Sarah's Orphans

by Vannetta Chapman

  “Why are we here?” Isaac asked.

  “Because…because I saw something.”

  “Over there.” Luke pointed the beam of his flashlight toward wet tracks leading to the back of the barn.

  Sarah didn’t even hesitate. She followed the tracks until they were standing at the back door and looking over at the abandoned trailer.

  “That’s where he went.”

  “They,” she whispered. “Look. Two sets of footprints.”

  They walked across to the trailer, stopped in front of the door, and discussed whether they should go inside. Finally, Sarah pushed past her brothers and opened the door. Inside was not much better than outside. Several of the windows had been broken and were covered on the inside with cardboard. The floor was wet from snow dripping through a small hole in the roof. It was a single room, and in the corner was a stack of boxes.

  When she looked closer, Sarah saw that it wasn’t exactly a pile of boxes. It was more like a hideaway built of boxes, and they were newer—not rotten and torn like the other items in the room.

  She held up her hand to quiet her brothers, who had begun to argue about whether it was illegal to be in the trailer. Stepping closer to the boxes, she listened, holding her breath to still even the sound of her heartbeat. But she heard nothing.

  Turning to her brothers, she said, “I guess I imagined it. We should go before you two catch a cold.”

  They had nearly made it back to the door when the cry of a child pierced the afternoon’s gloom. Sarah, Luke, and Isaac all stared at one another, and then they hurried back toward the fortress of boxes.

  Luke insisted on crawling inside first. He backed out, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “No one there now, but I think there has been.”

  Thunder crashed—snow thunder—and lightning split across the sky. Extreme Oklahoma weather. Sarah had learned not to be afraid of it years ago, though she did listen carefully to weather warnings. She had checked the forecast before they had left the church gathering. The storm had already done its worst and was predicted to move through within the hour.

  Sarah pushed him out of the way. Kids? Living in a box? Maybe Luke was playing a joke on her.

  But she’d heard the cry of a child, and she had seen someone dart across the road.

  Sarah dropped down on her hands and knees and forced her way through the opening. She had to blink several times to understand what she was seeing.

  The light from Luke’s flashlight revealed a bottle of water, an empty Tylenol box, and trash from what they had been eating. She saw cupcake wrappers and a few unopened cans of vegetables. Where had those come from? The Bylers’ store across the street?

  She backed out. Luke and Isaac were glancing around the trailer. It was so small they could see the entire room from where they stood.

  “No one’s here, Sarah.” Isaac resettled his hat on his head.

  “I could have imagined seeing someone run out in front of the buggy—”

  “You didn’t,” Luke said. “I saw it too.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t imagine the cry I heard. It was a child.”

  She focused the beam of the flashlight on the floor. There were tracks from where they had walked in, tracks leading to the box, and then—

  “Back door,” Isaac said.

  The three of them glanced at one another and then rushed over to open it. At first Sarah saw only a farm in the distance, the silo and outbuildings rising up out of the snow. Then she realized that two children were walking toward the farm—a girl in a pink coat and an older boy.

  “Maybe they were playing here.”

  “Maybe.”

  But why the box that had once held chewable Tylenol? Food wrappers could possibly be explained by children playing, but not medicine.

  Luke was once again saying they should leave, and Isaac was complaining that his feet were cold. Sarah continued to watch the two children walking away from the trailer when over the wind and snow she heard the girl call out and then collapse to the ground.

  They reached the children quickly. Both were Hispanic. The boy looked to be Isaac’s age, and the girl appeared to be his younger sister. He didn’t look up as they approached, only remained kneeling in the snow, trying to convince the girl to stand up, to keep moving. The girl continued to cry.

  It was obvious to Sarah that they had been living in the trailer, and now they were running away.

  She knew it was foolish to try to talk to them outside in the storm with the snow swirling around them and the wind cutting through their thin clothes. With gestures, she convinced them to turn around and go back into the trailer.

  Once there, the boy huddled in a corner of the room. His arms were wrapped around the girl, who was wearing jeans and a pink coat. The boy’s clothes were so soiled it was difficult to tell much about what he was wearing other than he had on pants, a filthy shirt, and a coat which was ragged and too large. The girl was crying and clutching her stomach, and the boy was murmuring something to her that Sarah didn’t understand. Both were thin and dirty, and they smelled bad. From what she had seen in the box and how he was acting, Sarah could tell that the boy had tried to take care of his sister.

  “My name is Sarah. Is there something wrong with your sister?”

  The little boy shook his head. His black hair was long and dirty and wet. He’d been the one they had nearly run over, there was no doubt about that.

  “No. We’re okay. Pero no hablo Inglés.”

  Plainly they were not okay. Sarah understood enough Spanish to know what the boy had said, but she couldn’t think of how to answer him. Instead, she turned her attention to the little girl. She clutched a dirty blanket. Her long black hair was matted to her head. When Sarah touched her forehead, she wasn’t surprised to find it slick with sweat.

  How long had they been here? What had they been eating? And what was she supposed to do?

  The morning’s sermon came back to her as clearly as if the preacher were standing right beside her, whispering the Scripture in her ears.

  Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…

  “Where are your parents?” She asked. “Mamá?”

  “Nuestra madre tenía que ir. Se supone que debemos esperar aquí.”

  Sarah shook her head. She had no idea what he was trying to tell her. The boy was becoming visibly agitated, and the little girl continued to cry. Luke had squatted down beside them. Did the girl have something contagious? Should Sarah insist that her brothers leave?

  Isaac waved at the small boy and girl and asked in a stage whisper, “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Sarah said. “But they can’t stay here.”

  Convincing them to leave was no easy task. The boy kept speaking in Spanish, arguing, and saying something about his mother.

  Was he worried his mother would come back? How long had they been in the old trailer? Perhaps if he could leave her a note…

  Sarah pulled a pen from her purse. She pantomimed writing on one of the boxes. At first the boy would only shake his head no, but then his sister began coughing in addition to her crying. The boy looked from Sarah to his sister and back again. Finally, he took the pen and began to write.

  CHAPTER 20

  Sarah somehow managed to get the children to her house. Once there, she heated leftover soup for the boy and gave the girl some weak tea and bread. She wanted to give the tiny thing milk and soup and cheese, but she didn’t think the child’s stomach would keep it down. She did give her more of the Children’s Tylenol Mateo had offered to her when they sat down at the table.

  After they had eaten, she insisted the boy try to clean up. “Isaac will show you where the bathroom and towels are.”

  Isaac shrugged. “Okay. C’mon.”

  But he’d come back five minutes later. “Do you want Mateo to put on the same clothes?”

  “Mateo? That’s his name?”

  “I gu
ess.”

  “You guess? What…was his name sewn into his clothes?”

  Isaac started laughing. Somehow her little brother helped her to see the humor in even such a tragic situation as this.

  “I pointed to myself and said, ‘Isaac.’ He pointed at himself and said, ‘Mateo.’ It’s not that hard to figure out. By the way, his sister’s name is Mia.”

  Sarah had stared at him, stunned at how she could make something so complicated and he could make it so simple.

  “Sarah? Hello?” Isaac waved his fingers in the air to get her attention. “Clothes? Mateo? Should he put the old ones back on?”

  “Nein. Give him something of yours.”

  The boys were approximately the same size. For all she knew they were the same age, though Mateo was pitifully thin.

  Mia was lying on the couch, staring at Sarah with large brown eyes. She crouched down in front of the little girl and pointed at herself. “I’m Sarah,” she said softly. “And you’re Mia.”

  Mia reached out and touched Sarah’s face before promptly sticking her thumb back into her mouth. She’d stopped crying after she’d had some tea and bread, but her eyes darted around constantly. The poor thing was as frightened as a doe separated from its mother. She wouldn’t allow Sarah to bathe her, though she did hold still long enough for Sarah to get a good swipe at her hands and face. Because she had no little girl’s clothes, Sarah found an old shirt of Isaac’s and put it on her. It reached to her ankles, but at least it was clean.

  Mia became noticeably calmer when Mateo walked back into the room in a pair of Isaac’s pajamas looking like a different kid.

  He sat beside Mia on the couch until Luke coaxed him into a game of checkers. Isaac laughed when Mateo won the third game. “I guess it’s the same in Spanish or Englisch.”

  Isaac and Mateo began another round of checkers, Luke worked on some homework at the kitchen table, and Sarah tried to resume her crochet work. But her eyes constantly returned to the children. Her attention was captivated by their plight and a thousand questions that she might never know the answers to.

  A little while later, Sarah gave the boys milk and cookies and then scooted them off to bed. She’d made Mateo a pallet on the floor in Isaac and Luke’s room. It had been several hours since she’d brought the children to her house, and she thought that perhaps Mia could stomach a little more food. The child’s expression brightened at the sight of a large oatmeal cookie, but she only managed to eat half before her eyes were drooping. Sarah felt her forehead—if she’d had a fever before, it was gone now. Perhaps she only needed food and a good night’s sleep. When Sarah went to help her out of the kitchen chair, Mia wrapped her arms around her neck. Small and sticky and warm, her hands found the back of Sarah’s hair braid and played with it.

  And in that moment Sarah stopped thinking of the problems with language barriers and an overcrowded house and financial issues. In the instant when Mia’s little hands were clasped around her neck and her head was resting on Sarah’s shoulder, all Sarah could do was thank the Lord that she had found these two and that they wouldn’t be spending the night in the abandoned trailer.

  An hour later, Henry and Andy found them sitting in the rocker, Mia snoring softly and Sarah making a valiant attempt to stay awake.

  Isaac and Mateo were asleep, but Luke came downstairs and began to describe the evening’s events to his older brothers, beginning with their search in the old abandoned trailer.

  Sarah said softly, “Perhaps you should let me tell Andy what happened.”

  “It was radical,” Luke said.

  She cringed at Luke’s slang, but Andy didn’t seem to notice. He told Henry and Luke to get upstairs.

  “You have school tomorrow,” he said to Luke.

  “Don’t remind me.”

  Andy shrugged and turned to Henry.

  “I know. I know.” Henry’s hands went up in a surrender gesture. “Our day starts before the rooster crows.”

  “As if we had a rooster,” Luke mumbled.

  But the two boys went upstairs, leaving Sarah, Mia, and Andy alone.

  “You left a note?” Andy paced back and forth in front of Sarah. “For who? Where? How?”

  “Sit down and I’ll tell you. But lower your voice. It took me forever to convince Mateo to go upstairs with Isaac.”

  “Mateo? Who is Mateo?”

  “Mia’s brother. Weren’t you listening to Luke? Mateo is the one who darted in front of our buggy. At least, we think that Mateo and Mia are their names. It’s all a bit iffy since they don’t speak much Englisch, and we don’t speak much Spanish.”

  Andy had stopped pacing and was staring at her as if she’d sprouted rooster feathers and was about to start crowing. “There are two of them?”

  Sarah suppressed a sigh with great difficulty. “For the third time. Yes. There are two children. Mateo is in Isaac and Luke’s room. I made him a pallet on the floor, which is a big improvement over the box he was living in. I’d rather have a bed for him, but—”

  “Sarah, what are you talking about? Surely you’re not thinking about them staying here. We can’t possibly take in two homeless kids.”

  She glanced down at the child in her arms. After another dose of medicine, little Mia was finally sleeping and her fever had definitely broken. Perhaps it was merely a cold. Maybe she’d simply needed some hot food and dry clothes. Sarah thought about arguing with her brother. She almost reminded him of the sermon from that very morning. She very nearly told him that they, more than anyone else, understood how it felt to be abandoned.

  Instead, she said, “Hold her for a minute. I need to make some tea.”

  Andy sank onto the couch. She gently placed Mia in his arms. Though she wanted to look back to be sure they were both okay, she didn’t. Instead, she set the kettle on the stove and dropped two bags of herbal tea into two mugs. As she waited for the water to boil, she pulled out the peanut butter bars she’d made the afternoon before. Just one wouldn’t keep them awake. The sugar would give them a temporary burst of energy, perhaps enough to talk this through, and then they would all sleep.

  She set everything on a tray. By the time she carried it into the sitting room, Andy had laid Mia on the far end of the couch and covered her with a lap quilt.

  “She’s a small thing.”

  “That she is.”

  “And they were living in the old trailer? In a cardboard box?”

  Sarah nodded and handed him one of the mugs of tea.

  Andy accepted it and a peanut butter bar. “You’d better start at the beginning.”

  So she told him about the storm, taking the longer route, and seeing the boy dart in front of their buggy.

  “That must have scared you.”

  “Ya. I was sure and certain that Dusty would run right over him.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “Nein. Dusty still has plenty of stopping power.”

  She described walking into the barn, observing the state of disrepair they found there, following the footprints to the trailer, and seeing the fort of boxes.

  “Supposing we could keep them, and I’m not saying that we could or even that we should. But supposing we could, how do we know that their parents aren’t looking for them?”

  “You think they’re runaways?”

  “If it were just the boy, maybe, but most runaways don’t take their baby sister with them.” He finished the peanut butter bar. “You say he’s Isaac’s age?”

  “Looks to be.”

  “Makes no sense. At nine years old boys are thinking about playing ball and catching frogs.” He ran a hand up and down his jawline.

  Sarah realized as she watched him in the dimness of the lantern light that her brother was no longer a boy. Somewhere along the difficult road of the past few years, he’d become a man.

  “We’re going to have to tell the police and the bishop, and get a translator.”

  Sarah nodded as if she agreed with him. “But he left a note on one
of the boxes. Maybe their mother will come back. Maybe she’s just been away for a few hours.”

  “You think she was living in the trailer too?”

  There had been no sign of a mother, but it was possible. Sarah shrugged. “I’m only saying that maybe we should give it a day or two.”

  “I don’t know if that’s legal.” Andy stood and stretched. “I could sleep on the couch, but I suppose it’s best to drag myself upstairs.”

  “Carry her for me?”

  “Sure.”

  As Sarah followed her brother up the stairs, she prayed that Mia’s health would improve, that Mateo would be less frightened in the morning, and that somehow they could learn what had happened to the children’s mother. One thing she knew for certain. Though a language and probably a faith separated them, her family had more in common with these two children than they did with any other Amish family in their district. They were all abandoned. Perhaps they could look after one another.

  CHAPTER 21

  Mateo’s first thought on waking was that he was still dreaming. His head was on a pillow, he was under a blanket, and he could smell biscuits cooking. His second thought was of Mia.

  He bounded out of his cover, causing Isaac to laugh.

  “No need to run. We still have a couple of minutes.”

  “Mia?”

  “She’s okay.” Isaac exaggerated the last word exactly as Mateo had the night before.

  Mateo sank back onto his makeshift bed. He’d lied to Sarah the night before. He’d told her that he didn’t understand English, but he did. He’d been to school before, and he’d lived in the U.S. all of his life. It was only that he didn’t speak it very well. He understood most of the words he heard, but his thoughts were in Spanish. By the time he came up with the English word for something, the conversation had usually moved on. He’d found it was best to keep quiet.