“Anything.”
“Take Thomas to see Lil’ Bit. Please.” Rebekah hiccupped back a sob and turned her face to Thomas. “You are Lil’ Bit’s oncle, but I planned to, no, I will raise you both as bruders.”
Thomas’s freckled face shaded red, and his lower lip quivered. Tears hung from his fringe of dark lower lashes.
Joseph held out his hand, and slowly, Thomas took it. He looked back at her, but let Joseph lead him across the broad expanse of the room. Once there, Thomas looked down at the silent baby, then up at Joseph. “Oh no, Joseph.”
Still, the adults were chanting their syllabic prayer.
Thomas too innocent and curious to know better, tugged on Joseph’s hand. “Why is Lil’ Bit so blue?”
Joseph started to answer, but a sob closed his throat.
Samuel, sitting in the chair, patted Thomas’s shoulder. “He was born not breathing, sohn. The cord was born first. And that is no gute,” Samuel said. “That is why he is blue.”
Rebekah balled her fist and stuck it in her mouth. She bit hard to stem the hot tears that wanted to be set free. “No.”
Elnora and Heloise’s continuous chanting soothed the painful air that had overtaken the room. In a tub that had appeared from seemingly nowhere, the grossmammis shared the task of blessing their first kinskind with his first, and last, bath.
Downstairs, the front door opened and closed. A thunderous din of footfalls on the steps preceded Lucas Graber’s thunderous entrance. “I have the doctor from Montgomery. I pray I am not too late.”
Heloise dared a peek over her shoulder and gave her husband an infinitesimal shake of the head. Lucas took off his hat and trudged over to join the rest of the grandparents around Lil’ Bit’s blue, lifeless body.
The doctor was not the same nightcap-wearing doctor who had saved Samuel’s life when he had his heart seizure. This doctor was younger and fresher faced.
“I’m Dr. Williamson from Boston, new to Indiana Territory and certainly new to Amish life,” he said. He offered Rebekah a smile and patted her blanketed foot. “I hear you had a hard delivery following a complicated pregnancy, with possible toxemia, little lady. I can check you over momentarily, to make sure more children are possible in the future for you and your husband, if you like?”
Rebekah stared into his young face. “Doctor, please. Save my sohn.” She gasped. “Please. He will live. I know it.”
Still, Elnora, Samuel, and Heloise chanted the old-world prayer, now joined by Lucas. Thomas’s and Joseph’s shoulders shook in tandem as their quiet sobs spoke volumes.
Dr. Williamson produced an instrument from a black case. On one end, the instrument was split in two, which he placed into his ears. The other end was a single piece that he placed against Lil’ Bit’s chest. He moved it around to several different places, then removed the instrument and put it back into its black case. None of these things were the likes of which Rebekah had ever seen.
Dr. Williamson slicked his case closed and shook his head. Slowly he turned to face Rebekah and Joseph. “I am so sorry, folks. This baby is dead.” He turned back to the grandparents. “I suggest letting his mother see him and say goodbye. That way, she can commence to grieve, and then you, as a family, can carry on however you see fit.”
“No!” Rebekah pushed herself onto her elbows. The world pitched and rolled, but she did not care. “No!”
Dr. Williamson paused and adjusted his spectacles. “The sooner you grieve, the sooner you can heal.”
In a very un-Amish-like fashion, Rebekah began to pray. Loudly.
“Dear Gotte! The Almighty and ever-loving fater. Danki for the gift of my bopplin. Danki for the trials and suffering from the pregnancy that I was blessed to have, especially when it hurt, for through this, you have made the way for something wunderbaar. Something wonderful gute. Please look down upon my family now Gotte, do not forget us in our moment of pain. In our moment of need. We are your kinder, and right now we are in pain! Right now, we are in need!”
She was shouting, but she did not care. Somewhere behind the prayer, in the deep recesses of her mind, Rebekah saw the blonde woman who claimed to be her mother. She was holding Lil’ Bit, swaying in a long, white gown against the pitch blackness.
“Please,” Rebekah said aloud, “breathe life into Dawson ‘Lil’ Bit’ Graber. A kinder of Gotte who fought so wonderful gute to be born. Wake him up, Gotte. Wake him up! It is time for him to live!”
The room fell silent, even from the grandparents’ changing prayers. Together, as a family, they waited with bated breath to see what would happen. To see what Gotte would choose to do.
The image of her Englischer mater, holding her bopplin, in the back of Rebekah’s mind fizzled from blackness into the brightest light.
At once, a shrill shriek pierced the stunned silence that followed Rebekah’s outburst. All heads turned from Rebekah to the writhing, pink body, moments before blue and lifeless, in Samuel’s arms.
Rebekah collapsed back onto the pillow, her eyes fixed on her squealing, newborn kinder. “Danki, Gotte. Danki wonderful gute.”
Dr. Williamson’s mouth hung open. “I have heard it said that a mother’s love can cure all ailments. Now I know that it is true.”
Joseph accepted the highly agitated Lil’ Bit from Samuel. Slowly, he made the walk across the room to where Rebekah waited, with Thomas on his heel. “Mater,” Joseph said. “There is somebody that I would like for you to meet.”
Bleary-eyed, Rebekah accepted her wriggly boy. “You just needed some time and a little reassurance from Gotte, didn’t you, Lil’ Bit.”
“Just like we all do,” Thomas agreed. “Do not worry, Lil’ Bit. We were not going anywhere. We were all here, waiting for you.”
A chuckle, soft and sweet, rolled through the room.
“Danki, Thomas, for the courage to tell Gotte what we need and when we need it.” Rebekah winked at her fater. “You gave me the courage to pray to Gotte in such a manner. Seems as though you saved us both tonight.”
Samuel clapped his hands together. “How about we try my kinskind in his cradle?” He bent with a grunt and retrieved Lil’ Bit from Rebekah. Still, the skinny baby shrieked and shrieked.
It wasn’t until that moment, with the sun across his face and him holding Lil’ Bit, that Rebekah realized just how much her fater had aged, seemingly overnight. She sucked in her lower lip and her heart thwapped in her chest at the sudden realization.
With his trademark gentle smile on his face, he leaned down and placed Lil’ Bit in the tulip tree cradle, made especially for him. The tiny infant arched his back and squealed an even more piercing squeal than before. Samuel jerked him up with trembling hands. “Joseph! Please,” he cried, “search the cradle for splinters!”
Rebekah’s heart sank as her fater’s excited face fell in disappointment. He looked down into the empty cradle and handed the wailing infant back to her. Samuel forced a smile that was nowhere near genuine. “Perhaps it is as you say. He just needs a little time.”
Still, his grossdaddi face, moments before shining with hope and lieb, did not shine as brightly as before. In fact, it did not shine at all.
Chapter Eight
