Copyright (c) 2015 Phyllis Zimbler Miller
All rights reserved.
Former President Carter returned to Haiti for the first time since he brokered an accord that averted a U.S. invasion last fall. -- February 24, 1995
Abortion. Now, years after abortion was legalized and even though it is under attack by the far right, it seems hard to remember those days when women, myself included, had to sneak around and risk our lives in order to control our own bodies.
Judith didn't have even that illegal option. Or maybe she did and she refused to take that way out.
Judith's Story
August 1919
Judith knelt beside the tiny mound of dirt. Chaim stood behind her, tugging at her to get up.
"You will make yourself sick. You must come inside and eat."
"I cannot leave the baby." She had insisted the child be buried here, near her.
"The children are waiting inside. You're scaring them."
Yes, she must not frighten Lillian and Sylvia. They had been scared enough by the delivery. She had screamed and the midwife had yelled. Neither the screams nor the yelling produced a live baby.
Chaim pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her. In spite of the heat she shivered.
"We're married now," he said. "We will make another son."
Judith thought how this baby boy had died like the boy produced from King David and Bathsheba's illegal union while Bathsheba's husband Uriah still lived. Yet the next son the king and Bathsheba produced grew up to become King Solomon and build the Temple in Jerusalem. Perhaps Judith and Chaim would have a son who would grow up to be a leader.
Yet for now this was her punishment. For wanting Chaim.
They hadn't made love again after that time on Armistice Day. Three weeks later she realized she had become pregnant! By Jewish law she couldn't marry Chaim until three months after Jacob died. How could she face the neighbors?
But no one knew Jacob hadn't slept with her when he came back from the war. The neighbors would assume the baby was Jacob's. And of course, if a boy, she would name the baby Jacob. Chaim agreed.
And now nine months later there was no second Jacob. Jacob was dead and the baby was dead.
She wiped her face with Chaim's handkerchief.
Chaim. Life in Hebrew.
L'chaim. To life!
__
If you would also like to read women's fiction that takes place in the future rather than the past, check out THE MOTHER SIEGE here on Wattpad at http://budurl.com/MSintro