As Esperanza stayed up and listened, Sophia dreamed. She saw a middle-aged blond man in a softly lit room surrounded by pitch darkness, singing ethereal notes over a sleeping baby girl with a soft but far-seeing look in his eyes. The voice was not his own and there was instrumental music in the background, but this was definitely the song to which his mouth was moving.
The song blew through and around her like a sweet but sorrowful wind, haunting her ears with a ghostly sense of lament even after she woke up. Was this another memory? Did God want her to do something with it? Ephraim. Lamb. Look it up. She did as she had been urged. Sure enough, there it was. Post it, just like before, but wait until bedtime. This time, I will give you a message to write with it. Her eyes grew wide as letters took shape in her mind like blue flame and she recognized the words as similar to what she had read in the Verses.
***
Why was it so cold in here? Esperanza awoke with a shiver. She checked the time: 12:33am. Thick though the covers were, they weren't helping very much. Instinctively she started scrolling. Sophia had another new post, but this one stuck out even more than the first. Right above the song link was a strange line of text that looked like gibberish. What language was that?
Glizavem ed däinas. Ruzas ed graabas.
Immediately the chills left her, replaced with a warm but profound sorrow dulled only slightly by the fact that it had been anticipated long ago, before this baby girl in front of her (was she seeing things?) was even conceived. Shaking her head in an effort to clear it, she clicked the link.
When Israel was young, how I loved him / From Egypt I did call him to be my son / For it was I who taught Ephraim to walk / And I who picked him up in my arms
So much for clearing her head... The music only amplified what she was feeling. There was something primally familiar about this tune...
Yet they did not know that it was I who loved them / With tender cords of love I did lead them / For I was to them as one who lifts a yoke / And bending down I lovingly fed them
...
How can I give you up, my son Ephraim? / How can I give you up, Israel? / For my heart's overturned, my compassions are kindled / But again will my anger be burned...be bur~~~~~~~~~~~ned...
Recognition stabbed her like a spear. Lazarus had sung this to her! Ever since she was a baby! Some of her very first memories of him involved this song! How could Sophia have possibly known? He had always sung it a capella, but now she had the music and the combined effect was howling inside her like a cyclone. It took a supreme effort of will to keep the tears in check. Something within her that had been sleeping for a very long time was now awake. Awake and crying like a baby who has gone too long without food. Was this her spirit? How badly had she starved it? How many sins had she piled on top of it? Oh God, what have I done?