It’s what Daniel has been preaching my whole life—women should keep their questions to themselves. Perhaps getting me to shut up was his intention all along.
“Is it that unusual?” he asks.
So it’s true what they say of married couples? He can read my mind? “My not talking?”
His forehead wrinkles. “What Lydia said back there. About you being an only child.”
“Oh.” I sigh, sucking in the first cool, whispered breath of evening. “It’s a source of embarrassment, especially to my mother. We’re supposed to be fruitful and multiply. Your mother must know what that’s like, you being an only child, too.”
“I’m not . . . I mean, it’s not unusual to be an only child. Outside of here.”
“Yes, but you . . .” I stop before calling him an Outsider. “You’re not Second Generation.” Marriage has already taught me to curb my tongue, and I want no part of it, so I ask the question anyway. “Is that normal for women Outside? Not being able to procreate?”
My caustic tone doesn’t seem to bother him. “It’s not abnormal. But I’m not sure why you assume it’s your mother’s fault. Maybe it’s your father. Has he ever been tes— Never mind.” He jerks his gaze from mine and shakes his head. “Not everyone Outside has kids. Some people don’t want them. Others are worried about population growth. They say if we keep reproducing indiscriminately, there won’t be enough resources for everyone.”
I stare off into the distance, at the wall encircling our city, and try out this new word. “Indiscriminately.” It sounds sinful. I like it. “How many people are out there?”
“On Earth? A couple billion. I don’t know the actual number.”
I shiver, though the day is only beginning to cool. “How is that even possible? Where do they all fit?” I whisper, rubbing my arms.
“Well, it’s a big world out there,” he says. “Seven continents and five oceans. There’s a lot of space, but it’s not all usable. Population is increasing, while the land is shrinking and the oceans are dying.”
Dying. The word sits heavy in my chest. It’s not as if seeing the ocean was a real possibility for me, but I still mourn the loss.
“Don’t look so sad. That’s the point of all this, isn’t it?” He waves an arm. “Cocoon yourselves so you don’t have to worry about the rest of the world’s problems?”
But never before has the safety felt so confining. Is it worse for Aaron, having known such openness before he came here? Most Outsiders call New Jerusalem a refuge, but I’ve never heard him use that term.
“Is that why you’re here? Your family wanted a cocoon?” I ask.
“Something like that.”
He sounds bitter, but I can’t ask any more questions. My mother is waiting at the door; I can see her from here. Shiny brown hair tucked away under her scarf, perfect heart-shaped face, cocoa-colored eyes that light up when she smiles. She hugs me first, then Aaron. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she says. And if not for the circumstance that brought us, I’d believe her.
My father hovers behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder as he cups my cheek. He’s older than her, and after being away from them for a week I see it more clearly than ever—in the brown spots that speckle his head, in the lines around his mouth. They had a Matrimony, just like us. But they were First Generation, so their union occurred when New Jerusalem was formed, not when they came of age. My mother was eighteen, not sixteen, and my father was in his thirties when he chose her, but this is all I know for certain. Everything else about their past is a mystery, a box I’ve never been allowed to open or look inside. Did they love each other? Do they now?
They invite me—us—into the only home I’ve ever known, and for a moment, none of this feels real. Not their happiness, not my life here. It’s all orchestrated, a carefully blurred reality, like the skits Rachel and Delilah and I used to perform on Saturday afternoons after Chapel.
Who are these people?
My father is a member of the Church Council. My mother, as the wife of a church official, organizes most of the community Gatherings. If there is cooking or cleaning to do, my mother handles it or delegates the task to someone nearly as competent. She’s also a nurse. She heals people. I’ve always been proud of her accomplishments and a bit envious of her composure, but today, I add resentful to the list. There is so much she could have told me about marriage, had she chosen to put me before the rules, just once.
On the night of my marriage, her composure cracked a little. From her response, I knew something had gone wrong. Yet she did nothing to help me or to correct it. And watching her now, with her serene smile in place as she ushers us to the table, there is no hint anything unusual happened. This frightens me. I had thought support, if I’m to have any, would come from her. Surely as a member of a founding family, she hadn’t intended me to be married to an Outsider. So why doesn’t she speak up? Why maintain her silence, even in my time of need?
Because this is what women do in New Jerusalem?
“I’ve kept everything warm,” she says. “It will just take a few minutes to set the table.”
“Why don’t you show me your room while we’re waiting?” Aaron asks with a bland smile.
No boy has ever set foot in my bedroom. Actually, I can’t remember a boy ever being in our house, though perhaps we spent time together in the yards when we were younger, before the age of Separation. He looks unimpressed by the plain cream-colored walls, the spare furniture, the neatly made twin beds tucked close enough together that Rachel and I used to be able to hold hands until we fell asleep. But what did he expect?
“What was it like? Living here as a child? It’s so . . . empty.”
There’s a kind of longing in his voice, or maybe it’s pity, but it riles me. “My life was not empty. We had Lessons every day, and chores or Bible Study at night. Chapel on Saturdays.”
“I meant the room is empty. Where are your toys? Your decorations?”
“Toys? I’m not a child. I gave up my toys at the age of Separation.”
Aaron massages his hand over his mouth, as if physically trying to pull the words from it. But he doesn’t speak; he just looks at the bare shelves and empty beds.
Suddenly, I think of Mimi. My mother crafted the rag doll to look just like me, with pale blue thread for eyes, black yarn curls, and a red puckered mouth sewn permanently shut. No matter how many secrets I whispered in Mimi’s tiny cloth ear, she could never repeat them. I went to sleep every night with Mimi tucked between my cheek and my pillow, and by the time I was seven, she was flat and nearly bald. But I’d still loved her fiercely. When I’d had to give her up to Delilah’s baby sister, I’d cried as if I were losing my own child.
Aaron squats beside one of the beds—mine—and slips his hand beneath the mattress.
I clench my hands at my sides to keep from pulling him back. Maybe he won’t find it.
But then he grins, and I know he’s found the hole in the box spring.
Our eyes meet as he slides the sheets of paper from beneath the mattress. I snatch them away. “How did you know?”
“It’s the same place I used to hide things.” A veil comes down over his eyes, and I know he means Outside.
I’m not sure what shocks me more—that despite all our differences, we should have this in common? Or that I must think like an Outsider?
He peers over my shoulder.
“Don’t.” I roll them into a tube. They aren’t for anyone else to see. I hid them after Mimi was taken and I realized I needed a better way to protect what was important.
“I knew you weren’t that boring. So tell me, what secrets does Miriam keep?”
“None of your business.”
“And how about Rachel?”
“Ha! You clearly don’t know Rachel.” I lift my own mattress as he peeks under Rachel’s, intending to put the papers b
ack, but he comes up behind me and shoves it down.
“Take them with you,” he says. “You don’t live here anymore. And obviously these mean something to you. You should keep them close.”
I cradle the roll like a baby. He’s right, they do mean something. But other than clothing, we’re not supposed to take any physical tokens of our childhood into our married homes. And I have no way of getting them out of the house without my parents seeing.
He pries the tube gently from my hands, unfurls the papers, and folds them into a small square without reading them. Then he puts it into his own pocket. “I’ll keep your secrets safe. Promise.” He raises his little finger.
His words are an eerie echo of the pacts Delilah and Rachel and I used to make. My Sisters, I trust. But my husband?
I stare at his hooked pinky with a strange sense of trepidation as I ask, “How did you know that was my bed?”
He shrugs. “Lucky guess. I figured you’d want to be close to the window.”
How can he know me this well, when he’s spent the past week virtually ignoring me?
* * *
• • •
When we are all seated around the dinner table and my mother is finally satisfied that my father has everything he needs, she speaks.
“How is the weaving coming?”
A week ago, I wouldn’t even have noticed, but I’ve spent the last seven days taking my meals with Aaron. Seven days in which he cooked, served himself, cleared the table, and cleaned up after both of us. Until I saw him do these things, it never occurred to me any man could.
“I’d like some water. Father, could you pour me a glass?” I gesture to the pitcher.
They all stare at me. My father stops eating, a peculiar expression tugging at the corners of his mouth, but he doesn’t get up. Instead, as he always does when perplexed by female behavior, he calls on my mother. “Ruth?”
My mother pours the glass and sets it beside my plate.
My father clears his throat. “We need to discuss your sin. Daniel has asked us to make some things clear.”
“Not now, Boaz. After dinner,” my mother murmurs without looking up.
Heat rises in my cheeks. I can just imagine which “things” are to be made clear. I have spent this past week longing to come home, and now that I’m here, I have no idea what I thought I was missing. My father, lecturing us on Daniel’s wishes? My mother’s meek reproach, almost worse than Daniel’s thunderous anger? I love my parents, but they have betrayed me. Their lack of support has split our family, the injury so jarring nothing will fix it. Eating with them only serves to slap a bandage on the gaping wound, but I do it.
The sweet, soft squash is like paste, gluing my mouth shut and trapping my voice.
“Miriam used to be quite the talker, Aaron,” Father finally says. “I’m not sure if it’s you that’s cured her of the habit. Or perhaps Daniel has finally managed to get his point across.” He turns his attention to my husband. “Either way, this is how it should be.”
I clench my fists under the table.
“I won’t take credit for that,” Aaron says. “Miriam has a lot of good thoughts to share. Honestly, I prefer it when she talks.”
Both my parents swivel their attention from my husband to me and back, although my mother looks less confused than my father. His gaze rakes across the two of us, scrutinizing. I feel naked. He is no longer looking at me as his daughter, but as another man’s wife. I work hard to keep the giggle of hysterical laughter down in my throat. My poor father. If only he knew. He has nothing to worry about on that front.
Soon, I know, I will have to give in. Submit to my husband, as it says in the Bible. I have so far refused, though refused is probably too strong a word, since Aaron hasn’t asked. As the days march on, my refusal feels less like a point of principle and more like a pointless gesture that accomplishes nothing save isolating me from my faith and my community.
Still, I can’t bring myself to lie with him. Should it not be as in the Song of Solomon, with a man I love and not a stranger? All my life I have been taught to expect something magical, and the ordinariness of our married life is both a disappointment and a horror.
“They are newly married, Boaz,” my mother says softly. “There is a lot to take in. I expect Miriam’s focus has turned . . . inward, for the time being.”
My father makes a sound in the back of his throat, though whether he agrees with her or is choking is unclear. He points at Aaron. “It’s your job to keep it there.”
I open my mouth and look at my mother, who gives me the tiniest of headshakes. “It is for the best,” she says, laying her hand across my father’s.
Aaron mimics her gesture but then grabs my hand firmly. “If Miriam wants to speak, I won’t be the one to silence her. I’m surprised you would.”
And just like that, my husband has become my closest ally.
Maybe my only one.
18
CALEB
I don’t have time to cross the room before Daniel and Father see me, so I duck under Susanna’s desk. It’s a tight fit. The corner of a drawer bites into my shoulder, and my head is bent at an almost impossible angle. Luckily for me, it’s dark, and the chair glides without so much as a squeak when I pull it into place.
“Are you sure about this?” Father asks, his voice amplified as he pauses beside my hiding place. “Maybe Marcus was telling the truth. Maybe it’s all a simple mistake.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Daniel sounds annoyed. “Of course I’m sure. This was no mistake; this was anarchy.”
Daniel knows what Marcus and Aaron have done because he’s the one who interpreted their dreams. But if he really thought they were defying God’s will, why didn’t he stop the Matrimony? Why let them commit . . . anarchy in the first place?
“I’m losing control,” Daniel continues. “It was a mistake to let them speak at all. I should have called the wives’ names.”
“Pronouncement is the first step on the Path to Righteousness,” Father says. As if Daniel needs reminding.
“Screw the Pronouncement! I give this generation the tiniest bit of power, and look what happens. They think they can do whatever they want, and damn the consequences! They don’t think they need me. Why is that? You all understand. Why we’re here. What I’ve done. What I’ve built.”
“Because we witnessed it firsthand,” Father says.
“So why don’t you teach your children, then? Do you need reminding that because of me, your offspring have never known suffering?” A pause, then, “Perhaps they need to be taught a lesson.”
The hair raises up on my arms. What kind of lesson is he talking about?
Father’s voice is calm when he says, “If you fear you’re losing this younger generation, maybe the answer to keeping them isn’t telling them what they want, but asking.”
“Asking?” Daniel snorts. “They’re children; it doesn’t matter what they want. I know what they need.” The floor creaks as he takes a step closer to the desk. “Careful, Han. My patience for insubordination wears thin this evening.”
“Your patience? What about mine? I gave up my best goat in sacrifice. And for what? Marcus still lost the Council seat. And his Vocation at the Farm.”
My muscles burn from holding still, but I can’t move now. Father made a sacrifice so Marcus would be named to the Council? And aren’t our Vocations determined by our specific talents? This is what we’ve always been told. My pulse pounds in rhythm with my unspoken questions. What about me? Is my spot on the Security team due to my hard work? Or Father’s?
“Jacob hates the Farm; what could be a more fitting punishment than to have to toil in the dirt for all his days? And as I told you, Susanna is unqualified to be a Council wife. If Marcus wanted that placement, he should have done what was asked of him.”
Asked of him by God? Or by you? The qu
estion must come from somewhere outside me. I would never entertain such disloyal thoughts.
“Your son’s rebellion will be an example to the others, and I won’t have it!” Things crash down around the chair: pens, a desk calendar, a stapler. I bite my knuckle to keep from crying out.
I wait for their argument to fade before I allow myself to breathe. It doesn’t take long; Daniel is the only person Father ever backs down from. As their footsteps recede, I shove back the chair and untangle my legs from the cramped space. They burn as blood flow returns, but the discomfort sharpens my senses.
Which makes it all the more painful when my head scrapes against the bottom of the desk, and again when I whack it on the partially opened drawer as I stand.
“Damn!”
My voice echoes loudly in the empty hall, and I freeze, waiting. My gaze climbs the stairway, and I crane my neck to scan the balcony above. No sign of anyone.
I kneel to pick up the items Daniel’s thrown. The desk calendar has come free from its leather binding, and as I try to work the corners back in, something flaps loose. An envelope. The handwriting on the front is thin and precise, but that isn’t what catches my attention. It’s the names. Not just Daniel, but Daniel Howe. And in the upper left corner, Naomi Walker.
I know only one Naomi. Rachel’s mother. When Rachel was a baby, Naomi and another member of the community, Azariah, committed a sin so Contemptible, Azariah ran away and Naomi was Banished. None of us is allowed to speak of the incident. Or of them.
I turn over the envelope and see it’s already been opened. I know I shouldn’t, but I pull out the lined sheet and unfold it.
Dear Daniel,
Rachel is sixteen today. Do you remember? Maybe not. While I was lying in a bed, barely older than she is now and begging the midwife to let me die, you were elsewhere, doing what you do best—preaching and being revered. I couldn’t see at the time how messed up that was, but I guess that’s what blind faith will do to a girl.
You dumped me in the desert, alone and afraid. You left me there to die. But I didn’t. It took me a long time to find a place where I felt safe. Even longer to shake off your insidious “teachings.” To stop seeing the world as the evil place you painted it. Sure, there are bad people out here. But there are bad people in there, too. Which is worse, I wonder? The devil you read about in the morning paper, or the devil who sleeps beside you?
The Virtue of Sin Page 13