Still, Jesus was not unaware of how Peter hoarded his attention. Nor of the way Peter crowded out others from their private space. He, too, had noticed that Peter avoided the sick and those in need. He had also seen the way Peter asserted himself above his sisters and their supporters as if he were Jesus’s most trusted confidant. As if all their teachings and healings were of no consequence.

Jesus recalled Peter’s youthful disdain for females—his scoffing at Judas’s loss of mother and sister, his contempt for the young girl hiding behind the well—and suspected that Peter’s tendencies had only worsened during their time apart. But because of all he had learned from the Sisters, Jesus now knew the erroneousness of such disdain, and the truth of female power.

Yet when Peter pushed the others away, supposing himself intrinsically superior by virtue of his maleness, Jesus overlooked the behavior and did nothing to stop it. It was not that Jesus failed to recognize the injustice; it was just that he found himself more compelled by other aspects of his friend. By his hands, his shoulders, his voice.

At night, Jesus tossed in the midst of strange dreams unlike any he had ever had. Dreams of a new future. Of taking a husband. Of building a home.

And becoming a mother.

CHAPTER 41

Somewhere within ancient Palestine—33 A.D.

Peter hauled a net full of fresh catch onto his boat. The fish beat a desperate rhythm in the hull as he rowed ashore. He tossed the net onto dry land and began the grisly work of gutting and cleaning. The smell of fish innards stung his eyes, but he worked with a joy that had previously eluded him.

“Greetings,” a man’s voice said.

Thinking it was the old fisherman coming to assess his catch, Peter returned the greeting without looking up from his work.

“Are you not he?” the man asked. “Are you not the healer called Jesus?”

Peter started. He then smiled. His heart glowing at the man’s mistake. “No,” he said, glancing up. “I am not he. But his brother.”

The man’s eyes flitted mischievously within his moon-sized face. “His twin brother, no doubt?”

“Yes, his twin,” Peter said. He did not hesitate at the lie. Almost believing it himself.

But the moon-faced man had known that Peter was not Jesus. “Are you, then, your brother’s servant?” he asked, grinning in the shape of a wedge.

Peter frowned at the question.

Of course he was not his brother’s servant! He was his equal. His confidant!

But the man continued before Peter could defend himself. “I am told your brother attracts many women,” he said with a knowing nod. “Does he share their pleasures with you or hoard the flesh for himself?”

Peter squirmed as the question’s implications took root.