She chewed on her lip. “I think there’s something wrong with him. But he’s convinced it’s Martha’s fault. But he’s mad, because I still haven’t gotten pregnant. He said that if he couldn’t have children, God would have told him.”
I snorted. “I’m not sure God really does talk to him.”
“Don’t say things like that, Abby.” There was fear in her voice.
“Seriously, Susannah. We’ve have musical instruments for years. We’ve never had more than three wives for years. And marrying girls under eighteen? It’s not as if these revelations are coming to all of the elders. They’re just coming to Gideon.”
“I’m worried about my sister,” said Susannah. “She’s been assigned to marry Nicholas Wallace.”
Jesse’s father. Everyone knew he hit his wives.
I reached over to grasp Susannah’s hand. “Oh, no. I guess I didn’t hear that in all the announcements on Sunday.”
“He didn’t announce it Sunday. He just got the revelation last night.”
I pulled the jeep to a stop but left the radio on. I turned to Susannah. “Your sister’s only fifteen.”
“I know.” Susannah looked like she might cry.
I had younger sisters too. Were they all going to be married off as well? I didn’t want that for them. They were too young for all of it. I was older, and it had all been too hard for me. I shook my head. “There’s got to be something we can do about this.”
“There isn’t,” she said. “If Gideon says something, it gets done. Abby, you don’t know him. You don’t know what he’s like.”
“What is he like?”
She twisted her hands together in her lap. “He makes you do things. You don’t want to do them, but he makes it so you can’t say no. He twists everything around and makes you feel like it’s your idea. He…”
“What does he make you do?”
She looked out of the window of the jeep. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I think it does matter,” I said. “Bob was making me do things that I didn’t like. He made me…” I was going to tell Susannah about being forced to put Bob’s penis in my mouth, but now that I was getting ready to say it, I couldn’t seem to find the words.
“We don’t have to tell each other,” said Susannah. “We shouldn’t anyway. What’s between a husband and his wife is sacred. It’s between them and God.”
“But if Gideon is making you do things you don’t like, you can stand up to him,” I said. “I stood up to Bob, and it made me feel so much better.”
Susannah still wouldn’t look at me. “Gideon’s not like Bob.”
“But you can’t let him hurt you.”
“Gideon’s my husband. I have to do what he says. It’s the will of God.”
I gave voice to the bad thought I’d had before, but I could only do it in a whisper. “What if it’s not the will of God? What if… what if they’re all just making it up as they go along?”
She whirled to look at me, her expression horrified. “Take that back, Abby. Say you didn’t mean it. I don’t want to have to tell Gideon you’re under the thrall of demons.”
I let out a frustrated breath. “Come on, Susannah. It’s just a question.”
“Questions are doubts. And we have to bury our doubts in the deepest ocean. Acceptance is transcendence.”
I turned away from her, peering into the darkening desert. The sky was deep black, fading into purple. “Fine. Okay. You’re right. I take it back.”
“Good,” she said.
* * *
I dropped Susannah off, but I didn’t go back home. Instead, I drove back into the desert and parked the jeep out there. I curled up in the back seat, and I slept there all night.
I woke as the first rays of light were spreading across the sky, and then I drove back home.
When I got back to my bedroom, Bob was asleep in my bed.
He woke up as I entered and sat straight up. “Where have you been?”
“Driving,” I said. “Just driving all night.”
He sighed, and he looked very old and very sad. “Why?”
“You know why,” I said. “I don’t want to be with you.”
“Am I really that awful?”
I refused to feel sorry for him. I gazed into his eyes defiantly.
He got out of bed and came across the room to me. “Abigail, I realize that I’ve handled things badly between us, but you’ve got to give me a chance to fix it.” He cupped my face with one hand.
I recoiled. “It’s not fixable.”
His jaw twitched. “You are my wife. You can’t run off all night like that. You must learn to obey me.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I do.”
“If you don’t submit to me, then you’ll be punished.”
I tossed my head. “I think you might have more to lose than me. The way Gideon put it, if I disobey, it’s your fault. And if you’re not worthy, he’ll take your family away.”
Bob’s face flushed. “You listen to me—”
“No,” I said, my voice growing stronger. “You listen to me. You’re not going to push me around anymore. You’re going to let me do as I please, and I promise I’ll be discreet about it. But we’re not going to have relations ever again.”
“That’s not how this works. You don’t tell me what to do. I am your husband, and I am in charge.”
“If you don’t leave me alone, then I’ll be a terror,” I said. “Everyone will see that you can’t control me, and Gideon will punish you.”
His face was beet red. “You little bitch.”
I smiled tightly. “If you want to keep your family, you won’t let on that I’m not around every fourth night.”
He slapped me.
I clenched my hands into fists. “And you will not hit me.”
“You can’t do this,” he said.
“Watch me,” I said.
He stormed out of the room.
* * *
We never spoke about it again, but I took the jeep out every night that I was scheduled to spend with Bob, and he didn’t try to stop me. He didn’t tell anyone about it, not even the other wives. When I came home, he was often asleep in my bedroom, but I always ignored him and got in the shower.
As the months wore on, it got colder out in the desert. I kept stacks of blankets in the back of the jeep, and wore layers and layers out when I drove. Still, I shivered against the cold. But I had to be away, because I knew that I couldn’t keep Bob off of me if he was in my bed. And I was far more frightened of his touch than I was of anything else—even Gideon’s punishments or the fires of Hell.
Sometimes I had nightmares about Bob and I having relations. I was always frozen in the dreams, incapable of movement or speech while he sweated and grunted on me. I would wake up gasping for breath, trembling and terrified. Even though I tried to reassure myself that he would never touch me again, I knew that my strategy couldn’t work forever.
If I was married to Bob for too long, and I never had a baby, people would begin to wonder what was going on. Sometimes, I tried to convince myself to submit to him just enough to get pregnant, just enough to keep people from talking. But the thought of being with him shot me full of white-hot fear, and I wasn’t keen on the idea of being pregnant either. I didn’t want a baby that would tie me to Bob.
But when I huddled in my blankets out there in the desert, inside my jeep, I had to ask myself what I was thinking.
I was tied to Bob. I was married to him for the rest of my life. Why was I resisting?
I didn’t have a choice.
Sometimes, I looked out the window at the stars in the sky, and I imagined God up there in the heavens, looking down at me with a knowing chuckle. He knew that all my resistance was futile.
Sometimes, I’d talk to him. I’d whisper, “Why? Why did you do this to me? Why did you make me a woman? Why did you force this horrible thing on me?”
I’d think of Jesus in the garden. Thy will be done.
&
nbsp; But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t surrender.
It wasn’t the same thing, anyway, I had come to realize. Jesus died, but he knew he wasn’t really dying. He had all this knowledge and memory of being an eternal deity. Sure, it hurt to be crucified, but he knew it wasn’t going to be permanent.
All things considered, I wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t rather something quick like that. Dying on a cross only took a day.
I had to be married to Bob forever.
And sometimes…
Sometimes I wondered if it really was God’s will after all, or if it was just Gideon’s will.
But it almost didn’t matter. Even if Gideon was making it all up, he wasn’t making God act out of character. God did things like this all the time. He’d taken everything from Job—his family, his wealth, his health. And why? All to see if Job would still love God afterward.
I would turn my head to the sky angrily and tell God that I’d failed his test. I didn’t love him, and I didn’t think he’d ever loved me.
Then I’d cry myself to sleep.
Life in the house went on as always. The other wives had softened towards me, but I didn’t feel as if I were truly one of them. Bob was angry towards me, and none of them seemed to understand why. They tried to “help” me by telling me things I could do to please Bob. I always thanked them for the advice, but I didn’t care about pleasing him. Not at all.
Every night that I managed to keep myself away from him I counted as a victory. I tried not to think too far into the future. As long as I could keep myself away from him for another week, another month, that was all that mattered.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jesse
At the beginning of the winter, I left the ranch. I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take me to convince Abby to leave with me, but I was determined to give it as much time as was necessary. River assured me that I could bring her back to the ranch and that we could both work there for as long as we needed.
It was bittersweet saying goodbye to all the people at the ranch, but many of the other hired hands were moving on for the winter as well. There wasn’t money to be made this time of year, and so a lot of them were drifting off someplace else. Everyone thought I was doing a good thing going back for Abby. Renee, in particular, was adamant that I had to get her out. Renee thought the whole place was evil, and that someone should bust it wide open. She said that some religious beliefs were only hurtful. I wasn’t sure that I agreed with her, but I knew that I was only one man, and that—even if I wanted to—I couldn’t take down the entire community. Besides, it was only one community of many. There were other branches of the Life scattered throughout the country.
I would do what I could. For Abby.
Maybe someday, together, she and I could do more.
Because Renee was right. There were so many people in the community who were suffering.
When I arrived in the community, it was the middle of the night. I’d driven straight from Lebenet, and I’d timed it that way. I knew that if I drove around in broad daylight, I’d attract attention. I needed the cover of darkness to be able to move stealthily.
I couldn’t help driving by my family’s farm. It was closed up tight and dark. I thought of my mother, of the way that she withstood my father’s violence. I wished I could find some way to get her out too, and all my brothers and sisters. But I knew that she’d never agree to it. She believed too deeply that what she was doing was way to God. I also knew that getting out kids who were minors was nearly impossible, because—according to the law—what I would be doing would be kidnapping.
Sick as it made me feel, my brothers and sisters were stuck for now. Maybe once they were eighteen…
There were too many people I cared about. I was going back for Abby, but suddenly, all I felt was guilt. Why was I only saving her? And why had I put it off for so long?
As I drove to Bob Carroll’s house, where Abby would now live, I forced myself to think about the fact that Abby was probably already pregnant with his child. And I decided that I didn’t care. I’d get her out anyway. I had to.
I needed to save somebody.
It was strange, driving back through the community. I had the odd feeling that everything was smaller than I remembered. The houses all seemed shabby and sad. When I’d been growing up here, this had been the whole world, but now I realized it was only a tiny corner of the world, and that all the people who’d had power here were really insignificant in the grand scheme of life.
Bob Carroll’s house still seemed formidably large. He was a wealthy man, owing mostly to his successful farm, but I also knew that some of the elders had investments in the outside world, and those investments brought a lot of money into the community. Even though the ties to the world might have been considered wicked, they were excused because the money benefited the Life.
His house sprawled out with its three large wings, one for each of his wives. There hadn’t been another wing built, so I had no idea where Abby might be.
I parked my truck away from the house, out of sight, and I crept close on foot. I didn’t really have a plan. I didn’t think it would be wise to go inside the house. It probably wasn’t locked, because no one locked their houses in the community, but it could go very badly if I was discovered inside.
Instead, I began looking inside the windows.
Many of the windows had curtains drawn tight against them, but I peered into the ones that didn’t. I saw several empty rooms, probably ones that had been left behind by Bob’s grown children. Then there were rooms that contained sleeping children. I found two of Bob’s wives’ rooms. They were both sleeping alone, which meant he was spending the night with someone else.
My chest got tight at the idea that I’d look in one of these windows and see Abby in bed with Bob. Of course, she’d been here with him for months, and I’d already steeled myself for the idea that she was pregnant, but seeing it…
But I didn’t see that. Instead, I saw Bob asleep in a room by himself. It was a room close to the center of the T, and it didn’t make sense to me. Why would Bob sleep alone? He had four wives to sleep with. Was he so old that he wasn’t interested in being with them anymore? I couldn’t even dare hope that.
I turned away from the window and leaned against the siding of the house. I realized why I was here, and it wasn’t as noble of a reason as I’d hoped. I did want to save Abby, and I cared about her well-being. But the real truth was that I was still in love with her, and I’d come back here because I wanted her myself. After all this time, I’d never let her go, and this was some kind of lovesick trip to try to win her heart.
That was why I’d waited so long. If it had been about her safety, I wouldn’t have hesitated. But this was actually selfish, wasn’t it? It was all about my desires and my feelings. I wanted Abby back.
I rubbed my face, feeling ashamed.
All right, all right, I told myself. Well, what’s wrong with that, anyway? What’s wrong with loving someone? What’s wrong with wanting someone?
The Life hadn’t taught me to value my own desires, but I was free of the cult now, and I could act on my desires if I chose. Doing that didn’t make my actions less noble, because there was something pure and good about being true to myself.
I didn’t see Abby through any of the windows. It took me most of the night to go around the entire house. She must have been in one of the rooms in which the curtains were pulled tight, and I couldn’t see her. That meant this trip was pointless, because I didn’t know where she was.
It was close to dawn, and I needed to get out of there before someone saw me.
But as I trudged back to my truck, feeling defeated, a jeep pulled into Bob’s driveway.
I was surprised. It was early for driving around, even for someone in the community. I hid myself in the shadows so that the driver of the jeep wouldn’t see me.
And I was stunned when I saw Abby get out of the car.
Her hair was in a sloppy braid, al
most as if she’d been sleeping on it, and she was wearing a big winter jacket. She closed the door of the jeep and went into the house.
What?
Where had she been? What had she been doing? Why was she coming home to Bob’s house at dawn?
* * *
Abby
“Rebecca Morris,” said Gideon from the front of the meeting hall. It was Sunday. The past month, every one of our worship meetings had been nothing more than Gideon delivering a long sermon. He’d also taken over the gospel meetings on Sunday nights, so Sunday was a day that was bookended by Gideon’s preaching. “You all know the name of that woman—a daughter of God who was swayed by the devil to commit the most atrocious of sins.”
Becky Morris had been Robert Morris’s wife. After he’d revealed the edict of multiple wives, Becky had fallen under the thrall of a demon. Under that influence, she had shot and killed Robert Morris, our leader.
“Many of the elders in this community remember Becky,” said Gideon. “She was a founding member of the Life, and she was dear to all of them before she turned away from God. No one could have suspected that Becky would be so swept away by the devil. She was considered holy and pure, a worthy mate for Robert himself. So, everyone was very shocked when they saw what she’d done.
“Let Becky’s fall from grace be a lesson to all of us here,” Gideon continued. “The devil is no respecter of persons. He can influence any of those amongst us. Any of your friends, your neighbors, your family members could be in a demon’s thrall at this very minute.”
Gideon’s sermons were often like this these days. He was constantly preaching that we were in danger and that anyone around us could be evil. We were all meant to watch each other constantly and to report if anything bad was happening.
The effect of this was that, on the surface, the community looked more righteous than ever. But underneath, people were getting better at hiding their rebellions, and the rebellions were perhaps more serious than they’d been before.
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