Free No Lasting Burial by Stant Litore

Yesse?” Rahel said at last. A week ago it would have
been unthinkable to her to open her door to a man who was not her husband when
no one else was home. But the pain in Zebadyah’s eyes called to her, and he was
at least a survival of her husband, in some small part. And the days were
brutal on her heart, alone in her house with her children. The house was
strange to her now, for it had too many empty and silent spaces.
    Zebadyah’s
face became stern. “I have come to offer you my home.”
    “I
don’t understand.”
    “You
were my brother’s wife.”
    Her
eyes burned and she blinked quickly. It would be unbearable, weeping when her
door was open and her face visible to the street.
    “Now
you are alone and you have a son—”
    “I
have two sons.” Rahel’s throat tightened. Such had been her grief that she’d
had little time to fear, either for herself or Koach. Now all the fears came
rushing in.
    “You
were my brother’s wife, now his widow. You have a son who is too young for the
boats. When a man dies and his sons are not old enough to feed his house, the
Law tells us his brother’s duty is to take his wife and provide for her, and to
take her gladly to his bed to give her more sons in his brother’s name, so that
his brother’s line might not die out from our land. All my life I have kept the
Law. I will not fail to keep it now.” His voice turned gentle. “I had not
planned to seek a second wife, but if I had, I could not have hoped to find one
lovelier. My brother chose well.”
    “No,”
Rahel whispered. “This can’t be.”
    Zebadyah’s
face darkened. “Don’t make this harder than it is, woman. I grieve for him,
too. But the winter is on us, and there isn’t much time.”
    Rahel
shook her head and began to swing the door shut, but Zebadyah blocked it with
his hand and leaned into it, holding it open against her. She took a step back,
but he followed, and then his hands were gripping her arms just below the
shoulders, firmly. An echo of her husband’s strength.
She gazed up at his face with wide eyes. She felt small and caught—by him, by
the Law, by her bereavement. As though it were not his hands
that held her but God’s, pitiless and demanding. God’s hands that
demanded that she live a certain way, fulfill commitments that were made before
her grandmothers’ grandmothers were born, and always without any sure promise
from God beneath her feet, only shifting sand, pulled out from under her by the
vanishing tide.
    “I
will treat you and Shimon well, and Cheleph’s son also,” he said quietly. “I
loved Yonah. I will not let his widow starve alone in this house.”
    “What
about the baby?” She just managed to get the words out.
    Pain in his eyes. “You know what
has to be done.”
    “No.”
    “We
will talk about it later. Come to my house. There are witnesses there already.
You will eat well tonight, and you will have a warm bed.”
    “Your
bed,” she choked.
    He
gave a small nod.
    “And my son? Will you have
someone just take him out to the midden, leave him there? To
die?” Her voice rose, shrill.
    He
was quiet a moment and she tried to twist away, but he held her fast.
    “We
tried to follow only those parts of the Law that were easy. And look what
happened. You have duties, Rahel, even as I do.”
    “Don’t
call me that.” Her heart beat a panic drum against her breast.
    “I
am trying to help, woman! You are my responsibility—I am trying to help.” He
pulled her to him quickly and kissed her. She stiffened as his mouth covered
hers. Warm and moist and so different from Yonah’s.
The kiss was rough yet there was something tentative in it, as though he were a
man never completely sure of himself. For a heartbeat or two she permitted it,
still in shock. Then her stomach turned and she shoved her hands against his
chest, turning her head away. “No,” she gasped.
    “Rahel,”
Zebadyah said quietly.
    “I
was his, and I will die his,” she said.
    “ Rahel