Author’s Note: Bible Backstories stories follow an almost journalistic pattern—a straight narrative line that strips away whatever extraneous, maybe emotional, reverberations. Consequentially, even heroes rarely seem conflicted about what they are told to do, or what someone else was told to do that has a direct effect on the other guy. As a result, it gets harder to think of Mary or St. Paul or Elijah as neighbors, people in the store, or getting gas. Hence, a series of re-imagined, familiar stories about people who live next door.
A bunch of us were hanging out in Miriam’s arbor, kind of waiting to see if Peter was going to show up after putting his nets away, kind of not caring if he didn’t, since things always got a lot louder when he arrived. Miriam was sitting behind a huge basket of grapes, separating them and pulling their stems off. She dropped the grapes into a smaller basket off to the side, next to Yeshua. Every once in a while his hand would drop down into the basket and snag three or four grapes. He’d pop them into his mouth, then spit the seeds into the grass under the fig tree. Miriam realized what he was up to when a batch of sparrows dropped down to snatch the seeds.
“Yeshua! Either quit eating my grapes or give me a hand!”
He grinned that beatific smile, grabbed a half dozen clusters of grapes and started cleaning. He tossed me a cluster, which I shared with the guys, and we all spat our seeds at the fig tree. The sparrows just stayed put, getting their fill of seeds.
Miriam rolled her eyes and said we were all hopeless children.
All very domestic until Hagar came out and announced that a messenger had arrived from Uncle Meshulam. Miriam nodded and Hagar motioned Yaakov, an old, old man, into the arbor.
“Please, sit down good father,” Miriam said.
She gave him water and we waited while he got his breath.
“My master,” he wheezed. “Would like all of you to come to his wedding feast. Yeshua, you bring your friends, too. And Yohanan, you, most especially are invited.”
Really? “Good father, who is Uncle Meshulam marrying?” I asked.
“He is marrying your second cousin, the young Toibe. The feast is next Thursday. Please come. You will be most welcome.”
Then the old man pulled himself up and staggered off into the house.
“Toibe!” We practically said it together. Toibe couldn’t be more than 13. And Meshulam—well, he had more than one white hair in his beard. What my mother was going to say—well, I knew exactly what she would say…under her breath. We all were quiet, thinking of sweet Toibe.
