He felt unsettled, having told her so much. There weren’t many people to tell and the words had poured out of him, right to her, and she’d listened without interference. Isaiah was half relieved when a distant shout traveled over the sands of the beach. Ariah’s head turned, her whole body twisting for an instant to look backward towards, who Isaiah assumed, was her master. She then looked back at him and gave him a sympathetic little look. A wry smile met her and he shrugged.
“It’s fine. We’ve run our course, it seems.”
When she made sure to tell him that she would speak of their conversation to no one, Isaiah placed his palms together and gave her a bow of thanks. Not that anyone would care or could prove it here, but he did intend to go home someday. The last thing he wanted was more trouble when he got there. He was already ignoring the trouble he must surely still be in socially. Ariah traipsed away, and Isaiah called at her back, “Go with Yahweh,” raising his hand until she was well out of sight.
He slowly let his hand drop and affixed both behind his back. A small smile crept over his lips and he looked wistfully out over the ocean. He thought now that this must be what his wife had felt when she met someone who spoke her native tongue; the warmth and familiarity it provided. He determined to better his skills with her own native tongue. Maybe he would be bringing quite a bit of trouble if he came back home, but he could surprise her by being able to switch back and forth between one language or another.
“Hmm,” he thought to himself and dug the toes of his sandal into the sand, contemplating yet another fantasy that likely wouldn’t happen. In this one, Hannah was dressed just as he’d left her, still pregnant, her face not yet creased by worry or care, and he showed up, somehow being able to speak Greek to her. With that impossibility floating around his head, he wandered back to his duties, mind more agreeably occupied than it had been for a long time.
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