But Benia’s box remained an embarrassment and a reproach to me. It did not belong in a garden shed. It was not made for a foreignborn midwife without status or standing. It was mine only because the carpenter had recognized my loneliness and because I had seen the need in him, too. I filled the box with gifts from my mothers, but covered its gleaming beauty with an old papyrus mat so that it would not remind me of Benia, whom I resigned to the corner of my heart, with other dreams that had died.
