Over the past three weeks, we’ve walked through Princess’s journey of displacement, uncertainty, and betrayal. We’ve seen her leave everything behind to follow Abe’s calling. We’ve watched her struggle to find home in an RV, living in liminal space. We’ve witnessed the devastating moment when Abe’s lie put her in danger at the hands of cartel leader Hernández.
This week, we’re going to talk about what happens after the escape. When the adrenaline fades and you’re left with the weight of everything you’ve been through. When you’re surrounded by people but feel completely alone.
The Aftermath: Escaping Danger But Not the Pain
After God strikes Hernández and his cartel with disease, Princess and Abe are sent away with all their possessions. They escape Mexico and return to South Texas, but the danger isn’t over. Princess keeps looking over her shoulder, wondering if Hernández’s spies will find them. She’s afraid they’ll never be safe again.
But physical safety doesn’t equal emotional safety. Princess has been through trauma after trauma. She’s left her family, been handed over to a cartel leader, and realized that the man she trusted most was willing to put her in danger to save himself. And now that they’re back in Texas, everyone else seems ready to move forward while she’s still trying to process what just happened.
Abe is relieved they survived. He’s ready to keep pursuing God’s promise. The others in their traveling community are focused on helping hurricane victims and rebuilding. Everyone has something to do, somewhere to be, some way to contribute.
And Princess? She’s drowning in grief and no one seems to notice.
The Weight of Accumulated Loss
Princess isn’t just grieving what happened in Mexico. She’s grieving everything she’s lost since this journey began. Her parents are gone. Her sister Mickie is back on the reservation, pregnant with a baby Princess will never meet. Her brother Louis is with her, but he’s busy helping others. Uncle Nate is miles away.
She misses the old days. She misses the easy, familiar life on the reservation. She misses late-night talks with Mickie, the sound of school bells ringing, her friends, her daddy. She misses knowing who she was and where she belonged.
There’s a moment in Barren where Princess sits in a crowded emergency room, surrounded by people, and thinks: “I missed the old days… I missed the easy, familiar life… Why did this have to happen to me?… It didn’t seem fair… I felt like I was all alone as I hugged myself and cried.”
That’s the reality of accumulated grief. It’s not just one loss. It’s loss after loss after loss, piling up until you can barely breathe under the weight of it all.
When No One Sees Your Pain
Here’s what makes Princess’s grief even harder: she’s supposed to be fine. She’s married now. She’s part of Abe’s calling. She’s supposed to trust God’s plan and keep moving forward.
But she’s not fine. She’s exhausted. She’s angry. She’s sad. She’s questioning everything. And she doesn’t know how to tell anyone because everyone else seems so certain, so focused, so ready to keep going.
Have you ever felt like that? Like you’re falling apart inside but everyone around you expects you to hold it together? Like your pain is invisible because everyone else has moved on?
That’s where Princess is. She’s grieving in isolation, surrounded by people who love her but don’t see how much she’s hurting.
The Biblical Sarai: Silent Suffering
In Genesis, after Sarai is taken into Pharaoh’s household and then released, the text moves on quickly. Genesis 13 says that Abram went back up from Egypt with his wife and all his possessions, and he journeyed from place to place.
That’s it. There’s no mention of how Sarai felt, no acknowledgment of her trauma, and no space for her to process what happened to her. The story just keeps moving, and Sarai is expected to keep moving with it.
But trauma doesn’t work that way. You can’t just pack up and move on like nothing happened. The body remembers. The heart remembers. The fear, the betrayal, the violation all stays with you, even when everyone else has moved forward.
Sarai carried that weight silently. She had no voice in the text, no space to grieve, no permission to fall apart. She just had to keep walking, keep following, keep trusting that somehow this would all make sense.
Princess’s Isolation
In Barren, I give Princess the space to feel what Sarai couldn’t express. Princess grieves. She cries. She questions why this happened to her. She feels the unfairness of losing so much while everyone else seems to have purpose and direction.
She sits alone, hugging herself, trying to make herself feel better and failing. She’s surrounded by people in their traveling community, but she feels invisible. No one asks how she’s doing. No one notices that she’s barely holding on.
This is the loneliness of grief. It’s not always about being physically alone. Sometimes it’s about feeling unseen, unheard, unknown, even when you’re in a crowd.
A Question for You
Have you ever felt alone in your grief? Maybe you were surrounded by people who loved you, but no one seemed to see how much you were hurting. Maybe everyone else moved on while you were still trying to process what happened. What did that feel like? And how did you find your way through?
I’d love to hear your story in the comments. This is a space for honest conversation about grief, isolation, and the courage it takes to keep going when you feel invisible.
What’s Next
Next week, we’ll meet Louis, Princess’ older brother, and explore what it means to leave everything behind not for your own dreams, but to support someone you love through an impossible change.
If you want to follow Princess’s full journey, subscribe to this newsletter. You’ll get weekly insights into Barren, behind-the-scenes reflections, and discussion prompts for your book clubs. And if you’re ready to read Princess’s complete story right now, Barren is available here:
Get your copy of Barren: – Amazon (also available on Kindle Unlimited) – Barnes & Noble
About the Margins of Genesis Series
Barren is Book One in the Margins of Genesis series. It’s contemporary fiction that reimagines the forgotten biblical characters from Genesis in modern American settings. These are raw, honest explorations of faith, survival, betrayal, and redemption. Because the people in the margins? They have stories worth telling too.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for holding space for Princess’s grief. These are the parts of the story we often skip over, but they matter.
Elizabeth Simon
Lizard Books LLC
Southwest Florida
P.S. If this email resonated with you, please share it with someone who’s grieving in isolation right now. And comment below, because I read every single one.
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