Born for Adversity: An Anthology of Brothers

By Laurel June Thompson

Born for Adversity examines the sometimes turbulent, often impassioned relationships between siblings. Well-known stories from the Bible and mythology are re-told throughout the book, interwoven with the tale of two brothers on their journey through life. Whether born into a family from ancient times or in modern culture, brothers and sisters have faced similar challenges throughout the millennia—jealousy, control, judgment, protection, forgiveness, and love—all common facets in the labyrinth of sibling relationships, the outcomes ever hinging upon choices of the mind and heart.

Born for Adversity follows the lives of Jackson and Jesse McAlister. Raised in a Christian, blue-collar family in the mid-twentieth century, Jackson and Jesse struggle to find their way into adulthood. Their disparate natures clash when their decisions lead to trouble on both sides. Then, a dark secret emerges to nearly destroy all hope, and a young woman tugs at both their hearts, forcing them to face each other and their true feelings.

Discover the possibilities borne of unconditional love and the disasters wrought from envy and hatred. Whether in ages past or present day, true forgiveness blazes a trail through the tangles of sibling rivalry, ending in ties that bind forever strong and true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669862208

Book preview

Copyright © 2023 by Laurel June Thompson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 01/16/2023

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

835355

I dedicate this book to my dad, Gary Joe Henry—the eldest of

three brothers.

"A friend loves at all times, and a brother

is born for a time of adversity."

                            Proverbs 17:17 NIV

Blood runs thick from skin to skin,

Ties that bind from kin to kin;

From ages past to present day,

The loom of fate yet weaves away;

Its folds unroll in hues sublime,

That colored tapestry of time;

A labyrinth of good and ill,

Its pattern subject to our will;

Capricious be the crimson strands,

So hard to break, so hard to mend;

They oft shall tangle then—behold,

Become a plait of braided gold;

As strong as silk, as tough as wool,

Sometimes they push, sometimes they pull;

Yet nothing knits a line of blood,

Like scarlet threads of brotherhood.

                                        L.J. Thompson

Contents

Chapter 1     The Loss

Chapter 2     The Brothers

Chapter 3     The Return

Chapter 4     The Bargain

Chapter 5     The Threshold

Chapter 6     The Coat

Chapter 7     The Arrival

Chapter 8     The Slave

Chapter 9     The Regret

Chapter 10   The Famine

Chapter 11   The Fair

Chapter 12   The Abduction

Chapter 13   The Homecoming

Chapter 14   The War

Chapter 15   The Passage

Chapter 16   The Vengeance

Chapter 17   The Skeleton

Chapter 18   The Fall

Chapter 19   The Friendship

Chapter 20   The Birthday

Chapter 21   The Confrontation

Chapter 22   The Sign

Chapter 23   The Absolution

Chapter 24   The New Beginning

Chapter 25   The Teacher

Chapter 26   The Wedding

Chapter 27   The Waves

Chapter 28   The Disillusionment

Chapter 29   The Choice

Chapter 30   The Parting

Epilogue

Chapter 1

The Loss

B OYS, LISTEN TO me. I love you. She gently squeezed both their hands in hers as they sat on either side of her hospital bed. Jesse, the younger by three years, let tears stream down his face freely and without shame. Jackson, stoic—not due to his newly attained status as an adolescent, but because it had been his nature from the day he had drawn breath—sat straight and rigid, his face a mask of serious acceptance of the personal tragedy taking place before him.

Their father was an enigma. Strong, yet meek; unyielding, yet tender. He stood motionless in the corner of the pristine and antiseptic room, his head bowed in silent prayer. Ephraim McAlister was a handsome man by most standards. With sandy-brown hair that fell intractably over one eye and a tall, naturally lean frame, he exuded self-assurance and quiet authority. Soft-spoken and spare of speech, he rarely raised his voice and, to the boys’ recollections, had never laid a hand upon either of them in anger; yet, they revered him.

Their mother, Aubrey McAlister, prone in the white-blanketed hospital bed, had become a mere shade of the vibrant, healthy woman they had known. The model of energetic efficiency, she’d seen to her family’s needs with enthusiastic zeal, for her beloved husband and two young sons meant the world to her. They were the reason she rose each morning and cheerfully embarked upon the mundane and often tiresome routine of keeping house without even a hint of lethargy. Unlike their father, she was given to bouts of temper when her sons disobeyed or showed less than proper respect. She expected them to toe the line when it came to applying themselves to their lessons and completing their chores in a timely and excellent manner. And she brooked no complaints when it was time to get ready for church.

Give the Lord His due, and blessings come to you, she recited so frequently, the simple adage had been ingrained into the minds of her sons along with mealtime grace, the Lord’s Prayer, the Golden Rule, and the Pledge of Allegiance. Behind her back, they sometimes mocked the familiar proverb by chanting it to one another, employing an unflattering imitation of their mother’s voice. Aubrey had caught Jackson at this once, and her disappointed expression had immediately curbed his fit of laughter. For Jackson was devoted to his mother, and to have hurt her even in this small way had cut him to the quick. He didn’t repeat this particular offense again, and saw to it that neither did Jesse.

The McAlisters resided in a suburb of Pittsburgh along the Ohio River called Ben Avon. After their marriage in 1947, Ephraim and Aubrey had moved into a quaint, older home in the historic district. Though charming, the colonial-style house with its Italian brick walls and white wooden shutters flanking arched, mullioned windows had proved to be exceedingly drafty and in need of multiple repairs. They discovered during that first storm-besieged winter that the roof leaked, and were further chagrined to find that the copper pipes delivered only ice-cold water into the ancient, cast iron tub. However, it was something they could afford at the time, and in the optimism and vigor of youth, they’d looked upon it as an enjoyable challenge rather than the albatross it was. Ephraim doggedly commuted the hour and a half each way in their 1942 Buick Roadmaster—a luxury at the time—to the steel mill in Pittsburgh. Clever and hardworking, he’d moved up quickly through the ranks, consistently providing enough money for the bills, necessary renovations to the house, and to support his wife and two young sons. Though never rich, the McAlisters lived thriftily, yet comfortably for many years, never knowing a season of want.

It was spring of 1962 when Ephraim had learned of Aubrey’s illness. He strode into the factory foreman’s office the very same day to tender his resignation. He quit his supervisory position attained after eighteen years as a faithful employee of Winchester Steel without a backward glance. From that day on, he cared for Aubrey. Tirelessly, he fed her, bathed her, cleaned up her vomit, washed her linens, portioned out her medicines, and in-between saw to the needs of their sons.

Mercifully, Aubrey’s cancer had run a rapid course. Six months had passed since her initial diagnosis, and this trip to the hospital would be her last. Only thirty-six years old, the once pretty brunette with expressive, whiskey-colored eyes, long limbs, and a shapely figure had wasted away into an almost unrecognizable shell of her old self. No longer the dark beauty Ephraim had courted and married, Aubrey had withered like a frostbitten rose in winter, struck with the brutal force of a rapid demise. Her terrible transformation was an obscenity to Ephraim, who would have gladly delivered his body to be burned at the stake if such an act would salvage the life of his beloved Aubrey. Yet, alas, he knew the die had been cast, and there was nothing left but to let her depart upon the wings of angels, to that immortal place where she would be truly healed and forever young.

Night had fallen; a strong wind kicked up outside the hospital, causing the trees to slap their naked branches against the institutional glass of her window like flails.

Now, don’t you fret about me, she continued in a tone as resolute as she could muster. Why, I’m just going to Heaven, and we will all be together again one day in Paradise. This is not goodbye, Aubrey tenderly reminded ten-year-old Jesse whose weeping had become more pronounced. She paused, her breathing shallow and her pulse fluttering like hummingbird wings beneath the gossamer skin of her slender wrist, summoning the strength to finish her farewells.

Looking intently at each of her precious sons in turn, she took a wavering breath and spoke her last words. I expect you to take care of each other, boys. Help your father. Never forsake one another, for family love runs deep and true over distance and time.

Jesse didn’t see through his tears, but Jackson, ever vigilant, watched his father’s head jerk up from an attitude of prayer and his eyes lock with his wife’s at that precise moment. They held each other’s gaze for several seconds, a private message passing between them, before she closed her eyes and sank into the pillow. Jackson and Jesse felt their mother’s grasp go limp, and they knew she was dead.

Chapter 2

The Brothers

Somewhere within the Fertile Crescent, circa 4000 BC

W ATCH OVER YOUR brother, Cain.

Young Cain rolled his eyes at his mother’s oft-uttered demand. He peered askance at the toddler tumbling with a litter of wolf cubs in the corner of the cavern that was their home. The cave was not a dark, wet hole that one usually imagines, but rather a large, dry, and well-appointed abode, naturally enclosed with limestone on three sides and most of the fourth. Its interior was lit by the tzohar¹ given by the Maker of All to Cain’s father, Adam, after his and his wife’s banishment from the Garden called Eden many years afore. Cain muttered a begrudging assent as his mother, Eve, parted the split hide that covered the entrance of their dwelling and went outside.

Cain was only seven, yet even at this tender age he had begun to resent his role in the family. His father and mother, desperate to survive in the inhospitable environment, left him alone with his baby brother, Abel, much of the time. They labored incessantly to build a defensive stone barricade about the land surrounding the cavern to keep their small crops from being trampled and devoured by beasts. Moreover, they worked from dawn to dusk tilling, planting, and harvesting what food-bearing plants they could raise to feed their small family. Subsequently, the responsibility of watching and caring for the baby fell largely to Cain. And he hated it.

As his mother exited the cave, Cain kicked some polished pebbles lying on the shale floor that Adam had recently given to Abel as pretty playthings.

I possess no such trinkets, Cain thought to himself as he picked up one of the smooth, ocher-colored stones to finger it jealously. He glanced again at Abel, who was happily giggling whilst rolling about with the litter of cubs, the she-wolf watching the game with benign vigilance, the little boy completely oblivious to his elder brother’s dark thoughts.

Later, when the some of the pups were busy suckling and others had begun to drowse, Abel tottered over to Cain and slapped him on the knee.

Feed me! he demanded while pointing a chubby finger at the bronze cauldron simmering over the cook fire.

Cain was busily sketching images of animals on the pinkish dolomite wall of the cave, to pass the long hours whilst his parents were away. Reluctantly, and with an impatient sigh, he laid his charcoal aside and hurriedly slopped some einkorn gruel into the small wooden bowl that belonged to Abel. He watched with detachment as the little boy put the bowl to his lips and greedily sucked down the porridge.

More, Cain! Abel shouted as he thrust the empty bowl into his brother’s hand.

You’ve had enough, whelp, Cain answered sullenly as he snatched the bowl and put it away unwashed. Abel knew better than to beg his brother for more food. Even at the age of four, he realized to importune Cain for anything would only result in a sound whack upon the backside. Therefore, he left off his entreaty and retired instead to a corner of the cavern to lie upon his small cot, where he soon fell fast asleep amid a welter of furs.

With each passing year, Cain’s mood grew more dangerous toward his younger brother. Adam and Eve endeavored to treat their sons with equal love and attention, but Cain always found them favoring Abel. Perhaps it was because Abel was easier to love. As he grew, he strove to please his parents in every way, unlike Cain, who resisted his parents’ admonitions at every turn. Abel complied without complaint. When it came time to reap the barley and einkorn, Cain grumbled and only half-heartedly set his hand to the task. Abel, however, in spite of his youth, enthusiastically harvested the ripe grain to fill many more baskets by sunset than his elder brother.

Who is to say why the brothers approached life with such disparity of character? It seemed they were bent from birth, toward trouble in Cain’s case, and tractability in Abel’s. Perhaps some of the blame lay with Adam and Eve for not punishing, or praising, Cain enough. Who knows? These first parents seemingly tried their best, but with the worst possible result.

By and by, twin sisters were born to Adam and Eve. Two more beautiful girls have never graced the earth since, though they were as dissimilar as summer and winter. One bore straight, black hair, dark as night, and a pale, creamy complexion. Her eyes were sea-green and sparkled beneath long, ebony lashes. The other had honey-colored ringlets, tawny skin, and molten brown eyes the color of fawn. As they grew to maturity, Adam and Eve praised the Maker for providing mates for their sons that humankind might persist. Upon the daughters’ coming of age, their parents betrothed them to their brothers—Luluwa, the raven-haired, to Cain, and Aklia, the umber-haired, to Abel.

However, Luluwa loved Abel. She wailed and wept upon hearing from her father she must wed Cain. Cain had been as quarrelsome and belligerent toward his sisters as he had ever been with Abel, and they both disliked him utterly. When Cain beheld her tempestuous resistance to their troth, he burned with vicious ire and turned his fury upon both Luluwa and his brother. As for Luluwa, he forced her to lie with him before the rite of handfasting² had commenced and explicitly against the will of his father and mother. He lured her from the cavern, promising to show her a newborn hind in the hawthorn brake a short way from their home. Though she was reluctant to venture from the cave in the company of her newly betrothed, he coaxed her with sweet words, and in her innocence she mistook them for an expression of uncharacteristic kindness. When far enough away not to be overheard, Cain pushed her to the ground and holding her fast, had his way with her. Her screams were quelled when he threatened to kill her sister if she cried out or henceforth told anyone of the rape. She was, after all, his wife for all intents and purposes, and he assured her no misdeed had been committed when she protested that they had sinned against the Maker and would surely be punished.

Luluwa, fearing for the life of her sister, told no one of Cain’s ravishing. He lay with her many times afterward, always in secret, ever citing his rights as a betrothed husband. The beautiful girl grew withdrawn and sorrowful and began to shed weight, so much so her family became concerned. Her mother questioned her, as did her twin sister, Aklia, but she responded with excuses and denials that anything was amiss. Abel, too, grew worried. He cared for Luluwa, though not with the same ardor she bore him, and therefore had cheerfully agreed to marry Aklia according to his parents’ wishes. To Abel’s mind both girls were comely and pleasing so that either would be a favorable match.

While gathering herbs together one afternoon, Abel pressed Luluwa to tell him the reason behind her melancholy. Weary and sick at heart of keeping such a terrible secret, she broke down and wept upon Abel’s shoulder. She told him of Cain’s carnal advances and swore him to secrecy, lest Cain should make good his murderous threats.

Shocked by Luluwa’s disclosure, Abel thought how best to confront Cain in private and force him to cease the assault upon his sister forthwith. He knew if his parents discovered Cain’s sin, he would be banished or worse. Therefore, after much pondering, Abel determined to keep Cain’s sin a secret upon the condition he leave Luluwa alone until after the rite of handfasting. Yet, how to safely approach him remained a problem, for Abel well knew his brother’s propensity for violence.

Less than a fortnight later, the season arrived to perform the worship rite unto the Maker of All. The sons of Adam journeyed to a nearby hillock, where they each offered a sacrifice upon its summit. Abel brought a pure white lamb, the best of his flock, and slew it upon the altar of stone. He offered a heartfelt prayer, and lo, a pillar of fire fell from Heaven and consumed the lamb. Likewise, Cain poured grain upon the altar, though it came from the moldering excess of his crop; he also prayed—a loud and ostentatious supplication within the hearing of his brother. But no fire fell from the sky. Again, Cain petitioned the Maker to accept his offering; only silence ensued.

Wroth, Cain turned to Abel and cursed him. This is your fault, you miserable wretch! You have ever turned our parents against me, and now it seems even the Maker prefers you to me! I am the eldest and should thereby be the favored son, but you worm your way into their hearts with your deceitful lies and cunning devices. I hope you burn in Hell for what you have done!

"What I have done, Brother? Abel retorted in an outburst of defensive anger. I am not the one forcing myself upon my sister in secret!"

As soon as the words left his lips, he knew what would happen. Cain blanched; he seized one of the loose stones from the altar. Abel fled, but Cain was older and stronger and caught him up in moments. He lay hold of Abel and pummeled him with the stone atop his head until he fell down dead, blood streaming from his smashed skull and pooling upon the ground beside him like a crimson harbinger of doom.

Terrified of being discovered, Cain sought to conceal his crime. He dug a pit in the earth and threw his brother’s body within. He covered it with soil and branches, returning home with a tale of ignorance as to his brother’s whereabouts.

I know not where he is. Am I my brother’s keeper? he responded to his parents’ query. He offered a lamb and returned home as far as I know. I tarried upon the summit to offer a lengthier benison unto the Maker of All, he prevaricated.

But the blood of Abel called out to the Maker, and in the midst of the night, whilst Cain paced outside the cavern in angst over what he had done, he heard a thunderous voice emanate from the heavens.

What hast thou done, Cain? Where is thy brother?

Though fear took hold of Cain and he fell to his knees in terror, he answered the Maker thus: I know not where Abel is. Am I my brother’s keeper? he declared once again.

Thou canst not deceive me, son of man. I see into the hearts of all. Thou hast slain thy brother from the hatred residing within thee. His blood cries out to me from the earth; his innocence demands recompense for the evil brought against him by thy hand.

Why did you not accept my offering? Cain called out defiantly to the disembodied voice.

If thou doest what is right, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not what is right, sin lieth at the door. It desires thee, but thou must rule over it.³

Cain wept at the words of the Maker. He braced himself for the punishment sure to follow.

Thou shalt be banished from the land of thy birth to wander amid the wilderlands. Since thou hast defiled the earth with Abel’s blood, thenceforth the ground shall yield to thee only thistles and thorns.

My penalty is too harsh for me to bear! Cain wailed in consternation and sorrow.

Yea, I have shown thee great mercy for not striking thee down as thou didst thy brother, Abel.

But if I am cast out to wander the earth, I shall die in any case without the shelter of my home and family!

Nay, Cain. I shall place a mark upon thy brow. Any thou may encounter will see thou art under my protection.

Cain departed that very day from the land of his birth, returning to the cave only long enough to fetch his sister, Luluwa, (much to her distress) and their few belongings. Adam and Eve grieved to have lost their youngest son, and then also their daughter, to a son they suspected of grave wrongdoing. But they allowed her to go with him since they did not have the heart to see him venture out alone.

Cain and Luluwa headed east into the wastelands. They wandered across wild deserts and windswept tundra for a long while until they finally settled in a land they called Nod alongside a great river. By and by, Luluwa bore Cain a son named Anak.⁴ Since the earth refused to yield its bounty to Cain’s hand, he instead became a proficient hunter. He crafted a bow from the bough of a yew, and made arrows fletched with raven feathers and tipped with heads of stone. He then dug wells and built huts to house his sons and daughters along with their burgeoning families. The tribe grew exponentially until it required a defensive outer bulwark to keep the plethora of wild and dangerous beasts at bay. The men of the tribe built a towering wall of hewn sandstone to surround the complex of structures within. Cain called the new city Anak, after his firstborn son.

Cain and his progeny thrived. Soon, however, a number of Watchers—the order of God’s angels charged to watch over mankind—desired the daughters of Cain, for they planned to usurp creation and seize power in the earth. When the Watchers beheld the Cainite women, their beauty and comeliness of form provoked lust in their hearts. These spirits of the air, in the guise of flesh, mated with the mortal women of Anak and produced offspring by them. These were the Halflings of old, a bastard race of mutants, giants, and powerful wizards bent upon the destruction of mankind. The Watchers, themselves coveting the worship belonging to the Maker alone, assumed the roles of deities and through their mongrel children demanded that the people bow to their images graven in wood and stone.

The blood of babes and young virgins flowed continually from the temple at Anak, for the evil Watchers craved the blood of the innocent to be shed for their sake.

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Meantime, another son had been born to Adam and Eve to replace their murdered son, Abel. Seth was his name, and he grew in stature and favor to revere his parents and the Maker of All. When he came of age, Aklia was given to him for a wife. She bore him a son named Enosh. Many more sons and daughters were born to them, and they too spread out in the land.

Woefully, the turpitude begun in Anak leached into the entire world. All mankind became subject to the vile will of the fallen Watchers and their powerful, wicked offspring. Only a few from the line of Seth remained faithful and true to the One—the Maker of All. Eight generations hence, the Maker beheld the defiled state of His creation and regretted ever making man in the first place. He destroyed the earth and every living thing in it with a great flood, save one righteous man named Noah and his family.

Had Abel lived, who knows how the world may have been changed? Cain’s rash decision to slay his brother surely laid the foundation for the never-ending corruption to follow.

Alas….

Chapter 3

The Return

E PHRAIM DIDN’T RETURN to the mill. He was determined to stay home and care for Jackson and Jesse himself, as he knew his dear Aubrey would have wished. It was a grim time for them all as the months passed, but especially for Jackson. Still waters run deep defined young Jackson’s sober character, for though he rarely expressed emotion, he felt his mother’s loss so deeply the pain was almost too much for him to bear. He took her last words to heart and decided to put his own ambitions aside, in favor of caring for his younger brother and helping his father in whatever way he could. Jackson was an intelligent boy, and ever since he could remember he had aspired someday to become a doctor. He hoped fervently to