Free The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg Page A

tears, watching the couple exchange vows, and Joseph had suspected it was not because of the usual poignancy attached to new love and the beginning of a new life. His suspicions were confirmed when, after consuming a large goblet of wine, she had collapsed into a chair, blubbering and saying over and over, “You would have had better.” Jacob had apologetically escorted her away from the festivities.
    Joseph had looked for signs of envy or regret in Mary and had found none. She was genuinely glad for the couple, and pleased with her own circumstances. For their life together was going well. They loved each other, they were content in their work, and their parents were looking forward to the coming of their grandchild—though each set of parents had their own ideas about the baby’s origins. Rachel was markedly cool with Mary for over a month, and Jacob fearful of being too friendly. He liked Mary a great deal, but feared his wife more. Therefore he lowered his head when he welcomed Mary to his home and suppressed his normal jubilant self around her in deference to Rachel, who would not so much as offer Mary a smile. But that awkward time was gone now, and all waited in pleasant anticipation for the child, who was due soon. The midwife who met Mary at the well only last week had predicted three weeks more, and her predictions were remarkably accurate.
    Now this. Now Joseph, born in Bethlehem, would need to make the long journey there. It was more than eighty miles and would take ten days, round-trip. But he must go. And so in answer to Mary’s worried question about what had happened, he answered, “There has been a decree issued. All must register for a census in the town of their birth. Therefore we must go to Bethlehem.”
    “But I am so near my time!” Mary said.
    Joseph shrugged. “Caesar cares not.”
    Mary moved to sit beside him. “I shall stay with my parents.”
    “No, Mary. As my wife, you will make the journey with me.”
    “I am near my time!” she said again, and again Joseph said, “Caesar cares not! We must leave in the morning, Mary. And now may I have my dinner?”
    Mary looked into Joseph’s face, weighing arguing with him, he knew. Then she went to the stove and filled two bowls with her stew, which was every bit as delicious as it smelled, and he told her so. After a long moment, she thanked him.
    Later, when they lay on their pallets before sleep, he reached out to touch her shoulder. “I am sorry to ask this of you, my wife.”
    She turned toward him. “It is only that I fear for the child.”
    “You must not fear. For I will care for you both.”
    She drew in a quick breath. Then she nodded, patted Joseph’s hand, and turned away from him. He sensed that her spirits had lifted markedly, for never had Joseph said he would care for the child. Never had he mentioned him.
    “Do you smile in the darkness?” he asked.
    Silence.
    “Mary?”
    She giggled, then turned back to him. She kissed his forehead, his eyes, his mouth. And then he kissed hers. It was their way.
    “Our journey will go quickly,” he said. “We will soon return, and then the baby will be born, and all will be well.”

CHAPTER NINE

    Bethlehem
DECEMBER 25
    Mary
    HIVERING ON THE COLD GROUND AT NIGHT, her wool cloak her only covering. Covering her ears against the cries of leopards and jackals that lived in the brush of the Jordan River valley. During the day, dust in her nose, in her hair. The ever-growing soreness in her back, her buttocks, her legs. The terrible thirst—once, Mary nearly fainted for want of water. And once she nearly fell from the donkey when he stumbled on a rock. A near robbery, until Joseph talked his way out of it, saying that he had money only for a night’s lodging in Bethlehem, and could they not see how great with child his wife was?
    “Would that you had let me stay with my parents,” Mary had said bitterly, after the robbery attempt.
    “Who then would have frightened the robbers