#58.13, Tuesday, July 30, 2024

Historical Setting, 629 C.E. The thatched house behind Annegray

         We’ve learned that Hannah didn’t just leave without telling anyone.  She just didn’t tell her parents.

         “Should we go on to the inn on the river and find them?” I suggest.

         “They’ll be home in their own good time,” answers anyone who gives it a second thought, except Ana. She leaves the table abruptly, and goes outdoors in tears. I follow her, knowing that she has a particular need to find Hannah very soon. I share her urgency to have Hannah’s blade put to Ana’s breast and relieve this amorphous shadow of unknowing.

         Ana can tell us of the lump, but she isn’t telling us of her own ever-throbbing fear.  Right now, this worry seems a little thing that could be gone quickly with a surgeon’s blade. Or it could be a seed growing into a fearsome death.

         The nuns sent her to Hannah, knowing Hannah is most skilled in this. Mater Doe confides to Ana that it is right to have Hannah do this because what seems to us who are in good health and good spirits, the annoying imposition of order Hannah brings, she also brings an honesty, though often awkward; it leaves no worry hidden.

         But now with the whole family at the table together Mater Doe affirms someone should ride up there and get Hannah, but, “It will be much better if it is Gaia and Brandell, who take that little ride up to the inn and tell Hannah she is needed at home.” 

         “Papa, I know you keep your prayers silent in your heart. But just now, as we are leaving soon to get Hannah, could you speak your silent prayer aloud for us all?”

         Very well, “Dear God, in your wide eye of universe you must already know the gapping gulping emptiness of every oldness. When Haberd and Brandell, and Will are at the heads of their own family tables now, assigning the prayer and serving the soup let us feel the unity of the larger belonging. Let our own elder neediness become our empathy as we are one in your love. Amen.

         “That was your prayer?” Brandell is miffed. “You just prayed about oldness? What about asking God to have Hannah fix Momma?”

         “Go now, find Hannah.”

(Continues tomorrow)