Rebekah already had the plate in hand.
“Wonderful idea, Fater.” She held the plate as Samuel scooped some of the delicious food onto it. “Fogarty sounds like a wonderful man. And a good friend to you, too.” She sat down. “It must be nice to exchange stories.”
She sat down and her father blessed the meal at once. “God, thank you for this day. Each sunrise, each cup of coffee, each moment is a gift. Danke for blessing us with this time together. Amen.”
Amen.
Samuel picked up where he left off. “He especially loved the stories of you as a baby, since he is a fater.”
“You told him stories about me?” Rebekah was truly shocked. “Like what?”
Samuel’s eyes gleamed. “Like how you came to be my dochder. How terrible circumstances sometimes lead to the greatest blessings.”
Rebekah sat in stunned silence.
“It was truly terrible what happened to your family on The Pike so many years ago, but God saw fit to put us not far behind. Then, in His infinite wisdom, he made you my dochder.” He waited a moment. “Your mater was worried that we would never have bopplins as we had been married several years and had yet to be blessed with a family. Then, there you were. Our only dochder. Then came—”
“All the sohns,” Rebekah joshed.
“See what a blessing you are?” Samuel paused long enough to take a bite. Once he swallowed it down, he continued. “Dochder, may I ask you something?”
Rebekah took a small bite and washed it down with a sip of tea. “Jah.”
“I know it is only natural to wonder about and miss the Englischer parents you never knew, especially since Peter showed up and told you of your lineage…” Samuel thought for a moment before continuing. “But, have your mater and I, well, have we given you a life where you feel complete? And nothing is amiss?”
She glanced across at the old man on the other side of the table. The only father who woke her in the middle of the night to witness the miracle of the birth of her calf-turned-milk cow, Buttermilk. The only father who carved a cradle for her as she was expecting her first bopplin and did not blame her or chastise her when she smashed it during a jealous fit of rage. The father who gave his all to save her from a lightning strike barn fire. The father who had literally gotten up off his death bed to come help her when she needed help the most. The father who had been there for her since day one, in so many unnamable ways.
Rebekah smiled at the only father she’d ever known. “You and mater have been more than enough, many times over. I am grateful that they brought me into this world, that they brought me onto The Pike, and I am sad that they met the end that they did. However, like you said, sometimes the greatest blessings come from the greatest tragedies. My becoming your dochder is not a tragedy. It is a blessing.”
“Danke, dochder.” Samuel picked up his cup of tea and swirled it around. “You are indeed the blessing.” His look grew mischievous. “Would you like to hear another story about bopplin, Rebekah?”
“Jah!”
“I came in from making a delivery during the summer when you were tiny. So small, about the same age as your bopplin. I was hot, sweaty, and hungry and when I came in the door, Elnora, pregnant with Jeremiah, was bouncing you on her hip. You were giving your mater fits.” He chuckled at the memory. “I had never seen her look as spent as she did that day.”
“I never knew I was a mischief maker,” Rebekah said as she finished her radish and bacon biscuit.
“‘I am so glad you are home,’ your mater said, ‘you take her, nothing I am doing seems to soothe her, and I must get to the outhouse!’”
I know that feeling.
Samuel continued. “So, she sat you down in the living room and hurried out the back door. You stopped your fussing and watched her as she dashed away, then you turned back to look at me. Before I could get over to you to scoop you up—”
As if on cue, Dawson’s screech interrupted his grossdaddi’s reminiscent story.
“I will fetch him,” Samuel said.
Rebekah sat at the table and waited. What a gift today is, to receive from my fater the stories of my youth that I have never heard before. The thought was so loud in her mind, she almost spoke it.
Samuel returned holding a squirming bopplin. He bent at the waist and plopped Dawson onto the floor.
Dawson responded with a yell.
Rebekah’s eyes widened. “Fater, I can take him.” She stood to go to her bopplin.
Samuel held up a finger. “Hold on, let your bopplin show you what he can do.”
Dawson studied first Samuel, then Rebekah, through his wide, blue eyes. Then, he began to rock back and forth, back and forth, until he situated himself on his hands and knees. He squealed again, to the tune of Rebekah’s laughter. “Fater! What did you teach him?”
Smiling with his arms crossed across his chest, Samuel pointed to Dawson. “Watch what he does next.”
Dawson pushed himself to his feet, steadying himself with the chair Samuel had just been occupying. All slobbery smiles, he squealed again.
“Look at you,” Rebekah cooed. She started to step toward him.
“Rebekah, hold on,” Samuel whispered. “You are so much like your mater; it is unreal sometimes.”
She stopped, tears in her eyes and a grin on her lips so wide her cheeks ached afresh.
With a look of concentration so severe it was almost tangible, Dawson let go of the chair. Ever careful, he took two tiny steps. With another shriek, he sat down and smacked his hands victoriously on the floor.
Rebekah covered her mouth with both hands. “The bopplin is walking!”
“Just like you did when your mater finally put you down that day. You stood right up and took two steps to your fater like Dawson did just now.”
Rebekah dipped to the ground and tickled Dawson under his chin. “Fater, you got to see the first steps of mine, however many of my brothers, and this bopplin here.”
“Just you and the bopplin here,” he said. “Your mater was privy to the first steps of each of your brudders.”
