Sybil startled, that Patience must have been only twenty-eight or twenty-nine years old now. On her fifth child. At twenty-nine, Sybil’s twins were two, and she, despite being wholly consumed with how much she loved them, spent her days wishing she could unwind time to before she got pregnant.
“But Betty said that changed once she got married, once she was, er, baptized?”
“I guess, though she couldn’t have a formal role in the church because, I mean, if you’ve ever wanted to see the patriarchy at its finest, just join a doomsday cult where they are perfectly happy just riding this life to get to the next one.”
“So theoretically, her dad wouldn’t have minded…dying?”
Caleb laughed. “Oh no, I’m sure he would have. It’s hard to explain just how much bullshit is spouted from the heads. I think it’s more that they have no problem asking everyone else for sacrifice.”
“And Betty shared all of this with you? I guess I’m trying to figure out why she told you some real things and kept other things to herself.”
“No, not all of this. Some of this, I’m putting together right now, in real time. But she did tell me that she lost a sister to the church. I just didn’t realize…it was this sort of church, her dad’s church. Like, she told me that once Patience was married,she sort of spied on her? Betty told me about how she once checked outAre You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.at the school library—”
“Oh no,” Sybil said. She reached for her tea, which was now a reasonable temperature.
“Oh yes. Patience had moved out of the house, so I don’t know, maybe Betty was thirteen, fourteen? Levi was definitely still there because Betty told me that afterward he went to Patience and called her a ‘piece of shit for ratting out her own sister.’ It’s not much of a surprise that he didn’t last much longer at home.”
“I think I’m rooting for Levi in this story.”
“Not all heroes wear capes,” Caleb concurred. He checked the time on his phone.
“I don’t mean to keep you,” Sybil said, even though she did.
“This is more important,” he replied, and Sybil knew, inherently, that he wanted only good things for Betty, that there wasn’t any chance he was part of the reason that she ran. She wanted to extend her hand across the table and grasp his, thank him for caring about her when it seemed like too many had not.
“You don’t seem angry at her, about how she lied or maybe omitted the truth,” she said. “That’s very generous of you.”
“No, not really.” He shrugged. “Like I said, if you consider the stuff with Patience, and uh, yeah, her dad, it’s no wonder she doesn’t trust anyone, not completely. It actually makes perfect sense to me.”
“It’s nice that she shared as much as she did,” Sybil said. What she really meant was that she was a little bruised that Betty never shared any of this with her. But what would she have understood? None of it. And here Sybil had spent her adult years thinking she was always the smartest in the room. Maybe smart and knowing were two very different things.
“Well, think about that—her older sister, best friend. Andonce Patience got, I mean, I guess you could call itpower…oh wait, Betty called it ‘corrupt influence,’ that’s how she phrased it, because I remember it still reminded me of something I would hear at my own church growing up. But so once she got that, she became unrecognizable.”
“I—” Sybil thought about how quickly Patience’s posture shifted when Matthew emerged from the house; how her crestfallen demeanor hardened into something steely, something cold.
“So yeah,” Caleb talked over her. “I don’t blame her for keeping her cards close to her vest. And I check my phone about a hundred times a day to see if she’s reached out.”
“She hasn’t, right?”
“No,” he said, and fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve.
“And you would tell me?” Sybil set down her tea and stared at him.
“Ma’am, I know you might not believe me, but you sort of scare me. You and Zeke Rodriguez? I’m onthatteam.” He smiled, and she believed him.
“Okay,” she said. “And you’ll call me if you hear anything?”
“Absolutely.” He paused. “But also, I sort of hope that we don’t.”
“What?”
“If you think about what would have happened, how bad things would have been for her once she was eighteen, married, submissive, all that crazy shit…I mean, it makes you wonder how far someone would go to escape when their life is on the line. And if she’s still in the thick of it, I hope she keeps going until she’s ended it.”
50
Night Twenty
Zeke
