Sarah's Orphans

by Vannetta Chapman

  Sarah didn’t know what to say to any of that, so she remained silent.

  “The insurance is past due. We cannot, per banking regulations, hold a loan against a building that isn’t properly insured. If you put off paying the taxes, the county will file a lien against your property. In addition, the next payment on the barn is due February 10. That gives you less than two weeks to come up with the money. If you’re unable to do so, we’ll have to put the property up for sale, and you will have to vacate the premises.”

  “But—”

  “Ms. Yoder.” Dackery removed his glasses, folded them carefully, and placed them on his desk. He leaned forward as if he needed to impress on her the importance of what he was saying. “Your oldest brother could get a job in the factory. It pays well. I’m sure there’s a small home here in town you could rent. It’s not the most terrible thing that could happen to you, to lose your land. A farm can be a burden, and it seems to me you’ve had more than your fair share of those.” He cleared his throat and replaced his glasses. “Your mother should be the one here speaking to us. Her name is on the title now.”

  “She’s not…she’s not well.”

  He folded some papers into an envelope and pushed them across the desk to her. “Take those home. Show them to your mother. They explain the foreclosure process. It’s something you should discuss as a family, and then you can come back and tell me how you wish to proceed.”

  Those words echoed through her mind as she stuffed the papers into her purse, cinched her coat, and made her way out into the cold morning. Instead of climbing into her buggy, she stepped in front of Dusty, their twelve-year-old gelding. Most of the other Amish in Cody’s Creek drove their tractor to town, often with the beds of old pickup trucks attached to provide room for groceries, animals, or family members. Buggies were reserved for church, weddings, and funerals.

  But the Yoder tractor had broken long ago. Andy said it was easier to keep a horse going than to fix an ancient tractor, but Henry was convinced he could repair the 1962 Ford. Someone would have to fix it if they had any hopes of planting a spring crop. The Oklahoma dirt held a good amount of clay, and tractors were necessary to farm it. Their community had made that decision more than a hundred years ago.

  The horse stared at her with trusting eyes as she rubbed his neck, ignored the tears trailing down her cheeks, and whispered, “I’ll think of something.”

  Ten minutes later, she’d regained her composure and was standing in the grocery aisle of Byler’s Dry Goods. Rebecca had been helping an Englisch customer when she’d walked in, but now the dear woman made her way back toward her. When Rebecca enfolded her in a hug, Sarah did her best to hold a tight rein on her emotions. She smiled brightly—at least she hoped it was a smile—and said, “How are you? How is Joseph feeling?”

  “He’s gut. It’s all I can do to keep him upstairs on the couch where he belongs. The heart doctors say another week and then he can return to work, but no heavy lifting. It’s a real blessing that we have Paul, or I don’t know what we’d do. The boys are all busy on their own farms dealing with all this snow and caring for their livestock.”

  Paul walked by at that moment, carrying a crate of flour and sugar. He was a large man by Amish standards—probably close to six feet tall—and he looked like an Englisch football player. Sarah guessed he was in his thirties, with curly black hair and no beard. It was no wonder he hadn’t found a wife. The man never smiled. He passed them without a word and began to restock the shelves.

  Sarah didn’t know how good of a thing it was for Rebecca to have her brother-in-law helping. Though he was a good twenty years younger than Joseph, it seemed to Sarah that he had a sour disposition. Rebecca and Joseph Byler had always been a bright spot in their Amish community, their shop teeming with grandchildren and a brisk business.

  Perhaps it was the day’s gloomy weather, but the dry goods store seemed deserted.

  “Do you have a list I can help you with?” Rebecca asked.

  “Nein. Only…” Sarah studied the prices on the shelves, which hadn’t changed since the last time she’d been in the store. She’d counted her money before coming in and knew she had enough for flour or sugar, but not both. “I’ll take a large bag of the flour and a big tin of oats.”

  “That’s all?” Rebecca asked as she motioned for Paul to pick up what Sarah needed.

  “Ya.” She forced another smile, followed Rebecca to the register, and counted out the total, closing her billfold quickly so that Rebecca wouldn’t see it was now empty.

  “You know our community is eager to help in any way—”

  “Nein. We’re fine.”

  Rebecca didn’t argue, but neither did she nod in agreement. “How’s Deborah?”

  “Mamm is…okay, I guess. She seems to still be recovering from the shock of it all.”

  “A man should not grieve overmuch, for that is a complaint against God.” Rebecca shook her head as she placed Sarah’s money in the register and closed the drawer. “I heard that proverb all my life growing up.”

  “Ya. I’ve heard that one too.”

  “Not all proverbs are created equal, though.” Rebecca pulled a stack of cookbooks toward her and began stamping them with price stickers. “Personally, I think grieving takes a different amount of time for different people. Your mamm has had a difficult life. It could be that she’ll need longer to recover from the shock of losing your dat.”

  Sarah thought of that as she juggled her purse, the twenty-five-pound sack of flour, and the canister of oats.

  “Paul could carry those—”

  “I’ve got it,” she murmured. She stumbled toward the door.

  Paul was there in an instant, opening the door and frowning down at her. “Let me help—”

  “No need. Danki.” And with those words, she fled across the snowy parking lot.

  CHAPTER 3

  Paul stood at the door of his brother’s shop, watching tiny Sarah Yoder stagger across the parking area to an old buggy and tired-looking horse. He’d had to pull his mouth down into a frown to keep from laughing out loud at her. She looked like a cartoon figure under a giant bag of flour.

  However, the reality of it wasn’t funny. She was pitifully thin. Did the family need money? Her Plain dress was clean and pressed, and she wore a coat that was perhaps sufficient against the cold, though it had no doubt seen better days. Her blond hair, precisely braided, indicated she was careful about her appearance regardless of her poverty. Sarah was a pretty young woman, and Paul had to wonder why she wasn’t yet married. Not that he was in a hurry, and he had to be a good ten years older than her.

  “She’s a stubborn one,” he muttered.

  Rebecca had joined him, ostensibly to put the cookbooks in a turning rack by the door, but she was also watching Sarah.

  “Terrible thing that happened to that family. Her father, Melvin Yoder, struggled all his life.”

  “From what?”

  “Bipolar disorder, they say. In the old days we would have said melancholy.”

  “The first speaks of highs as well as lows.”

  “I suppose, but Melvin spent his highs in the casinos in Tulsa, which only resulted in more lows.”

  “He passed recently?”

  “He did.” Rebecca pressed her lips together, and Paul knew that meant she would speak no more on the subject of Mr. Yoder’s death.

  “Younger siblings?”

  “Four.”

  “But she still has her mamm.”

  Rebecca nodded once, curtly, which said more than any words could have.

  “Paul, would you mind watching the store while I go on an errand?”

  “In this weather?”

  “The roads are clear already.”

  “More snow is coming.”

  “I’ll be back within the hour.” She patted his arm, fetched her purse from behind the counter, and hurried out to their tractor.

  Paul shook his head. Back in Indiana, all Plain folks traveled
in buggies, most of which had heaters and all of which had doors that closed. Traveling in an open tractor through the snow? That made no sense. There was much in Oklahoma that puzzled him, but he was glad he’d come to help his brother.

  One of seven boys, he wasn’t sure there was anything for him back in Indiana. And land? Well, he couldn’t afford that even after ten years of working in an RV factory building cabinets.

  The community in Oklahoma might have unusual ways, but the land here was productive and inexpensive. Which were two reasons that Paul thought he just might be staying.

  He spent the next hour stocking shelves, checking out the two customers who came in, and sweeping the floor. Rebecca returned, her cheeks flushed, in a cheerier mood. Whatever her errand had involved, it eased the worried look from her eyes.

  He took his lunch upstairs with his brother. Paul was the youngest in their family, having just turned thirty. Joseph was the oldest. He’d celebrated his fiftieth birthday the week before.

  When Paul had first arrived two months earlier, Joseph had looked pale, frail, and as old as their dat. The heart attack he’d suffered had been relatively minor, or so the doctors said. The open-heart surgery had left a scar the length of Joseph’s chest where the surgeon had cut through his breastbone. Paul had seen it and blanched at the sight.

  Five hours in surgery, eight days in the hospital, and then limited activity for four to six weeks, which had been extended to eight weeks when he’d contracted the flu as well. Things had turned around in the last few days. Joseph was quickly regaining his health and along with it, his stubborn streak.

  “Couldn’t you find any work to bring me?” he asked.

  “I brought you the accounting books.”

  “Finished those by ten this morning.”

  “Perhaps you should have worked slower.”

  Joseph harrumphed at that, and they both shared a smile. It was the exact sound their mother made when frustrated.

  “If you could help me down the stairs—”

  “And risk Rebecca’s wrath? Not likely.” Paul had been putting together a sandwich—bologna, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and pickle, followed with more bologna and cheese. Now he realized he’d probably built it too tall.

  “Sure you don’t want one?”

  “Already ate.”

  Paul carried the plate and a tall glass of milk over to the table.

  “I could maybe sneak into the storeroom and do some reorganizing. If she doesn’t see me—”

  “Rebecca knows you’re restless, Joseph, and she has her eye on you. Just do what the doctor said and rest. It’s only another week.”

  “An entire week.” He tapped his fingers against the table. “It’s unnatural for a man to be idle this long.”

  The conversation died a natural death, and Paul enjoyed his sandwich. Giving it time to settle before making a decision on fresh oatmeal cookies, he eyed his brother and finally plunged in.

  “Sarah Yoder was in the store today.”

  “Ya?”

  “Small thing. She didn’t buy much.”

  “Maybe she didn’t need much.”

  “Could be.” Paul crossed his arms on the table and leaned toward his brother. “Right after she left, your fraa went on a mystery mission. I’m thinking it had something to do with the family.”

  “Rebecca worries.”

  “Understandable.” When Joseph didn’t offer any details, Paul asked, “What happened to her father?”

  “I suppose it was before you got here.”

  Paul nodded.

  “Melvin had these episodes. He’d be right as rain one minute—well, maybe not exactly right.” Joseph ran his fingers through his beard. “Everyone was aware that even his right was a bit odd. He’d be too happy, too full of energy, as if he had jumping beans inside of him. You knew when that happened a crash wasn’t far off.”

  “What kind of crash?”

  “Hard to say, as his wife, Deborah, never let on, but a few times the bishop had to intervene. He would take the children to stay somewhere else a few days. That sort of thing.”

  “Yoder was abusive?” Something in Paul’s heart hardened toward the man, someone he had never known and now never would.

  “I suspect the family took the brunt of his anger if that’s what you’re asking. Was he violent?” Joseph shook his head, but then he admitted, “Maybe once or twice. Mostly it was the way he treated his family—not with respect or even love. All of his anger would rush out toward them, exploding, and then disappear as quickly as it arrived. Like a storm passing through.”

  “But the damage would be done.”

  “Yes. He’d try to make up for his episodes. It all created a very unpredictable home for those children. I think Sarah—being the oldest—took the worst of it.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Rushed out into a terrible storm. He was carrying on about how they all were trying to kill him. See, when Melvin took his medication, he was better, though it made his thoughts a bit cloudy. When he didn’t take the medication, his thoughts would become crazy. He could be quite paranoid.”

  “And he ran out into a storm?”

  “Ya. Andy, the oldest boy, hurried after him and tried to find him, but by the time he did, Melvin had already been hit by a passing truck. Died at the scene.”

  Paul nodded as if everything Joseph had shared made sense, but it didn’t. A father claiming that his family was trying to kill him, running out into a storm, and being struck and killed by a truck? That was hard to imagine, let alone understand.

  Paul made his way back into the store and busied himself with the afternoon tasks, allowing his mind to wander where it would. But it wasn’t Melvin Yoder he thought of. Instead, he was seeing a whisper of a girl, bearing the weight of flour and oats, stepping out into a cold January snow.

  CHAPTER 4

  Mateo Lopez watched the dry goods store from the confines of the abandoned barn across the street.

  “Mateo.” Mia tugged on his shirt until he finally turned his attention to her.

  He sank onto the floor of the barn and allowed his little sister to crawl into his lap. She was only three, and she had taken to fretting if he stepped out of her sight for even a second. Clingy. That was the word he had learned in school back in Texas, when they had lived behind the diner where his mamá worked.

  She’d lost that job when she got sick, and now she was looking for another—or that was what she’d said when she left two days ago.

  Mia coughed twice before sticking her thumb into her mouth and closing her eyes.

  He would wait until she was asleep, until he had tucked her back into the old leaky trailer, and then he would sneak over to the dry goods store. He’d seen what the tall man had thrown in the Dumpster, and he had every intention of going to get it.

  CHAPTER 5

  Sarah, Andy, and their mother sat across from Bishop Levi. They had been finishing up dinner when Sarah heard the clatter of the bishop’s buggy in the drive. He rarely drove a tractor, perhaps thinking that as the leader of their community it was up to him to maintain the old ways. Levi was probably in his fifties—white hair mixing with the gray and brown in his beard. He had a limp and always walked with a cane, and Sarah knew him to be a kind and fair man. When he said he needed to speak with them, she’d sent Henry upstairs with the two younger boys.

  “Some in the community are concerned that you’re struggling here.”

  “We’re doing fine,” Andy insisted.

  Sarah was thinking that the bishop had seen the leftovers on the table—potato soup without cheese, crusts of bread, and milk. They would never starve living on a farm, but the children weren’t exactly eating well, either.

  “I know that you are working hard, Andy. I commend you for taking on the role of provider in this family. And Sarah…” The bishop turned toward her, and a wide range of images flashed through Sarah’s mind simultaneously.

  Bishop Levi, taking her to the hospital in Tul
sa.

  Bishop Levi, insisting they stay in a neighboring district when her father was having one of his episodes.

  Bishop Levi, informing them that their father was dead.

  “You’re doing a gut job, Sarah. It’s plain that the children are being taken care of, and Brian Walker told me just the other day that both Luke and Isaac are doing well in school.”

  Sarah only nodded, but she appreciated his kind words. She had no idea how to raise a houseful of boys, though some days it seemed as if she’d been doing it since she was a child herself.

  The bishop blew a bubble, pulled the gum from his mouth, and wrapped it in a scrap of paper before tucking it into his pocket. They were to the serious portion of the conversation, the real reason for his visit.

  “Deborah, my worries are that financially, you don’t have the resources to meet your obligations.”

  Sarah’s mother didn’t answer, but she managed a shrug, which was more than she did when Sarah asked her a question.

  “Now, I’m aware that Melvin took a loan out on your barn. Has the payment been made?”

  “Nein, but we mean to. That is to say, we will.” Sarah jumped in with the answer. She’d tried to talk to her mother about the meeting at the bank, but with no luck. Deborah had claimed a headache and retreated to her darkened room.

  “I’m sure you will, given time. However, banks rarely have any extra of that to give.” He smiled to show he was attempting to make a joke, and then he again turned serious.

  “The insurance?”

  Sarah and Andy both shook their heads.

  “Taxes?”

  Again, no.

  “And how much money do you have for food, clothing, and such?”

  Andy looked to Sarah. When their father had died, he’d told her that he would happily take care of the farm, the crops, the horse, and the barn if she would handle financial matters. They’d also agreed that Andy would look after Henry, who was closest to him in age. Sarah would look after Isaac, who was youngest. Luke was in the middle, which seemed to mean that he was Sarah’s responsibility until he’d finished the school year, at which point he would probably be working on the farm with Andy.