work and tend the animals. It was Jesus’s turn to go, but he vacillated.
“I don’t yet know,” he said.
“But someone must go from our family,” James responded, sounding annoyed. “Why do you hesitate? Can’t you leave work behind for those few days?”
“It isn’t that. I’m struggling to understand if God wishes me to go at all. The Temple has become a den of thieves, James.”
James rolled his eyes skyward. “Must you always concern yourself with such things? We have a duty to sacrifice an animal at Passover.”
“Yes, and the poor bring their animals and the priests refuse to accept them, claiming they’re blemished, and then they charge exorbitant prices for another one.”
“What he says is true,” Simon offered.
“Shall we speak of something else?” Mary said.
But Jesus pressed on. “The priests insist on having their own currency and when the poor try to exchange their coins, the money changers charge them excessive rates!”
James stood. “Would you force me to make the trip again this year? Do you care more for the poor than your brother?”
Jesus answered, “Aren’t the poor also my brothers and sisters?”
* * *
? ? ?
THE NEXT MORNING as the sun stirred awake, Jesus trekked into the hills to pray. It was his daily habit. At other times I would find him sitting cross-legged on the floor with his prayer shawl drawn over his head, unmoving, eyes closed. It had been so since we married, this devotion, this feasting on God, and I’d never minded it, but today, seeing him walk away in the half-light, I understood what until now I’d only glimpsed. God was the ground beneath him, the sky over him, the air he breathed, the water he drank. It made me uneasy.
I prepared his breakfast, trimming corn from the husk and parching it over the fire, the sweet aroma drifting over the compound. I glanced repeatedly toward the gate, as if God lurked out there, ready to pluck my husband from me.
When he returned, we sat together beneath the olive tree. I watched him wrap bread around a hunk of goat cheese and eat hungrily, saving the corn, his favorite, for last. He was quiet.
Finally, he said, “When I saw my brother-in-law’s infirmity, I was moved with pity. Everywhere I look, there’s suffering, Ana, and I spend my days making cabinets for a rich man.”
“You spend your days caring for your family,” I said, perhaps too sharply.
He smiled. “Don’t worry, Little Thunder. I’ll do what I must.” He wrapped an arm about me. “Passover is soon. Let us go to Jerusalem.”
viii.
We took the pilgrim road, leaving the green hills of Galilee and descending into the dense thickets of the Jordan River valley, traveling through stretches of wilderness filled with jackals. At night we put out the fire early and, clutching our staffs, slept beneath little lean-tos we fashioned from brush. We were on our way to Bethany, just outside Jerusalem, where we would lodge with Jesus’s friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary.
The Jericho road was the last, most treacherous part of our journey, not because of jackals, but because of the robbers who hid in the barren cliffs that lined the valley. At least the road was well traveled; for miles now we’d trodden behind a man with two sons and a priest wearing an elaborate robe, but I couldn’t help feeling uneasy. Sensing my nervousness, Jesus began telling me stories of his family’s Passover visits with his friends in Bethany when he was a boy.
“When I was eight,” Jesus said, “Lazarus and I came upon a dove merchant who was treating his birds cruelly, poking them with sticks and feeding them pebbles. We waited until he left his stall, opened the cages, and set them free before he returned. He accused us of stealing and our fathers were compelled to pay him a full price. My family was forced to remain in Bethany two extra weeks while Father and I worked to pay the debt. At the time I thought it was worth it. The sight of the birds flying away . . .”
Imagining them flapping off to freedom, I didn’t notice the