“I don’t see any sign of the bear,” he said. “Maybe we can make it over there before she comes back.”
Halfway across the yard with a bladder seemingly full of fire, Rebekah saw her. Sitting back on her haunches. The bear. Sitting down, she was as big as Joseph was tall. She loomed like a shadow behind the barn and if they had not been looking for her, she would have gone unseen, like any other woodsy shadow. “Look, Joseph! There’s the bear!”
Ever slow, she rose to all fours and stepped out into the light, her head down. Even bigger standing up, she was easily the size of a full-grown cow. But it was something else Rebekah noticed that no man ever would have thought to look for on a strangely acting animal. “Oh Joseph, look at the size of those dinners! She’s a mater.”
Dinners are what Rebekah’s family called teats on freshly birthed animals. Her mater, Elnora, taught her how to count teats, or dinners, to estimate the number of babies born. This skill had proved especially helpful when rounding up newborn kittens by moonlight—something she and her oldest bruder Jeremiah had done most every springtime as youngsters.
Rebekah tried to put her aching middle out of her mind as she looked around. “Her babies have to be around here somewhere.”
Joseph, however, hardened his tone and tightened his grip on her arm. “I do see that, Rebekah. And there’s no place more dangerous than between a mamm bear and her cubs.” He tugged her toward the outhouse. “Komme mit mir, fraa. Hurry.”
“She’s not dangerous, look at her!” Rebekah gestured wildly toward the advancing bear.
Her marble-like bear eyes, though obviously wild, never looked directly at them. Instead, she seemed to watch them from the corner of her eye. I am no threat, her demeanor seemed to scream. I do not want to hurt you or anyone. She kept her head low. Low and submissive.
“Look at her face, Joseph.” Rebekah fought against his iron grasp. “She needs help, she is scared—” A cramp, so severe, seized Rebekah’s middle and doubled her over. She slipped from Joseph’s grasp onto the ground. Unfortunately, her bladder let loose in the process.
Even though she was pregnant, he lifted her easily. “The bear? Is she still coming?”
“No more worrying about the bear or anything.” Joseph walked quickly back to the house, paying no attention to the bear whatsoever. “No more outhouse for you, Rebekah. You are officially on bed rest from now on.”
***
After she’d cleaned up and Joseph had her tucked back into bed, he looked at her sternly. “No more outhouses, my darling wife. Looks like the chamber pot from here until our bopplin comes.”
Rebekah gripped her quilt and worried it in her hands. She was much too concerned about the fate of the sad mater bear to even be embarrassed about her impromptu toileting accident in front of her mann. “Joseph…”
He didn’t let her finish. “I am going to get Thomas home safely in time for dinner like I promised your folks. Then, I’ll come back and fix something up for us. Is that oll recht?”
Rebekah stared into his eyes, willing him to understand. Gone were the sparkles of love that had lit them to the fiery, delicious hue she could get lost in. What replaced them was something flat. Something serious. “You cannot kill her, Joseph. Please.”
Joseph stood and adjusted his hat, but he did not respond.
Something frantic seized Rebekah’s insides. Fear? Hysteria? “Joseph!”
He started toward the door in silence.
“Please no! You cannot! You must not!” Her voice climbed higher with each word until they came out in shrieks. “Joseph, no!” She flung out her hand to catch his but missed.
From the doorway, Joseph turned back. His expression registered somewhere between hurt and bewildered. “You can trust me, Rebekah.” His voice was plain. “You can trust me to do the right thing, whether you are there to see it or not. Now. I’m going to walk Thomas home. Please stay in bed and take care of my fraa and our bopplin, a job that only you can do.”
Rebekah did as she was told, though it was not at all easy. As the day drew to an end and her stomach’s noises grew from gurgles to growls, her eyelids became heavier and heavier. She woke with a start, surprised to find her room cloaked in almost total darkness. Puddles of silver pockmarked the floor as the clouds moved across the moon. Carefully, she patted the bed. She was alone.
Did Joseph make it home?
She listened to the silence. Her breathing wasn’t the only one in the room. Rebekah sat upright as her heart pounded in her throat. Another cloud uncovered the whole of the moon and Joseph’s familiar figure was illuminated in the doorway. “Joseph?” she whispered. “Is that you?”
“I didn’t mean to wake you. Your dinner is there on the nightstand.”
Breathless, Rebekah cut him off. “What do you think you are doing? Standing there like that?” Her heart hammered so fiercely in her chest that she feared it would leap right out and bounce across the room.
“Watching you.” His teeth gleamed in the darkness as his lips pulled back into a smile.
“You scared me,” Rebekah said.
“I did not mean to scare you.” Joseph’s voice was sincere. “You were sleeping so soundly that I did not want to wake you up.”
In her sleep-heavy state, she was in no mood to be placated by niceties. Instead, she bristled. “So, you thought it best to stand in the doorway? Watching me because you thought I would get up and do something I was not supposed to be doing? The job that only I can do?”
“No.” Joseph’s gleaming grin faded. “Not at all. Watching you because I lieb you.” He strode across the room toward her but did not sit down.
Rebekah glowered at him. “I do not need watching.”
He fidgeted beside the bed as though he was unsure of what to do or what to say. “I apologize, Fraa. I am sorry I am so late. Your mater sent us home a couple of plates of what they had for dinner.” He uncovered the dish on the nightstand. The scent of liver and onions filled the room and her stomach turned over.
“Oh no—” She hiccupped into her hand. “Help—”
Joseph held the empty chamber pot under her chin just in time. She retched again and again. Joseph did not dare speak until she was done.
“I’ll take the dinner plate downstairs, so you don’t have to smell it.”
Rebekah swiped at her face with the back of her hand and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Would you like some bread and milk?”
Rebekah squeezed her eyes shut tight as her stomach made a strange noise that answered for her.
Joseph found her hand and gave it a squeeze. “I will take that to mean no,” he whispered. “I will be right back. When he returned, Rebekah had laid sideways across the bed.
