Free Love In A Broken Vessel by Mesu Andrews

courtyard gate. “I’m going to the market alone,” she said. “Don’t you dare follow me.”
    Hosea caught her arm and whirled her to face him. She winced in pain and stumbled, but he scooped her into his arms and curled her into his chest. “Are you all right?” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
    She shoved him away, and he nearly dropped her. “Put me down!”
    He gently placed her feet on the ground, and he saw her wince. His heart twisted. Her legs and hips hadn’t fully recovered after the beating. Yahweh, remind me that she’s fragile.
    The commotion must have summoned Jonah and Isaiah. They stood at the doorway of the house, watching.
    “I’m going to the market alone ,” Gomer said, staring at each of the male faces before her. “I have done everything you’ve asked of me for eight Sabbaths. You can at least give me an afternoon to say good-bye to the city I called home.”

    Gomer fought with the silly blue veil Hosea had purchased for her, wrapping it to hide her copper curls and distinctive features. She wondered if her regular customers would recognize her. The bruises were gone, but she no longer wore paints on her eyes, cheeks, and lips. No more bangles or bells, and her dowdy brown robe covered the long scar onher forearm from the physician’s blade. Hosea said she was still . . . Well, he always said she was beautiful, but who could trust a man’s opinion?
    Hosea. What did he want from her? Didn’t he expect what all men took from their wives? So why hadn’t he forced her? He wasn’t shy. Each time they were together, he stood too close, touched her cheek, whispered on her neck.
    “Watch where you’re going!” A grousing old crone shoved Gomer aside and interrupted her brooding.
    Gomer stepped over the drainage ditch and winced at the pain in her hip. Would the effects of Eitan’s beating remain for a lifetime? Would she ever escape the scars of harlotry? Could she ever be a true wife—and ima?
    Hosea kept insisting he could love her. How? He may have known her once, but he had no idea who she was now. She’d tried to show him who she was.
    “My recent customers called me the lady of invention,” she told him one day while he was working alone on that silly two-wheeled cart meant to carry her back to Judah. She’d intended her words to wound, but his pained expression pierced her soul.
    “Gomer, when will you let me love you?” he said.
    Emotion strangled her. “When will you let me go?”
    “Never,” he whispered.
    “My answer is the same.”
    The memory brought unexpected emotion, and she swiped at the tears on her cheeks. Someone in the crowd bumped her, and she realized she was standing at Tamir’s brothel gate. She studied the cedar planks and iron bars and wondered what they’d done with Merav’s body. Who had washed her? Had they buried her with the beggars, or had Tamir given her a proper burial in the tombs north of the city?
    She knew the answer. Tamir was a businesswoman, after all.
    Another sigh, and Gomer walked on, determined to think happier thoughts. The city streets were alive. Merchantshaggling in the market, children scurrying at her feet. The stench of the drainage ditch never smelled so sweet. She wished she’d planned her escape more carefully and brought a few pieces of silver with her.
    Hosea had purchased a small parcel of cloves for her during their first days together. She’d made it clear to him that she could live without face paints and perfume, but she refused to endure life with foul breath. He made sure she had a whole clove to suck on each day since.
    She gathered her veil around her face, covering every wisp of copper hair. Did Hosea think she was stupid? She wouldn’t let anyone know she was alive in Samaria. But can I really go to Judah and live on a farm? It all sounded so mundane. Asherah didn’t endow her with beauty and fire and life to be a pandering prophet’s wife.
    “Asherah!” She stopped in the middle of the street,