For a kid who hadn’t been wanted by anyone, she sure knew how to love. Matthew had been under her spell from the first. And with the apple rompers and her determination to make changes, Elsie seemed to have succumbed as well. As she dried the baby and dressed her in a pair of terry sleepers that were so small they’d cut the feet out of them, Dinah took a moment to marvel at what Elsie had done.
Because her mother hadn’t stopped with rompers. Her sewing machine hummed every morning, and cream slipcovers piped in blue appeared on the couch and chairs in the living room, covering up the ancient, dark print that had been the choice of her mother-in-law back in the fifties. The brass lamps that had to be polished once a week gave way to lamps with china ginger-jar bases in Blue Willow colors. And the oval portraits of grim Victorian ancestors—the first fruits of the gospel that Morton had so prized—came down and were relegated to the attic, where Elsie unearthed a landscape with a lot of blue sky that went up in their place.
The UPS man began to call, bringing fabric that Elsie said came from a catalog, since the tiny shop in Hamilton Falls didn’t stock the materials she wanted. And she wanted a lot. At this rate, Tamsen was going to have enough clothes to dress an entire nursery of babies. When Elsie pieced a tablecloth in a cheery Irish chain pattern in pink, green, and cream for the kitchen table, Dinah realized there was a revolution going on right under her nose.
“Mom, are you sure this is right?” she finally asked, when Elsie spread the cloth on the table with a snap and put the butter dish down in the middle of it.
“I am sick—” Down went the salt and pepper shakers. “—to death—” Clack went the napkin holder. “—of living in a funeral home!”
Dinah gaped at her.
“This is the most depressing house in all of Hamilton Falls,” Elsie snapped. “My mother-in-law had awful taste, and Morton wouldn’t let me change a thing. But if Rebecca Quinn can have pink roses on her armchairs, then I can have blue-and-white lamps!”
“Absolutely,” agreed Matthew, holding Tamsen and looking ready to run.
“Get used to it, missy.” She fixed Dinah with a look. “The living-room drapes are next.”
“It’s your house,” Dinah said, holding up both hands in mock surrender. “You can do anything you want with it.”
“No one is going to want to buy a place that looks like a mausoleum. What do you think of pulling the carpets up and seeing what shape the hardwood floors are in?”
“Buy?” Dinah said with a gasp.
“Are you thinking of selling?” Matthew asked.
“I can’t run the ranch, Matthew, and let’s be realistic—neither can you or Dinah. Hamilton Falls is growing and Linda Bell tells me a big chain store might be looking to build where the apple factory was on the edge of town. If that happens, chances are good I could subdivide this place and sell off luxury lots. We have three facing the river, after all, and the views from up the hill are pretty good, too.”
For the second time in a week, Dinah had to pick her jaw up off the floor. “Are you serious?”
“Do you want to stay here?”
For how many years had she wished hopelessly to get away? “No.” She thought of the stock portfolio. And the shares of General Electric and Microsoft. “But I wouldn’t mind having first dibs at one of your river lots.”
Now it was Matthew’s turn to gape at her.
“Well, I’m not going to rush into anything,” Elsie said. “But there needs to be change around here and I wanted you to know.”
“Why?” Dinah asked. She had never seen so much change in so short a time. It was one thing to change inside yourself. But it was quite another to get a shock every time you walked in the door and saw that something else had disappeared or been added.
Elsie sat at the table and smoothed a hand over the carefully pieced seams of the cloth. “‘The winter of our discontent,’” she said. “Remember? Winter is over. Don’t you feel it, Dinah? Don’t you feel as though you’re going to burst if you don’t change things, do them differently, open yourself up to something new?”
Dinah had the feeling things were building up to an explosion no matter what she did or felt. Change was in the air the way the scent of softening earth filled it when she went outside.
“If we move, what about Gathering?” Dinah thought to ask, fixing on something solid, a problem that would have to be solved. “People have been coming here for Gathering for a hundred years.”
“I’m not sure about that. We still don’t have a Deacon. I’ll need to talk it over with Phinehas and Melchizedek.”
Elsie got her opportunity after lunch, when the phone rang. Dinah knew who it was immediately, from the soft, deferential tone that crept into her mother’s voice. Blue-and-white lamps and declarations of independence notwithstanding, the habits of years would not change so easily.
“Of course you can come, Phinehas,” she said into the phone. “Our home is always open to the servants of God. I’ll make up your room and we’ll expect you for supper.”
“I CAN’T DO this,” Dinah moaned, and tilted over until her face was buried in the cushion in the corner of Matthew’s couch. “I can’t face him. Everything’s happening at once. It’s too soon.”
“If not now, then when?” Matthew went to sit beside her. “Is there ever going to be a time when you are ready?”
“Maybe.” Her voice was muffled. “A year from now.”
“There has to be a first time. And better now, when you’re surrounded with people who know the secret. He won’t have anywhere to hide.”
“Mom will never let on she knows. Despite what she’s been saying, everything will be exactly the way it’s always been, and he’ll come tonight the way he always does.”
“But tonight will be different. Tonight you’ll tell him no.”
“And he’ll have me Silenced.”
“Let him. Tell him your mother and I know, too, and if he even thinks about retaliating, I shall go to the police.”
Dinah wasn’t sure she had the strength to stand up to the most powerful man in the state. She no longer believed he had any kind of connection with God, and it was difficult to believe that disobeying him would send her straight to hell. But the fact remained that he had every power over the society she lived in, and could take away everything that made life worth living for her mother. Friends, family, respect, all of it. With just a few words, Phinehas could reduce them to outcasts—and in Hamilton Falls, that left them with nothing.
On top of that, even if she did speak, she had no physical proof there had been years of abuse. She hadn’t gone to see the doctor, so there were no medical records. She’d never spoken of it to a living soul, so there was no history. All she had was Tamsen and a white nightgown, and even that could have been bought anywhere, by anyone. It was Phinehas’s word against hers, and without documentation it was pretty obvious whom the Elect would believe.
Documentation.
IN THE BABY’S room, Dinah hunted out the manila envelope that contained the letter Tamara had left. She’d been so shocked and dismayed by it that she hadn’t bothered to look at the other papers in the envelope, and had been too busy since to think about them. The second piece of paper bore the address of a pediatrician in Spokane and a list of the shots Tamsen had had. There were blanks next to upcoming dates.
Shots. She needed to get Tamsen registered under their medical plan. As what? An adoption? Was she Tamsen’s guardian or something else? Did she plan to be her aunt, her sister, or her mother?
Oh, that was too hard. Dinah set the vaccination schedule on top of the letter. She’d deal with that later.
The third paper was a birth certificate. Under “Mother,” Tamara’s name was listed. Under “Father” . . . Dinah frowned. Philip Leslie? Who on earth was Philip Leslie?
Danny had said that Tamsen’s father was Phinehas. Or had it been a lie of the worst order and Dinah had been maligning him for something he hadn’t done?
If it were tru
e, somehow Tamara had found out the name Phinehas had been born with. Dinah couldn’t imagine how—Phinehas had been Phinehas as long as the family had known him. It never occurred to anyone to think about the Shepherds’ birth names. They were irrelevant to the call to preach, and it was tradition that they took the name of a biblical prophet, as befitting modern-day preachers of the gospel.
But it all added up. Tamara had not slept with Danny, and with her mother’s story adding weight to his sin, she had no doubt Danny had told the truth and Phinehas had been raping Tamara as well.
She wondered if he carried anything in his wallet or suitcase under his birth name. He must. The State of Washington wouldn’t register a driver’s license to a man with no last name, prophet or not.
Tonight, if she could find a connection in his things, she would have her proof and he could never hurt her again. If she confronted him with the birth certificate, maybe he would even agree to leave them alone and not punish them all for her refusal to cooperate.
Maybe pigs would fly, too, but it was worth a try. She could no longer sit and let this happen to her. She may not have the most effective weapons to fight him, but she had to do something to defend herself.
Armed with a sense of purpose, she was able to greet him when he arrived just before supper as if there were nothing wrong. Just as she always did, she shook his hand and took his coat, then offered him a cup of coffee. And just as he always did, he sat in her father’s easy chair with his Bible on the end table beside him and allowed her and Elsie to serve him.
At dinner, they made conversation about the number of strangers in the last mission he’d preached in Spokane and what their prospects might be for conversion. While Matthew looked from one woman to the other in confusion and growing disbelief, Dinah fed Tamsen her cereal while Elsie handed Phinehas the potatoes and urged him to another helping of Irish stew.
Dinah caught Matthew’s eye and shook her head, the smallest of motions, which caused him to drop his gaze to his plate and sigh.
She’d explain later.
After dinner, she picked up Phinehas’s suitcase and took it upstairs, just as she always did. He and her mother were talking in the living room, where, it seemed, he had just noticed nothing was the same as it had always been.
Get used to it, Phinehas.
In the front guest room with its view of the river, she put the suitcase down on the window seat. But instead of fluffing the pillow and going away as she had always done, she popped the case’s latches open. She’d have to be quick.
With shaking hands, she rifled through his belongings. Slacks, shirts, ties, a sweater, all of the finest quality. A toiletry kit, a couple of books, socks, underwear. The ministers of God traveled light, with only the necessities of life in a single suitcase. Everything else was provided by the Elect as part of their service.
Ears straining for the sound of a footstep on the stairs or a change in the tenor of conversation, Dinah ran her hands along the pockets lining the sides of the suitcase.
Aha.
She reached in and pulled out a passport. The room below had gone silent. Hurry. Fanning the passport’s pages, she found the one bearing his name and photograph.
Philip Arthur Leslie. Date of birth April 21, 1946. Place of birth Fraser, Michigan.
Bingo.
The fourth stair from the bottom creaked like an alarm, and Dinah slipped the passport back in the pocket, glanced hastily at the contents of the suitcase to make sure it looked the way she’d found it, and closed it. The latches snapped when she pressed them, but with the footsteps on the stairs, chances were good the sharp sounds wouldn’t be heard.
She whirled as the footsteps reached the landing. It was Phinehas. She knew that step intimately, knew the pressure the weight of his elegant body put on their wood floors. After ten years of listening with despair for that very sound, oh yes, she knew it. And now she’d waited too long. He’d reached the landing and if she tried to leave his room, he’d see her.
She whirled and ran to the bed. Bending over the pillow, she was straightening the bedspread like a well-mannered chambermaid when he pushed open the door and came in.
“Well,” he said with a mix of greeting and gratification.
She straightened. If it was a greeting, she wasn’t going to reply to it.
“Getting it ready for me, I see.” He looked her up and down, as if looking for the same kinds of changes in her as he’d found downstairs.
“Yes.” She rounded the bed and made to move past him. “Enjoy your rest.”
He put a cool hand on her arm, crumpling the black batiste of her sleeve. “I’d enjoy it more if you shared it with me. Since I find you in my room, I take it you’ve gone before the Lord and begged forgiveness for your unwillingness the last time I saw you?”
“I came to make sure the room was ready,” she said steadily. Only Phinehas would read sex into someone coming in to make up the bed. “Nothing else. Let go of my arm, please.”
He did, as though he’d meant to all along. “Still unwilling. Dinah, what does this say about your spirit? What happened to the girl I loved who was always so willing to serve her God?”
“I’m perfectly willing to serve God.” She stepped away, but he still stood between her and the door, well dressed, well fed, and predatory. Her heart pounded and she felt the hot blood of desperate courage flood her cheeks. “But it’s not going to be by letting you rape me any more.”
He gazed at her for a long moment. Shock at her unexpected defiance fought with sadness and a kind of calculation, as if he were planning how to counter an opponent’s bold move. “Is that how you see your service to God? Calling your wonderful, loving service that awful thing?”
“It isn’t loving. It isn’t even service. You raping me has nothing to do with God and everything to do with you. I want it to stop, Phinehas. Now.”
“Do you?”
She took a deep breath. “I found out who I really am. I found out you had sex with my mother and my sister, too. And you want to know what else I found out?”
Oh, it felt so freeing, saying the dreadful words to the one who had spoiled her life. Throwing them back in his face where they could sit there, dripping with bile, making him as ugly as she had felt for years.
“I’m your daughter, Phinehas. You’ve been raping your own daughter all this time. Just imagine what the judge will say when he hears that.”
She didn’t know what she’d expected. That he would shudder and collapse somehow, fold up and beg her not to tell anyone. That he would be surprised, at least, that he had been committing an even worse crime than rape all this time without knowing it.
But he just stood there, in his tasteful wool suit and his shiny designer shoes, and gazed at her with sad affection.
“Poor Dinah,” he murmured. “What dreadful wickedness have you allowed to take root in your soul?”
They always blame their victims, she heard Matthew’s voice say in her memory.
“The only wickedness here is you,” she retorted, keeping her voice as steady as she could. She took one step to the left, hoping he would move, but he did not.
“I am a servant of God, Dinah,” he said gently. “And who are you? A deluded, isolated spinster under a lot of strain. It’s obvious your father’s death and your mother’s illness have affected your mind.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my mind. You haven’t answered me.”
“About what? You’ve said so many things.”
“You’re never coming to my room again. If you do, I’ll—”
“What? Tell me, I’m very interested.”
She’d give anything to be a man, and smack that look of gentle amusement right off his face. But then she’d be dragged down to his level of physical violence, and she was too good for that.
“I’ll go to the police. I have Tamsen’s birth certificate with your name on it as the father, Philip Leslie.”
“Tamsen? That bastard child of a Silenced girl? Wh
y would the police be interested in that?”
“Because it’s proof you raped her, too,” Dinah said furiously. “Me, my mother, my sister. How dare you, you beast!”
Her barely contained rage had no effect on him at all. “The ramblings of a spiteful runaway teenager. Who would believe it?”
“The police would believe it.”
“And how can you prove it?”
Dinah thought fast. “DNA testing.”
He stared at her as though she were speaking a foreign language. Perhaps, to him, she was. “What?”
Thank goodness for the Internet and their forbidden laptop, out in the barn. Thank goodness for Matthew, whose research skills turned up all kinds of helpful information. “A simple blood test can determine that you’re Tamsen’s father and mine, too. And then your career as senior Shepherd is over. You’ll be disgraced and sent to jail, Philip. You’ll be the one who loses everything, not me.”
“Are you threatening the Shepherd of your soul, Dinah? What does that say about you, exactly?”
He was doing it again. Turning the ugliness on her. She batted it back at him. “I’m just telling you what the consequences of your actions will be if you don’t leave me alone.”
“And if I do? If I allow you to flaunt your unwillingness in front of your family, and disobey the commandments of God?”
“Not just me. If you’re abusing anybody else, that has to stop, too.”
“And in return, what?”
“In return, nothing. You stop, or I go to the police. It’s as simple as that.”
He gazed at her the way one would gaze at a puppy, idly wondering if it will bite. Then he shook his head.
“Think carefully, Dinah. Think what your behavior will mean to the Kingdom. How it will affect me and my service. How it will affect you and your service. How it will endanger your salvation.”
Pocketful of Pearls Page 20