Her breath came faster, and she wrapped her arms around Joseph’s waist. “Joseph, I fear I may faint.”
He tightened his arms around her shoulders careful not to squash the bopplin between them. “I still have that effect on you then?”
Rebekah drew in a sharp breath.
No longer amorous, Joseph held her by the shoulders. “Rebekah, are you all right?”
A sheen of sweat had cropped up on her forehead. Beads of icy sweat danced down her neck and backbone and her stomach, suddenly sour, turned over on itself. “I am not sure. I suddenly got scared.” She turned her face to look up into his. “A horrible fear shook me. What if you were the man in my life who rapidly took sick? What if…”
An unexpected torrent of tears escaped her on a loud, jagged sob. “Oh Joseph, I am so scared.”
Before a surprised Joseph could do anything in answer, another clap of thunder sounded from the heavens. Wiping the worry from his face, he forced a smile. “It is no wonder you are upset, Fraa. Seeing your fater that way must have upset you terribly. Come,” Joseph looped his arm tightly over her shoulder again. “Let me get you home before the storm catches us. It seems Thomas has long beat us there.”
Chapter Four
“What will happen…” Rebekah said as they trekked together across their yard. Still pockmarked with mud puddles, she was careful to step around them. All the playful spirit from earlier had left her and she would not have jumped over one, even if she had the inclination to do so. “What will happen if Pa dies?”
Joseph gave her shoulder a squeeze. “You already know the answer to that question. He will leave his body here on earth and go to be with God for all of eternity. He will be there waiting when we get there someday. To us, it will seem like a long time, but to him, in Heaven, it will not seem so.”
Rebekah nodded slowly. “But…”
“Then,” Joseph continued, “we will carry out our customs, just as we always have. We will make the coffin, then, three days later—” He stopped talking and shifted his glance to Rebekah.
She stared at him with wide eyes. “I know all that, Joseph.” She shook her head and turned back to face the house. “What I mean is, how can we live in a world where he no longer is?”
Tears began to well in her eyes afresh as the first droplets of rain from this new storm began to fall. A brand of fear she had not known in quite some time clenched her stomach. “What if it was you?”
Joseph ignored her heartfelt question and stared pointedly ahead of them. “Look there.”
Rebekah sniffled and followed Joseph’s gaze. “Is that Thomas, leading Pepper?”
“Mm-hmm,” Joseph said. “How did our horse get out of the corral?”
A flash of lightning cut their conversation short.
“Come on!” Joseph grabbed Rebekah’s hand with one hand and shielded Dawson with the other as he hurried his little family across the remainder of the yard and into the house. “We have another gully washer headed this way!”
“Thomas, hurry into the house!” Rebekah called as they dashed past. “The storm is coming!”
“I think the storm is already here,” he called as he pushed shut the corral gate. Once Pepper was locked inside, he chased after them.
Once inside, Joseph took Dawson out of his bopplin sling and tucked him into the nest of quilts in the corner that were reserved just for him as Rebekah waited at the door for Thomas. A sudden gust of wind yanked the screen door out of her hand, and it smashed backward against the house.
“Ouch!” she cried as she shielded her eyes against the sudden onslaught of rain. It was no ordinary rain, either. This rain swept over them and pelted in sideways, hitting and stinging like sharp thorns.
Thomas, holding his little hat down on his head with one hand, shielded his face with the other. “Wait for me, Schweister, I am coming!”
With a leap, he made it onto the porch to the tune of another clap of thunder.
Joseph had appeared behind Rebekah. “I will get the door.”
Once his family was safely inside, Joseph reached to pull shut the splintered screen but stopped short. “Well, would you look at that,” he mused from just inside the door. “Rebekah, have you ever seen the sky turn that color before?”
Rebekah turned and looked over her shoulder. The sky, which had moments before been deep blue in parts and ominously dark gray in others, had transformed into an eerie green and the clouds moved quickly. Too quickly. Before she could answer Joseph, balls of ice began to hammer down on their roof.
In their yard, ice balls the size of small eggs bounced when they hit the ground. In seemingly no time at all, the ground was mostly covered with the glistening white balls.
Joseph and Rebekah shared a look.
This is bad. This is very bad.
The bopplin, who had been safely deposited into his nest of quilts, began to squeal his terrified squeal. Rebekah rushed over and picked him up. “Hush little bopplin. Mater is here. All is well. It is just a storm.”
Still, Dawson refused to be coddled.
Sitting on the living room couch as the storm hammered down on their roof, Rebekah shielded herself and her bopplin beneath a quilt and began to nurse him. She was concentrating so hard on her motherly task and, between the howling wind and pounding ice, she mostly ignored the few snippets of conversation that passed between Thomas and Joseph.
Joseph’s normally calm voice was just under a yell. Even almost yelling, it was hard to hear him over the din of the weather outside. “Did you lock the corral gate?”
Thomas’s voice was more confused. “Yes, I am certain I did.”
“Then why is the gate open?”
Thomas replied, but it went unheard.
“That is right,” Joseph exclaimed. “I forgot Rebekah fell into it and knocked it off.”
Finally, the bopplin quieted enough to suckle and Rebekah dared a peek out from under her quilted cave.
