couldn’t stay at the hospital all day. She had Rachel and the other children to think of. He had the milking and his shop to care for. Leaving the rest of the family behind, they left as evening fell.
She got a late dinner on the table amid Mother Yoder’s incessant carping, and got the children off to bed, except for Jakob, who characteristically had disappeared again. Probably torturing some poor animal, Rebekah thought with a shudder.
Now with Ezekiel out tending the livestock, she sat in her bedroom, in front of the wash basin in her underwear, cleansing the day’s sweat and sorrow from her. She wondered if Leah would die that night and hoped she could be there to hold her hand when she did pass.
She heard the door open and looked up to see Jakob standing in the doorway.
“Get out. I’m not dressed.”
“I can see that.” He stood, leering.
Her breathing instantly constricted.
“Your father —”
“My father won’t do shit.” His voice was incomparably soft. Somehow, it made his words even more menacing.
He looked her up and down. Her face burned.
“You,” he licked his lips, “look good.”
She crossed her arms in front of her breasts. “Get out of here. Now!” She tried to make her words sound strong, formidable even, but instead they came out as a squeak.
He laughed without mirth.
“I think you know that I will—” His words were cut off by the sound of Ezekiel trodding into the house and speaking to Mother Yoder. She was never so glad for his coming in the door. Jakob did not look disconcerted, however. He just merely smirked at her once more and left.
That night, among her thoughts of Leah, she chewed over what Jakob had been about to say. ‘ I think you know that I will—’ What? What will Jakob do?
Chapter Nine
Wednesday
Before sunup the next morning Rebekah’s father came to get her with an English driving a van to head back to the hospital. Constance Bontrager had not left her daughter’s side all night. She had borrowed a nurse’s cell phone to leave alarming news on the answering machine the Community shared. Leah’s condition had worsened. She would not last another day. Rebekah quickly packed enough clean cloth diapers in a bag for Rachel and piled in the van with the rest of the family.
The entire ride to the hospital, all Rebekah could do was pray that she got a chance to say goodbye . I know she won’t wake up, but if she is alive, won’t she hear me, somehow? Can she feel the touch of my hand on hers? Will she pass knowing that she is loved and will be missed?
At one point, Ezekiel’s arm went up on the back of the seat of the van, behind Rebekah’s shoulders. She dismissed it. He’s stretching out his arm in this crowded van, nothing more . She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the smell of him: days of stale sweat, tobacco smoke, and dirt.
She wanted love and comfort. She wanted tender touch, but she wanted them from Nick, not this smelly toad to whom she was married. She realized in dismay that Nick would come to the gas station that morning and wait for her . He would wonder why she wasn’t there and worry about her. She had not had an opportunity to let him know about Leah’s condition and she wanted so much to talk to him about it.
That she would miss loving him today did not cross her mind. That she desperately needed him beside her to hold her hand while she held Leah’s besieged her heart. There could be no comfort, no solace. Once more, she was forced into stiffening her upper lip and tightening her jaw while her voice would speak only mild tones to comfort those around her. She knew this would be especially hard on their mother. If Constance Bontrager had a favorite child, it would have been Leah. Rebekah observed this throughout childhood without any rancor or jealousy. Of course Leah would be her mother’s favorite. Leah was everybody’s
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