Then it was silent again.
Minnie giggled at something Stafford said. Caitlyn handed Anne a clipping of a bean plant to put in the ground. Bobbie quietly dug holes for new seed.
Everything went on as it had been before.
Only a small hiccup in our otherwise passive existence.
We stopped after a few minutes to pray over the crops we had tended. We thanked God for his plenty. We pledged our eternal commitment.
And then we were quiet again. No sound.
It reverberated louder than any noise. It filled up the empty space and expanded everywhere.
My mind was perfectly blank. I had trained myself to focus only on this. On the prayer.
Words echoed through my brain. Phrases and sentences I only expected God to hear. I knew he was listening. I knew what he wanted from me.
My devotion was total and complete.
My life belonged to the fate I had been handed. It had been decided the day I stepped foot inside the gates. My mother’s too.
All of us knew what was expected of us.
Yet, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking of Gabby again. And to a time I hadn’t accepted anything I had been told.
The idea that we were hurtling forward, toward an exact point of inevitability.
I felt the remnants of that long ago rage.
Stop it. God listens…
Then I heard Pastor Carter sing in my ear.
“Keep your heart open and your soul clean…”
It enveloped me in warmth.
The rage dissipated. Shoved back down where it belonged. Into the forgotten place in the pit of my stomach.
I couldn’t imagine a life any different than this one. My focus had been honed so that this was all I saw. And it brought me bliss.
That was what I felt, right?
Sometimes it twisted my insides. Sometimes it was a sharp pain in my heart. Pastor Carter said happiness felt that way sometimes.
I wouldn’t dare give voice to the question that sometimes pricked my brain.
Should happiness hurt?
As soon as I thought it, I pushed it away as my mom had explained I needed to do. In the early days with The Gathering, she had been rigid and harsh. She had no time for my tears. Or my doubts.
Before and after my time in The Refuge, her devotion was absolute. Mine was meant to be equally unwavering.
She pinched the soft flesh on the underside of my arm. She leaned down and hissed in my ear. Angry words but the right words.
“Feel that pain? That’s what sin feels like. And every time you cry to leave, every time you complain about the scriptures we read, that’s sin. Defying your mother is wrong. Refusing to embrace this life is wrong.” She pinched harder and I gasped. I couldn’t help it.
“What do you need to do when you feel like that?” she asked me. Her voice as painful as her nails in my skin.
