Rebekah crept up the stairs toward her parent’s bedroom. When she reached the landing, Samuel’s voice met her ears. “Come in, Dochder.”
“How did you know I was here, fater?” She stepped inside and tried to choke back a gasp at what she saw. Her strong, strapping father’s face was thin and ashen, and he looked even older than he had earlier when they’d come over to greet Katie and Peter. Blue veins stood out in stark contrast to his pale skin and his breath came harder and faster than normal. Though he looked thin, his wrists and arms appeared strangely puffy in places.
I have heard that heart problems make people puffy sometimes. When the heart is not working the way it should, it makes people tired…and puffy…and breathless.
Samuel gave a weak wave. “I always know where my kind are. I got good practice with you, my precious dochder. Each of you has different sounding footsteps on the stairs. Yours are quiet, like a mouse, Thomas’s are…”
“Not quiet,” Rebekah said. “About anything ever.”
He laughed quietly. “That is true.”
Rebekah stepped over to the chair beside the bed and sat down. “How are you feeling?”
Samuel shrugged. “I am fine. Please, do not worry about me.” He patted her hand. “How are you and Lil’ Bit?”
“I had a good talk with Katie and a wunderbaar visit with Peter.” She felt herself brighten before she could help it.
“Did you?” Samuel raised his eyebrows. “Tell your old fater about it.”
“It was very…grown up.” Rebekah relaxed back against the chair. “When she came to my room, I told her to leave. She said no. We really cleared the air, as some people say. I believe both of us got to say many things we otherwise would not have been able to say to one another. Things from the past, things that bothered both of us. We even spoke about current problems.” Rebekah thought for a moment about how much to tell her father. “I thought Joseph and Katie had a secret romance going through the mail, unbeknownst to Peter or me.” When she said it out loud, it sounded incredibly far-fetched and silly. “I sound ridiculous.”
Samuel, though, did not laugh. “To be worried about such things and be pregnant. That does not make for a happy home.”
“Saying everything out loud makes me realize how silly I was. For such a long time.”
He shook his head and tsked. “You always have had a big imagination, Dochder.”
“So, I learned after talking to Katie. Seems I had seen things that were not there.”
“I am pleased that she was able to ease your mind.” He smiled. “There is a first time for everything.”
Rebekah gave a little giggle. “They invited Joseph, Lil’ Bit, and me down for a visit, and I am excited to go just as soon as we can. And I would like to take Thomas too if that is suitable to you and mater.”
“Of course. You would not get far down the road without Thomas anyway.” His lips pulled back in a smile, but it was heavy with tiredness.
Rebekah thought for some words to say, any words, to fill the strange silence brought on by the illness of someone you love. “The goat’s milk and bopplin sling have already made such a difference to Lil’ Bit.”
“Have they?”
“It is wonderful gute, Fater. I knew having a bopplin would be exhausting, but having a bopplin who does nothing but scream, a bopplin who seemed to be in pain all of the time…” Rebekah let her words trail off and hang there a moment. “Katie’s visit feels as though it was on divine timing because I was wonderful close to some kind of mental breakdown.”
“Breakdown?”
“I did not think I could do it anymore. Felt like I was failing. As a fraa, as a mater. Even as a dochder and schwester.” She could not look at her father. “It was a horrible feeling. But the bopplin sling and the goat’s milk. They have made a difference like…” Rebekah searched for just the right way to describe it. “Like night and day. Like I have been in dark gloominess and now the sun is shining again.”
“You were unsettled too, you know, when you first came to be my dochder.”
“I was?” She pretended to forget everything Peter had told her earlier and not to have any idea what Samuel was talking about.
“You were. You liked to go to work with me out in the fields. I would tie you on my back while I plowed.” He gave a little chuckle. “I suppose it was your very own little bopplin sling, way back then. I wish I had thought to tell you of it before. I could have saved you so much heartache.”
“Gelassenheit, Fater.” His hand, which had been resting on hers, felt cold. “Gotte’s timing is always perfect. Even if we do not understand.”
“That it is.” He patted her hand. “You sound much happier, Dochder, and that makes my old, sick heart happy.”
“You are not old, fater.” She stumbled over her words. But you are sick. I cannot say such things though.
Samuel brightened. “Tell me, does Lil’ Bit like his cradle, now that he has a milk that settles in his stomach?”
Rebekah froze.
You cannot lie, Rebekah, the little voice in her head told her. But how truthful can you be?
“I have not had the chance to put him in it since he settled,” she said truthfully. “But the minute I do, I will send word. I promise.”
“Danki, Dochder.” Samuel’s eyelids fluttered. “My, I did not realize how tired I was.”
Rebekah stood and made her exit. She paused in the doorway. “I will go so you can rest.”
Samuel’s eyes were already closed. “Ich lieb you, Dochder.”
Rebekah turned in the doorway. “I love you too, Fater.”
He was snoring before she even closed the door.
***
Elnora was swaying in the kitchen with Lil’ Bit when Rebekah came down the stairs. Thomas had gone on to bed, so the kitchen felt curiously quiet with just the pair of them and the bopplin there. It was incredibly rare that she had her mother to herself for any amount of time.
Rebekah sat down at the table and spoke first. “Fater is not well.”
“His energy, it comes and goes,” Elnora said. “But I cannot recall a time when he was so ill. Apart from last year.”
Rebekah shuddered. The heart seizure that almost took her father’s life was a fresh worry in everybody’s mind when Samuel had so much as sneezed since then. This latest development did nothing except worry the lot of them considerably. “Mater…” she began.
The word hung there in the still air, dangling from the last strands of courage she used even coming here.
Elnora did not speak, but she did turn her kind eyes toward her daughter.
Rebekah sucked in a breath. “I have done something terrible. Actually, I have done lots of terrible things, but one thing above all I am incredibly ashamed of.”
Elnora’s brow furrowed. “You, Dochder? What have you done that is so terrible?”
“This entire pregnancy, I have been horrible to Joseph. Selfish, rude, and horrible. He had kept up a secret correspondence with Katie, or so I thought, and it turned out to all be a big misunderstanding.”
The smell of bread, toasting in the oven, met her nose. Her stomach growled, but she paid it no attention. “I came out the fool, and I feel every bit of it. So instead of trusting my husband, I drove him away.” She dared a peek at her mother. “And worst yet, in a fit of anger, I did something even more terrible.”
Elnora offered a gentle smile. “I am sure whatever it was is not as bad as it seems. Would you like to talk about it?” She brushed Rebekah’s hair off her forehead.
