Katie.
Rebekah’s opposite in every way, Katie was feisty, strong-willed, and discontented. All their years growing up together, she hadn’t made it a secret that she wished Joseph’s affections were centered on her as opposed to Rebekah. She was never shy about attempting to sway Joseph’s affections her way, either. In fact, she had tried to do that very thing many times over the years. It was not until Rebekah’s Englischer bruder, Peter, showed up at Gasthof Village and caught her eye that Katie ceased to be such a problem for Rebekah and Joseph. However, although in love, Katie proved hard to tame, even for Rebekah’s sharp-witted Englischer bruder with a gunfighter past.
After disappearing during Rumspringa in New York City and almost becoming a victim of a man the Englischer called Jack the Ripper, Katie scurried off on a whim to a far-flung place called Old Amarillo, Texas. Lucky for her, Peter had not let her get too far ahead of him and her Texas venture proved that she needed Peter as much as he needed her. He followed her, as he always did, and saved her life again and again by doing so. Her parents followed her, too, and so did her twin-schwester Annie, who just happened to be Rebekah’s childhood best friend.
Deep in their new Texas home, Katie and Peter had married not long after Rebekah and Joseph’s own wedding, and nobody in Gasthof Village had heard from them since. Until now.
The nagging thought of why Katie chose to marry her brother so close to hers and Joseph’s own wedding still polluted her mind from time to time. She was not convinced that it was a wedding born entirely of love and devotion but born more out of convenience and timing. However, she could not say such things without sounding like sour apples. Anyway, who would she confide to? It was best that Rebekah stay silent and keep her fears and worries bottled up, deep inside, where they could bother nobody else but her. Perhaps, with time, they will disappear…
Joseph adjusted the paper. “Would you believe that? Peter has set up a beekeeping operation with Katie’s fater. They call it Tulip Tree Honey Farm.”
Rebekah’s heart lurched to a gallop. Katie had made many uncomfortable comments about the tulip tree where Joseph had carved his and Rebekah’s initials the day they became sweethearts. However, when Peter arrived and wooed Katie, she saw to it that hers and Peter’s initials appeared on the same tree, right beneath Rebekah’s and Joseph’s initials. It felt as though she single-handedly usurped hers and Joseph’s sweetheart tree. There is certainly no shortage of trees in Gasthof Village. Why did she have to pick mine?
So not only had Peter made Katie Rebekah’s schwester, but Katie showed her appreciation by moving off to the wilds of Texas and taking with her some of the people she loved most, including Peter and her best friend Annie. A rash of icy sweat cropped up on Rebekah’s forehead. She slumped against the barn door.
Joseph still smiled down at the letter. “Well, how about that. Katie just found out that she is going to be a mater.”
A sudden wave of nausea sent Rebekah to her knees.
Thomas was at her side in a moment. “Joseph, do you think Schwestie has what Dat has?”
Joseph dropped the letter and ran to her side. He arrived just in time to intercept her vomit all over his shoes.
Chapter Two
But women will be saved through childbearing – if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety. – I Timothy 2:15
Rebekah’s head spun as Joseph scooped her off the barn floor. “No, please…” Another surge of hot vomit broke her sentence in two. “Want to sleep…” she muttered as she weakly wiped the vomit from her face.
“Rebekah, Rebekah!” Joseph held her head as he dashed her into the house. “Do not try to talk. Do not worry, I will take care of you.” He stomped up the stairs. “Thomas, get the door!”
The door opened at once, and Joseph rushed her in.
“Go get your folks,” Joseph said, “quick as you can.”
“Okay, Joseph.”
The door slammed shut as Joseph reached the stairs. “Gotte, please, take care of my fraa.” His voice was frantic and charged, very much unlike him. Rebekah was too sleepy to think about it further. She closed her eyes, leaned into his chest, and ceased to hear anything else at all.
***
Rebekah roused long enough to see her mother’s face hovering above her. “Am I dead, Mamm?”
Elnora smiled. “No, child. You are not dead. But you are unwell. Your fater even came with me to see to you when Thomas told us of your having collapsed in the barn…”
Her voice faded off as Rebekah closed her eyes. She scarcely felt the cool rags and fresh clothes as Elnora turned her this way and that cleaning, undressing, and redressing. What seemed like hours, maybe even days later, Rebekah woke again to her mother bathing her face with an icy rag. She dipped it into a bowl on the nightstand, wrung it out, and bathed her face and neck. A moment later, she repeated the entire process. Rebekah flickered a smile at her mother.
“Danki, Mater, for taking care of me,” Rebekah said. Her throat was scratchy and sore from vomiting, so her voice came out as a whisper. Weakness ensured her arms stayed down and her legs did not move. “Am I going to die?”
“Someday, yes, you will die,” Elnora said. “As will I.” A sideways smile tilted her lips in an odd manner that Rebekah had never seen before. “However, it is not death that makes you ill now. It is life.”
***
“Pregnant?” Joseph started to fall.
Rebekah’s fater, Samuel, grabbed a chair and stuck it under his son-in-law before he hit the ground. “Gute thing I came with you, Elnora,” he said. “Otherwise, you would have had two patients to nurse. One in the bed, one on the floor.” His voice was weak but still tinged in his trademark jocularity.
Elnora smiled and wiped her hands on her apron. “Ja, sure, Fater. I would have had to call for Thomas to help me drag him into the bedroom with his fraa.”
Thomas stood barefooted in the corner of the hallway but said nothing.
“Mater Elnora?” Wide-eyed, Joseph sat in the chair, dazed, as though he had been struck on the head or kicked by a horse. “Is Rebekah going to have our child?”
She laid her hand on her son-in-law’s shoulder and nodded. “It is still early. She is having some bleeding, and that is not gute for the bopplin. She needs to stay in bed for a while and rest.”
Joseph mopped at his sweaty brow with shaky hands. He cleared his throat, then cleared it again. “Can I see her?” Still, his words squeaked a bit.
Samuel chuckled weakly. “She is your fraa. I would hope so.”
Joseph swallowed hard and stood. He took off his black felt hat and held it at his middle. He glanced over his shoulder at Rebekah’s parents, then eased open the door to the bedroom he shared with his wife.
There, in their tiny bed, sat his smiling, tear-streaked fraa. “You’re going to be a fater,” Rebekah whispered.
Joseph’s face lit up like a summer sunrise. His full lips spread into a wide, white grin and he dashed to her side. “And you’re going to be a mater.” He flung his arms around her. “We are going to be parents!”
Rebekah’s cheeks ached from smiling. Katie’s letter forgotten, she squeezed Joseph. “We are going to have a bopplin of our very own!”
Thomas sniffled from the doorway, a sullen look on his normally sunny face.
