Mary had a little qualm. Well, maybe not so little. Joe was a good man and not yet her husband, but maybe he could have done better. “A stable?” she said to herself. It sounded like an accusation. “And me about to have a baby?”
She was always given to conversations with herself. Sometimes out loud too. Her mother, Anne, used to say, “you’d better stop that Mary or people will think you strange.”
People thought her strange anyway, especially since her pregnancy began to show and she insisted she had never been with a man in that sense. Joe said nothing. She wished he had. Even before the women examined her and agreed no man was involved, he said he would marry her anyway.
She was conflicted about that. She would have preferred if he had been even a bit angry. Then she could be certain he had higher standards than to marry anyone regardless of, well, you know.
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Looking around the stable she thought: “Mother a God, what a place to bring a child into the world.” She had yet to realise she was addressing herself, as many would come to believe. “Mother a God, what a kip.”
Joe had gone to get something to eat. She was convinced the inn keeper had turned them away because they were from Nazareth. Didn’t she hear him say “Nothing a’ the good ever came out of that place”?
She just didn’t believe the inn was full. And to think she used to feel sorry so many inns were closing. “Cheaper to have wine at home,” people said.
Joe arrived back with fresh bread, delighted with himself. “Where are the shepherds, Joe? There are supposed to be shepherds, and a donkey.”
He was flummoxed. “What are you talking about, Mary?” She was taken aback. “I just thought...” she began. “And aren’t you getting all posh with your `donkey’. In Nazareth that’s an ass.”
She was distracted, as the child moved inside. “The baby’s kicking me again, Joe. I’d say it’ll be soon.” He calmed her. “Don’t worry now, Mary, everything is in place. The women at the inn have everything ready. Decent people. One of them has a brother in Nazareth.”
“Thank God,” said Mary.
“Indeed,” said Joe, his tone sounding like an accusation.
Mary, from Aramaic Maryam, Hebrew Miryam, said to mean “rebellion”
