After Abel and Other Stories Read Free Page B

replace my other boy though. It won’t restore either of them. I was born twice before, once when I woke next to Adam in the Garden’s shade, the green world opening to welcome me, the last of its fruits. Then again with that first rush of water between my legs, the small body cradled to my skin. This is the third time, and the last. I cannot be as I was. Adam named me mother of all the living. Now, mother and mourner both, I finally understand. To be mother of the living is also to be mother to all the dead.
    Abel, my son, has come and gone, and I, the ground from which he rose, remain.
    They won’t write it down. They won’t know. But I will not forget.

LOT’S WIFE
    â€œSo Lot went out to them to the entrance, shut the door behind him, and said, ‘I beg you, my friends, do not commit such a wrong. Look, I have two daughters who have not known a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you may do to them as you please; but do not do anything to these men, since they have come under the shelter of my roof.’”
    Genesis 19:6-8

    S he sat in the small patch of shade, churning the camel’s milk to butter. The courtyard was quiet with work, one daughter at the oven baking bread, the other grinding down flour for tomorrow’sloaves. It was good to have these girls, who had learned their way and were of use to those around them.
    Slowly, the butter started to come. They’d have it tonight, she thought, along with the bread her daughter was baking, some dates, and a skin of wine.
    Good, clean food, but she would admit to counting down the time to the next feast day, when they’d offer up a sheep, a ram if the year continued as well as it had been going, the smell of the meat roasting, the smoke going up to God, the meat going to them. All the hired men would get theirs, she’d make sure of it. Even the slave girls. The family would eat well. She let her mind wander, already preparing the juiciest parts in her mind: crushed figs to bring out the meat’s succulence, and cloves for pungency.
    These were the moments she cherished. Everyone with her task to do. She could slip into her thoughts instead of keeping her eyes and ears open, alert to what could, and probably would, go wrong. Which is why she didn’t hear anything until the voices came closer, until they were in her house. Someone was inside. She glanced at the sky. Sunset wouldn’t come for hours. The men were still in the fields, girls in the orchards. But there was no doubt. Voices came through the building. All male. The only one she recognized was her husband’s.
    She heard him come through the house. He ducked out of the doorway and straightened in the air of thecourtyard, near the oven where their daughter was shaping dough into balls.
    â€œWe have visitors,” he announced. “Traders on their way to Ur. They approached me near the western pastureland.”
    â€œDid you take their animals?” she asked without stopping the movement of her arm.
    â€œThey had ten altogether. I had to split them up. They’ve all been watered and fed. Two of the boys are keeping watch over them. But the men brought a few of their bags with them.”
    â€œThey must have something valuable to sell. Did they offer to show you?”
    â€œNo. And I wouldn’t ask to see the inside of a man’s saddlebags. But these are important men. We have to treat them well. I’ve told one of the field hands to bring a goat in. Kill it and dress it. We’ll need a full meal by tonight.”
    He turned to go back into the house. “Bring a bowl of water,” he ordered his older daughter. “Let the men wash themselves while the meal is being prepared.”
    She had already begun lighting a fire in the pit at the center of the courtyard when the field hand came in with the animal. He’s picked a plump one, she thought.
    Soon her older daughter returned, too. “Who are these men,