“What a polite young man,” Rebekah mused from her chair in the middle of the room. She felt helpless and lazy, but every time she tried to move or offered to help, she was rebuked.
“Good boy. Orphan, no parents.” Mrs. Cheng’s frown deepened as she studied the dress. “So I hide his dime to pay for paper. He gets to look for it. Gets to be young.” She glanced up at Rebekah, her black eyes twinkling. “To be young is a gift, Rebekah.”
Rebekah nodded and glanced over to where the young boy had left the paper. Left it, not flung it, but put it down neatly against the wall. She looked back at Mrs. Cheng, then back toward the paper with wide eyes. The headline screamed at Rebekah from the paper across the room.
November 14th. New York World reporter Nellie Bly successfully departs New York City in an attempt to surpass fictitious journey of Jules Verne's Phileas Fogg by traveling around world in less than 80 days.
“Oh no, Mrs. Cheng, we are too late.”
“Too late?”
Rebekah pointed at the paper. “The girl we were coming to find, another Amish girl, our friend Katie. She was traveling with that English woman.”
Mrs. Cheng glanced at the newspaper. “Yes, Nellie Bly. She left few minute ago from ship right outside Mrs. Cheng shop. Right before you fall down.”
“I see.” Rebekah stared into her lap and began to rock. “We were too late.” The tears began to track down her cheeks on their own. Before she could stop them, Rebekah was sobbing. “Katie’s gone.”
Mrs. Cheng came over and thumped her on the back with awkward thumps. “There. There. There.” Mrs. Cheng was smiling when Rebekah looked up at her. “What else to make dress? This one is done.”
Rebekah smiled through the tears. “Now I have to start on the dresses for my newehockers.”
“What that?”
“Maids to the bride.”
“Ah. How many?”
“Two.”
“I see.”
“Mrs. Cheng, thank you for your kindness. And for taking of me.” Rebekah sniffled and her words shook. “But I have to go find Joseph and Peter and tell them Katie is gone. So we can go home to Indiana.” She sucked in a sob. “Without her.”
Her eyes filled again and the old woman pulled Rebekah’s head to her stomach and held her. No doubt as she wanted to hold the daughters and granddaughters that she never had. “I am so sorry, dear. So sorry.”
Rebekah sucked in a breath and cried into Mrs. Cheng’s shirt. She wrapped her arms around the older woman, who had the heart of an Amish mother. “It be okay, child. It be okay.”
After she finished crying, and was all cried out, she felt empty. Empty, but comforted. She pulled back from Mrs. Cheng, who patted her on the head with a snaggle toothed smile.
“Go child,” Mrs. Cheng urged. “Go find them and tell them sad news. But come back and see Mrs. Cheng.”
“I will.” Rebekah stumbled out of her chair.
“Not later, Rebekah,” she said urgently. “Today. In little while.”
“May I take my wedding dress, to show my brother?”
Mrs. Cheng nodded and plucked up the dress. She had it expertly folded and stowed in Rebekah’s quilting bag in an instant. “No show Joseph until the big day.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Cheng. For everything.” Rebekah pushed herself out of the chair and hobbled across the floor. Humbly, she accepted her bag. “I will see you soon, Mrs. Cheng. In a little while.”
Without giving the paper a second look, she hobbled out the door and into the mid-morning sun.
Chapter Fifteen
New York City
“Where are those boys,” Rebekah muttered. She shielded her eyes from the sun, but it didn’t do much good. The sun glinted off the water and made an equally bright, if not brighter, reflection. To make it feasible to shield her eyes, she would need two hands, one to shield the top, one to shield the bottom. She stifled a quiet laugh. My, wouldn’t that look funny. To walk about with one hand over your eyes, and one hand under.
She turned her back to the ocean, which helped a bit in scanning the dockside road for Joseph and Peter. There, down at the far end of the street, a black felt hat came into view. She raised one arm and waved over her head, the black-hatted figure did the same.
Joseph!
A bright smile pushed her lips wide. Though the brief agony over missing Katie hurt almost tangibly, the knowledge that they would be safely bound back for Indiana by nightfall lit something inside of her with an excited glow. Like the sun rising through the rain, after a night of black thunderstorms.
She would be home.
With Thomas and her mother.
She could stop and check on her father in the English clinic.
Now, with a finished, uniquely Rebekah dress, she could marry without fear.
She and Joseph would be married in less than a month.
Katie made her choice, and though she was positive God had shown her that Katie would be coming home with them, perhaps her revelation meant Katie would come home after the trip around the world, with exciting stories. Still, something inside of her felt that she and her brother would end up together, in the end. After all, Peter was Katie’s love, whether she wanted to admit it or not. And not even the entire world could break the bonds of true love.
Excited, Rebekah started gimping along toward Joseph, who was still waving at her. A niggling thought forced its way into the back of her mind, almost as a rogue afterthought she didn’t want to think.
We Amish leave it better than we found it.
She’s said those very words so many times this trip.
“Are you truly leaving it better than you found it, here? In New York City?” Rebekah asked herself in whisper speak. She didn’t have to answer that question, it would be silly to do so. Not because she was talking to herself again, but because of the stark severity of the glaring answer, almost as glaring as the sea staring back at her from the mid-morning sun.
No.
No, none of you are leaving this bitter place better than you found it.
Rebekah stopped and scratched her knee. Something itched. When she pulled back her fingers, they were bloody.
“Oh drat. I should have asked Mrs. Cheng for a bandage of some sort. Seems my walking has aggravated my injury.”
Before she could stand up, somebody grabbed her. Hard, and from behind. One hand over her mouth and another across her middle, blocking her arms and completely immobilized her.
“Help!” Her word was muffled by a bony, foul-smelling hand. He jerked her head hard. The muscle in her neck that Joseph had cured with his massaging on the train knotted again with a sharp stab. A whimper escaped her lips and her bag fumbled from her hands. Whoever grabbed her kicked it hard.
My dress, it will be wrinkled.
