Return to Me

by Lynn Austin

  “We won’t forget them. But the Almighty One told us to come here, and we chose to obey Him. Blessings come from obedience. Sarah and Abraham left their families, and didn’t God bless them?”

  “Sarah didn’t leave children and grandchildren behind.” Dinah pulled her hands free and finished spreading the blanket. Her tears still fell as she lay down to sleep.

  The next morning Shoshanna greeted Dinah with a smile, as cheerful as always. “Let’s prepare Shabbat together today,” she said. “We’ll make all the food and then eat it together. Want to?” Dinah didn’t know what to say. Shoshanna walked through the opening where the courtyard gate would be and bent to admire the hearth that Iddo had made. “We should cook everything on your hearth,” she said. “Yours looks much nicer than mine.”

  “Yes. Iddo finished it for me last evening. It . . . it will be nice to work together. Thank you, Shoshanna. It will be very nice.”

  “It was Iddo’s idea. He came over this morning and suggested that I ask you.”

  Of course. Dinah turned away so Shoshanna wouldn’t see her tears. Iddo was trying so hard to make her happy, offering her everything except what she wanted most—to go home.

  Shoshanna slipped her arm around Dinah’s shoulder. “What’s wrong, Dinah? You seem so sad.”

  “This place will never be home. I miss my family, and I miss delivering babies, don’t you?”

  “The babies will come, you’ll see.” She smiled and rested her head on Dinah’s shoulder. “And so will our families. In the meantime, we get to prepare a new home for them.”

  “I hope you’re right.” She heard a rustling sound behind her and turned to see Yael emerging from her tent. “There you are,” Dinah said. “Shoshanna and Joel are going to have Shabbat with us. We’re going to cook the meal together.”

  “Then you don’t need my help.” Quick as a cat, Yael jumped up on a half-finished wall to scamper away. But Dinah was just as quick and grabbed Yael’s slender arm to stop her.

  “Oh no, you don’t! It’s going to take all three of us if we want to be finished by sundown.”

  She gave Yael several jobs to do—sorting lentils, grinding grain into flour, peeling cloves of garlic. Each time Yael finished a task she would ask, “Now are we done? Can I go now?” Her shoulders would sag like a weary old man’s every time Dinah replied, “No, Yael, there’s still more work to do.”

  Late that afternoon, the three of them walked down to the spring to draw extra water for tomorrow’s day of rest. It was a much longer walk than the one Dinah used to make to the well in Babylon, and the trip home would be uphill, carrying the heavy jars. Yael tried to balance a jug on her head like Dinah and Shoshanna but it kept slipping off. “Careful!” Dinah chided. “You’ll have more potsherds to add to your collection, and I’ll have one less water jug.”

  “I hate doing women’s work like cooking and carrying water,” Yael said with a sigh.

  “I promised your mother I would turn you into a proper young woman and find you a good husband—”

  “I don’t want a husband!”

  Shoshanna laughed. “You make it sound like Dinah was offering to find you a scorpion.”

  “The two are just as bad.” Yael’s jar slipped off her head again, and she caught it moments before it hit the ground. Dinah looked away.

  “You may not be thinking of a husband now,” Shoshanna said, “but someday a young man will catch your eye and your heart will be drawn to him, and he’ll be the only thing you can think about.”

  Dinah remembered feeling that way about Iddo. She had been overjoyed when their betrothal was announced, and had floated on a cloud of happiness for days. She hadn’t been able to stop smiling, and her sisters said she even smiled in her sleep. That happiness had never faded after all these years—until now. Now her joy seemed to die a little more each day, replaced by resentment as bitter as vinegar. Dinah was aware of what was happening, but she didn’t know how to stop it.

  “One day the young men will be fighting for your hand, Yael,” Shoshanna continued. “Just like they fought for Dinah’s. She was such a beautiful woman—and she still is. My husband Joel certainly thinks so. He wanted to marry her—did you know that? But Dinah was in love with Iddo. Only Iddo. I’ve always envied you, Dinah. I know I’m short and plump and that my hair is a frizzy mess—”

  “But Joel loves you,” Dinah said. “I can tell he does.”

  “Why do I have to get married at all?” Yael asked. She gave up trying to balance her jug and carried it in her arms.

  “Because that’s what we were created for,” Shoshanna said. “When the Almighty One made the world, He saw that everything was good except for one thing. He said it was not good for the man to be alone. So he gave Adam a wife to be his helper.”

  “Adam just wanted someone to do all his work,” Yael mumbled.

  When they reached the bottom of the long, steep slope that led from the city, Dinah saw a crowd of women gathered around the spring. “Look at all the people!” Shoshanna said. “I hope it won’t take too long to fill our jugs. Shabbat is coming.”

  “I’ll run ahead and save us a place,” Yael said.

  “No, Yael! Wait—” She didn’t listen. She took off ahead of them, running down the road like a deer.

  “I apologize for Yael,” Dinah told Shoshanna. “Her family let her run wild when Miriam was dying, and the girl picked up some terrible habits. I’m trying to tame her, but I hardly know where to begin.”

  “We all have a little too much Babylon in us. But you’re doing a good job, Dinah. She’ll soon settle down. Just keep loving her.” But Dinah wasn’t sure if she wanted to risk being a mother to Yael if it meant losing her someday the way she’d lost her other daughters.

  They reached the spring and saw that a group of local women had formed a circle around the reservoir, standing with their water jars, blocking the way. Dinah and Shoshanna joined the growing crowd of Jewish women huddled off to the side looking bewildered and frightened. “What’s going on?” Dinah asked one of them.

  “We’ve been waiting for our turn, but they won’t let us through. We can’t get past them to draw water.”

  Shoshanna stepped toward the women who were blocking the way, smiling as she said, “Excuse me, please. Our families need fresh water.”

  “This spring is ours, not yours,” one of the local women shouted back.

  “I’m sure there’s enough for everyone if—” But the women drowned out her words with loud cries, waving their arms as if trying to chase away a flock of birds.

  Dinah’s pulse began to race. “Let’s go home,” she told Shoshanna. “We need to get out of here.” She scanned the crowd of women, searching for Yael.

  “Dinah’s right, we may as well leave,” one of the other Jewish women said. “They’re going to block the spring until the sun goes down, and it’ll be too late to draw water, let alone carry it all the way up the hill.”

  “Where’s Yael?” Dinah asked, her panic swelling. “Do you see her?”

  “Maybe we should walk back to the caravan camp and draw water from the Kidron Brook,” Shoshanna said.

  “There isn’t enough time,” Dinah said. “It’s too far, and we need to be home before the sun sets. . . . Yael! Yael, where are you?” she called. The local women were still shouting their fearsome cries. Dinah wanted to run.

  “I’m right here,” Yael said, weaving through the crowd.

  Dinah sagged with relief. “Come on. We’re leaving.” She turned to hurry back the way she’d come, with Yael and Shoshanna and the other Jewish women following her. “It was a mistake to move back here,” she said as she walked. “This land and the spring belong to the local villagers. They’ve been living here all their lives, and we just arrived.”

  “Everything will work out,” Shoshanna soothed. “We’re all a little frightened right now. But they’ll share the water with us, you’ll see.”

  “I hope we’ll have enough to last until Shabbat en
ds.”

  “Why can’t we just come back tomorrow?” Yael asked.

  “Because it’s the Sabbath,” Shoshanna replied, “and the Almighty One is giving us a day of rest.”

  “He sure has a lot of rules to remember,” Yael said. “Doesn’t He know it’s impossible to obey them all? Besides, I don’t see why we need to rest for a whole day. I’m not tired.”

  “We don’t rest because we’re tired,” Shoshanna said. “It’s a privilege to be able to stop working whether we’re finished or not—and you know our work is never finished. The Holy One gives us an entire day of freedom. Believe me, you’ll be thankful for it tomorrow when we can rest and not worry about cooking food because it’s already prepared.”

  By the time the men returned home from their prayers, Dinah and Shoshanna had the rug spread out with the food arranged in the middle of it and the Sabbath lights kindled. The courtyard was open to the sky, and as everyone sat down to eat, the first stars began to appear above them. Iddo recited the blessings over the wine and the bread, the way he had every Friday evening in Babylon. Dinah closed her eyes, remembering her family, picturing them gathered for the meal with their little ones. Were they still keeping Shabbat without them?

  She told Iddo what had happened at the spring as they lay in bed together later that night. “From now on we’ll send guards with you to protect you. Our women can all go to the spring together later in the morning, after the local women are finished.”

  “By then the day will be too hot. That’s why we go early in the morning or before dusk.”

  “Everything will be fine, Dinah. Don’t worry. God will protect us.”

  That wasn’t what Dinah wanted to hear. She shifted on the sleeping mat, unable to get comfortable beside Iddo.

  The Day of Atonement was coming in a few months, the day when Dinah was supposed to confess all her sins and ask the Holy One for forgiveness. She was supposed to reconcile with those she was angry with and ask their forgiveness. But as she looked up at the goatskin ceiling hovering a few feet above her head, it seemed to her that Iddo was the one who needed to ask for forgiveness. He was the one who had dragged her here so far from home.

  Chapter

  16

  Yael thought of her friend Leyla every time she saw the pale daytime moon. “When are we going back to Leyla’s village?” she asked her father again and again.

  “When our new house is finished,” he told her. “I’m much too busy to return now.” But at breakfast one morning, Iddo had declared their house fit to live in.

  “I’m going back to work on the temple mount,” he told everyone.

  “Now can we go down to Leyla’s village, Abba?” she begged. “Please?”

  “Not today. I promised to help Iddo.”

  Yael fingered the round lump of her moonstone, hidden beneath her dress, and closed her eyes, asking the goddess to please make a way for her to see her friend Leyla. In the meantime, she would have to help Dinah with all the tasks that she hated like cooking and carrying water.

  Their group of women left late in the morning to walk down the hill to the spring, knowing that the local women would be gone by then. Two Jewish men accompanied them to act as guards. When they arrived, one local woman sat on the stone lip of the reservoir, and Yael recognized her dark, wrinkled face right away—Leyla’s grandmother! She broke into a run.

  “Yael, stop! Come back!” she heard Dinah yelling behind her, but she kept on running.

  “You’re Leyla’s grandmother, aren’t you?” Yael said breathlessly. “I’m her friend, Yael.”

  The old woman rose to her feet. “Yes, I know who you are. I’ve been waiting to speak to you.”

  “To me? Why?”

  “Leyla is sick, and she’s asking to see you. Will you come to the village with me?”

  “I would love to!” The moon goddess had heard her prayer. Yael set her water jug on the ground, ready to leave it behind and go. But a moment later, Dinah gripped her arm.

  “What are you doing, running off?” She gave Yael’s arm a little shake. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”

  “My friend Leyla is sick, and she’s asking for me. Can I please go with her grandmother to visit her? Please?”

  Dinah backed up a step, pulling Yael with her. The pressure of her fingers made Yael’s arm hurt. “We have to ask your father. I’m sorry,” she said, addressing Leyla’s grandmother. “It’s up to him to give permission.”

  “Tell him that Zabad has personally made this request for his daughter’s sake.”

  “I will. If Mattaniah agrees to let her come, he’ll bring her to your village.” Dinah continued to step backward as she spoke, tugging Yael with her.

  “Ow! You’re hurting me. And what about my water jug?”

  “I’m not letting go of you again, Yael. Every time I do you run off instead of obeying me.” She moved forward so Yael could retrieve her jug but Leyla’s grandmother was already walking away, heading down the road to her village alone.

  Since Dinah refused to release Yael’s arm, Shoshanna had to fill all three jugs and hand them out. Dinah still wouldn’t let go as they retraced their steps up the hill. When they reached the top, she sent one of the guards to fetch Yael’s father from the temple mount.

  “What’s going on?” he asked breathlessly when he arrived twenty minutes later. Iddo had come with him. “Is everything all right?”

  Dinah finally released Yael, and she ran to her father, flinging her arms around his waist. Her words came out in a rush of tears. “Leyla is sick, and she’s asking for me. Her grandmother was waiting for me at the spring to take me there but Safta wouldn’t let me go. Can I please visit Leyla? Please, Abba?”

  “Who’s Leyla?” Iddo asked. “The guard said the old woman was one of the local Samaritans.”

  “She is,” Abba replied. “Leyla’s father is the man I spoke with about that piece of land I want to buy. He’s the village leader. I think I’d better take Yael there.”

  “Will she be safe?” Dinah asked. “I thought the local people hated us.”

  “Some of them do. But I think we can trust Zabad.”

  “Thank you, Abba! Thank you!” Yael hugged her father tightly, then ducked into their makeshift house to fetch her bag. Maybe she could use her star charts and the little moon goddess to help Leyla get well. “I’m ready,” she told her father a moment later.

  On the long walk down to the village, Yael wavered between excitement at seeing her friend and fear for her health. Leyla’s brother Rafi met them at the gate to the compound, and she started to ask him a thousand questions, but Abba put his fingers over her lips to stop her. The last time she’d visited, she’d noticed that men spoke only with men and women with women.

  “Thank you for bringing your daughter,” Rafi said to Abba. “I will take her inside, and you are free to go. I know my sister will be very happy to see her.”

  Abba laid his hand on Yael’s head. He seemed reluctant to leave. “I’ll come back for you in a little while, Yael. Try . . . try to remember all the things that Safta Dinah taught you.”

  Rafi led Yael through his courtyard and into the large central room inside the house with doorways leading off from it. Rafi opened one of those doorways and gestured to where Leyla lay sleeping on a pile of cushions. Her skin looked even paler than the last time, and a fine sheen of sweat glistened on her forehead. A flood of memories washed over Yael of how her own mother had lain ill this way for such a long time. She felt a stab of fear—and then anger at the thought of losing Leyla, too. She knelt by Leyla’s side and took her hand. It felt very warm. Leyla’s eyes fluttered open, and she smiled.

  “Yael . . . you came back. . . .”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better now that you’re here.”

  They talked as if no time had passed at all, as if they had known each other all their lives. But after a while, a loud argument outside the bedroom door interrupted them. Yael opened the door and saw
Leyla’s grandmother holding a pottery cup in her hands while Leyla’s father tried to wrest it away from her.

  “Leyla needs this,” her grandmother insisted. “It’s a special potion made with goat’s milk.”

  “And blood! You mixed it with blood!”

  “It will give her strength.”

  “My religion forbids us to drink blood!”

  “And mine prescribes it! Do you want your daughter to get well or don’t you?”

  Yael went back to Leyla’s bedside. “I hate it when they fight because of me,” Leyla whispered. “Grandmother knows lots of potions from her ancestors, but Abba doesn’t like me to use them.”

  “When my mama was sick, my father was willing to try anything, even if our neighbors said it was forbidden.” Yael didn’t want to tell Leyla that nothing had worked. Or that she still blamed her Jewish neighbors and their unbelief.

  The old woman eventually won the argument and brought Leyla the cup. Yael helped her sit up so she could drink it. “Don’t sip it, Leyla,” her grandmother said. “Drink it all at once.” The potion was pale pink. Was she really drinking blood? Leyla took a sip and made a face.

  “How does it taste?” Yael asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the old woman said, frowning at her. “Just drink it down. It will make you well.” Leyla obeyed, gulping the contents, then sank down on the cushions again as if the effort had tired her out.

  “I have something to make you better, too,” Yael said after the old woman left again. She lifted the moonstone necklace from around her own neck and slipped it around Leyla’s. “You can borrow this. It’ll help you get better.”

  “Thank you.” Yael could tell by her voice that Leyla was growing tired.

  “I brought my charts, too,” she quickly continued. “The stars can tell us all kinds of things about your future. When’s your birthday?”

  “The tenth day of Ab. I turned eleven a month ago.”

  “That means you were born under the sign of the lion.”

  “Is that good?”