Leah
Push, daughter. Hold my hand and bear down.”
Rosana’s voice, soft and urgent, cut through the haze of pain. I drew a deep breath and groaned, struggling to expel the child that lay like a boulder inside my belly.
No progress. The babe refused to move.
“Let me die,” I whispered, turning my face to the wall. “I am too tired.”
I was so weary my nerves throbbed. My mind had thickened with fatigue, and when I had clear thoughts, they were memories of Mother sliding down the wall, Father’s angry face, and long nights when I pretended to sleep. I tried to remember what Rosana had told me about why Judah went to war, but the only memories that came to me were old ones, tinged with terror and dread.
Morit stepped forward, smiling at me from what seemed a great height. “Let me help,” she said, lowering her fingers into a jar. When she lifted her hand, her fingertips dripped with honey. “This will ease the baby’s passage. Lie still and let me see what I can do.”
I closed my eyes, no longer caring what any of them did.
The first birth pangs had come two days before, when I stopped to make water in one of the fields. A sharp pain so caught me by surprise that I staggered and fell backward into the grass, an awkward collection of arms, legs, and belly. Ona giggled as she helped me to my feet. “I knew pregnant women could be clumsy, but—”
“I think the child is coming,” I interrupted as a flood of water poured from between my legs. “Call Rosana. Call my mother.”
“Your mother is visiting a friend in the next village.” Ona took my arm. “But I will bring Rosana as soon as I get you home.”
With one hand pressed to my aching back, I hobbled back to my house with Ona, then paced and breathed through my teeth as the pains came in quick succession. Rosana arrived a few moments later, and I could tell that my mother-in-law was astounded to hear that hard labor had begun so quickly.
“Squat here,” she said, pointing to an empty spot on the earthen floor. “Ona, stand behind her and support her back. I will sit in front and catch the baby when it comes. When the urge is too strong to resist, push with all your might.”
I did exactly as she said, obeying with a single-mindedness that rivaled Judah’s passion for his army, but despite all my pushing, the infant would not be born. Rosana then asked me to lie down, and though she said she could see the baby’s head, nothing she did seemed to make the baby want to leave my body.
For three days and two nights I suffered, and by the third afternoon I was past caring whether I lived or died. Weary in heart and body, I sensed an approaching darkness and an ominous numbness, and I welcomed them both.
This was my fault. I had been angry and upset when Judah left to fight again, and now HaShem was punishing me. Rosana had said that Judah was fighting for all Israel, so if I didn’t want him to go, I was standing in the way of HaShem’s plan.
He was a just God, and He punished evildoers. So He was going to kill me and my child.
I was about to close my eyes and surrender to defeat when a great whooshing sound filled my ears.
“Move out of the way,” my mother commanded, then her iron hands manipulated my belly, pressing and pushing, shifting and squeezing. I cried out, reflexively trying to shield my weary womb. Then satisfaction filled Mother’s voice. “Push again, daughter. With all your strength.”
Surely pushing the child would tear my flesh apart. If so . . . let it be.
Somehow I found enough courage and strength to push Judah’s son into the world.
As Mother and Rosana murmured over the baby, I waited to hear a cry . . . and realized what had happened. My baby was dead. That was why I heard no crying or happy fussing from the grandmothers. Something had happened while the child was imprisoned in my womb.
The image of a trapped soul resonated like a deep-voiced bell. I was trapped, too, in a marriage with a man who refused to be the husband I wanted. My son had died because I could not set him free, and I would die as well unless Judah came home to stay.
Wild grief ripped through me as I rolled onto my side and wept.