ATOP Chapter Fifty-Nine

May, 1947

Dear Mama,

I went to a wedding today. Ronnie's sister Katie's husband Mac's uncle Jafe... which is quite the mouthful... got married to the girl he has loved all his life and only just now managed to marry. I have heard snatches of the story ever since coming to America and it seems he proposed years and years ago, and she thought he was joking. So she said no. They're both in their thirties by now... it feels a bit... well... bittersweet. Just to think of all those years they lost together. Her name is Anne, by the way. Anne Tyler, but as of this afternoon, it is Anne Scott. She is sweet and pretty, and looked like an angel in her wedding dress.

We are all back at Mac and Katie's house now, here in Lanesboro, Minnesota... "bunking out", as Mickey says. It is as full a house as I ever saw. Still less crowded than any barracks ever was, though. I still get to sleep in a real bed. Let me see... who all is here? Josh and Emma, and Josh's parents, Rob and Myra, Ronnie's parents Jim and Donna, and Mickey, of course, and Ronnie and Rachel, Benjie, Judah, Shonie, and me. Ronnie and Rachel are next door (down the hall) with the little boys. Shonie's staying with me, in what will be the baby's room, when Katie has her baby. She's due in September. Josh and Emma are in the room on the other side of Ronnie and Rachel's, and Mickey has been banished to the couch in the living room, since we have run out of bedrooms. Rob and Myra are the luckiest ones, they are staying in an adorable little cottage down the lane (although they are here now and likely helping contribute to the noise downstairs) and Jim and Donna are staying with Mac's mother, Marjorie. 

Is not that all a lot of useless information? Oh well... I am just scribbling for lack of anything better to do now, I suppose. Everyone else is downstairs, as I said before, and making enough noise to wake everyone for miles around. I suppose Josh is responsible for half of it. And leave it to Mickey to be responsible for the other half. Just yesterday I caught him marching wildly through the hall singing an awful song at the top of his lungs... "Der Fuerher's Face", he said it was called. I shudder to even write that title down. Disgusting. True, it is a song mocking the... well, I will not call him "fuerher", he was close to the devil himself... anyway, it is a song mocking him, but still, to make light of such serious matters... just do not mind that last bit. Speaking of singing... or at least, music... dear little Shonie is down there playing the piano now. You would be amazed, Mama, to hear how she has picked up on music so well. She plays wonderfully... but never any song written down. She plays her own melodies, and they seem to come from heaven itself, that is how beautiful they are.

She does not speak anymore, as I have told you so many times before, but she never gave up on music. I will never forget, all those long and miserable nights that we were trapped in that horrible place... I always tried to be the strong one. I had to be strong for her, she was always so frail and tiny and... and afraid... but in the nights, when we had a few hours to ourselves if we were lucky, I sometimes let that strength fall. Always keeping up the facade is exhausting. And when she knew I could not be brave, she would sing to me. Songs without words. She has a voice like an angel, Mama. I wish I could hear it more. She does not sing often... but I love it when she does. Except when... well... her songs were always for me before. Just me. And when we were on our way to America, she sang once for Ronnie... I guess he had woken up with a nightmare... a war nightmare, Rachel says. He has them a lot. I hear him every so often, in the middle of the night... he wakes up screaming and it is awful. But Shonie sang for him and... it made me angry, Mama. Ever since that night, I have felt like I am losing her, piece by piece. She just seems to be slipping away from me into the lives of other people. Rachel reads her stories from the Christian Bible and Ronnie prays with her in the name of the Christian "Messiah"... and I am afraid she believes it, Mama. I do not know how to keep her in our ways. But I will not falter, I can promise you that, Mama. And maybe if she sees me standing steadfast, she will remember and turn back.

Ach... oy vey, now there is an ink blot... that Mickey... 

"Mickey!" Rebekah yelled, looking up to see the culprit with his head poked through the doorway. "Oy vey, dummkopf, what are you doing?"

"Sorry," he grinned with a shrug. "Just couldn't help myself."

"Oh, you are going to help yourself, and right out of here," she snapped. "You threw a pillow at me?! I am trying to write here..." she scribbled a few more furious lines.

I told him we could be friends... but this boy is driving me crazy, Mama. What on earth did I do to deserve someone like him, eh? He seems to exist for the sole purpose of annoying me.

"You could always save that for the train home, y'know," Mickey leaned against the doorpost and crossed his arms. "Tonight's our last night here. Come down and have some fun."

"I am having plenty enough fun already," Rebekah hmphed and continued to scribble.

He is absolutely infuriating. Trouble is, I feel like I owe him... at least a little bit... because he... well, he likely saved my life. I did not tell you about that, did I? I do not know if it actually would have killed me... I mean, they told me I lost a lot of blood, but... well, I would never have been able to go for help by myself. But still! Just because he did that, he thinks he has the right to...

"Ah, I see." Mickey's grin grew wider. "You're having plenty of fun now, because I..." he bowed dramatically... "have arrived."

"Oh, get out of here," Rebekah snatched up the pillow he had tossed at her and beamed it right back, managing to hit her target smack on the middle of his face. He went down with mock severity, groaning as if in death.

"...but then... why am I wasting all this journal space on him? I could spend my time writing about much more civil boys. Like Jakob. Except that is also a waste of time. Jakob is gone. And no amount of missing him is going to bring him back."

"Hey, Bekah... you okay?" Mickey had paused in the middle of his dying to glance up at his opponent, whose face had changed swiftly from annoyance to despair. She glanced at him as if seeing him for the first time, and then shook her head rapidly.

"My name is Rebekah," she said icily. "Now go away, please."

"Come on," he sighed. "Everybody wants you downstairs. If you don't come now, Rachel will be up to make sure you're okay. Benjie's asking for you, Judah needs some cuddles, and Katie's pulling leftover wedding cake and chocolate chip cookies out of the cupboard. Also I was ordered to come and get you and I don't like to fail my missions, so... please?"

"Nein," Rebekah turned regally back to her journal.

"I don't speak German," Mickey chuckled. "So I can't be sure what that means. Unless you're simply talking about the number nine. Which would make absolutely no sense in this context. Anyway... so... I don't like to resort to desperate measures, but, y'know... desperate situations..." He reached for her journal and snapped it shut. And before she could protest, he had scooped her up and was making for the door with tremendous speed. It took all the way to the doorway before Rebekah had sufficiently gathered her wits to start protesting, and then she did so with everything that was in her.

"If you do not put me down, dummkopf," she cried, struggling fiercely. "You will live to regret it, every day of your life. Do you hear me? Put me down now..."

"If you promise to come downstairs..." he paused. 

"Put... me... down." she said firmly, fire lighting her eyes. He laughed at her for a moment... but he put her down. She drew herself up with all the dignity she could muster and he braced himself, waiting for her to slap him or... or something... but with another flash of her eyes, her face changed completely. 

"The last one to get to the kitchen does not get to eat cake," she grinned and was off, thundering down the stairs. Mickey stood still for a moment, just smiling to himself. He had never heard her laugh before... and there she was laughing all the way down... and it was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard. But then the realization that he was about to miss out on leftover wedding cake got him moving and he made it into the kitchen just in time to see her dishing up her triumphant cake slice.