Rebekah tousled his wet hair as they tip-toed through the house to the safety of the mudroom.
Joseph had fixed their mudroom in a very clever fashion. Attached to the back entryway of the house, like all the other mudrooms in Gasthof Village, it boasted three hooks on one side for hanging hats and three hooks on the opposite side for hanging coats. There was also a bench for taking a rest or changing footwear, along with a cubby for storing shoes. But what made their mudroom special was what Joseph had formulated for water.
He devised a cistern to catch rainwater from outside because, as he explained it to her, whenever it is raining, we are going to come in with muddy shoes. That will be when we need to rinse off, lest we muddy the entire house. On the dry days, it will not be so much needed.
And his logic, as usual, made sense.
On the side of the cistern was a little trap door that led into the house. When someone pulled the lever, water flowed in, down a spigot, and into a waiting metal tub.
It was a very ingenious little room, and Rebekah was grateful on many rainy days, that she had such a clever mann.
“I do not know if there is enough water in the cistern to clean us off,” Thomas giggled.
Rebekah pulled the little lever. Water flowed like music into the metal tub. It reminded her of a waterfall. “Tell me about Fater.”
Thomas’s face, moments before shining and happy, darkened. “Mater says she is worried. And Mater never worries.” He rolled up his muddy pant legs. “I am worried, too.”
Rebekah dipped her fingers in the icy rainwater bath and flicked the droplets on his bare leg. He giggled. “We should get cleaned up. Once this storm passes, we will go see Mater and Fater together.”
That seemed to appease Thomas. He swished his feet in the water and watched as the mud swirled away. “I know maters sometimes worry. But when a schweister worries, it is important.”
He looked up at her through his eyelashes with his big, round eyes. Thomas had the longest eyelashes of all the Stoll children, and they tended to punctuate his emotions perfectly. Today was no exception.
“So, you would tell me if you were worried?” He paused a moment. “Right?”
“I suppose I could not hide it from the boy with the longest eyelashes in the territory.”
“You did not answer me.” Thomas stared at her without blinking. “Are you worried?”
She looked into the clear, innocent eyes of her favorite little brother. She should not lie to him but telling him the truth could make him worry needlessly over something he has no more control over than he has of the weather.
“How about this. We will go check on Ma and Pa here in a little while, then I will decide if we need to be worried or not.”
He looked thoughtful.
Rebekah smiled and tousled his hair. “Then, if we need to worry, I will make sure that you are the first to know.”
Finally, he smiled. Rebekah watched as an invisible weight seemed to lift off his shoulders.
“That sounds like a good deal.”
Chapter Two
Rebekah and Thomas’s childhood home seemed somehow solemn as it sat, veiled in raindrops, against the backdrop of gray thunderclouds that darkened the horizon.
Are those raindrops or teardrops?
Rebekah bit her tongue to keep the words from spilling out into the freshly tense world around them. She bounced Dawson absently in his bopplin sling.
“The house looks sad,” Thomas said. “Does it look sad to you, too?”
Joseph shot Rebekah a look over Thomas’s head. She ignored it.
Yes, yes it does. It looks as if it is in mourning. If a house could mourn, that is.
Rebekah’s throat tightened around the words, lest they escape.
In tandem, the trio strode up to the Stoll homestead.
***
The house inside was cool and dark. The normally bustling living room, filled with hand-hewn furniture, quilts, and lifetimes of warm, bright memories, was silent.
Waiting.
Rebekah dared a peek down at Thomas. “Everyone must be upstairs in Ma and Pa’s room.”
“Shall we join them?”
Thomas nodded and slipped his small hand into hers. “Jah.”
Together, Rebekah, Dawson, and Thomas led Joseph up the stairs, which still never uttered a creak or a groan thanks to their fater’s excellent craftsmanship, into the upstairs story of their home.
“Where are our brothers?” Rebekah whispered to Thomas. “It is much too quiet.”
“When Fater took sick, Ma asked that we all go to the Stoltzfus’s homestead. That was where I dropped off the boys and came to get you.”
Rebekah’s lips turned up into a smile. Thomas, one of the youngest Stoll children, sounded so grown up as he spoke to his big schweister about having taken care of his brothers, all but one older than himself, before coming her get her.
She gave his hand a squeeze. “Such a good brudder.”
Thomas wore a look of consternation, complete with downturned lips and a furrowed brow, as they arrived at Samuel and Elnora’s door. “Do you think Pa is…”
Rebekah sucked in a breath and opened the door. There, next to the window in a chair that Samuel had made for her during their courtship, sat her beautiful mother, Elnora. She wore the black bonnet, one that was to be worn by married women, and faced the window. Her dress, pale, cornflower blue, like the spring Indiana sky, was wrinkled as though she had slept in it before wearing it again today.
I doubt that she has slept at all.
“I knew you would be here as soon as you could, dochder.” Elnora sighed, her back still to them. “I did not want to worry you prematurely.”
Before she could go to her mother, Rebekah caught a glimpse of the bed. There, beneath a quilt and looking smaller than he ever had before, lay her beloved fater, Samuel.
“Oh, Pa,” she whispered.
From behind her, Joseph appeared and silently took Dawson from his sling.
She rushed to her fater’s bedside. “Pa?” She felt for his hand. It was cold. “Oh Ma, is he…”
Elnora finally turned her face toward them. Her cheeks were tear-streaked and puffy in odd places. Sadness cloaked her like a quilt. “No, he is not passed,” she said in broken Englisch to her dochder’s unasked question. “At least not yet.”
