“Colleen Musser.”
“Joseph’s oldest girl?”
I nod. “She died giving birth.”
“Oh no. How old was she?”
“Sixteen. A year younger than me.” And a year older than Celeste.
Abigail slumps in her chair. “If only I could help the girls too.”
I look around the small room, trying to steady myself. The walls are covered with framed photos, mostly of kids from Unity, judging by their clothes. I’d heard that when Abigail left Unity, she had to leave all her children behind. A few of the older boys eventually followed her out, but not her daughters. Not yet anyway.
“Who’s your father?”
“Martin Nielsson.”
“One of the decent ones.” I glance at her, surprised. I assumed that she’d hate all the men in Unity after what they put her through. “Your mother won’t sleep well tonight,” she murmurs.
I don’t trust my voice to answer.
“And I’m assuming you need a place to stay?”
I nod.
Taviana and Jimmy clatter back into the room. Taviana places a tray with a plate of eggs and toast, muffins and a bowl of fruit on the coffee table in front of me. Jimmy follows with a large glass of milk. He and Taviana then settle down on either side of me on the creaky couch.
“While you eat, I’ll go over the house rules,” Abigail says. “They’re fresh in my mind—I went over them with Taviana just last night.”
I force myself to eat slowly, politely, and not gobble the food down, but it’s hard. I’m so hungry.
“As Jimmy probably told you, I take in kids who have left Unity and need a place to live. The authorities recognize the service I provide for you guys, so they turn a blind eye when it comes to laws about legal guardianship and all that.”
The muffins are warm. Slabs of golden margarine melt into them. I’m having trouble focusing on Abigail’s words.
“Rule number one. You must attend high school until you graduate.”
I swallow another mouthful of food. “I haven’t been to school since I was fourteen.”
“We’ll help you get caught up. It was the same for the other two.” She glances toward the kitchen. “And they’re doing okay.”
She doesn’t sound completely convinced. I keep eating. I’m fine with that rule. I always wanted to finish school anyway, and maybe even go to college. That would never have been an option in Unity.
“Everyone pitches in with the cooking and cleaning,” Abigail continues. “I provide a place for you to live, but it’s not a hotel. The curfew is ten thirty on school nights, midnight on weekends. If you can, I encourage you to work part-time while you attend school, so you can contribute to your room and board. I expect common courtesy and good manners at all times. No drugs, alcohol or smoking. We respect each other’s belongings, and we each attend a church service of our choice.”
I look up from my food, surprised.
“I may have left Unity,” Abigail says, looking directly at me, “but I did not lose my faith in a higher power. It is my hope that the members of this family—and that’s what we are, a family—will find strength in God’s love, just as I do.
“This is also not a flop house,” she continues. “If you bring someone over to sleep, you check with me first, as Jimmy did tonight. And last night.” She looks at Taviana. “Boys and girls will occupy separate bedrooms. Occasionally we have to double up.”
“More eggs?” Taviana interrupts, glancing at my clean plate.
I take a banana and settle back. “No thanks, but that was so good. What was that stuff on top of the eggs? It was delicious.”
“Salsa.”
Salsa. I’ll have to remember that. It sounds exotic.
“Any questions, Jon?” Abigail asks.
My belly is full, and Jimmy and Taviana are on either side of me, their shoulders pressing into mine. Maybe things really will work out. I might even be able to get word to Celeste to join us.
I shake my head. “No questions. I really appreciate you helping me out this way.”
“You’re welcome.” Abigail’s voice is soft. She rocks in her chair. “If I can’t raise my children, at least I can help those of you who want to find your own way.” She stares at me for another moment. I feel that she’s sizing me up. “I must be honest with you, Jon. Although I have helped a few boys, the success rate hasn’t been great.”
The room becomes still. Abigail sighs. “If you follow these simple rules, I promise to support you while you make the transition. But it’s never easy. Be aware of that. There will be challenges.”
The truck driver said much the same thing.
“Okay, then.” Abigail hauls herself out of her chair. “Let’s get you settled in. The boys will find some clothes for you. You’ll have to take a basement room, because all the others are full. Tomorrow I’ll call the school and make an appointment to discuss your placement. It’s hard to start school at this point in the year, but maybe they can do an assessment and give you some material to study over the summer.”
As I follow her out of the room, I can’t believe that last night I was in Unity, at home, saying Sunday prayers with my family and thinking that the week ahead was going to be just like the last one, and the one before that—days of nothing but work, prayer and the odd glimpse of and secretive meeting with Celeste.
The toilet flushes upstairs, and floorboards creak as everyone gets ready for bed. I hang up the clothes the boys gave me earlier. I wouldn’t take their shorts and T-shirts, so they gave me the clothes they still had from Unity.
“I’ll give you a week before you’re wearing shorts,” Jimmy had said.
“Three days,” Matthew bet. “What do you say, Selig?”
Selig just shrugged. “Wear whatever makes you comfortable, Jon.”
I sit on the bottom bunk and look around. Other than the bed, there’s only a chest of drawers and a lone chair in the corner. As in the living room, the walls are covered in framed photos. A small, high window is shuttered. I wonder about the last Lost Boy who used this room.
I am the oldest of my siblings, so I likely had my own bedroom when I was a baby. I don’t remember that though. I don’t recall a time when I didn’t share my room and bed with at least three brothers. I’ve always longed for my own space, away from the constant roughhousing and mess of my brothers, but now that I have it, I feel incredibly alone.
Jimmy appears in the doorway. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah. Of course.” I try not to show how glad I am to see him.
“You okay?”
“Yep,” I say, even though I feel like crap. Gone is the warm and fuzzy feeling I experienced in the living room. Now I’m really struggling to keep it together.
Jimmy sits in the chair. “So what happened today?” It was the question he didn’t ask when he picked me up from the park.
“I got caught with Celeste.” Was that just this morning? It feels like days ago.
When Celeste and I started meeting, we’d just talk, sharing our doubts about our faith. Sometimes we built rock men on the beach, but more recently we’d spent our time in each other’s arms. That’s what we were doing when Nanette found us. That’s when I faced my choice—leave voluntarily or be banished in disgrace. “I begged Celeste to come too, but, well, you know.”
“Yeah. It’s harder for the girls.”
“I know, but she could be with me here, now!”
“I had one of my sisters convinced, even had her here for a few days, but she went back.”
“What do you think they’ll do to Celeste?” I ask, though I don’t really want to know.
“Probably marry her off as fast as they can.”
I can’t bear to think about that. “Why did Abigail say the success rate of those who leave is so low? What did she mean?”
Jimmy frowns. “Ask me that again in six months,” he says quietly.
I shoot him a look. “You only ever told us how much better it is here.
How we’d have choices. And could have girlfriends, and do whatever we want. You never mentioned there’d be challenges.”
Jimmy doesn’t say anything. The toilet upstairs flushes again. We sit, deep in our own thoughts. Finally he stands. “Abigail and I work tomorrow,” he says. “The boys will be in school, but you can hang out with Taviana. She’ll be here all day.”
In Unity, we didn’t “hang out.” Idle hands are the tools of the devil, they say. It will be weird to have a day where I don’t have to do anything. I nod and go back to staring at the floor.
Jimmy gives my shoulder a light punch before he turns to leave. I wish he’d stay and sleep in the top bunk. I don’t want to be alone.
“Hey, Jimmy?” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for everything. You know?”
He smiles. “You’re welcome. And you know what?”
“What?”
“You’re going to be okay.”
That lump in my throat instantly returns. “Goodnight” is all I can choke out.
I climb into bed and pull the blankets up to my neck. It’s cool in the basement.
I think of Celeste and wonder if she’s thinking of me. Jimmy is right—she probably will be married soon. Her father already told her that the Prophet was preparing to receive a message from God about just that.
I hope he didn’t hurt her when Nanette told him what we were doing. I know about the strap he keeps in his barn.
Three
Taviana knows how to make herself useful at Abigail’s. She cleans the kitchen after breakfast, puts in a load of laundry for the boys, and now she’s baking something.
I have no idea how to help her. I’ve never worked in the kitchen—my sisters and mothers did that. I worked in the yard, and when I turned fourteen, I began work in construction full time. If Abigail needed a house framed, well, I could do that.
It’s a beautiful morning. My ankle feels much better, so I step into the long and narrow backyard. A basketball hoop without a net is attached to the side of an old garage. Various balls and a Frisbee lie in the yard. Where there was once a lawn, there is now only scrubby soil with green tufts. Dead bushes line a dilapidated fence.
I find an old basketball that’s inflated enough to at least make shots. I bounce it a few times and shoot for the basket. It sails in, as does my second attempt. I glance at the kitchen window to see if Taviana is watching. Nope. Making the shots isn’t as satisfying when there’s no one around to see. In Unity there are always at least a dozen kids hanging around the basketball hoops on the school playground. School kids. I haven’t played since I left school.
I wander around the yard, picking up the abandoned balls and Frisbees and storing them neatly under the stairs. Then I pull out the dead shrubs and make a pile in the back corner of the yard. A couple of fence boards have fallen over, so I straighten them, then find tools in the garage to make repairs. After about an hour the yard looks much better. With a coat of paint on the fence and on the garage, it might even look respectable.
“Do you think Abigail would like a vegetable garden?” I ask Taviana as she peers into the oven, checking on a pan of cookies. “I could build raised beds. The season is right.”
“Cool idea, Jon. Why don’t you ask her when she gets home tonight?”
I agree to do that, but it doesn’t help me figure out what to do with the rest of my day. “Would she mind if I watched her TV?”
Taviana smiles. “Of course not. That’s what TVs are for.” She tilts her head and studies me. “Have you ever watched one?”
“My dad keeps one in his closet that he hardly ever brings out. He says it’s there in case of an emergency, though I don’t know how a TV would help in emergencies.”
“Daytime TV isn’t all that good,” Taviana says, showing me how to use the remote control. “But go ahead.”
Taviana explains the difference between movies, talk shows and something she calls sitcoms. I like the cartoons and the commercials best. Who knew there were so many things to buy?
When Matthew and Selig bang through the door, I glance at the clock. I can’t believe it. I’ve been watching the TV for five hours! Taviana slid a sandwich and plate of cookies in front of me at one point, and told me she was heading into the town center to apply for a library card, but I hardly remember that.
“Anything good on?” Matthew asks, plunking himself down beside me.
“What do you consider good?”
“WWF.”
“What’s that?”
“Wrestling.”
“It’s not really wrestling,” Selig says. He’s standing in the kitchen doorway with a cookie in his hand. “It’s all scripted.”
“Whatever,” Matthew says. “It’s still wrestling. They’re real moves, and those are real injuries.”
“It’s stupid. The outcomes are fixed. How’s that a sport?”
“It’s sport crossed with entertainment,” Matthew says. “And believe me, Jon, it’s entertaining. Just wait.”
A women’s-underwear commercial comes on.
“Now that would give the Prophet a heart attack,” Matthew says, his eyes glued to the screen.
Like mine. Like Selig’s.
Selig takes another cookie from the plate on the coffee table. “Wrong,” he says. “The Prophet finished high school and went to college. I bet he watched lots of TV. That’s why he forbids it.” He motions to the TV, where a man and a woman are sitting on a white sand beach, drinking beer. The woman is practically naked. My eyes must be huge. “How could we keep sweet if we’re exposed to that stuff?”
“Keeping sweet” is all the Prophet ever talks about.
Taviana enters the room. I didn’t even know she’d come home. “You guys might want to look like you’re doing homework when Abigail gets back,” she says. “Or chores. Dinner’s ready. Can I borrow your novel again, Selig?”
She’s made dinner already? I really did zone out. I turn off the TV and watch Selig take a novel from his backpack. “You read novels in high school?” I ask. Novels, like newspapers and magazines, are banned in Unity. The Prophet told us that reading them would cause us to take on the evil spirit of the authors.
“Yeah. We’re supposed to,” Selig says. “In class we discuss the ideas in them. I’m not much of a reader though. You’re going to tell me what this one’s about, right, Tavi?”
“Maybe,” Taviana says, grinning.
He snatches the novel away from her and puts it behind his back. “I won’t share if you’re not going to help me.”
Taviana tries to reach around him, and they wrestle for a moment. Eventually she gives up. “Okay, okay,” she says, laughing. She holds out her hand for the book, and Selig returns it to her.
I watch this exchange, amazed by how easily Selig can horse around with a girl who is not his sister.
“Could I plant a vegetable garden in the backyard?”
Abigail is eating with gusto, clearly enjoying the meal Taviana made. “That’s a lovely idea, Jon,” she answers. She swirls a broccoli floret in her mashed potatoes. “But I don’t know that the soil out there would be any good.”
“I would build some raised beds and fill them with soil from a nursery.”
“You’d know how to do that?”
“Yeah. I’ve built them before. And if I had some paint, I could put a coat on the fence and on the garage too.”
Abigail doesn’t answer right away. She takes a piece of bread from the basket and cleans her plate with it. Then she leans back in her chair and sighs. “I appreciate your offer, Jon. Only I don’t have the cash for those supplies right now. I’m saving to buy the boys a computer. Everything else seems to go to rent and food.”
“If we grew our own food, we would save money in the long run.”
“Yep. Good economics. But the harvest would be months away, and I don’t have the cash for supplies right now.”
No one around the table makes eye contact with me. Money must be a taboo
subject.
“I have one hundred dollars,” I tell her. “I was going to give it to you for my keep, but maybe it could go toward the garden.”
“And I could bring home some scrap lumber from the job site I’m working at,” Jimmy says. “A lot gets wasted on big projects. Paint too, I’m guessing. I’ll check with my supervisor.”
Abigail smiles at him. The tension in the room melts away. “You know what they say at church—God provides. That would be wonderful if you could check on those supplies, Jimmy. And Jon, save your money for the soil and seeds. This might work out.”
“Where did you get the money?” Selig asks. I’m helping him load the dishwasher. I’ve never actually seen one before. Some of the families in Unity have them, but we never did. He takes out the plate I’ve just put in and repositions it. “You can load more when you stack them this way.”
I tell him about the truck driver. “He told me to pay it forward. What does that mean?”
“I think it means that when someone does something nice for you, you’re supposed to do something nice for someone else. Not necessarily the same thing, but you give them something they need. And then they have to pay it forward too. It’s a way of making the world a nicer place.”
“Are those the kind of ideas you get from novels?”
His laugh is more of a snort. “I guess. But I like that one.”
I take the tea towel off the handle on the oven door and dry the pots. Selig shows me where they’re stored. This kitchen work’s not so complicated after all.
The boys return to their homework after dinner. Taviana is reading her novel. Abigail has set up a sewing machine in the living room and is working her way through a basket of mending.
“Want to go for a ride around town?” Jimmy asks me, shaking a set of car keys in my face.
We climb into his pickup truck and pull out of Abigail’s driveway. The evening is warm, and Jimmy waves at some little kids playing Kick the Can on the quiet street. They chase the pickup, yelling, “Jimmy! Jimmy!”
Older people sit on the front steps of their small but well-cared-for homes. They also wave as we drive by.
“Where do you want to go?” Jimmy asks.
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