“And the blessing for our son?” Yoseph asked his wife, hitting the last word with extra breath. Mari handed him a small bundle tied in cloth. Without a word, she disappeared behind the partition. Yoseph stared after her. Lifting his voice so she would be sure to hear, he said, “Since the Lord will not bless my house, may He bless my journey.” With that, he pushed through the camel hide.

Anna followed him with the tray, feeling the tug of her mother’s sorrow at her back.

As Anna and her father passed the well, a single desert dweller, washing sand from his face, called to them.

“Greetings,” he said. “Would you and your son have milk to spare for a faithful traveler?”

Anna saw her father’s eyes glance angrily off her exposed face. “Satan is in your eyes!” he spat. “I do not have a son.”

The man looked again at Anna’s chiseled cheeks and was bewildered.

Yoseph stormed off. Anna scurried close behind.

Yoseph’s father did not greet them when they arrived. Instead, he scowled at the meager offerings. Yoseph bowed and shuffled across the floor on his knees. Arriving at the fire, he poured a cup of tea. “How does the day greet my father?”

His father reduced his eyes to slits and stared at Anna. He shook his head, noting how tight and short her robe. “She grows like a weed,” he muttered.

Yoseph said nothing.

After another moment, his father spoke again. “How much longer must I wait, Yoseph? Eh? Tell me. How long?”

Yoseph’s head fell. Anna held her breath.

“I am not to blame,” she heard her father mutter, quietly, without conviction.

Looming over them, Anna’s grandfather pressed, “How old is she?”

“She is ten now, Father.”

Her grandfather sucked an olive pit between toothless gums. “Ten years,” he said, shaking his head. “For ten years I have waited.”

Yoseph’s spine bent under the weight of his father’s judgment. “Father,” he said, “you know how I have suffered.”

“You?” his father shrieked. “How you have suffered?” He spit a wet olive pit onto the floor. Anna scuttled to retrieve it. “It is I who have suffered! It is I who raised my son from the dust only to have him watch me grow old and die without a grandson on my knee. It is I who must bear the shame!”

Yoseph squirmed in the dust. “I beg your forgiveness, Father,” he said. “But I must go. I have an hour’s journey.” He lifted his sack and pushed through the door.

Outside, Anna and her father could hear the old man hurling insults. “An hour’s journey! To beg for coins! To live in a manger!”