Peter paid him no mind and shifted his gaze to Rebekah. “I’m that boy.”
Rebekah kept her face expressionless as her father rose from his seat. Following suit, Joseph rose, too.
Samuel’s normally melodic voice was flat. “I think you’d better leave now.”
The visitor pushed back from the table and looked first at Joseph, then at Samuel. “You boys gonna throw me out then?” He smiled. “It’d take a whole lot more of you than this.”
Slowly, he stood.
Joseph’s face was contorted in planes Rebekah had never seen before. “No, we’re not throwing you out. You’re leaving on your own. Now come on.”
The two men moved around opposite sides of the table and herded Peter to the front door.
Jamming his hat on his head, he waved his hands in mock defeat. “You boys win.”
Rebekah stood. Peter locked eyes with her over Joseph’s shoulder. “You’re not Rebekah. Your name is Hannah and you’re my sister.”
Joseph slammed the door, but it was too late.
The men hovered near the door as Rebekah searched for someone to help her make sense of the Peter’s strange tale.
“Is it true, Ma?”
Elnora, who hadn’t looked up from her lap since she’d dropped her fork, sniffled. The sobs, which had been quiet, now came long and loud. They tore from her mother like screams from a laboring woman.
Slowly, Rebekah turned. “Pa?”
She searched his face as the tears welled in her eyes. Hating her weakness, she swiped at them with the back of her hand. “Is it true, Pa? Am I not even your daughter?”
“Rebekah, we never meant to—”
The tears she’d willed not to fall spilled over and hung in her lashes until they dropped onto her cheeks. Anger flashed within her as she turned her face toward the ceiling. “Never meant to what? Lie to me? Never meant to correct me when I called you Father and Mother?”
Thomas released a sob. “Stop it, sissy, you’re scaring me.”
She ignored him and flickered her hot stare to Joseph. “You knew about this all along, didn’t you?”
He recoiled as though she’d slapped him.
“That’s enough.” Elnora dabbed her face with a hanky and silenced her sobs. “The Grabers knew about this. Everyone did.” Her voice was serious. “But Joseph was only a baby when your pa and I found you, naked and hungry, under a bush.”
Rebekah drew in a shuddering breath. “Everyone knows about this? Everyone but me?” The anger threatened to flare again.
“Rebekah, you’ll take your seat, or you’ll leave this table. Understood?”
She dropped her gaze coolly to meet Elnora’s. “This isn’t my table.”
Rebekah left her breakfast dishes untouched and stalked across the sitting area. When she reached the door, she stopped. Samuel stepped aside. Glimmering tears flecked his eyelashes. Joseph had already gone.
She kept her voice low so that only Samuel could hear. “I’ll be— I’ll be—” She blew out a haughty breath and grasped the doorknob. “Oh, I don’t know where I’ll be.” She marched out the door and let it slam behind her.
***
“There is not one person I can turn to right now.” Tears ran in rivulets down her cheeks. The weight of Peter’s words grew heavier by the moment, and if Rebekah didn’t confide in someone soon, she feared she might explode.
She lifted her skirt and ran until she heard it. The soft sounds of someone who would understand. Someone who didn’t already know the whole sordid story. Someone who hadn’t kept it from her.
She flung herself into the sweet-smelling hay and wrapped her arms around Buttermilk’s neck. Burying her face in the calf’s warm hide, she sobbed until there were no more tears left to cry. With those out of the way, she could finally talk.
“Oh, Buttermilk, why did this have to happen? And now of all times?”
The tiny calf craned her neck to look at her. “Blehhhh.”
“They lied to me all these years, Buttermilk. They lied.”
A twig popped. Her already pounding heart skipped a beat. “They didn’t lie, Rebekah. They merely never told you.”
Joseph ambled over, a sprig of grass in his teeth.
She swiped at her face. It felt puffy and a bit soggy. “Did you know, Joseph? And please don’t lie.”
He squatted and looked her squarely in the eye. “No. I didn’t know.”
Rebekah flicked a potato bug off her dress. The calf leaned to investigate it. “If you had known, would you have told me?”
“Of course.”
She shoved her hand under a scattering of hay. “Really?”
“Really. I have never kept anything from you, Rebekah, and I never will.”
She sighed. “What am I supposed to do now?”
Joseph folded his lanky frame into the straw beside her. “Are you asking me or Buttermilk?”
Her heart was too heavy to smile at his gentle joke. “You.”
He picked up a long stick of straw and commenced doodling in the dirt. “Well, since you asked, I’ll tell you. First thing you need to do is talk to God. Then, you need to apologize to your parents for the way you treated them. After that, talk to your brothers, especially Thomas. They love you so and are innocent in all of this.”
Content with his speech, Joseph dropped the straw.
Rebekah couldn’t fathom an answer. The emptiness was too much. She simply watched the dust motes drift their twirly dance in the bright sunrays in the barn’s door. “Can we go for a walk?”
Joseph stood and offered her his hand. “Of course. You should tell your parents we are going, though. No doubt they’re worried.”
Lacing her fingers together, she stared at them. “Perhaps you could tell them for me?”
He nodded and turned toward the house. Her house. Where she’d lived, made memories, made mistakes, and been loved. Her house, where she’d delivered the newest Stoll baby. Where she’d prayed, quilted, and worshipped. Fresh feelings of stabbing pain filled her chest. With her eyes closed, Rebekah started toward the lake.
