“As I had feared, my father was walking up the street when I returned, having just been at the temple, and he saw me with a Roman. I would not even look at Cleopas, I just hurried into the house. But he was brazen back then, Abigail, you would not recognize him. He did nothing then, of course, when he saw my father following me in. But I now know he left only to figure out who I was, who my father was.
“My father was surprisingly silent all that evening. I had expected quite a berating but was relieved. I thought he must have known what had happened, that it was not in accordance with my will that a centurion was with me. Now I think he was probably just mulling it over all the next week, getting angrier as the days went by. His imagination had surely come up with something horrid, that is the only explanation that would partly justify his later explosion.”
She paused a moment for a breath and took a bit of the bread that Abigail had brought in on a tray and set nearby. “It was a week later when Cleopas came again. I was at home, my father away at the temple with Jairus, when I heard the knock. I assumed it was a neighbor woman, so I went to answer it myself. When I opened the door, Cleopas stepped in before I had a chance to respond and closed the door behind him.” She smiled at the memory now, although it had not seemed so humorous then. “I demanded that he leave at once, but he just grinned–you know his grin. So boyish and charming, though I was not charmed at the time. I was outraged. I gave him no time to speak, just opened the door again and tried to push him out.
“My father was right there, Jairus behind him. I remember thinking how poor my luck was. Then I thought, ‘Surely he saw that he just came in a second ago.’ And he should have. I do not know how he could not have, but he was so angry that I was worried for a moment he might hurt himself.
“He just pushed his way in and spoke in Hebrew, which he assumed Cleopas would not understand. He said, ‘Ester, I could have you stoned for this.’ When I asked him why, he looked at Cleopas and said, ‘That you would let a Roman defile you–’ I did not let him finish. We both knew, or should have known, how absurd his accusation was. I told him I had done nothing wrong, that I did not deserve his ire. He insisted that I had shamed myself and him and Jairus, and that now I would have to pay the penalty.
“And then Cleopas spoke. In Hebrew, although not splendidly. He had apparently decided to pick it up when he arrived and had done remarkably well. He simply said, ‘Let not your daughter be hurt. I will marry her.’
“That was the worst thing yet in my mind. I turned to Jairus then with my beseeching, begging him to take me as his wife as we had all planned, and if he was not satisfied with the evidence of my virginity then he could divorce me. I actually said it would be better to be divorced by an Israelite than married by a Roman. I do not know why Cleopas did not grow upset at that, but he did not. He just held his ground and remained silent while I wept and begged and made a fool of myself.
“But my father thrust me away and turned to Cleopas. He said, ‘I am High Priest. No daughter of mine weds a Roman. But if you desire that wench, then she is yours.’ I thought I would die from the humiliation. I said that he could not disown me, I tried to say something about the heritage of our family, but he cut me off and offered Cleopas the family’s jewels if he would just keep me and my shame far from his home. The insult to me was awesome.”
Ester paused to take a long breath. “I was crying so hard by the time the conversation ended that I could not hear everything that happened, but it ended with Cleopas leading me from my father’s house with a box of jewels under his arm.
“I am to this day not certain how Cleopas managed all that he did in that afternoon, but he somehow convinced the general to let him buy this house and take a wife. He paid for it with a few of the pieces from my dowry, that I know. We were married and came here for the first time.
“The house was in disrepair, and we could not afford any servants so soon, but I was blind to it that night anyway. I was too busy being terrified to care about the state of the place. I did not know what to expect, or what to do. I did not know this man, and yet he was suddenly my husband. And strangest of all, I did not know why he had wanted to marry me. He did not know me, and though I was pretty, there were many more so. You, Abigail, are far more beautiful than I was.”
“I find that hard to believe.” Abigail turned her face modestly away. Ester smiled, since the action made her all the more beautiful, thereby proving her point.