Chapter Two: A House Divided
I gave birth on a night when the wind was restless. It howled over the rooftops like a creature seeking a door left carelessly open. The midwife said it was an omen—good or bad she would not say. I was long past caring for omens. Pain tore through me in steady waves, leaving little room for fear, though fear lingered just behind the pain, waiting for its chance. Eliab did not come into the birthing chamber. In our culture men rarely did, but husbands sometimes lingered nearby, pacing, offering water, sending prayers. Mine stayed outside, silent. Not pacing. Not praying. A stone could have shown more anxiety. When the child finally slipped into the world—slick, warm, and wailing—I felt something inside me crack open. The midwife lifted him toward the lamplight, and I braced myself for rejection. I had prepared for it. I told myself not to reach for him. I told myself I would not care. But the first sound from his mouth made my resolve crumble into nothing. It was as if a cord that had never existed snapped tight between us in a single instant.
"A son," the midwife said, almost in disbelief. "A strong one."
He was small, yes—and wrinkled and red, like all newborns—but his cry was loud, defiant, declaring his presence to the world as though daring it to doubt him.
My son. My son. I was trembling by the time the midwife placed him in my arms. The weight of him was more than physical; it was the weight of years—decades—of empty longing, of prayers spoken and unspoken, of bitterness swallowed dry. Holding him felt like stepping into sunlight after living a lifetime underground. His cheek pressed against my skin, warm and soft. I inhaled the scent of him, raw and new. And though a part of me still feared what his existence would cost, another part—larger, fiercer—knew I could never again imagine life without him.
"Little one," I whispered, tears sliding down my face. "Little miracle. Forgive me."
The midwife wiped her hands and called for Eliab. He appeared at the doorway, his face shadowed by the flickering lamp. He looked at the baby, then at me, then again at the baby. His jaw clenched. I could see the war in his eyes, the war between fear and accusation, between love and suspicion, between the years he had prayed for a child and the months he had doubted me for carrying one.
"Your son," the midwife announced proudly.
He said nothing. The silence stretched until the midwife, uneasy, excused herself. Eliab stepped closer but did not reach out. His eyes searched the baby's face as though hunting for evidence.
"He… looks like you," I said gently.
Eliab's expression did not soften.
"Does he?" he murmured, his voice flat. My heart tightened.
"You do not trust me," I whispered.
He turned and walked out without answering.
The days that followed were a strange mixture of bliss and tension. Ammiel—that was the name I chose for him—was strong. He fed eagerly, slept soundly, and seemed always to be studying the world with eyes far too knowing for his age. But Eliab would not speak his name. He never called the child "son." When Ammiel cried in the night, he did not stir. When visitors came to congratulate us, he stood stiffly, answering politely but without joy. The worst part was the distance. He did not accuse me—no, that might have been easier to bear—but he withdrew into himself, walling off his heart brick by brick. I could feel his gaze lingering on me when he thought I wasn't watching, heavy with suspicion he dared not voice.
Once, when Ammiel was three months old, I approached Eliab while he tended the vineyard.
"Eliab… please. Say what's in your heart."
He wiped sweat from his forehead and continued working.
"Do you think I was unfaithful?" My voice wavered. "Do you think the child is not yours?"
His jaw tightened.
"A man thinks what he must think."
"That is not an answer." He paused, leaning on his tool. His back remained turned to me.
"What am I to believe, Yael? After twenty-three years? After all the prayers? All the disappointments? You tell me what I am to believe."
My throat closed.
"Believe that God opened my womb."
He sighed—a long, defeated sound—and returned to his work.
"Perhaps," he said softly, "but God has never used me gently."
Months turned into years. Ammiel grew like a vine stretching toward sunlight. He was bright, curious, full of laughter. He followed Eliab in the fields sometimes, but Eliab kept his distance, watching him with a look I could never fully decipher—part longing, part fear, part doubt. I tried to hide the truth from my son as long as I could. He would ask,
"Why does Father not carry me?" or "Why does Father not sing to me like other fathers do?"
I would smile and say gently,
"Your father is a quiet man. His love is in the things he does, not the things he says."
It wasn't entirely a lie. But it wasn't the truth either.
Each night after Ammiel had fallen asleep, I sat beside his bed and whispered blessings over him—ancient words my mother had taught me, words meant to guard a child. At first, I prayed that his father would accept him. Later, I prayed that he would not be wounded by the absence of that acceptance. And always beneath the prayers ran a thread of fear: the fear that Eliab's suspicion might one day turn into accusation.
Had Eliab brought me before the elders at the gate—even without witnesses—they would have stoned me. I knew this. He knew this. The whole village knew this. But he never did. That, at least, was mercy. Or perhaps it was resignation.
When Ammiel turned fourteen, he was beautiful—lively, warm-hearted, quick with laughter. His voice carried across the courtyard like a bird's song. He loved to follow the workers into the fields and gather loose stalks of barley or chase grasshoppers under the sun. It was on such a day that everything broke. I was grinding grain when I heard his small voice cry out from the fields,
"My head! My head!"
I dropped everything and ran. Eliab was ahead of me, carrying him—Ammiel limp, pale, his tiny hands clutching at nothing. He looked like a dying flower in his father's arms.
"Take him" Eliab said in a tight voice, handing him to me as though afraid he might shatter.
I held him against my breast, rocking him, whispering his name. His skin was hot—too hot—and his eyes fluttered as though drifting between worlds. Hours passed. His breathing grew shallow. His small body quivered once, like a candle flickering before it goes out.
And then he stilled. I pressed my ear to his chest. Silence. No sound. No heartbeat. My son was dead. A scream climbed my throat but did not escape.
Instead, I carried him to the prophet's chamber, the room where the promise had first taken shape. I laid him on Elisha's bed, the bed of the man who had spoken life into his future. I shut the door firmly. This was not the end. I refused to let it be. Then I went to Eliab.
"I must go to the prophet," I said. My voice was calm, impossibly calm.
"Why?" he asked hollowly. "It is neither new moon nor Sabbath."
"It is well," I told him, brushing past.
Those words were a lie. Nothing was well. But the truth would have crushed us both. I saddled a donkey and commanded a servant to accompany me.
"Do not slacken the pace unless I tell you," I said.
We rode to Mount Carmel. The journey was long and the sun merciless, but my heart was a furnace of determination. I would not return without Elisha. I would not bury my child. Not after everything. Not after the cost. Not after the years of fear and longing and fragile joy.
When Elisha saw me from the mountain, he knew. I saw it in the way he rose, in the way his eyes widened. I fell at his feet, clutching his robe.
"Did I ask my lord for a son?" I cried. "Did I not say, 'Do not deceive me?'"
He said nothing, only gestured for Gehazi to go ahead with his staff. But I refused to let go.
"I will not leave you," I said through tears, "not unless you come."
And he came. He followed me back to Shunem, to the chamber, to the still form of my little boy. He shut the door behind us and prayed—prayed with the desperation of a man wrestling God Himself. He lay upon the child, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. The room filled with the heat of effort, of battle. And then— A tremor. A breath. A cough. My son sneezed seven times, then opened his eyes. His eyes. Alive. Warm. Confused. I fell to the floor, trembling, weeping, unable to speak.
Elisha placed Ammiel in my arms quietly, his expression grave.
"Yael," he said, "you must leave this land. Go wherever you can. In three months, your husband will die. And after that, famine will swallow the land for seven years."
The words struck like a hammer. But I did not argue. For once in my life, I did not question. I simply obeyed.
Three months later, Eliab died quietly in his sleep. And as the first signs of famine crept across Israel, I gathered my son and left Shunem behind. We walked toward a future unchosen, uncertain—yet held, somehow, by the same God who had given and taken and given again.