"Behold, It Was Leah."

Leah is such a fascinating woman. When we first meet her in Genesis 29 and 30, she is introduced as being the homely older sister of the beautiful and beloved Rachel. Jacob is a passionate guy and devotes himself totally to those he loves. He is so devoted to Rachel that working, essentially for free for 7 years, feels like a day to him. When the wedding day arrives, he has waited so long for that which he craves that he doesn't notice that his bride is not Rachel. “In the morning, behold, it was Leah,” the King James says.

This begs the question, which the bible never answers, of whether or not Leah entered into that loveless marriage bed willingly, or if she was forced into it by Laban. Frankly, it's easier for me to imagine that she didn't want to be there. But what if she did? The question haunted me for months until I finally did something with it by writing Lucy's story.

Lucy came to America as a child with her family on the Mayflower and this story takes place roughly ten years later, which would place it historically around 1632. This excerpt is from my WIP (Work In Progress), which is tentatively titled, A Place of Their Own and is the third in a series that tells the amazing, true story of the Pilgrims.

       She got down on her knees and opened her new trunk and rummaged around for the looking glass.  She sat down at the table with it, wiped it with a clean corner of her apron and, holding it up in the candle light, stared at herself in a mirror for the first time in her life.  She had seen her wobbly, distorted reflection in the water bucket on occasion and knew her dark hair began high on her forehead.  She knew her eyes were dark like her hair, and her nose small, and that there was a pesky strand of hair that stuck out above her left ear no matter how tightly she bound it.  She was forever tucking it behind her ear and seeing herself in the mirror reminded her to do so again.    

       She blinked at herself, disappointed in what she saw, for staring back at her was a dour, frowning face that looked much older than what she was, with hair drawn tight and a smudge of dirt on her cheek.  She touched her skin and pulled it tight around her eyes.  She turned her head slightly to examine her jaw line and nearly dropped the mirror at the sight of a dark hair sprouting near her chin.
     “It’s no wonder,” she muttered to herself, fingering the hair.
      The longer she looked at herself the more she began to regret what she wrote in the letter.  It was so shamelessly feminine with its whining and pathetic, “I just want you to know how it makes me feel,” and “I sincerely hope I haven’t made things worse by telling you this.”  So desperate with its, “I’ve never had anyone tell me I’m pretty.”  She cringed at the thought that she actually wrote it and handed it to him and waited so expectantly while he read it. 

      What she was really saying was “Tell me you want me too!  More than you want her!” And how could she expect him to do that with any sincerity at all now?  What could he possibly say to her?  

      As she looked at her reflection with nothing else to do, nothing to fill her thoughts with except how plain and frumpy she felt compared to her perfect sister, she saw Rosanna in her imagination, petite and lithe and with tinkling laughter and she heard Jacob’s words again: “There will never be another like you,” and the tears stung her eyes and she thought, "Who cares? Curse them all."  There was a fleeting moment of rebellious irrationality when she could actually be glad she wrote what she wrote. 

      She reached behind her head with one hand and took her hair down and watched it tumble around her shoulders. It was an improvement.  Maybe one day Jacob would see her like this and he wouldn't think of Rosanna.  She bent her head over her knees and jostled her shoulders and readjusted her dress until her breasts rested above her bodice, bound only in the light fabric of her dress, full and soft and nearly suffocating her with their proximity to her chin.  But looking in the mirror, she could see that there was something desirable in her too and though she never would have had the courage to present herself to a man this way, she held on to the knowledge that there was something desirable in her.

      She grabbed a chunk of hair in one hand and twisted it up the side of her head.  Still holding the mirror, she gazed at herself with the expression she had seen Mara and Finch exchange when they thought no one was looking.  There was the slight pout of the lips which turned up at the corners in a knowing smile.  There was the look of anticipation on their faces and the uninhibited desire for what was to come when the candles were out and the doors closed.  Sometimes there was a smile and a pressing of the lips together in feigned shock at what the other was implying with those secret provocative expressions that conveyed things known only between two lovers who knew each other to their depths.   

      Lucy had never watched them and been envious of what they shared because despite all the ways she had grown up faster than her years dictated, in matters of love, she remained like a child, having no desire for it until now. 

      Lucy looked at her reflection and pretended Jacob was there.  She saw herself looking at him this way across the table, communicating to him in the way only a wife could with her husband and it filled her with a flutter of excitement and daring and longing such as she had never felt before.

She was so entranced by the vision of herself as a wife who, with her eyes, reveals her pleasure at the loss of her innocence, she startled at the bang of the door.  There Jacob stood, inside the house with his back against the closed door, staring at her. 

      Lucy dropped her hair and slammed the mirror down and tried to swallow her embarrassment.

“Mother sent me after the bible,” he said.

      “Oh?” was the only thing she could think to say.  She slid her hands over her hair and flattened it against her head, sure that Victoria had left the bible behind on purpose, and wishing she would have anticipated it instead of being caught like an unsuspecting burglar in the house.  She heard his footsteps moving across the room but she could not bring herself to look at him. 

      There were so many things she wanted to know.  Did he even want her for a wife?  Could he really see himself married to her?  Did he have it in him to deny Rosanna in her favor?  At the same time, she thought it better not to know the answers to these questions.  Sometimes, in matters that were beyond one’s control, it was better to accept the way things were and not be so concerned with feelings and desires.  How could it be helped if he did not want her?  It would be of no benefit to her to know that.

      If she could only talk to Jacob, have a simple conversation with him that didn’t involve her neediness and insecurities and plaintive requests for him to tickle her ears with insincere compliments. They could discuss their faith or the crop or the coldness of the weather. Anything.  Conversing came easy enough with Ben, surely she could do it with Jacob too.  When she finally collected enough nerve, she called, “Jacob!” but it was too late.  He had slipped out of the house and pulled the door shut behind him.