Her parents married earlier than other Amish couples in their quaint Austrian village. Elnora was a mere eighteen and her father Samuel, only nineteen. After marrying, they immediately joined up with other families bound for America and left Europe and all they knew behind. In all the years, from those early ones to this, never, not even for one night, had Elnora and Samuel Stoll been apart.
Elnora drew in a deep breath and turned back toward her. “Now, it’s up to God. Gelassenheit. He has a reason for everything He does, and it’s our job to accept, Rebekah. Not understand.”
Rebekah nodded, but still held the breath she’d sucked in.
“What else is bothering you, Daughter?”
Rebekah exhaled. “Peter rode up in a fever looking for Joseph. It was odd and I’m not sure what to make of it.”
“Your brother is a smart man, and wise to the ways of the English and the Amish. I’m sure he is fine.” Her pursed lips widened to a grin. “As is whoever he’s faughting over.”
“Katie Knepp,” they said in unison. Rebekah shifted her weight when their giggles subsided.
Elnora’s brow furrowed. “What else?”
Rebekah paused. “I’m worried about sewing this dress.” She cast a forlorn glance at her rumpled quilting bag. Other girls in Gasthof kept their quilting supplies pristine and crisp, but for Rebekah, it was all she could do to keep up with the bag itself. “Ma, what if it comes apart at the seams during the ceremony?”
A lesser mother would have laughed, but Elnora nodded thoughtfully. “Our customs say a woman is to sew her own wedding dress with her own hands.” She stopped rocking. “They also say to limit contact with the English. And their medicine.”
Rebekah studied the floor and ignored the burn in her shoulder.
“So tell me. Do you think a woman, one that lets her husband be treated by the English, would let her daughter be married in a dress that might fall apart?” Her blue eyes twinkled when Rebekah met her gaze.
A warmth that grew in her belly slowly replaced the last of the lingering bat-like butterflies. “I don’t think so.”
Rebekah plucked up her bag and situated herself in a straight-backed chair, opposite her ma. “Pride is wrong, but I can’t help but feel proud that you’re my mother.”
Almost cheerily, she pulled out a length of blue fabric that would hopefully be the front panel of her dress and a sleeve. Eventually.
Elnora absently patted baby Beanie. “We’ll see if you still feel that way when I tell you another of the bride’s duties that I’ve neglected to tell you until now.”
Needle poised just above the material, Rebekah’s smile melted from her lips.
“Once your dress is complete, custom says you are to begin work on dresses for your newehockers. How many maids will there be again?”
Rebekah let her deflated hands, still holding the needle and material, sink slowly into her lap. “Well, Annie Knepp,” she began, tears cracking her voice and burning in her throat. “And Katie.” She sniffled back the emotion that welled in her eyes. “Now none of us will have dresses that stay on through my wedding!”
Unable to help herself, Rebekah sobbed into her hands.
“Rebekah,” Elnora began. The thundering of horse hooves and a man’s yell cut into her words.
Rebekah lifted her head and sniffled.
Elnora was already on her feet. “Perhaps it’s word of your Pa.”
Her mother rustled out of the room and deposited Beanie in his crib. Rebekah let the fabric fall over her bag and she dashed to the top of the stairs. Elnora was already there and her breathless words emerged in a flutter. “Come on.”
Rebekah matched her mother’s footsteps down the stairs, all seventeen of them. At the bottom, Elnora flung open the door before whoever was on the other side could knock. Rebekah sucked in a breath when she saw who had come calling.
There he sat in a wagon box, tall and darkly handsome. Joseph Graber. His eyes glittered in the moonlight. Rebekah’s heart, which threatened to soar out of her chest when she saw her love, deflated as she tried to make sense of Joseph’s somber face.
Joseph didn’t bother with a proper greeting. “Peter found me. I couldn’t leave without telling you goodbye.” He sat the reins aside and climbed down from the wooden bench seat.
Rebekah’s initial surge of excitement at his sudden appearance further abated at his words.
Goodbye?
“Joseph, I don’t understand...”
Joseph stepped nearer, close enough to embrace her. His breath was warm on her face, which was chilled by the night air. However, from the uneasiness that swirled behind his glittering eyes, Rebekah knew an embrace was the furthest thing from his mind. “Peter didn’t tell you? Katie is missing in Montgomery.”
The spell cast by his enchanting eyes and full lips was broken by his words. “Katie is...missing?”
Joseph inched nearer still, erasing the already infinitesimal distance between them. “Rumspringa is finished. She was supposed to meet Peter, but didn’t show up. He looked all over the city, but the shops were closed and nobody could tell him if they’d seen her.”
Fighting the urge to wrap her arms around him, Rebekah listened.
“Peter came home long enough to pack some supplies and find me. We’ve got to go find her, but I couldn’t leave without telling you goodbye.” He glanced at Elnora and touched the tip of his hat. “With your permission, Mrs. Stoll.”
Elnora closed her eyes and nodded a deep nod.
Leaning, Joseph pressed a kiss to Rebekah’s forehead and gave her shoulders a warm squeeze.
When her voice returned, her words came out throaty and deep. “There’s been an occurrence here too.”
When she was finished with the entire story of her father and Mr. Williams, Joseph turned and dashed into the barn. Moments later, he emerged with Samuel’s hand-hewn wheels, one under each arm. After they were deposited in the bed of his wagon, he made the trip again and again. Soon, all the finished wheels were loaded.
Joseph wiped one arm across his forehead. “I know your father would want his customers happy. If he isn’t able to make his delivery to Williams’s Livery right now, I will do it for him.”
