Free The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg

all for your wife on the day you have wed her?”
    He turned to face her, suddenly shy. “Of what shall we speak?”
    Mary smiled and reached out to run her fingers along the side of his face. Her touch! “I am happy to be here.”
    “And I am happy you are happy.” He kissed her fingers and then took his hand away. No good would come of him being further aroused.
    Mary took in a deep breath. “And I shall say, as well, that I hope you will come to see that what the angel told you—”
    “We shall speak of it no more. I order this, my wife.”
    She lay quietly, then said, “Would you like to feel it?”
    He knew what she meant. Her rounded stomach. “No,” he said.
    “He moves most actively this night. Perhaps he is telling us of his joy at our union.”
    “No, Mary.” He yawned, though he felt no need to.
    “Or perhaps he is frightened at his new surroundings. Oh, Joseph. Do you think he is frightened?”
    He made his breathing go deep and regular, that she might think him asleep. After a time, he heard her leave her pallet and move out to the other room. He rose and followed at a distance in the darkness. She wrapped a shawl around herself and slipped out the door. Was she leaving him? Again? He was ready to call out angrily to her when, through the crack in the door, he saw her sit with her back to the house and look up at the stars. She sang, softly, sweetly, and rocked herself from side to side. Both of her hands rested over her belly, and when she had finished singing she looked down at herself. “Shhhhh,” she whispered. “I am here now as ever I shall be. Great is my love for you, and my devotion enough for two.” Again she rocked from side to side, and the smile on her face Joseph felt in his knees.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    Nazareth
DECEMBER, 4 B.C.
    Joseph
    E LAGGED, COMING HOME. HE DREADED SHARING with his wife the news he’d learned at the marketplace. A census had been ordered by Caesar Augustus in Rome. A messenger, accompanied by Roman soldiers, had stood in the middle of the crowd to read:
I, King Herod, as a friend of Caesar, decree: Let every man repair to the place of origin of his house and family and have his name inscribed in the public registers.
After the soldier’s departure, the Nazarenes had talked worriedly among themselves. Once their names were inscribed, they could no longer evade the payment of the poll tax. Also, they would owe more taxes on their land, as it would now be more accurately assessed. Already they were poor and struggling; must they become poorer still?
    Joseph put away the donkey in the workshop he had built next to the house; it doubled as a stable at night. He filled one bucket with grain and another with water. He spread hay for the animal’s bed. “More troubles for we who are troubled, eh?” he said. The donkey stared at him and swished his tail. “I am as well without a solution,” Joseph said. He patted the donkey’s rump and went inside the house.
    Mary was at the stove, stirring the chickpea-and-eggplant stew she had made. A fresh loaf of bread rested on top of the stove. She turned to greet him, flush-faced and happy. But her smiled faded when she saw him.
    “What has happened?”
    Joseph let himself down wearily into the chair he had made only last week. That was when he was feeling secure about his own success, sure that he would grow more and more prosperous and that soon he and Mary would have more chairs than they could use. Enough for the whole village! he had told her. “We shall offer to lend them to those having wedding feasts, that all their guests may sit in comfort.” For it was indeed the season for weddings. With no seeds to sow, with no harvesting of barley and wheat and olives and grapes to consume entire days, young people had time to celebrate the end of their betrothals and the beginning of their married lives. Only last week, Mary and Joseph, along with their parents, had attended a lavish wedding. Rachel’s eyes had filled with