MOTHER
That night at the feast, I watched as crooked yellow teeth flashed in the mouths of the Philistines while they ate our food. Thick calloused knuckles scratched those flea-infested heads as they tried in vain to solve the riddle. I watched their faces turn hard and angry, their chewing turn to tearing, their hands clasp and unfurl, wishing for a dagger.
Amara appeared at my elbow, whispering in my ear. “Mother, would you walk with me?”
I agreed with reluctance.
“You have heard Samson’s riddle?” She roped her arm through mine as we walked past the houses.
“Yes.”
“The men from my village are very angry.”
“If the men from your village are anything but complete idiots, they’ll solve the riddle soon enough. The answer is plain.”
“But if they don’t …”
“Amara, if you want to be a good wife, you must do as I do. Stay out of the affairs of men.”
“It’s very hard.”
I patted her hand. “You have no idea.”
AMARA
Samson stood. I followed a few steps, at a discreet distance, until out of earshot, then grabbed him by the arm.
“Amara. Stop.”
“Why won’t you tell me? Do I not please you?”
“Amara, I’m going to relieve myself. Either let go, or come watch.”
I dropped my hand, outraged. Had I not made myself irresistible tonight? Had I not served him without complaint, attended to his every need with plain adoration and subservience?
“I am only asking for the answer to a riddle.”
Samson walked off several more paces behind the houses on the left, to the trench where men relieved themselves. His back to me, he answered.
“I haven’t even told my father and mother.”
“I am not your mother. I am your wife.”
Samson turned back to me, adjusting the sash at his waist. My face was hot with anger and embarrassment. I had never stood behind a man as he did that. I prayed I would never have to again. My donkey made a quieter stream and did not sigh with ease as he did.
“And as your husband, I command you to stop pestering me.”
I bit my lip to keep from shaming myself further, even though tears streamed down my face, cold in the night air. Samson strode past me, stopping a few paces away to offer his arm.
“Coming?”
I narrowed my eyes and made the angriest face I could. Did he not see my tears? Did he not understand what he had done to me, to my family? How could a man be so utterly blind and insensitive?
“My God wanted me to marry you.”
“What?” I was confused.
“You asked me last night why I married you. I will answer that riddle. I married you because I am in love with you. God struck me with love for you the first time I saw you.”
With that, he was gone. Back to eating and drinking and swapping lewd tales, slapping his thigh to the music. I hung back in the shadows, and when the fire began to ebb and he stood to look for me, I lifted my tunic with a huff and walked inside my home.
Nothing made sense. But I made one decision in the chaos of the evening: If he did not give me what I wanted, then I would not give him what he wanted. This was marriage, was it not?
A full three days passed in this same manner. Samson refused to tell me the answer to the riddle. I refused to stop asking. I tried tears. I tried teasing with my body, trying to hint at pleasures as I leaned over him, pouring his wine. If I dared follow him past the bonfire to have a word in quiet, he grabbed me and pressed his mouth to mine before I had a chance to say anything at all.
The men saw that. I knew by their lewd shouts. How could they not understand I was trying to help them? I was trying to get the answer. They had accepted the bet, not me. Why was I threatened if I did not save them? And why did Samson insist that I must not have the answer?
The seventh day arrived. My eyes were swollen and my vision blurred. My whole body felt used and raw, exhausted from anxiety and shame and lack of sleep. Tonight the men would admit they could not solve the riddle, and they would be indebted to Samson. One set of clothes per guest. No small fortune in a lean harvest year.
I washed my face in the cold water sitting in the crock near my pallet. Wiping my eyes dry with my hands, I had to force myself to decide the answer to my own riddle.
Would I choose to live and flee with Samson? I would not hear my family die. I could pretend it did not happen. Samson’s family was wealthy, and thirty more sets of clothes would make us the wealthiest family I had ever known. I could be rich. No more work in the fields, with bleeding fingers and tired, aching feet.
I had to choose.
The door swept open, and in walked that ogre, Samson’s mother. She did not look surprised to find me alone. Saying nothing, she came and stood over my pallet, her arms crossed.
“You are unhappy with my son?”
I looked down at my lap.
“I see that you are not packed for the return journey. Do you intend to honor the marriage?”
“Why did you force him to marry me?”
The words flew from my mouth without restraint. I could not believe I was raising my voice to his mother.
She tilted her head. “I forced him?”
“He said he loved me. That cannot be true! And now he is going to rob my villagers by this riddle!”
“I would never have wanted Samson to marry you.”
Her voice was sharp and cruel.
“We are both prisoners, then. Help me. Please. Get Samson to tell me the answer. I will serve you like a slave all of my days.”
“Why is this riddle so important to you?”
“If I do not tell the men the answer, they’re going to kill me and my family and set us on fire and burn down our house! We’ll never even enter the afterlife!”
She threw her arms up in the air in disgust, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “I told Samson you were a horrible choice. Not only are you a Philistine, you’re still a child.”
She walked to the door, and I heard her muttering about the foolish imagination of girls. With one hand on the door to pull it open, she turned back to me.
“When you are in my home, I will see to it that you have plenty of work. Tired girls do not have energy to invent wild stories.”
“It’s not—”
“Do not talk back to me!” she screamed. “I will have respect!”
“What you said about Dagon? I believe it. I believe what you said.”
Samson was at the fire’s edge as we waited for the feasting hour to arrive. He looked at me, frowning. His eyes were watery. But how could it be that those words could make him cry? I was just trying to make peace between us. He had not taken me into the hills since the second night, nor had he tried to get me alone for any reason. It was possible he could take the money and leave me here forever.
“If I reveal the answer to my riddle, you must make me one promise.”
“Anything!” I stepped closer and took him by the arm. How had I broken his resolve?
“Do not tell my mother. Ever.”
“Do not tell her you gave me the answer?”
“No. Do not give her the answer. Ever. She must never know the answer.”
I wanted to take the answer like a stick from the fire and twist it in her side for all the grief she had given me. I was not the only one with a wild imagination, if Samson was afraid of what she might do. All over a riddle, no less.
“I promise.”
Samson wrapped his arms around my back and drew me in, in plain sight of the men arriving.
“Promises are sealed with a kiss.” He bent down and sealed my promise. I relaxed into his arms, without meaning to, my body grateful for his touch again. I had held out for days, resisting the furtive, dark pains that made my thighs tremble when he was near. I had been strong. And now I had won, though I did not know how.
I let myself fall into his arms, letting his mouth sweep over mine, his breath hot and wet against my cold cheeks.
I do not know how long he kissed me, only that I was grieved that he stopped.
“Do you remember when your father first invited me to dinner? On that day, I was walking on the road to your village when a young lion came roaring out of the trees. But that is the wrong place to start.”
“There was a lion? And it was going to attack you?”
He sighed, looking out at the horizon. “I am not like other men.”
I wanted so badly to laugh at him, with those heavy dreadlocks hanging to the ground, his body twice the size of anyone else’s. He was so very unlike other men. Did he think I had not noticed?
“No, you are not.”
“My mother was alone in a field many years ago when a messenger of my God appeared to her. He foretold my birth.”
“You are a god? Is this what you’re trying to tell me?” I had heard of such things. It made sense, given his size and appearance. What would our children look like? I hoped our daughters were not big like him.
“I am no god. My God comes upon me, and I am helpless to stop Him. His might overwhelms me suddenly, like a raging fever. I do things other men cannot do, cannot dream of doing.”
“You are blessed then.”
“No. Strength is not a blessing.” Samson was lost in thoughts I did not understand.
I wanted him to return to me. “What of the lion? Did he bite you?”
“The lion? Oh. He’s dead. I caught him by the throat and broke his neck. Then, because so much strength flooded my body, I tore his body apart, limb by limb. Then I dropped the carcass and the limbs on the side of the road and went on my way to find you. On my return journey here, I saw the same carcass, and there was a hive of bees inside the rib cage. I stuck my hand into the heart of the hive and scooped out the comb, dripping with honey. I ate it.”
“‘Out of the eater, something sweet.’ Yes. I understand!”
“Why was it so hard? There are lions and beehives all over your pottery.”
“But not a beehive inside a lion.”
“Do not tell my mother. You must promise me that.”
“Why? Is the lion sacred to your people? Will she be angry you killed it?”
“No. She’ll be angry that she ate the honey.”
“Ah. Another riddle?” I tried to prod him with a gentle joke.
“We broke the law of our God. We touched the dead.” Samson pointed to the feasting tables. “One last night. We leave at dawn.”
I left him, going to the tables to begin the wine service. I had the answer to his riddle. I thought it would make my choice so much easier, clearer. But some decisions were best made before riches came. Now I knew the men of my village could never solve this riddle; it was unlike any we had ever heard.
Samson was going to win the bet. And he would take me home to his god, a god I did not know.
After pouring everyone a brimming bowl of wine, I excused myself to fetch more. I looked frantically for Talos, who had not yet arrived. Running to the edge of the houses, I saw him coming down the road. I picked up my tunic and ran. I had a negotiation of my own to conduct.
MOTHER
I woke on this morning to a gentle tapping on the walls of the lodging house. I pulled the blanket tighter around me. Manoah was on his back, one arm flung over his head, mouth open wide, asleep. Samson was on his stomach across the room under the window. I saw beads of water running down the walls above him. The innkeeper needed to shut up his house for the winter now that the rains had come.
Tonight was the last night of the feast. The men had not solved the riddle. My son was going to begin the deliverance through cleverness, not strength. The last battle would begin with money, not swords. Perhaps all battles do.
We spent the day in between sleep and attending to the preparations for our journey home. Manoah talked to the innkeeper and settled our debt, making arrangements for our donkeys to be saddled and ready to leave by dawn. I never thought I would say this, but I was going to be happy to see my donkey again.
We walked to Amara’s house just after the fifth hour of the afternoon. The sun had not shone today, staying tucked away in gray clouds overhead. I wrapped my shawl around my shoulders and in between my arms. Samson noticed it and put his arm around me. He stood a foot taller than me. He could not have been comfortable, but he kept me warm.
When we arrived, he went to talk with Amara, leaving Manoah and I to work.
After an hour, we had the tables and benches in place, a goat roasting and the bread delivered. Amara had left Samson, going I know not where, but he did not move to help us. He just stared into the fire.
When the men arrived, I could tell they were already drunk, with stained faces and broad grins. They laughed, licking their lips when they saw Samson.
I saw a flick of black hair as Amara fled into her house.
The Philistine beast from Gath spoke first. “What is sweeter than honey? And what is stronger than a lion?”
I closed my eyes to stop the thundering in my heart. Amara must have gotten the answer from my son.
Samson lifted his arm from my shoulders, taking a step closer in, moving until he stood toe-to-toe with the red-headed beast. “You’re too stupid to have solved it on your own.”
The beast lowered his face. He stood a foot taller than Samson, which was a miracle in itself. “You’re calling me stupid?”
“If you hadn’t ploughed with my heifer, you would never have guessed the riddle.”
The beast just laughed, looking at the other men, who snickered and drank and nodded in satisfaction.
Lightning flashed behind Samson, illuminating the edges of his body and the strange shimmering madness that was pouring down upon him, like the breath of God. The white of Samson’s eyes turned to a searing silver, and his flesh shone so brightly that he burned pale blue.
I had seen this before. This madness was Samson’s gift. I braced myself for the burst of wrath, the destruction of these filthy men. I thanked God I had made it to this moment, when I would see the deliverance begin for my people.
Samson exhaled and turned to leave.
I trotted after him, calling his name. “What are you doing?”
I looked back in confusion at the men we had just left. Every one of them was still alive, still laughing. At us. At Samson and his defeat. On the roof of her house, Amara stood, her black hair whipped by the wind, a final lash of lightning illuminating her.
Samson said nothing to me, nothing to Manoah. He stomped and brooded, and when we got to the lodging house, Samson untied our donkeys and handed the reins to Manoah. “Take Mother home.”
I grabbed his arm. “Amara betrayed you. I did not.”
“Yes, you did. You thought I married her out of foolishness. It was God, your God and mine, who wanted it. Not me. I obeyed, and you gave me nothing but grief for it.”
“No. God would not have wanted you to marry a Philistine.”
Samson glanced at Manoah, who said nothing to defend his son. Samson shook his head and turned left, toward the coast, toward the heart of the Philistine empire, the five sister cities that ruled our people.
I called out after him. “Where are you going?”
“To make you happy.”
AMARA
The bag for my journey was by the front door.
But Samson did not return for me. He had walked off into the night without a word, his mother and father trotting behind him. He had taken the road out of the village, the glow that surrounded him fading as the hour went past. A log had snapped and split in two, collapsing into the fire, just as a flash of lightning streaked through the sky while I watched him go.
His god was angry with me. And my marriage was dead.
MOTHER
We rode through the night.
By the fourth hour of darkness, the air grew heavy and smelled of salt. The grasses turned from low grasses good for grazing into high grasses that shifted in the wind, the grasses of the sea.
Samson did not speak. I watched the back of his head, those cords of hair spreading out across his shoulders.
“They cheated you,” I called ahead to him.
No reply. Manoah looked at me and shrugged.
We were alone on the highway for most of the night. A caravan passed us, five camels laden with bags, probably spice merchants going east into the Judean Hills to make a profit. The camels towered above me as they passed, their heavy eyelids and soft brown eyes studying me with gentle curiosity. The merchant rode a sixth camel behind them, quietly urging them on. He wore a dusty turban, and his face was wrinkled up in brown folds. He tipped his chin to me when our eyes met, and then he was gone into the night.
Toward dawn, we were still on the main highway. We had not turned from the path for even one minute. I had needed to make water, and Manoah had waited for me, but my poor donkey paid for my weakness. I had to run him to catch back up to Samson, but what choice did I have? At my age, on a donkey, all night?
Samson led us deeper into Philistine country, toward one of the five sisters, the cities that the Philistines ruled in. Traffic along the highway picked up now, with merchants heading into the cities and families coming in to buy what they needed. By mid-morning, I saw the high arched gate with the two mud-brick towers on each side, the wide blue sky above and the strong smell of fish in the air.
We had arrived at Ashkelon.
The city looked as if it was built on a hill, but it was not really. Instead, a long steep mud rampart was built around the city as far as the eyes could see in either direction, and the city wall was built behind that. The wall was a giant, slow curve; Ashkelon was open on the other side, open to the sea.
The highway ran off down the coast toward the south, toward Egypt, but we turned on the road leading up to the main gate. This road was wide, wide enough for two chariot teams to ride side by side.
As we neared the gate, a horned altar stood outside, perhaps forty paces from the gate, with a silver statue of a bull calf. Travelers laid offerings on the altar before passing through the gates, probably praying for success and blessing in the day’s trades.
Samson paid no mind to the roadside idolatry. He led us through the gates. I saw him shiver once inside; the gate was wide enough for one chariot at a time to pass through, but taller than three men standing on each other’s shoulders. No sun illuminated the interior of the gate; it smelled of dead sea and mildew, and it was cold.
When we stepped out into the sun a few minutes later—for the gateway was longer than you can imagine—we were almost run over by a driver lashing his donkeys. They carried a load of pottery to market, the pots covered in red and black bull calves and heifers, a symbol of the Canaanite deities, and the colors of the Philistines.
Women shuffled past us wearing gold scarab toggle pins on their tunics that flashed in the late morning sun. They had Egyptian eye paint on, and I suspected those fine hairstyles they wore were nothing but wigs. I put my hand to my own hair, smoothing it back. I had not brushed it today, but at least it was mine.
In the distance, narrow Egyptian ships sailed into the harbor, their red and yellow painted sterns rising up and down, breaking the waves. Egyptians were quick to forgive enemies with money. Judging by the number of Egyptians, there was quite a bit of money here.
To our right, facing the sea, was a temple to Dagon, which I remembered as a brothel and nothing more. I remembered this city from a visit here as a child, when my father had risked my mother’s wrath only once by bringing me here as he traded. I had to ask him what the inscription meant, the one over the doorway to that house where all the beautiful women leaned from the windows. He had turned red and mumbled the answer. “Enter and enjoy,” he had said, and I had not understood the reason for his blush for many years. I had jumped from my donkey to retrieve a pin that fell from my sash, I caught a glimpse of what hid under the gutters. As soon as I looked up, Father saw my face, and we turned for home. He begged me to never reveal what I had seen.
The brothel had a latrine dug all the way around it, covered over to keep the smell down. It ran out to the sea. I turned away to keep the memories from surfacing. If you want to know the heart of a city, look at what it throws out.
Samson veered to the left, toward a row of shops, one with jugs and dipping spoons for wine and date-palm liquor. Alongside it were a butcher shop and grain shop, their tables out front, customers already yelling about the prices and inspecting the scales with a critical eye.
It made sense now, of course. Samson had lost the bet. He owed the men of Amara’s village thirty sets of clothes. Ah, but that would kill us. The expense!
“Why did you drag us all the way to Ashkelon?”
He was ignoring me, wandering through the crowds, as if looking for something. He had the frown of a man who has one item to buy, and only one, which was lost in a sea of options.
And then he walked right past the shops. I was off my donkey at this point. I had to; my hip bones were going to pop out of their sockets if I didn’t stand up straight for a while. I grabbed Samson by the elbow and tried to turn him to face me.
“You’ve gone past the market.”
He pulled away, cocking his head as he looked at me, the look one would give a bold stranger. He ducked to the left, behind the last stall, where merchants threw their refuse. I covered my mouth and nose with my tunic, making my eyes wide and angry at Manoah. He did nothing. Of course. So I followed, and as I turned round that corner of the stall, I saw a man I did not recognize.
It was my son.
Samson stood over a dead man. The man’s head flopped back, blood spurting out of his neck, a high red arc that sprayed me as I stepped too close, so shocked that my body moved against my will, moving me closer to this horror and not away from it.
A splash of hot blood hit my cheek.
“Help me,” my son said. He began lifting the tunic from the man.
I could not move my own legs or arms.
Samson reached up and took my hand. My eyes moved to look at him, to look into his eyes. I was seeing him for the first time, this other man.
“Help me,” he said.
I pulled the wrap skirt from the man’s waist, almost uncovering his nakedness. I took the skirt and held it out, as innocent as a baby. Samson took it from me, folding it over his arm, over the tunic that he carried. He grabbed my hand, and we moved on, into a dark stairwell built into the city gate, where guards could climb into and out of the mud-brick tower. Samson pulled me into the entranceway to the stairs, and we were not ten steps up when a Philistine guard came down the stairs. He frowned in surprise at seeing Samson, with his strange appearance, and me, an old woman with blood on her face. Before the guard could draw his sword, Samson had sprung up the steps separating us and had the guard on his back. I saw the flash of metal and heard a gurgling sound like a child trying to swim.
Samson untied the breastplate on the man, then lifted the tunic off of him. The man’s head and arms flopped about as Samson grunted with effort. The guard had been a big man. Now he was a big, dead man.
“Help me.”
I remembered. I took off the wrap and folded it over my arm. “Give me the tunics,” I whispered. Samson handed me the two tunics he was carrying, plus the other wrap. I folded them neatly over my arm, smoothing them down.
What can I say? I had watched my son kill two men. My son kill other sons. All my life was reduced to this moment, this one simple, pure, clean fact: There was Family, and there was Not Family. But there was not Choice.
I carried out the clothes like they were nothing more than laundry and followed Samson up the stairs. Two more guards were in the tower. Samson drove the knife into one man’s side, and as he fell, Samson drove the knife into the neck of the other guard as he reached for his weapon. The blood spilled and pooled and as he yanked the tunics off, Samson slipped in it, coating the back of his legs with thick hot red blood that dripped as he moved. I made him wait at the mouth of the stairs while I cleaned him off. Some had gotten in his hair, too, and this I cleaned with the only spare cloth I knew of, which was the loincloth from a dead guard. I did not look as I removed it and was careful to touch no bodies. I was a good Hebrew.
I was a new woman, too, a woman I did not know who could do these things. I followed Samson back down the stairwell and back into the bright morning sun. It might have been the noon sun, or the third hour sun; I no longer could tell. I had no bearings for this new world. Manoah was wandering the market, still holding the reins for our donkeys. He looked relieved when he saw us. Relieved!
Samson took the clothes from my arms and loaded them on the donkeys, then turned to his father.
“Get her out of the city, Father. Now!”
“I will not leave you here!” I shook my head, glaring at Manoah. Manoah looked in confusion between Samson and me, waiting for explanation. Samson turned in the direction of the next entranceway to the towers, on the other side of the shops, and I followed, hurrying behind. Manoah called to us, but I did not turn back around.
There were guards in this tower, too—four this time—and Samson killed each of them as I watched. He took off the tunics, I took off the wraps, then folded everything neatly over my arm.
We went back down the cold dark steps, Samson holding my arm to keep me from slipping on the blood dripping down, and returned to the light. Manoah tried to flag us down again, but there was no time. Again, Samson took the clothes from my arms and loaded them on our donkeys, then picked the next man to slaughter.
He chose the wine merchant. I grabbed Samson by the elbow, and when he turned to look at me, I saw recognition in his eyes. This new man, this murderer of sons, knew I was still his mother.
“Not a merchant. It will attract too much attention.”
Samson nodded. We moved down the lanes toward the administrative building, easy to see from any direction with its wide pillars and men lounging on its steps, waiting to be heard by the lords of the city. Samson walked past them, immune to their snide whispers about his hair. Inside the building—its mosaic floor of brown and red stones so cold on my feet even through my sandals—where every word spoken reverberated across the domed interior, Samson chose an inner room and opened the door.
He had chosen well. Around a low bench sat a gathering of men, the oldest of which wore a large signet ring. He was, no doubt, a Philistine lord. He had white hair that flew in all directions as Samson cut his throat, and I noticed he had a bump in the middle of his nose. His eyes met mine as he breathed his last. A younger man with this same distinct bump lunged at Samson and as he died, I understood, of course. Samson had killed a father and son, and he killed the other three men, who were in their middle years and had nice fat stomachs and balding heads that smeared wildly with blood.
Now we had twelve sets of clothes. We were not even halfway done.
The thirteenth man was the easiest kill; he was a servant who walked into the room carrying a platter of fruits. He, too, slipped on the blood, and Samson drove his knife through the man’s back.
Because the hour grows late, I will not tell of the fourteenth man, or the nineteenth, or any of the others. When we got to twenty-five, we had exited the building and saw a city squirming in chaos. Men were shouting, warriors were running, women were keening for the dead being brought out of the towers.
“What is happening?” Samson asked a woman hurrying by with her children.
“We are under attack!” she screamed. “They are shutting the city gates!”
In the chaos, Samson did not have to be as careful. We did not have to work in the shadows. He killed the twenty-sixth man right there on the steps, and as we worked our way through the panicked masses, back to the market, he killed off his twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, and twenty-ninth man, letting them fall in the streets. I had to work fast to get the wrap off. If people noticed, no one called out. People in shock do strange things.
We found Manoah standing at a table outside the shops, where he had been eating a sweet bread as he waited for us. By now Samson was carrying the clothes. How could I? Our pile had grown too heavy. Manoah, gasping and spitting crumbs in his confusion, helped us load everything onto the donkeys, and we fled for the gates just as men began drawing them closed, mothers inside the city screaming at them to hurry.
As we entered the long dark tunnel again, Samson killed his last man, as a young pregnant wife watched. Her eyes met mine as she stood still in disbelief, her grief falling on her like the city walls, her life ending with his.
We looked into each other’s eyes, and I prayed. I prayed she would not have a son.
With that, we were through the gates just as they closed. The metal hinges groaned shut behind us as screams echoed through the tunnel.
We turned for Timnah.
Samson and I spoke to each other in the low whispers of criminals. I walked in front of Samson, my spidery old legs surprisingly fast. Manoah held his tongue, saying nothing, his face bug-eyed and red, until the travelers along the highway thinned out and we could speak without being overheard.
“What happened?”
Neither Samson nor I answered.
Manoah trotted his donkey ahead of us, turned, and held his hands out. We stopped. I looked at him as if he were a stranger to me.
“What happened?” His words were soft and sharp, cutting across the blaze of the afternoon sun.
I wiped my brow and shifted on my donkey.
Samson walked in front of me to answer his father. “I killed thirty men. Thirty Philistines, thirty Ashkelites. Now we’re going to Timnah to pay my debt.”
“What? What have you done? We could have bought the clothes.” Manoah’s voice was shrill.
“What would you say if I told you it was God’s will?”
Manoah’s face registered his total disbelief.
Samson gave him a grim smile, taking his reins, leading Manoah’s donkey to face back around, then swatting it on the rump.
Manoah held on tight as the donkey trotted away. He turned and looked at me once, his face white with confusion and shock.
Samson looked at me as he passed. His face was smeared with blood. A riverbed of clean lines ran down his cheeks from under his eyes. He had been crying.
I pressed my lips together and looked away. Night was coming. I hurried my donkey along.
We stopped at a shepherd’s well not long after midnight. Our donkeys were exhausted. Every bone in my body ached from the ride. My jaws ached, my teeth hurt, even my hands were sore, the knuckles throbbing from holding the reins, the palms burned and raw from the reins slipping through as we rode.
My good and kind son, the one I knew, came to me first, extending his hand. I accepted his help and slid off the donkey, hobbling a few paces, praying for blood to return to my legs. A moment later, it did, and I cried out.
Samson was helping Manoah get off his donkey. Neither seemed to hear me. Falling to my knees in the dirt—for we were well out of Ashkelon now, and the sand had become dirt once more—I panted through the pain, like a woman in childbirth.
I was alone in my pain, just like my first night as his mother. That night the village women stood outside my home and listened for my screams. Every scream had seemed to them a miracle. An old woman giving birth? Was it possible that God still moved in the lives of women, that God still opened dead wombs and heard silent prayers?
And they worshipped, they told me later, worshipped outside my window while I screamed in pain and fear, the burst of hot fluids and the swell and stretch of a child forced into this world. He cried as the midwife pulled him from my womb. How he cried.
Samson came over to help me, but it was too late. I hobbled to the well. He and Manoah followed, watching me with wide, moonlit eyes as I lifted the water up in the bucket and poured it into my dry, open mouth. I lowered the bucket again, and raised it, offering it to Manoah next.
He drank and backed away, still watching me as one watches a stranger.
Again, I lowered the bucket and lifted, ignoring the red stains my palms left on the rope. I held it out to Samson, who sighed and drank, water running down his beard, leaving pink stains in the dirt.
Finished, he handed the bucket back to me, but I grabbed his arm and pulled him near. I filled the bucket and dipped my robe in the water, then set to work washing his face. I washed the blood off of him, washed away those tears, washing him tonight as on that first night so many years ago. He submitted to me without argument, but his gaze never left the ground.
This was his destiny, the destiny I had bragged about to my sisters of our tribe? Blood and tears?
When I finished, he wrapped his arms around me like a child.
“Are you sorry I gave birth to you?” I spoke harshly. I had to know what he thought, who he blamed.
“Are you?” he replied.
I grabbed his arms and shook him. “We will find a prophet of the Lord. We will ask that your vow be completed and that God release you.”
“You should be dancing, Mother. Singing. I have begun the deliverance. Thirty Philistines lie dead by my hand.”
“No. I will not lose you. God can find another way to deliver His people.”
“It is too late.” He sighed like one dying, and walked ahead of me into the night. I called his name but he did not answer.
I lost sight of him in the darkness.