Sinners and the Sea by Rebecca Kanner

father, Noah, and Javan. I almost lost my life because of it, and I might still.”
    “Cannot the demon who put it there defend you?” Ham asked.
    He would get himself in trouble, and his brothers too. I remembered the three boys who had come from their mother all at once. I saw the crushed skull, the glassy eyes, the blood. I shook my head to expel these visions, but they would not be moved. Instead, the dead babies took on the faces of my sons.
    “Cannot the demon who put it th—”
    “Boy,” I yelled at Ham, “there is no demon but you!”
    “What about Japheth?”
    I stood silent and trembling until my rage had washed through me. “Forgive me, Ham. You are no demon.”
    I looked at each of them. Shem, with his big adoring eyes; my scowling second son, Japheth; and Ham, who exhausted me and also caused me to smile and laugh more than anyone else. “You are the greatest blessings I have ever received. I want to be a mother to you, and to be a mother to you for a long time to come, so you must be quiet and listen.”
    “When will you answer my questions?” Ham asked.
    “I will tell you all you need to know, and what you need to know is only this: If the people of the town know for certain that there is a mark upon my brow, I will be burned alive.”
    Six eyes widened, and no one spoke. Ham opened his mouth, then closed it.
    I did not tell them that they too might be burned, but perhaps they knew this. I did not hear them speak of my mark again.
    • • •
    B y the time Ham was ten, my boys had taken to wrestling beneath the trees for many positions of the sun. Ham was easily held down in a wrestling match. Perhaps this is why he became more of a talker, and why the things he said were not always kind. He used his tongue to keep his older brothers from pummeling him, or worse, giving him lesser parts to play in their games.
    “You will play the dead man,” Shem told Ham one afternoon, “and Japheth and I will fight for your teeth.”
    “Why must I be the dead man?” Ham asked.
    “Do as you’re told,” Japheth barked. “I could beat you black and blue without causing a single drop of sweat to form upon my brow.”
    “But Japheth! That would be as close as you have come to washing in many moons!”
    I was watching from the tent window, as I often did since Ham had returned from town speaking of my mark. Whenever they started away, I secured my head scarf over my brow and chased them. Giving birth had left me with stiffness in my right hip, and when I ran after them, my joints creaked. This embarrassed them so much that they usually turned around. Also, they had surely not forgotten my mark and the danger I would face if it were discovered. That year a baby with a stain over half her face had been fed to a huge fire. It was said that the flames were red but that they spat thick green blood for twenty cubits in all directions. My sons did not like for me to stray from the tent any more than I liked for them to do so.
    As I watched Japheth and Ham argue from the tent window, I saw Japheth make a fist. Japheth punched Ham in the face often enough that I studied Ham’s nose daily to make sure it was not crooked.
    I ran from the tent. Though I was not as strong as I had been before giving birth, I pushed between my boys quickly enough to stop Japheth’s fist from flying. Despite his rage, I knew he would not risk harming me.
    “Why do you always take up his cause?” he asked.
    “Do not threaten to beat your brother again.”
    He turned his head to spit upon the ground beside us before unballing his fist and walking away.
    “One day you will get yourself a broken nose,” I told Ham. He started to open his mouth, so I clasped my palm over it to keep him from replying. The edges of his smile peeked around my hand.
    Ham used his tongue on the rest of us as well. Of my stew, he said, “What creature’s afterbirth is this?”
    Of his father, he said, “He looks like a man who has just stepped in donkey