“I’ve…” Abby glanced around and lowered her voice. “You could come with us, Mama. You and Sammy and me. I don’t want to leave you here.”
“Excuse me?” Her mother stilled, hands suspended above the flatware. “Lower your voice,” Mama whispered, the sound harsh enough to burst the ridiculous bubble of hope Abby’d managed to ride in on.
“We could—”
“You shut your mouth right this instant.”
“You don’t understand. Sammy’s going to—”
“Oh, I do understand.I do.” Mama set a fork onto the pile with a clatter and grasped Abby’s arm tightly, leading her to the back door, face stiff and red. A few women watched their progress with curious gazes. Outside, Mama turned on her. “You think you know better than Isaiah? You think you know God’s will?”
“No, Mama. I don’t. But listen to me.Please.If God didn’t want us to practice medicine, He wouldn’t have let people create it, would He? Doesn’t make any sense, does it?” Mama opened her mouth to reply, but Abby kept right on talking. No way she’d stop when there was so much to say. Mama was sure to understand once she’d explained. Mama would just come with her, and then there’d be nothing holding Abby here. Mama, Sammy, and Abby could start a new life. A family, on the outside. “Listen,” she said, forcing an eager smile. “There’re doctors and…and…surgeons and whatever helping people, right? God let that happen. And what about Hamish? You think it was God who took him? No, it was our own stupid refusal to use the tools we’ve been offered—”
“Abigail Merkley. You shut your mouth,” her mother said, the words harsher than any Abby’d heard in years—since the time she’d been caught doing dirty things with Benji. Mama’s lips were compressed, her face rigid with anger, and Abby had her first real moment of doubt. Mama reinforced the feeling when she said, “Do not spew words of the Devil in my presence.Do notspeak such untruths.”
“Mama,” Abby whispered, getting in close. “Come with us. Me, you, Sammy. We could be together. Out there. I don’t want to leave without you, but—”
“Not another word.” With a step forward, she tightened her hold on Abby’s arm, and for just a second, it seemed to be in kindness—the start of a hug or some other symbol of warmth or affection. Instead, the older woman’s hand grasped her forearm—nails sinking in—and twisted. The fragile skin beneath no longer hurt—the scars were too thick for Abby to feel pain—but even the numbness sent a message.
“Don’t thinkthis”—she squeezed hard—“makes you immune to God’s will, child. Because it doesn’t.”
Abby stared at her mother, mouth open in shock. Before she could respond, Mama dropped her arm, threw open the door, and disappeared inside. Abby found herself alone behind the Center, blinking back tears of injustice.
Strange how she’d blocked out memories, like the one that suddenly came at her as fast as a freight train—her and Benji at the emergency Church meeting after they’d been caught in the orchard on that long-ago day.
Abby’d been the one on trial, though. Never Benji.
A defiler of men, they’d called her, Benji the innocent victim.
Stood up in front of everyone she’d thought of as family, summer light blazing in through the Church window, dust motes floating around her, Abby had watched the eyes change, turn accusing. Benji had cast his gaze to the floor when he’d admitted what they’d done, his voice almost too soft to hear. In his version, she was the one doing, taking, making him do things in return.
Mama’d been there, dry-eyed, her expression full of humiliation for what Abby’d done. Hamish and Isaiah had presided over it all, hard and judgmental. But in Isaiah’s eyes, there’d been something hungry that she hadn’t understood. She’d cowered under that look, and when he’d offered her up to the man strong enough to tame her, she’d seen something off there. Like he wouldn’t have minded doing it himself if he hadn’t already been her stepfather. He’d used sibilant words likesirenandsuccubus, and by the end, even Abby was pretty sure she deserved to go straight to Hell, sinful serpent that she was.
When they’d given her the chance at absolution, she’d taken it. Never mind that it had felt more like punishment.
What a relief when Hamish had claimed her—not because he saved her from punishment, but because someone still wanted her. Someone was willing to step in and save her from herself. She’d be forgiven in the eyes of the Lord and, almost more importantly, in her Mama’s eyes, still filled with shame.
Here they were again, right back where they’d been all those years ago: Abby in the wrong for asking questions. For being different. For trying things and thinking for herself and wanting to experience things and live. Good gracious, if they knew about this knot of doubt inside her, they’d flay her alive, wouldn’t they? The scars covering her arms itched with certainty.
Well, she’d just have to make sure they never found out.
It wasn’t until she moved out of the light pouring from the back door that she saw the person lingering in the obscurity beside the building. Brigid again—her ever-present nemesis, always there in the shadows.
“Guess Isaiah’s gonna find out about this, too, huh?” Abby said in a low voice, unable to hold in her hurt for another second. “Got everything you need?”
Without another word, she turned and made her way back home, her heart as empty as her stomach as she dredged up another forgotten memory: it was Brigid who’d found her in the orchard with Benji that day and gone straight to Isaiah with the news. She could only imagine the damage the woman would do now.
9
Abby made her way back to Hamish’s cabin to gather a few things, keeping an eye out for Sammy along the way. They’d leave tonight. She’d go to Luc, who’d take them in and—
She stopped short.
On the bench by her front door sat Isaiah.
How can he possibly know already?
He stood, somehow appearing both stern and tranquil. It was part of his gift—communicating a multitude of ideas without words.
