Sara watched the dust swirl in a wedge of morning sunlight. She wanted to be one of those dust particles, floating randomly in a life that was simple and without pain.
Rachel stirred and threw an arm over her head. Her sister’s beauty never failed to startle Sara. With her eyes closed and thick, tangled lashes feathering her cheeks, her delicate features made Sara’s heart swell with protectiveness. “It’s going to be okay,” she said aloud.
Rachel sighed and rolled away from her. Sara longed to hurl herself down the stairs and run far away. But she would never leave Rachel. For a split second, she wished that she didn’t have a sister. Then she wouldn’t feel so much of everything: worry, love and most especially, fear.
Deciding not to wake her, Sara rolled out of bed and pulled on the thickest, ugliest dress she could find. Anxiety tweaked her nerves, strumming the promise of pending disaster as she entered the kitchen. Her mother stirred an enormous pot of oatmeal. Alice played under the kitchen table with the lids. Adam and Aaron slithered beneath the chairs hissing at one another. They were having too much fun for Father to be around. Sara let out a deep breath.
“Good morning, Sara.” Her mother’s face was bright and inviting.
She felt a surge of something resembling love, or maybe she was just content to get a kind word from her mother. She dropped to her knees and scooped Alice up, planting a kiss on the toddler’s soft cheek.
“Morning. Can I help with anything?” Sara said.
Alice wrapped chubby baby arms around her neck and bounced up and down, gurgling with delight. Sara peppered the soft folds of her neck with kisses.
“I don’t think Mother Esther’s feeling well.” Anna’s tone was jubilant. “Your father was in here asking about her, but he stepped outside before I had a chance to answer. You probably ought to go check on her.”
“Okay.” Sara’s joy flapped away on borrowed wings at the mention of her father lurking nearby. Sara detached Alice from her body, redirecting the baby’s attention to the pots and pans. “Where is she?”
“In the basement.”
Sara opened the door leading off the kitchen and headed downstairs. The basement was a hatchery of laundry lines. Clothes, in various stages of drying, were randomly clipped across them. Esther stood trembling with arms full of dripping-wet laundry. Greenish froth puddled at her feet. Her teeth rattled, and her eyes squinted as though she had been peeling an onion.
“Are you okay?” Sara rushed the rest of the way down the stairs. Behind her, the heavy tread of her father’s feet resounded followed by Mother Marylee’s slower plodding. Sara snatched the clothes from Esther’s arms. Another spasm of nausea ripped across her features. Sara jumped back as an arc of bile escaped her lips. Her own stomach heaved.
“Not again?” Her father’s voice wasn’t an accusation, more a statement of fact.
Mother Esther started to reply, “I’m . . .” A trail of saliva dribbled from her lips. Her shoulders racked and she vomited again.
Sara’s own mouth pooled with warm water.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s your first baby. It happens. Here, come sit.” Father led her to a threadbare sofa with mashed pillows. Esther collapsed onto the sofa. A plume of dusty sand shivered upward, causing another spasm of gagging. Father fanned the air in a futile gesture. Sara hoped that he felt like an idiot for sitting her on the “dirty clothes couch.”
“Marylee, give the laundry duties to someone else,” he said when the dust settled. “I don’t want her straining herself like this no more.”
Mother Marylee peeled a shirt from the pile that Sara clutched. She unfurled it with an angry snap before piercing it to the line with a clothespin. “Unless the girls stay home from school, I don’t see how any one of us can handle more chores since Sister Esther’s pregnancy.”
“Do what you gotta do. She’s having a hard time carrying this baby.”
“We’ve all been pregnant, and not one of us had trouble.”
“Well, she’s starting a lot later than you girls. I think the younger ones handle it better.” His other wives were all pregnant by seventeen, whereas Mother Esther was giving birth for the first time at nearly twenty-five. “Look, I don’t care what you gotta do. Take the girls out of school. Just get these chores done.”
“No. Don’t make the girls stay home.” Mother Esther’s voice was raspy. “I can handle it.” She started to lift herself from the couch. Father pushed her back down in a gentle but firm gesture.
“You’re not doin’ this laundry no more. That’s final.”
“But the girls need to go to school.”
“They’re going to quit school anyways. Once they get sealed.”
“They need to go to school as long as they can. I’ll do the laundry.”
Sara held her breath. The Blood of the Lamb Academy, in and of itself, was one kind of torture, but being housebound with nothing but endless chores and no interaction outside of a houseful of bickering women was a death sentence. At least at “BLA,” as Luke referred to the school, the three of them got to talk.
“I’m telling you, no more laundry.” His voice had that “no argument” quality to it.
Marylee took another shirt from Sara’s arms. With an aggressive tug, she turned and clipped it to the line.
“I suppose Mother Jane can pick up this chore,” Mother Marylee said. “Her workload is less since all she does is look after them babies.”
“There. It’s settled,” Father said. “The girls can stay in school.” He pivoted on his heel and helped Mother Esther off the couch. “Let’s get you into bed.” Esther leaned on Abraham, and he half-carried her up the stairs.
“I can’t believe the way he coddles that girl.” Mother Marylee’s angry words matched the action of her wrists as she peeled more clothing off Sara’s arms. “I recall your mother being sick a time or two. Did he lighten her workload? No.” Snap. “Why’s he letting you girls stay in school?” Snap. “A girl don’t need more than a sixth-grade education to raise up children right in the Principle.”
Sara swallowed the knot in her throat. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Outsider. She’s not going to last in this family. Mark my words, Sara. Mark my words.”
SARA wasn’t used to the grocery store’s shiny floor filled with feet all clattering different rhythms across it, or the black skid marks of shopping carts that peeled across its surface, or even the disembodied chatter that floated between the aisles. She was used to the somber tones of the Blood of the Lamb Outpost with its muted colors, homegrown vegetables and paltry selection of canned goods. When Mother Jane had summoned her, Sara shifted impatiently from foot to foot as Jane, with tongue secured in the corner of her mouth, began chicken-scratching a shopping list. It was slow and tedious. Her poor spelling and blocky, childish letters were almost too painful for Sara to witness. But she wouldn’t dare point out to Jane that she could remember the items. Her freedom was a fragile gift, not to be rushed or taken advantage of.
She practically ran the entire mile and a half to the Gentile-run grocery store before deciding to pace herself as she approached the town of Centennial. It was more satisfying to savor the freedom.
When Mother Jane assumed the laundry duties, she complained for three days solid. Then she attempted to convince Father Abraham to remove one or both of the girls from school. With an eye on Esther, he refused.
“It’s the straw breaking my back, Abraham,” Mother Jane complained. The laundry loads were enormous, but the diapers, they were the thorn in her craw. She needed some type of relief.
Surprisingly, he suggested using disposables for a while. Since the Blood of the Lamb Outpost did not carry disposable diapers, Sara could go purchase them as needed with the welfare money.
As Sara steered the cart toward aisle #12, marked BABY ITEMS, her eyes immediately landed on the books. She hadn’t seen books, other than religious ones, since the start of the summer. Delicious words flowed in front of her eyes. She wanted to devour them, wrap her arms around the entire selection and get lost. If only the town had a library. If only she was still a student at the real high school. She picked up a book and turned it over in her hands.
What if she “borrowed” it?
She could return her borrowed book on the next diaper excursion. Was that a sin? Maybe Jesus would understand. He was a scholar himself. Sara recalled the story about His three-day disappearance to the temple where He bandied scripture with the most educated of men. His mother was frantic with worry, but the Savior was lost to intellectual discussion. If Christ could make such a mistake, surely He would understand her thirst for literature.
Besides, she would only be borrowing.
Her eyes glazed with fear at the prospect of taking it. The titles swam together like alphabet soup. Without looking down, Sara snapped open Mother Jane’s purse and propped it on its side in the cart. Her heartbeat clanged like cymbals, tears streaming down her face.
Borrowing wasn’t a sin. Jesus would have done the same thing. Yes, the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that Jesus would borrow books too. Absolutely.
The thick, compact book slid effortlessly into the purse. Sara snapped it closed and continued toward the baby aisle. Her hands shook. Wobbly legs somehow propelled her to the diapers. She should know how to breathe, having mastered it years ago. Yet her lungs rebelled. Blackness threatened. Oh Lord, help me. They would find her passed out with a stolen book in her purse.
With a sharp intake, she sucked air. Immediately, the darkness scattered. Breath shot through her nose easily. After several deep ones, her legs steadied and vision cleared. She stood there savoring these breaths, trying to focus on her task. Find the cheapest, largest bag of diapers and purchase them. She did that and proceeded to the checkout counter.
Several ladies scanned items. No one paid any attention to her. She chose the checker who looked bored and inattentive. The girl was of high school age with hair that matched the color of a stop sign. She pushed the cart to the checkout before realizing she hadn’t removed the wallet. Another woman pulled behind her, blocking her exit.
There was no way to reverse course now. Sara took a deep breath hoping to steady her frayed nerves. She reached inside the purse for the wallet. The book seemed larger than life. It was everywhere her fingers explored. Finally, she touched the vinyl wallet and managed to inchworm it up the side of the purse. Sara glanced up. The checker was studying her fingernails. They were long and pink with little silver glitter balls glued on them.
She removed the wallet. “Nice nails.”
The checker smiled, revealing slightly bucked teeth. “Thanks. I did them myself. I’m thinking about going to school to get a license. May as well get paid for it.”
“Great idea. Where would you go?” Sara couldn’t believe she was conversing while a stolen book blazed like firecrackers in Mother Jane’s purse. The girl launched into a tale about nail schools, and Sara somehow managed to make all the appropriate responses, smile at her most graciously and leave the store without bells and whistles revealing her crime.
The exhilaration was beyond belief. The fact that she hadn’t been caught confirmed that she was carrying on in the tradition of Christ. He inspired her to get creative with her intellectual needs. He went to the temple, and she went to the IGA. And now she was in temporary possession of a real book.
Sara rushed past an island of concrete where low, plain-looking clapboard stores were anchored. The smokestack from the only industry in town comprised the skyline. The Blood of the Lamb community owned it. The factory chugged clouds of cottony white into the empty blue sky. Her father would be toiling away on an assembly line somewhere in that building.
Silver Enterprises produced highly specialized bolts that were used by their “archenemy,” the federal government, in production for military aircraft. The fact that the company’s biggest customer was the U.S. government struck her as ironic. The community leaders never tried to hide this irony either. They encouraged everyone in the community to “bleed the Beast.” The benefits collected from welfare, Medicaid or food stamps were all part of the Saint’s plan to bleed the Beast.
Without the federal government’s dollars flowing into Silver Enterprises, the company wouldn’t be able to pay its employees in “Blood of the Lamb Bucks.” Families used these bucks to pay rent on their homes, which were built on Blood of the Lamb properties. They purchased food at the Blood of the Lamb Outpost and pumped gas at the Blood of the Lamb gas station. Their community claimed to be the most pure adherents of the United Order: saints must care for one another and share everything.
Sara tried not to dwell on the inequities. Like how some of the families received more of everything: bigger homes, bigger cars and expensive trips. Some even went on trips to Mormon holy sites. One of her classmates, Jessica Quille, had visited Hill Cumorah in New York, where Joseph Smith received the gold plates. Her father was an apostle.
She pushed those thoughts away as she approached their driveway. What should she do with the book? She paused at the clump of pines that marked their road, knelt down and tucked the tome at the base of the thickest tree, arranging dried pine needles across it. She stepped back. It was completely invisible to the naked eye. The book would be safe until she could return for it later in the night. Her step was a little lighter as she hurried to the house, slinging the bag of diapers. Tonight, she would read.