FOR THE FIRST time in my life, I prayed fervently.
Clasping hold of Ham's warm, limp hand, I begged Elohim to save him. I prayed that he would be spared from my sister's fate; that he wouldn't die under my watch. I offered the God my life instead. I wasn't a part of Noah's family yet, not until I married his son. But I knew Noah needed him more than me. I told Elohim I would believe —— truly believe in Him —— if only Ham lived.
I stayed with him in his tent those first few, awful days. Ham's leg was broken and his skin raged like a wildfire with fever, despite Ezamara and Sedeqet's best efforts. Maybe it was a mercy that he had been in a state of permanent sleep since his accident, although his shoulders occasionally twitched with a shudder, and his heavy sighs told me his dreams offered him no comfort.
I had cried my last few tears out that first night, along with Ezmara. Now I merely held vigil, irritated when someone came into the tent and interrupted my reverie of bartering and pleading with a God I wasn't sure could hear me, even if it was just Ada, giving me food.
Please. Please. Pleasepleaseplease. Sedeqet had told me once that sometimes, the words to the prayer didn't matter as much as my conviction. And I was convicted with ensuring Ham didn't die.
The pelt blocking the entrance way shifted, and Noah shuffled inside. The afternoon light beyond him blinded me before I returned my gaze to Ham. I couldn't let him die like Naamah had. I had to be there for him, looking over him.
Noah knelt beside me and dipped his head. I wondered, then, if he felt guilty. Maybe he deserved to. Ham had slipped on pitch on the third deck of the Ark and had fallen more than twenty cubits to the first one —— it was Japheth who had found him.
"I am so sorry," Noah said, his head still bowed. I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or his son. His shoulders began to shake violently, and I sat up in alarm until I realised the old man wasn't seizing out of hysteria, but weeping from his grief.
"I am so sorry, Ham," he rested his hand on his son's chest, and I could hardly bear the pain in his voice. I gently laid my palm on his, and we sat like that, feeling Ham's sturdy chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. Proving he was still alive.
Once he'd wiped away his tears, Noah cleared his throat. "You don't have to be here all the time, Na'el. Anyone can watch him." His blue eyes, so like Ham's own, were watery as I met his gaze.
"I need to be here," I replied quietly. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to explain to him why, only that it was a desire that went bone-deep. "I can't ... I can't lose him, too." My face crumpled, and Noah quickly caught hold of me as I leant forward, resting my head against his chest. Even thinking about it weighed down heavily on me.
"It's alright," he said gently, against my ear. His beard scratched against my hair, and his hands, though rough from hard work, were light on my shoulders. "It's alright, Na'el."
I clutched hold of the front of his kēthanoth and faintly felt the thumping of his heart against my knuckles. His embrace anchored me to the tent's floor, else I feared I would be thrown up into a whirlwind by the agony that raged inside my chest. I'd never been held like this before, not even by my own father. Like I was safe. Like I was loved.
"Your care for him is so plain to see," he said, after a few minutes had passed, and I'd stifled my shuddering; the noiseless, tearless cries that wracked my bones. "I know it pleases Elohim. And it pleases me, as his father."
I pulled back a little, searching Noah's eyes. "Can you give us your blessing, then?" I was practically begging him. I didn't care how pathetic I seemed —— if my actions had satisfied him, and his God, how much longer would he make us wait?
Until Ham was dead?
"Can we marry?"
Noah shut his eyes and rested his hands on his knees. I stayed as I was, barely allowing myself to hope. Your care for him is so plain to see. And yet it was more than that, though I would never dare admit it.
"Let us give Ham time to heal," Noah finally replied. I curled my hands in my lap. "But ... I know you would make a good wife to him. You are good for him."
He was looking at his son, murmuring like I was only a shadow at the edge of his vision. "I know he struggles with Elohim's will, sometimes. He challenges God, and he challenges me. But he's my son. I want what's best for him, and I know that that's what you are."
I wished that Ham had happened his eyes right then, to hear his father's words. "Of course," I said quietly. "You love him."
His eyes traveled back to me. "So do you."
I was cowardly, and couldn't hold his gaze for long. But that familiar whirlwind I had tried in vain to stave off the last few days reignited in my chest.
Noah and I sat in comfortable silence. And we both prayed.
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"Don't frown, my son," Emzara whispered, as though Ham could heed her through the poison of his fever that made his flesh clammy to touch. She'd stripped him down to his hagor, and I had looked away, my teeth clenched, trying not to look at the gory mess that was his left leg for too long.
She gently massaged the gap between his eyebrows, trying to soothe the delirium that made him mutter nonsense and pinched his smooth, dark face into an even more severe expression in his unconsciousness.
"He always was such a serious little boy," she laughed, a thin, high-pitched sound that betrayed more anxiety than humour. Emzara sat back, but kept her hand against his cheek. "He had too many ideas for his own good. Always getting into trouble with Japheth."
I couldn't help but be curious. "They were close?"
"They used to be." She looked at me, and her black gaze was murky with sadness. "Before they began helping Noah with the Ark. There was nothing to be done; Ham was but a boy, and Japheth, almost fifteen. Shem was a married man by then. Their duties separated them."
I chewed the inside of my cheek, feeling pity for her. Her heart was surely torn between her sons. But Ham seemed to have suffered the most for it, not her, by the war it seemed he was constantly fighting against his father and his older brothers.
I remembered how he'd spoken to me at the river —— had it only been a few days before? It already seemed like an age ago —— and how his tone had seemed to change from one moment to the next.
Maybe he was fighting even against himself.
The urge to comfort Emzara suddenly overwhelmed me. I rested my hand on her shoulder, bridging the gap between us over Ham's prone body.
"Noah told me Ham and I would get to marry," I said, trying to force joviality into my words. "And he's a man of his word."
I turned to him, and pressed my head on his bare chest. His heart thrummed weakly beneath his ribs, and I was reminded of the story of how Eve was created; carved out of a piece of Adam's bone that just so happened to be nearest to his heart.
"Your hear that, Ham?" I asked him. I shook him, gently. "You can't die on me." I'm a part of you, I thought. I need you. Oh Elohim, please, save him.
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Two days later, Ham's fever broke. By the next, he could open his eyes, though he spent more time sleeping —— no longer shuddering in his dreams —— than awake.
The following night, curled beside him, I watched his chest slowly rising and falling, until I couldn't make out if he was still breathing through the dark shadows and gloom of the tent.
My paranoia acted for me, and cold marrow ran through my blood as I gripped for his hand, trying to find his pulse.
He squeezed my fingers, and released a tired chuckle. "There you are," he murmured, sounding distant and unfocused. "I thought you were just a dream."
"Ham, I ——" my joy became muffled as his other arm slid over my shoulders, and I felt his pained exhalation against my face as he affixed me to his side.
He breathed me in, and I was still at the touch of his bare flesh. "I'm so glad you're not," he whispered against my hair.
My heart threatened to beat out of my chest. I stared up at the roof of the tent, and dared do nothing else but thank my God.