“ONLY A WEEK REMAINS before my captivity ends,” I whispered to Jesus. “Yet you haven’t spoken of going to the Temple. I will need to make my sacrifice.”
We were reclined on the roof, where I, too, had begun to sleep in order to escape the heat, spreading my bed mat an acceptable distance from his. The entire family, except Yaltha, had taken to sleeping up here. Gazing across the mud thatch, I could see their bodies lined up under the stars.
I waited. Had Jesus heard my question? Voices traveled easily up here—even now I heard Judith at the far end of the roof murmuring to her children, trying to settle them.
“Jesus?” I whispered, louder.
He edged closer so we could keep our voices low. “We cannot go to Jerusalem, Ana. The journey is five days at a quick pace, and five days back. I’m unable to leave my labors for so long. I’ve become one of the head builders of the synagogue.”
I didn’t want him to hear my disappointment. I lay back without responding and looked up into the night, where the moon was just brandishing her forehead.
He said, “You can make your offering to the rabbi here instead. It’s sometimes done that way.”
“It’s just that . . . I hoped—” Hearing the quiver in my throat, I stopped.
“Tell me. What do you hope?”
“I hope for everything.”
After a pause, I heard him say, “Yes, I hope for everything, too.”
I didn’t ask what he meant, nor did he ask me. He knew what my everything was. And I knew his.
Soon I heard his breath deepen into sleep.
An image swam into my mind and floated there: Jesus is at the gate. He’s wearing his travel cloak, a bag strapped over his shoulder. I am there, too, my face full of sorrow.
My eyes broke open. I turned and looked at him with sudden sadness. The rooftop was quiet, the night showering down its heat. I heard a creature of some kind—a wolf, perhaps a jackal—howl in the distance, then the animals restless in the stable. I didn’t sleep, but lay there remembering the admission Jesus had made the night he asked me to become his betrothed. Since I was a boy of twelve I’ve felt I might have some purpose in God’s mind, but that seems less likely to me now. I’ve had no sign.
The sign would come.
His everything.
* * *
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EIGHTY DAYS AFTER the birth and death of Susanna, I purchased two turtledoves from a farmer and carried them to the closest thing we had to a rabbi in Nazareth, a learned man who owned the village oil press and who stood there trying to look practiced at pronouncing women clean. He’d been feeding the donkey that turned the grinding stone when I arrived. I was accompanied by Simon and Yaltha; Jesus was not expected home from Magdala for four days.
The rabbi clutched a handful of straw in one hand as he received the doves, which flapped wildly in the little cage. He seemed uncertain whether he was required to quote the Torah in his pronouncement, which occasioned a fascinating blend of Scripture and invention.
“Go, be fruitful again,” the rabbi said as we turned to leave, and I saw Yaltha look at me and lift her eyes.
I pulled my scarf low on my forehead, thinking of Susanna, of the beauty and sweetness of her. My confinement was over. I would take my place once more among the women. When Jesus returned I would be wife to him again. There would be no ink and potsherds. No papyri from Jerusalem.
Walking home from the rabbi’s oil press, Yaltha and I trailed far behind Simon. “What will you do?” she asked, and I knew she referred to the rabbi’s parting words about being fruitful again.
“I don’t know.”
She studied me. “But you do know.”
I doubted this was true. All those years I’d used herbs to prevent becoming pregnant, believing I belonged not to motherhood