Free Eve by Elissa Elliott Page B

unconscious ofwhere it was taking her and not truly seeing those she left behind, drifting in her wake.
    Eve was one of them.
    One particular morning, not long after finding they had visitors to the north, Naava watched from her loom as Eve paused in her sweeping to loosen her muscles. She stretched her swollen calves and arched in a backward crescent. Sighing, she slipped her hands under the weight of her belly and pulled it up.
    And then Adam came back from the orchards with a sprained wrist, which he wanted Aya to look at. Aya had him sit on the ground, near her fire. She was all business as she rubbed a green sticky poultice into Adam’s skin, splinted it with a poplar branch, then wrapped it like a cocoon with some of Naava’s wool.
    “Don’t take this off,” Aya chided. “It will swell, and you won’t be able to move it.” Aya’s hands were strong and purposeful, and she took no pains to be gentle.
    Adam nodded and winced at Aya’s sharp movements.
    “He needs water,” Eve said abruptly.
    Aya just grunted, her lips pursed in concentration.
    Eve dropped her broom and plodded to the gate. She disappeared around the corner of the house and returned a short while later, walking gingerly with a drinking cup brimming with fresh water from the cistern. This she brought to Adam and stood by while he gulped. She took the cup from him and sat, leaning up against the mud bricks of the house, watching Aya and rubbing her lower back with callused fingers.
    “Are you in pain?” said Adam, his words infused with concern.
    “Ach,” said Eve. “Very much so. With every birth, I feel as though a piece of me is being ripped out. I’m afraid I will die with this one. A body can only take so much.”
    Aya looked up sharply to study Eve’s face. Naava couldn’t read her intent: Was it sympathy or disgust?
    “Die?” Adam held up his good hand to tell Aya to stop her ministrations. “That’s a strong word.”
    “I know,” said Eve.
    Adam leaned forward toward Eve. “I know it’s hard for you,” he said. “Maybe tonight I could rub out the aches?”
    Eve nodded submissively, like a child, and then seemingly without thinking poured out a torrent of words that caught even Naava unaware. “I’ve been thinking that we should add a small waterfall to the garden, so that you can hear a slight burble when you sit, just like we did in the Garden. You remember, don’t you? A bubbling green twilight, that’s what it was.” Eve clasped her hands, and her voice rose like a summer storm. “And the white flowers, they’re all wrong. What was the name of the creamy flowers that floated on the ponds, on little green disks?”
    “Water lilies,” said Adam slowly, letting Aya take over again.
    “Yes, those. We need those in the pond, as shade for the tadpoles and the tiny fish.”
    “There are no fish,” said Adam. The pond was too stagnant and still for that.
    “Well, yes, I know, but there should be,” said Eve. She hefted herself off the ground, then braced herself against the house until she got her bearings. She continued massaging her back. “The way Elohim had it, it was perfect.”
    Adam exhaled sharply. “Unless you want me to spend my time building more aqueducts instead of tending the orchards and weeding the fields,” said Adam, “then you will have to wait on this waterfall.” Then, after a pause, he said, “I’m not Elohim.” Naava thought she could see his frown from where she sat watching. She knew to be wary when Adam’s wrath was kindled; blue skies could become cloudy in an instant.
    Eve groaned and held her belly.
    Adam started up as if to come to her aid, but Aya held on to his bandaged wrist and wouldn’t let go. “Why don’t you lie down, woman? The girls will make sure things get done,” he said.
    In that one word, woman, Naava heard dismissal and contempt, all rolled into one. She knew her father preferred a feigned cheeriness, not this sadness that leaked like an old flask. She