God has given me so much, thought Shiphrah. I have a family all my own—Aunt Puah, Ella, and Ati. Humming with contentment, she watched Ella nestle her doll into Ati’s arms and the old woman obligingly rock the bundle of rags until Ella took the “baby” and settled it on a scrap of cloth. How fortunate Ella was a girl and not one of the targeted Hebrew boys.
“Ati, Ella, are you hungry?” She stoppered the milk jug with a handful of twisted grasses to keep the flies out.
Both nodded. Shiphrah tore off chunks of bread and spread goat cheese across the top. When it softened into the bread’s warmth, she handed it to her little family, enjoying their looks of pleasure and not minding the scattered crumbs.
“Ella, it’s nap time. When you wake up, maybe Aunt Puah will be home and we’ll go down to the river.” Shiphrah winked at Ati. “Who will rock you to sleep today, Ella?”
“Ati rock me.”
“She might if you ask her nicely, Ella.”
Ella twisted her head and with solemn black eyes looked up at Shiphrah.
“Ati like rock me.”
“She smart girl, huh?” Ati chuckled. “Come to old Ati, baby.”
Ella pulled herself onto the offered lap and snuggled into position as Shiphrah watched Ati’s arms circle the child. She was thankful the two enjoyed being together. They helped each other with little tasks around the house and often fell asleep cuddled together.
Ati spent hours helping Ella learn to balance on her crutches, and Ella rewarded Ati with affection she showed no one else. It seemed the two of them accepted each other without reserve, their friendship another of God’s tender mercies, and Shiphrah resented it.
Ashamed and embarrassed by her feelings, she scolded herself. No matter how she tried to deny her struggle, the questions, like an unrelenting poison, spread through her thoughts.
Why hadn’t Ati ever rocked her to sleep or cuddled her as a child? Ati had never shown her affection. She’d even made her leave. Her parents had not wanted her, so maybe Ati hadn’t either. Shiphrah bit her tongue. She would ask, but Ati’s feelings might be hurt or she might learn something she didn’t want to know.
Ella’s breathing slowed, and Shiphrah tiptoed from the house. She needed alone time to think. She wouldn’t go far from the house. Ati’s strength was limited, and Ella couldn’t walk without a lot of help. If Ella awoke or Ati needed her, she wanted to be nearby, needed to be nearby.
She stood outside the door and watched the river’s motion, unaware Puah approached until she spoke.
“Ella and Ati must be asleep if you’re out here.”
Shiphrah nodded.
“Lately you seem troubled, Shiphrah. Will you tell me what you are thinking?”
“I don’t know how to explain. Things have changed, and it’s just…” She shrugged.
“Different? Of course it is. You have people depending on you to care for them. It is a lot to manage. Do you regret taking responsibility for them?”
“No, it’s not that. I do miss the long talks you and I used to share, and I miss having time to myself, but you know I’ve always wanted a family, and I love having a family, but”—Shiphrah crossed her arms and hugged herself tightly—“it reminds me of what I didn’t have as a child, what I missed, what I still miss.”
The look on Puah’s face encouraged Shiphrah to continue.
“What is the matter with me, Aunt Puah? One minute I’m so full of joy I could sprout wings and fly around, and the next minute I’m so sad I want to curl into a ball and sleep forever.”
As she dodged a fly trying to land on her face, Shiphrah’s frustration rose.
“Whenever I see Ati hug Ella, I wonder why Ati didn’t hug me. When she laughs with Ella, I try to recall her laughing with me … and I can’t. She made a doll for Ella, but I never had one.” Shiphrah jutted her chin forward. “I know this sounds petty and trivial.”
Puah waited.
Shiphrah groaned. “It’s all jumbled up in my head, Aunt Puah.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m so thankful to have Ella and Ati and that they have each other. It’s almost like I have been given a daughter and a mother. But I just wonder if…” Shiphrah paused and then blurted, “Was there a reason … Why didn’t … Was there something wrong with me that Ati couldn’t love me when I was little?”
“Do you love Ella?”
“What does that have to do with it? Of course I do.”
“Even though she’s lame?”
Shiphrah’s left eyebrow arched.
“Remember when she first came to live with us? You held her and fed her and bathed her, but you didn’t know how to play games with her like you do now. Did you love her then?”
“Yes, you know I did.”
“But now you know other ways to show her your love. When you wash her hair and she giggles, you giggle, too. If she doesn’t want to eat, you act like a big mama bird bringing food to her babies, and you make cradles and clothes for her doll. You learned how to show your love to her.”
“You’re saying there wasn’t anything wrong with me back then.”
“Nothing. Maybe Ati was afraid to show affection to you. Didn’t you once tell me her baby was left by the river to die? Maybe being with you made her think of that child.” Puah smiled. “I believe Ati loved you the best she knew how, just like you love her and Ella the best way you know. Ask her.”
“What if I don’t like her answer? I don’t want to hurt even more.”
Shiphrah turned back to the river. It flowed steadily, moving within itself, testing its banks. Its constant forward motion refused to still, refused to linger in the past.
“Puah, I’ve felt so guilty, so selfish, as if I’ve begrudged them their happiness.” She hugged herself tighter. “Aren’t people strange, wanting something badly and then when they have it, complaining about it? I have everything I ever dreamed of having, and here I am thinking of the freedom I’ve given up and what I missed in childhood.”
“In some ways, you are so much like your mother, Shiphrah. She worried about being selfish, and yet she was always thinking of others.” Puah shook her head as if trying to loosen the thought. “I want to see her in you, and at the same time I don’t. The similarities between you two frighten me.”
“I barely remember her.”
“Of course not. You were not much more than a baby when my sister … left.”
Shiphrah sat down in the dirt and nudged it into piles with her toes. Did she want to hear about her mother? If she knew more, maybe it would answer some questions and fill the holes gaping in her heart; or maybe it would burn like sand rubbed into a raw sore, scraping deeper, hurting more.
Shiphrah tilted her head back against the cracks in the wall. She wished sitting down she could still see the river, see it moving forward, refusing to stay in one place. She sighed. If she knew more of her mother’s story, maybe she’d be unstuck. Puah crouched beside her and poked at the sand with her finger, waiting.
“What was she like, my mother?” Shiphrah whispered.
“She was small, like you, and curious, always curious. She wanted to know about everything. She asked more questions than I could ever think of, much less answer. I think that’s what fascinated your father, her interest in his world which was so foreign to hers.”
Puah drew a square. “She showed me beauty in things I never would have noticed—the wings of an insect, sunlight on a leaf, the shape of water drops. She didn’t laugh a lot, but she seemed happy. No, content is a better word. She was content.
“I don’t remember her ever saying a harsh word about anyone, even Nege after he hurt her. She was not a fighter, never defended herself against snubs or accusations.” With each breath, Puah had jabbed deeper into the dirt until a moat surrounded the square.
Emotion roughened her voice. “That’s what finally killed her. My sister would not stand up to Nege or Old Sarah and the others. She gave up. She quit.”
Not daring to interrupt, Shiphrah stared at her aunt. She’d had no idea such anger hid beneath Puah’s calm manner. And why hadn’t she realized Sarah would have known her mother? Was that why the old woman was unfriendly to her? She’d never understood Sarah’s animosity, had tried not to offend her. Now at least it made sense.
Puah stopped digging the square’s moat. She sat unmoving.
“You said she quit. What did she quit?”
“Caring.”
Like a flower opening as the sun’s light slipped into its dark folds, Shiphrah began to understand. Jebah, in giving up, had abandoned both her daughter and her sister. Puah hurt as much as she did, maybe more. For so long, Puah had been left with no one. Shiphrah had Ati and later Mama Elisheba to care for her.
After clearing her throat, Shiphrah ventured a question. “Did my mother ever know Mama Elisheba?” She held her breath.
Aunt Puah’s face softened. “Yes. They were friends. Elisheba did not approve of Nege and warned Jebah against becoming too involved with him, but once Jebah was pregnant, Elisheba stood by her in spite of that old woman, uh, Sarah’s objections and condemnation. I think Elisheba wove your baby cradle as a gift. They visited for a while, meeting in the marketplace, and Jebah taught her to speak Egyptian, but when Elisheba became pregnant with her second child, the boy she miscarried, her ankles swelled and she could not walk so far in the heat.”
The women scrunched their toes into curls as a lizard skittered past. Once in the sun’s warmth, he twisted his head and flicked his tail before hurrying on his way.
“And after I was born?” Shiphrah asked in a small voice.
“Your mother named you Shiphrah, which means ‘calm.’ She prayed that you would bring tranquility to your father. She never returned to our home.” Puah tightened her lips, her scarred face pale. “She would have been unwelcome and possibly stoned to death.”
Shiphrah winced.
“When you were a few months old, Elisheba carried Jochebed, who was maybe two years old, and went with me to visit Jebah. Unfortunately, Nege was home and refused to let us in the house. We were afraid he would vent his anger on you or your mother, so after that I went alone and met her outside the house. Somehow Nege found out we were still in touch and when we would be meeting. When she didn’t meet me by the onion vendor’s stand, I went to her house.”
The way Puah’s face sagged told Shiphrah more than she wanted to know.
“He had beaten her so badly.” She swallowed. “I feared she would die.”
For a few minutes, the whine of mosquitoes was all Shiphrah heard.
“I never saw my sister again. I heard that as soon as she could walk she left Nege’s house and walked alone into the desert.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Puah.”
Gentleness returned to the crooked face as Puah smiled. “I’m thankful she has no more pain, Shiphrah. It comforts me to know no one can ever hurt her again.” She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, exhaling slowly. “There is something else you should know.”
Shiphrah’s heart thudded as she saw Puah’s eyes darken and her hands tremble before she clasped them in her lap. Puah swallowed, looked away, and moistened her lips.
“Jochebed’s father and your father…” She stopped and started over. “When I learned your mother had disappeared, I was out of my mind with grief and fear. The thought of losing you…” Puah shook her head. “All I could think about was getting you away from Nege. I’m sorry. I know he is your father, but he is incapable of thinking of anyone but himself. I hid across from Nege’s house and watched until Ati brought you outside, and then I … I shoved her to the ground and snatched you and ran.”
Shiphrah struggled to breathe. Speaking was impossible.
“Ati knew from Jebah where our home was, and she brought your father to the village. Her hand was bandaged and bloody. I learned later her finger had been crushed between two rocks when she fell. It had to be amputated.”
“The debt you owed Ati.”
Puah nodded. “I felt so guilty, but that is not the worst. Shiphrah”—Puah took a deep breath and pushed out the words—“it is my fault Elisheba’s husband was killed.”
The breeze could not staunch the tears bleeding from Puah’s eyes.
“Nege had a knife.” Puah looked beyond Shiphrah’s shoulder, and Shiphrah saw her aunt’s eyes lose their focus.
“The rage on his face was…”—Puah’s chin quivered—“horrible to see. Furious—black with hatred. He threw me to the ground and yanked you out of my arms. I had no choice. Had I refused to release you, you would have been ripped in half. He threw you in the river, screaming and swearing he was finished with Hebrews.
“Jochebed’s father, Levi, was nearby—fishing maybe—and must have heard him because he came running to help. He pulled you from the water and yelled to a child standing on the shore—he called her ce-ce or sissy, I’ve never been sure but I don’t think it was actually his sister—to go for help. I don’t think she moved at all.” Puah pulled a loose string from her clothes and twisted it around her finger.
“Nege struck Levi from behind, and both of you went underwater. The river turned red, and the crocodiles came. Your father eluded them, but I had to choose—you or Levi. I could only save one.” Puah shuddered. “And then Ati insisted your father take you with him. She refused to abandon you.”
Puah’s eyes refocused. “Some of the village elders praised Levi for saving a child, while others faulted him for saving you—one of our oppressors.”
“Did Mama Elisheba ever wonder if it was me?”
“She always knew it was you.”
The women sat in silence, one unable to speak, one having spoken.
When they heard sounds coming from the house, Puah stood, offered a hand, and pulled Shiphrah to her feet. Standing side by side, they watched the river flowing steadily forward through the bulrushes.
Unaware someone approached, Shiphrah and Puah entered the house. Ati and Ella were awake and facing the door. Ati’s eyes were red. Shiphrah wondered if she’d been crying.
“Now, Ella,” said Ati.
Ella clutched a stick in each hand and tucked her tongue between two teeth as Ati lifted the child to stand. Over the thundering of her heart, Shiphrah heard someone call a greeting but did not turn, did not take her eyes off the child.
She held her breath, willed the little girl to be steady.
One step.
Shiphrah’s chin trembled.
Two steps.
Beside her, Puah sniffled.
Ella giggled, lost her balance, and plopped on the floor. “I did it, Aunt Shiphrah!” She squealed and clapped her hands.
“I’m so proud of you, darling.”
“Again.”
Puah held Ella and propped a crutch under each arm. “Ready?”
The child nodded and edged a crutch in front of herself. One step. Ella’s tongue peeked out from between her lips. Two steps.
The shadow in the doorway stayed motionless.
Three steps this time before Ella wobbled and fell.
The shadow moved into the room and knelt before the little girl.
“Papa! You see?”
“You were wonderful, Daughter. I’m so proud of you.”
“Is s’prise for sissy.”
“I won’t say a word.” Joseph lifted her into his arms and promised, “It’s our secret.”