by John Hagee
“Jacob!” Rebecca ran to her brother and embraced him. When he squeezed her tightly, she couldn’t help crying. For the second time, her brother had returned when she had all but given him up for dead.
“I didn’t know if you would be happy to see me,” he finally said.
“Of course, I’m happy!” she cried into his shoulder. “How could I not be?” She drew back for a good look at Jacob. “We’ve been so worried about you. Almost a year, and we didn’t even know where you were.” Rebecca reached up and wiped her eyes. “I wasn’t even sure you were alive.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I had no way to get word to you.”
“And just look at you!” Rebecca almost laughed at the unusual garb her brother wore. “Where have you been?”
Agatha arrived in the atrium with the two children, and Marcellus came in from the library, holding a partially unrolled scroll.
“Someone should go to the harbor and get Peter and Quintus,” Rebecca said. She turned to ask Marcellus but he was transfixed by the arrival of the foreign visitors as well, and Jacob was starting to answer her question.
“I’ve been in Cappadocia,” Jacob said. He took the arm of the tall woman and brought her forward, presenting her to Rebecca. “This is my wife, Livia.”
“Your wife . . .” Rebecca could scarcely believe it. Jacob had not only come home, but he’d brought a wife with him. Rebecca started to extend her hand to the woman, then opened her arms and hugged Livia instead. “Welcome, sister,” she said.
Livia seemed overcome by the affectionate greeting and Rebecca thought for a moment that she had stepped outside the bounds of propriety. Perhaps where Livia came from such behavior was too demonstrative. But Rebecca was so overjoyed at Jacob’s return that she couldn’t help herself.
“This is Gregory,” Jacob said, “Livia’s uncle.”
Rebecca greeted the older man, then Jacob waved Marcellus over to introduce him, but the retired soldier stood motionless. All the color had drained from his face.
After a long, awkward pause, Gregory stepped forward and held out his hand. “Hello, Marcellus. It’s good to see you after all these years.”
The scroll fell from Marcellus’s hand, the wooden spindles clattering on the tile floor as the parchment rolled out to its full length. Marcellus made no move to retrieve it; all he could do was stare at his daughter.
He had always wondered whether he would recognize Livia if he ever saw her again. He needn’t have worried. Except for her height, Livia was the image of her mother. Looking at his daughter now was like being transported back in time. Twenty-five years ago Claudia had had the same high cheekbones, the same glossy-black hair, the same large, luminous eyes—eyes so expressive and deep that looking into them was like falling down a mine shaft. When Marcellus had met Claudia, he’d tumbled down that shaft and couldn’t climb out.
So in spite of the incompatibility of family life and an army career, Marcellus had married her, and they had produced a wonderful daughter. He had feared that daughter was lost to him forever, but here she was.
Marcellus turned his gaze away from Livia long enough to shake hands with his former brother-in-law. Gregory clasped his arm firmly for a moment, then the two men embraced.
“I don’t understand,” Livia said. “You two know each other? How is that possible?”
Flustered by the question, Gregory stammered, “Your . . . Marcellus was . . .” He gave his niece a confused look. “I guess you could call him a student of mine. I taught him all about herbs.”
“I’ve never forgotten what you taught me,” Marcellus said. “The knowledge was very helpful over the years—I even became a doctor.”
He turned to Livia. “You don’t remember me, I’m sure. I believe you had just turned six the last time I saw you.”
Marcellus couldn’t help being disappointed that Livia did not recognize him, even though he’d known that would be the case. After all, he had been away on a military campaign when she had been born, and had probably spent more time apart from his young daughter than with her.
His eyes threatening to fill and his voice full of emotion, Marcellus said, “John told me you would come, but somehow I couldn’t quite believe it.”
Perplexed, Livia turned to her husband. “John?”
“The Apostle,” Jacob said. “I’ve told you all about him.”
“I know who John is. But how did he know who I am? Or that we were coming?”
“I’ve been praying for you . . .” Marcellus began to explain. Then he noticed Gregory shaking his head, pleading silently for Marcellus to keep quiet. What was the problem? Marcellus wondered. Of course, Livia was bound to be shocked at being reunited with a father she didn’t recognize after all these years. He understood that, and he didn’t want to upset Livia. But why should it upset Gregory if Marcellus let Livia know who he was?
“It’s a long story,” Marcellus finished lamely.
“And we’ll hear it later,” Rebecca said, putting a reassuring hand on Marcellus’s arm. She told Livia, “I’m sure you’re probably tired after such a long journey.”
Rebecca stepped toward Jacob and linked arms with her brother. “How long have you been traveling?”
“Almost six weeks,” he answered. “We took our time.”
Marcellus watched helplessly as Rebecca took the awkward situation in hand. She turned to him and asked, “Would you mind going to the harbor to get Peter and Quintus? I’ll show our guests upstairs so they can rest a bit. Then we’ll have a big family dinner and catch up on all the news.”
As Rebecca led the travelers upstairs, with Agatha and the babies in tow, Marcellus bent down and picked up the scroll. He carefully rolled the parchment back onto the spindles, wishing he could roll back time, wishing he had never been separated from his only child.
Thank You for bringing her home, he prayed silently. Please help me explain why I wasn’t there when she was growing up. And please, please let her understand.
]
Livia was astonished at the enormity of the place—both the overall size of the villa and its individual rooms. Marcellus was now occupying the bedroom that had been Jacob’s, Rebecca told them, so she had put Livia and Jacob in the master bedroom. Never had Livia seen a room of any kind, let alone a bedroom, so large. Most of the cave house in Cappadocia would fit inside this one room.
And the furnishings went beyond anything she could have imagined. Plush, patterned carpets covered the marble floor. There were few pieces of furniture, but they were all exquisite. Livia ran her slender fingers over the carved headboard of the massive teak bed, feeling completely overwhelmed.
Jacob sprawled across the bed and reached a hand toward her. “Let’s take a nap,” he said.
“I’m too excited to sleep,” Livia said. “Too excited, and too worried.”
“What are you worried about now? You saw how Rebecca greeted you. She even called you ‘sister.’”
“She was very sweet. But . . .” Livia sat down on the bed next to Jacob, looking around her at the opulent room. “I don’t know what to say to your family. And I don’t have the proper clothes; all my tunics are so plain and drab.”
“But you’re not plain and drab.” Jacob pulled her down beside him, settling her in the crook of his arm. “So don’t give it another thought. I’ll have some new clothes made for you. In the meantime, you can always borrow a tunic from Rebecca.”
Livia couldn’t quite picture herself asking her new sister-in-law to borrow clothes. Not yet, anyway. Perhaps Livia would let Jacob buy her a new wardrobe; she didn’t want to embarrass her husband by looking like a poor country girl.
She asked Jacob about something else that had puzzled her. “How do you suppose John knew we were coming?”
“I have no idea,” Jacob said with a yawn. “We’ll go see him tomorrow and ask him.”
What would that be like, she wondered, meeting someone who had actually known Jesus? She started to ask Jacob about it, bu
t he had already closed his eyes. Livia did not think she could fall asleep, yet she dozed off almost immediately.
When she awoke two hours later, she felt refreshed. She used water from the hammered bronze basin on the washstand to clean up, then decided to dress in the nicest thing she owned—the embroidered tunic of her mother’s, which Livia had worn for her wedding. She slipped it over the silk trousers and turned to Jacob for his approval.
“Do you think it’s too different, too . . . foreign?”
“Relax,” he told her. “They will think you’re the most beautiful foreigner they’ve ever seen. I certainly do.”
When they joined the family in the dining room, Livia met Peter.
JOHN HAGEE 313 He was as gracious and friendly as Rebecca had been earlier. Quintus and Agatha were there, and of course, Marcellus. The retired army doctor was rather peculiar, Livia thought. She didn’t know what to make of him. When she first walked into the room, he turned pale again. Then he cleared his throat and told her, “You look lovely tonight, Livia.”
Rebecca directed them to their places around the table. She and Peter occupied the center triclinium; Quintus, Agatha, and Marcellus took the left-hand couch; and Jacob, Livia, and Gregory reclined to Rebecca’s right. Livia had never dined in the Roman way before, and at first it was very strange to be lounging on a wide, sloping sofa rather than sitting cross-legged on a cushion on the floor. But the conversation was lively, and everyone made her feel at ease.
She had once joked with Jacob that at his return his family would kill the fatted calf. She’d been wrong about that, but the meal was a feast nonetheless. There was a wonderful dish of roast mutton and two kinds of fish. Livia had never tasted fresh seafood, and she found it very tender and tasty. Gregory was enthralled with the seasonings and sauces on the various meat and vegetable dishes, and Livia knew he was itching to explore the kitchen.
Jacob entertained them by telling how he had chased Damian all the way to Cappadocia, how he’d come to live with Gregory and Livia, and how he’d made his living as a schoolmaster. He also bragged on Livia’s skills as an artisan, which pleased but also embarrassed her. Marcellus was fascinated by the subject of Livia’s work, while Rebecca was visibly relieved to hear Jacob say he had relinquished his pursuit of Damian.
“I have a feeling you had something to do with that,” Rebecca said, nodding toward Livia.
“Jacob knew how I felt about it,” Livia said. “Not that he paid much attention to what I said. At least not for a long time.”
Rebecca laughed. “That’s my hard-headed brother.”
“The important thing,” Jacob said, “is that I finally did listen.”
Quintus and Agatha left right after dinner, but the others lingered in the dining room. Rebecca dismissed the servants as soon as they had served the mulsum. Livia found the warm, honeyed wine with spices too sweet for her tastes.
Jacob was telling about the horses Pomponius raised when a memory that had been stirring in Livia’s mind finally broke loose and bubbled to the surface.
“I do remember you,” she told Marcellus. “You gave me a little wooden horse on wheels. It was my favorite toy for a long time.”
Marcellus immediately brightened. “You loved to go riding with me, but your mother never approved. That’s why I bought the toy horse for you, and brought it all the way from Carthage. You named it Hippolyte after—”
“The queen of the Amazons,” they said in unison.
“I used to tell you that you would grow up to be tall and strong, like the mythical women of Cappadocia.”
“I don’t know about strong,” Livia said, “but you certainly got the tall part right.” She laughed, but the sound quickly died as another memory rose, and she frowned.
“Is something wrong?” Marcellus asked.
“No . . . It’s just that Mother must not have liked you for some reason. I remember how she would avoid saying your name, and she made me refer to you as ‘Gregory’s friend.’” The memory wasn’t quite clear, and it troubled Livia, but when she saw the stricken look on Marcellus’s face, she rushed to say, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I have a bad habit of thinking out loud.”
Gregory quickly changed the subject, but Livia did not follow the conversation for a minute. She couldn’t help thinking how strange it was that she had been reluctant to leave Cappadocia because it would be like leaving the memory of her mother and father behind. Now here she was, halfway across the Empire, having a conversation with someone who had known her parents. She wondered why her mother had not liked Marcellus and whether her father had felt the same way.
“Did you know my father?” she asked Marcellus.
He started to answer, then looked at Gregory’s stony expression and hesitated before saying, “I only met him once. He seemed like a nice man.” Marcellus paused and blinked a few times. “I moved away right after that.”
“Papa was a wonderful man,” Livia said. “You would have liked him.”
“He was a good father to you?” Marcellus asked softly.
“Oh, yes. The best. He died eight years ago, and I still miss him.”
Jacob told the others about the plague that had killed Livia’s parents and Gregory’s wife and children. It did not usually bother Gregory to talk about his family, but Livia noticed that her uncle was unusually quiet now. Come to think of it, he had been acting odd ever since they’d arrived. Perhaps he wasn’t feeling well.
Marcellus suddenly excused himself, and shortly after that Peter declared he was ready to retire. When Rebecca started to leave as well, Gregory implored, “Please stay a moment. My niece needs a friend. A sister.” He turned to Livia, his demeanor uncertain and perhaps apprehensive. “Especially now . . .”
He stopped speaking while a cough wracked his body. Then he took a deep breath and said, “I have something important to tell Livia. Something I should have said a long time ago.”
Rebecca hesitated. “Are you sure you want me to stay?”
“Yes,” Gregory said.
“Livia? Jacob?” Rebecca waited until they both nodded, then she took her place on the sofa again.
No one spoke for a moment, and Livia suddenly felt numb. She had a premonition that her uncle was about to deliver bad news, the kind of news that would change her life.
“It’s time I told you about your father,” Gregory finally said. “I hope you won’t hate me for this . . .”
Livia closed her eyes, steeling her mind against the assault. She did not want to hear a negative word against her father.
“I made a promise to your mother,” Gregory said, “a promise I came to regret. She convinced me it was for the best, and I thought so at the time. But later . . .” He cleared his throat and took another sip of mulsum. “After Claudia died, I no longer felt bound by the promise, but I thought it would be cruel to tell you about your father then. It would have served no purpose.”
“Just say it, Gregory.” Livia felt anger rising. The sooner he said whatever he had to say, the sooner she could dismiss it.
Gregory took another deep breath. “The man you called Papa was not your father. He adored you, and you adored him—”
“What are you talking about—not my father?”
“Not by birth, but he raised you as his own from the time you were five.” Gregory reached for her hand, but she yanked it back. He continued, “That’s when your mother married him, after she divorced your father . . . the man she made you call ‘Gregory’s friend.’”
Rebecca’s jaw dropped and Jacob spilled his wine. Realization swept over Livia then, and she could barely breathe. “Marcellus? You’re saying that Marcellus is my father?”
“Yes, and I should’ve told you a long time ago. I’m sorry, sorrier than I can say. But I never thought we would see Marcellus again.”
“I don’t believe you.” Livia nudged Jacob, wanting him to move aside so she could get up from the triclinium; she desperately wanted to escape. But her thickheaded h
ulk of a husband did not get the hint, and she remained trapped on the wide sofa between him and her uncle.
“It’s true,” Gregory said. “Why do you think Marcellus looked like he had seen a ghost the moment he laid eyes on you? He had to imagine he was looking at his former wife; you resemble Claudia a great deal.”
“You’re lying,” Livia cried, near tears. She wanted it to be a lie.
“Why would I lie to you now, child?”
“Evidently you’ve been lying to me my whole life!” In an ungraceful move, Livia wiggled off the end of the sofa and fled the room.
34
“YOU CAN’T HIDE IN THE BEDROOM avoiding your uncle the rest of your life,” Jacob told his wife when he returned from breakfast. Livia had not come downstairs because she was still angry with Gregory for what he’d said the previous evening. Jacob understood that she’d received quite a shock and had a right to be upset. But he thought she was behaving childishly.
Livia stared out the window, searching the horizon. The sky was overcast, and the harbor was barely visible.” I don’t want to talk to him right now,” she said. “I may not talk to him for a long time.”
“He was only doing what he thought was right. You know Gregory would never hurt you intentionally.”
“He should have told me the truth,” she insisted.
“And what good would that have done? You were too young to understand such a complex situation.” Gregory and Marcellus had talked about it that morning, and Jacob now understood that both men had made difficult choices when it came to Livia.
“Then he should have told me later, when I was old enough to understand.”
Jacob was relieved that her voice was steadier now. She finally turned away from the window and came to stand beside him. Just when he thought Livia had calmed down, however, she quit blaming her uncle and lit into Jacob.
“Why didn’t you tell me Marcellus was my father?”
“What? . . . I didn’t know anything about it.”
“You knew he had a daughter he hadn’t seen since she was a little girl—”
“Yes, but—”