Page 86 of Time Out

“What?”

I sat fully up in bed and tugged the sheets at my hips further up. “What are you talking about?”

“Daddy’s mad, Magdalene. So mad, and I keep hearing him and Uncle say your name and how could you do this to us. What are you doing?”

“I don’t… I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

“Singing?” she hissed. “In a bar? And that boy Daddy said you saw at the game? What is going on?”

My heart dropped to my stomach, which rolled. I didn’t have nearly enough food in me, nearly enough preparation for any of this.

“Ruth, calm down. Just a second, okay? Take a breath and talk to me.”

“You’re in trouble. Daddy said they never should have let you leave, and you’re embarrassing everyone all over again and he’s going to come get you. He’s going to make you come back, and he said once you’re back here, you’re going to be punished worse than anything he’s ever done before, and you can’t, Magdalene. You can’t come back here because I don’t know what they’re going to do to you, but you won’t like it.”

“Shhh….”

My sister was on the edge of a panic attack, and it was so very unlike her. The last time we spoke, she’d told me she hated me. Because of me, none of the girls would ever be able to leave. It’d left me feeling like she wished she could and despised me for taking away her chance, but since then, we’d rarely spoken. But she was almost eighteen. Old enough to make her own choices, and she was the last person I assumed would ever be willing me to stay away.

I ignored the part of my dad punishing me. There was the paddle and his hand and the willow branch and the thin reed he’d used on us, usually girls, more than once in my lifetime. Rarely the boys, though, because every time they did something wrong, they were exploring being leaders and would learn through mistakes. We were breaking our submission and being willfully defiant.

My jaw gritted together as I thought of that last time. When I’d told my father I wouldn’t be courted by Peter unless he let me go to college. He’d allowed it at the time because I put my foot down in public, but that night, well… I’d had to stand for a week until the bloody lashes on my backside healed. No one was allowed to help. No one was allowed to see, but that first night, it was Ruth who’d crawled into my bed and asked me why, if Daddy loved God so much, why was he so horrible.

A shadow grabbed my attention right before Davis appeared in the doorway. He was smiling, but whatever he saw on my face erased the smile completely.

“I’m putting you on speakerphone, okay, Ruth? And then I need you to take a deep breath, slow down, and tell me what’s happened.”

“Okay. Okay… give me a sec.” She sniffed, and her breathing trembled through the phone.

I waved Davis toward me, and he hurried before climbing into the bed and sitting next to me.

After changing the phone to speaker, I clasped it in my palm between us.

“Okay, Ruth? You’re okay? Where are you?”

“I’m in the shed. Supposed to be doing chores, but I saw Zachariah’s phone—”

“Okay. What’s he doing?”

“He’s in the office at the church with Daddy. I don’t think he knows he forgot his phone.”

The church was a half mile from the shed, across the field. She’d see them coming. We had some time.

“Okay. It’s okay. Now, tell me what you know, okay? And then I’ll answer any questions you have.”

“Alright.” Another trembling breath came through the phone. “Uncle Brandon came over this morning. I was doing the morning chores, you know, helping Joy and Leah with their hair and getting dressed. He stomped right in, didn’t even knock or anything and he shook something at Dad’s face and said ‘have you seen what your whore daughter is doing?’”

Next to me, Davis straightened, spine as rigid as steel. I shook my head, pressed a finger over his lips to get him to stay silent. If she knew he was here, she’d stop talking.

“What was it?”

“I heard something about the devil and the bar and you singing and…”

I glanced at Davis. Damn. Things moved so fast I hadn’t even considered. “If it was last night, I was singing karaoke, Ruth. Just some songs on stage. They weren’t church songs or anything, but they weren’t bad.”

“Well, Uncle’s pretty mad about it because apparently a whole bunch of people put you up on YouTube or something, and it’s all over the internet and there’s a lot of comments and questions asking if it’s you.”

Crap. I bit back the cuss word that wanted to fall. Ruth would hate it and I didn’t need another sin on top of the singing until I knew where she stood. Was she helping me? Or threatening?

---