“No!” Her words caught up with her heart. “No!” She grappled for what to say. “He is my husband! He is an American citizen through me!”
She screamed onto deaf ears. She ran back to the booth and threw her hands over the table. “Don’t do this! Please, don’t do this,” she begged in angered sincerity.
The sound of Eli’s voice broke the frenzy inside her mind, “I love you, Rebecca! Never forget that. Everything I did, I did so you could have a future; so our child could have a future.” He kept shouting as they dragged him towards the ship.
“I’m sorry, madam, but his documents are fraudulent,” the officer reasoned.
“No…no…no.” Rebecca’s voice began to fade and all she could muster to say was no. Watching Eli being pulled further away in the firm grip of immigration patrol, she saw his dark brown eyes, wide and pleading, focused on her, his cheeks wet with tears. The sound of his feet scrapping against the hard floors in defiance echoed in her shattering mind.
“God in heaven, I’m begging you!” She fell to her knees in front of the officer, who remained steadfast and immovable. Her body crumbled, wracked with sobs, gut wrenching and heartbreaking.
“Rebecca? Rebecca, please.” Aaron had to help her back to her feet. Aaron’s mother held her while Aaron shouted to Eli over the immigration booth, a table dividing freedom and the persecution of Germany.
“Where will you stay?”
“With Robert,” Eli yelled, jerking his head around. “You knew this could happen, but we had to try. Take care of Rebecca for me.”
“I promise,” Aaron declared and then like a cloud that fades, Eli disappeared.
Aaron helped escort Rebecca out of the immigration area and onto American soil. She lay fragile in his hands, limp. The breathlessness she had gone to the hospital for in July returned. She placed her shaky feet on the soil and sobbed on Aaron’s shoulder. Her Grandma Adel and Aunt Martha waited for her there, but she hardly recognized them in her state. When she finally broke her face away from Aaron’s shoulder and glanced up, she saw Eli’s family approaching through the crowd.
She couldn’t speak to them. She couldn’t tell them they had lost their only son. Her lips became heavy, unable to open. Her face lost its alabaster color and became pale. She fainted, almost hitting the ground if it had not been for Aaron’s catch.
Rebecca awoke lying across an elegant sofa most certainly in her Grandma Adel’s house. The Levin family was not seen nor heard. Aaron was also absent. Her Aunt Martha sat in a chair across from her, kitting a sweater and when Rebecca’s eyes opened, Martha rushed to her side. She wiped a wet washrag over Rebecca’s face and then sat her up to drink a cup of ginger tea.
“How are you feeling?” Martha asked.
“Where’s Aaron? Where’s Ezekiel?” Rebecca asked, concerned their presence had been all a dream.
“They’ve taken residence up some blocks away at a house for rent. I know the owner and drove them there.”
“Where’s Eli?” Rebecca asked, knowing the answer, but needing the answer to be different.
“I imagine he’s on his way back to Germany.” Martha’s tender blue eyes and warm smile tried to comfort Rebecca.
“I’m cold.” Rebecca shivered under a thick quilt and Martha brought her another blanket.
Placing a hand on her forehead, she drew back. “You’ve got a fever. We’re putting you to bed.” They moved her to a bedroom upstairs, where she tossed and turned in her sleep, tormented at the notion of never seeing Eli again or worse, Eli’s death.
After seven days of ill health, she managed to pull herself out of bed and join her aunt and grandmother downstairs. Aaron sat at the breakfast table, eating with Martha when Rebecca walked into the dining room. She raced to Aaron’s side and pulled him close as if it would somehow make Eli closer to her.
Aaron handed her a note. “Eli wanted me to give you this in case he didn’t make it.” He slipped the note into Rebecca’s fragile hands and she brought it to her nose to smell Eli’s scent before opening it. Packaged underneath the letter Rebecca felt a photograph and lifted it to the forefront to view. A black and white shot of Eli stretching backward over her banister reminded her of the time he brought his new camera home and they played with it while taking photos of themselves.
She remembered taking this photograph of him. His brown scarf danced in the wind and his smile was crooked. His soft eyes and laughter transcended the picture and Rebecca found her fingers caressing his image, needing him to be there with her. A tear rolled down her left cheek into the pink hues of her skin and she lifted his letter to read.
My Dearest Rebecca,
I know you are in the gravest of states with my departure, and I am sorry I could not divulge the truth to you in Munich, but I knew you would never leave without the reassurance that I would be able to join you in America. I love you too much to make that kind of sacrifice for me. I love our baby too much. It is enough for me to know you and our unborn child will be safe and happy. I can endure any suffering my fatherland has to offer me, knowing the two people I love more than my own life are finally free.
I will stay with Robert while in Munich, until I find another way to you. Don’t fret for me, but spend your time taking care of yourself and our baby. Please do not be angry with me or waste time in idle depression. When things have changed and it is safe to travel, I will come to you, my love, and begin the family we promised, you, me, and our little one.
Love,
Eli
* * *
Rebecca spent the next five years waiting for the man she loved, for the man who would never return to her. But as the slow years progressed, the pain lessened and, as she watched her son whom she named Eli grow from a baby to a toddler and then to a child about to enter Kindergarten, she could see in his expressions a hint of his father in the nose, the lips, the eyes, and one day she finally let Eli go. She let him return to Germany without her. Everything about her son reminded her of the man she loved, the only man she could ever love like this, and though Eli was no longer there, he was her forever, and in her son she knew he would always be with her.
THE END
Ami Blackwelder is a teacher and a writer. She has written three religious books and two anthologies and a few children stories.
She is currently involved in finishing her Guardians of the Gate saga and promoting her first historical fiction: The Day the Flowers Died.
Order this book on Kindle, Nook, iPad, or order from your local bookstore. You may also order prints online. Find out more at her website.
All her work is available at her website :
http://amiblackwelder.blogspot.com
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Author’s note:
Thank you to all my supporters, family, friends and fans for keeping me encouraged and look for my new SciFi Paranormal Romance saga: Shifter Evolutions.
From the same author on Feedbooks
The Ancient Genesis (2011) My initial intention was not to write a book, nor to attack any- one’s fundamental beliefs. I am simply deeply devoted to re- searching and discovering truth. Three years after accumulating so much information from ancient Rabbis, current Rabbis, scien- tists, early church fathers, Hebrew definitions, culture and tradi- tions, I found that I needed to store this information, as well as my ideas, into solid form so that I could always go back to it. The book was then born and progressed through a year of further developments and changes.
I entitled this the Ancient Genesis because it was in research- ing ancient Rabbis' commentaries, early church fathers and their understandings of the text as well as researching the ancient He- brew language, that brought light for me to many issues of today. This understanding of the text, then, is something new for most people, but really it is an old understanding coupled with modern science to help reveal the secrets and plainest truths of the scrip- ture.
Upon reading this, your beliefs will most likely be challenged. Upo
n being challenged; however, there is a plethora of informa- tion that I hope will encourage you in your own searches for truth, whether or not you agree with my conclusions.
* * *
The Shifters of 2040 (2011) Alaska 2040.
Three Species. Divided Lovers. The Race is on for Planet Earth.
Summary: Set in Alaska in 2040, Melissa Marn and Bruce Wilder must work under the iron fist of the SCM, while still trying to maintain humanity. Discovering a world of shifters and hybrids, the scientists must struggle with human prejudice and betrayal.
With the original ancestors, dubbed shifters, still living on earth, humans are in the midst of a fifteen year old war. As the eldest hybrids, Unseen and Diamond, learn about humans the hard way, with the loss of loved ones and sacrifices, love on planet earth proves challenging.
With underlining themes of how prejudice breaks human connections and animal/wildlife conservation, this novel which has received rave reviews will leave the reader flipping through the pages.
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Food for the mind
The Day the Flowers Died Page 26
