ATOP Chapter Forty-Nine

Look at them all, sitting there, laughing and talking like everything is alright.

Rebekah set her jaw grimly and stared past the crowd gathered in the living room. She didn't want to look at them. But her eyes came back into focus against her will and she found she couldn't help but scrutinize every last one of them... 

The tall dark one with the limp and the funny accent... Mac, they called him. He had a scar over one eye. She shuddered at it. To her, it looked almost sinister... even the sparkling laughter in his green eyes and the jovial smile on his lips couldn't begin to dim her distrust. The girl at his side... Katie... she looked so sweet... and Rebekah felt for one half-second like letting down her guard, just with this one... but no. That would be foolish. She turned her head away, her eyes falling on the one who was currently speaking... the loud one. She didn't like his voice. He laughed too much and he talked too fast. Josh, wasn't it? She listened for a moment...

"Oh, you wouldn't believe the shenanigans this Cat is capable of," he was leaning forward, eyes dancing as he spoke to Katy. "Don't b'lieve I've told all the stories yet... 'course, that would take half a year of telling... Didya ever hear of the cannon incident? Or the..."

"We are not talking about that," Mac raised an eyebrow in warning. "Let's talk instead about the turtle that swallowed your dog tags and almost strangled you to death."

"Or my favorite... the flood we had in the desert, and the rafts that our cots became," Josh almost choked with laughter. "D'ya remember that mud? Hey, Chief, remember the mud fight? Emma, I gotta tell you about that..."

Rebekah rolled her eyes and glanced at the aforementioned Emma. At times she seemed nearly as crazy as her husband, and at other times she seemed to be just brimming with common sense. She looked so kind too... Rebekah shook her head fiercely. She would not think anything good of these people. 

"Must you keep talking about the war?" Ronnie's voice was pained. "Please, Josh..."

"Sorry..." Josh grimaced. "I... oh! I got something to talk about... we need to plan that summer camping trip we keep talking about... Seth and Marci are gonna join us, aren't they?"

As he went on, the others joining in enthusiastically, Rebekah's gaze drifted towards the couple Rachel had introduced as Ronnie's parents... and hardened her heart yet again. They looked like people who lived solely to love... but did people like that truly exist? She studied them a long moment, feeling for a moment the warmth and kindness... and shook it off, fading out of focus again. 

Words of hatred were always flitting across her mind... they echoed and re-echoed through her very soul, shattering all moments of calm. Some of those words were her own... but most of them came from others... words that had hurt her more cruelly than she would ever dare admit. Her entire being had seethed like a raging storm since the day so long ago that her mother had told her she must go into hiding... her entire world had turned upside-down on that day, and she was convinced that it would never be righted again. Unless she forced it upright on her own. Single-handedly. She was the only person she could trust. 

Rishona sat on the couch beside Ronnie, her knees tucked up under her, chin resting in her hands. She was staring at Josh wide-eyed as he told stories, gesturing wildly all the way. Rachel was sitting at Ronnie's other side, her head leaning against his shoulder. Benjie was in his mommy's lap, worn out from the excitement and fast asleep, his teddy clutched close against his heart and his thumb in his mouth. They all looked beautiful there together, every one of them... and Rebekah almost caught herself smiling... but she forced it down. She looked at her little sister and she made herself remember one of the worst memories of the last several nightmare years...

It had been such a cold day. A miserable, icy day in which the wind blew sideways, cutting like a razorblade. And the girls had been dressed in nothing but thin, shapeless dresses, the material practically in rags. There were hundreds of them... maybe thousands... girls just like them... girls and women. Some were so old that Rebekah couldn't believe they were still alive.

It had been the last day she had heard Rishona speak. And it had been a day that she... Rebekah... had fought back... but it hadn't been the last time she had fought back. They were being herded into cattle cars on that terrifying train, and she had clutched Rishona against her, willing that they would not be separated... and that somehow, she could keep her sister halfway safe. The burden to protect had lain so heavy on her shoulders for so long.

Rishona had been praying aloud. Sweet, childish words that had made it past the chill in Rebekah's heart. Rebekah remembered it like it was yesterday... looking over Rishona's shoulder and seeing those black boots in the snow... and looking up and up and up until she met the cold stare of dead blue eyes. Dead... that was the best way she could think of to describe them. They were dead. There was no life in that man, only a cold, mechanical hatred and cruelty. 

He had screamed at Rishona, his words dripping with poison. She had only raised her own voice until she practically shouted her prayer. He was telling her halt die klappe... shut up... and either she was too terrified to understand or she was being defiant. Rebekah wasn't sure which. The Nazi's fist had come down hard on the little girl and Rebekah remembered falling to her knees alongside her sister, her heart scarcely beating. Rishona was sobbing by then... and her words louder than ever... another blow... and when she wouldn't stop, the Nazi pulled a scrap of fabric from her pocket and bound it over her mouth.

Rebekah tore it off, threw it to the ground and stomped on it. The Nazi laughed then... a terrifying dead laugh to match his eyes... Rebekah couldn't remember what happened after that. It had all seemed so black and silent for so long... the next thing she could remember was lying on the bare floorboards in a corner of the train car, the ache in her head so painful she could scarcely see. Rishona knelt beside her, eyes wide with terror. The ragged fabric had been tied over her mouth again and Rebekah reached up to pull it away for the second time, the movement of her arm causing even more pain. She closed her fingers over her sister's hand, let her eyes fall shut, and forced words out in a painful whisper...

"Don't let them steal your voice, Shonie. We must fight this evil, fight it as hard as we can..."

And Rishona had only shaken her head, nothing more than a terrified, wordless murmur escaping her lips...

"Hey... Rebekah... are you okay?"

She tore herself away from those memories with a shuddering sigh, relieved to let them fade into blackness again. It was Mickey who sat beside her, smiling sympathetically, encouragingly. She looked at him hard for a long moment, scrutinizing his face. He looked like Ronnie... just younger and with more freckles... his eyes were more sea green than blue and his hair light brown. A strange color for eyes was the first thought that crossed her mind. She frowned, trying to move away from him.

"Mir geht es gut," she snapped, not caring that he didn't know a word of German. "Leave me alone." She expected him to protest and already had her next retort ready... but he only backed away, responding mildly.

"I'm sorry..." 

She didn't answer. And she didn't want to look at him again. She trained her gaze on her hands lying twisted together in her lap, not noticing as Mickey slowly crossed the room backwards, still looking at her... and slipped out the front door.

The voices in the room seemed to merge together in an endless roar. Rebekah squeezed her eyes shut, hating the feeling of hot tears searing the inside of her eyelids. She had tried so hard to give up tears forever. She hated crying. And there... she blinked hard... and they were gone. She was determined to never let a single tear fall again.

Cookies were being passed around, and lemonade... and Josh was saying something about going after the ice cream in the ice chest... and the door opened suddenly, slamming shut again with a thunderous bang. Mickey was standing in the doorway, saying something, and nobody could hear him over Josh's ice cream soliloquy... 

"I said, it's a LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!" Mickey hollered at the top of his lungs. Benjie jumped, startled by the sound, and dropped Boo.

"A bad guy?" cried he, incredulous, and looked as if he wasn't sure whether to be frightened or intrigued.

"A letter from the president, eh?" Josh grinned. "So he's finally decided to throw in the towel and hand over the reins of the government to yours truly."

"Oh come on, Torpedo, we're not all ready to die yet," Mac laughed. "He's probably setting the FBI on your case."

"Maybe he wants me to go back to war..." Josh's eyes grew wide in mock terror. "Save me, Emma!"

"If you would sit still and listen for once," Emma poked him. "Then we could find out what on earth Mickey's talking about. Spill it, little brother, what is it?"

"It's for Ronnie," Mickey grinned proudly and handed the letter over to his brother with an air of triumph. "Hurry up and open it, why don'tcha? Man, you guys talk loud... you'd think after three days of Mac 'n Katie being here that you would all run out of things to talk about..." He ran his eyes around the living room, laughing... and his laughter slowly faded away when he caught Rebekah's gaze. He looked down instantly, unsettled by her frank, cold stare. But at the same time he couldn't deny that his heart was beating faster.

Ronnie opened the letter at Mickey's urging, but as he silently scanned it, his face turned ashen. Rachel glanced over at it and he crumpled it in his fist with a sudden, violent gesture.

"Something wrong, Son?" Jim's question broke the stillness in the room. Ronnie glanced at him and shook his head vaguely.

"It's nothing," he muttered. "It... it's late... Rachel... we should go..."

"Jah... jah, I suppose... we should..." Rachel's voice shook slightly. "It has been a long day, all that traveling... we will see you all in the morning... and Katie... congratulations again..." she smiled warmly, but it didn't quite reach her eyes as she looked up at Ronnie again. "Dear heart..." the last she whispered as she squeezed his hand.