The Time of Jacob's Trouble

by Donna VanLiere

  She closes the pages, looking at him. “I can’t wait to hear this.”

  “You just need something with a slit up to here and a cut down to here with an open back.”

  “You just described lingerie.”

  He shrugs. “I don’t care what you call it. I’m just saying it’s all you need to wear.”

  She laughs, throwing her phone into her bag and reaches for her Yeti mug of coffee. “Let’s just leave me in charge of finding the wedding dress.”

  “Then that leaves me in charge of finding the lingerie.”

  She kisses him and slings her bag over her shoulder, throwing the magazine onto the coffee table with a couple other wedding magazines she bought this week. “See you tonight. Love you.” She walks to the door, waiting for it.

  “Love you too.”

  She smiles and closes the door. Brandon is waiting at the front door of the apartment building today. “You look tired,” she says.

  Brandon slings his backpack over both shoulders. “Yeah.”

  “What’s up?”

  They keep up a quick pace to make it to their trains on time. “Another round.”

  Emma shakes her head. He and Rick sometimes act more like children than adults. “What is it this time?”

  “He wants to go to some new club that’s opening tonight, and I told him I was tired. I just want to stay in. He said he would go without me, and I know what that means.” He looks over at her as they walk. “You know what that means.” Rick has a hard time being faithful, and Brandon has been hurt more times than he can count. “I told him that relationships shouldn’t be like this. Something is out of whack.”

  She sighs. “It’s the craziness in the world. Everything’s out of whack.”

  Brandon dodges an upcoming group of people and picks up his pace to catch up to Emma. “You’re not helping.”

  “Just saying that everything is crazy. It’s not just you two.”

  They run down the stairs to the subway and Emma’s phone rings. She waves good-bye as she and Brandon go in different directions toward their trains.

  “Hi, Mom!” she says, answering her phone.

  “I know you’re running off to work, but I’m going to send you a link for a barn nearby that has been converted into an event space. It’s really cute and it books up fast for weddings.”

  It sounds great, but Emma can already hear Rick’s snide comments about her and Matt getting married in a barn. “Sounds awesome! But you don’t have to think about my wedding until Sarah is off on her honeymoon.”

  Her mom scoffs. “I can do both. Besides, it keeps me busy.”

  Since her dad died, Emma has worried about the quiet days inside her mom’s home. With the exception of when Sarah has been home from college, her mom has come home from work and spent most evenings and weekends alone. “I’ve been looking at wedding dresses and have something in mind,” Emma says.

  “I can’t wait to see some pictures. Love you, Em!”

  “Love you, Mom. Talk to you later.”

  Carrie is on the phone and waves to Emma as she walks into the therapy room. Emma puts her bag in her locker and looks over her schedule. It’s a busy morning, but it includes seeing Mrs. Ramos before lunch, and she can’t wait to tell her about her engagement.

  Elliott stands near the back of the mourners at the cemetery in Midtown, wearing a black suit, tie, and yarmulke. He’s here for his longtime friend, Simon, whose mother died after a lengthy battle with leukemia.

  Elliott and Simon are both twenty-four, went to the same university, and have worked together at the same brokerage firm for the last two years. Elliott is the only Jewish co-worker to take time off today to attend the funeral. There are other Jews at the office, but none of them are close to Simon. Simon’s family secured this plot for his mom in the Jewish section of the cemetery when her fight against the disease took a turn for the worst.

  Elliott is thinking through his day, wondering what time he’ll get back to the firm and how late he’ll have to work, when he notices across the drive that winds through the grounds that another burial is taking place in the Gentile section.

  Emma’s face stretches into a huge smile when she sees a small white bag in Mrs. Ramos’s hand. “You really are spoiling me, Mrs. Ramos.”

  “Just a Cuban sandwich for later,” Mrs. Ramos says, handing it to her.

  “I didn’t pack a lunch today, so this is perfect! Thank you so much!” Emma sets the bag on the window ledge behind her as Mrs. Ramos sits on the end of the therapy table. “So…how’s the knee feeling since our last session? Still getting ready for the Olympics?”

  Mrs. Ramos smiles. “It’s good. It’s coming along. Healing has a lot to do with attitude, right?”

  “Absolutely!” Emma then leans over, whispering to her. “That’s why you’re one of my favorite patients. You come in with the right attitude.” Speaking louder again, she puts her hand on Mrs. Ramos’s knee. “Okay, can you do twenty extensions?”

  “I’ll do twenty cartwheels if you’d like,” Mrs. Ramos says, extending her leg. “So how’s that cute boyfriend of yours?”

  Emma has been waiting for the question and here it is, as if on cue. “Well, he asked me to marry him,” she says, grinning.

  Mrs. Ramos stops the extensions and looks up at her. “Isn’t that wonderful! What a journey you’re about to go on. And your mother is thrilled?”

  “She is. She likes Matt. I think she secretly wanted us to get married a long time ago.”

  “When’s the date?”

  Emma puts her hand on Mrs. Ramos’s knee, indicating for her to start the extensions again. “That depends on the venue.”

  Mrs. Ramos chuckles. “Venue. When we got married everybody looked for a church. Neither Miguel nor I had ever stepped foot in a church except on Christmas and Easter, but for my Puerto Rican family it was a huge thing! ‘You must get married inside a church and before God!’” She stops the extensions and smiles. “Weddings are so exciting, but that’s the easy part, you know? It’s harder being married.”

  Emma smiles. “I know. My mom and dad always said that.”

  Mrs. Ramos looks at her with those kind eyes and soft smile. “Miguel and I are still married because we both found the Lord.” She giggles, raising her hand. “I know. He wasn’t lost, but we were. We knew about God and Jesus because we went to church on Christmas and Easter, so we said we knew him, but we didn’t. He saved our marriage forty years ago.” She squeezes Emma’s hand. “I hope that you and Matt will come to know him too. If you ever have any questions, I’m always so happy to tell people about Jesus.”

  This would be off-putting and angering if it wasn’t coming from Mrs. Ramos. Why would she assume that Emma and Matt didn’t know God? Why does Mrs. Ramos think that she has any questions about Jesus? Emma would have felt offended had this come from anyone else, but she squeezes Mrs. Ramos’s hand, smiling.

  The rabbi looks over the simple wooden casket to Simon, his father, and his two sisters, and reads the eulogy for Simon’s mother. He is mid-sentence when sounds of explosions shake the cemetery grounds. Mourners scream and cover their heads, falling to their knees. Elliott grabs the woman standing next to him and pulls her down, but the explosions have ended as abruptly as they started. The air in the cemetery is still, with no signs of fire or smoke. Elliott, Simon, and the others begin to stand as they hear a woman’s hysterical cries behind them. The woman’s words send a chill down Elliott’s spine.

  “Where are Arthur and Lenora? They were right here!” Elliott pivots, looking for the elderly man and woman who were standing behind him a moment ago. Bloodcurdling screams from the burial taking place across the drive make Elliott’s body tremble.

  “Where’s Mother?”

  Elliott and others from among the mourners at Simon’s mother’s funeral run toward that burial site. A woman in her fifties is looking into an empty casket, the top off its hinges.

  “Oh my God! Where’s Mother?” she shrieks.
“Oh my God!”

  Emma puts her hand on Mrs. Ramos’s shoulder, easing her to lie back on the table, but Emma’s hand slips through her, as if pushing against air, and she stumbles into the table. Inexplicably, Mrs. Ramos is gone. “Mrs. Ramos!” Emma panics, grasping her head with her hands as she spins around, looking all over the room, screaming. “Mrs. Ramos! Oh my God!” She screams louder, terrified. “Mrs. Ramos!”

  “Where’s Carrie?” Emma turns to see Linda at the front desk, who looks stricken and is trying to sit down. Linda’s voice doesn’t even sound like her. “She was right here and handed me this file, and…!” Linda is making noises that Emma has never heard from another human and can hear her own heart beating in her ears.

  “Reggie’s gone!” Mateo yells, looking frantically.

  Elliott stumbles backward as he looks across the cemetery. Many graves are wide open, revealing empty caskets, the dirt scattered atop the ground as if from bombs that had exploded from within. “What’s happening?” he says, his head swiveling to take it all in.

  “I don’t know,” Simon shouts, his voice stretched thin. “I don’t know!”

  They hear cries and spin around to see the same woman who had been looking into the empty casket. She is on her knees, sobbing and shrieking. “Where’s Ellen? Where’s my Ellen?”

  “Where’s Uncle Bill?” another voice howls. The small group of mourners is desperate in their search, holding each other up or covering their mouths as others slump to the ground.

  Elliott and Simon run through the cemetery littered with cavernous holes and scattered earth, heading for the columbarium. Several marble plaques lay broken on the ground; Elliott’s hand trembles as he reaches inside one of the openings for an urn. The lid is off, and he looks inside. “It’s empty.” He and Simon frantically reach for urns along the wall, their breathing frenzied and quick as they look inside each one.

  A man yelling on the street outside the cemetery catches Elliott’s attention as he stumbles toward the road. The man is outside his car, waving his arms. “Pulled right out in front of me, and now he’s gone! Look what he did to my car!” The man is looking in all directions. “Where did he go? Did anybody see him?” Other drivers are honking as they try to pull around the accident.

  Elliott and Simon look up and down the street. A couple is walking and holding hands, unaware of what’s just happened inside the cemetery. Others are headed to a nearby market or to work without distraction, while some seem to be looking behind them or inside an open business as if they’re searching for someone. Elliott runs toward a cable truck parked at the side of the road with the driver’s side door open. A cell phone appears as if it had been left on the front seat. “What’s going on, Simon?” Elliott asks, looking terrified. “How do graves burst open? How do ashes get sucked out of an urn?”

  “Where did they go?” Simon asks, his voice as tense as his eyes. “Where did all these people go?”

  Linda calls the police, and Emma can hear her yelling but can’t make out the words; they’re garbled and distorted in her ears. She feels lightheaded and reaches to steady herself on the window ledge. Her hand crushes the bag with the Cuban sandwich that Mrs. Ramos had brought her; she clutches it, leaning against the ledge, crying. Her phone rings, and she pulls it out of her pocket. It’s her sister. “Sarah! Oh my God!” she says, breathless. She can’t hear and covers her other ear, but Sarah is out of her mind, screaming into the phone and Emma shouts, “What? I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “Mom is gone!” Sarah’s voice sounds like it’s shredding.

  Blood drains from Emma’s head and she tries to take a breath. “Don’t say that, Sarah! Don’t tell me that! I just talked to her! Not Mom!”

  “I’m freaking out, Emma! She was here! We were talking! But she’s gone! She’s gone!” Sarah begins to wail and moan, and Emma’s legs weaken. She can’t move. Shock has taken over and she can’t speak. Sarah continues to scream, but then the line goes dead. Emma’s entire body shakes and she feels like throwing up. How can she live in a world without her mom in it? The room turns black; she tries to catch herself but wavers, collapsing to the floor.

  To discover more about the biblical facts behind the story, read Where in the Word? on page 187, or continue reading the novel.

  CHAPTER 5

  Israel

  Zerah grabs a cup of coffee before taking a seat in the conference room. He and a team of researchers will be discussing recent findings in Parkinson’s disease at Hadassah Medical Center. Dr. Akiva Benjamin takes a seat at the middle of the conference table and opens his computer. Zerah and four other doctors spread files and their own computers in front of them.

  “Where’s Dr. Haas?” asks Dr. Benjamin.

  “She’s coming,” Zerah says. “I just saw her in the hallway.”

  Dr. Benjamin has never tolerated tardiness. “Dr. Adler, would you find her, please?”

  Zerah rises from his seat. “She might have gotten pulled aside for a consult.”

  As he leaves the room, Zerah can hear Dr. Benjamin begin discussing their latest research. The hallway outside the conference room is empty; Zerah walks to the main lobby, where several hallways branch out through the department. “Have either of you seen Dr. Haas?” he asks two colleagues standing at the reception desk.

  “Not since this morning,” one of them says.

  “Do you know where Dr. Haas is?” Zerah asks, moving to the young woman on the phone at the desk.

  She shakes her head, and Zerah goes back to the conference room. Dr. Benjamin looks up when he enters, and Zerah shrugs. “I can’t find her. She was right behind me as we were headed here.”

  “We’ll move on without her,” Dr. Benjamin says, rumpling his brow.

  Brooklyn, NY

  “Get up, Emma! Emma…come on! Get up!” She opens her eyes to see Mateo beside her, shaking her awake. “Come on! We’re getting out of here.”

  She turns her head to see that most people have already scrambled out of the therapy room. “Where’d they go?”

  He helps her to her feet. “They’re running for home!”

  She stands, grabbing his arms. “No! Where did Carrie and Reggie and Mrs. Ramos go?”

  Mateo shakes his head, helping her to the lockers for her purse and jacket. “I don’t know!” His voice sounds as terrified as his eyes look. “Vaporized!”

  Emma grabs her purse and jacket, and as they dart across the room, she remembers Mrs. Ramos’s purse and turns back for it, along with the Cuban sandwich. They have the presence of mind to lock the door and close it behind them before running down the hall and stairs, and out the front doors. The sun is still shining and Emma squints, looking into it. The sky is blue and puffed up with white clouds. How can it look like an ordinary day?

  She tries to dial Matt’s number but can’t get through. “Not Matt. Please, not Matt,” she whispers under her breath, running. A few people are in the street trying to move driverless cars to the side of the road. Some people look shell-shocked and confused, but she’s surprised at how many are walking along as if unaware. “Vaporized by what?” she gasps, running. Mateo isn’t answering. “Mateo!” she shouts. “Vaporized by what?”

  He pulls her along, screaming as he runs. “I don’t know. Evil!” Emma’s heart races at the thought as she and Mateo sprint toward the subway. She tugs Mateo’s arm to stop him when they pass 316 Deli. “What are you doing?” he asks. “Come on!”

  She looks at Mrs. Ramos’s purse and back at him. “I have to tell them. They need this. Go on without me.”

  Mateo is irritated. “Come on! Give it to them later!”

  “Go on. They need to know.”

  Mateo shakes his head and runs on without her. Emma steps inside 316 Deli and the smells of soups and roasted chicken and baked goods fill the space as usual, but tables and chairs have been toppled; the place is empty. She thinks of what Mateo said about everyone being vaporized by evil and hurries behind the counter and into the ki
tchen, shouting as she searches the restaurant. Chicken, beef, and vegetables are sizzling to a charred black on the grill, and steam rises from a pot that’s boiling over. Emma turns everything off and steps to the walk-in refrigerator, where she sees a young girl crouched in the corner and trembling. She looks at her nametag. “Gina. Where is everyone? Where’s Carlos and Viviana and…”

  The young girl looks up at her, traumatized. Her eyes are dark, and her hands are shaking. “We were all working…and then they were gone.” Emma walks to her, extending her hand, and Gina looks up. “People were screaming and running, and I hid. I had to hide before they got me too.”

  “Before who got you?”

  “Aliens. Right?” she whispers, looking for answers from Emma. “Right?!”

  Emma doesn’t respond as she helps Gina to her feet and closes the door to the refrigerator. “Run home.”

  Gina begins to cry. “But what if my home isn’t there?”

  Emma looks around the restaurant. “Buildings are still here. It’s people who are gone.”

  “Viviana was right next to me handing food to a customer in line and Carlos was talking to his wife and their two little kids, who had just come in. The food that Viviana was holding crashed to the floor, and Carlos’s voice suddenly stopped. I looked up, and he and his wife and kids were gone.” Gina looks at Emma. “People freaked out!”

  Emma’s voice is quivering. “Run home, Gina.” Gina rushes for the door, and Emma grabs her arm. “Be careful.”

  As Gina leaves, Emma looks over the restaurant once more and feels her throat filling again as she locks and closes the door for 316 Deli.

  The subway station is packed, and people shove their way past the turnstiles and onto the platform; just like Elliott, they all want to get home. Two of the lines are down and fights are quick to break out as the crowd from the street rushes toward the oncoming train, shouting about a terrorist attack on the city. Mothers grab the hands of their children in the panic and race for the subway platform; others slug it out, jockeying for position closest to the doors.