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Tzipporah catches Miriam when she reenters the camp just as the sun is rising, after her seven days of solitude, after the scales on her skin have given way to mere itchy dry patches, though they still flake off her in white streaks when she scratches. Everyone else stares, then shuns, turning their backs to her before retreating to their own dwellings. Even her own brothers are conspicuously absent on this appointed morning.
But as the others draw back, Tzipporah approaches. Her brown eyes are all sympathy, and she reaches to grab Miraim’s hand like an apology. “I never meant for you to be cast out.”
“Yes, well,” Miriam scoffs. Tzipporah’s hand is coarse—of course it is, she’s a daughter of Midian and the wife of a shepherd—but against her own rough skin which bears the ghosts of disease, it’s soft, soothing. Miriam pulls away. “You weren’t the one to cast me out.”
“Come sit. You must be weary.”
“I’m sure the People, Moses, will want to get moving. They’ve already been delayed a week.”
“So they can wait a few moments more. Come. Sit.”
It isn’t a request, this second time, and though nothing—no decree, Divine or otherwise—binds Miriam to Tzipporah’s orders, the illness has wrought havoc on her joints as well as her flesh. She is weary. And though Tzipporah is perhaps the last person with whom she wants to make pleasantries, her open tent sits nearby, while Miriam’s is on the other edge of the camp.
Miriam doesn’t respond with speech, but in reply begins to hobble toward the dwelling Tzipporah shares with her husband, then her sister-in-law grips her arm to steady her arthritic gate.
She purses her lips, once she is inside and seated. “Where’s Moses?”
“The Tent of Meeting. Where else?” Tzipporah folds her legs to sit beside her, arm extended in a recline. “He’s been there most of these past seven days, even more than he usually is. Praying on your behalf, I should think.”
“Mm.” A glance away. “And the People?”
“What of them?”
“Have they been praying on my behalf, do you suppose? For my recovery? For my safe return? Have they brought offerings?”
This is not a serious quandary, and they both know it. Tzipporah doesn’t dignify it with a response beyond a raised eyebrow.
“It wasn’t just my brothers, you know,” Miriam continues, brashly, defending herself against an accusation that her counterpart did not quite utter. “Who led them forth from Egypt.”
Tzipporah nods. “I was there.”
“So were the People. And yet they seem not to remember.” Another scoff. “I have done more for them than they know. I’ve ensured that they have had water to drink, these many years in the wilderness. Even this past week, even alone, I tended to my well so that they would not be parched.” Her voice grows evermore bitter. “Without me, Moses would not have survived his infancy, indeed perhaps would have never been born at all, and then where would they be? Still toiling for Egypt.
“I have raised their spirits from the depths in moments of despair, when they felt as though all was lost, when they would have rather succumbed than pressed on, and when my brothers were too busy with their God to notice—I have stood with them, sang with them, comforted them…And I do not need to be exalted for this, as Moses and Aaron are. I do not! I simply...I…”
Tizpporah’s soft hand finds its way atop her clenched fist, stopping her trembling voice in its tracks. This time, Miriam does not pull away. Instead, something in her chest melts; anger gives way to a different substance, something sadder, and when she sags, the motion has little to do with the illness of her body.
“You want to be seen,” Tzipporah says.
“Yes.” It’s an utterance, impossibly quiet. “I do.”
They sit in the silence for a moment, as a breeze dances across the camp outside and ruffles the entrance to the tent. The wilderness can be barren, with scorching hot days, and frigid nights. But there are moments of beauty, too, of equilibrium, and on a dawn like this one, perhaps they are close to touching it.
“I was angry with them,” Miriam continues, finally, watching the tent flap move, the gentle wind lapping her face. “The People. And I was angry with God. I still am. Perhaps on some level, I’m angry with Moses as well. But…” She turns her gaze to her sister-in-law's eyes. There's a pause, a hitch of breath. Tzipporah's eyes bear into hers. “I should not have vented that anger onto you.”
“It’s alright.” Tzipporah’s response is immediate, and she risks a small smile.
After a moment, Miriam reciprocates. Tzipporah’s hand on hers feels heavier than any affliction on her skin had, than the sinking feeling had in her chest this past week. But it’s a welcome weight, a grounding one.
Soon, Moses will return to the tent, and, seeing his sister there, will assemble the People, give orders to move the camp forward. They will march on to the Desert of Paran, ever closer to the dream of a promised land that Miriam knows, somehow, she will never see. The days will be hot, and the nights will be frigid, and she will grit her teeth, and sing, and draw water from the well, and try to convince herself that it is enough.
But, at least for this quiet moment, with her sister-in-law’s eyes on her, her heart is stiller than it’s been in years. The flaps of the tent make a sort of music in the breeze. Something in Miriam hums along.
