Read The Saturday Wife for Free Online Page B

on.
    “Please, God, I know I haven’t been behaving myself the way You’d want,” she whispered, then stopped. It sounded like she was talking to a school principal. She took a deep breath. “Dearest Father in Heaven,” she began. But it sounded so phony, so Holy Scroll Press, that religious publishing house that translated Hebrew prayers into unbearable English and published books professing to be compilations of standard Jewish laws but were actually modern reinventions so stringent and reactionary they made Maimonides look like a flaming liberal. She sat back quietly, exhausted, and watched.
    Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn, who had only good intentions, who were actually sent to make peace and stop the trade blockade of a perfectly innocent little planet, were about to be killed for no good reason. She felt angry tears drop at the terrible injustice of the world, where innocent people with good intentions— had she ever had any other kind? Had she not been, at the very moment disaster struck, planning to be a good Jewish wife and mother, taking care of a family in a large and comfortable house? —were pursued mercilessly by evil.
    She put her hand over her stomach. Well, a baby couldn’t be called evil. It was a consequence but not an evil consequence. Just very inconvenient and embarrassing.
    Her prayer was not going well at all, she realized, taking her eyes off the screen just as they landed on Tatooine and met Anakin Skywalker… .
    She closed her eyes, gripping the seat in front of her with both hands.
    “I’m not good at prayer,” she whispered. “It’s hard for me to concentrate; my mind is always wandering. But I’m scared, God. Really scared. I know I deserve to be punished for all the bad things I’ve done”— clothes strewn over the floor, body parts touching intimately —”but I really, really want children some day. But in the right way. With a visit to the ritual baths, and a marriage canopy, and a marriage contract handwritten by a scribe on vellum, signed by witnesses. Please forgive me for even consideringaborting a child, if I am… if I am…” She hesitated, then stammered the word out loud. “Pregnant!” She looked around, frightened she’d been overheard. But people’s eyes were on the screen. She sighed, her heart racing. She put her palm over it. “You are smarter than I am. Please find some way to help me out on this. I don’t want to hurt an innocent child, or my future husband, or my parents.” She took a deep breath. “But if I have a baby now, I will be thrown out of the Jewish community. I will never be able to marry a decent man, to be a good Jewish wife and mother. And I know that’s what You want for me, isn’t it?”
    So far, she didn’t see how God could be impressed, since she was even boring herself. And so God, who must hear this kind of stuff 24/7, must be snoring. She felt a sense of desperation, as if she were watching a delicate operation and the patient was flatlining and the doctors were using those electrodes, or whatever, to zap the heart one last time before calling it a day.
    She leaned forward, a new sense of desperation making her body stiff and electric with passion. “Please, God, get me out of this! If You do, I swear on everything holy that I’ll change!” She rapidly went down a checklist. “I’ll pray every morning. I’ll starve myself on all the minor fast days. I’ll wear skirts that cover my knees and blouses that cover my”—briefly, she considered saying wrists, but there was no way—”that cover two fists above my elbow. I’ll marry a good Jewish man and I’ll be the best wife, the best religious Jewish wife and mother. You won’t be sorry. Please help me!”
    She felt a sudden warm flow between her legs. The skirt, she realized, was ruined. But her life was saved. It was a good trade, especially considering it was Rivkie’s skirt.
    Her life, she knew, was about to undergo a transformation.

    That morning, she