“Not at all.” Rebekah licked her lips. “The smell, so delicious. Came to me in my dreams. Woke me up and here you are.” She yawned a delicious yawn. “A dream come true.”
Joseph smiled from the doorway. “So, what you are saying is that you still dream about me.”
“And cake.” Rebekah tried to rub away the bleariness. She drank in the sight of her mann. Beneath his sparkling eyes was profound tiredness. Black bags shadowed the area beneath them, and his hair stuck up in odd places. He stifled a little yawn. “You look plumb tuckered, Joseph.”
He stepped into their bedroom and sat the tray on the nightstand. “I feel plumb tuckered.” He eased down onto the bed next to her and raised his arm invitingly. Rebekah melted into his side. “Like Eve from Adam’s rib, you fit perfectly to my side,” he murmured.
His familiar warmth relaxed her in ways that only he could, and in ways she could not quite understand herself. “Thank you for making me lunch.”
He gave her shoulder a little squeeze. “Do you remember the last time I manned the kitchen?”
“Ja.” Rebekah breathed in his scent. It was a savory mixture of tulip tree wood, cinnamon, and lye. “I do.”
“Elnora was sick,” he said. “And I came to lend a hand while you dealt with your—now our—cantankerous rooster who had managed to get inside the haus and corner all of your little bruders.”
They shared a chuckle.
After a moment of warm laughter, Joseph sobered. “I owe you an apology, Rebekah.”
“You do?”
“For not answering you while I was examining Katie’s letter earlier.”
Rebekah fell silent. It is almost as though he can read my mind.
“I know that must have been awkward for you, and I am certain it seemed as though I was ignoring you. However, I was not doing anything of the like.”
Rebekah shifted her weight away from Joseph’s side. She took care to keep her voice low and even, lest the distrustful thoughts make their way back onto her tongue. “Then why did you not answer?”
Joseph sucked in a breath. “There is something I have never told you. Or anyone, for that matter.”
Rebekah gulped down the sudden lump in her throat and tried not to sound meek. “What is that?” A thousand thoughts swirled through her head like a tempest. It was never you. It has always been Katie. We are a mistake. I am in lieb with Katie, not you.
Her entire world, moments before so safe and secure, began to swirl before Joseph even began to speak. Even the delicious smells disappeared.
“It happens when I read.” Joseph’s voice was not the strong, masculine voice that had provided her so much security over the years. This voice was quiet, timid, and vulnerable. “It is just, well, if I do not concentrate, all the letters flip around on the paper. Sometimes, they even float off the page. If I get distracted like if I stop to talk, I have to start all over again from the beginning. It makes it hard to concentrate on what I am reading, and being interrupted and restarting, well, it is all so tiring.”
Rebekah did not know what to say, so she said nothing at all.
Joseph stopped talking. Ever gentle, he placed a finger under Rebekah’s chin and turned her face up to meet his. He stared into her eyes. “I meant no disrespect to you, my darling fraa. I would never, ever do anything to disrespect you.”
Rebekah’s throat tightened again, this time for a different reason. She cleared it, then cleared it again.
I am so sorry. For doubting you. For not trusting you. For allowing my faith in us to be tested again and again, by Katie and by my own insecurities, and failing. For allowing my faith in us to waver, and fall.
When it sounded right in her head, Rebekah dared a peek at Joseph. He stared intently at her, all his attention, all of his everything, focused there. On her. On nobody else. On nothing else.
“Well?” His voice was a whisper.
Rebekah ducked her head a bit and returned his gaze. She felt incredibly ignorant. Her voice came out in a whisper. “Well, what?”
“Can you?”
She stared intently into her husband’s eyes and gave a minute shrug. “Can I what, Joseph?”
His words were ever patient. “Forgive me?”
“Forgive you?” Rebekah shook her head. “Oh ja, of course. Though, there is really nothing to forgive.”
“Danki.” Joseph visibly relaxed and a smile crept across his stoic lips. “I do not want anything to ever, ever, come between us. Not a thought, not a word, nothing.” He leaned over and pressed his lips to her forehead.
“Joseph?” Her soliloquy, perfectly worded, muddled her thoughts like dirty pond water.
“Yes, my lieb?”
“I suppose I have something to confess, too.”
“I cannot begin to imagine what my sweet fraa would have to confess.” A look of bewilderment masked Joseph’s face. “What sin could you have committed in need of forgiveness?”
“Well…” Rebekah felt her resolve weaken. “You see…”
“Joseph!” Thomas’s voice was shrill as he sprinted into their bedroom. His face was beet red, and his round eyes were wide with terror. “Joseph, help!”
Her husband stiffened. “What’s wrong?”
“I was out there, milking Buttermilk when I saw her.” His breath came in sharp spurts. He flung each word off his tongue at the end of each breath. “In the shadow, under the trees. Just sitting there, staring at me.”
Rebekah sat up straighter. “Who was looking at you?”
“A bear.” Thomas raised his arms above his head and spread them wide. “A big, black bear.”
Joseph leaped to his feet. Rebekah’s confession forgotten. Before he could respond to Thomas, Buttermilk bellowed. The same terror that lit Thomas’s eyes burned behind her bovine scream.
“Buttermilk!” The word tore from her throat in a scream. Her sweet young cow that Rebekah had not only watched be born but also had risked her own life to save from a barn fire. Once she and Joseph were married, her parents gifted Buttermilk to her, along with Buttercup the rooster, who they were probably more anxious than not to get rid of. “Joseph, she sounds like she is being killed!”
“Joseph, help!” Thomas cried. His hysterical voice took the entire scene to a more tense and dramatic level.
“We do not even have black bears here, do we?” Rebekah’s unanswered question trailed Joseph as he shot out the door and down the stairs. The look of horror in his eyes was not one that she had ever seen before.
“Bears are not supposed to act like that. Are they?” Thomas hurried after him. “Joseph?”
Joseph did not answer Thomas any more than he had answered Rebekah. Perhaps he didn’t hear either one of them. Whether or not he did, the only answer Joseph offered to either of them was the slamming of the front door.
Carefully, Rebekah maneuvered to the side of the bed. Then, ever slow, she pulled herself to her feet and positioned herself in front of the window. Heart pounding, she scanned the yard. “There she is!”
Sure enough, a large black bear sat beside the barn. Buttermilk fought fiercely against her milking tether only a few feet away. Strangely, the bear paid the hollering cow no attention. She seemed to be fixated on something else. Something across the yard.
Joseph and Thomas dashed into the yard. The bear, sitting moments ago, stood up on all fours.
