news of John the Immerser’s beheading and I’d been overwhelmed with the fear of losing Jesus. “All shall be well,” Yaltha had told me, and when I’d recoiled at how trite and superficial that sounded, she’d said, “I don’t mean that life won’t bring you tragedy. I only mean you will be well in spite of it. There’s a place in you that is inviolate. You’ll find your way there, when you need to. And you’ll know then what I speak of.”
I pulled on Jesus’s cloak and stepped outside. My feet were tender from walking barefoot on the stones of Golgotha.
Lavi squatted near the oven, packing his travel pouch. I watched him layer bread, salted fish, and waterskins inside it. With all that had happened, I’d forgotten he was leaving. The ship we’d arrived on would sail back to Alexandria in three days. In order to be on it, Lavi would set out for Joppa early tomorrow morning. The realization jarred me.
Mary, Salome, Martha, Mary of Bethany, Tabitha, and Mary of Magdala were gathered in the shade near the wall overlooking the valley. Even though the Sabbath would not end until sunset, Tabitha appeared to be mending something and Martha was kneading dough. I doubted Tabitha cared about the Sabbath law forbidding work, but Martha seemed devout about these things. When I joined them, sitting on the warm ground beside my mother-in-law, Martha said, “Yes, I know. I’m committing a sin, but I find consolation in baking bread.”
I wanted to say, If I had ink and papyrus, I would gladly sin along with you. Instead, I gave her my most commiserative smile.
Peering at Tabitha, I saw that she was sewing my sandal.
Mary said, “We’ll return to the tomb tomorrow after first light to finish anointing Jesus. Mary and Martha have provided us with aloe, cloves, mint, and frankincense.”
I’d said what felt like my final goodbye to Jesus the day before when I’d kissed his cheeks in the tomb. It unsettled me to think of repeating the wrenching process of leaving him again, but I nodded.
“I trust one of you remembers where the tomb lies,” she said. “I was too distraught to take notice and there were many caves there and about.”
“I believe I can find it,” said Salome. “I was careful to observe the way.”
Mary turned back to me. “Ana, I think that you, Salome, and I should remain here in Bethany for the seven days of mourning before we depart for Nazareth. I’ll need to seek out James and Judith in Jerusalem and learn their wishes, but I’m sure they’ll agree. Would this suit you?”
Nazareth. In my mind, I saw the mud-baked compound with the single olive tree. The tiny room where I’d lived with Jesus, where I’d birthed Susanna, where I’d hidden away my incantation bowl. I pictured the little storage room where Yaltha had slept. The hand loom on which I’d woven reams of poor cloth and the oven where I’d baked loaves of scorched bread.
The air grew very quiet. I felt Mary’s stare. I felt all their stares, but I didn’t look up from my lap. What would it be like to live in Nazareth again, but without Jesus? James was now the eldest, the head of the family, and it occurred to me he might decide to find me a new husband, as he had for Salome when she became a widow. And there was the threat of Antipas. In his letter, Judas had written that the danger to me in Galilee had lessened, but not fully passed.
I pushed to my feet and walked a short distance from them. There was a feeling in me like rising water. It broke over me, finally, leaving behind the thing I knew, but didn’t know. Nazareth had never been my home. Jesus had been my home.
Now, with him gone, my home was on a hillside in Egypt. It was Yaltha and Diodora. It was the Therapeutae. Where else could I write with abandon? Where but there could I tend a library and animals both? Where else could I live by the utterances of my own heart?
I breathed in, and it felt like a small homecoming.