Ruth heard the footsteps before she even looked up. They weren't her son's. Judas had a way of walking all his own, a quick, nervous stride, sometimes too heavy, as if he were still carrying the weight of an unjust world. But these footsteps were more measured. Calmer. Almost foreign.

When she looked up, she saw her.

A young woman stood there, frozen in the doorway of the courtyard. Too well dressed to be from here, too straight for a supplicant. The sun caught the fine embroidery of her veil. Roman, Ruth guessed at once, with that mixture of old-fashioned disgust and instinctive distrust that briefly twisted her stomach.

But she didn't look away.

For there was something else. A troubled posture. A painful glint in her eyes. And the way she held a small bag against her, as if it were a talisman or a souvenir.

Ruth's heart sank.

She knew, without a word being spoken. She felt in her maternal bones that this woman was not there to conquer, nor to judge. She carried Judas within her, in a silent but vivid way. Something in the way she looked at the house—no, their house. Something in her restraint, in her suppressed pain.

Ruth felt a shiver run down her spine. A bittersweet anguish, the kind you feel when faced with a truth you don't want to admit, but which imposes itself. Her son had loved this woman. He had perhaps given her everything—trust, hope, a future.

And this woman, a stranger, an enemy, from the world that oppressed them… she stood before her, alone, trembling. A widow without a funeral, without certainties.

Then Ruth, without a word, gazed at her. And instead of rejection, another pain awoke within her. A new, unexpected pain: that of having to love, despite herself. To welcome, where everything screamed at her to be wary.

Ruth slowly straightened up. There was nothing left to defend. Only someone to recognize.

Ruth didn't yet know if she would cry tonight. But she knew she wouldn't be alone in doing so.