Answer me quickly, O Lord! My spirit fails! Hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit. Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. – Psalm 143:7-8
“Each day is worse than the one before and nothing helps the bopplin. Nothing helps me, either!” Rebekah’s voice grew until it was almost a shout, but still, nobody listened. “Joseph has taken to sleeping in another room while I room in with the bopplin. Little Thomas stays over to help Joseph, but he does not smile anymore, and he never talks.”
Everyone sat at the dinner table in Joseph’s new chairs, smiling and laughing and passing the rolls. Nobody, especially not Joseph, made any sort of eye contact with her, nor did they pay any sort of attention to anything she said. They just continued talking amongst themselves as though she was not even there.
Rebekah shoved her chair back from the table and stood up. Behind her, the newly made chair toppled over with a clatter. “Everything hurts and I cannot breathe!”
Samuel, holding a half-eaten roll, laughed loudly as Thomas’s kitten dashed up his britches leg and came to a sudden rest on his shoulder, like a parrot in a picture book. He laughed until he choked on a bite of the roll.
Rebekah plucked up a pan of roasted Brussel sprouts and, tilting it slightly, gave them a fling. The little circular vegetables flew across the table, trailing their delicious butter sauce as they bounced across the dish of chicken, over the pies, and into the pitcher of tea. One hit Thomas on the hat, and another fell into Heloise’s lap. Lil’ Bit shrieked from his bopplin bucket on the floor.
“I am failing as a mother!” she shrieked.
Joseph, his mouth opened too wide to be real, laughed over her.
Rebekah bumped her weight against the table. The tea that filled the glass pitcher, complete with slices of lemons floating inside, sloshed mightily against the sides. A handful of drops spattered onto the tablecloth. “I am failing as a wife!”
A bite of chewed-up chicken fell out of Thomas’s mouth as he laughed along with the lot of them. Rebekah tore off her covering and tossed it onto the table. The strings fell into the tea. “I am failing as a sister, too!”
Still, nobody paid her tantrum any mind. Nobody even looked at her, or at her screaming, red-faced bopplin. Her blonde mane, shorter than last year, tumbled freely over her shoulders. She sucked in a breath, as deep as she could manage, and began to screech.
Rebekah woke, her ears ringing, in a cold, drenching sweat. She always awoke the same way when the same, haunting nightmare plagued her restless mind and kept her from experiencing any kind of restful sleep.
She sat up and mopped at her forehead with her pillowcase. Breathing heavily, she glanced to the other side of the bed.
Empty. As usual. Why would this day be any different?
Sunshine streamed in through the window.
I wonder how late is it?
Lil’ Bit whimpered from his cradle. He always looked so worried, with wide eyes and a furrowed brow. “Gute morning, little bopplin.”
He bounced his little arms up and down quickly and opened his tiny, toothless mouth. He gave a small cough. “Uh oh, I know what that means.” She smiled down at her buwe and gave him her finger. “I have given you watermelon seed tea, so you do not need any more of that right now.” She removed her finger from his fisted grasp and stroked his cheek. His skin was soft as cornsilk. Immediately, he turned and rooted in the direction of her hand. “And you really seem to like the warmed milk best.”
Rebekah smiled down at her blue-eyed bopplin and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Her heart was so wonderful gute full of love for him, she felt at times it might burst. Other times, it showed itself as tears streaming down her cheeks. Nevertheless, she never knew she could love so much until she met her precious Lil’ Bit. “It is warm milk you like, so it is warm milk I will get for you.”
Molly poked her head in the door. “What can I do for you, Rebekah?”
Rebekah plucked up Lil’ Bit and tried to remember to smile. “Would you boil some milk for the bopplin, please?”
“Ja. Of course. I am blessed to be able to help you, Rebekah.”
Rebekah swayed from foot to foot, her bopplin pressed against her shoulder. “Danki, Molly. But the blessings are all ours, the bopplin’s and mine.” Carefully, she eased down into the rocking chair that somebody had snuck into her room and left there for her. She could not be sure who the faceless chair depositor was for certain, but she was silently grateful, even if it was Joseph.
From outside, a carriage rattled. “There is a sound we have not heard in quite some time around here,” she cooed to Lil’ Bit. “I wonder who it could be?”
She had just rocked backward to give her some momentum to stand when the sound of horses whuffing, punctuated by jovial hallos and laughter, drifted up to her window and gave her pause.
“It is so good to see you!” Joseph’s voice rang out above everyone else’s. “It took you long enough to get here!”
“It seems as though Joseph was expecting these visitors,” Rebekah said. The chair rocked forward and propelled her to her feet. She bounced Lil’ Bit as she walked toward the window on unsteady legs. She’d been delivered for a month, but her strength and energy were still wan, and she did not move nearly as fast as she did before. By the time she made it to the window, Joseph was reaching into the buggy with a smile on his face, the likes of which she had not seen in quite some time. Rebekah’s breath caught in her throat as Katie Knepp stepped down out of the dusty buggy, her hand clasped in Joseph’s.
Just when things could not get any worse, they went and did just that. And it is Katie Wagler now, you dunce.
Through the lens of her glass bedroom window, Rebekah studied her letter-writing nemesis through narrowed eyes. Katie Knepp, now Katie Wagler since she married her brother, was here. At her home. In her yard.
Katie had been the proverbial thorn in her side for as long as she could remember. Now, there she was. Standing outside of her buggy talking with Joseph, her mann, as though nothing about this entire secretive situation between her and Joseph was abnormal.
Never had Katie looked so strangely content, or happy, as she did this day. To make matters worse, both of those were new looks for Katie, but they suited her right down to the ground.
Tall and slim with tendrils of almond-colored hair peeking out from under her bonnet, Katie looked incredibly grown up and every part a mater. There was something else in Katie’s demeanor that had changed, something there now that had not been there before. Something Rebekah could not name, much less place.
Rebekah shook her head.
From the driver’s box, her older brother, Peter, stepped down. Taller than she remembered, wider at the shoulder and narrower at the hip, he looked as though he was born to be somebody’s protector, and from the way he looked at Katie, he very much looked the part of nobody’s protector but hers.
From beneath his black felt hat, his tan was evident and the lightning-strike scar over his eye was even whiter than Rebekah recalled, every bit as strapping, and every bit as strong and happy. His booming laugh filled the yard and brought a genuine smile to Rebekah’s lips. Happy.
The smile evaporated from her lips as she looked down at herself. Tall, confident, happy Katie was certainly a stark contrast to weak, sour, milkless her. And Peter? Everything about him was equally stark in contrast to poor, bedraggled Joseph.
Rebekah placed Lil’ Bit in his cradle and pressed her hands against the glass. From her lonely window, she saw Joseph shake Peter’s hand then move to embrace Katie.
Rebekah’s heart sank. Does Peter know? Does he know about their secret letters?
Katie motioned to her buggy, a grin on her thin face. Her escapee tendrils of hair, lightened by the Texas sun, trailed out and blew easily over her shoulder, giving the impression that she was as at ease and at home wherever she found herself, be it in the far-flung reaches of Texas or Gasthof Village, Indiana.
Bending slightly, Katie reached into the back of the buggy and pulled out a bundle wrapped in a quilt.
The blanket’s corner fell a bit and revealed the round, chubby face of an angelic little bopplin.
Bopplin Ruth. Her very first niece.
Rebekah’s heart sank as she was finally able to name the elusive word to describe Katie that she had been searching for earlier.
Content.
Finally, the perpetually discontent Katie was now rotten with contentment.
Rebekah glanced down at her sickly, squirming, whimpering bopplin in the heirloom cradle that had been made with so much love by an equally sickly man.
“Lil’ Bit, I do not know how to feed you. I do not know how to make you better. I do not know anything at all. Not how to be a fraa. Not how to be a mater. Not even how to be a dochder.”
Lil’ Bit whimpered in answer.
Samuel’s voice sounded over the lot of the visiting relations. “Where is my bopplin niece?”
Rebekah looked up from her bopplin in time to see Katie proudly hand her bopplin over to Samuel. Ruth, Katie’s chuck of bopplin, squealed with delight.
“My turn!” Peter crossed his muscular arms across his wide chest. “Where is my nephew?”
Joseph motioned to the house, then glanced up to the window. Rebekah gasped and backed up quickly, so as not to be seen. “Oh no.”
The clamoring of footsteps on the porch, followed by laughter and the slamming of the front door made her want to cry. Do not come in. Do not come to see what a failure I am. How much I have failed at everything important in life.
She heard her fater, Samuel’s, voice above all the rest. “Rebekah is upstairs with Lil’ Bit, Peter.”
Everyone is inside. I have to go down with them, though I would rather crawl under the bed and never come out.
Rebekah’s eyebrows knitted sadly over her eyes as she plucked up Lil’ Bit from his cradle. Though he seemed in distress more often than not, he did seem to quiet when she held him to her breast. “I love you so much, little bopplin. More than you will ever know. And I am proud of you, no matter what you weigh. No matter how you cry. No matter what you look like. You are beautiful, and you are my little miracle.”
She stepped out of the room and started him downstairs. The strange feeling as though she was walking to a funeral, not a family reunion hung heavy around her. Will they see my cloud of gloom? Will they see right through me?
“There she is!” Peter’s voice boomed even louder inside. “And who is this little fellow she has? Ohhh.”
Her brother brushed the top of her head with a kiss, but his eyes were locked on Lil’ Bit. “Oh, Rebekah. My nephew is so handsome, just like his Oncle Peter.”
A sincere smile flickered across her lips. “Here, Oncle Peter, would you like to hold him?”
“You know it.” Peter extended his arms to her. “I did not come all the way from Texas just to hug Joseph.”
“Yes, you did,” Joseph said. “Do not even pretend you didn’t.”
Grinning, Peter slipped Lil’ Bit easily out of Rebekah’s arms and plopped him over his shoulder. “Hallo, Lil’ Bit. Can you say hallo Oncle Peter?”
Lil’ Bit loosed a loud burp, which made everybody giggle.
“I suppose that is how you can pronounce it,” Peter said. “Hey, Molly, can you hand me a burp cloth, please? That burp sounded like it may have had something milky behind it.”
Peter stepped to the side and revealed his wife, Katie. She stood there in Rebekah’s living room tall and stoic, and as pretty as one of those paintings from New York City. Behind her, Samuel bounced bopplin Ruth in his arms.
A wave of jealousy rose into the back of her throat as her fater wore the smile that Katie was able to give him with her happy bopplin. The smile that I could only take away from him.
The Wagler’s, the Amish couple who had adopted Peter when he showed up in Gasthof Village bent on taking Rebekah back to the Englischer world, appeared silently beside Samuel and absconded, all smiles, with bopplin Ruth.
“Hallo, Rebekah.”
Katie’s voice was flatter than she remembered. Katie’s gute fortune and her cute and happy bopplin drove like stakes into Rebekah’s heart. She tried to make her mouth form words that did not sour as they passed her lips. “Hallo, Katie. I hope you had a gute trip.”
Katie opened her mouth, but Lil’ Bit began to whimper.
Joseph’s voice came from somewhere. “Would you like me to take him, Peter?”
Peter hadn’t put Lil’ Bit down since he came in and did not look as though he was planning on it anytime soon. “No way. I can handle a few bopplin tears. It will match well with the spit up down my back.”
Rebekah nodded to Katie then stepped over to her brother. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I can take him, Peter, I was going to go up and rest anyway.”
“No, no.” Peter looked sternly at Lil’ Bit, as though he was studying every bit of him for something hidden, something only Oncle Peter could see. “It is really okay, Rebekah. I will hold onto this little man so that you can go up and rest unless you would like to feed him first?”
Rebekah stammered over her words and her head dipped.
Surprisingly, Joseph interjected on her behalf. “It is no problem, Peter, you can hold onto him. We are feeding Lil’ Bit on a bottle.”
“On a bottle?” Katie sounded incredulous.
Some intelligible words finally stammered their way into Rebekah’s mouth. “If you all will excuse me, I am still not quite feeling myself.” The excuse, though true, was still an excuse. “I must go lay down.” She walked past Joseph without looking at him, even though he reached out his hand for hers. “Peter, thank you for bopplin-sitting while I get a nap.”
“Of course.”
Rebekah turned and trudged out of the room but did not say any more words. They would just get tied up anyway. By the time she reached the first stair that led up to the room where she could go and hide, her tears were already tracking down her cheeks in hot trails.