Rebekah put him to her breast. “I think he is beautiful.” He latched on at once.
“He sure is.” Joseph leaned over and tweaked Lil’ Bit’s nose. The bopplin unlatched and commenced to wail.
Rebekah tried not to look exasperated as she switched sides. Still, Joseph’s comparative words stung her in tender, unseen places. “Besides, if Lil’ Bit had stayed inside a while longer, he may have been bigger than Katie’s bopplin.”
Joseph went to stroke Lil’ Bit’s nose again, but Rebekah moved away. “Most women carry nine months, right to the end of that ninth month even,” she said again.
Who are you trying to convince, Rebekah? Joseph? Or yourself?
She shook her head to try and clear the troublesome musings of her conscience. “Lil’ Bit just decided to come early is all.”
Wide-eyed, Joseph shook his head innocently. “I did not mean anything by that Rebekah. You know that.” He smiled widely. “I just meant that Amish women usually have large, healthy bopplin—” He stopped talking, his faced flooding with red.
Lil’ Bit unlatched again and commenced to shriek, a shrill, hurting shriek. Rebekah closed her eyes and bounced him in her arms. She tried to keep her voice low and even as she answered her husband. “So, what you are saying is, the fact that my natural parents were Englischer is the reason that Katie’s bopplin is perfect and my bopplin is skinny and sickly?”
Joseph, red-faced and silent, said nothing. He turned and walked out of the room without looking back, leaving Rebekah and a screeching bopplin alone in the bedroom that had been the site of many miracles. Up until now.
***
Rebekah held her bopplin helplessly. With each fresh round of screaming, his stomach hardened, and he kicked out, straight legged. She wanted to cry, but even more than that, she wanted to help her bopplin. He was hurting and, as his mater, she was supposed to know how to fix him. How to make him better.
Elnora crept into the room. “Hallo. May I?”
The sparkle in her mater’s eyes reassured Rebekah that unlike her, Elnora knew exactly what to do.
Failure!
Rebekah forced a smile and tried not to let her frustration show. “Of course, Grossmammi.”
Elnora took the bopplin carefully. “It will become easier, Rebekah. I will show you. However, first you must rest and recover.” Her mater winked at her. “And the most important thing for you to do right now is do not worry.”
“I will try.”
Elnora held Lil’ Bit out in front of her and bounced him up and down while talking to him in low, rhythmic tones. She never gave her daughter a second look as she swayed out of the room, Lil’ Bit in hand.
Rebekah gave a little smile, secretly glad to be rid of the motherly duties for the night. Almost at once and without much say in the matter, she gave in to the urgings of her aching muscles and allowed herself to fall asleep.
What sleep she got was not restful, however, and was plagued with fitfulness and strange dreams. She hoped her mother would come back to visit her, but nobody made any appearance. In fact, her dreams were fast-paced versions of farm life, playing out much too quickly, but featuring no people.
Deep in the night, she woke with a start, as though she had not slept at all. “Joseph?” The word flew off her tongue with an urgency she had not intended.
No answer.
“Joseph,” she whispered into the silence that engulfed her. Her heart pounded, and she was not sure why.
He did not come to bed. She thought for a moment. I am not surprised. I have been terrible to him.
With Lil’ Bit tucked up safe and sound with Elnora and Heloise, she slid out of bed. I need to find Joseph. And apologize for my terrible behavior.
Dizzy and unsteady, she stepped into the hallway. I hope he is nearby. I do not think I can navigate the stairs. A flicker of lantern light illuminated Joseph’s outline at the far end of the hall. She smiled, mostly from gratefulness that she found him so quickly, and from gratefulness that she found him at all.
She leaned against the wall for support and managed her way down the hall, one footstep at a time, toward his hunched-over frame. The closer she got, the more she noticed that he was moving. Well, that his hand was anyway. “Joseph?”
He jumped.
“Oh, um, Rebekah.” Through stuttering syllables, he slid something under his arm. “I was not expecting you to be awake. Elnora said—”
“What are you doing down here in the middle of the night?” She was powerless to stop the inquisitive words from spewing forth from her mouth, like croaks from an angry frog. She glanced at the desk where he sat. A quill pen and ink well, notably open, lay there as though both were freshly used.
“I wanted to let you get some sleep,” Joseph stammered. “You have had such a long day.”
“Are you writing a letter?” She peered over his shoulder. A piece of paper peeked out from beneath his arm. “Ach du lieva! Are you writing to…Katie?”
Her eyes widened and she wanted to shriek and wail, just as long and loud as Lil’ Bit. Pain. Shooting, stabbing pain shot through her—though this particular pain had absolutely nothing to do with the pregnancy or traumatic birth. This feeling was that of trust, as it broke into jagged pieces that slashed everything tender and precious as it fell asunder.
Joseph, however, said nothing.
“Well? Are you?”
From downstairs, their bopplin began to screech. Rebekah turned her back on her silent mann and carefully began the walk back down the hallway. No part of her body moved as it should and, if she was ever considered a graceful, feminine walker before, she certainly could not claim that title now.
The grossmammis have my bopplin downstairs. I should go try and check on him…
Heart pounding, Rebekah picked her way through the darkness. The stairs are here somewhere.
She tottered on the top step and tried not to think about what Joseph’s mysterious letter might entail. He certainly kept it secret from me. A deep ache in her stomach and ripping sensation from down below doubled her over. She reached out and caught herself before she tumbled down the entire flight and came to rest on the second stair from the top. Her heart pounded even faster, and a hot, sticky wetness coated her thighs.
More pains shot through her breasts. She hugged her arms across her chest and chewed her lower lip. She touched her chest warily, hoping to find milk there. The front of her gown, however, was still heartbreakingly dry.
