Sarah's Orphans (8 page)

And the mother had recently left. His thoughts slid back to the bus station, the agent handing Mrs. Yoder a ticket for Sarasota, the furtive look she'd given him before turning away.

Paul must have drifted into a restless sleep. He was traveling on a bus, though when he looked down at the ticket in his hands, he couldn't see his destination. What if he was on the wrong bus? Then the driver swerved. Paul grabbed the seat back in front of him, glanced up, and saw a large suitcase about to fall out of one of the overhead bins. As he reached for it, something clattered across the bus aisle.

The remnants of his dream faded as he sat up abruptly. The noise he'd heard had been real.

Was someone downstairs in the store?

Were they being robbed?

He crept out of his bed and nearly collided with Rebecca in the hall.

“You heard it too?” she whispered.

He nodded.

“Joseph's still asleep. Should I—”

He shook his head and put a finger to his lips, which he hoped she could see in the darkness, and started down the stairs. She pulled him back and handed him a flashlight. The apartment stairs led to the back of the store—what they laughingly referred to as the employee work area. Actually, it was a large room where they kept extra supplies, a dolly for unloading things, and a worktable with two chairs. There was also a bathroom off to the side.

He distinctly heard running water in the bathroom.

Their burglar was using the facilities?

He thought of turning on the flashlight but decided to wait. Better to surprise the culprit. Paul crept across the room toward the bathroom's door and slammed his toe into the leg of a chair that had been pulled out into the middle of the room.

A groan escaped his lips as he clutched his foot and hopped up and down. He fumbled with the flashlight, nearly dropped it, and finally managed to turn it on.

But all he saw was the workroom as they had left it, the chair he'd knocked over, and the bathroom door ajar. And then, through the stillness of the night, he heard the back door latch and the sound of feet running across the parking lot. Behind him someone was hurrying down the stairs.

“Are you okay? What happened?” Rebecca turned on the battery lantern they kept on the worktable. “Did he knock you over?”

“I tripped on the chair.” Paul put his hands on her shoulders. “Stay here, Rebecca. I'll check around outside.”

“Are you sure you should?”

He didn't bother to answer. Instead, he hurried upstairs to his room, pulled on his work boots, practically ran down the stairs, and slipped out into the night.

Though he stomped around out there for a good twenty minutes, he found nothing for his effort. By the time he returned to the upstairs apartment, Joseph was up and Rebecca was heating water for tea.

“Find anything?” Joseph asked.

“Not much.” Paul blew into his hands, trying to warm them. The day had been pleasant, but the temperatures had again dropped as soon as the sun had set.

Rebecca placed a hot mug of herbal tea in front of him, and Paul told them what he'd heard.

“You're sure it was water running?”

“
Ya
. No doubt about it. And I would have caught the person if I hadn't tripped over the chair.”

“Why was it in the middle of the room?”

“To slow me down, I imagine. Maybe our thief has some experience.”

Rebecca pushed back from the table and picked up the flashlight. “I'll be right back.”

“Should I go with her?” Paul asked.

“
Nein
. Whoever was down there is gone, and Rebecca can tell just by looking what is missing. She has an uncanny ability to remember details like where things were left or how much of an item we still have.”

She returned five minutes later, set the flashlight on the shelf by the door, and made herself a cup of tea. When she sat down, she admitted she hadn't learned much.

“Nothing was disturbed or missing, except maybe a bottle of chewable Tylenol.”

“For a child?” Paul asked.

“
Ya
. I walked up and down the aisles. At the end of the day, we pull all of the stock forward to the edge of the shelf. The cold and flu shelf was the only one where I noticed an empty space.”

“You're saying someone broke in, and all they took was Children's Tylenol?” Joseph shook his head in disbelief. “They could have asked, and we'd have given it to them.”

“That might actually make sense.” Paul glanced out the window, though it was still too dark to see anything. “I told you when I was outside I didn't see anything, but maybe I did.”

“Meaning what?” Joseph yawned. He obviously wasn't concerned about them being killed in their sleep. As he'd explained while Rebecca was downstairs, it was a small town. Everyone knew everyone else, and they'd never been burglarized before.

“I saw some footprints in the mud left from the snowmelt, but they were small.” He held up both forefingers, positioned about six inches apart. “I thought they must have been from earlier in the day, from some child playing out back.”

“Unless…” Rebecca fiddled with her mug.

“Unless our thief was a child.”

CHAPTER 15

M
ateo huddled outside—cold, waiting, and afraid to move. He'd watched the tall man run outside and look carefully around, shining his flashlight down into the dirt. Apparently, he hadn't found anything because he'd gone back upstairs. Mateo thought about leaving then, but something told him to stay where he was. Good thing he had. The woman had come downstairs next, stared out into the night for a few moments, and then closed and bolted the door. Would she notice the missing bottle of Tylenol? Would she call the police?

Mateo knew it was wrong to steal, but he couldn't think of what else to do. His sister's forehead was hot to his touch. She slept a lot and didn't answer when he spoke to her. That was why Mateo was scared. He'd been alone before, though maybe not for this long. But he'd never seen his sister so sick.

Once the lights again went off upstairs, he hurried from the bushes where he was hiding and ran across the street and into the old barn. A tomcat sat inside the entrance, blinking at him in the night. His sister was exactly where he'd left her, curled up next to an old hay bale. He set the small flashlight in a corner, propping it up so that it would cast a little light. The flashlight was the only thing his mother had left with them. That and a few dollars. He'd spent those in the first two days.

Somehow, he managed to pick his little sister up, stuff the flashlight in his pocket, and carry her over to the trailer. Once inside, he placed her in their fort of boxes. Then he sat down beside Mia and pulled out the wet washrag he'd taken from the bathroom. Placing it across her head, he spoke to her softly. “
Es la hora de despertar, Mia. Despertarse. Tengo la medicina
.”

But she wouldn't wake up. He laid her back down and concentrated on opening the Tylenol bottle. He had decided to take chewables because they were grape flavored. Mia liked grape juice. Plus chewables were safer. He didn't trust himself to give her the right amount of the liquid, but he knew to give her two tablets. His mother had done that for him once.

He took off his jacket, rolled it in a ball, and placed it under her head. Mia finally blinked her eyes, which looked sunken and didn't seem to focus on him at all. He had to push the pills into her mouth. When he did, she slowly began to chew. Mateo had also filled up their water bottle when he was in the store. He pulled it from his pocket and tried to persuade her to drink a little. But Mia shook her head, curled on her side, and soon was once again asleep.

CHAPTER 16

S
arah was surprised at how difficult it was to get four boys ready for church. Andy was late coming in from the barn. Their chicken coop had withstood the night, and they hadn't lost any more of the chickens. “But they're skittish and not laying,” he said. He'd also fed Dusty and harnessed him to the buggy. That had all taken longer than he'd expected. Probably the falling snow had slowed him down. It was light at the moment, but she suspected from the heaviness of the clouds outside the window that they were in for a good foot or more of accumulation.

“You should have taken Henry up on his offer to help.”

Henry was looking rather chipper after sleeping in thirty minutes longer than usual, but dressing had been a problem. Sarah had failed to remove all the pins from the pants she'd sewn for him. He hadn't found that out until he'd tried to put them on, and then he had insisted she search them thoroughly before he stuck himself again.

Luke had refused to get up at all, claiming he was too tired from his extra chores the day before. He finally tumbled out when she told him that Andy had brought the buggy around. Isaac was out of bed but not ready. Sarah saw him fiddling with a shoe box, which he quickly slid under his bed when she ran upstairs to check on him. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that critters were inside the box, but there wasn't enough time to pursue that topic. So she let it go and told him to hurry.

They made it into the buggy with no time to spare, she and Andy up front and the three younger boys in the back. Fortunately, the services were held at Brian and Katie Walker's, which was just two miles from their house.

“Might have been quicker to walk,” Andy mumbled.

“With those three?” Sarah tossed what she hoped was a serious look toward the backseat. “Not a one of them would have been dry by the time we got there. They attempt snowball fights out of the tiniest bit of snow, which ends up being mudball fights.”

“We can hear everything you say.” Henry leaned forward over the front seat. “And I'll have you know I'm much more careful with my appearance than my brothers, especially now that I know you're hiding pins in my clothes.”

Sarah didn't mind the teasing. It proved that her family was healing, that even though they were orphans—the word seemed strange to her—they were managing.

By the time they reached the two-lane road that ran in front of their property, a small line of buggies was heading to the Walkers' place. They fell into line with the others and soon reached their destination. Andy said he would park the buggy, and Sarah hurried into the barn with her brothers.

The place was bright and cheery from many lanterns. The benches they sat on had been placed in rows facing a heater that was positioned to the side of the large room. Some were afraid of heaters in barns, but Brian had been careful to brick the floor under and around the heater. It was cozy and warm, and the barn was filling quickly with the people from her community.

What Sarah hadn't expected was for so many people to ask about her mother. She tried to answer noncommittally. She certainly didn't want to lie, but she also didn't want to admit that her mother had gone to Florida. Instead, she thanked them for their concern and left it at that.

She thought she noticed Paul Byler glancing her way a few times during the singing. Possibly she was imagining that. Several times he rubbed his right hand up and around his neck. As usual, his expression was quite serious. She wondered if she'd ever seen him smile, but then she hadn't exactly been staring at him the two months he'd been in town. He'd arrived the weekend before Thanksgiving, immediately after Joseph's heart attack. She did remember that well enough.

Turning her attention to the preacher, she focused on his words. “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

She'd just been thinking about orphans. Plainly, she was to look after her brothers, but her mother was now a widow. How could she look after her? Deborah was gone, and even when she had been here, she wouldn't allow anyone close to her.

Their services were still in German, though Sarah had heard that some Amish communities were now conducting services in
Englisch
. She liked hearing the old language. The words brought back good memories of her mother and father when she was a child, when things were simpler. Her mind must have wandered at that point, because suddenly they were standing and singing again.

Luke was fidgeting.

Isaac reached into his pocket for something, smiled, and carefully pressed the pocket closed. Surely he hadn't brought some animal to church. Had he?

The final hymn was sung, and then Sarah was busy helping with the meal while the men moved chairs and created tables by putting planks across sawhorses. The meal was also held in Brian's barn, which she had thought might be cold. It wasn't, though. Between the number of people and the stove in the corner that had been going long before they arrived, it was actually pleasant.

She didn't notice Paul walk up behind her until he said, “Brian's house is a bit small, but the barn is nice.”

How did a person answer that?

And why was he even talking to her?

“
Ya
, that's true,” she mumbled and nearly dropped a dish of potato salad.