SIN and HONEY: Seven Years of Longing

Chapter 27: Rachel

 "What?"Rachel exclaimed, scrambling to a standing position so quickly that she knocked over Leah's wine cup. Red wine spilled all over the front of Rachel's wedding dress, but she was too shocked to notice.

 A second wife? An observed tradition in their custom, certainly, but never one she and Jacob had planned on. She was always going to be the first. The first and the only.

            "If Leah must be parted from her love and her punishment is that she and I are married, so be it. But I will take Rachel as my second wife, and soon. She has waited seven years. Let this be over."Jacob's voice sounded deadly. Rachel feared it would come to blows.

 "I'll not have you marry Rachel so you can forsake your duties as a husband to my eldest daughter,"Laban shouted, crossing the space between them.

 "Father, don't—"Leah said but recoiled as soon as he grabbed Jacob by his robe. In the last hour she had seemed to retreat inside herself, her demeanor timid and fearful.

 "You will bed Leah as you are now bound to do. You will get a child on her. We are done having this conversation."

 He shook Jacob off and stalked away. Jacob moved to run after him, emboldened by the wine, but Rachel had seen enough.

 "Stop it,"she said, only loud enough for him and Leah to hear. "You're embarrassing yourself, and your new bride."

 He looked at her, pain pooling in his eyes. Suddenly Rachel was unable to be near him any longer. The pretense of celebration was only made worse by the stain of red wine on her wedding robe. Muttering something about fetching more wine, she brushed past Jacob and ran into the tent where they stored the jugs. She couldn't go back to her own tent and face sorting through her belongings, separating them from Leah's— if Mirah and the other buzzards hadn't gotten to it already. For all she knew, all traces of Leah's presence had been removed already. As if she were a phantom of Rachel's mind, and not her flesh and blood sister.

 "Rachel, what are you doing?"Jacob's voice startled her from behind.

 "Go back to your feast,"she said, no longer trying to hide her tears from him. She reached down and grabbed one of the wine jugs, tearing out the stopper with an angry hand and taking a gulp. "Leave me alone."

 Jacob took the vessel from her and set it back down."Don't you know by now that I would never abandon you, no matter what the law or your father says?"

 "I don't want to be a second wife,"Rachel said, turning away from him. "How could you even ask that? Haven't I been humiliated enough?"

Jacob sighed. "I know. But it was all I could think to do."

            He reached out and took her hand. Rachel did not want to let go. Long ago, Leah told her it snowed once every one hundred years in Babylon, so when it did, no one touched it. They stopped and stared; they watched it melt. Delicately, with patience. It was so rare. She thought her love for Jacob was like the snow in Babylon. She thought she could be patient, and delicate, but now she was simply watching them melt away. 

            She felt his chest meet her back as his arms wrapped around her body. Their breathing was off, his heartbeat racing to catch up to hers. His hand traveled down her cheek and across her collarbone, sweeping her locks aside. Jacob tentatively brushed the nape of her neck with his lips. Rachel closed her eyes. She knew he'd had too much to drink. Her chest rose and fell at a quickening pace, fear rattling inside her ribcage, but she could not pull away. She slowly turned around in his arms, not wanting to lose contact with him, even for a second. He leaned in, pressing his lips to hers.