The Saddle Maker's Son Part 7

"What does that mean?"

Lupe giggled, hand to her mouth. She smiled big and put her fingers at both ends of her lips. "Ha, ha, ha."

"You like to laugh?"

She nodded. Rebekah put an arm around the girl. Seeing her laugh brought light to a cloudy day. "Me too. Laughing is one of the best things to do, isn't it?"

"Oh no, oh no!" Diego's small face scrunched up in a frown, and he shot from his seat and raced down the aisle to the back of the room. "Pedro! Pedro!"

"What is it?" Rebekah squeezed Lupe's arm and let go. "What's he doing?"

Lupe scrambled after her brother. She glanced back. "Mouse."

"What?"

"Tobias say it is mouse."

"What is mouse?"

"Pedro."

"There it is." Hazel hopped from her seat and shrieked. "Mouse, mouse, Teacher, there's a mouse in the school!"

"It's just a mouse." Susan bustled down the aisle after Diego. "Nothing to get excited about."

A mouse wasn't Rebekah's favorite kind of pet, but Caleb had had worse. Like a green garter snake. And a hamster. Hamsters were similar to mice. He'd even befriended some beetles. The turtles weren't so bad, though.

Lupe stuck her head under a desk, then another. "He is amigo. Diego sad if he lost."

Rebekah followed her and began to look as well. Anything to make Diego feel better. "Friend?" A little boy who'd left his home, his family, his country, would indeed want to hang on to whatever friends he found along the way on this terrible journey to a new country and new life. "Let's help him look for Pedro."

The scholars needed no prompting. They scattered, peering in corners and under desks and behind the stove.

"Got him!" Caleb held up the wiggling brown creature with long whiskers and a longer tail. "He's cute."

Cute? He was wrinkled and had beady eyes.

"Pedro. Pedro!" Diego hurled himself across the room. "Ratoncito."

"Ratoncito." All the scholars joined in. "Ratoncito."

Rebekah slipped up next to Susan. "Ratoncito, Teacher?"

"A friend is a friend." Susan clapped her hands. The scholars dropped into their seats. Diego slipped Pedro back in his little home. Susan's attempt to look stern failed. She smiled. "Everyone sit. Let's learn a few more words, but without the show-and-tell."

Rebekah sidled closer. "The live show-and-tell?"

"S."

Rebekah laughed. "S." Show-and-tell had never been so much fun. "They're learning from each other, though. That's gut, isn't it?"

"It is gut. We can all learn from each other." Susan c.o.c.ked her head, her expression pensive. "See, teaching can be fun."

"I know that." Rebekah slipped past her and picked up a piece of chalk. Time to put the algebra a.s.signment up. "I think teaching is fun."

"You tell fibs and your nose will grow."

"I'm not."

Susan patted her shoulder. "It's okay. It doesn't hurt my feelings. I never thought I'd be a teacher either."

"But you like to read and write. You read books all the time and you write letters to your brother and sister every week. I'd rather be doing something."

"Reading and writing are doing something."

"I know. I just thought I would be doing something different."

"Don't give up. Say your prayers and wait on Gott's timing." Susan's expression turned stern. "I noticed you've stopped going to the singings."

"No point in it." Unless Tobias Byler decided to go. Would he? Someone who didn't know all about the Lantz sisters and how one of them had abandoned the community. He had been so kind to the children, giving them the apples, taking them home. He was a nice man. And not bad to look at.

Here she stood weaving a future from thin air. From hopes that were no more than rays of sun that dissipated as if clouds deliberately covered her patch of sky. Tobias had seen her as bossy and wayward, not fraa material. She'd seen it in his eyes. If only she could be more like her big sister Deborah. A mother bird who gathered chickadees under her wings as naturally as breathing.

"Go. Boys have a short memory." Susan touched Rebekah's cheek, something in her face suggesting she, too, experienced cloudy skies on sunny days. "They'll look at you and forget all about what happened with Leila."

"They haven't yet."

"You'll make a fine fraa. Patience is a virtue."

"Is that what you're doing?"

Susan dusted chalk from her fingers. "I am." Her smile faded. "Every day."

Rebekah picked up a stack of papers. "Then I guess I'll start grading these papers, Teacher. We can wait together."

Until she couldn't wait anymore.

TEN.

Rebekah glanced over her shoulder. What if one of the scholars decided to follow her? The rutted dirt path that cut through knee-high weeds and meandered between stands of mesquite, live oak, and k.n.o.bby green nopales was empty. A gra.s.shopper skittered across her ap.r.o.n and somersaulted out of sight in the gra.s.s. The steamy air smelled of fresh-cut hay and dirt. Sweat trickled from under her kapp, tickling her neck. She had no way of knowing how long it had taken her to scurry from the schoolhouse to this secluded spot on a farm road. Any minute Susan would ring the bell and cla.s.ses would resume for the afternoon.

She felt like a traitor. She was Susan's helper. Susan counted on her. Susan expected her to do the right thing. Rebekah was trying to do the right thing. More thoughts running around in circles. She was doing this for the kinner's sake. They were so sweet and so innocent. Lupe and Diego should be allowed to stay. Rebekah would take care of them herself, if necessary. Susan wanted them to stay too. She would understand.

Mudder and Mordecai would not see it that way. Nor would Jeremiah. It didn't make sense. They didn't understand. They hadn't been talking to Leila about Jesse's work in the church. Jesse did all kinds of what Leila called outreach. Rebekah didn't exactly know what that meant, but Leila could ask Jesse if he had any ideas about what they could do for Lupe and Diego. The churches were helping the immigrant children through the legal hurdles that awaited them in this land of opportunity. She'd seen articles about it in the Beeville Times-Picayune that Mordecai read in the evenings after he finished the Budget.

Diego's tear-streaked face filled her mind. What if they decided to call the sheriff from the store phone today after sleeping on the situation? What if the kinner were sent home? El Salvador must be a hard place if a mother sent her children on such a long, scary journey across entire countries alone.

Rebekah pushed the thought away and trudged forward, her sneakers crunching on c.o.c.kleburs and weeds already dry in the South Texas sun. She would see Leila and Grace for a few minutes. She would ask her questions. It hurt nothing and she could offer Leila the chance to come home.

Leila might be waiting to be offered a chance to return home. G.o.d might soften her heart and help Rebekah bring home the prodigal daughter.

The path dead-ended at an equally rutted dirt road, the only difference being its width. The farm road cut across the property now owned by Levi Byler. Daed of Tobias Byler. Tobias was bossy and way too sure of himself. But then, he was a man doing what men were expected to do. Still, something about his green eyes and towering ma.s.sive body gave her pause. She didn't want to examine why.

Not now. Rebekah cupped her hand against her forehead to block the brilliant midday sun. A plume of dust in the distance told her a car approached. An engine droned, then sputtered.

Leila's note had said she would be in a green Volkswagen. Rebekah wasn't sure what a Volkswagen looked like, but a car was a car. The fact that Leila drove at all astounded her. She edged along the road, waiting, her damp palms clutching at her skirt. Why the meeting now?

Why now, Leila? Why now?

The green car, dusty and bug splattered, pulled alongside her, its engine making a putt-putt sound that even Rebekah knew didn't bode well. Leila stuck her head through the open window and waved. "Schweschder! You came."

Rebekah raised her hand in a quick return salute. Her heart squeezed in a painful hiccup. Leila's face was round, her cheeks chunky, and she'd pulled her wheat-colored hair back in a waist-length ponytail. No prayer kapp for her.

Leila disappeared into the interior again. The car moved to the side of the road and then onto the gra.s.sy shoulder just beyond the dirt path, bouncing and jolting over the ruts and rocks. The engine died. The door opened and Leila emerged, her face crinkled in a wide smile. Her long shirt and cotton skirt could not hide an enormous belly. Leila was expecting a baby who would surely arrive during the summer.

Was that what she wanted to tell Rebekah? Nee. She could have written that in a letter. But why hadn't she? She was well on her way to a new baby, not just starting out. Rebekah bit her lip, determined not to ask questions. Why make it easy for Leila? Let her explain. Let her help Rebekah make sense of all this.

"Girl, you are a sight for sore eyes." She enveloped Rebekah in a soft, warm hug. It seemed churlish not to return it. Despite herself, Rebekah leaned into it and inhaled. Leila smelled of baby wipes. "You're thinner. Have you gotten taller?"

Nee, not taller. Her appet.i.te had waned in the weeks and months after Leila fled their tiny district in order to be with a man who'd chosen to leave the Amish faith. Somehow the weight she lost had never returned. "I'm fine. You look . . . healthy."

"Chubby, you mean." Leila's grin widened. She wore an oversized, short-sleeved white blouse untucked and a long beige skirt covered with a tiny lilac-flowered print. It reached her ankles and white sneakers. "I reckon you can guess my secret."

As if she could miss it. "A blessing indeed."

"Indeed. I'm due at the end of July, early August."

More reason she and Jesse should come home. Babies needed family. "Jesse must be happy."

"He is."

Children who would have no grandparents in their lives. No aunts and uncles. No cousins. "Surely you'll come home now."

Leila tugged open the pa.s.senger door, still smiling back at Rebekah. "I know what you must think, but our babies will have plenty of family. Our church is our family. Maybe not blood relatives, but people we love who love us."

Not the same.

"What do you think of the car? Jesse bought it from his friend Colton Wise. He sold it dirt cheap, and he's letting us make payments."

It sounded as if it were on its last leg. Rebekah had no opinion on cars, only that Plain folks didn't drive them. "I can't believe you drive."

Couldn't believe that Leila had chosen another way of life.

"I have to drive. I have to get myself to work and this little Bug lets me do it." Leila made a tut-tut sound. "Gracie fell asleep. She's been a cranky bear. She's teething. I take her to the day care with me, but they let me visit her on my breaks and at lunch, which is nice."

Another thing Plain women didn't do. Keep working when they were raising their babies. "If you came home, you wouldn't have to work."

"We are home. In our little duplex in Beeville. And we need the money." Her matter-of-fact tone held no shame. "Jesse is taking the last of his cla.s.ses at the community college to get his a.s.sociate's degree. His jobs at the church as a lay pastor and maintenance man don't pay much. He's still doing carpentry work with Matthew on the side. We make do."

Rebekah understood about making do. She didn't understand about leaving family and faith to live in a duplex. Still, she couldn't help herself. She inched forward and peeked over her sister's shoulder for a glimpse as Leila undid the straps and lifted the sleeping baby from her car seat. She turned, the little girl nestled in her arms. "She's big."

Dressed only in a pink onesie that read DADDY'S GIRL and featured a huge sunflower, Grace displayed the thunder thighs and chunky cheeks of a ten-month-old. Thick brown curls framed her face-Jesse's curls. She had fair skin and rosebud lips that curved in a smile as if she frolicked in a sweet dream. "She's walking now." Leila held the baby out. "Take her, will you, I'm feeling a little queasy today."

Rebekah did want to hold her niece. Almost as much as she wanted a baby of her own to hold. That might never happen. Not with Mudder and Mordecai watching her every move-thanks to Leila.

"I need to get back. Why did you want to see me?" She took Grace and held her close, inhaling the sweet scent of bopli. Babies smelled of innocence and hope and the future, a heady aroma she longed to surround herself with every day. "If it's not to tell me you want to come home, what else could you possibly need to tell me that you can't put in a letter?"

Leila shut the door with a clunk, leaned against the car, and patted her shiny face with a pink bandanna. "You are as persistent as a mosquito on a summer night, aren't you?" She sighed. "I am home. Someday you'll understand that. Home is where Jesse is. We are so happy. I wouldn't change a thing."

"If you're so happy, why are you here?" Bile burned the back of Rebekah's throat. She swallowed and breathed in the warm, humid April air until she could form the next sentence. "Your note said it was important."

"Change is coming, and I felt like I should tell you about it in person." Despite her words, Leila's smile faded, replaced with an expression Rebekah couldn't read. "I know it's hard for you to understand, but Jesse believes he has a calling, and everything that's happened since I left tells me he's right. But there's more, more to come. Gott's plan is still unfolding."

It seemed Leila had forgotten everything she learned growing up about humility and obedience. How could she and Jesse think they knew what Gott's plan was? She sounded so prideful. Rebekah swallowed a retort bitter on her tongue and forced herself to speak softly. "What about you? What about Gott's plan for you?"

"This is it." Leila waved her hand toward Grace and then patted her belly. "This summer Jesse will finish his degree and Grace will have a brother or sister." Her smile faltered.

"What is it? There's more, isn't there?"

"I miss you, all of you, so much." Leila ducked her head and studied the dust that coated her sneakers. A gra.s.shopper somersaulted over her toes and disappeared into the weeds. "Rory and Tiffany and our other friends are so sweet and kind to us."

But they weren't family. "Englisch friends aren't the same as family, are they?"

"They're good friends. They help us all they can." Leila crossed her arms over her swollen belly as if suddenly cold. "But you're right, it's not the same. I miss Mudder and Deborah and I can only imagine how Timothy has grown, and now she and Phineas have a new baby. It hurts my heart-"

"Hurts your heart? You didn't see the look on Mudder's face when she realized you were never coming home. You didn't hear her crying at night when she thought everyone was asleep." Rebekah's voice climbed. Pent-up emotions billowed from her. She stopped, letting the curr-curr sound of crickets harmonizing soothe her for a second. "I can't even go into Beeville by myself. I'll never be able to get a job in town. I'm barely allowed to go to the singings."

For two years, she'd kept these feelings to herself, feeling guilty about her inability to forgive. Rebekah gulped back sobs. "I'm sorry. It's not for me to judge."

Leila sighed. "But it's only human. I'm so sorry I've made it hard for you."

"It's just that I'm . . . so . . ."

"Lonely?"

"Jah."

"Gott has a plan for you. I promise." Leila squeezed Rebekah's arm. "You'll find your special friend. I know it in my heart."

She wanted to believe it so she wouldn't have to feel guilty. Reality looked much different from Rebekah's vantage point. No buggy rides had materialized from the singings. She was nineteen and had no prospects in sight.