Faking Faith (10 page)

“Probably,” I said, my thoughts spinning.

As much as I didn’t want to admit it, Asher was becoming more fascinating by the moment.

. . .

Later that evening, I went up to Abigail’s room and dug my cell phone out of my suitcase to call my mom. She probably didn’t even remember that I told her I’d call to check in, but I didn’t want her to try and get ahold of me and freak out because my phone was off.

“So, how is it?” she asked briskly. I could tell from the city sounds in the background that she was walking from her office to the train.

“It’s fine,” I said. “Lots of interesting people.”

“It’s just girls there, right? And they’re keeping an eye on you all?”

“Yes, Mom,” I said, half rolling my eyes. I almost wished I could tell her where I really was, but only if I could witness the look on her face.

“Well, good,” she said. An ambulance went by her, wherever she was, and the siren was all I could hear for a few seconds.

“Anything else?” she asked. “The food is okay? You have everything you need?”

For a moment, my throat swelled and I almost burst into tears. I couldn’t believe how much I missed my mom. And my dad and my brother and our house. My family was ridiculous and weird and all of us barely knew how to communicate our way out of a paper bag, but at least they were mine.

And no one there talked about the devil being inside anyone else. And no one expected me and my mom to cook and clean just because we were the women.

“Yes,” I said, hoping she couldn’t hear my voice break. “I do.”

“Okay, Dylan,” she said. I heard the call waiting beep. “Sorry, honey, there have been some big developments with the case and I have to take this. Call if anything comes up, okay? Stay out of trouble and I’ll see you soon.”

“Sure, Mom,” I said, but she’d hung up before I could even say that I missed her.

TWELVE

M
y visit with Abigail settled into a pleasant sort of routine. Well, as pleasant as anything that involved getting up at six in the morning and wrangling a cow could be.

But it was refreshing not to be spending all my time on a computer or closed up inside. The little kids were all shockingly well behaved, but they were still a loud bunch, clattering through the house and slamming the screen doors. The windows were always open, and someone was always cooking or baking something, and there was always work to be done. Daily life was productive and busy and full of people.

I had to admit that all the Bible reading certainly got old. I could totally understand how Abigail was able to quote scripture by heart. At this point in her life, she’d probably been through the whole book twenty times.

Generally I blanked out while the reading was going on. I tried to pay attention, but there just wasn’t much of it that spoke to me.

The rest of their lifestyle was much more interesting, anyway.

The third afternoon I was there, I helped Abigail weed. We put on old-fashioned straw hats and carried little baskets out to the big garden behind the house. It was a huge plot of land, but impeccably organized. There were neat rows of tomatoes and squash and cucumbers and peppers and other plants I couldn’t identify. And bright ripples of yellow and orange marigolds surrounded the whole thing.

I think Abigail had already come to realize that I wasn’t as experienced as I’d claimed about gardening and household tasks, though she didn’t comment on it or laugh at me or ask if I’d lied. She just patiently instructed me, praising my efforts.

“My sister does a lot of the gardening, so I’m a bit worthless at all this,” I explained as I floundered with my little spade, face flushed. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re doing great!” she said, smiling.

I smiled back, wondering how one person could be so …
nice
.

We worked side by side, pulling up sprouting weeds from around the squash. And I looked down at my filthy hands, dirt caked under my fingernails, and then up at the puffy clouds breezing across the blue sky. I smiled as I realized I’d never felt so comfortable and purposeful being outdoors in my whole life.

I caught Abigail watching me.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“It’s just so beautiful out here,” I said. I wished I could tell her about the chaotic, traffic-ridden concrete suburb where I’d come from. How our yard was taken care of by a lawn service and that we’d never had a garden. How I’d never put my hands into the earth like this before, and the only vegetables I ever ate came on a salad at a restaurant or from the supermarket.

“ ‘All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made,’ ” Abigail quoted. Her face was so shining and earnest and open, for a moment I couldn’t help but be desperately jealous. I wished that I could have such certainty about the world and how it worked.

I smiled at her. “You really love this stuff, don’t you?”

“What stuff?”

“Gardening. Cooking. All these things that you … I mean, that
we
do all day.”

She brushed her hands off and sat back on her heels. “I love being useful and productive,” she told me. “And it makes life so much nicer if you take joy in your work rather than resent it. And this is what we’re here to do, you know? As women. Feed the family, tend the hearth. We’re training for the rest of our lives, doing all this.”

“Right,” I said. “But I was wondering … have you ever … oh, I don’t know.”

“What?”

I looked at her. “Sometimes I just think about maybe … wanting something more?”

She looked disturbed, squinting at me. “Want more than to fulfill my God-given role? No, of course not. Faith, there’s nothing more to want!”

“Oh,” I said, feeling embarrassed. That had been the wrong thing to say.

“Daddy preaches that’s what’s wrong with feminists. They confuse women by suggesting that there’s something more they should want. Something more than following Christ’s path. So they try and have a career, and then it’s impossible for them to juggle having a husband and babies as well, and they just end up miserable and unfulfilled in all aspects of life. God and family should always be the priority. That’s the way to true contentment.”

“Right,” I said, thinking of my mom. She didn’t seem all that miserable. In fact, she was obsessed with her job and she was apparently damn good at it.

But there
was
also the fact that I barely saw her …

“Do you … disagree?” Abigail asked, looking concerned.

“No, not at all,” I said hurriedly, and she smiled.

“Honestly, don’t you just feel sorry for all those girls out in the world?” she asked. “Can you imagine not having a strong father to lead your family and a mother who takes care of the home? To flounder and have to figure it all out for yourself? To not have a peaceful, happy place to live and grow?”

I shrugged. I guess I should feel sorry for myself. “When you put it that way, it does sound kind of awful.”

We went back to weeding and were silent for a few minutes. I tried to pretend that I really was Faith, that I really did agree that women belonged at home with a dozen babies and shouldn’t want anything more than that. That all I needed to be fulfilled in life was to become a homemaker and a mother and a support to men.

But all it did was make me feel sick to my stomach.

“And don’t you think there is something lovely about having your path laid out for you?” Abigail said, continuing as if we hadn’t paused. “We don’t need to worry about what we should do with our lives, the way that boys do, because we already know what we have to do. It’s the most spiritually fulfilling and Christ-centered role a girl could possibly have. And it was given to us!”

“Of course,” I said with a little laugh, like it was unfathomable I would ever disagree with her.

“I thank God everyday that he put me where I am and gave me the life he did,” she said, sticking her trowel hard into the dirt for emphasis. “It’s awesome.”

I glanced over at Abigail. She had a smudge of dirt across her cheek, her clothes were unstylish and dowdy, and her hair was unfashionably long. She didn’t know anything about current music or celebrities or how to apply eyeliner. She’d never kissed a boy or seen an R-rated movie. She would never get drunk at a party with her friends or dance around the living room of her own apartment.

Part of me wished nothing more than that I’d been born like her and had never known anything different.

Part of me wondered why it sounded like she was trying to convince herself that her path was so perfect.

. . .

Later that night, after we’d settled into bed, she said my name.

“Hmm?” I replied sleepily, only half-conscious.

“I was thinking about our conversation in the garden. Don’t tell anyone this, but I’ve sometimes thought … ” Abigail trailed off. And then, as if she’d found courage, she continued. “I’ve secretly always thought it would be really amazing to go out in the world and help other people.”

I opened my eyes, trying to figure out what she was saying.

“Help them how?”

“Like … poor people. I mean, Daddy and Mama give money to families in our church who need it, or we make meals for a family if the mother is sick or just had a baby. But there are so many people out there, in cities and other countries. Who, you know, need help. So many children who are unloved and defenseless. And who haven’t heard the Word of God. And who are hungry. Not just for Jesus but for actual food.”

“That’s true,” I said, surprised she’d even considered this.

She sighed. “Sometimes I wonder who is supposed to help all the souls already on this earth. If we Christians just focus on our own families and the people in our church, who is going to help everyone else? If He were here, wouldn’t Jesus be out there helping them? Don’t you think?”

I stayed silent as I thought about what to say next. As much as I wanted to burst out and tell Abigail that she could do or be anything in the world, that just wasn’t what she believed to be true. She would be insulted. And Faith would never say something like that anyway.

“I’ve sometimes wondered if there should be any callings besides becoming a wife and mother,” I said, thinking fast. “I mean, I know that’s the best role, but there are godly women who never get married. Maybe that would be possible for you? Like, as a missionary? Or … something else?”

Like a social worker or a teacher or a nurse or an international relief worker or a legal aid lawyer or one of the million other jobs that women, even devoutly religious women, were allowed to have these days!

“I’m a girl,” she said, with resignation.

I stayed silent.

“But sometimes I wish that maybe … oh, this is going to sound awful … ”

“What?”

She lowered her voice to the softest whisper. “Sometimes I wish God had more faith in me and I had been born a boy.”

“I know what you mean,” I said.

Then I lay there and thought of Asher, wondering if boys really had it much better around here.

THIRTEEN

L
ike most of the families I’d been reading about over the
past months, the Deans didn’t belong to a brick-and-mortar church.

Instead, they’d connected with other like-minded families in the area and formed their own little congregation. From what Abigail said, the families seemed to only socialize with each other. I didn’t feel like I could ask directly, but it seemed as if Mr. Dean was basically the leader and preacher of the group. It was a very small and insular and protected community, like a large extended family who all believed exactly the same thing and thought outsiders were sadly misinformed and doomed to hell.

As Abigail liked to say, they thought of themselves as in the world, but not part of it.

So the next morning was a whirlwind of activity as we prepared to host the Ladies’ Bible Study Luncheon. Eight female members of the Deans’ small church were attending, along with some of their children. The Dean house was in a giddy frenzy.

“This will be such fun!” Abigail said as she tied her apron around her waist. “I always look forward to these studies. They are so encouraging, and this is such a lovely group of ladies. You’ll adore them.”

“I’m sure I will,” I said, leaning against the counter and taking rapid sips of tea. I’d barely mastered feeling comfortable around the Dean family. The idea of a whole new crew of people scrutinizing my actions was freaking me right out.

So much could go wrong.

“And they’ll adore you, of course, our guest of honor!” said Abigail.

I smiled as I watched her teach five-year-old Martha how to neatly frost the vanilla cupcakes. Martha was kneeling on a high stool, her small face scrunched in concentration, inexpertly wielding a butter knife.

“How’s this, Abi?” she asked, holding up a surprisingly pretty cupcake.

“Excellent job, munchkin!” said Abigail, patting Martha’s blond head.

The boys had all been banished outside, where Asher was keeping them occupied in the barn for the next few hours. Mrs. Dean had packed them up a picnic lunch. I glanced out the window, half hoping to catch a glimpse of Asher, but no one was in sight.