The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg Read Free Book Online Page B

child demands nourishment.” She rose to go back inside, and Mary followed her.
             
    THE WEEKS PASSED. Oftentimes when he arrived home, Zechariah brought pomegranate juice from the marketplace for Elizabeth. It was her favorite, and he spoiled her now. He offered her back rubs every night, and also he washed her feet, since she could no longer reach past her swollen middle to do it herself. Across from her at the table, he gazed upon her with deep love, seeing not just Elizabeth but their nascent family. He had lost his voice, and so he spoke neither to Mary nor Elizabeth; but no words were needed to communicate his rich devotion.
    Mary watched all this with a heavy heart. Would that she were so tenderly cared for by her own husband! For she now felt unwell much of the time. Early every morning she went quietly out into the field behind the house and vomited. The herbs she knew about for treating nausea did not work for her now. She did not speak of her illness to her hosts, for she had been brought there to assist them. Instead, she tiptoed back into the house and returned to her pallet. Later, when Zechariah and Elizabeth ate breakfast, Mary joined them, eating as well as she could the foods Elizabeth insisted were necessary for the growing child inside her: Spinach. Figs. Almonds and eggs.
    Elizabeth napped often in the day, and Mary napped, too, sleeping for long hours and dreaming of home. One afternoon, dreaming of sitting beside her mother in the courtyard as they wove with their shuttles, Mary awakened herself weeping. When she opened her eyes, she saw Elizabeth kneeling quietly beside her. She sat up hastily, embarrassed that she had disturbed her cousin’s rest, which she now badly needed—her time was close. She tried to compose herself, but the tears would not stop.
    “It seems we are in for a summer storm,” Elizabeth said, smiling, and her eyes crinkled at the corners. “Have no fear; I mind your tears not at all. It will be a pleasure to attend to you, after you have cared for me so long and so well.”
    “I know not why I weep,” Mary said.
    With great care, Elizabeth lowered herself into a sitting position. “Is it such a surprise that a young wife would miss her husband?”
    Mary wiped at her eyes, shaking her head. “No.”
    “Of
course
‘no’!”
    “But Elizabeth, I not only miss him, I am full of regret about dishonoring him! I did not cherish him. I resented our betrothal. I told my friends he was too lean, too stern, too bound by tradition. Often I walked in sadness and terrible confusion. I was not grateful for my good fortune, I did not appreciate enough the happy times I had with him, I felt that I was being robbed of my girlhood, of my
youth
!” She began to weep again, loudly. “Oh, Elizabeth, what am I to do? I was undeserving of such love!”
    Elizabeth sat quietly for a time. Then she said, “I know well what we must do. First we must call for the slave whips of Herod, that you might more fully punish yourself.”
    “I speak the truth!” Mary said. “And there is more.” She hesitated, then told Elizabeth of what had happened at the creek, how the man had come into the water with her, how only by the miracle given by God was her folly converted to a blessing.
    Now Elizabeth’s voice grew warm and kind. “Ah, Mary. It was not this unfortunate incident that made you with child! Rather it is the miracle the angel spoke of that brought life to your womb. Few are the people who understand and truly accept miracles; let yourself, at least, be one of them!
    “As for Joseph, do you think you are the first to feel this way? Many young women suffer such pangs of doubt! One night, just after I was betrothed to Zechariah, I wept myself unto illness, to think that I would so soon be lost. For that is how I thought of it: in marriage, I would be lost to myself, all my longings and desires subject to the rule of my husband.”
    “Yes,” Mary said.
    “Yet we long to be