Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

divorced her already.”
    “She can come back to Galilee with us,” I said, looking at Joshua, who looked at Simon, as if to ask permission.
    “She may do as she wishes.”
    “What I wish is to get out of Bethany before Jakan comes to his senses,” Maggie said, coming from the other room. She wore a simple woolen dress and her hair was still dripping. There was still green goo on her sandals. She came across the room, knelt down, and gave her brother a huge hug, then a kiss on the eyebrow. “If he comes by or sends word, you’ll tell him I’m still here.”
    I sensed Simon was smiling under the veil. “You don’t think he’ll want to come in and look around?”
    “The coward,” Maggie spat.
    “Amen,” I said. “How did you stay with a creep like that all of these years?”
    “After the first year he didn’t want to be anywhere near me. Unclean, don’t you know? I told him I was bleeding.”
    “For all those years?”
    “Sure. Do you think he would embarrass himself among the members of the Pharisee council by asking them about their own wives?”
    Joshua said, “I can heal you of that affliction, if you’ll allow me, Maggie.”
    “What affliction?”
    “You should go,” Simon said. “I’ll send word about what Jakan has done as soon as I know. If he hasn’t done it already, I have a friend who will plant the idea that if he doesn’t divorce Maggie his place on the Sanhedrin might be questioned.”
    Simon and Martha waved to us from the doorway, Martha looking like a compact ghost of her older sister and Simon just looking like a ghost.
    And thus did we become eleven.

    There was a full moon and a sky full of stars thrown over us as we walked back to Gethsemane. From the top of the Mount of Olives we could see across the Kidron Valley to the Temple. Black smoke streamed into the sky from the sacrificial fires which the priests tended day and night. I held Maggie’s hand as we walked through the grove of ancient olive trees and out into the clearing near the oil press where we camped. Philip and Nathaniel had built a fire and there were two strangers sitting by it with them. They all stood up as we approached. Philip glared at me, which baffled me until I remembered that he’d been with us at Cana, and seen Joshua and Maggie dancing at the wedding. He thought I was trying to steal Joshua’s girl. I let her hand go.
    “Master,” said Nathaniel, tossing his yellow hair, “new disciples. These are Thaddeus and Thomas the Twins.”
    Thaddaeus stepped up to Joshua. He was about my height and age, and wore a tattered woolen tunic and looked especially gaunt, as if he might be starving. His hair was cut short like a Roman’s, but it looked as if someone had cut it with a dull piece of flint. Somehow he looked familiar.
    “Rabbi, I heard you preach when you were with John. I have been with him for two years.”
    A follower of John, that’s where I knew him from, although I didn’t remember meeting him. That explained the hungry look as well.
    “Welcome, Thaddaeus,” Joshua said. “These are Biff and Mary Magdalene, disciples and friends.”
    “Call me Maggie,” Maggie said.
    Joshua stepped over to Thomas the Twins, who was only one guy, younger, perhaps twenty, his beard still like soft down in places, his clothes finer than any of ours. “And Thomas.”
    “Don’t, you’re standing on Thomas Two,” Thomas squealed.
    Nathaniel pushed Joshua aside and whispered in his ear a little too loudly. “He sees his twin but no one else can. You said to show mercy, so I haven’t told him that he’s mad.”
    “And so you shall be shown mercy, Nathaniel,” Joshua said.
    “So we won’t tell you that you’re a ninny,” I added.
    “Welcome, Thomas,” Joshua said, embracing the boy.
    “And Thomas Two,” Thomas said.
    “Forgive me. Welcome, Thomas Two, as well,” said Joshua to a perfectly empty spot in space. “Come to Galilee and help us spread the good news.”
    “He’s over there,” said Thomas, pointing to a different spot, equally empty.
    And thus did we become thirteen.

    On the trip back to Capernaum Maggie told us about her life, about the dreams she had set aside, and about a child that had died in the first year of her marriage. I could see Joshua was shaken when he heard of the child, and I knew he was thinking that if we hadn’t taken off to the East, he would have been there to save it.
    “After that,” Maggie said, “Jakan didn’t come near me. There was