I Am Not an Adulteress Anymore

Chapter Three

Four days later:

I have no basis for saying this, other than the hatred is truly burning high in my heart. Hatred. For he has wronged me.

Three days after he had thrown me to the floor, the bleeding had started.

It had not come on subtly, but instead, all in one fell swoop, and so I had pressed some rags to myself as I had fled, squatting in the far reaches of the furthest field, my eyes filling with tears as painful convulsions work to wrench my child from my womb.

Oh God, is this my punishment for wanting it gone?

My abdomen again contracts, and I squeeze the small rock I have found tight in my hands, so tight, that I can feel the skin of my palm breaking.

No, I pray. No, do not let this be.

But it is.

And before sunset, it is all over, and I somehow find the strength to stand, and then hobble back across the unsown field, which is now sown to the hilt with my child's blood.

Rebekah comes in to my room later, eyeing me as she does. I have washed. I have put on my best garments. I have even put on the earrings that Ephraim gave me on our wedding day.

She stands tall, looking at me through slitted eyes.

She knows.

"Ephraim will not be happy," she says, her tone betraying her beliefs. She is just a servant, but she is a Samaritan, a true one, and therefore she has every right to look down on me.

Little does she know they are wrong, absolutely wrong about everything. And their temple is a makeshift shoddy excuse for a place to worship, a pathetic attempt at replacing the true one down in Jerusalem.

"I don't care what Ephraim thinks," is all I say. "Be gone."

She takes in a quick breath and then leaves. I imagine her going straight to the new wife, or straight to Ephraim himself.

Perhaps soon, I will not be alone. Perhaps soon, he will come and finish the job.

There is a reason I am dressed head to toe in my best garments, and strangely, I feel ready and unafraid.

For what more is there for me here?

But no one comes that night, though, nor the day after.

Worse than being lambasted, worse than being punished, is being cast aside altogether.

Toward sunset, I hear again their laughter from the main house, and just like that I make up my mind to go.