recognized the aroma of the fruit was like that of the wine Jesus had made for the wedding in Cana. Heavenly wine. I said to my angel, “So this is the soil that fed the Lord’s wine.”
“You have a good nose, David,” the angel said.
I paused. “But … where is everyone? You told me they were waiting for me.”
My angel raised his chin. “Look!” He lifted his hand and pointed down the long row.
I saw a group of people coming toward us through the vineyard.
They wore white robes trimmed in gold with gold sashes embroidered with words I could not read. They were laughing and singing.
My mother and father walked at the front of the procession. My grandparents. Porthos. Judah ben Perez. His sister and mother and others I had known. The others stopped and sang as Mother and Father continued steadily toward me with their arms outstretched.
“My son,” Mother called to me. “Oh, my boy!”
My mother. Young. Beautiful. Skin perfect and smooth, without a wrinkle. Teeth white and straight. Long auburn hair tumbled over her shoulders.
My father cried, “David! My son! Welcome! Welcome home!”
My father. A young man again. Strong. Handsome. Bronzed face aglow with delight. His shoulders were broad. Arms muscled. Black curls fell across his forehead. His dark eyes shone with happiness at the sight of me.
“Papa!” I called. “Mama!”
I ran toward them and they toward me. The ground beneath my feet was firm and solid. I glimpsed my hands as I reached out. Yes. My own familiar hands. But there were no scars. I fell into their arms and embraced them.
Burying my face in my mother’s neck, I remembered the sound of her heartbeat against my back when she carried me in her womb. “It’s been a long journey,” she said, stroking my hair. “But you’re home now.”
“You’ve run the race well,” Papa said.
I raised my face and asked, “Eliza and the baby? When will I see them?”
Papa answered, “My son, when is not a word we know here.
There is no time—no when, no before or after—there is only a perfect order to all things. So you say, ‘This is first, and this is next, and this is after …’ You will see Eliza in the perfect order of all things.”
“I am content,” I said, sensing no urgency in anything.
Mama took my arm, and we three walked back to the place where I had first stood with my angel.
I saw now that the entry point was a tall arched gate reaching up to a misty height. The gate was adorned with a mosaic of palm-sized, multicolored stones. Sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds shimmered, refracting light as rainbows. Each color and its variant shades emanated a distinctive musical note. Music and color melded together in perfect harmony.
I hummed the color blue.
My angel was seated on a knoll where red flowers sang. A man sat beside him, watching our reunion with pleasure. “David ben Lazarus!” He called to me, “Come up!”
Chapter 29
My mother and father remained at the foot of the hill. I approached the angel and the handsome young man I guessed to be in his midtwenties. The young man seemed familiar to me. I remembered on earth seeing my reflection as I drew water from a well. It was like that. My features, the set of my eyes, the curve of the mouth and shape of the face, only not myself.
The young man and my angel stood when I drew near. The young man put out his arms and enfolded me in an embrace. “My father,” he said to me. “I am your son. Your heart named me Samuel the morning of my birth. And when I returned here, you wept for the baby named Samuel.”
I said, “But my only son was a newborn when he died.”
The chimes rang. The angel spoke: “There is only one age here. It is the age of perfection.”
Samuel smiled. “I am the baby who lies buried in the garden beside my mother, your wife.”
I gazed at him in wonder. We sat together on the knoll and held one another’s hands and spoke of his brief journey into the world of man. “I was not sorry to return home … here. But I told my mother I would be glad when you joined us.”
I studied the vineyards. “Where is she? Where? Your mother? My wife. Eliza.”
“I am second in the order of those who have come to welcome you. It is proscribed: First, your mother and father—you are flesh of their