CHAPTER 1
Eight years earlier
A single drop of water trembled on the cup's jagged edge before slipping over the brink and splashing onto the dirt floor. Jochebed watched the droplet gather itself into a bead before surrendering, absorbed into the dust, irrevocably changed.
Like her.
Yesterday she had been counted a child. Today defined her as a woman. Yesterday life was predictable. Today was veiled in mystery. Yesterday she understood. Today she did not fathom.
She had known it would happen, the change branding her as a woman and forever locking away her childhood. But on seeing the trace of red, all she had been taught about her future disappeared in a flash of panic.
"Betrothed? Me? Do I know him, Mama?"
"Amram. He is your father's kinsman."
Jochebed leaned against the wall. Oh, to push herself back into yesterday. As her legs turned to water, she slid to the floor and pulled both knobby knees against the tender swells of her breasts. Wrapped in the comforting circle of her arms, the dull ache in her belly eased and the room slowed its spinning.
"But I don't know him."
"His name is Amram, Amram ben Kohath. He is of the tribe of Levi, like us. Remember when we talked of this before, that someone would be chosen for you?"
"But I don't know him."
"I do, Jochebed."
"But I don't." Jochebed reached for another handful of coriander seeds to ease the cramps clenching her belly. "Is he old? Is he ugly? Does he waddle like Old Sarah?"
"He is older than you, but our kinsmen Gershon and Merari have proposed you two will marry." Elisheba's forehead knotted. "I know this is hard, but he is a good man and" — her voice wavered — "your father would be pleased."
At that, Jochebed knew surrender was inevitable, and her shoulders drooped. Everything hinged on what her vaguely remembered papa might have thought in spite of what he had done to their family.
"How old is older? Does he even know who I am? Did he choose me?"
Elisheba picked up her weaving.
"Mama?"
"Your uncles Gershon and Merari chose you, Jochebed, and Amram agreed."
"Who did he choose? Pretty little Lili?"
Elisheba averted her eyes.
* * *
Jochebed crouched in the warm shadows of the house. The heat baked into its mud walls soaked into her lower back while she waited for Mama to return from the elders' meeting. Mama had gone to proclaim her daughter was a woman and marriageable. Jochebed cringed. Did the entire village need to know her most private misery?
If these wrenching spasms were going to come every month for the rest of her life, she'd drown herself in the Nile. She wanted no part of being a woman. She wanted no part of a marriage either.
Mama insisted the kinsmen had honored her with a husband like Amram. What an honor, chaining her to an old man! Why couldn't they have honored Lili? That would make everyone happy.
A heavy lump swelled from her throat, threatening to spill out tears, but Jochebed pressed both hands against her eyelids, refusing to let them fall. Angry at her helplessness, she swallowed and swallowed until dry pain was all that remained.
A soft footstep warned her that Mama was home and had seen her hiding in the darkness.
Kneeling beside her, Mama brushed aside the dark curtain of hair hiding Jochebed's face.
"We will rub thyme oil on your belly to ease the pain. The first two days are often the worst, dear one."
Jochebed whimpered. Another whole day of pain?
"Bedde, since your father is dead and I refused to remarry, you knew our kinsmen would choose your husband. I understand this marriage troubles you deeply. Is it about him wanting Lili or that you don't know Amram?"
It was more, so much more than that. Jochebed turned her head away, closing her eyes against the hot shame she dared not voice and the awful loneliness of being different.
Even if Amram was not a stranger, she did not know how to be a wife. Growing up with just Mother, she knew how to be a daughter, even knew how to be a mother, but a wife? She could cook and mend, but what did you do if your husband was sad? Did you pat his back while he cried? Did men cry?
If Papa were alive, she'd know.
She'd know what it was like to look up and see someone standing there, sure and strong, ready to rescue her or smile his approval. She'd know what men laughed about and what they thought was pretty and if they liked to look at the stars and make wishes. She'd know what it felt like to fall asleep on a man's wide shoulder and be carried home.
But no. All she'd known was being shaken awake to stumble along in the dark with a woman's thin hand to hold her steady.
It seemed everyone else had a papa or a grandpa or at least an older brother to kill scorpions and chase away house snakes. Other girls had someone to hug them when they were scared.
Other families' broken tools and doors were soon repaired by their men, but she and Mama propped the door closed at night with a water jar and hoped bats would not swoop down through the holes in the roof.
She'd seen papas pick up their little girls or catch their hands and twirl them around, holding them up high away from the swirling dust of feet. As they grew older, she heard them tell their daughters they were pretty and someone would be a lucky man someday.
What a lovely dream, to have a man think he was lucky to have her. If only.
Too many times Jochebed had shivered in the chill of Different, longing for someone to notice she stood alone, yearning to be in the circle of Same. Becoming an unwanted wife would seal her fate, casting her as a burden — an insignificant, undesirable person.
She had her mother, but what did Mama know about men? Papa had chosen to die instead of stay with them. Maybe Mama did something wrong. Maybe her mama hadn't tried hard enough to be a good wife — whatever that meant — and if Mama hadn't been worth staying alive for, then how could she possibly be worthy?
Jochebed knew she wasn't as good as Mama no matter how hard she worked at being just like her. She opened her eyes and looked down at her hands, surprised they were not bloody from crawling the unscalable wall of Perfect.
How could she tell Mama of Deborah whispering no man would ever willingly choose her because of what Papa did? How could she explain she'd built a safe place inside herself — a deep hole — so no one could see she was scared and sad, so no one would know she was ... less.
"Bedde?"
Jochebed shook her head. Anything she said would shame her mother, who already suffered too much. She could not add even a scrap of sadness to Mama's shadowed eyes. She would bear this alone.
She would be strong like Mama.
* * *
Ten days.
She had endured being a woman for ten days. Some of the older women winked at her and congratulated her, but Deborah accused her of trying to gain attention by pretending to hurt. It was a nuisance, she scolded, nothing more.
If there was punishment after life, Jochebed hoped that for all eternity, Deborah would have cramps.
"Jochebed."
She looked up to see a man holding a large fish wrapped in palm leaves.
"I am Amram ben Kohath, of the tribe of Levi. Like you, I claim Abraham as my ..."
His lips continued to move, but she could not hear him over...
