Sarah's Orphans

by Vannetta Chapman

  He had somehow lost track of what day of the week it was, but as he saw Isaac getting ready, he figured it must be Monday. There wasn’t any doubt that his new friend was getting ready for school. What would that be like? To live in the same place year after year and go to the same school the entire time?

  Mateo was trying to imagine that when Isaac squatted down beside his bed and pulled out a shoe box.

  “Come look.”

  At first Mateo thought it might be a trick, but these people had been nice to him. They had cared for Mia and given both of them food. Hesitantly he moved closer to Isaac, and then he was right next to him, their heads touching as they peered into the box.

  “I’m thinking of starting a colony of them.”

  Mateo laughed when Isaac picked up one of the frogs and it peed on him. He’d filled the box with grass and rocks and even a small dish, which held water.

  “I found them out by the water pump next to the barn.”

  Luke stuck his head in the door. “Better hurry before she burns the oatmeal again. And don’t even think of bringing that box to school with you.”

  “Remember, it’s a secret.” Isaac closed the box, and then he held up his hand for Mateo to high-five.

  Some things were the same, whether English or Spanish—like frogs and secrets and high fives.

  CHAPTER 22

  Sarah hadn’t burned the oatmeal, but she had cooked it a little too long. It resembled paste more than breakfast. Fortunately, no one complained, at least not to her face. For many months, there had been one empty place at the kitchen table—their father’s. Then their mother had left. Two empty places to remind Sarah that her family was crumbling into pieces.

  With Mia and Mateo, all of the chairs were once again full.

  Sarah scrubbed a hand over her face, trying to throw off the weariness she felt. Three times during the night, Mia had woken up. Once, she’d been crying. Twice, she had snuck out of the bed and hidden—the first time under the bed and the second time behind the opened door. What would possess the child to do such a thing? Probably she’d simply had a nightmare, but who knew? Perhaps she missed her mother.

  Andy and Henry stomped their boots clean in the mudroom. When they walked in, they stopped to stare at Mateo and Mia.

  Henry raised a hand in greeting.

  Andy walked over to the boy, squatted down by him, and said, “We’re glad you and your sister are here, Mateo.”

  He didn’t make him any promises, and he didn’t try to pump the kid for information. That was Andy’s way, honest and straightforward. He washed his hands at the sink, they all bowed their head to pray, and then they were eating.

  Sarah had peeked at Mateo while they silently gave thanks. The boy was showing Mia how to put her hands together to pray. That image remained on Sarah’s heart as she prepared the boys’ lunches, talked to Andy of spring crops, and cleaned up the spills which seemed to occur with every meal.

  Soon Luke and Isaac were out the door on their way to school. Sarah thought she saw something akin to longing in Mateo’s eyes, but when he noticed her watching, he stared down at his hands.

  “Henry and I hope to get the tractor working today. The part is supposed to be in, so we’ll go to town first thing this morning to get it. Do you need anything while we’re there?”

  “Nein.” There were a hundred things she needed, especially if she was serious about the two children staying in their home. Mia couldn’t exactly walk around in a boy’s shirt all the time, and Mateo kept tugging at Isaac’s clothes. No doubt the child was accustomed to T-shirts. Could they even adjust to Amish life? Would they want to?

  “We’ll talk after lunch. All of us.” He smiled at Mateo and went outside.

  Belatedly, Sarah remembered what she wanted Andy to do. “I’ll be right back,” she assured Mateo and Mia, and then she hurried out the door after her brother.

  “You’ll go by the old trailer? I promised Mateo that we would check to see if his mother had returned.”

  “I can check, but I’d be surprised to find her there.”

  “So would I.”

  “Sarah, we have to go to the police with this.”

  “I know we do, but maybe check the trailer first. Give me a few hours to think of how to handle their situation.”

  “They’re not our children to keep—”

  “You’re right. I know you are.” Why did she feel so strongly about this? How had they claimed her heart so quickly? “All I’m asking for is one day to figure out what to do next.”

  “What we do is contact the police.” Andy shook his head, and then he reached out to tug on her kapp string. “You can have one day. The children would have been hiding in that cold trailer if it weren’t for your quick thinking and kind heart.”

  “Danki.” When she came back inside, her cheeks stinging from the cold air of the early morning, she sat beside Mateo and waited for him to look at her. When he did, she began talking, slowly and with an effort to mitigate her German accent. She felt a little silly. After all, she didn’t know if he understood a word she was saying.

  “My bruder Andy will stop by the trailer. He’ll check inside, in your fort, to see if your mother has been there.”

  The boy only shrugged, but it seemed that a little of the worry left his eyes.

  She found some paper and crayons and set them on the table for Mateo and Mia. Sarah could clearly remember Isaac at three years old. She’d been seventeen at the time, and her parents had claimed she couldn’t get a job because she was needed at home. They depended on her to tend to her little brother. At first she’d been upset about that, but she’d found it impossible to stay angry around Isaac. He’d been a sponge, soaking up everything from how to color to his ABCs to the names of different animals and what sort of habitat they preferred. Which might explain the critters in his pocket at church.

  Sarah cleaned the breakfast dishes and prepared a chicken casserole for dinner. She needed to wash clothes, but that would require spending most of the morning in the mudroom and much of the afternoon hanging wet clothes on the back porch. She didn’t want Mateo or Mia to feel alone or scared or worried, but then again she needed to take care of the dirty laundry.

  She compromised by asking Mateo to help. You would have thought she’d handed him the moon.

  “What should we do with Mia while we work?”

  “Un momento.” He dashed back into the living room and returned with an old Amish doll that Mia had picked up from Sarah’s room. Taking his sister by the hand, he led her into the mudroom, made her a pallet in the corner with an old blanket he found on a bottom shelf, and handed her the doll. He stooped and kissed the top of her head.

  Sarah blinked back the tears that pricked her eyes. “You take good care of Mia. You’re a good bruder.”

  Whether he understood her words or just her tone, Mateo smiled hugely. Within minutes, they were knee-deep in dirty laundry. Mateo ran up to each room and retrieved bundles from the clothes baskets, something that always wore Sarah out. She showed him how to separate the dark colors from the light. Her brothers made for a lot of dirty laundry. It wasn’t that they had many sets of extra clothes, but with five in the house, plus Mia and Mateo, the piles were high. Sarah also washed sheets every other week in the winter, so she pantomimed pulling sheets off a bed, and Mateo dashed off to retrieve them.

  The mudroom was actually fairly large, accommodating the hot water heater, the washing machine, a wringer machine, and a large sink. Across the outer wall were cubbies for each person’s shoes and various items such as umbrellas and baseball bats. Above each cubby was a peg for hats or kapps.

  Fortunately, their washing machine was a newer model that tapped directly into the hot water heater. Sarah measured half a cup of laundry powder, added it to the water that was already filling the tub, and pushed in the first load of laundry, which included Mia’s and Mateo’s clothes. No doubt they would feel more comfortable when they were again wearing their own things. S
he yanked the starting cord and almost laughed at the expression on Mateo’s face.

  “It’s the Amish way.” She motioned for him to come over and take a look at the machine. “We don’t have electricity, so the washer operates off of a small gasoline engine. Like when you pull the cord to start a lawn mower.”

  She continued explaining the process to him as the machine began to agitate. On the wall shared with the kitchen was a large sink. She filled two buckets with water for rinsing, adding fabric softener to one and leaving plain water in the other. Mateo laughed out loud when he saw her run the first pair of pants through the wringer that sat next to the washer. After that she dipped them into the water with fabric softener, put them back through the wringer, and rinsed them a last time in the water-only bucket.

  It was a long process, but one she was used to. Mateo quickly got the hang of using the wringer. Together they made quite a productive team. Soon, the lines strung across the back porch were filled with clothing, Mateo was a pro, and Mia was sound asleep.

  Sarah sank onto an old wooden chair they kept in the room, and Mateo plopped on the floor, his back against the now silent washer and his eyes taking in the mudroom, his sleeping sister, and Sarah. She knew she was a mess, but what woman wasn’t after a morning of laundry? The humidity had caused her hair to pop out of her kapp in haphazard, lazy waves. The sleeves of her dress were damp, and though it was cold outside, she was still sweating from the work they had done. Glancing down, she saw that she’d also managed to get a good bit of the casserole she’d made onto the front of her apron. No harm. It wasn’t as if they were expecting visitors.

  Mateo stood and walked across the room, gingerly touching a baseball bat in Luke’s cubby.

  “It’s okay. You can take it outside if you want.”

  Grinning as if she’d just handed him the world’s best gift, he turned and tried to hurry from the room. But he was still wearing Isaac’s pants, which were a tad too long. He tripped, bumped against the table, grabbed for something to steady himself and pulled the bucket of rinse water down on his head.

  He sat there, stunned and dripping, and apparently worried he was in trouble.

  “It’s not a problem, Mateo. It’s just water.”

  As she hurried across the room to help him, he pointed toward where Mia had been sleeping. Only she wasn’t there anymore. She’d once again disappeared.

  And then, when Sarah thought things couldn’t get any crazier, she heard a knock at the back door.

  CHAPTER 23

  Paul had no idea what to say to Sarah when she opened the door. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.

  A small Hispanic boy waited near the counter, dripping wet and struggling not to burst into tears.

  Sarah stood in front of him, a look of complete bewilderment on her face. Her apron was soiled. The sleeves of her dress were pushed up and wet, and her hair was poking out of her kapp in a dozen directions. She was a complete mess.

  Paul felt sweat break out under the rim of his hat, between his shoulder blades, and even on his palms. He wanted to back away. Why had he thought it would be a good idea to knock on the back door? He should have known when he’d dodged through the rows of hanging laundry that now would be a bad time—apparently a very bad time.

  “Oh. I’m sorry. Come in.” Sarah abruptly turned away from him and hurried to the corner of the room, where she picked up a blanket and shook it out, as if she was looking for something. “Mateo, I have to find Mia.”

  She left the room and then darted back in. “Your clothes are still wet. Why don’t you run up to your room and change into some of Isaac’s things?”

  The boy looked past Paul at the laundry lines spread across the back porch. He glanced back at Sarah. Though the room was warmer than outside, the lad had begun to shiver.

  “Don’t worry. Paul will help you.” She turned to him, still clutching the blanket that had been on the floor. “Could you…could you go with him upstairs and help him find something to wear? I have to…”

  She turned and hurried from the room.

  The boy looked at Paul and shrugged. It was simple enough to find him some clothes. But why was a Hispanic boy staying with Sarah? They went upstairs together, Mateo showing him which room was Isaac’s. Together they pulled out a pair of dark pants and shirt from the chest of drawers.

  The boy accepted the clothes with a timid, “Gracias.”

  “De nada,” Paul replied.

  The boy looked surprised, but he didn’t question him. Instead, he bundled up his clothes and a dry towel and disappeared into the bathroom.

  Paul returned to the laundry room, wondering what had just happened. Spying a mop in the corner, he grabbed it and cleaned up the water that had apparently spilled from a bucket. He squeezed the water out into the sink and put the mop back in the corner.

  Still no Sarah.

  Glancing around the room, he could see the bottom shelf where the bucket belonged. When he squatted down to put it there, he found himself eye to eye with a small Hispanic girl.

  “Cómo estás?”

  The girl’s eyes were large and brown, and she looked frightened. Though she didn’t answer him, when he held out his hand, she took it and crawled out from the shelf where she’d been hiding.

  “We’d best go and find Sarah.”

  He walked into the kitchen and nearly laughed at the sight of her, opening each cabinet and looking frantically inside.

  “Is this what you’re searching for?”

  Sarah twirled toward him, her eyes widening in disbelief. Hurrying across the room, she pulled the girl into her arms. “Where did you find her?”

  “Bottom shelf. Mudroom. Say, what’s going on here?”

  The child laid her head on Sarah’s chest as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and stuck her thumb into her mouth.

  “It’s okay, Mia. It’s okay.” She settled the child into a chair at the table. “Maybe she’s hungry. I just don’t know if I’m doing this right, and sometimes she disappears.”

  “Disappears?”

  “Hides. Why would she hide?”

  He could see that her hands were shaking as she pulled out bread, homemade peanut butter, and a pitcher of milk. What was it about this woman that made him want to fix things? Normally, he made a point of staying out of other people’s problems.

  Paul crossed the room in three long strides. “Go sit down by her. I’ll bring over whatever you need.”

  Sarah’s hands fluttered to her kapp, her hair, and finally dropped at her side. “Ya. Gut idea. There are strawberry preserves in the refrigerator.”

  He gathered up the sandwich fixings and set them on the table. Then he retrieved the pitcher of milk and poured three mugs full. The girl had climbed into Sarah’s lap, and the boy was standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

  His eyes brightened when they landed on the food.

  “Lava tus manos,” Paul said.

  The boy walked straight to the kitchen sink, but Sarah choked on the sip of milk she’d taken.

  “You know Spanish?”

  “A little.”

  “How—”

  “I worked more than ten years in the RV factories in Indiana. We had a fair number of Hispanic workers. Almost as many as Amish.”

  The little girl reached up and touched Sarah’s face, saying the same phrase over and over.

  “I don’t…I don’t know what she wants.”

  “Her mother. Quiero que mi mamá. She wants her mother.” Paul sat down at the table as Sarah began to make sandwiches. She offered to make him one, but he shook his head. He needed to get out of this house as quickly as possible. He didn’t want to leave her in a predicament, though.

  “Explain to me who these two are and why they’re staying here.”

  He forgot about the fact that he was now officially purchasing a farm. He pushed away thoughts of the needs next door, the house that looked ready to fall in on itself, the barn that he was moving into w
ithin the week, and even the tractor that he’d hoped to get Andy to fix. His attention was captured by Sarah’s story.

  She picked at her sandwich while the children devoured theirs. Soon Sarah was done explaining how they had found the children and brought them home, and she was wiping the little girl’s mouth with a washrag. “Could you…that is to say, would you mind…”

  He took the little girl from Sarah’s arms. She was small and thin and stared up at him as if he knew the answers to any question.

  “No llores,” he said, rubbing her back as he’d seen Rebecca do with the grandchildren. “Está bien.”

  The words seemed to soothe her, or perhaps she was exhausted by the morning’s ordeal.

  “I’ll be right back.” Sarah hurried from the room and up the stairs, calling over her shoulder, “If you could stay just another minute, please.”

  So he found himself alone with the boy and the girl.

  “Dónde está tu madre?”

  The boy shrugged, but then he began to speak—hesitantly at first and then gaining momentum with each word, his story spilling out of him like water gushing over river stones.

  By the time Sarah returned, wearing a clean dress and apron, and with her hair tamed into some semblance of control, Paul had a pretty good idea what was going on.

  CHAPTER 24

  Sarah sat staring at her brothers and the children and Paul.

  She’d returned from changing clothes to find Paul talking with Mateo. Before she could question him, Andy and Henry had walked in and set about making their own lunch. Though he had politely refused to eat with Sarah and the kids, he’d had no problem putting down two sandwiches with Andy there. Was she too scary to eat around? Every time he glanced at her, she was certain he frowned.

  As they ate, the conversation had turned to the Fisher place next door. Paul had stopped by, looking for Andy, hoping he could fix the tractor he’d found behind the barn.

  “So it’s true?” Sarah continued to hold Mia in her lap. “You’re buying the Fisher place?”