. When they entered, she saw that it was not much more than one living area with two smaller rooms jutting out on each side. The middle room contained a small sink and stove and some rough shelves. Two crates with loose boards laid on top served as a table.
Dr. Lawrence led them into another room where there were three pallets laid upon concrete blocks.
“You may stack your luggage in the corner,” he said. “This is where you will spend the night. Our boys will sleep with Charlotte and I. You will take their beds.”
“Thank you,” Bertha said.
Jane nodded her thanks. Darlene stood in the middle of the room with her mouth screwed up in disapproval, as though appalled at the conditions under which they would be sleeping.
“I’m sure you are used to better lodgings,” Dr. Lawrence said, “but we’ve only been in this house a short time and are still waiting for the furniture to arrive my wife’s family is sending. We were blessed to find a house, especially one that has a bathroom and running water. After living in one room at the hospital for four years, this feels like a mansion. Charlotte! Our guests are here!”
A woman hurried out of what Bertha assumed was the master bedroom.
“Hello.” Charlotte smiled and opened her arms wide. “Welcome to our home!”
She was a small woman, wearing a faded blue dress sprinkled with small white flowers. The gauzy kapp of a Mennonite woman was fastened over light brown hair falling out of a bun.
“Please take a seat, and we can get to know one another before the children get home,” Dr. Lawrence hopped up to sit on the table.
Bertha could see no other place to sit except for a
few cushions piled against the wall. She sat down upon one of them, tucked her legs beneath her, and covered them modestly with her skirt. The other two nurses did the same while Charlotte and her husband beamed down on them.
“Dinner is almost ready,” Charlotte said. “I hope you like beans and rice. It is a staple here. You will be eating a lot of it.”
“Beans and rice sound fine,” Bertha said.
Charlotte busied herself with a pot on the two-burner stove while Dr. Lawrence sat on the table, swinging his legs.
“So how do you like it here so far?” he asked.
Jane, Darlene, and Bertha looked at each other. All three were exhausted, and Bertha guessed that they were all verging on a sort of culture shock.
“It is very different than Ohio,” Darlene said in a small voice.
Dr. Lawrence barked out a laugh. “I’ll wager it is!”
“Did you mention a—a bathroom?” Jane asked. “It has been a long trip and…”
Charlotte pointed toward their bedroom. “Right through there. I should have thought. Of course, you need to freshen up.”
As Jane rose to her feet, Bertha and Darlene got up and followed her into where Charlotte had pointed. The Lawrence’s bed was made up with a brightly-colored sheet, and a few clothes hung from nails that lined the wall. There was no closet, nor was there so much as an extra chair.
The bathroom was a sorry affair with a small lavatory, a primitive shower, and a commode so stained with rusty water that Bertha guessed Charlotte had probably given up on scrubbing it clean.
Darlene looked inside with distaste.
“You use it first,” she said to Bertha. “You’re braver than me. If you don’t die, I’ll go in.”
Bertha's Resolve: Love's Journey in Sugarcreek, Book 4 Page 9