Claudius turned and left without a word.
Anna brushed the hair away from Leah’s face, noting that her skin was cold and clammy, her breathing almost nonexistent.
“Leah? Leah, can you hear me?”
There was no response of any kind.
“Dear Father, please don’t let her die!” Her prayer was a heartfelt one, forcing her worry to the back of her mind.
Not knowing what else to do, she got a basin and collected some of the cool water from the fountain. She retrieved a cloth from the kitchen and, dipping it in the water, began to wipe it over Leah’s face and neck. She set the basin aside and took Leah’s hand into hers, rubbing it gently as though she could impart some of her own warmth and vitality. Pulling their clutched hands to her forehead, she pleaded softly, “Please, Lord. Not yet. Lucius needs her.” Remembering what Lucius had said about making war on God, her stomach clenched tightly with fear for him.
She heard the front door open and hurried through the peristyle into the atrium. Lucius stood inside the doorway, dropping his cape onto the cabinet by the door. He glanced up and saw Anna standing there. A smile lit his face and she realized that he couldn’t possibly know what had happened.
“Just the person I was looking for,” he told her, grinning. “I have something to tell you.”
He crossed quickly to her side but, seeing the look on her face, stopped just short of her. The smile slowly disappeared from his face. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“It’s your mother.”
His eyes went wide. “Where?”
“In her room.”
He pushed past her and ran out of the atrium, Anna following after him.
When she entered the bedroom, Lucius already had his mother in his arms. His face was devoid of color and he looked at Anna helplessly. “Did you send for the physician?”
Anna nodded, feeling just as helpless.
“What can we do?” he asked, and Anna’s heart nearly broke at his look of vulnerability.
She doubted he would like hearing it, but it was all she could think of to do at this point. “We can pray,” she suggested, although she had been doing so ever since entering this room.
A look of relief swept across his face. “Yes! Yes, let’s do that.”
Surprised at his acquiescence, Anna moved closer and took his hand as he bent over his mother’s prone figure. Before she could utter a word, Lucius spoke fervently.
“Please, Elohim. Don’t take her from me just yet. I’ve only come to know You recently, and I know that I have no reason to expect You to listen to me now, but I’m begging You to give me more time with my mother.” He stopped, choking back sobs. “But if it is Your will that she leave me today, at least give me one last time with her to tell her that I have accepted You and that I love You.”
Anna dropped onto the chair behind her, her mouth parted in shock. How had this come about? When had this come about? Could it be true, or was he only trying to bring peace to his mother?
Lucius’s tears were nearly her undoing. She added her voice silently to his prayers as he begged over and over to be able to tell his mother of his conversion. It slowly began to sink into her fogged mind that he truly meant what he was saying.
They heard the front door open and Claudius returned with the physician. Lucius laid his mother back onto the bed, stepping back so that the physician could take over. He studied Leah for several minutes before he stood back and shook his head.
“There’s nothing more I can do for her.”
Lucius looked in disquiet from the physician to his mother, shaking his head. “No, there has to be something you can do!”
“Listen to her breathing. Her lungs are filling up with blood.”
The sound Lucius made was like a wounded animal. He dropped to the bed, taking his mother in his arms again and laying his cheek against hers. Tears rained down his face in an unceasing river. Anna’s own face was drenched, as well.
The physician took his leave unnoticed. Anna sat down beside Lucius and placed an arm around his shoulders. She didn’t know what else to do.
Leah gasped suddenly, her eyes opening wide although the paralyzed side of her face drooped more than usual. She slowly raised a trembling hand and laid it against Lucius’s cheek.
Lucius lifted his head, searching her face anxiously. “Mother?”
“Lucius.” Her voice was little more than a breathy whisper, but it brought a wide smile to Lucius’s face.
“Thank You, Elohim! Oh, praise You, Lord!”
“Lucius?”
“It’s all right now, Mother,” he told her softly, urgently. “I have accepted Jesus as my Lord and General Atticus baptized me just hours ago.”
Peace settled down on Leah’s twisted features. She was losing her fight to live but she hung on valiantly. “Anna?”
“I’m here, Leah.”
Anna took Leah’s hand and laid it against her own cheek. Leah tried to smile but the paralysis had become too severe. Anna caught Lucius’s empathetic look and knew that they were sharing the same pain.
Leah’s breathing became more shallow. She struggled to form just one word. “Marry!”
Lucius gently brushed the hair back from her face, kissing her on the cheek. “Yes, Mother. We are going to get married.”
Leah tried to suck in a deep breath but failed. Her eyes widened then fluttered closed, her breath rushed out in a long exhale and she was gone. Moaning, Lucius buried his face against her neck.
Lucius sprinkled flowers from the garden onto the ivory bed whereon his mother lay. She was dressed in a white tunic and palla. Free from pain, her face was relaxed, at peace.
This day was much different from the day he had cremated his father. On that day, he had felt little but remorse that he and his father had never been able to have the kind of relationship that Petronius and his sons had. And unlike that day, today wave upon wave of pain numbed him to the point that he could hardly function.
Anna came next to him and took his hand in hers. He looked down into her swimming brown eyes and knew she was feeling the same. He gently squeezed her hand. He didn’t know what he would have done these past few days if it hadn’t been for her. His conversion to the Way had unlocked that portion of her heart that she had held away from him, and she had been the rock that he had leaned on.
Releasing all of his pent-up anger and hatred had been easier than he had anticipated. It was clear now that what Anna had told him was true. Everything works for the good of those who love the Lord. Elohim had planned his life out from the beginning. He still wasn’t certain what that purpose was, but he knew that it included Anna.
Unlike his father’s funeral, at Anna’s assertion, he had chosen something simpler for his mother. The elaborate justa facere, or last honors, of the wealthy in Rome was something his mother would not have approved of. And instead of cremation, he had remembered his mother’s request to be buried. Since burial inside the city was forbidden, he was willing to purchase land outside the city for that purpose, but the Christians had offered him an alternative. Later tonight he would be taking his mother to her final resting place outside the city in the labyrinth of catacombs used by the Christians. To rest among other believers—his mother would like that.
He needed no paid mourners for his mother. The atrium was filled to overflowing with people in white, weeping. The friendship that had been denied to his mother in Jerusalem had blossomed here in Rome, mainly due to her loving and generous heart.
General Atticus came and stood beside him. “She is with the Lord now, Lucius. The time for grieving is past. She would want you to go on with your life.”
Soldier to soldier, Lucius understood what he meant. Life went on. But it was going to be a much lonelier place without his mother. Even with Anna by his side, it was
going to take some time for the pain to recede.
When it was finally time to move the litter, Lucius took Anna’s hand and, together, they followed behind the bier. This was no ordinary funeral procession. There was no long line of mourners. The catacombs were a well-kept secret and the mourners would join them there. What was his life going to be like now? Should he stay in Rome or take Anna and go to someplace like Alexandria in Egypt?
“I love you.”
Anna’s soft voice interrupted his thoughts, washing over him, filling his heart and reducing the pain. He glanced down at her and tried to smile.
“I love you, too, carissima.”
“I am here for you.”
Her brown eyes glowed with her love for him, and all his doubts were suddenly put to rest. His smile grew. As long as they were together, he could face anything.
They walked the rest of the way in silence, content to be in each other’s presence, and content with the fact that his mother had gone before them to a better place and they would one day join her.
Epilogue
The chill of the cool air blowing down from the open roof of the atrium was offset by the warmth of the hypocaust heating system beneath the marble floor. Winter had come to Rome.
Lucius looked around him at the crowd of people who had come to see Anna and him exchange marriage vows. The warmth of dozens of human bodies added to the ambient air temperature. Many had been invited and many had come.
His heart swelled with gratitude for those who had become his friends over the last month. The emptiness of a home without his mother had been lessened by the many people who had come to him to tell him what his mother had done for them. And all without his having known. A twinge of pain twisted his heart. How he wished that he had been a part of that time in her life.
Lucius glanced across the room at his soon-to-be bride and thought, not for the first time, that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. How had he ever considered her plain? Knowing she was loved had given her a glow that radiated out to anyone in her vicinity.
She looked up and caught his glance and her face colored brightly although she didn’t look away. Her luminous brown eyes were filled with a joy that humbled him when he realized that it was because of him. He would spend the rest of his life trying to keep that look in her eyes.
The white wool tunic she had chosen as her wedding garment set off the dark color of her skin, and her long brown hair hung in a lustrous sheen down her back. His fingers itched to run through it, but it was her pomegranate-red lips that caught and held his attention. This wedding couldn’t happen soon enough for him.
General Atticus motioned for everyone to enter the peristyle. The eating tables and reclining couches had been removed to accommodate the large group of people that had gathered.
Anna joined Lucius to stand before the general and the room grew silent.
General Atticus bowed his head to ask a blessing on their union. Both Lucius and Anna had refused to make their vows before the priests of heathen gods, but as the general was a brother in the Lord, they had decided that this was what Christ would approve of. He prayed as one familiar with the act, one who spoke to a friend. Yet, the timbre of voice left no doubt of the reverence and respect for the Great I AM.
The general then took a golden cord and loosely joined Anna and Lucius at the wrists.
“Lucius and Anna, God instituted marriage because He saw that it was not good for man to be alone. A cord of one strand is easily broken, as is a cord of two. But when three strands are woven together, they are impossible to break.”
Atticus then placed a hand on each of their shoulders.
“Lucius, will you promise to love Anna just as Christ loved the church? To be willing to die for her? To forsake all others and cleave only to her?”
The love glowing in Anna’s eyes quickened his heart rate until he thought it would surely burst from his chest. “I pledge to do so.”
“And will you, Anna, promise to love Lucius and submit to him in all things as the body does to Christ?”
A slow smile curled her lips. “I pledge to do so.”
Lucius felt as though if he continued to stare into her eyes, he would sink into oblivion. It was hard to keep his mind on what they were doing when all he wanted to do was take Anna into his arms.
Atticus cleared his throat, grinning wryly when he caught Lucius’s look.
“Then let me remind you of the words of the great Apostle Paul. ‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.’”
Such love was daunting to think about. Lucius was learning that by himself, he could do nothing, but with Elohim, all things were possible.
Lucius took the ring he had had made especially for Anna. Lifting her left hand, he slid the ring onto her finger. “It is a Roman custom to wear a ring, an unending circle that symbolizes that our love is eternal, without end.” He grasped both of her hands with his, sliding his fingers between hers and squeezing gently. “This is the love I pledge to you.”
Anna had to swallow hard to remove the lump that had formed in her throat. She stared into Lucius’s gleaming gray eyes, unable to speak for the moment. The love reaching out to her was something she had never expected to receive in her life, making it all the more precious.
The words of King Solomon came back to her now. “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
She would never understand why Lucius had chosen her. Only Elohim could have so blessed her life.
Knowing the Roman custom, Anna was prepared. Taking the ring she had been given by Leah, she placed it on Lucius’s hand. Surprised, he lifted a brow in inquiry.
“It belonged to your father.” She awaited his response with bated breath. Would he refuse it? She wouldn’t blame him if he did, but she hoped that he would understand that she had given it to him as a gift from his mother as well as herself.
Tears welled in his eyes as he stared at the ring, but he pressed his lips tightly together to ward them off. He looked at her when he had himself under control.
“Thank you, carissima.”
He bent to kiss her, and she felt the warmth of it from head to toe. His kiss lingered, growing bolder until a cough and a few embarrassed chuckles forced them apart.
Atticus again placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “What God has joined together, let no man separate.”
A series of amens arose from the crowd. Anna took the golden cord and laid it aside to be added to her treasure box. She then faced the room of well-wishers with her husband by her side. The crowd surged around them, offering them blessings of goodwill.
Was it possible to feel more joy than she did at this moment? She hoped and prayed that she could be the kind of wife Lucius needed.
Lucius motioned to the tables loaded with food set up along the edges of the room. “My friends, come and share our wedding feast.”
He stood looking about the room solemnly. Intuitively, she knew what he was thinking. Leah had been in this house only a short time yet she had left her mark everywhere.
“She was right, you know,” he stated, looking down at her. “It was Elohim that brought us together.”
She agreed. All the days of abuse, all the days of feeling inferior, had been worth it. She wouldn’t change a thing about her past because it had molded her into the woman that he had fallen in love with, a woman of God.
Lucius took her hand and together, they joined the others. She didn’t know what the future might hold, but she knew Who held the future.
She had once thou
ght that she was cursed by Elohim, but had found living water that had quenched her thirst for love.
She had once thought that she was unlovable, destined to lead a lonely life, but Elohim had other, greater plans for her life.
Yes, with God, all things are possible.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460314135
Copyright © 2013 by Darlene Mindrup
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