Chapter 34 | Anything For Him
It was along the lower rows, with Lavi wandering ahead between the vines, that James finally spoke—not of the empty tomb, the wound-scarred hands, or how Jesus ascended into the heavens, but of what would come next.
He watched Lavi for a long moment before saying softly, “I need to tell you something before you bind your life to mine.”
I kept my eyes on the path. “You think I don’t know what you are?”
He made a sound that might have been a sigh. “I am not speaking of what I am. I’m speaking of what I will do.”
I stopped. Wind moved through the vines, setting the young tendrils trembling.
James turned to face me fully. The last light caught the lines of fatigue under his eyes—proof that joy and sorrow can live in the same body and not tear it apart.
“They will not leave us in peace,” he said. “Not if we speak His Name in the open. Not if we say He is risen. Not if we call Him Lord.”
I swallowed. My mouth had gone dry.
He went on, “Some of the brothers think we must be careful. Some think we must hide. But how can we hide a light that has burned through death?”
A hard truth pressed against my ribs. “So you will not be careful.”
“No.” His voice did not lift. “I will be faithful.”
I stared at him, and for a moment I saw him as I had seen him the first day he arrived at our gate—too bold, too brash, too sure.
Only now I saw what lived beneath the thunder.
Not pride, but fire.
“I have a life here,” I said, and hated the tremor in my voice. “A vineyard. Abba. A boy who is learning to trust the rain. I have…” I faltered, and the word that came next surprised me with its weight. “Peace.”
James’s gaze did not flinch. “And I would never steal it from you with pretty promises.”
Silence widened between us, filled with the sound of Lavi’s laughter drifting back on the wind.
James spoke again, lower. “Talia… I will die for this cause if the Lord asks it of me.”
The sentence landed without flourish. No drama. No romance.
A fact.
My body wanted to recoil from it. My old self would have built fences around it—rules, careful steps, prayers that were more like bargains.
But the face of the risen Lord rose in my mind: I am the Vine. Remain in Me.
I forced the words past the tightness in my throat. “Do you want to die?”
His eyes narrowed—not in anger, but in sorrow for the question. “No,” he said simply. “I want to live. I want to work. I want to come back to you every night I’m able to with dust on my feet and bread in my hand. I want it very much.”
He looked at me like he was starving. I swallowed. It both scared and fulfilled me. Then his voice roughened. “But I want Him above all.”
I pressed my palm to the stone terrace wall, grounding myself in something that did not move.
“And if I say I cannot?” I asked.
James did not answer quickly. When he finally did, his words were not a threat.
“I will not ask you to stand beside me if you cannot. I will not make you promise what you cannot keep.”
His honesty struck me like clean water.
I looked down the rows—new posts waiting to be set, young vines needing binding, the work that would not pause for fear or grief.
And suddenly I understood: this was the same question I had been asked by Jesus, only in another form.
Will you remain?
I turned back to James. My voice came quieter than I expected. “You didn’t come to our gate because you wanted lodging.”
“No.” His mouth twitched with something rare and unguarded. “I came because I couldn’t stop myself.”
“And you didn’t keep coming back because you wanted a fight.”
“I kept coming back because I—” his words broke off, as if they were too tender to handle with calloused hands.
I stepped closer, the wind tugging at my hair, at my resolve.
“I cannot promise I will never fear,” I said. “I cannot promise I will always be brave. But I can promise this: I will not stand in your way. I will not tie you to the earth when the Lord has called you to carry His Name.”
James’s throat worked. His eyes shone bright.
“And if something ever happens to you,” I whispered, “I will still belong to Him.”
James’s shoulders lowered. He nodded once, like a man accepting a yoke.
Then—only then—he reached for my hand.
Not like a boy grasping for comfort.
Like a man receiving a covenant.
~
We were married on the western hill above the vineyard.
It was not grand, but it was ours. The rows stretched below us in long, patient lines, the late light settling over the leaves as the wind moved through them, turning everything soft and alive.
There was nothing of spectacle in it—only the people who had become part of our lives. Some by choice, some by circumstance, all of them bound to us now in ways quieter, but no less real.
Mira stood near me with her steady eyes, Ruth beside her, her presence gentle but grounded. Malka lingered a few paces back, arms crossed, looking ready to declare the whole thing unnecessary at any moment, though the slight tremble at the edge of her grin betrayed her.
Abba stood stiff as ever, uncertain where to place himself in a moment like this. Baruch remained planted at his side, watchful in a way that suggested he had taken it upon himself to see that nothing—human or otherwise—interfered.
John stood slightly apart, his gaze moving over everything with quiet attention, understanding the weight of small moments and refusing to let them pass unnoticed.
Peter stood closer to James, speaking low to him with a half-smile that carried both warmth and something harder beneath it.
Others were missing, scattered by the work that now stretched far beyond Galilee, but their absence did not feel empty. Word had come. Blessings had been sent.
And Lavi—
Lavi had tried, at first, to stay out of the way.
But James would not allow it.
As we gathered, he reached for the boy without drawing attention to it, resting a hand briefly at the back of his neck and guiding him forward until he stood near enough to belong without question.
“Stay close,” he said quietly. “Today is about you too.”
Lavi nodded, straightening in a way that was almost imperceptible, but not to me.
I felt that, more than I expected.
When I looked at James, everything else seemed to quiet around us.
The same man who had once unsettled every part of my ordered life now stood before me with a steadiness I no longer resisted.
There was no hesitation in him. He looked at me with love, respect, and longing.
His hand found mine, fingers closing around it with a familiarity that felt both new and long-known. I realized then how safe honesty could feel in the hands of the right person.
The words spoken over us were simple, framed by ancient blessings and shared wine, the voices around us asking God for joy, peace, and faithfulness in the years ahead. James did not promise me safety or a life untouched by loss. He promised me truth.
And I—astonished to find my voice steady—promised him the same.
Not perfection. Not answers. Only truth, and the love and commitment already woven between us.
As the moment settled, something quieter stirred beneath it. I had not come to belief easily. There was a brief, unwelcome whisper: I’m not worthy.
But James looked at me like I was more than enough, and I let that be the truth I held onto.
When it was done, the stillness held for a moment, not empty, but full in a way that did not need to announce itself.
Then Malka exhaled sharply.
“Well,” she said, pushing off from where she stood, “let’s show these kids how it’s done,” grabbing Baruch’s hand.
“I am not dancing,” Baruch said immediately.
“You are,” she returned.
“I don’t dance.”
“You do now.”
He didn’t.
Not well anyway.
But Malka didn’t seem to mind, pulling him into motion with enough determination that resistance became futile. A few of the others laughed, the sound easing the quiet weight of the moment into something lighter, something lived-in.
Even Abba’s expression softened, if only by a fraction.
I walked over and sat beside him, placing my hand over his.
We did not speak at first.
We rarely did, when it mattered most.
“He should have been here,” I said quietly.
I did not need to say his name.
Abba’s gaze lowered slightly. “Yes,” he said. “He should have.”
We stood there, the absence present but no longer sharp in the way it once had been.
There had been no reconciliation.
No final understanding.
Only distance that had remained.
“I don’t think he would have come,” I said after a moment.
“No,” Abba replied. “He would not have.”
A pause passed between us, quieter than the ones before.
“That does not make it easier.”
“No,” he said.
It didn’t. But it no longer felt like something that needed to be resolved in order for life to move forward.
~
Someone said it was time to return before the path grew too dark, and the moment loosened naturally, without reluctance.
We made our way back as the day faded.
Lavi ran ahead, laughter carrying back toward us, no longer unsure of his place in any of it. James followed him at an easier pace, watching him with something quieter in his expression now, something that did not need to be named.
I walked behind them. I wanted to see it for a moment longer. My boys. My family.
What it looked like—when the Lord built something beautiful out of something that had once felt so uncertain.