Page 19 of Only Girl Alive

She had already discovered that giving an inch with her stepbrother got her nowhere.

She planted her hands on his desk and leaned forward, an image of little Charlie alive in her mind.

“Tell me about the babies or I will make your life a living hell and the media will get all the gory details even if I’m fired,” she ground out. She then sat with clenched teeth while he gave a very short explanation.

“Some babies die young. It’s the way of God.”

“How many babies die young?” she asked, her fury growing.

“I don’t understand why you won’t let this go.” His face was red and his clasped hands so tight, the fingers were blue.

“You had a brother,” she told him. “He was my brother too. Aunt Bertha took him away. Where did he go?” she demanded. Even though she knew little Charlie was most likely dead, deep in her heart she hoped he had been given to another family to raise. Aaron was making her face that lie head-on and she hated him for it.

“God takes the children with the purest blood,” he said without blinking.

“What does that even mean?” She was close to losing her temper entirely.

“God decides who we marry. Cousins, nieces, or sisters; it is not up to us. The pure bloodline is wanted by the Lord and sometimes he takes them early.”

Eve leaned back against the chair, trying to absorb what he’d just said. In the back of her mind, she’d always known this horror. She knew Charlie had a genetic disorder. She’d thought him an anomaly. Babies were born throughout the world with cleft palates like Becky’s. Why hadn’t she considered the inbreeding she herself witnessed when her father’s brother married one of her sisters?

Trying to sort the horrible questions running through her mind, she asked the one she had to know: “Where. Is. Babyland?”

Aaron was furious now too, or maybe embarrassed. She wondered how many of his wives he was closely related to. He’d insisted Eve belonged to him when they were children and he would marry her when she came of age. She saw him as a brother and his sick thinking had disturbed her even when she lived with him. He wouldn’t have cared if they had blood ties. None of the men did. They took what they wanted and women were property.

“There is nothing you can do,” Aaron said stubbornly. “Uncle Todd died years ago. Aunt Bertha is an old woman and a judge already decided not to prosecute.”

“Not prosecute what?” she yelled, coming out of her chair.

“The death of the chosen children.” He didn’t look at her when he said it.

Chosen.

Murdered.

All in the name of God.

Her memories of little Charlie swelled inside her head, his loss, and years of not knowing what happened to him, making her hands tremble.

“Tell me where they are buried.”

He finally gave her directions and she left the office before he saw her tears.

Her team finished their case and they returned home. Eve was eventually able to put a name to Charlie’s condition: Fumarase deficiency. Large head, high, pronounced forehead, wide-set eyes. These babies averaged an IQ of 25 with lifelong difficulties. He was the sweetest, most loveable child and the polygamist church built him with their years of cousin-to-cousin and niece-to-uncle marriages.

How dare Aaron? How dare the men behind this evil?

Eve finally came across a blog post that mentioned Babyland. The babies with the worst defects were taken by Aunt Bertha and Uncle Todd, who ran the cemetery. Those children were laid to rest in unmarked graves at the back. The prophet himself, fully aware of what happened to these children, called it Babyland.

She took the information to the state prosecutor and then the judge. She got nowhere. The deaths were a thing of the past and Eve’s job was to oversee law enforcement in the here and now.

Alone, Eve had made a special trip to the graveyard. In the middle of nowhere, with nothing to identify the barren landscape, Eve found the children. She’d walked from her car to the rickety wooden fence and pushed through the broken gate.

Rows of marked baby graves dating back more than fifty years had family names. Their birth and death documented on the stone. All under twelve months old. These were the children recorded under state law. Some of the graves were well maintained and had plastic flowers showing care and marking the tragic loss.

The farther she walked, the less well-kept the area was, with weeds scattering much of it. A long stretch of graves at the back of the site were unmarked. Plot after plot of Charlies and Beckys. Eve went to her knees at the last two. They weren’t her sister and brother but in her mind they were. With handfuls of soil she collected from the two graves, she sobbed until she had no more tears. Brushing the dirt from her knees and off her hands when she stood, Eve felt the heavy weight of despair.

Aaron had shown no compassion for his biological siblings. What happened to them was proclaimed by God and even though the babies were without sin, God’s judgment was harsh.

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