Is her name remembered?” I asked softly. “Dinah,” she said. “I like the sound of it, don’t you? Someday, if I am delivered of a daughter, I will call her Dinah.
We didn’t call it the First World War when it was happening.
I would be a woman soon and I would have to learn how to live with a divided heart.
Italians are just as good as Jews when it comes to guilt.
You don’t ever get resolved. You just get older and life goes on.
Mameh would complain about America; how the apples had no taste.
While Laban was glad enough of Jacob’s presence, the two men disliked each other heartily. Although different as a raven and a donkey, they were bound by blood and soon by business.
Life was sweet in the Valley of the Kings, on the west bank of the river.
I will pour out everything inside me so you may leave this table satisfied and fortified. Blessings on your eyes. Blessings on your children. Blessings on the ground beneath you. My heart is a ladle of sweet water, brimming over.
Ruth had come so far and lived so lonely only to learn that she was the daughter of a rapist and a murderer. She was half-sister to a smug fool who would probably have used Phoebe as ill as his father, had he been given the chance.
Even the oldest of us,” she said, shaking a bony finger at me, “even we crones can pick up new tricks here and there.
I will remember you in the morning and in the evening, every day until I close my eyes forever. I forgive your every harsh thought of me and the curses you may hurl at my name. And when at last you do forgive me, I forbid you to suffer a moment’s guilt in my name. I ask that you remember only my blessing upon you, Bar-Shalem Re-mose.
I always felt I understood myself better after we spent time together.
Other people were turning in their papers and I still hadn’t written a word. I was starting to panic until out of the blue I remembered my father saying that Jews answered questions with more questions. So that’s what I did.
Jacob’s dogs were soon the envy of other men, who offered to buy them. Instead, he traded a day’s work for the stud of the male cur with cunning wolfish eyes. When the smallest of our bitches bore the wolf-dog’s litter, Jacob trained her puppies and traded four of the five for what seemed a mountain of treasure, which he quickly converted to gifts that proved how well he had come to understand Laban’s daughters.
Mimba had been right about white people. The best thing was to treat them like ghosts and cannibals, not to be trusted. But sometimes, a white ghost would look at you straight on, with a full smile, eye to eye. The smile of the eye was the secret, Mimba had taught her. You had to be careful always, but every now and again you could act as though they had souls, too. Easter was one like that.
A girl should always have her own money so she’s never beholden to anyone.” I.
Jacob made Laban agree to sacrifice two fat lambs and a kid to the god of his father, as thanks for the bounty. Leah baked raised cakes from the precious stock of wheat for the sacrifice, too, which was carried out as Jacob directed. In the manner of his fathers, he burned entire loaves and all the choice parts of the animals rather than a few portions. The women muttered among themselves at the waste.
At least she didn’t suffer.
Why had no one told me that my body would become a battlefield, a sacrifice, a test? Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers?