Deserted. Nathan Roberts

it’s always colder in the shade.” Mal knew it was useless to argue so she let it go.

      Whether it was age or the weather, Naameh couldn’t deny that her knees hurt a little more each time she made her way up the sixteen wooden steps to the small front door of the ark.

      Naameh sighed as they stepped into the cool darkness of the ark. The windows in the large main room were all latched shut. She could hear Noah and her sons’ hammers pounding upstairs. She stood by the door and shoook the sand off her dress as her eyes adjusted. After a moment she saw the newly polished tables and stools Noah had finished making for the wedding. The craftsmanship was impeccable, each piece perfectly sanded, trimmed, and fitted.

      The red curtains hung, nearly touching the floor. She had made them special for Mal’s wedding. Naameh ran her hands along the matching red tablecloths, which bore a bright yellow stripe down the middle. They tableclothes were still clean, despite the sand and whatever Noah was working on upstairs. She sighed, looking at the bare tables. She had five days to make three more tablecloths.

      Mal sensed her anxiety. “Don’t worry, we have plenty of help to finish everything.”

      They walked past the hand-carved signs on the small side rooms. They read: ibex, llama, zebra, cow. Naameh had reorganized each room to hold all the extra curtains, tablecloths, plates, cups, and candles she had collected from all the weddings, funerals, and holidays.

      Naameh slowly made her way up the first set of stairs, the tap of her wooden foot lost in the hammering upstairs. A wave of frustration hit her as she opened the door to the storeroom and saw dozens of massive sacks of beans, rice, and hay scattered across the floor. Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth were nailing together a row of shelves.

      Noah stopped. He looked at Naameh and then down at the mess on the floor as if seeing it for the first time, his hammer hanging guiltily by his side. “We finished the last set of tables and chairs. And then I saw those clouds roll in and I wanted to re-check the supply deck in case it rai—”

      Naameh raised her eyebrow and Noah stopped. Mal came up the stairs and pointed at the shelves incredulously. “Are these shelves for the wedding?”

      Noah forced a toothy smile. “There was a whole mess of chickens roosting in the bean stores. So we started cleaning them out and decided we needed more shelving.”

      Naameh took a deep breath. “Well, just finish it up. We already have plenty to do.”

      “How much wood did you get today?” Noah asked pointing at his dwindling stack of timbers. “I suppose people stayed home on account of the wind.”

      “No one showed up.” Naameh lied casually, hoping to get a rise out of him. “And Rayah told me Chalah was sick, so I sent her home with the rest of the giraffe’s milk.”

      “You didn’t!” Noah looked at her aghast. “There was a weeks worth of milk in that jar! We were gonna put up—”

      “I’m just getting you, you old grouch,” Naameh laughed. “Everyone huddled into the shop.”

      “And you . . .”

      “And I made sure to get your wood.” Naameh rolled her eyes and started up the stairs.

      “You’d give the roof away if it wasn’t nailed down,” Noah muttered to himself.

      “What was that?” Naameh stopped on the stairs.

      “It’s a business, is all I’m saying,” Noah said louder.

      “We have a wedding in five days is all I’m saying.” She pointed at the disorganized sacks on the floor.

      “We roasted up the chickens,” Noah said, eager to change the subject. “I’ll make you a plate.”

      Naameh stopped on the third floor to give hugs and kisses to her five small grandchildren playing on the floor with carved wooden animals. Her knees were sore and her legs burned by the time she made it up the final set of stairs to her bedroom perched on the deck of the ship.

      She sat down on her bed. Outside her bedroom window the clouds were still looming, now darker as the sun was setting. The wind didn’t seem have moved them. Naameh untied the leather straps to her wooden foot and massaged her stump. The skin was thick and calloused and her calf muscle was tight and sore.

      From her bed she could see smoke rising from the cooking fires burning at the homesteads that dotted the valley. She could see the small frames of Rayah and her daughter hunched over a fire outside their one-room clay house.

      She remembered being a small girl and sitting around the cooking fire, her mother reassuring her, “You’ll find somebody.” The other mothers nodded along, “Oh yes . . .” their voices overflowing with so much pity that Naameh was convinced there was absolutely no way she would ever find someone to marry her.

      Naameh remembered the first time she had seen the ark. She was fourteen and had finally managed to convince her mother that she could navigate the rocky hills that seperated their valley from the ark. Naameh had stood in awe as she watched Noah’s father Lamech on a tall ladder. He was hammering long timbers onto the unfinished second story. Noah had handed her a cup of giraffe’s milk. She noticed his fingers were stained the color of the timbers.

      “Why is your dad building that boat?” she asked.

      “A flood,” Noah shrugged. “Someday this whole valley is gonna be underwater.” His hand panned across the hills surrounding them.

      Naameh remembered trying to imagine the ark bobbing up and down on water the way sticks floated in the puddles in her garden.

      “When?” she asked nervously. It had never rained enough to even cover her ankle.

      Noah shrugged again. “What’s wrong with your foot?” he asked, pointing at her calloused stump. Naameh tried to stand up as straight as she could, took a deep breath, and with as much pride as she could muster she said, “I don’t have one.”