When I get back home, Mother is awake and furious. "What have you done with my kitchen?" she asks. She is not yelling, but her voice is barely under control. I do not know this madwoman she has become, and a pang of guilt shoots through me: did I leave her to disintegrate like this?
"Mother," I say, coming towards her. "I just arranged it a little." It is the truth, and I had done far less than necessary. Perhaps that is the issue.
"No, you ruined it!" Mother shouts back. "Just like you ruin everything!"
She fixes me with a long stare. "Where is your husband?"
Icy fingers climb up my back. She knows.
I take a breath, a tear comes to my eye, unbidden yet useful. "Mother," I begin slowly. "Remember what I told you last night?"
But she just looks at me, her eyes burning. "You did something to drive him away, didn't you?"
I take a step back. "What?" I ask, color risin to my face. Indeed, that very question has been ringing in my head for months.
"You did something, didn't you? I know how you are!"
With that, my heart drops and real tears spring to my eyes. What a day for tears, in the midst of the most celebratory week in the Jewish year. I wipe them away. Of course, I am mourning while my people celebrate. Of course, I am in despair.
"Mother," is all I say. "You should not drink so much."
The anger that had been simmering now explodes and she reaches for a pot and hurls it towards me. I duck, run to my room, and lock the door.
Kneeling next to my bed, I descend into tears. It was not supposed to be this way. I was supposed to escape the blows here. I was supposed to be safely home.
Suddenly, the words of the man from the temple ring in my head:
"I know him, for I come from him, and he sent me."
Is he the good shepherd gathering his scattered flock? Does this Jesus really know the Father? Did he really send him out? And if so, will he promise to gather me back, or to scatter me further afield? This I do not know, but lacking for anything else, I kneel by my bed and begin to pray to the Lord, but the image of this Jesus, looking into my eyes and seeing into me, keeps haunting me instead.
YOU ARE READING
I Am Not an Adulteress Anymore
Historical FictionHanna has been married off to a man of the rival Samaritan tribe, forsaking her people and her God. But when he strikes her and she loses her child, things change forever.
