Rebekah folded the letter and gave it back to Katie. “Put what on?”
“Your gift from me. It is a bopplin sling. Something in the way it holds them, it helps with soothing the colic pains.”
Rebekah’s head dipped into her hands. Had she been snow, she would have melted clean away, into a right watery puddle. “So, you came up here to tell me how wrong I am about everything. I am sure that has proven wonderful hard for you.”
“Oh, Rebekah,” Katie huffed and stamped her foot. “Would you stop it already?”
“Do not tell me what to do in my own house. Just get out, Katie.” Rebekah hid her face. “Leave me be, please.”
“No.” Katie shook her head. Those troublesome tendrils bounced over her shoulders. “Like I said earlier. I am all that is left.”
Rebekah lifted her face but looked away, lest Katie see the tears in her eyes that threatened to spill over.
Katie set her jaw. “No matter how ugly you are to me, I am not going anywhere.”
“No?”
She shook her head again. “Nope. I am not getting back in that buggy with your bruder and my bopplin any time soon no matter what you say to me. I need a break.” She looked at Rebekah. “So does my bottom.”
Rebekah fought back a smile but began to giggle. The more she tried to stifle it, the harder it tried to escape. Finally, Rebekah snorted.
Katie’s lips pulled up into a genuine smile. “Ha, I knew that I could make you laugh.” She nudged Rebekah with her elbow. “Feel better now?”
Rebekah sobered. All of the anger was gone. However, she was consumed with the same hopeless, empty feeling that filled her when the anger was not there. “I am a failure, Katie. A failure as a mater. I cannot even take care of my bopplin the way a mater should. What little milk I had dried up, and I cannot even feed him. I cannot settle him. I cannot do anything.”
Katie tilted her head. “I am certain you had help come. Molly Raber seems to be making a hand of herself.” She looked thoughtful. “I know your mater has been busy tending your sick dat, but what did the rest of the Gasthof women do to help you?”
“Well, Heloise Graber suggested boiling cow’s milk, which worked for a while. Lil’ Bit seemed to like the warmness of it. Mrs. Fuhs, she and her family are new here from Pennsylvania, thought we could try full, raw milk. She brought a big bucket over not long ago.”
“Did it work?”
Rebekah shook her head. “Nothing has worked for longer than a bottle or two. Not even the buckets and buckets of Fenugreek tea from Molly’s mater, that were supposed to help bring down my own milk.”
“The Mennonite women down in Texas give goat’s milk to colicky babies.” Katie shrugged. “Works better than cow’s milk.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Katie patted Rebekah’s hand. “Goat’s milk, which they just happen to have down in Montgomery. ‘Aloysius’s Goat Farm, Making Baa-ter Butter.’”
Rebekah’s eyes widened. “Surely you are kidding. Did you just bleat?”
“I am not kidding in the least. And yes, I did. We passed it on the trip over from the train.”
“So, you rode the train from Old Amarillo, Texas to Montgomery, Indiana then?”
She nodded. “Then rented a buggy, and here we are,” Katie said. “After we passed the goat farm, that is.”
“I suppose I may have to try some whenever I can get down there to fetch some.”
Katie smiled broadly and placed her hand over Rebekah’s, just like Annie used to do when Rebekah was sad. “I may have already sent Thomas to get some for you. He claimed that not only had he tamed all the bears in the area, but he knew every secret trail between here and there.” Katie shook her head. “That child has such an imagination.”
Rebekah didn’t move her hand, but she did not embrace Katie’s, either. “Seems you have an answer for all of my problems, Katie Knepp.”
Katie snorted at the name slap.
“Except one.”
“Try me.”
Rebekah sighed. “Joseph left. I have driven him away.”
“You cannot lose Joseph. He’s always with you. Your other half.”
Rebekah opened her mouth to answer, but Katie shushed her. “Do not speak, Rebekah. Think about it. Joseph is truly your other half.”
They sat in silence for several minutes, Katie’s hand over Rebekah’s.
“Joseph has always been there for you, hasn’t he, Rebekah.”
“I thought he did not trust me to take care of the bopplin. I thought that he thought he had to be there to swoop in and fix whatever I managed to mess up. Since I could not do anything right.”
Katie rolled her eyes. “Or maybe, and more likely, he was waiting nearby to help you. Be near if you needed him. Like when you fell ill, and he found you at the window in a pool of vomit and blood.”
Rebekah’s neck heated with embarrassment. He told them about that?
“I know that is exactly what I would do.” Peter stood in the doorway with Lil’ Bit soundly asleep in a bopplin sling. “I told you, Lil’ Bit was just waiting for his Oncle Peter.”
Rebekah took in the sight of her beloved brother. “You should have told me you could not read or write, Peter.”
A slight flush lit his cheeks. “I see my fraa told you my deepest, darkest secret.” He looked at Katie, then Rebekah. “At least I am gute looking. Otherwise, I might be in trouble.”
Rebekah shook her head and stifled a laugh. Katie groaned. “I had to ride all the way from Texas with him going on like that.”
Rebekah exhaled a big breath. With it, she tried to push out all the anger, resentment, jealousy, and ugliness that had settled in her soul. It was time to remember who she was and get back to being herself. “Danki, you two.”
“Awww.” Katie leaned over and wrapped her arms around Rebekah.
Shocked by the sudden display of affection, Rebekah melted in Katie’s arms. “I am sorry for my assumptions, Katie. I am so incredibly sorry.” She hugged her back. “Can you possibly forgive me?”
“Oh, Rebekah, there’s nothing to forgive.” Katie squeezed her harder. “I know I brought much of this on myself, for my behavior in the past. But that is where it stays. In the past.”
Rebekah’s eyes widened. As long as she had known her, she had never known Katie to take responsibility for, well, for anything. And for Katie to forgive her without a second thought…
“That is what family is for, Rebekah. And we are family.” Katie pulled back from their hug. “Anyway, I’m your schwester, now and forever, whether you like it or not.”
“You have really…” Rebekah searched for the right phrase. “Grown up,” Rebekah said. “You have grown up good, Katie.”
Chapter Thirteen
