Flavia Maximiana Theodora Coins: Family, Pietas and Stories

Rufa reached the well before her neighbors and filled the jar only halfway.

She had once carried it full. Now her right hand would not close around the handle. She held it with her left and pressed the rounded side against her hip. Half a jar would last until afternoon if she was careful.

At the first step outside her door, the water rocked against the rim. She stopped. The jar pulled at her shoulder. She could hear someone coming down the street.

“Here,” Sabina said. “Let me.”

“I have it.”

“You have stopped.”

“I am admiring my doorway.”

Sabina looked at the doorway. “It is a fine one.”

Rufa waited for her to pass. Instead, Sabina put down her own jar.

“Shall I carry yours inside?”

“No.”

Rufa lifted it higher. Water ran over the side and darkened her sleeve. She got it through the door and onto the low table before Sabina could speak again.

“There,” she said.

“There,” Sabina agreed.

Rufa shut the door gently enough that it did not sound like a dismissal.

Her hand throbbed. She held it under her other arm and sat on the stool beside the table. Through the thin wall she heard Sabina's children arguing about a piece of cloth. One wanted it for a sail. The other said it was a blanket for a wooden horse.

When they were babies, Rufa had watched them while Sabina worked. She had held one against each shoulder and walked them back and forth in this room. Sabina used to arrive breathless, thanking her before she reached the door.

Rufa had liked being thanked. She admitted that much to the empty room.

She opened her purse to count what remained for bread. A bronze lay among the coins, with a woman's portrait on one side and a woman holding a baby on the other. She had shown that picture to Sabina's older child once. He had asked whether the baby ever grew.

“No,” she told him. “Not on the coin.”

But he had grown. They both had. They could climb onto the stool themselves now, and they did not need Rufa to keep their heads from falling back when they slept.

She put the bronze away and reached for the cup. Even pouring hurt. She moved the jar with both forearms, spilled a little more and drank what she had managed to catch.

By afternoon she needed water again.

She considered waiting until dark. Fewer people would be at the well then. No one would stop to offer anything. But the street had uneven stones, and she would have to carry a lamp as well as the jar.

She set the empty jar beside the door and sat down to rest before going.

A knock came almost at once.

“You are quick,” she called.

“It is only me.”

“I know.”

Sabina stood outside with a basket of mending. She glanced at the jar.

“Are you going out?”

“Soon.”

“Then I will wait.”

“For what?”

“I need a place to sit.”

“You have a house.”

“I have two children building a ship across the floor. If I sit, they ask me to be the sea.”

Rufa looked down the street toward Sabina's door. A small voice was calling for a longer sail.

“Your horse will be cold,” she said.

“What?”

“Never mind. Come in.”

Sabina took the chair by the window. She laid a worn shirt over her knees and began to sew.

Rufa stayed on the stool. She could get up, lift the jar and walk out. Sabina would see how long it took. Or she could remain seated and pretend she no longer wanted to go.

“Which hand?” Sabina asked without looking up.

Rufa tucked it farther under her arm.

“The right.”

“Has it hurt all morning?”

“For several mornings.”

Sabina put the shirt in her basket.

“I will fill it.”

“You came to rest.”

“I can rest afterward.”

Rufa looked at the chair by the window. Sabina had sat there so often with a child asleep in her lap that Rufa still expected to see small feet beneath the shirt.

“Bring your mending back,” she said. “I will keep the chair.”

“And you keep that hand still.”

Sabina carried the jar out. Rufa listened to her footsteps recede, then took her hand from beneath her arm. She laid it openly on the table.

When Sabina returned, the jar was full. She set it down and moved the cup within Rufa's reach.

“Two cups,” Rufa said.

Sabina found the second one on the shelf. She poured for them both, then took up her shirt again.

Rufa stayed seated. Outside, the children called for the sea. Neither woman answered.

Neria put the cracked cup in the basket, and her brother took it out again.

“We cannot carry every broken thing,” she said.

“I am not asking you to.”

He set it on the table beside the lamp. Their father's room was nearly empty. The bedding had gone to a neighbor. Neria had folded his clothes and tied them with a strip of cloth. Only the things on the table remained.

Maro turned the cup so its good side faced her.

“He always drank from it.”

“Because he broke the others.”

Their father had been dead for six days. Neria had expected to cry when she came to sort his things. Instead she kept finding jobs to do. Each finished bundle gave her a little space in which not to think.

Maro had found the cup as soon as he arrived and had hardly moved since.

“You take it,” she told him.

“I have no place for it.”

“You have a shelf.”

“My wife uses the shelf.”

“Then ask her.”

He looked offended. “You know what she will say.”

Neria did. She had said it herself only a moment ago.

She reached for their father's purse. Inside were a few coins and a short piece of blue thread. The thread had tied his sleeve when a seam came loose. She remembered promising to mend it the next time she visited.

She had not visited again until he was dying.

One bronze showed a woman with a small child on the reverse. Neria set it beside the cup. Maro picked it up, then put it down.

“We should give those to Casta,” he said.

Casta lived two doors away. She had brought their father food when walking became difficult, washed his cup and sat with him when he could not sleep.

Neria gathered the coins into the purse.

“Yes. For what she did.”

“And the cup.”

“She has cups.”

“This was his.”

Neria looked at the blue thread. Casta had found a way to keep his sleeve closed while Neria was busy promising a proper repair.

“Did you thank her?” she asked.

Maro rubbed his thumb along the crack.

“I told her we were grateful.”

“When?”

“When she sent word that he was worse.”

“Before you came?”

“Yes.”

They had both arrived that last evening. Casta had opened the door and moved her chair aside. Neria had taken the place beside the bed. She had been too frightened to ask how long Casta had sat there.

“We could bring her the purse now,” Maro said.

Neria tied it shut. Then she untied it.

“What if she thinks we are paying her to be finished?”

“For helping?”

“For everything. Here is the money. Here is the cup. You need not think about him again.”

Maro put the cup down.

“That is not what I mean.”

“I know.”

She folded the blue thread and put it in her own purse. They left the room with the cup wrapped in cloth and their father's coins still together.

Casta was outside her door, trying to pull a basket over the raised stone at the entrance. Maro caught the far handle.

“Where does it go?” he asked.

“Under the table.”

They carried it inside. Neria held the door open until both of them had passed.

Casta thanked them and sat down. She looked at the cloth in Maro's hands.

“His cup?”

He unwrapped it.

“I thought you might want it.”

“I washed that thing so often I know every crack.”

“We can keep it,” Neria said quickly.

Casta smiled. “I did not say I would not want it.”

Neria sat on the bench opposite her. She had come prepared to say how much their father meant to them. The words now seemed to leave Casta outside the room where she had spent so much time.

“We should have come sooner,” Neria said.

Casta looked at her, then at Maro.

“Yes.”

Neither of them answered.

After a while Casta took the cup and turned its handle toward the wall.

“He liked it that way. So he could reach it without looking.”

“Tell us,” Maro said.

Casta told them about the things their father had asked for, the stories he repeated and the morning he laughed because she had brought the wrong sandals. Neria listened without sorting anything or tying a bundle.

Before they left, she put the purse on the table.

“These are his. We would like you to have them. But I also want to ask what you need.”

Casta glanced at the basket beneath the table.

“Someone to carry that when it is full again.”

“I can come,” Maro said.

“So can I,” Neria told her.

Outside, her brother reached for the wrapped cup. Then he remembered he was no longer carrying it. He lowered his empty hands, and they walked back to finish their father's room.

Daria had put her basket away. That should have warned Lucan.

Usually, when he came home, she was mending something or sorting the beans. Tonight she stood by the door with her hair tied back and her walking shoes on.

“The river,” she said. “You promised.”

“I remember.” He lifted a bundle of split wood. “Father needs this first.”

She looked at the bundle, then at him.

“Will you come straight back?”

“Of course.”

The last time he had said that, she had lit the lamp before he returned. The time before, she had eaten alone. He knew which evenings she was remembering because he was remembering them too.

“I'll be quick,” he said.

“That isn't what I asked.”

He shifted the wood to his other arm. One sharp end had gone through his sleeve.

“I can't leave him without fuel.”

“I didn't ask you to.”

From the room behind her came the faint smell of onions. Supper was ready as well. Lucan kissed her cheek. She let him, but did not turn her face toward his.

His father lived two streets away. Through the open door Lucan heard Naso, the neighbor, accuse someone of moving a piece twice.

“I only moved it once,” Severus said. “You complained twice.”

His father sat at a low table with a game board between them. His bad knee rested on a folded cloth. Naso had brought figs in a basket small enough to suggest he expected most of them back.

Lucan set down the wood.

“You shouldn't leave the door open,” he told his father.

“How would you have got in?”

“You could have called.”

“I was busy winning.”

Naso snorted. Lucan put a small bronze on the table, beside the figs. One side showed a woman's head. On the other, worn but still visible, a woman held a child.

“For what you need,” Lucan said.

“I need Naso to stop touching my pieces.”

“You need the wood stacked where you can reach it.”

“Then stack it.”

Lucan glanced at the board. His father could make every useful thing sound like an interruption. Lucan carried the bundle into the next room and began laying the wood beside the hearth.

He had nearly finished when Daria arrived with a small oil jar.

“You left this,” she said.

He stood too fast and struck his shoulder on a shelf.

“You didn't have to bring it.”

“No. I didn't.”

Severus thanked her. He asked whether she wanted a fig. She took one from the middle of the basket, and Naso watched it go with open sorrow.

“I thought you were walking tonight,” Severus said.

“We were,” Daria answered.

Lucan looked at the open door. There was still light in the street.

“I'm almost done.”

“Yes,” she said. “You are. You always arrive for the last part.”

He started to object. Then he saw the jar in her hand.

Daria had bought the oil. She had brought his father's meal earlier. When Severus needed his cloth washed, it was Daria who took it home. Lucan carried the wood and felt dependable. He had never asked whether she wanted every other piece of the work.

“Tomorrow I'll bring the meal,” he said.

She put down the jar carefully.

“Ask your father what he needs. Then ask me what I can do. Don't divide my day while I'm in another room.”

Naso studied the board as though it had become very difficult.

Lucan pulled a stool toward his father.

“What do you need tomorrow?”

“Fuel within reach. Food. Someone to help me carry water.” Severus tapped his knee. “This still won't bend because you worry at it.”

“I could stay this evening.”

“You could. But Naso has already promised to lose another game.”

“I promised to play,” Naso said.

Severus turned back to his son.

“Come tomorrow before the heat. Stay long enough to eat with me. Bring your wife if she wants to come.”

Lucan nodded. He stacked the last two pieces of wood, filled the little lamp from the jar and wiped the spilled oil with his own cloth. Then he went to Daria.

“Would you still walk with me?”

“A short way. I want my supper while it's warm.”

“And tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow I may want something else.”

He offered his arm. She took his hand instead.

Outside, the sun had left the roofs, but the river path was still pale. Daria walked quickly. Lucan had to lengthen his steps to keep beside her.

At the corner she glanced back. Through his father's open door came a shout of triumph, followed at once by Naso's protest.

Daria laughed. Lucan did too. When the path narrowed, he stepped behind her without letting go of her hand.