Calvin remembered Grandma being so relieved.
“He’s a good man, Calvin,” she said. “You will be safe with him.”
Calvin wasn’t worried about being safe. He was upset that his Grandma was sick, and then after she died, he was upset that her cozy house and contents had to be sold, and then after her house sold, he was upset that he had to go live in Alex’s downtown apartment.
There was no yard where Alex lived. Calvin didn’t like that. He was used to having a yard to play in. Grandma had owned a cherry tree in her back yard with branches so low that Calvin could climb them. When the cherries were ripe, there was nothing he loved more than climbing up into the tree and eating his fill. He would come back into the house with his face, hands, and mouth stained with cherry juice, and Grandma would laugh and tell him to save a couple of cherries for the birds.
Then at night, Grandma would sing him to sleep with one of her story-songs. In cherry season, it was usually the one about a little boy who didn’t want to share his cherries with a little bird named Robin Redbreast.
He choked up just thinking about how good it had always made him feel having Grandma tuck him in at night and hear his prayers and sing him to sleep. He hoped he hadn't done anything to make her die.
It had been a simple relationship. Calvin loved his grandma, and she loved him back. Alex was okay, and he was trying to do his duty, but Calvin could tell that he didn’t love him. In fact, he was pretty sure no one loved him now that Grandma was gone.
He’d only lived with Alex for three months. During those three months, an awful lot had happened. The biggest thing was something bad had happened in Alex’s life. Calvin didn’t know exactly what it was. All he knew was that suddenly Alex quit working and they moved to this place called Sugarcreek.
Calvin had a yard to play in now, but the house was old and ugly, and it smelled funny. Alex said it was what they could afford for now. When Calvin asked why they had to move to this town, Alex said it was because the crime rate was so low. He didn’t want Calvin to get into trouble, and he thought living in this town might help.
It worried Calvin that he was already in trouble.
Starting school in a strange place in the middle of the winter while he was still grieving and disoriented from his grandmother’s death made him feel empty inside. His grades weren’t very good right now. He hadn’t made any friends. Christmas had been dismal.
Calvin had many issues, but the biggest one bothering him right now was the big kids who had started picking on him on the school bus. Grandma had always driven him to school. He’d never had to fend for himself before. He didn’t know how. These days it felt easier just to walk the mile home, even if it was really cold.
Of course, if he hadn’t been walking instead of taking the bus, he wouldn’t have smelled the pies, wouldn’t have been tempted to sneak a taste, and wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.
Oh, how he regretted eating that pie! He wasn’t sure what Alex might do if he discovered that he was harboring a thief. Would he turn him over to children’s services? Would he put Calvin in the foster system? Calvin had known a couple of foster kids at his old school, and they didn’t seem very happy about their situation.
Alex was a terrible cook, but he tried to be kind whenever he came out of his fog long enough to notice he had a small boy living with him. If Alex ever decided he didn’t want him around anymore, Calvin didn’t know what would become of him.
“You aren’t eating your pizza,” Alex pointed out after they’d ordered and been served at the Park Street Pizza, not far from their house. “It’s pretty good. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
“Sure.” Calvin took a big bite of pizza that he didn’t want. “I’m fine.”
He hoped Alex wouldn’t suspect that he’d spoiled his dinner with a stolen pie. He feigned enjoyment. “This is really good pizza!”
Alex looked at him quizzically, as though he knew Calvin might be fibbing.
Calvin continued to chew with enthusiasm and forced himself to swallow. With any luck, he wouldn’t throw up. With any luck, Alex would never find out what he had done.
He hoped they would go home soon. Bedtime couldn’t come soon enough when a boy was ten and burdened with a guilty conscience.
Chapter 11
Sugarcreek
1959
“What’s a GED?” Bertha said.
“GED stands for General Educational Development.” Sophie sat at the kitchen table folding clean dish towels while Bertha ironed. The iron was electric and had a cord, which felt awkward to Bertha, but she was gradually getting used to it.
“Never heard of it.” Bertha finished pressing one of Sophie’s white nursing uniforms and carefully hung it on a wire hanger. She held it up and admired it. What would it feel like to have the right to wear one of these?
“It was originally used for soldiers who quit school so they could fight in World War II. The government didn’t think it right for those men to have to go sit in a high school classroom before they could be admitted to college.” Sophie finished folding the dish towels, then rose and placed them in a kitchen drawer.
Bertha pulled another uniform out of the laundry basket and sprinkled water on it from a metal sprinkler with a cork that Sophie stuck in the end of a water-filled pop bottle. It worked well. Bertha was learning quite a lot from her new employer.
“But I’m not a soldier.”
“No,” Sophie said. “You are an Amish woman with only eight grades of schooling. You have no idea if you can do college-level work until you take and pass that test, and neither will the Massillon School of Nursing.”
That seemed sensible.
“But what if I can’t pass it?”
“Then, I don’t think you can become a nurse.”
“Is the GED hard?” Bertha unplugged the iron, sat it on a cold stove burner to cool, folded up the ironing board and put it in a narrow closet in Sophie’s kitchen.
“I have no idea,” Sophie said. “I never had to take it, but I’ll find out what you have to do.”
“My father will be really angry if he finds out.”
“Then, don’t tell him. You are nineteen years old,” Sophie said, patiently. “You are not a child. We are talking about a test. A piece of paper. There is nothing wrong with finding out if you are capable of passing it. You can worry about college and your dad later.”
“If my bishop hears…”
“Who is going to tell him?” Sophie said. “Not me.”
“Let me think about it,” Bertha said.
“Of course,” Sophie said. “Take your time. But if you decide you want to become a nurse badly enough to do this, I’ll help you study for it.”
Bertha filled the sink with soapy water and began washing the dishes that had piled up during the week. She thought about it until the dishes were washed, dried, and put away. She thought about it while she wiped off the counters and mopped the floor. She thought about it while she scrubbed Sophie’s bathroom until it gleamed.
Even taking the GED test would cause talk and gossip among her people if they found out what she was doing. And they would find out. Sophie had no idea how enmeshed and nosy her people could be about one another. Somehow, someway, they would see something and begin to wonder what she was up to.
As Sophie said, she was nineteen. What that meant among her people was that it was time for her to start getting serious about some young Amish man and begin to plan a life with him. Studying for a high school equivalency test pointed at aspirations an Amish girl had no business having.
It wasn’t just her who would be affected. If it got out among her people that she was considering becoming a nurse, her mother and father would have to deal with gossip and questions. If she spoke aloud her wish to become a registered nurse, it would bring about a flood of comments—all negative. Her parents would immediately fear that their daughter was contemplating the worst action imaginable—becoming Englisch.
The Amish h
ad no prejudice against knowledge. They were well-read people. It was the getting of it in a high school and college setting that set off alarms. Those places were seen as filled with much dangerous knowledge as well as good.
Her people admired and appreciated the doctors and nurses who treated them. Still, such was their fear for their own children’s adherence to their faith, the possibility of further formal education was forbidden.
Bertha wasn’t sure she could withstand the pressure that would be brought to bear on her decision, but oh, how she wanted to try!
Chapter 12
Snow had not been predicted, but snow they got. Rachel kept the squad car running as she called the wrecker to come for a gray Toyota Camry that had slid off the road and hit a telephone pole. There had been some damage to the front bumper, and the airbags had deployed, but the four college students inside were unharmed. The license tags were from Akron, and the students were carpooling back to a university she had never heard of in Arkansas.
She suspected alcohol to be a factor and was pleasantly surprised when it wasn’t. The kids were respectful and polite. The only problem was that the driver hadn’t been skilled enough driving on slick roads.
As the windshield wipers marked time, it reminded Rachel of the metronome her mother had kept on the top of the piano long ago, where every day she was expected to practice during the longest fifteen minutes in her short life. She had been four, which was the same year her mother had died. She barely remembered her, and she suspected that the memories she did have were mainly drawn from a faded photo album that Bertha had held onto for her.
Considering the Amish dislike for photographs, the fact that Bertha had retained the photo album spoke volumes about her aunt. There were times when Bertha seemed to be more Amish than anyone Rachel knew—like her aunt’s continued disapproval for Rachel’s job. Her aunt’s pacifism went so deep, she seldom missed a chance to voice her opinion about the fact that Rachel’s work required her to carry a gun.
On the other hand, Rachel knew that there had been a time in Bertha’s youth when she had rebelled against her Amish church to the point of leaving it so that she could obtain the nursing degree she wanted.
Years later, she came home and made the kneeling confession that would allow her to return and be accepted into her parents’ Amish church. Rachel knew It made it easier to care for her aging parents without censor, but still, it must have taken a great deal of humility.
Sometimes it felt as though she knew Bertha better than anyone. Then Bertha would say or do something that would surprise her. There was much about Bertha’s life that remained a mystery.
For instance, the fact that Bertha had never married. It certainly hadn’t been for lack of interest on the part of the local Amish men. Rachel remembered the strained irritation Bertha had shown in the presence of any man who presumed to try to court her.
Yes, Bertha was a puzzle, but she was also a rock in Rachel’s life. No matter what happened, as long as Bertha was living, Rachel knew she could count on her for help.
Bertha and Lydia had raised her, loved her, disciplined her, taught her, and nursed her back to health after the beating she’d endured breaking up a domestic dispute while working as a cop in Cleveland.
There had been bandages to change, broken bones to heal, and a depression so deep she could hardly speak for weeks. Lydia made nourishing broth and tempted her with easy-to-eat meals, Bertha had bossed and bullied her out of her self-pity, ultimately making her so angry she ended up fighting her way back to normalcy—just to show Bertha she could!
Which was, of course, Bertha’s intention.
Now, Bertha was caring for little Holly way past her own bedtime. It wasn’t fair.
It made Rachel feel even more determined to have that talk with Ed about finding someone to replace her on the force. It was her place to raise her daughter, not Bertha’s. Her aunt had done enough. She deserved to rest.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a call from the dispatcher. A possible break-in at a private residence. Rachel did a U-turn in the middle of route 93 and headed toward the address she was given.
Her aunts would have to care for little Holly awhile longer, and Rachel was not happy about it.
Chapter 13
Sugarcreek
1959
“You’ll get no money from me for this!” Her father’s face was red with anger. “Don’t expect me to support you.”
Bertha thought of the hard labor she had done for him over the years, as well as handing him every dime she made from her job at the store.
“I never expected anything from you, Daett.” She wondered if he realized how true that was.
“The members of our church will say that I do not have control over my daughter.”
“I’m nineteen, Daett,” she said, wearily, hoping this conversation would be over soon. She had already seen her high score on the GED dismissed as nothing by him. Worse than nothing. Sophie, however, had been impressed, as had the college counselor.
“You were supposed to be baptized next week,” Daett said. “Do you want to go to hell?”
“No, Daett,” she said. “I just want to go to Haiti.”
“Haiti!” he thundered. “Why?”
“Because that country is already hell for many who live there.”
His voice turned deadly. “Do not blaspheme in this house.”
“I am not blaspheming. I’m speaking the truth!”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lydia and her mother standing just inside the door, their mouths agape. She didn’t blame them. Theirs was not the kind of family who shouted.
“You will obey me in this, daughter,” he said. “You will give up the notion of becoming a nurse. That is not a proper choice for a daughter of mine.”
“And if I disagree?”
“If you continue on this path…” Her father hesitated.
Bertha could tell that he was carefully weighing the impact of his next words. She held her breath, praying he would not say what she feared, he would say.
“You will no longer be welcome in my home.”
Lydia gasped in disbelief, and Maam cried out as though in pain.
Her father shot a stern look at her mother, daring her to say a word against his decree.
“From the time I was born…” Bertha also hesitated, choosing her words carefully, “I have been taught to be obedient. I learned to obey Maam, and you. I learned obedience to the bishop and the Ordnung of the church. But I have also been taught that above all else, I am to be obedient to God. In choosing to get my nursing license and go to Haiti, I am obeying God. I believe He set it in my heart to do this hard thing and I cannot do otherwise. I believe it would be a sin to disobey.”
Her father, unable to answer such an argument, broke her heart by turning his back on her. She waited for a kind word of reconciliation or at least acknowledgment, but instead, he stared out the window with his back rigid with anger or disappointment. She wasn’t sure which.
That night she lay beneath sheets she had previously washed and ironed and tucked onto the twin bed in Sophie’s second bedroom. Her cheeks felt itchy from the tears drying on her face.
Her heart felt strangely light, though. The moment she had dreaded had come and gone. It had been even worse than she had anticipated, but it was over now. She would continue to honor and love her father and mother, but she would also embrace what the nursing school had to teach her. When she was finished, she would use that knowledge to help sick and starving children.
Gellasenheit was the last word she thought of before she fell into an exhausted sleep
Chapter 14
Bertha walked the floor with baby Holly, glancing out the front window at the darkness every few minutes hoping Rachel would come soon. Apparently, she had been forced to work longer than she expected.
The wind had picked up, and the snow started shortly after Rachel left. That could mean slick roads and wrecks. Bertha tried not to worry as she
walked the floor, hoping to get the baby back to sleep. Newborns were sweet, but they could be cranky. Especially at night.
Sometimes it seemed like she had struggled against worry her whole life despite believing worry was a sin. In fact, she had long ago concluded that worry was sometimes a manifestation of superstition. Instead of praying, or problem-solving, people subconsciously attempted to keep bad things from happening by worrying about them. Such was human nature.
Try as she might, she could never entirely lose that weakness.
Still, she had used up the formula Rachel left for Holly, and she had no idea what to do if the baby got hungry again before her mother came home.
Was that a car she heard? It was hard to tell with snow on the ground. It often cushioned the sound of tires. She checked out the window and saw that it was, indeed, her hard-working niece. She opened the door, and Rachel blew in with the wind and snow, apologizing.
“I’m so sorry, Bertha.” Rachel glanced at the clock just as it began to strike midnight. “I received a call about a possible break-in, and I had to go investigate. It took longer than I expected.”
“Is everyone okay?”
“Yes.”
Rachel stomped the snow off her boots onto the braided rug Lydia kept in front of the door for that very purpose. Then she gently lifted a drowsy Holly from Bertha’s arms. As she did so, it was all Bertha could do not to sigh with relief. It had been a terribly long day.
“It was an elderly couple,” Rachel said. “I don’t think you know them. The wife was already sound asleep when her husband decided to go outside to check the thermometer to see how cold it was. The screen door had one of those old-fashioned hook fasteners. When it closed behind him, it accidentally locked him out. He was only wearing his pajamas.”
Bertha's Resolve: Love's Journey in Sugarcreek, Book 4 Page 5
