What would he tell her to do if he were here? Dinah closed her eyes and tried to picture him coming through the door. Abba—so tall and distinguished-looking with the waves of gray in his rumpled hair and beard. He would smile at her and she would see the tender love in his dark eyes. Then he would take her hands in his and kiss the top of her head.
My little Dinah,
he would say.
Hush, now. Don’t be afraid
. He would hold her in his arms and calm her fears with words from the Torah, the way he used to do when she was a little girl, frightened by a thunderstorm or the wind or the darkness.
“God will never leave you nor forsake you, Dinah. He is our refuge and
strength. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth gives way and the mountains
fall into the heart of the sea.”
But the earth had given way. Manasseh, the king of Judah, had taken her captive. Dinah was only eighteen, but she would have to stay with him, living in this room for the rest of her life. There was nothing anyone could do.
If she thought about it for too long, despair would swallow her alive. She had to think about her mother. Mama had once been captured, too. Hers had also been a life sentence. But Mama had escaped. Yahweh had helped her. Maybe if Dinah prayed, maybe if her family was also praying, Yahweh would help her escape like Mama had.
Dinah fell to her knees in front of the window seat and cried out to God for help. She was still on her knees when she heard the door being unfastened. Manasseh was here. She dried her eyes and stood up. Praying had calmed her fears, giving her peace and determination. She knew what she must do. She would play Manasseh’s game, making him think he had worn her down and won her love. Maybe then he would allow her more freedom. He would remove the locks and allow her to leave the palace. Eventually Yahweh would provide an opening, and she could escape. Tonight she would take the first difficult step toward freedom.
The door opened and Manasseh stepped inside, closing it behind him. Instead of shrinking away from him as she had always done, Dinah walked toward him and bowed in submission. “Good evening, Your Majesty.” She tried not to gag on the lump of revulsion in her throat.
When he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, she didn’t resist. She allowed her body to relax and circled her arms around him as she returned his kiss. After a moment he released her and held her by the shoulders.
“Do I sense a change in your attitude toward me, Dinah?” He wasn’t speaking loudly, but his voice sounded like thunder in the room after a week of silence.
“Yes, my lord,” she whispered.
“This is much better, Dinah. Come, let’s sit over here and talk for a while.” He led her to the couch and sat beside her, holding her hands. His touch made her skin crawl.
Dinah hadn’t expected such immediate results from her prayer, but it gave her hope. Yahweh had heard. He would help her.
“Why the sudden change of heart?” he asked.
“I . . . I’m so lonely, my lord. I miss my family.”
His face turned cold, his eyes dangerous. “I’m your family now. We’re a family—you and I. The Torah says that a man and woman must leave their father and mother and cleave to one another. Do you remember hearing that?”
“Yes, my lord. I’m sorry. I’ve treated you badly.”
“Are you really sorry, Dinah? Prove it. Show me how you feel about me and our new life together.” He leaned back against the couch cushions, waiting, a smirk of superiority spread across his face. Once again, Dinah hated him. She saw his wish to control her, to humiliate her. How badly did she want her freedom?
Beyond her shuttered window, the moon and stars beckoned Dinah to break free, to live again. She whispered a silent prayer, then took Manasseh’s arrogant face in her hands and kissed him.
M
IRIAM KNELT BESIDE THE RIVER
, rubbing soap into the wet cloth, then rubbing it gently against a stone to scrub out the stains. Lady Jerusha knelt beside her, struggling to wring out the swaddling cloths that Miriam had already washed. It was not a task for a rich lady.
“Let me do that for you, Lady Jerusha. You don’t need to—”
“That’s kind of you, Miriam, but I can do it. I used to be much better at washing clothes, but I’m a little out of practice. It’s time I relearned.”
It was so hard to believe that Lady Jerusha wasn’t a rich lady anymore. In the two weeks since they had arrived in Moab, Jerusha had shown no anger or bitterness over the way her life had suddenly changed. Instead she had joined Miriam in all the work, doing tasks her servants had once done. And Lady Jerusha had been so kind to Miriam, so gentle with her, comforting her after Abba died. She understood Miriam’s sorrow. Jerusha had lost her husband, her daughter, and her father-in-law.
Once, Miriam heard Jerusha crying softly in the night and had tried to comfort her in return. “I was thinking of Eliakim,” Jerusha said. “I remember how cold his feet always were in the winter when he came home from the palace. I used to let him warm them against mine. It’s funny how you remember such simple things about the people you loved.”
Miriam understood. She remembered the way Abba’s silver hair and beard felt beneath her fingers. He used to tease her when she was a little girl, telling her it was made from real silver. She didn’t want to believe that Abba was dead. He had always wandered in and out of Miriam’s life unexpectedly, and she had learned not to depend on him too much, never knowing when he would come or go. Now she tried to pretend that he had just gone away again, that he might come back for her at any moment. But she couldn’t quite do it. The stain she’d scrubbed from Master Joshua’s clothes had been Abba’s blood.
With the laundry finished, Miriam waded into the river in her tunic to bathe and wash her hair. Lady Sara was trying to wash Rachel, who squirmed and fussed in the cold water. Miriam had been watching these rich ladies closely, imitating them. She was learning to keep herself bathed and clean, to scrub her hair until it shone, and to comb all the tangles out so it looked pretty. Maybe then Master Joshua would notice her.
Miriam was sorry for the way she had treated him when he’d told her Abba was dead. But she still didn’t understand what he’d meant when he’d offered to go back to Jerusalem with her. Should she have done it? Would Joshua really have lived with her and taken care of her? He no longer acted as if he remembered his promise to Abba. He paid no attention to Miriam at all. But Master Joshua had wept when Abba died. That must mean something. She hadn’t seen him weep for his own father.
Miriam was glad she had decided to stay with Joshua’s family. She wished Lady Jerusha was her mother. She never treated Miriam like a servant but talked to her the same way she talked to Lady Tirza and Lady Sara. Miriam’s real mother probably hadn’t even discovered she was gone.
Miriam squeezed the water out of her hair as she waded out of the river, then wrapped herself in her new robe. Abba had bought it for her with Master Joshua’s money so she could act as a decoy for Lady Sara. It wasn’t a rich lady’s robe, by any means, but it wasn’t one of the ragged hand-me-downs she’d always worn, either. She had never owned a robe as fine as this one and certainly never one that was brand-new.
“Let me help you, Lady Sara,” Miriam said. Little Rachel had finally grown accustomed to the cold water, and now she wanted to play in it instead of getting dressed. Miriam had already proven adept at handling the spoiled baby.
“Yes, we should start for home before it gets dark,” Jerusha said. Miriam gathered the wet laundry and piled it into a basket. Then she and Jerusha carried it between them as they walked back to the small mud-brick house they’d rented.
Together they hung the laundry up to dry, draping it on the ropes the men had strung outside the house. The lines were always in use, usually draped with long lengths of swaddling cloth that Tirza used to diaper her baby son. He was a colicky child, and Tirza was always exhausted from rocking and nursing him. She was grateful when Miriam offered to wash his clothes.
Through the open window Miriam heard the mumbling, singsong chant of the men as they recited evening prayers. They swayed and bobbed in rhythm as they prayed. Since she had never been to the Temple in Jerusalem, she had never heard such prayers before. Tonight the men were praying to find work. Ever since arriving in Moab they’d spent every day trying to find jobs. So far they’d had no luck. Master Joel had studied to be a priest back home. Miriam wondered why he didn’t look for work at one of the many temples here in Heshbon. And Master Joshua had worked for the king of Judah; was there no king in Moab?
By the time Miriam finished hanging laundry, the evening star twinkled above the neighbor’s roof. She went inside and began unrolling her bedding. Everyone went to bed as soon as it grew dark, since they couldn’t afford oil for the lamps. She stole glimpses of Master Joshua as she worked. The men always closed their eyes when they prayed.
She unrolled Lady Jerusha’s mat beside her own, then helped Mattan and Nathan arrange theirs on the opposite side of the room beside Joshua’s mat. Jerusha hung a blanket to divide the two sides of the tiny room. This house was much too small for eleven people, but it was all they could afford.
The married couples slept in two cramped storage rooms with curtains hung over their doors for privacy. Miriam envied Sara and Tirza. She saw the tender way their husbands treated them, especially Master Jerimoth. He couldn’t help touching Sara’s hand or her shoulder whenever he was near her or slipping his arm around her waist, as if he needed to draw an essential nutrient from her in order to live. Was it because of the babies? If Miriam gave Joshua a baby, would he treat her that way, too?
The men finished their prayers and said good night, but Miriam tossed on her pallet for a long time, unable to sleep. She heard the soft voices of the married couples as they talked together in the darkness, and she felt an unbearable loneliness. She wanted to belong to someone— to be held and cherished in the cold, dark night. Is this how her mother had felt? Had the nights been lonely for her, too?
“Miriam, figure out what you want in life and grab it,”
her mother had once told her.
“Don’t wait for good things to come to you because they never
will. You have to grab what little happiness you can from this miserable life.”
That’s really all Miriam wanted: just a little taste of happiness.
Lady Jerusha was already asleep beside her. Miriam rose quietly from her pallet and crept across the room past the dividing curtain.
Master Joshua slept on his back with his arms bent above his head. She stood for a moment, gazing down at him, but his face looked no less troubled in sleep than it did when he was awake.
Don’t wait,
her mother’s voice seemed to say. Miriam knelt and lifted the blanket to lay beside him.
“Miriam . . .”
She whirled around at the sound of her name. Lady Jerusha stood beside the curtain.
“Come back to bed, Miriam,” she said gently.
“I . . . I was just making sure he had a blanket.” Miriam realized immediately that Jerusha would never believe her, and she was sorry she had compounded her guilt by lying. What would happen to her now? Would Lady Jerusha throw her out of the house? Miriam was so ashamed for getting caught that she wanted to run out of the door and never come back. But the night was cold, the city dark and unfamiliar. Besides, she had no place to go. Shaking with fear, she crept to her mat and lay down again, turning her back to Jerusha.
After a moment, she felt Jerusha’s light touch on her shoulder. “Miriam?”
“I know what you must think of me, Lady Jerusha—that I’m no better than my mother.”
“I don’t think that at all. I think you’re a lonely young woman who just wants someone to hold her and love her.”
Miriam began to cry. How had she known?
Jerusha gently rubbed her back. “It’s not your fault, Miriam. I’m sure no one ever taught you that what you wanted to do was wrong.
But Yahweh’s Law says we must not sleep with someone unless we’re married to him. Your body is a gift that you will give your husband someday. God wants you to save it for him.”
“I thought . . . if I slept with Master Joshua—if I gave him a baby—he would want to marry me.”
“If he slept with you, he would have to marry you, that’s true. But someday he might resent the way you tricked him into it, and for the rest of his life he might feel trapped. Is that the way you want him to feel about you?”
Miriam shook her head. “Are you going to tell him what happened?”
“Of course not. Nothing happened.”
“But you’re going to send me away.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because now you know what kind of a person I really am, and you’re all so religious and so good and—”
“You’re wrong, Miriam, very wrong. I’m not a good person. But I am a forgiven person, and there’s a world of difference between the two.”
“I don’t believe you would ever do anything wrong, Lady Jerusha.” “No? The truth is that for a time I chose to stay alive by living the same kind of life your mother lives.”
Miriam whirled around to face her. “I don’t believe you. You’re nothing like my mother.”
“That’s because God changed me. He worked two miracles, Miriam. He forgave me for the choices I made, and He gave me a second chance, with a godly husband who loved me, even though he knew how I had lived.”
“Master Joshua’s father?”
Jerusha nodded, biting her lip. “Miriam, I know how lonely and unloved you must feel right now, especially with your father gone.
But Yahweh will be a father to you if you’ll let Him. And just like a real father, He will provide for you, give you guidance and advice, and He’ll love you more than you’ve ever been loved in your life. His word promises that if you delight yourself in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart.”
Miriam stared. “You mean Master Joshua will marry me?”
Jerusha gently brushed a lock of hair off Miriam’s face. “When I was not much older than you are, I thought the desire of my heart was a man named Abram—a simple country farmer like my abba. But God knew so much more than I could ever know. And God gave me Eliakim.” In the dim light, Miriam saw tears glisten in Jerusha’s eyes.