One roughened hand rises to cup his cheek. With the other, she takes his fingers—bloody, like her own—and grips them tightly. “Leave that be tonight.”

“He can’t be gone.” John’s voice cracks, eyes welling, as he leans on her. “He can’t. He was supposed to be—We thought he would—”

“Leave that be,” Mary says again, quietly. Her eyes are fixed on the flame of the lamp. Whenever the breath of their words reaches it, the flame judders, as if threatening to go out. It moves when John speaks again.

“We should find the others. They won’t have heard.”

They will have heard. There is no one in this city now who has not heard. But even so, they will have to find the others. Peter. James, and Andrew. Mary from Magdala. The details will be shared, and the garden tomb visited. But not tonight, and not tomorrow. Sabbath will keep them quiet. Like holding a breath, and shuddering in silence until it is released, they will wait for the Lord to pass by again.

John’s eyes close, but hers remain fixed on the flame. If she closes her own eyes, she sees it all. She can hear it ringing. She sits in the dim light as each blow, every curled-lipped jeer, collects around her like a pack of dogs, circling her heart.

“He saved others. Why not himself?”

“Let him come down. Then we will believe him.”

“If you are the Messiah, save yourself, and us.”

Her hands shake. She lowers one from John’s cheek to grip the stained edge of her veil. It’s still damp. She can feel the cold blood against her arms.

“Woman, behold your son.”

John’s head is heavy on her shoulder. She shifts slowly and settles him in her lap, his temple on her right knee, pulling his outer robe over him like a blanket. He rests there like a small child. Her hand sits on his shoulder.

“Son, behold your mother.”

Mary can hear his quiet inhales, feels when he stirs to wipe his nose with the back of his hand, and knows he’s not asleep. She lets him cry unnoticed. In this moment, it’s easier for him. He needs her presence as much as she needs his. So she sits, tears silent down her cheeks, and watches the lamp burn.

What do we do next?

She lets out a shaky breath. She will wait. She has always waited. Nine months, and then thirty-three years. She can wait a few more days.

She has known, from the moment of His presentation in the temple when He’d first been lifted from her arms, that He was not hers to hold on to. He had been given to her, and she has given Him back. The crown of thorns, and the bent nails, she had left in the tomb with Him. She had nothing else to give. They’d wrapped Him in cloth from a stranger, laid Him in a stranger’s tomb, and she’d left Him with the thorns and nails laid by, like a crown and scepter ready for Him to wield, and a holy kiss on His brow. She can feel the dried blood on her lips still. Does it make them holier, she wonders, to be anointed so? Like Isaiah with the heavenly coal, are her lips more profoundly blessed, or her clothes become like sacred garments as they stiffen with His blood?

He had been pale, at the end, naked and hung shivering in the open. When He’d spoken his last few phrases, they had struggled to understand Him. His lips and tongue had swollen, and He’d barely been able to raise Himself enough to push out the words. Perhaps grace allowed them to hear.

“It is complete. Into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit.”

It takes her only a moment to whisper them, but each syllable had been dragged from Him at substantial cost. There is more to them than she understands. She tucks them away in her heart while the lamp flickers low. John’s breathing deepens. He’s asleep.

She will wait. She has always waited. After the angel, but before she’d felt the first kick, there had been nothing for her but faith. She has that now, still.

The lamp goes out. Smoke drifts up, curling like incense. Mary closes her eyes and exhales.