Chapter 39 | Sisters
They came the next day, all together.
Mira and Ruth, Salome with heartbreak etched into the lines of her face, and Eliana—Philip’s wife, who had become such a good friend to me over the years.
These women were more than friends—they had become sisters to me.
We had been brought together by the men Jesus had chosen…
and, somehow, we knew we had been chosen too.
Or so I had thought.
Now I wasn’t so sure.
James had been chosen—called by name, set apart, one of the ones closest to Him. He had lived it fully, without hesitation. He had believed without wavering.
And he was the one taken.
My throat tightened.
How could that be?
How could the One who called him… allow this?
I had resisted. Questioned. Turned away when I should have seen. It had taken me far too long to believe—and still I remained.
The thought pressed in, quiet and sharp.
Why, Lord? Why James?
Salome’s voice broke through my thoughts. “Let’s go outside. It’s such a beautiful day.”
They did not descend on me all at once. They moved gently, wisely—like women who knew sorrow and how easily it could be unsettled by too much, too soon.
Somehow, between the four of them, they brought me from the bed and into the courtyard.
The light hurt.
The sky stretched above us, pale and distant.
The smell of yeast and woodsmoke lingered faintly, barely reaching me.
Somewhere beneath my feet, thyme had been crushed, but even that familiar scent felt far away, belonging to someone else’s memory.
A dove cooed from the roofline, soft and hollow.
Everything felt muted, far away, beneath a cloud cover of tears and mourning.
The air carried the warmth of the sun, the scent of soil rising—but it did not stay with me. It passed through, leaving nothing behind.
The vineyard lay beyond the wall in long, quiet rows—unchanged. It was such a part of our lives, I often thought of it as a living, breathing thing. I wondered now if it knew what it—and all of us—had lost. If it remembered James. It had lost him too—his wisdom, his prayers, his love for the earth.
Ruth sat on one side of me, Eliana on the other. Salome remained standing at first, her gaze turned out toward the vines.
For a while none of us said anything.
It was Mira who spoke first.
“You know He told us sorrow would come,” she said gently. “Not because He wished it on us. Because this world has not yet been made whole.”
I stared at my hands.
“James believed with his whole heart,” she continued. “Nothing—not prison, not Herod, not even a sword—could take that from him.”
A silence followed.
Then, before I could stop it, the words slipped out.
“He deserved a better wife.”
Mira turned to me at once. “Talia—”
“One who believed sooner,” I said, my voice thinning. “One who did not fight him so long. One who did not need so much dragging toward truth.”
Mira’s face softened with pain.
“Oh, sister,” she whispered. “Do not dishonor the work of God by calling it late only because it did not come sooner.”
That should have moved me.
Instead I only looked away toward the vines, where the breeze moved lightly through the leaves. They looked like James’s hands had looked when he worked—strong, sure, always in motion.
Ruth spoke then, quietly, as she always did. “You do not have to be strong today.”
I let out a breath that trembled on the way out. “Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because it is true,” Eliana said gently.
I shook my head. “I try,” I whispered. “To breathe. To eat. To get up. But even that feels like too much.”
Ruth did not rush to answer. “I know,” she said quietly. “It does. But you still need to breathe… to eat… to keep going, even if it’s only a little.”
There was no false comfort in her tone. Only honesty.
Salome sat down across from me at last. She had James’s eyes. I hadn’t noticed before.
“He was always first to run toward what frightened other people,” she said, not smiling exactly, but remembering.
“As a boy, he could never leave well enough alone. If there was a storm gathering over the water, he wanted to be beneath it. If there was an argument in the street, he had to know who was wrong.” Her voice grew softer. “He burned hot from the start.”
I tried to swallow, but it lodged in my throat before finally forcing its way down.
“He loved deeply too,” she said, and now her gaze met mine. “People only remember the thunder. They forget there was a great deal of heart beneath it.”
I pressed my lips together, fighting the rush of tears I could feel building behind my eyes.
“He died exactly as he lived,” Salome said. “Boldly. Fully. Belonging to the Lord without reserve.”
There was pride in her voice.
And sorrow too.
For one brief, aching moment, I felt both with her. James had always been that way—thunder and fire all at once. Quick to speak, quick to act, quick to believe. There had never been anything half-hearted in him.
He had been chosen. Called. Set apart.
I had believed that meant something. That the Lord would keep them. That the ones who gave everything would not be so easily taken.
James had done everything right. He had believed, he had followed, he had loved Him.
And still—still he died.
My voice came quieter now, but edged with something I could not hold back.
“The Lord sent an angel for Peter in prison. So he could escape before they could kill him.”
The women went still.
I stared at the ground as I spoke, because I could not bear their faces. “Why not James?”
No one answered at first.
The question seemed to bore down on all of us, heavier than the heat, heavier than the silence, heavier even than the heartbreak.
It was not only my question. It belonged to every widow, every mother, every friend who had stood beside a grave and wondered why deliverance had come to one and not another.
At last Mira spoke, slowly.
“My aunt Dinah once told me…” She paused, looking down at her hands.
“She said we would not always understand why the Lord allows such sorrows. Why good men die. Why innocent people suffer. Why sometimes the very things He has promised seem to break before they bloom.” Her voice caught slightly.
“But understanding is not our task. Trust is.”
I closed my eyes.
Trust.
The word felt too large. Too impossible.
“Peter’s chains fell,” I said quietly. “While James was executed.”
Mira nodded, tears gathering in her lashes. “I know.”
“How am I supposed to get past that?”
This time it was Eliana who answered, her voice low and thoughtful. “Mourn. Ask why. Bring it before Him. But don’t mistake our lack of understanding for His lack of goodness.”
I wanted that to be enough. I wanted desperately to take hold of it and rise.
Instead I felt split in two—one part of me reaching toward the warmth of their voices, the smell of thyme and sun-warmed stone, the nearness of women who loved me and had not given up on me; another sinking still beneath the endless churn of why… and how… and why him… and he’s gone.
I knew what I needed to do. Rise. Wash. Walk the rows. Speak to the workers. Rejoin my own life.
I knew it.
And still I sat there, trapped between the knowing and the doing. Grief having wrapped iron around my limbs.
Eliana reached for my hand. Salome simply sat beside me, her sorrow quiet and companionable.
And for a moment I almost clawed my way back toward them and their light.
Almost.
Then the emptiness rushed back in all at once. I looked toward the path beyond the vineyard wall and felt the full force of his absence there—James not striding through the gate, not calling out some teasing remark, not laughing, not alive.
The breath left me.
I bent forward, pressing a hand to my chest, fighting to keep myself from completely coming apart.
“I am trying,” I whispered, though I did not know whether I was speaking to them or to God. “I am trying… but I can’t.”
For a moment, I thought I might hold it.
I drew in a deep breath, fighting to steady myself, but I could already feel the sorrow rising again—quiet, relentless, pulling me back under no matter how hard I resisted.
And that was the most frightening part: I knew it was happening—just as grief took me again.
The tears came hard this time, spilling over into sobs I could not control.
No one hurried to respond.
No one lied and said it would be easy.
At last Mira looked at the others. Ruth met her gaze. Eliana’s hand tightened around mine once before she let go. Salome exhaled slowly, as though arriving at a thought she had been circling for some time.
“She’s slipping further away,” Mira said quietly.
“We’re not getting through to her,” Ruth answered.
A pause.
Then Salome said, “There is one person she might hear.”
Mira looked up. “Then let’s send for her.”