“Well, it is going to sound incredibly simple and silly. But you were Annie’s friend, her best friend, and not mine. And I was jealous.” She shrugged. “I tried to make you jealous, too, lots of times. You just never noticed until Joseph came into the picture.” Katie giggled. “I suppose I owe you an apology for all of that. So, I am sorry, Rebekah. For all my many, many failings over the years.”
Rebekah blinked. Is this another one of those weird nightmares? It sure feels like it. She sighed, too tired of being angry to get angry again over something that did not even deserve to have been gotten angry over in the first place. “May I ask you something and get an honest answer?”
“All of my answers are honest, Rebekah, but yes. Ask me anything.”
“Why were you holding my mann in my kitchen?”
Katie answered as quickly as she had earlier. “You saw what you wanted. What you expected.” She looked up at her. “But rest assured, I was most certainly not holding your mann.”
Rebekah looked at Katie and sucked in her bottom lip. Have I been wrong about everything for my entire life?
Katie continued. “My bopplin was colicky, too. Just like yours.”
Rebekah furrowed her brow. “How did you know Lil’ Bit was unwell, colicky as you called it?”
“Well, I got to see it a bit downstairs, as you well know. But I knew before, too.” Katie pulled a letter out of her apron pocket. “You see? Joseph wrote us a letter the night Lil’ Bit was born.”
She handed it to Rebekah.
She read as Katie continued to talk.
Dear Family,
Today, Rebekah made me a fater, and I made her a mater. We have a sohn. He was born not breathing, he was even blue. An Englischer doctor came and told us he was dead and to tell him goodbye. But Rebekah, my miracle-making fraa, prayed for him, and he began to breathe! She named him Dawson Graber, but we will call him Lil’ Bit, like Thomas wanted.
Rebekah had a very hard delivery, and I almost lost her, I almost lost the love of my life. She and the bopplin are resting now, so I had to come out into the hallway to let the loves of my life get their much-deserved rest.
Do you have any suggestions as to how I can be the best mann I can be to Rebekah during this time? Lil’ Bit acts like his stomach hurts, and he cries hard all the time. Do you have any suggestions for this?
God bless you and keep you, my family. We both love all three of you and look forward to seeing you as soon as can be arranged.
Sincerely,
Joseph on behalf of all the Graber family
Rebekah had tuned Katie out as she read. When she finished reading, she began to listen again.
“So, you see, he told us about the way the bopplin acted. It is called colic. Joseph also told us that you were unwell after a hard delivery, needing your rest, and he asked for advice. He was worried and asking us for help. For help for you. So, I brought you a gift. I was helping Joseph put it on.”
Rebekah folded the letter and gave it back to Katie. “Put what on?”
“Your gift from me. It is a bopplin sling. Something in the way it holds them, it helps with soothing the colic pains.”
Rebekah’s head dipped into her hands. Had she been snow, she would have melted clean away, into a right watery puddle. “So, you came up here to tell me how wrong I am about everything. I am sure that has proven wonderful hard for you.”
“Oh, Rebekah,” Katie huffed and stamped her foot. “Would you stop it already?”
“Do not tell me what to do in my own house. Just get out, Katie.” Rebekah hid her face. “Leave me be, please.”
“No.” Katie shook her head. Those troublesome tendrils bounced over her shoulders. “Like I said earlier. I am all that is left.”
Rebekah lifted her face but looked away, lest Katie see the tears in her eyes that threatened to spill over.
Katie set her jaw. “No matter how ugly you are to me, I am not going anywhere.”
“No?”
She shook her head again. “Nope. I am not getting back in that buggy with your bruder and my bopplin any time soon no matter what you say to me. I need a break.” She looked at Rebekah. “So does my bottom.”
Rebekah fought back a smile but began to giggle. The more she tried to stifle it, the harder it tried to escape. Finally, Rebekah snorted.
Katie’s lips pulled up into a genuine smile. “Ha, I knew that I could make you laugh.” She nudged Rebekah with her elbow. “Feel better now?”
Rebekah sobered. All of the anger was gone. However, she was consumed with the same hopeless, empty feeling that filled her when the anger was not there. “I am a failure, Katie. A failure as a mater. I cannot even take care of my bopplin the way a mater should. What little milk I had dried up, and I cannot even feed him. I cannot settle him. I cannot do anything.”
Katie tilted her head. “I am certain you had help come. Molly Raber seems to be making a hand of herself.” She looked thoughtful. “I know your mater has been busy tending your sick dat, but what did the rest of the Gasthof women do to help you?”
“Well, Heloise Graber suggested boiling cow’s milk, which worked for a while. Lil’ Bit seemed to like the warmness of it. Mrs. Fuhs, she and her family are new here from Pennsylvania, thought we could try full, raw milk. She brought a big bucket over not long ago.”
“Did it work?”
Rebekah shook her head. “Nothing has worked for longer than a bottle or two. Not even the buckets and buckets of Fenugreek tea from Molly’s mater, that were supposed to help bring down my own milk.”
“The Mennonite women down in Texas give goat’s milk to colicky babies.” Katie shrugged. “Works better than cow’s milk.”
“Really?”
“Really.” Katie patted Rebekah’s hand. “Goat’s milk, which they just happen to have down in Montgomery. ‘Aloysius’s Goat Farm, Making Baa-ter Butter.’”
