By Andrea Lingle

Please come.

Don’t forget to break the bread.

Two small phrases easily mislaid and miraculous. She set her basket down, mountainous with broken bread, and sank to the ground beside it. Her joy leaked out of her eyes and splashed a grin across her face.

How could she ever eat bread again without remembering this day?

A shadow gently crossed her folded feet and she looked up at a backlit figure. The sun was breaking around the man like glory shrouding him into a silhouette.

“Hello, sir, may I help you?” she asked, shading her eyes. “Hungry?” She gestured to her overflowing basket.

“Yes.” His voice brought her to her feet. Before she had a chance to breathe or cry out, she was embracing him.

“John! When did you get here?”

“I came in on a boat this morning. When I got to town, mother’s house was empty. Along with half the village.”

“I imagine so,” the woman said grinning. She stooped and picked up half a loaf of crusty brown bread.

“Jerrod said everyone had come up here to listen to some rabbi talk,” John said as he took the bread from her hand.

“Oh, don’t forget to break it,” she said quickly.

“Break it? Why?”

“Uh, I don’t know, really. To be sure that there is enough for everyone?” Her face heated for the third time that afternoon. It sounded ridiculous. She had taken her basket and loaf of bread, listened to the teacher’s inadequate and ridiculous instructions, and there had been enough—more than enough. She had no idea how it had happened, but she had walked around, she had broken the bread, and there had been enough. “Honestly, I didn’t ask. The teacher asked for help, and I went.” She settled back down on the grass next to her basket, uncertain how to communicate this experience which fit with nothing she had ever known.

Please come. Don’t forget to break the bread.

Such simple instructions. It would take her a lifetime to figure out what had happened. John crossed his feet at the ankles and folded to the ground.

“You know, I have no idea why he asked us to break the bread. But, I think it’s important.” John looked down at the half-loaf in his hand. Slowly, he tore it into two imprecise pieces. He couldn’t be sure, but the two halves didn’t look much smaller than the original half. He blinked down at them in his hands. She grinned.

“Maybe we will never know,” she said, taking one half of one half of one half.

John grinned back. “Weird.”

The setting sun elongated their shadows as they walked back to the town basket stretched between them; the bread, holy wheat, and wholly abundant.

Passed Along