Lilith 

(Genesis 4:2-16)

 

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“I don’t think that’s going to be enough,” I told my husband. 

 

“It’s enough, Lilith,” Cain responded.

 

“Did you see Abel’s sacrifice?”

 

“Abel is a kiss up,” Cain said. “We don’t have to do everything to precious Abel’s standards. After all these years of burning sacrifices, I think I know what I’m doing.”

 

Enoch was pulling at my skirt to be held. I lifted up our young son and began carrying him back home. The smell of burning crops faded as I made my way to the series of huts that my father and brothers had built for us in the years since leaving the Garden. Children of all ages darted around the meadow. They zigged and zagged behind trees and boulders in a massive game of Hide and Go Tag.

 

“Mom!” I called as I approached the crop fields. I found our fair-haired matriarch gathering vegetables in a stone bowl for dinner. She was sweating and her midsection was swollen as it seemed to be every dozen moons or so. “Your favorite daughter is here!” 

 

“Hello, Lilith,” Eve said with the usual wry smile that I always got for that comment. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand. “One day, I’m going to figure out how to stop getting pregnant, so I won’t have such a growing selection of daughters to choose from.”

 

I snatched a carrot and snapped the end off in my mouth. “What would you do without a baby in your belly?” I said between chews.

 

“We can only imagine.” She responded glancing at Enoch trying to pull the carrot from my hand. “And don’t talk while you eat. It makes you look like a heifer.”

 

I ignored her motherly advice and shifted the focus of our conversation away from me. “Cain is burning another insufficient offering. I have tried to talk to him about it, but he always insists he knows better.”

 

Eve shrugged. “Adam taught your brothers over and over how to sacrifice to God. Cain has been a man for years now. If he refuses to do it right, that’s between him and the Father.” She put the bowl down on the ground and raised her arms high to stretch out her back. “I know he’s your husband and you love him. You’ll just have to accept that they can’t all be Abel,” she said with a groan. “Take these vegetables to your dad, honey. I need to rest for a minute. I’ll watch Enoch here.”

 

I put my son on the ground where he immediately snatched at a frog that jumped from his hands. “Where is he?” I asked. 

 

“His favorite place,” she replied as she lowered herself onto a nearby rock. “Where else would he be?”

 

I found my father down by the old cave where they had lived before he learned how to build our huts. He always said it gave him fond memories of when Cain was born or how he learned to make fire, but all of us kids knew that he liked to hit rocks with branches at the flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Garden. Adam would spend hours whittling the wood so it would be a smooth, blunt object and searched for circular rocks that he claimed would fly better. Once he had managed to hit a cherubim, but the creature shrugged it off as if nothing had happened.

 

“Dinner is ready to be cooked,” I told him as I approached from behind. 

 

Dad dropped his branch and smiled at me. “What do we have today, Lilith?”

 

I gazed into the bowl. “Potatoes, carrots, onions, and corn.”

 

“Perfect,” he said. “You take the corn out. We can cook them on the cobs directly over the fire. I’ll get water so we can make soup with the rest.”

 

“Why do we always have vegetables at dinner?” I asked him as I separated the food. “Fruit is so much better.”

 

“Your mom decided that vegetables should be a dinner food,” Adam said. “I would have argued, but as soon as Abel agreed with her, there was no point. You know how she gets if anyone goes against Abel.”

 

“You both act like he’s never been wrong,” I complained.

 

“I can’t think of a time when he was,” Dad responded looking wistful. “He was always so good. Even when he and Cain were little, Cain would cause trouble to get attention—breaking things, pulling Dog by the tail, or taking things from Abel. And all Abel would do was hug him and say, ‘I wuv you, bruvva.’ When they got older and Cain didn’t want to do his chores, Abel would do them for him to keep his ‘bruvva’ out of trouble. He always told us that there was nothing Cain could do that would be bad enough for his family to stop loving him, and he was right.” Adam chuckled. “Like always.”

 

“That’s hard to compete with,” I said.

 

My father gave me a confused expression. “Compete with? Why would they be competing?”

 

“For your love.”

 

He ran a finger through my long dark hair in the same way he did when I was a little girl. “None of you have ever needed to compete for that. We love all of our children the same.”

 

“I don’t think Cain knows that.”

 

He picked up the bowl of vegetables and started walking. “Then, I’ll have to tell him.”

 

That evening we all gathered around the fire for dinner as the sun was going down. After we had eaten Dad’s potato soup, Abel handed out corn cobs on sticks for everyone to cook over the fire. Enoch was too young for the corn, so I helped one of my younger siblings while I cooked my own. 

 

After dinner, I was carrying Enoch to our hut for bed when I saw Cain confronting Abel. I was too far away to hear what he was saying, but he was clearly angry. Abel appeared to be trying to calm him down, which had no effect. Cain then stalked off into the woods and Abel rushed after him.

 

No one ever left our village after dark. I needed to know what was so important. I tucked my son in and said a quick prayer for him before I ventured to track my oldest brothers down. They had started in an easterly direction, and I knew that Cain’s favorite spot was out there. It was a small field where he and Dad had buried Dog after the family’s first pet had died. Cain had been very attached to him and had never accepted another pet in his place, so he constantly visited the gravesite and had marked it with a rock configuration of his own design.

 

As I got closer, I could hear Cain’s voice. We were far enough from home that no one would be able to hear him yelling at Abel. Finally, I could see their shadows through the trees. I had gotten there just in time to see Abel turn away from Cain to head back. “We would have been better off if you had never been born!” Cain shouted. Then, he removed a large rock from Dog’s grave and slung it at the back of Abel’s head. The rock found its mark with pinpoint accuracy. Abel hit the ground with a thud, face first in the dirt.

 

Silence followed as dark blood flowed from the back of my brother’s head. I didn’t dare move or breathe so as to not draw attention to myself. There was no telling what Cain would do if he knew that I was hiding amongst the trees.

 

“Look what you made me do!” Cain finally screamed at the limp body. Abel didn’t respond. I watched as Cain rolled him over and shook him by the shoulders, then dropped him again. Cain paced back and forth. Unrecognizable muttering came from his mouth while he wrung his hands together and pulled at his hair. Finally, he dropped to his knees and began to dig.

 

It didn’t take me long to realize why he was creating the hole. I leaned against the tree that I was hiding behind and slid down to the ground. I hugged my knees and listened to Cain’s constant panting. A large snake slithered past me and away from the scene. For a moment, it seemed to look at me, but it continued away into the woods. After what felt like hours of huddling there in my dark misery, I drifted off to sleep.

 

When I awoke, sunlight glazed through the trees. Cain and Abel were gone and there was a fresh patch of dirt near Dog’s grave. I approached slowly, knowing what could be found beneath the soil. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I dropped to my knees.

 

“I’m sorry,” I said to no one as snot dribbled from my nose.

 

There was no blood or any evidence of the crime that had taken place here. Cain had gone to great lengths to cover his tracks. What would Mom and Dad say when they noticed Abel had gone missing? How would the family react to the disappearance of the golden boy?

 

With red, puffy eyes and dirt on my hands and knees, I stumbled back in the direction of our home. As I got closer, I noticed an unusual air about the village. There were still children playing in the field, but it took time before I saw anyone older than ten. Finally, I found the majority of the family gathered at the place of eating.

 

Cain and Dad were face to face in the center of the commotion. The looks on their faces were intense, but neither seemed angry. Cain was now sporting a collection of lines on his forehead. The lines moved in different ways across his head as if to create symbols.

 

“But why?” Adam said to his firstborn son.