She smiled as a motherly warmth filled her chest. “You are ready to have your unmentionables changed, aren’t you sohn.”
From behind her, Joseph pushed open their bedroom window. “To let the stale air out and the fresh air in,” he joshed.
“Stale air that comes with changing a dirty bopplin?” Rebekah switched the diaper expertly. “Though I am not sure that stale describes what our sohn can do to air when he needs a change.”
A conclave of cardinals chirped from their nest in the tulip tree as Joseph stood, his back to her, and stared at the horizon. “Looks like a summer storm will soon pay us a visit.”
As if on some divine cue, a clap of thunder sounded in the distance. Joseph nodded as though he and the Almighty had some sort of unspoken understanding.
“Going to be a gully-washer, too, by the sound of it.”
Rebekah fixed the second diaper pin in place and plucked Dawson from the bed. “Do you want to put the dirty cloth in to soak, or do you want to hold your sohn?”
Joseph turned from the window and extended his arms toward her. “You are doing so well with the cloths; it seems a sin to tear you away from it now.”
Rebekah chuckled. She and Joseph had taken to parenting quite naturally, and their routine was not forced or one-sided. She already planned on taking the cloth, since he had done all the bathing and changing the day before, just like he would tomorrow. Still, she had to get her jokes in when she could.
“Well, if you say so,” Rebekah said. As she reached to place Dawson in his fater’s waiting arms, a streak of movement outside caught her eye. She froze.
“Joseph? Did you see that?”
He accepted the wiggling bopplin.
Rebekah leaned out the window. “Is that Thomas?”
Joseph pulled the baby close to his chest and turned on his heel. “That is Thomas all right.”
“Why is he waving his hat like that?” Rebekah sucked in a breath. “Joseph, something wrong.”
Before she could turn from the window and rush to meet her baby brother, another clap of thunder made her jump. The horizon had darkened considerably and a cold wind, prelude to the coming storm, rushed in through the open window. It carried Thomas’s words with it.
“Joseph! Sissy! Come quick, Pa is sick. Help!”
***
Breathless, Thomas dashed into Rebekah’s waiting arms. Fat raindrops dotted the powdery Indiana dirt around them, leaving big, dark splotches scattered out like coins on a tabletop. Another clap of thunder rolled across the prairie.
Rebekah pulled back from their embrace and clasped an exhausted Thomas’s sweaty face in her hands. “What is wrong, Thomas? What is wrong with Pa?”
The raindrops fell faster.
Thomas drew in a jagged breath and swiped the back of his hand across his nose. Rebekah knew he’d been crying, probably the whole way over.
“P…Pa,” Thomas stuttered. “His…his chest.”
“Take deep breaths, Thomas. Be calm.”
Thomas nodded. After a moment, his breath came easier. “His chest. It hurt all day yesterday. Kept him up half the night.” He drew the back of his hand across his eyes, instead of his nose. Both were watery. “This morning, he cannot get out of bed. He is sweaty and pale. And Sissy…” His little voice trailed off until the chilled wind swirled it away. “He did not even want his morning coffee. And you know Pa, he cannot…”
Rebekah nodded and finished her little brother’s thought. “...start his day without hot coffee and good company.” She tucked Thomas under her arm and began to guide him back toward the house. “I wonder how many times Pa has said that over the years? Fifty? A hundred?”
“Come on you two,” Joseph, all smiles as usual, called from their doorway. “Or you are both going to look like a couple of drowned rats!”
As if on some unspoken cue, another sharp clap of thunder sounded and made her jump.
“Sounds like it ripped the sky in two!” Thomas said.
“Hurry, Thomas!” Rebekah’s plea was cut short as the skies loosened their downpour. As they rushed toward the house, she couldn’t help but skip over the quickly forming puddles, just as she and Thomas used to when they were younger. She glanced over her shoulder as Thomas hopped along behind her. “Hey, I reckon you cannot jump that big puddle there without falling in!”
A surge of guilt flashed through her. How can I jest while Pa is sick? The guilt fizzled. Why not jest? If Thomas’s news is as bad as it sounds, this may be the last time we smile for quite some time.
Her younger brother with the freckles that dotted the bridge of his nose clasped his wide-brimmed straw hat down on his head with both hands and squinted through the rain. “Which puddle, Sissy?”
Rebekah’s blonde hair whipped across her face. “The big one, there by the horse corral.”
“It looks deep!”
Thomas flashed his gap-toothed grin and took off with a shriek toward the puddle. Sure enough, he cleared it easily.
“Look Sissy, I made it!” His voice was filled with equal parts excitement and surprise. “I cannot believe it, but I made it!”
When Thomas got himself sorted on the far side of the puddle, he turned and gestured to her with a mischievous smirk. “Your turn!”
Rebekah, not one to turn down a dare, swiped her sopping hair out of her eyes and squinted. The puddle had already grown considerably. She started toward the puddle, toward a triumphant victory over her favorite little brother. The moment her bare toes touched the pooling water, she leaped through the curtain of rain.
I’ve won! I cannot wait to...
When she landed in the soft mud on the far side of the puddle, she knew something was wrong. One foot slipped in one direction while the other slid in the other. She skidded in such a way that she banged her shoulder into the split rail fence, before falling hard against the corral gate. The lever snapped off and she tumbled into the muck of the corral.
“Rebekah? Rebekah!”
Joseph was at her side in a moment, just as another crash of thunder sounded mightily as a flash of lightning zapped the ground not too terribly far away. Before anyone could utter a word, a cascade of rainfall blinded them all.
“Come on!” Joseph yanked her to her feet. Her arm popped, but she said nothing. “Thomas,” Joseph ordered, “try and close the gate before the horse gets out!” His voice was charged with something that sounded like fear.
Rebekah allowed herself to be pulled into the safety of their home, with Thomas close behind. Another bolt of lightning struck the ground not far from where she had landed, just moments before. This, coupled with the memory of the barn fire caused by a freak lightning strike that had almost taken her life just a few years ago, caused Rebekah’s stomach to turn up in knots.
“My, that was close,” Thomas, a supremely muddy mess, said.
“Too close,” Rebekah said. She was an even muddier mess than her little brother, who lived for muddy messes.
Dawson began to cough, the precursor to his serious cry, from his baby basket. Joseph stepped over and plucked him up. In the safety of his fater’s arms, Dawson shushed his whimpers.
“There now,” Joseph cooed. “There now. You are safe. You are loved.” He danced from foot to foot, lost in his own little world as he swayed with baby Dawson.
Rebekah shared a look with Thomas. They giggled quietly. “Come little brudder, let us go to the mudroom and rinse off a bit.”
Thomas, still smiling, nodded. Suddenly, his happy countenance melted away. “Oh, how is your shoulder, schweister? That fall really looked…” He searched for just the right word. Finally, he settled on the best one he could call to mind. “Bad.”
