Out of Heaven's Grasp

by V. J. Chambers

  Now, Holly led a group of teenage boys into the kitchen where Sally and I were.

  Sally and I were both covered in flour. We looked at them expectantly.

  “Gideon’s sent us to gather up all the musical instruments,” said one of the boys. “You need to bring us any guitars or flutes you have. If you have a piano, we’ll move that too.”

  I wiped my hands on my apron. “What does Gideon want with the musical instruments?”

  “He had a revelation from God saying that musical instruments are inciting the people to sin. He says that we should be worshiping in solemnity.”

  It was funny hearing the word solemnity come out of a teenager’s mouth. The boy was obviously just parroting what Gideon had said. And I didn’t like it. How could Gideon do this? Musical instruments were an integral part of the community. We always used them in our Sunday worship meetings, and they were a source of entertainment for families on some evenings. When the community had occasional bonfires, we all played and sang around the fire. Without the instruments…

  “Gideon says that any women who have a problem need to talk to their husbands,” said one of the boys.

  “And any of the husbands need to go to him,” said another.

  Sally looked utterly shocked. “You boys are playing a joke, aren’t you? Well, it’s not funny. I know all of your mothers, and when I tell them—”

  “It’s not a joke,” said one of the other boys, and he sneered at Sally.

  “We’re supposed to take them by force if necessary,” said another boy.

  Sally didn’t take well to being talked down to. “Well, you wait right here and don’t do a thing. I’m going out to talk to my husband.”

  I shook my head at her. “If Gideon’s behind this, Bob won’t be able to do anything.”

  “But he’s an elder,” she exclaimed.

  “If you don’t tell us where they are, we’re going to start searching the house,” said one of the boys.

  She gasped. “I cannot believe you are being so disrespectful, young man. Is this how you talk to the wives of an elder?”

  “Gideon says we can talk to wives however we want,” said the boy who’d sneered. He turned to the others. “Come on guys, let’s go find the instruments.”

  Sally was incensed. She washed her hands and went out into the fields to find Bob.

  While she was gone, the boys went through all the rooms of our house, yanking out any musical instruments they could find. They took my guitar, and it nearly broke my heart, but I didn’t try to stop them. I had figured out that it wasn’t a good idea to stand up to Gideon.

  When Sally came back with Bob, they were yelling at each other. He was telling her that if Gideon had ordered it, there was nothing anyone could do about it.

  Sally wasn’t used to being yelled at by Bob, and she said that she couldn’t see how this could be the work of God.

  “Don’t you question it, Sally,” Bob told her. “Acceptance is transcendence.”

  By this time, the other wives had heard the commotion. We all gathered together in the kitchen.

  Fern looked very concerned. “Bob,” she said. “Robert Morris himself played the guitar.” She and Bob were both old enough to remember him.

  “God must be giving us a new set of more stringent rules,” said Bob. “We must have proven ourselves holy enough to handle the task.”

  Fern nodded slowly.

  But I could see that everyone was worried.

  Things were changing in the community. Gideon had a lot of power. And it didn’t seem as if anyone could stop him.

  * * *

  The first night that Bob was supposed to come back to spend the night with me, I locked the door to my room.

  He got angry and banged on the door, telling me that I had to let him in.

  I talked to him through the door and said, “I told you that if you did what you did to me, I would never let you do it again.”

  That really pissed him off.

  He picked the lock and got inside, but I locked myself in the bathroom.

  He picked that lock too, but when he came for me, I started clawing at his face and kicking him.

  Bob was in good shape for his age, but he wasn’t as young as I was, he got pretty tired of chasing me around. Furthermore, I scratched him up pretty bad.

  He was livid, but he decided to leave the room and not bother with me that night.

  In punishment, he barricaded the door to my bedroom and refused to let me out to eat for two days.

  On the third day, Fern came in with a plate.

  “Don’t you ever tell Bob that I brought you something to eat,” she said to me, handing me the food. “But I need to know from you what happened.”

  “I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about what happened in the bedroom with our husbands with other wives,” I said, accepting the plate. I was starving, and I began to dig in right away. “Thank you for the food, by the way.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “Considering Bob and I don’t really engage in relations anymore these days, I don’t suppose it matters too much. Besides, I can tell he’s not telling me the whole story.”

  I was embarrassed, but I told her anyway. Maybe my hunger made it easier. But I explained that Bob had hit me and hurt me and then forced himself on me on the day after my miscarriage.

  While I spoke, all the blood drained from her face.

  When I was done explaining, she got up from the bed and began to pace, her hands clenched in fists. “I’m going to have a very long talk with Bob,” she said, seething.

  Later that evening, Bob came to my room and took away the barricade.

  He hung his head and asked if he could sit down and talk to me.

  “We can talk,” I said. “But nothing more.”

  He nodded. He sat down on the bed and patted the place next to him.

  I shook my head.

  “Okay, you can stand,” he said. He sighed. “Listen, Abigail, I need to apologize. I haven’t been the best husband to you that I could have been.”

  I folded my arms across my chest.

  “The truth is,” he said, “I suppose I haven’t spent much time thinking about how you were feeling. I had a long talk with Fern, and she reminded me that girls your age are very innocent, and that you know very little about what it’s expected of you in marriage. She feels this entire experience has probably been overwhelming for you, and I realized that I should have been more… patient with you in the beginning. Perhaps I rushed things between us.”

  Did he think saying these things was going to change something?

  He reached for me. “I want us to start over, Abigail.”

  I backed away from him. “I don’t think it matters, Bob. I don’t love you.” It was such a relief to say it out loud.

  “Well, maybe I’ve made it a little hard for you to feel…” He sighed again. “Look, Abigail, I realize that you are very young, and that I am not. I know that you were involved with that Wallace boy, and that I’ll never compare to him in your mind.”

  He’d brought up Jesse? But we were supposed to pretend Jesse had never been born. I bit my lip. “It doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

  He shrugged. “Perhaps not. I suppose that I’ve made the mistake of forgetting that your youth does not make you impervious to feelings. I’ve tried to make you bear more than I should have.” His voice lowered. “I can be gentler and more careful with you. I can promise not to push you so much when we are having relations.”

  I grimaced. “I don’t think that matters either. I don’t like… having relations at all. I think it’s very… unclean and disgusting and… I don’t want to do it anymore, and I’m not going to. I won’t let you do it ever again.”

  He got up off the bed and kissed me on the forehead. “All right, Abigail. We’ll take all of it more slowly, then.”

  Wasn’t he listening? I said never. I meant never.

  “I have something for you,” he said. “A pr
esent.”

  A present?

  “Come with me,” he said, taking me by the hand.

  I recoiled from his touch.

  He gripped my hand firmly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  I let him lead me out of the house. There, in the driveway, was a jeep.

  “This is for you,” he said. “You’re my wife now, and you’ll need your own transportation.”

  My own car, huh? Well, that wasn’t a completely bad thing, I supposed.

  “Do you like it?” he asked, smiling down at me.

  I chewed on my lip. “Yes, thank you,” I said quietly.

  He kissed me.

  I shut my eyes and let him, but I didn’t respond to his urgent, sloppy tongue.

  He pulled away, clearly annoyed. “This isn’t going to work if you won’t even try, Abigail.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He trailed a hand over my back, and shivers went through my body. That was worse than anything. I didn’t want anything that this man did to me to feel… good.

  I shoved him away, stumbling backwards. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Abigail,” he whispered. “You’ve got the wrong idea about all of this. What happens between us is ordained by God, and it can be quite beautiful. I know that I was wrong before, but I’m trying to make it right.”

  I shook my head furiously. “No, no, no.” I fled back into the house, threw myself into my bedroom, slammed the door, and locked it.

  Bob knocked on the door. “Abigail, let me in.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Abigail, I am your husband, and you must let me into your room.”

  I crumpled down to the floor, wrapping my arms around my knees. Go away, I begged silently. Just go away.

  He banged on the door again. “Open this door.”

  I hugged my knees to my chest and started to rock.

  He sighed heavily. “All right, all right. Perhaps I was still trying to go too fast. We’ll leave it for tonight, but next time, I will insist that you let me in, do you understand?”

  No way. I’d told him never again, and I’d been serious. I would never have relations with that man. I’d fight as hard as I could.

  * * *

  Without musical instruments, the Sunday worship meeting was a ghost of its former self. Now, instead of an hour of unbridled praise and singing, all of the community taken away by the holy spirit, we sang four or five songs a cappella. The breaking of bread was still practiced, but I missed my place in the worship team, leading the congregation in the singing and worship. I missed playing my guitar for others. It had been one of the few things that truly brought me joy, and now it had been taken away from me. Truly, God must hate me, because he was making my life a living Hell.

  To make up for the time that would have been used on worship, Gideon was now using the worship meeting as a chance for him to preach a sermon to the congregation.

  That morning, he spoke of the burden that had been laid on his shoulders. “The Lord has been speaking directly to me,” he said. “And I am charged with giving his messages to his people. Some of the things he tells me pain me deeply, but I must do as I am told. If we do not submit to the will of God, then we are a sinful people.”

  I could see that other people who’d been angry with Gideon’s taking away the instruments were quite moved by these pronouncements, but I wasn’t sure.

  I was beginning to believe that we’d all had the complete wrong idea about God. We’d thought that he was a benevolent, loving deity, but in truth, he was harsh and cruel. He used us like playthings, forcing us to live painful, sad lives. It wasn’t a new thing for him. His treatment of his original chosen people, the Israelites, was just as hard and exacting.

  God went through a lot of trouble to get them free of Egypt, sending all kinds of plagues and signs and wonders, even parting the Red Sea. But after they got out, God turned on them immediately. The minute they started complaining or expressing any kind of doubt, his anger began to simmer. And when they worshiped idols and turned against him, he washed his hands of them entirely. He forced them to wander in the wilderness for forty years, until every single member of that generation had died off. Only once they were all gone did he let the new generation go to the promised land.

  God got pretty angry whenever people sinned, and he wasn’t really one to let it go.

  Jesus was supposed to be better. He was supposed to have introduced a new law, and his death had washed away our sins. We were all supposed to be forgiven now.

  But that didn’t mean our lives got easier.

  Even the early Christians after Jesus got a pretty rough deal. The apostle Paul was imprisoned over and over again, before finally being beheaded. John the Baptist had his head cut off too, at the request of a dancing girl.

  It really didn’t matter. God wanted us to suffer. And I was beginning to think that maybe he enjoyed it. Maybe he was sitting up in Heaven laughing at us, and busy creating even more humans to torment.

  It was possible that he made up for all of it by allowing the faithful to go to paradise after we died.

  But, for me, the promise of Heaven seemed very far away.

  Gideon went on. “If there are those amongst you who are speaking out against the decrees of the Lord, know that they are not right with him. Know that those who do not experience perfect peace and acceptance of the Lord commands are actually under the thrall of demons. In fact, if you hear your neighbors, your children, your wives, or even your husband, complaining about the path that we in this community are on, then you must tell me of their transgression. It is important that we purify the people. Those who disagree must be rid of the demons that plague them.”

  See? That was just like God, wasn’t it? He made it hard, and then he sicked demons on you if didn’t like it.

  Maybe I was under the thrall of demons. Maybe I had been since the minute that Jesse walked into my life.

  At this point, though, I wasn’t sure if the demons were actually worse than God. At least Satan let people have a little bit of fun. He let them eat meat and have electricity and go to restaurants. He let them dance and kiss and marry the people they loved.

  Maybe it meant eternal torment, but at least their lives on earth weren’t absolute misery.

  Then Gideon ended by announcing more joyous announcements. At least twenty more marriages were to take place. Other older men in the community were getting fourth wives, and some of the younger men were getting first wives. A few men were getting their long-awaited third wives.

  But the girls he was assigning to these men weren’t old enough to get married.

  It was generally accepted that no one was ready for marriage until he or she was “of age,” which we considered happening at eighteen.

  The girls that Gideon was marrying off were younger. Most were sixteen, but one or two were as young as fifteen.

  But I knew that no one would dare say anything. After all, expressing doubt about the Lord’s decree was a sure sign that you were in the thrall of demons.

  And then I had an absolutely awful thought.

  What if it wasn’t God deciding this at all? What if…

  What if it was only Gideon? After all, Gideon had just given himself two more wives, one seventeen and one sixteen. I remembered what my mother had said when she’d found out that Bob was going to be marrying me. It’s not God behind it. It’s Bob Carroll’s lusts.

  I sucked in breath sharply, putting my fingers to my lips. I’d had lots of horrible thoughts recently, thoughts about how horrible and terrible God was. They were wrong, evil thoughts, but this one seemed worse somehow.

  If this were true, if it was only Gideon, not God, then…

  No. I couldn’t think it.

  If I thought it, I had a sense that everything I’d ever believed would start crumbling, and that frightened me more than a thought of an angry, cruel God. Much more.

  * * *

  I realized that the jeep was the perfect gift
, because it gave me my freedom. I could take off in the jeep if I wanted to escape. And when the next night that I was scheduled to be with Bob rolled around, that was all I wanted.

  So, that evening, right after dinner, I ran out and got in my jeep. I drove off.

  I was aimless, driving through the community for some time, no idea where I was going.

  Then I realized that tonight was Thursday, and that was the night that all the men in the community went to prayer meeting. The women weren’t allowed in. It was going on right now, and it meant that Gideon wasn’t home.

  I went to his house to find Susannah.

  “Come for a drive with me,” I said. “I’ll have you back before the end of the prayer meeting. Gideon will never know.”

  She was worried, and I could tell, but there was a gleam in her eye. She wanted to come. But she shook her head. “Not like this. If Martha sees, she’ll tell Gideon. He rewards the wives when we tattle on each other. Go down to the end of the drive and wait. I’ll pretend to go to bed, sneak out, and meet you.”

  I did as she suggested, and within ten minutes, we were driving around in the jeep.

  I drove away from the community and the community roads and took the jeep out into the desert, away from everyone. Once we were far enough away, I turned on the radio, and I tuned it to some station of worldly rock music.

  Susannah giggled nervously. “What’s gotten into you, Abby?”

  I gripped the steering wheel. “I don’t know, but I think I like it.”

  She shook her head. “You’re going to get in so much trouble.”

  “Oh, what could possibly be worse than the way things are now?” I said.

  “Bob gave you a car,” she said. “That’s good, not bad. Gideon would never give me a car.”

  “Bob only gave me a car to apologize for hitting me and forcing me to have relations with him while I was having a miscarriage.”

  “You had a miscarriage?” Her voice was sympathetic. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m not. I didn’t want his baby anyway.” It was strange that’s what she’d picked to be sympathetic about. Maybe getting hit and forced was normal for women in the community. I looked sidelong at Susannah. “Gideon doesn’t have any children at all, does he?”