Beyond the Cabin

  I wondered briefly where Mary was, deciding she must be in her room. Probably reading. Or maybe working on a birthday song.

  I settled back in my bed. Where had all of this stuff with Mary come from, anyway? I sat there for a few minutes, my mind strangely free of ideas.

  Why did all of this seem so empty? I felt like something more than Mal was gone, but that it was something that had never been here.

  I pulled my knees up and, using my thighs as a desk, began to write.

  Chapter 19

  I heard the heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Had to be Abraham. When my bedroom door slammed open, my guess proved right.

  Abraham’s eyes were slits, his breathing heavy. “Who do you think you are you little bully?”

  Fear ignited in my stomach. I’d never seen Abraham so angry before. The tall, skinny man had always seemed more or less serene, even when he was chewing a kid out. “Uh, I don’t know—“

  “You shut your mouth!” Abraham yelled. He turned and closed the door, then turned back to look at me. “You stand up when I’m talking to you!”

  I pushed out from my bed, swallowing. I stood.

  Abraham moved fast. Suddenly I felt myself falling to the side, landing on Davy’s bed and then rolling onto the floor. Half of my face felt like it was on fire! I opened my eyes and looked up. Abraham stood over me, his right hand open. “How do you like it? How do you like it, Joshua?” he whispered.

  The quiet tone sent shivers through me. I scooted back against the wall and tried to stand.

  Abraham took a step forward. I didn’t even see the blow coming, but suddenly I felt like a horse had kicked me in the stomach. Throbbing pain erupted in my middle. I couldn’t breathe! I coughed, gasping for breath. I looked up. What was he doing?

  Abraham stalked closer.

  I felt a release. My pants grew warm and wet. Humiliation spread through me, spilling out in tears. The ribs on my left side shattered under a heavy blow. I struggled for a breath, hiccupping. Blows rained down on my body. A noise like extended thunder filled my head. I felt myself fall on Davy’s bed, saw Abraham’s red, sweating face inches away from mine.

  Abraham said nothing. All I heard was the noise in my head and thumps and high-pitched keening. Somewhere in the back of my mind I realized that noise was me. I flailed and curled, trying to block the punches and kicks.

  The beating lasted for what felt like hours, but Abraham didn’t say another word. My ribs felt cracked, my chest bruised and split down the middle. White blankness filled everything behind my clenched eyes. Nothing. I felt nothing.

  I tried to roll over, keep my legs closed to hide the large wet spot. I didn’t know if I succeeded, but when the blows stopped, Abraham stood, took a deep breath, and left.

  My breath caught in my throat. My shirt had bunched up above my shoulder blades, my pants twisted to one side. I tried to stop the shudders that coursed through me, but couldn’t. My hands shaking, I grabbed Davy’s pillow and wiped off my face. I swore into the pillow, calling Abraham the worst names my brain could come up with.

  I lay there for a while, trying to catch my breath. But I had to be fast; nobody could see. Finally I made it to my feet and stumbled as I stripped my wet pants and underwear off, sliding the damp clothes under my bed. As fast as I could make my shaking hands work, I pulled on a dry pair of underwear and some jeans.

  The change complete, I fell onto my bed. I swore again, furious at how much of a baby I was. What kind of a pansy pisses himself? I screamed into my pillow, humiliation making my skin burn, my body shaking. I buried my face deeper into my pillow. Maybe I could suffocate myself. Why couldn’t I control my body? Why couldn’t I have fought back? Abraham was a scrawny piece of garbage. I should have fought back.

  I woke up to a feeling of warmth on my left shoulder. I lifted my face from my damp pillow and looked out the window. The sun was setting, its angle just right so that some rays hit me where I lay. Pink, orange and pale blue shimmered above the pointed peaks of Douglas firs. The beautiful scene felt strange to me. How could the world be like that? How could it keep going like that?

  I sat up, remembering the clothes I had pushed under the bed. I crouched down, reaching for the clothes. How could I have wet my pants? Even with the shocked fear of Abraham attacking me, I couldn’t believe I had done that. But the truth was in my hands.

  Cowards wet their pants in fear. Sauly would do that, but not me. My cheeks burned. I was wrong. I had done it. I had wet my pants. I was nothing more than a little, scared kid.

  I stood and hurried into the bathroom. Turning to the old-fashioned tub, I threw the jeans and underwear under the faucet. Working fast, I stood over the tub and rinsed out the clothes, then twisted the water out of them. I turned off the tub. I swung first the pants and then the underwear in quick circles over my head. Then I pushed the underwear deep into the laundry hamper and draped the pants over the radiator.

  That should work. Nobody would know.

  I wondered if anybody had heard the shouts and the struggle. I wondered if anybody would care. As these thoughts passed, I realized that in my urgency to hide what I had done, I had blanked out the pain. Both sides ached and throbbed, as well as my chest and even my legs. I felt like my ribs must be cracked at the least and broken at worst. I looked in the bathroom mirror, expecting to see bruises and welts.

  Nothing. Not a mark on my face. I pulled my shirt up. Okay. There were some bruises forming on my right side. Proof. Now they would believe me.

  But who would I tell? Who would listen? Would they really believe me or would they, like they always did, act like the adults were perfect and infallible? Ezekiel would probably say that I had fallen down the hill. They probably wouldn’t even take me to a doctor to see if I had any cracked ribs.

  Who would believe me? Who could I tell? I remembered Officer Ambler, the concern in her voice and eyes that day. But Miriam had taken her phone number, and I didn’t think I could find a way to get on the phone long enough to call the police station.

  No way could I call 9-1-1 for this. I’d get in so much trouble.

  Maybe the next time we were in town, at the Y or the library, I could sneak off. But that was a long shot.

  So for now, I could tell nobody who would believe me. And honestly, I didn’t care. I wanted to get back at Abraham myself.

  Looking again at my image in the mirror, I made sure there was no sign that I had been crying. I looked normal. Good. That was the start. Abraham wouldn’t see me suffering. I would act like the beating hadn’t hurt, hadn’t even affected me.

  Then, when the time was right and I had the perfect plan, Abraham would pay.

  I walked across my room. As I passed Davy’s bed, I noticed that the bedclothes were a complete mess. I straightened the sheets and blanket. I turned Davy’s pillow over to hide the snot and tear marks. Briefly I realized that I was hiding the evidence, that I was covering up for Abraham.

  No, I was making a plan. Abraham would never see it coming.

  After thinking about it for a minute, I decided that I was allowed to leave my room for dinner. I headed downstairs, following the noise to the kids’ table and sitting down in my usual spot.

  I didn’t even look over at the adults’ table. With every bite I took, I thought of a new name for Abraham.

  Chapter 20

  “Josh, pass the salt.”

  Why couldn’t I use my spoon to eat peas? It didn’t make sense that Gwen had taught us, in our manners class, that you only use a spoon when eating from a bowl. I shook my head. I tossed a glance at the adults’ table. Nobody was looking. I was going to use my spoon.

  “Josh!”

  I looked up, turning to the loud voice.

  “Wake up! Pass the salt,” Luke said.

  “Oh,” My throat made it hard to swallow and the single word felt like a razor sliding up it. I passed the salt down to Luke.

  “What’s up?” Saul asked from my left.

  I ignored him.<
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  “Josh, I’m talking to you,” Saul said.

  I gave Saul my coldest stare. “So what?”

  “Why are you always so rude?” Saul asked.

  I went back to ignoring the jerk. The spoon was much more efficient for the peas. As I chewed my last bite, focusing only on my plate, I felt like somebody was looking at me.

  I straightened and glanced over at the adults’ table. Nope. Abraham was talking, waving his hands like he always did, animatedly with Ezekiel. I turned back to my table.

  Mary was watching me. I tried to smile at her, but couldn’t. I was kind of glad; I didn’t want anybody to know about my feelings. Whatever those feelings were. I didn’t think I could be in love with her. I really didn’t know her. But I kept having images of her smile and eyes flash in my head.

  I looked down at my plate again. She was pretty and she obviously liked me, but was that just as a friend? And I had to admit to myself that I had no clue how to do anything, either as a friend or as more, despite the fantasies I sometimes had.

  Sick of sitting in the noise-filled dining area, I pushed my chair back, the legs scraping on the dark wood floor. I threw my silverware on my plate and grabbed my dishes. I jerked a little as a twinge ignited in my side. The pain had seemed to fade while I was sitting, but moving killed. At least I could breathe without wanting to scream.

  I tried to hide my hiss of pain and went into the kitchen. I started filling the big sink with water, squirting lemon-scented dish soap in when it was half full. I turned to my left, toward the stove. Another shock of pain cut deeply into me from my side. Maybe there were some ribs cracked. I sucked in a breath, feeling heat rising up my back and through my neck. Letting out the breath gently, the pain faded some.

  I reached for a couple pots, figuring I would get started on them while the adults were still eating. Moving as carefully as I could, I lifted the crusted pots, turning my face away from the smell of aging, crusted-on food.

  I stopped before I got back to the sink. Mary was standing inside the kitchen door with her brows drawn down in a V. “Are you okay?”

  Sudden terror made me seize up. I couldn’t tell her. She couldn’t know how skinny, lame Abraham had beaten me up. How I hadn’t done anything but cry and curl up and wet my pants. I licked my lips, trying to work up some spit. “Uh,” I croaked. “Sure. Fine.” I stepped quickly to the sink, trying to keep my face straight as the pain of a bruise on my left leg cut up through my middle.

  “Are you sure?” Mary asked.

  Without facing her, I said, “Yeah. I’m fine.” I submerged the two pots into the big sink. “Just wanted to get this going now and be done quicker.” I breathed shallowly, hoping that my heart would slow down and the pain in my ribs would lessen.

  I didn’t hear her move, but suddenly she was standing to my right.

  “I’ll help,” she said, rolling up her sleeves.

  I turned and saw her wavy brown hair, the profile of her nose and mouth, her long, curving eyelashes. A sudden feeling hit me in the gut. I couldn’t believe her fearlessness. And she was actually thinking about me, trying to help me. I blinked quickly, getting rid of the mist in my eyes. She was too nice. She was going to get us in trouble. “Oh. Uh. That might look weird. But thanks.”

  Mary looked up at me, concern and confusion on her face. She opened her mouth, then closed it, seeming to shrink a little. She looked down. “Okay.”

  She turned and crossed the kitchen to the other sink. She began preparations to work on the kids’ dishes.

  I’m a complete dipstick. I knew her feelings were hurt, knew that I had done it. But I was right. We kids, in the adults’ eyes, were basically supposed to be obedient, personality-less robots. And we had had basically lived up to that expectation, since everybody pretty much wanted to stay off the radar so we could avoid lengthy, pointless lectures. As far as I could tell, nobody was really friends with anybody else. Sure, it was kind of odd that with nine, no—eight kids in the same house, none of us were really friends. I didn’t even consider Aaron a friend. I guessed maybe that was strange, but it was a fact.

  Not like it was going to change. Life sucked already. Why make it worse with lame friendships and crap like that?

  I had to wait a few minutes after I finished washing and drying the pots before the adults finished. Joan brought a stack of plates in, followed by Gwen and Penelope. They smiled gently at me. Was that supposed to be sympathy for the nimrod who had run away and been picked up by the cops? Or was it sympathy for my punishment? Either way, the sympathy sure didn’t translate into them helping me. Why would they? They had a human dishwashing machine.

  I made my way through the piles of plates, platters and silverware, wondering why these people had even wanted to have kids. Were we all accidents? What was the point of getting married and popping out a baby if you basically gave up the kid to the stupid group when we were three years old? And it wasn’t as if marriage was a big deal either! Tabitha was at least Enos’s second wife, and maybe his third! And Miriam had given birth to three sons from three different men. All of this while at the same time they made every effort to keep the boys and girls as separate as possible and they went on and on about the “corrupt physicality” of the world.

  Yeah. Right.

  What was the point, anyway? As I dried dishes, I came to the same conclusion I always came to when I thought about this. They were basically trying to raise more members of the Faith so they could have more workers.

  Not me. I was getting out.

  I would grab another can or two tonight, maybe some matches.

  Mary had the faucet going still on her side of the kitchen when I got done. She was still washing plates. She was moving pretty slowly actually. I wondered if I could get a can out of the pantry without her seeing.

  I watched her—just for a bit. Her wavy brown hair hung a little below her neck, swaying every time she moved over to rinse something and put it in the drying rack. She really was small, her shoulders sloping down from her neck and her back curving in slightly.

  I had a vision of what I must look like, standing there looking at Mary. I could get in trouble if an adult saw me staring at her like that. Thankful that the twinges in my sides and legs had dulled somewhat while I’d been working, I walked over and stood next to Mary. I caught her eye. “Hey. I got done. You’re slow.” I was able to smile this time, showing her that I was kidding. “I’ll help.”

  She looked up at me, her face serious. “Won’t it be weird?”

  I stopped, doing a double take. Was she-? She burst out laughing.

  “You’re too easy,” she said.

  “Or you’re a good actor.” I adjusted the faucet so that it was over the sink in front of me. “Here. It’s faster if you fill this with hot water. Then you just put a bunch of them in there while you’re washing. When the rinse sink’s full, you put the plates in the dryer thing―”

  “The dryer thing?” she asked, grinning.

  “Shut up,” I said, grinning back. “They dry faster if the rinse water’s hot.”

  “Thank you, Master,” she said dryly.

  “Okay. You don’t want my help, fine,” I shook off my hands and turned off the water.

  When she didn’t answer me, I glanced down at her face. It seemed as if she had been waiting for me to look at her. “I do. But you’ve never helped me. So it really would look weird.”

  I laughed at the echo of my earlier excuse. I knew it was true, but hearing her say it showed me just how dumb it was. “You know what? I really don’t care.” And wonder of wonders, I really didn’t! Wow. That’s new. Maybe Abraham beat it out of me. But I really couldn’t give a flying crud what they think. I don’t even know why I said that earlier. What else can they do to me, anyway?

  Surprise registered on Mary’s face. Then she smiled and said, “Great. So rinse, Dish-Master.”

  As we fell into a rhythm, neither of us spoke. I noticed that Mary left the silverware at the bottom of her wash s
ink, exactly like I did. And for the first time, I didn’t feel like I had to try to keep the conversation going. It was like working together was all the conversation we needed.

  The laziness of the other kids and the distraction of the adults probably saved us from being put under suspicion that night. Mary and I were able to complete the entire clean-up process without anybody coming into the kitchen. None of the older kids wanted to get roped into cleaning up, so they kept their distance. And the adults were probably all caught up in counting the beggars’ take for the day.

  As I lowered myself gingerly into bed that night, I marveled at my day. Saul had been a complete twit and I’d fallen for it. Why couldn’t I have just gone in the house?

  Why had he mentioned Mal? Couldn’t he freaking shut up?

  Then of course, Abraham—I left the thought incomplete. But after all of that, I’d gotten to spend the last hours of the day next to Mary. First the dishes and then reading in the cool night air on the porch. I should have been doing lines, but I didn’t want to. I would find time. Out on the porch, we hadn’t talked much, but I didn’t care. I had simply gone to my room, found my new book, and then gone outside. Mary showed up about a minute later.

  The routine felt amazing. It was like the sun had risen twice that day. And when Mary was next to me, smiling or laughing—or even only reading—I forgot about the dark hole I’d felt in me earlier.

  When the evening got too cold, we went inside and I headed up to the classroom. I slammed out three hundred lines and then hit the sack.

  It only occurred to me as my head hit the pillow that I’d forgotten to grab a can of food and some matches. Plus, I was supposed to be planning revenge on Abraham.

  I had time. Too much of it.