Out of Heaven's Grasp

by V. J. Chambers

  If it hadn’t been for my newfound desire for sex, I wouldn’t even have been thinking of my period. I probably would never have noticed that it was late.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Abby

  It was the morning that Bob was due back from Florida, and I should have started my period yesterday. I’d forced myself not to panic when it hadn’t arrived, telling myself that maybe it was stress. Anyway, I didn’t usually keep particularly strict notice of it, so it might always be a few days late or early. I really wasn’t sure.

  I told myself that I was freaking out over nothing.

  But…

  Well, I knew that Sally had a stash of pregnancy tests in the master bathroom in her wing of the house. She had them bought in bulk in Lebenet, and—after my miscarriage—she’d told me to let her know if I ever wanted to use one. She was the only one of the wives who was actively trying to have more children, even though May was still young enough that she could conceivably get pregnant again. She hadn’t in years, though, and she said she was done with having kids, so it seemed unlikely.

  Avoiding getting pregnant was a sin in the community. Using birth control or pulling out or anything like that wasn’t something that women were supposed to do. But since I’d been married, I’d heard women make sidelong comments about that. Most women in the community seemed to manage to stop having children at some point. They had their ways.

  Anyway, the point was that Sally had pregnancy tests, and that I could go down and get one, just to make sure. I cursed myself for being such an idiot with Jesse. I knew enough about all of it nowadays that I understood the man’s spilling his seed into the woman was what made the babies. If I would have kept him from doing that…

  But it was too late now.

  The only problem with going to get the pregnancy test was that I never went into Sally’s wing. We weren’t exactly forbidden from entering other wives’ spaces, but no one ever did. Going into another wife’s wing would be an invasion of privacy. If Fern or May saw me, they’d be sure to ask me why I was going down there.

  Of course, if I told them, they’d think nothing of it, but if they told Bob that I was taking a pregnancy test…

  Bob knew that I hadn’t had sex with him in months.

  But I needed to know. I wanted to find out whether or not I was pregnant. It seemed earth-shatteringly important that I do it.

  And I knew that if I waited until Sally and the children were back, it would be impossible to get the pregnancy test without being detected. So I needed to do it right then, because they were due back later that day.

  Going during the night would have been ideal, but—like an idiot—I’d missed that window of opportunity.

  I tried to do it after breakfast, but May decided to stay in the kitchen all morning baking bread. The way that the house was set up, the kitchen was right in the center of the T, and there were hallways off of it to each of the other wives’ wings, so with May there, I couldn’t very well slip into Sally’s wing.

  I checked back with her several times throughout the morning, but she was in there all the way up until lunch.

  We all ate lunch together—May, Fern, May’s children, and me.

  After lunch, I helped clean up, even though it was Fern’s turn to do so. I just wanted to hurry everything along as quickly as I could.

  But Fern wanted to chat about what might be going on at the conference, especially since Gideon had been preaching that the other communities were worldly and that our community was the only one still in the good graces of God. Several times, he’s specifically targeted Sarasota, so much so that we hadn’t even been sure if he and the other elders would even go to the conference. But apparently, Gideon wanted to go, if only to give the other communities a chance to repent for their evil ways and change.

  Fern didn’t know if it would go well. The other communities might not take well to Gideon’s demands, and if they didn’t realize that God was speaking through Gideon, they might turn away. She thought there might be a break in the Life, and that our community might become separate.

  She speculated about what would happen if our community broke off from the others. She remembered a split that had occurred back when Robert Morris was alive, right after he’d issued the edict against technology. Apparently, some of her close friends had been on the other side of the split, and she’d never seen them again.

  One of Fern’s daughters had married a man in Kentucky, and Fern didn’t want to lose all contact with her daughter, but she said that if it was what God wanted her to do, she would, of course, obey his will.

  I wanted to sympathize with her about the possible loss of her daughter, but I was primarily concerned with getting her to leave the kitchen and stop talking to me, so that I could get down into Sally’s wing.

  Finally, after talking to me for nearly an hour, she left to go back to her own wing, and I was alone in the kitchen.

  I knew that I was cutting it close, because Bob and Sally were due back at any point, but I had to risk it anyway.

  I darted down the hallway of Sally’s wing, conscious of the sound that my footsteps made on the hardwood floor.

  Sally’s wing was painted a mauve color and there were framed bible verses on the walls. I knew that her bedroom was all the way at the end of the hallway. She had her own bathroom there. The kids all shared another bathroom in the wing.

  Because Bob was a wealthy elder, he had the luxury of having lots of room and lots of bathrooms. The house that I’d grown up in only had three bathrooms for all of us, but Bob’s house had eight.

  I hurried down the hallway into Sally’s bedroom.

  I swung the door open and peered inside. The room was similar to the one that I lived in, although quite a bit bigger. If I’d been like Sally, I certainly would have complained to Bob about the fact that the other wives had bigger bedrooms than I did, but I really didn’t care.

  The walls were painted the same mauve color as the hallway, and the floor was the same polished hardwood. However, Sally had a handmaid rug under the bed. It was painstakingly crafted of old fabric scraps. I’d learned how to braid rugs when I was a little girl, but I’d never thought of trying to make one for my own room. I realized that I’d never even attempted to make Bob’s house into my home, as if some part of me had always known that I didn’t really belong here.

  There was a dresser against one wall with a very large mirror over it. Wow. Big mirrors were often considered a sign of vanity, but Sally obviously didn’t care.

  The room was meticulously clean and ordered, from the quilt on top of the bed to the carefully arranged vases of flowers on the dresser. There was a bedside table. It held an oil lamp and a bible.

  I scampered through the bedroom and into the bathroom.

  When I opened the door, I drew in a sharp breath.

  I’d never imagined such opulence.

  Sally’s bathroom was enormous. It contained a stand-up shower in one corner, and a deep, square bath in the other. The bath was inlaid with tiny jade and purple tiles. It looked big enough for three people to fit inside. There were two sinks, each with gleaming brass faucets. From the masculine soap sitting next to one, I realized that one sink was meant for Bob and the other for Sally.

  The floor of the bathroom was also tile, and the tiles made an ornate, interconnected design. This was like the bathroom of a princess or something. Did all of the wives have bathrooms like this, or just Sally? I was unexpectedly stabbed with jealousy. Hadn’t Bob valued me enough to make sure I had something like this?

  I knew that Bob and I didn’t exactly get along, but in the beginning, he must have thought of me as a beautiful, young wife. But he’d never even spoken about building a wing for me, or indicated that the other wives had bathrooms like this.

  The other wives knew, of course. They’d seen the guest room where I stayed.

  I felt a fresh burst of anger towards Sally for the way she’d treated me when I first arrived. All that time, she’d ha
d this bathroom, and she’d still acted as if I was usurping her position in the family.

  And then I wondered…

  What if the other wives didn’t have a bathroom like this? What if this was special for Sally? After all, Bob did seem to listen to everything that she said. Whenever she threw a fit, Bob caved to her wishes. Sally was his favorite wife, and maybe he’d do anything for her.

  Maybe Bob and Sally were really in love, the way that Jesse and I were.

  In fact, maybe most of the families in the community functioned this way. Maybe men usually had a favorite wife, the one that they really wanted to be with. Maybe we could all try very hard to be polygamous, but maybe our monogamous tendencies came out no matter what.

  I knew that my father had favored Mother Deborah in our home. She had been his first wife, and it had often seemed that the two of them were in sync in a way that was different than the interaction that my father had with his other wives. He did his best not to favor her outwardly. I knew that Father would try very hard to make sure that he never spent more time with one wife than another, and that he was careful never to show affection to one wife in front of the others. But his feelings were obvious in other ways. Small ways, like the way his voice changed when he spoke to her, or the way he would look at her across the table at dinner.

  My mother had always known that she wasn’t my father’s favorite wife, but it hadn’t seemed to bother her. She used to cheerily talk about why being the third wife was the best, because she liked babies just as much as she liked Father, and that coming into the family when she did meant she got to help care for Mother Claudia’s babies in addition to her own. But now I wondered if she weren’t only saying those things to mask her pain.

  I’d always assumed that my childhood home was a happy one, but now that I’d been in Bob’s home for so many months, I wondered if I hadn’t only seen what I wanted to see. As a child, the world had revolved around me. I hadn’t worried about my parents, just accepted them.

  I turned in a circle inside Sally’s pristine bathroom, taking it all in. I didn’t think I’d ever have a bathroom like this. I was going to go be with Jesse, and we weren’t going to be particularly well off.

  Especially not if we were already pregnant.

  I knelt down and opened the doors under the sink, looking for the pregnancy tests.

  I liked the idea of having babies with Jesse, but I had really hoped for a little bit more time alone with him before the babies started happening. And I wasn’t sure what he’d think. I knew he cared about me, and I knew he wouldn’t abandon me, but I didn’t think Jesse was itching to be a father right away either.

  I was surprised at the things I found under the sink.

  There was makeup!

  Did Sally put it on for Bob when the two of them were alone?

  And that wasn’t all. I found a razor too. It was pink and feminine looking, which could only mean that Sally used it.

  Sally shaved her legs?

  But only worldly women did that.

  I bit down on my lip. Was I going to have to shave my legs? I hadn’t even thought about doing that. Had the worldly woman that Jesse had sex with had shaved legs? What if he’d thought about it while we were together? What if he wished that my legs didn’t have hair on them?

  I pushed through the stuff under the sink, just wanting to find the pregnancy tests. I was nervous enough without any more added pressure.

  Finally, I found them. They were in a huge box, but each one was individually wrapped. I pulled the box out to read the instructions. I was supposed to pee on a little strip and then wait for two minutes. One line in the window meant that I wasn’t pregnant. Two lines meant that I was.

  I shoved the box back under the sink and tried to rearrange everything so that it wouldn’t seem as if I’d been riffling around under here.

  I shut the doors to the sink and hurried out of the bathroom. I’d spent way too much time in there, and I needed to get back to my room right away.

  I rushed out of Sally’s bedroom and started up the hallway.

  Voices.

  “What now, Jasper, aren’t you going to give your father a hug?”

  Oh, man, that was Bob! They were back. And he was saying hello to everyone.

  I saw movement at the end of the hallway, in the kitchen, and I darted into an open room off the hallway.

  It was one of Sally’s kid’s bedrooms—probably Naomi’s, the littlest—since there was a toy chest in the corner and a small bed in one corner covered in a pink quilt.

  What was I going to do here? Sally and the kids would be coming back to their rooms, and I couldn’t very well hide here, could I?

  Maybe I should just hide the pregnancy test and stroll up the wing like I didn’t have anything to hide.

  Oh, but what would I say when they asked why I was down there?

  I leaned up against the wall, my heart banging into my rib cage.

  Outside the room, I heard the voices getting louder. They were coming down the hallway.

  Panicked, I threw myself into Naomi’s closet. There was barely room for me, in amongst her small dresses, but I shoved myself inside and pulled the door softly closed after myself.

  I heard movement outside.

  “I want to show Mother Fern the shells we found!” said a small voice.

  “All right,” said Sally’s voice, “but take Naomi with you.”

  “But Mo-other,” said the other voice.

  “Rose, take your sister,” said Sally’s voice.

  “Fine.”

  I waited.

  But no one came into the room. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  There were more noises outside as the other children settled into their rooms around me. Lots of doors opening and shutting. It seemed to go on an agonizingly long time.

  But then it got quiet.

  Not silent exactly, but I didn’t hear any movement out in the hallway, and I didn’t hear anyone talking.

  I slowly pushed open the door of the closet and tiptoed across Naomi’s room to the door. I peered out into the hallway.

  It looked empty.

  I took a deep breath, looking again, and then I eased myself out into the hallway and made a dash back to the kitchen.

  “Hey!” said a voice behind me.

  I whirled.

  Holly was standing there, her hands on her hips.

  I put my finger to my lips.

  She moved closer. “What were you doing in my sister’s room?”

  “Nothing. Can you do me a favor and just pretend you didn’t see me?”

  She seized my hand. “You’ve got one of my mom’s pregnancy tests.”

  I shoved it in my pocket. “Holly, please, it’s very important that you don’t say anything.” I searched for some plausible reason to explain it. “If I’m pregnant, I want it to be a surprise.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “I don’t see why you’re sneaking around just to get a pregnancy test.”

  “Well, I am,” I said. “I want it to be a surprise. Please, please say it can be our secret?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, sure, if you say so.” She started back for her room, no longer interested in me.

  I hurried all the way back to my own room.

  * * *

  The test was negative.

  There was only one little line in the window. One.

  I wasn’t pregnant, and I was relieved.

  I wrapped the test up in lots of toilet paper and put it at the bottom of my trash can, hoping no one would see it.

  I lay on my bed, taking long, deep, relieved breaths.

  I sent Jesse a text. I love you, and my jeep is home. I’ll see you later tonight, okay? I didn’t tell him about the pregnancy scare. It was too much to get into in a text. Besides, I’d feel better if I just got my period. If I didn’t have my period, I couldn’t be sure that the test hadn’t messed up somehow.

  After all, I hadn’t had the instructions when I took it. Maybe I’d screwed
it up in some way.

  Awesome, he replied. I miss you like crazy. I love you so much.

  I grinned at the words, my heart swelling. And then I excitedly typed, I want to leave tonight. I’d been waiting to tell him that. I’d kind of hoped to find a way to call him and tell him, but it was too risky to try to talk on the phone when Bob was back in the house somewhere.

  Seriously? That’s great.

  Seriously. I don’t ever want to be away from you for this long ever again.

  Me either. When are you getting here?

  I told him when to expect me, and we texted back and forth for a few more minutes. He probably wrote that he loved me about ten times, and I got shivers every time I read it. Everything was going to be okay.

  I had just tucked my phone back into my dress, feeling giddy with happiness and excitement, when the knob of my bedroom door jiggled insistently. There was a banging on the door.

  “Abigail,” came Bob’s angry voice, “open this door right now.”

  Great. What had I done to make him mad? He’d been gone for two weeks, and I hadn’t even had a chance to talk to him yet.

  Sighing, I went over to the door and opened it.

  Bob burst inside, his face red. He grabbed me by the throat and propelled me backwards, slamming me into the wall. “Who you been lifting your skirts for, you little slut?” he growled.

  I was choking from the pressure on my neck, and I couldn’t speak.

  His grip tightened. “Tell me now.”

  I struggled to draw breath, my lips opening and shutting to no effect.

  Bob let go of me. He slapped my face. “Speak up, whore. What have you been doing behind my back?”

  I put my hand to the place where he’d hit me, trying to cool the sting. Tears sprang to my eyes.

  “You don’t get to cry.” He hit me again, this time across the other cheek. Then he balled up his fist and slammed it into my stomach.

  I doubled over, pain spreading through me. I coughed and sputtered, curling my arms around my body to try to protect myself.

  Bob let out a roar of frustration and unleashed himself on me. He drove his fists into my body over and over again, spitting the words “whore” and “slut” at me as my body writhed in agony.