Mother’s funeral was over. The first night I could fit in time alone, I dressed as warmly as I could, then slipped out of the mansion carrying a lamp, my tinder box, and several bags containing all the journals I still possessed except the one I was still using, which was hidden in the wigwam in the woods. I looked around as I walked, making sure no one was around to see me. I didn’t want to be interrupted or mistaken for a grave robber.

I saw a few men and youths on their way home from some debaucheries I might have joined just days before. This night, such activities held no interest for me. I wanted to be alone with my mother—or to imagine I was with her, at least.

Fortunately, her grave was out of the way enough that others would be unlikely to witness what I was about to do. I could see by my lantern that the autumn flowers in front of the tombstone had begun to wilt. I set my bags down in the nearby grass and stared down at the fresh soil that covered the body. I had no sense that she was down there, although I had seen her body in the coffin and had seen it lowered deep into the rectangular hole. Shivering in the late night air, I tried to conjure her form before me.

“It’s too late to tell you I’m sorry,” I began, my voice unexpectedly raw. I cleared my throat. “Sorry I wished you’d go away. I didn’t want you to die! You should have made sure that doctor saved you. Maybe he could have pulled that ugly little baby out and you would be alive instead of him. He isn’t worthy of your sacrifice! Never could be! He has a wet nurse now, but that doesn’t satisfy him. He still screams more than he cries, and cries more than he sleeps. I don’t expect he’ll be anything but trouble. Why did you have to give him a name that means ‘son of my right hand’? Did you want Father to favor him?

I heard no sound but the breeze in the nearby trees.

“You sensed you were going to die having this child, and you didn’t try to save your life. Didn’t even tell me it was going to happen!” Tears started, and because these were my last words to Mother, I let them fall. “These will be my last tears! I must control my feelings with all diligence from now on. No more explosions. The cost is far too high! I lost my temper, and because of that, I lost you. Now there is no one to mend my ways for, and no one to help me if I wanted to try. That door has slammed in my face as surely as the door to your room when the midwife slammed it.” My hands bunched into fists again. “I must let reason control me and not emotion. That habit I’ll make an effort to change.

“Father has grown sterner with me over these few days. I heard him say you might still be with us if you hadn’t ‘spoiled’ me. He must think God killed you to punish you for loving me! What point is there in loving or expecting to receive love? It’s all just another trap leading to heartbreak and disappointment. I was a fool again. I won’t be in the future! I’ll harden my heart. When I feel hurt or angry, I must find ways to deal with those feelings in private.”

The wind blew harder and blew leaves off trees. They whirled around me. A few joined others on the soil of the grave, some intermingling with the wilting flowers. I picked the flowers up and laid them against a tree several yards away. I walked back to the graveside and stared at the dirt that covered her coffin. “Mother... It’s too late to apologize for who I am. To make certain no one finds out like you did, I’m burning my journals and leaving the past behind.”

I opened each bag and poured my journals onto the soil of her grave. All but two. The last one I filled up was still missing. I looked at her headstone and narrowed my eyes. “Where did you hide that journal you found? If you really still exist—show me! It wasn’t yours to hide. If Father finds out the things I planned to do and blame Asher for, no telling what he’ll do to me! At this point, no one suspects me because of my young age. Asher of course denies he stole Father’s money and lost much of it gambling. Father doesn’t know about the slave trading yet.”

The wind quieted as if in my favor. So I picked up my tinder box. I hesitated, remembering how reading over what I’d written reminded me of who I am. “Now it is time for me to forget the past and grow up,” I pronounced. “But maybe I can keep my latest journal until it’s full. Yes, it’s a risk. But the journal is my only confidant now.”

I squatted by the grave, pulled the first few pages from one of the books, and wadded the paper up for kindling. “Goodbye, Mother,” I said solemnly. “Goodbye, childhood.” I rubbed the steel and flint until they sparked on the kindling pages and gently blew on them to spread the flame. I shuddered when the fire suddenly leapt up. It was a bigger fire than I expected. I looked around to make certain no one saw me now. I listened. Silence.

The flame drew my gaze and became the focus of my words. I felt as if Mother was burning in this fire, along with everything I had ever felt before now. “Why did you call him ‘Benjamin’?” I asked again. I recalled the Bible passage in which Jacob’s favorite wife Rachel had her second child and with her last breath named him “Ben-Oni”—“son of my sorrow.” It was his father who renamed him Benjamin, “son of my right hand.” “Mother, did you mean that your sorrow would turn into joy and honor? For whom? Did you name this little brat your new favorite? It doesn’t really matter who on earth once favored me, since you’re now dead. I’m a vessel of wrath, fit to destruction, one of those Paul wrote about.

“You told me I should be more like the one whose birthday I share. In a way, I will be. I’m learning to hurt people like he hurts me. He’s like a twin brother no one can see—like Jacob stealing everything from me, making me an Esau to him. I would like to make him miserable. How would I do that? If I lived in his time, I would betray him. But I would never kill myself like Judas did. I would live to see him suffer, and if he got away, I suppose I would make those he loved suffer. Yes! It’s the only way I can hurt the one most beyond suffering, in this age! I will be the best traitor ever. I will get back at people before they can hurt me. Especially people God favors. Yes, that’s how I’ll get back at God!”

I stared into the flames until my face grew hot. “I don’t want to die and be plunged into the flames of Hell like Judas did so soon after his betrayal. I wish I could go on living forever and not have to suffer all that. Angels don’t die like people do—not even fallen ones. Yes, it’s said they will be thrown in the Lake of Fire in the end. But I have seen parts in the Bible that don’t match with others. Might it be wrong about the end of the world, too? What if the leader of the fallen angels turns things around so none of his followers go into the Lake of Fire? What then would happen to vessels like me that God made for destruction?”

The fire leapt and waned as my journals were consumed. I cried for everything Mother was to me, for all those days in the past, and for the all the good things I missed.

As the fire died down, I shivered again. Leaves continued to fall—hard to see properly in the night, but by their crunch underfoot, I knew they were turning from their bright colors to dull brown. Even the leaves were dying. I gathered several piles from the ground and spread them over the black ashes on the grave.

I inherited my mother’s ability to sense things beyond what most people could know. As I returned the flowers to the grave, I felt an even worse upheaval was coming to my family. But I wouldn’t just let it happen and complain to my journal. I would counter it my way.

I saw no hero on earth I wanted to emulate, and none in the spiritual realm I resemble. So I would be my own hero. I would make my own path to a bright future, come what may.