Rebekah’s heart sank as she was finally able to name the elusive word to describe Katie that she had been searching for earlier.
Content.
Finally, the perpetually discontent Katie was now rotten with contentment.
Rebekah glanced down at her sickly, squirming, whimpering bopplin in the heirloom cradle that had been made with so much love by an equally sickly man.
“Lil’ Bit, I do not know how to feed you. I do not know how to make you better. I do not know anything at all. Not how to be a fraa. Not how to be a mater. Not even how to be a dochder.”
Lil’ Bit whimpered in answer.
Samuel’s voice sounded over the lot of the visiting relations. “Where is my bopplin niece?”
Rebekah looked up from her bopplin in time to see Katie proudly hand her bopplin over to Samuel. Ruth, Katie’s chuck of bopplin, squealed with delight.
“My turn!” Peter crossed his muscular arms across his wide chest. “Where is my nephew?”
Joseph motioned to the house, then glanced up to the window. Rebekah gasped and backed up quickly, so as not to be seen. “Oh no.”
The clamoring of footsteps on the porch, followed by laughter and the slamming of the front door made her want to cry. Do not come in. Do not come to see what a failure I am. How much I have failed at everything important in life.
She heard her fater, Samuel’s, voice above all the rest. “Rebekah is upstairs with Lil’ Bit, Peter.”
Everyone is inside.I have to go down with them, though I would rather crawl under the bed and never come out.
Rebekah’s eyebrows knitted sadly over her eyes as she plucked up Lil’ Bit from his cradle. Though he seemed in distress more often than not, he did seem to quiet when she held him to her breast. “I love you so much, little bopplin. More than you will ever know. And I am proud of you, no matter what you weigh. No matter how you cry. No matter what you look like. You are beautiful, and you are my little miracle.”
She stepped out of the room and started him downstairs. The strange feeling as though she was walking to a funeral, not a family reunion hung heavy around her. Will they see my cloud of gloom? Will they see right through me?
“There she is!” Peter’s voice boomed even louder inside. “And who is this little fellow she has? Ohhh.”
Her brother brushed the top of her head with a kiss, but his eyes were locked on Lil’ Bit. “Oh, Rebekah. My nephew is so handsome, just like his Oncle Peter.”
A sincere smile flickered across her lips. “Here, Oncle Peter, would you like to hold him?”
“You know it.” Peter extended his arms to her. “I did not come all the way from Texas just to hug Joseph.”
“Yes, you did,” Joseph said. “Do not even pretend you didn’t.”
Grinning, Peter slipped Lil’ Bit easily out of Rebekah’s arms and plopped him over his shoulder. “Hallo, Lil’ Bit. Can you say hallo Oncle Peter?”
Lil’ Bit loosed a loud burp, which made everybody giggle.
“I suppose that is how you can pronounce it,” Peter said. “Hey, Molly, can you hand me a burp cloth, please? That burp sounded like it may have had something milky behind it.”
Peter stepped to the side and revealed his wife, Katie. She stood there in Rebekah’s living room tall and stoic, and as pretty as one of those paintings from New York City. Behind her, Samuel bounced bopplin Ruth in his arms.
A wave of jealousy rose into the back of her throat as her fater wore the smile that Katie was able to give him with her happy bopplin. The smile that I could only take away from him.
The Wagler’s, the Amish couple who had adopted Peter when he showed up in Gasthof Village bent on taking Rebekah back to the Englischer world, appeared silently beside Samuel and absconded, all smiles, with bopplin Ruth.
“Hallo, Rebekah.”
Katie’s voice was flatter than she remembered. Katie’s gute fortune and her cute and happy bopplin drove like stakes into Rebekah’s heart. She tried to make her mouth form words that did not sour as they passed her lips. “Hallo, Katie. I hope you had a gute trip.”
Katie opened her mouth, but Lil’ Bit began to whimper.
Joseph’s voice came from somewhere. “Would you like me to take him, Peter?”
Peter hadn’t put Lil’ Bit down since he came in and did not look as though he was planning on it anytime soon. “No way. I can handle a few bopplin tears. It will match well with the spit up down my back.”
Rebekah nodded to Katie then stepped over to her brother. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I can take him, Peter, I was going to go up and rest anyway.”
“No, no.” Peter looked sternly at Lil’ Bit, as though he was studying every bit of him for something hidden, something only Oncle Peter could see. “It is really okay, Rebekah. I will hold onto this little man so that you can go up and rest unless you would like to feed him first?”
Rebekah stammered over her words and her head dipped.
Surprisingly, Joseph interjected on her behalf. “It is no problem, Peter, you can hold onto him. We are feeding Lil’ Bit on a bottle.”
“On a bottle?” Katie sounded incredulous.
Some intelligible words finally stammered their way into Rebekah’s mouth. “If you all will excuse me, I am still not quite feeling myself.” The excuse, though true, was still an excuse. “I must go lay down.” She walked past Joseph without looking at him, even though he reached out his hand for hers. “Peter, thank you for bopplin-sitting while I get a nap.”
“Of course.”
Rebekah turned and trudged out of the room but did not say any more words. They would just get tied up anyway. By the time she reached the first stair that led up to the room where she could go and hide, her tears were already tracking down her cheeks in hot trails.
Chapter Eleven
