When She Returned

by Berry, Lucinda

  It wasn’t a coincidence that she’d announced leaving the morning after I’d caught her in a lie again. She might be able to lie to everyone else, but she and I knew the truth, no matter how she played it off to the others. Besides the fact that you couldn’t trust her, she was nowhere near being functional enough to be a single mom raising two kids.

  “Kate, I really don’t think you should leave,” Scott said. He slid into Abbi’s chair and pulled it up alongside her. “Things are weird right now, and it might be that way for a while, but eventually we’re going to figure out how to do this thing. We should give it at least a few more months before we make any decisions, and if we still are having a hard time, then maybe we could even go see our family therapist.” He turned to me as he spoke. “Think about how amazing Dr. Greer was when we were getting married, Meredith. She loves complicated blended families. This would be right up her alley.”

  “Live here? All of us?” Kate asked.

  “Yes, sweetheart. We can figure this out,” he said, pulling her close to him. She melted into his chest. He glanced up at me with a huge smile on his face, so proud at having worked it out.

  I was too shocked to say anything—their bodies fit together seamlessly—so instead I just nodded at him and smiled back like I agreed, while my insides screamed at what he was suggesting. I didn’t want to be married to Kate too. A sob worked its way up my throat, and I choked it back down. But then he’d have to choose, and there was no way I could compete with what I saw in front of me. Nobody could.

  KATE

  THEN

  I cuddled her next to my naked chest, breathing in the smell of hair. We’d named her Shiloh. Her name meant his gift and fit her perfectly. She was perfect. Everything about her. I’d been so nervous for labor after what had happened with Bekah, but I had kept telling myself that my body would remember what to do, since it’d done it before. It had been the most excruciating pain of my life, but I couldn’t even remember the feelings as she lay resting on top of me, exhausted from her trip to earth.

  Margo threw back the canvas of the birthing tent and poked her head in. She tried to move through without getting stuck, but the awkwardness of her eight-month-old belly made it difficult, and we burst out laughing at how ridiculous she looked. Her turn was coming soon.

  It had taken her a long time to adjust to her pregnancy, since she hadn’t wanted to lie with Abner. She’d denied his initial requests three different times, committed to Will. But then one morning she surprised us all by announcing she’d changed her mind. She told me privately later that Will had asked her to, saying God had told him to allow it. They’d only done it that one time. But that was all it had taken. For a while, we had wondered if it might be Will’s, but they had confessed to practicing abstinence within their partnership. They had said it helped them focus on the spiritual and not get distracted by the carnal pleasures of the flesh.

  She’d been with me since the first pangs of labor and had held my other leg while I had pushed. Even though she’d never had a child of her own, she had been guided by unbelievable maternal intuition and our experience with Bekah. I’d focused on her and drawn from her inner strength to get me through. She’d only stepped out to go to the bathroom after she’d helped clean us up. Abner had followed her. He’d sat outside the tent while I labored, preferring to be in deep meditation. His face broke into a wide grin at the sight of us.

  “There you are. My two beautiful brides,” he said.

  Margo spun around. “What did you say?” she asked, wide eyed.

  He grinned again, the mischievous grin of a little boy in his eyes. “My brides.” He pointed to her and then me. “That’s the surprise I’ve been telling you about.”

  Nobody ever talked about marriage anymore. Besides Margo and Will, everyone was mixed up, and it was tough to remember who went with who. It didn’t matter anymore. What was he suggesting?

  Margo looked back at me, searching my eyes for answers, and I shrugged. He’d never said anything to me and clearly not to her either. She stepped back so he could come farther into the tent, coming to kneel next to my bed. She held her hand on her back. I could tell by the way her face was stretched thin that it’d been a difficult pain day for her. I turned my attention back to Abner. It didn’t matter what he had to say—nothing could ruin this day for me.

  Everything I’d gone through on this journey. All the toil and sweat. The sacrifices. They’d all been worth it after I laid eyes on Shiloh’s sweet face.

  I made myself focus on what he was saying as he rambled on about how we had created the first of the Lord’s children. “My seed created these children because of the Lord’s will. It is his life that came through me and into you, much like the way the Holy Spirit moved through the Virgin Mary. So I moved through you and will continue to move through you until our numbers are as vast as Abraham’s.” He spread his arms out wide, his face beaming with purpose and light. “After Margo has brought the next soldier into the world, we will have our ceremony. I will inform the family at the fire gathering tonight.”

  “Wonderful,” I said as Shiloh stirred and searched for my breast, just like she’d done after she was born. I breathed a sigh of relief that she nursed easily.

  “Margo?” Abner prompted.

  “What about Will?” she asked.

  “Will ceased being your husband a long time ago. You are aware of how we broke those earthly covenants.”

  I wished I could shield Shiloh from the negative energy shifting between them. She didn’t need to be affected with any darkness so close to having left the light. I swore I could still see parts of it when I looked into her eyes as she nursed. She’d only opened them twice, but I’d been right there for each one.

  “I just meant, you know, is he okay with this?”

  “Margo, he is a servant of the Lord.”

  Neither of them spoke. The silence stretched out until Margo’s voice finally cut into it. “That’s wonderful, Abner. I’m very excited to be your wife.”

  I didn’t need to look up to know he was smiling. “I’ll be back again after fire gathering,” he said.

  Margo waited until he’d left the tent before she began crying softly.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  MEREDITH

  NOW

  I’d barely been able to keep it together until after Thad’s wife left us alone in the den and had been crying ever since. It’d been three days since Kate announced she was thinking about moving out, and so far Scott and I still weren’t talking about his offer to let her stay indefinitely.

  “Mom, you’ve got to talk to him. He can’t start making permanent plans—especially ones that include his first wife becoming like a second wife—without knowing how you really feel about it.”

  “Am I overreacting?” I asked. Caleb would protect my feelings, but Thad would tell me the truth no matter what. He’d been a ruthless teenager.

  “Absolutely not.” He vehemently shook his head. “It’s almost got a weird sister-wives feel to it.”

  Relief washed over me. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that. I wish you could have seen how he looked at me while he was comforting her the other day. It wasn’t like it was sexual or anything.” I blushed despite thirty years of frankness about sex. “It was more like he was waiting for me to join them in the hug because we were truly one big happy family, or that’s what he thinks we should try to be in the future.” I grabbed the Kleenex he’d handed me earlier and blew my nose. “Maybe I should be the one to move out.”

  “What? No, Mom.”

  “When we got the call about Kate, we didn’t have time to think or process anything. All we did was react. But if I had thought about it at all beforehand, I might have offered to leave while they worked things out. They deserve to have the time and space to figure things out as a family.”

  “Work things out as a family?” His brown eyes flashed with anger. “Mom, you’re part of the family.”

  “I know that, honey
, but it doesn’t change the fact that they have a lot of stuff they need to figure out. It might make things easier for everyone if I go for a while.” I said it with much more confidence and optimism than I felt. I couldn’t help but remember how Scott had said something almost identical to Kate the other night, and he’d begged her to stay. Would he do the same for me if I said I wanted to leave?

  Thad shifted gears, since we’d already been down this path more than once already. “What’s it like having a baby around again after all these years?”

  “Honestly, not that big of a difference, because nobody gets to interact with the baby except Kate and Abbi.”

  “At least she lets Abbi.”

  “Yeah, I guess, but I’m cooking her meals and shuttling her back and forth to appointments, so you’d think I’d at least be able to hold the baby every now and then.” I quickly slapped my hand over my mouth as soon as I’d said it. “I’m sorry. All of this is making me ugly, and I don’t like it.”

  Thad burst out laughing. “Oh my gosh, Mom. Give yourself a break. That’s the worst thing you have to say about all this? Please.” He waved his hand at me, and I couldn’t help but smile. “How about Abbi? What does she think about all this?” he asked.

  “Things are always bumpy with her. You know that. She’s getting angry with me and siding with Kate more and more, but I think that would’ve happened no matter what the circumstances.”

  “Do you want me to talk to her?”

  “You’re so sweet, but no.” There wasn’t anything more to talk about with Abbi. She wasn’t the one who made the final decision about our living arrangements. That conversation had to be with Scott, and I was dreading it, because there was no way to have it without looking like the evil stepmother.

  Scott was mowing the front yard when I got home, which wasn’t a good sign, since he only mowed when he was stressed. Usually he hated it, which was why we had a gardener. He stopped in his tracks as I came up the walk.

  “How’s Thad?” he asked.

  “Good. He’s swamped with work, but that’s pretty much how it’s going to be until he gets the promotion he wants,” I said. Even our small talk felt forced. It was going to be that way until we cleared the air. “Do you think you could turn that thing off so we could talk?”

  “Sure,” he said, flicking off the switch and bringing the roaring to a stop. “What do you want to talk about?”

  I did my best to sound loving and kind with my words. “Scott, Kate can’t keep living with us. You know that, right?”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s your . . . old wife? First wife? I don’t even know what to call her.” My heart sank. “You still think about her that way. And it’s okay. I understand why. But I can’t live in a situation where you have two wives, and that’s what it’d be like if we all lived together in the same house.”

  “It’s not about her being my wife.” He let my hand go, his pleasant demeanor gone that quickly. “You always want to make it about her being my wife.”

  “You’re the one who called her that, not me,” I snapped. There wasn’t any way to have this conversation without bringing up the night he called her his wife.

  He started walking across the lawn, heading toward the sidewalk. “You’re something, you know that?” he said.

  I forced myself to calm down as I tried to keep up with him. One of us had to stay rational. “What’s it about, then?”

  “We’re the only family she has. She’s got nobody, Meredith.”

  I hated to be the one to come out and say it, but it was time—it had to be said. “Scott, she left you guys. No matter what the reason or how it’s framed, she left you and Abbi. Take a minute and remember everything she put you through for all those years. I remember what it was like for you back then. And now she expects you to help put her life back together again because she’s in trouble? That doesn’t seem selfish to you at all? Not even a little?”

  He stopped dead in his tracks. “I had no idea you could be this jealous.”

  I whirled around to face him. “I’m not jealous. All I’m doing is saying out loud what everyone else is afraid to tell you. Somebody has to. Thad and Caleb think it’s horribly selfish too.”

  He snorted in disgust. “I’m sure they do. Your boys would say she had a horn growing out of her forehead if you told them too.”

  “Now you’re just being a jerk,” I said. “And for no reason. All I’m trying to do is have a conversation with you.”

  “Oh, is that what we’re doing?” He smirked at me. “Well, then, in my case, this conversation is over.” He turned around and headed back in the direction of the house. I didn’t bother to catch up with him this time.

  KATE

  THEN

  “Abner, no, please, you can’t be serious. You can’t.” I fell on my knees at his feet, my face drenched in tears. Our marriage ceremony was complete. He’d draped Margo’s head and mine with a dirty white veil and spoken scripture over us before slipping into his new prayer language. It was a secret language between him and God. The wedding wasn’t bringing me to tears. It was what he’d told us after that shook me to my core—our babies would stay with us until they were weaned, at which point Abner planned to take them on a soul journey with him, where they would be surrounded by nothing but the light and administered to by the Lord. He wouldn’t say how long he would have them or where he was going. He wouldn’t even say when. Only that it was happening.

  He nestled Shiloh against his chest, trying to comfort her, but she wailed like she did each time he held her. “We voted on it last night, and it was a unanimous decision by the family.”

  I couldn’t remember the last time we’d voted on anything. Those days were long gone. I turned to Margo. She whimpered in the corner, her baby boy cuddled underneath her chest. Zed. Born four days after Shiloh.

  “Why?” I’d give anything, do anything, to prove I was worthy of his covenant. But not my baby. I wouldn’t give him my baby. Anything but that.

  “We can’t question his plans. You know that, dear.” Shiloh’s face was furiously red while she screamed in his arms.

  My milk spilled out of me at the sound of her, drenching the front of my dress in no time. “Please give her back to me. Let me hold my baby,” I begged him, beyond caring how desperate I sounded.

  “She’s not your baby. This is the Lord’s baby.” He stared at me pointedly.

  I reached my hands out. “Please, she’s hungry. I need to feed her.”

  He handed her back to me, and I couldn’t help but weep. What would I have done if he hadn’t given her back? I pulled her to my breast immediately. Three weeks old today, but it was like life never existed before her. I couldn’t imagine a life without her in it.

  Margo’s eyes searched mine, her mind still twisted from her difficult labor. Hers hadn’t gone well. Her pale face let me know she was still losing lots of blood. This would throw her off even more. She was too weak to handle this. I couldn’t lose her. Not again.

  “We knew God was going to require a sacrifice in order for my brides to wed me. Both of you were prepared.” His words dropped like lead in our tent.

  “Abner, please no.” Margo begged from her spot in the corner. She was too exhausted to move.

  “It is not up to me. You know that.” He eyed both of us before exiting the tent.

  “Please, we have to think of something. We have to,” Margo cried as soon as we knew he was out of earshot.

  “There’s nothing we can do. You know that.”

  Shiloh startled on my chest, and I moved her to the other breast. The contact grounded me. She was my light, my love.

  Margo frantically shook her head, her face wet with tears and contorted in pain. “What if we left?”

  The world rolled underneath me.

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  ABBI

  NOW

  I trailed after Mom into one of the apartments on her list. Dean had helped her apply for something called a Sacred
Heart grant, which paid the first month’s deposit and rent for homeless people. It was weird hearing her referred to as a homeless person, but I guess it was true. I’d researched the organization, and it was a tough grant to get. Dean was probably going to have to pull some strings for her. Ever since she had announced that she was moving out, she’d spent almost all her time searching for apartments, and she’d made an appointment as soon as she’d gotten the list from him, like she couldn’t get out of our house fast enough.

  The apartment door opened into the living room. There was an area to the right of the living room that was supposed to be a bedroom, but it looked more like a large walk-in closet, and there was barely enough space for a bed. The living room was split into a small galley kitchen that led to the bathroom. There was only a shower—no tub.

  “What do you think?” Mom asked.

  “It’s definitely got potential,” I said, not wanting to hurt her feelings.

  It was small—so much smaller than I’d expected. Most hotel rooms were bigger.

  She pointed to the bedroom. “The bedroom is all yours. Every teenage girl needs their privacy.” There wasn’t even a door on the bedroom. We would have to hang a curtain or something. I had to remember to look on Pinterest for ideas.

  Mom reached over and pulled me close to her, squeezing me tightly. “I’m so glad you’re coming with me.”

  “Me too,” I said, even though I had no idea how that was going to work. I hadn’t talked to Dad about it since she’d brought it up, and they’d told me no. I had been thinking about bringing it up last night, but he and Meredith had gotten into a huge fight outside yesterday, and there had been no way I was going to do it when he was in a bad mood.

  He didn’t know we were here. I’d told him Mom and I were going to stop at the grocery store on our way back from her appointment with Camille. I hated lying to him, but I didn’t want to risk him not letting me go. Still, it didn’t feel right. Maybe they’d see Mom was responsible if she got this apartment and set everything up herself. It might help them change their minds about her being able to take care of me. That’s what I kept telling myself to justify lying to Dad, anyway.