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neighbors to see them off.
    Martha watched the group move slowly down the road and felt as if she could not breathe for the weight of the sorrow she carried. Ephraim started to speak to her, but when she turned to him, tears spilling from her eyes, he merely nodded and turned away. She watched until the wedding party became mere specks and disappeared around a bend in the road. Finally she too turned toward her home. The day was beginning and there was work to do.

 5 
    Martha stood in the center of the courtyard of their home in Bethany and watched a hawk circle lazily over the barley fields. The heavy rains of the month of Tebet had stopped and the fields were golden in the warm Judean sunshine. Larks and doves filled the air with their songs as they called to one another. The years like leaves had drifted by, from green and promising spring, to the subtle shades of autumn and winter. Other girls and young men of Bethany had married and had children. As she passed them in the village, she was aware that some of her former friends looked at her with puzzlement and pity. She was nearly twenty, and still unmarried.
    She shaded her eyes as she looked up and for a moment envied the hawk as it soared freely on the wind currents. How long had it been since she had done as she pleased? There seemed so much to do and so little time. For a brief moment, tears threatened, and she forced them back. She shook herself as if to dispel the dark thoughts that seemed to occupy her mind lately.
    Martha turned toward the road that wound from the village past their home. She was suddenly aware of voices raised in song and intermittent laughter. A group of women were coming down the road. She recognized Phoebe in the middle of the group, and remembered her talking at the well about going to Jerusalem to buy her wedding clothes. The women waved to Martha as they passed but didn’t invite her to join them. She waved back as casually as she could, but a great lump had formed in her chest. Phineas. The thought of him and that bitter disappointment still was a wound in her heart, but there was nothing to be done for it. She turned resolutely into their small courtyard.
    The smell of fresh bread baking in the outdoor clay oven brought her mind back to the tasks at hand. She put down the basket of leeks and garlic she’d gathered from the outside garden and lifted the bread out with a flat wooden paddle, setting it to cool.
    She looked around the small courtyard in front of their humble home and felt a sense of pride. Only slightly larger than most of the humble dwellings in Bethany, their home was made even more spacious by the extensive courtyard Ephraim had built. In a protected area by the side of the house, their three goats butted each other playfully. Next to them their small flock of sheep eyed Martha with their large, soft eyes. The donkey swished his tail and looked up at her expectantly. The animals were hungry, but she turned away. Lazarus would tend to them when he got home.
    She moved to the small alcove off the courtyard that served as a storage room for food and cooking pots. Her father had built a covered walkway from the house to the alcove to allow access to the storage room in inclement weather. Martha lifted the leather curtain aside and entered. She put the extra garlic in a small basket, then took a wooden bowl off the shelf for the lentil stew. Her father and Lazarus would be coming back from Jerusalem soon and would want their dinner. She hoped they had been successful in selling her last two weavings. Working the loom was her solace and she loved to mix the rich colors and patterns. When she was old enough to move the shuttle back and forth, her mother had taught her how to weave and showed her the different dyes that could be made from plants and roots. Together they carefully colored the wool yarn Martha had spun. Even at the age of five, she could twirl the spindle expertly, pulling the soft wool into