Could love make that kind of misery bearable? The only thing I knew about love was that Mellie read about it in her taboo booksalong with a host of other improbable fantasies.
Joining the Church to become a teacher was the only way I could think of to stay near my sister yet have a life and a career of my own. Well, a career, anyway.
I want to pledge, Anabelle, I insisted, speaking over the voice inside me that argued otherwise.
She studied me for a second, and she must have bought my sincerity, because then she smiled and squeezed my arm. Great! Its good work, Nina. And I know you love the kids.
Yeah, I
Miss Kane, please step back into line, Sister Cathy said, and the rest of my sentence died on my tongue at the mention of my last name. I thought she was talking to me, until I looked up to see my sister standing alone in the middle of the hall instead of against the wall in line with the other girls.
Melanie stared at the floor, her arms stiff at her sides, and though I couldnt see her face, I recognized her posture. She was trapped between an idea and its execution, like when she was little and she realized she could sneak an extra cookie from the package but knew she shouldnt. Any second, she would either step back into line or she wouldnt. She hadnt yet decided.
Melanie Kane, get back in line. Now. Sister Cathys voice was sharper this time, and suddenly everyone was watching. Mellie looked at her. Then she looked at the line of her classmates. Then she looked at the door leading into the courtyard, where rain still poured in thick gray sheets.
My heart hammered in my chest, and I felt like I was on that precipice of disobedience with her.
Get back in line, Mellie.
Running wouldnt get her out of the physical, and it would get her into serious trouble. The kind of trouble that would require a conference with our mother. Which would quickly land us in Church custody.
Melanies right hand twitched, and I knew what shed decided a fraction of a second before she lurched for the double glass doors and threw her full weight at them. The doors flew open, and she disappeared into the rain.
There was a collective gasp from the sophomore class and a startled yelp from Sister Cathy as a gust of wind and rain pelted her navy-embroidered pale blue cassock in the two seconds it took the doors to fall shut in my sisters wake. Then there was silence, except for a clap of thunder and the steady, loud patter of rain on the roof.
Find her! Sister Cathy shouted, soaked and obviously furious, and two of the sophomore class teachers sprinted for the exit, their cornflower cassocks flapping behind them.
I started to follow, blood racing through my veins, spurring me into action, but Sister Anabelle grabbed my arm and hauled me into the restroom alcove again.
Shes just scared, I said.
I know, Anabelle whispered. It would be better if you find her and get her to come back voluntarily. Ready to atone. Disobeying a Church official is a sin, Nina.
I know. Melanie was drawn to trouble like a cat to raw meatshe thrived on itand Id always known that eventually shed make a mistake I couldnt fix. Id just hoped eventually would come a little later in life. And that it wouldnt involve my sister disobeying a Church official in front of dozens of witnesses, then fleeing the scene.
What the hell was she thinking?
Is there somewhere she goes when shes upset? Anabelle asked.
Not lately. But when we were little I glanced over my shoulder at the sophomores still filing into the gym four at a time. Ill find her. Can you cover for me?
Of course. Go on.
I made myself walk away from the gym, then into the courtyard through a different door, when I really wanted to run. The rain had slowed a little, but the day looked gray, viewed through the steady drizzle, and my hair was drenched again by the time I got to the dais. The only sounds were the constant loud patter of raindrops, the occasional roll of thunder, and the quick tap of my school shoes on the sidewalk.
Matthew Mercer looked up from the dais when he heard me coming, and one glance at his rain-soaked misery urged me to move faster.
If theyd force a five-year-old to kneel all day in the rain for blasphemy, what would they do to a disobedient fifteen-year-old fugitive? I couldnt remember anyone else defying the Church so openly, except for Clare Parker.
My stomach clenched around my breakfast at the memory.
One day, the year I was nine, Clare had refused to kneel for worship. They gave her three chances. When she still refused, Brother Phillip said refusing to recognize the Churchs authority was the first sign of possession. He called in an exorcist, and two hours later, Clare was sentenced. The exorcist said that since her possession was recent, her soul could be returned to the well of soulsif it were purified by fire.
They forced her to her knees on the dais, closed the steel cuffs above her calves, then burned her alive in front of the entire school.
She was seventeen years old.
What if they thought Melanie was possessed?
Terror pumped fire through my veins and pushed my feet faster. At the rear entrance to the administration building, I turned to make sure no one was watching, then slipped inside. My shoes squeaked on the tile and left wet footprints, but there was nothing I could do about that.
Careful not to slip, I snuck through the back hall, then ducked into the laundry room. When Mellie was little, she loved to hide in the bundles of freshly laundered sheets before they were folded and distributed in the childrens home attached to our school. The laundry was the only place I could think of to look for Mellie on campus, and at first I didnt see her.
Id almost decided to climb over the fence and go look for her at home, when the pile of clean white sheets in a huge wheeled cart moved.
Melanie? Its me. Come on out.
But she didnt move or make a sound, so I had to pull the sheets off her one by one and pile them on a table until I found my sister curled up in a ball at the bottom of the cart. Her hair was soaked, her braid destroyed. Her face was red and swollen from crying, and the terror in her eyes made her look about ten years old.
Mellie, you have to go back. Itll be okay if you apologize and take your punishment.
Fasting? A week of silence? Public lashing? Any of those would be better than suspicion of possession.
Its not going to be okay. Melanie sat up, sniffling, and wiped her nose with the back of one hand.
Not if you dont get up, it wont. Hurry, before they decide youre possessed. Any reasonable person could see that she was just scared and upset. But the Church saw what it wanted to see, and it wouldnt want to see a fifteen-year-old it simply couldnt control.
Melanie shook her head slowly, and two fat tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared up at me. Im not possessed, Nina, she said, her voice raw and hoarse. Im pregnant.
FOUR
FOUR
Pregnant ? My voice sounded hollow, and when Melanie nodded, I sank to the floor on legs that would no longer hold me up.
No.
My sister climbed out of the cart, then knelt next to me on the floor, wrinkling her navy slacks and her drenched white blouse. Nina, say something. I dont know what to do.
Are you sure? I grabbed her hand and squeezed it, looking for any sign of doubt in her eyes.
Pretty sure. I missed last month entirely, and Ive been feeling sick all week. She sniffled and swiped one hand across her dripping nose again. Not just in the morning, though. Kinda off and on all day.
But for one long moment, I could only blink at her, and even once I was capable of speech, the words seemed to get stuck on my tongue. How ? Who ? She looked at the floor, and my eyes narrowed. Adam Yung? I demanded in a harsh whisper, and she nodded miserably. Melanie, how did you think youd get away with this? You knew your physical was coming up, and even if you hadnt gotten pregnant, they can tell when youve lost your virginity!
I could get away with having sex. Because Id been declared unfit to procreate, then rendered unable to procreate, the Church no longer cared whether I preserved my virtue, so long as I still presented a facade of innocence and purity to the world.
I had gotten away with it, several times in the months following my sterilization, when my anger at the Church couldnt be controlled without an outlet. Id met in the dark, in the middle of the night, with boys who would hardly meet my gaze in school. A private screw-you to the system that had defined my future without so much as a Hey, Nina, what would you like out of life?
I wasnt sure I wanted kids, and I certainly hadnt been sure at fifteen. But I was damn sure I didnt want anyone else making that decision for me.
Had I done this? Had Melanie seen my months of rebellionback when Id had time for such thingsand assumed that what had worked for me would work for her too?
We werent really thinking about that, my sister said in response to a question Id almost forgotten Id asked. We werent really thinking about anything. We were just I love him, and he loves me, and it just happened, Nina!
Once? I sat on my heels to keep my slacks off the laundry room floor. You got pregnant the first time? Not that that mattered. Once was enough.
Studying in the basement, my ass.
Melanie shook her head, and more tears filled her eyes. We tried to stop. We knew it was wrong, but it didnt feel wrong.
How does it feel now? I demanded. Fornication was a sin. Melanie wouldnt have been the first fifteen-year-old to present a torn hymen at her annual physical, and if the whispers in the bathroom were accurate, several of my own classmates had already lived to tell that tale. They were sterilized, of course, and theyd been punished privately because our school didnt want smudges on its record any more than the offenders wanted to be outed as sinners.
But Melanie was giving them no choice. A pregnancy couldnt be hidden by a school uniform. Not for long, anyway.
My head spun with the details, and the consequences, and the potential outcomes, but in that deluge of possibilities, I couldnt see a single good way out of this. Not one.
Does Adam know? I rubbed my forehead, trying to fend off the pressure growing behind it. We were screwed.
She shook her head. I couldnt tell him. I just kept ignoring it, hoping I was wrong, until I saw the calendar and remembered about the physicals.
Unlicensed pregnancy is forbidden, Melanie. For
Please dont say Fornication is a sin. More tears rolled down her swollen cheeks. I know fornication is a sin. Please dont be mad at me right now, Nina. I need your help.
Im not mad. I was furious. I was so angry I could hardly think, but I couldnt deny my own hypocrisy, and being mad at Melanie wouldnt help either of us, so I pushed my anger back. Way back. All the way to the back of my mind, where anger at my mother festered, rotting our thin familial bond. I just I didnt know what to do. For the first time in my life, I had no clue how to get Melanie out of trouble. You cant have this baby, Mellie. I squeezed her hand when her tears started falling faster. You know you cant have this baby.
There were places women could go to fix that particular problem. I didnt know where any of those places were, but I could find out. Maybe we could put Mellies physical off if I told them she was sick, and then when she showed up for the makeup physical, wed only have to deal with the fornication issue.
We could survive fornication, even if the Church took custody of us and split us up. But fornication, unlicensed pregnancy, disobeying a Church official, and any other sins they uncovered when they looked into our living situation ?
The more sins they charged her with, the greater the chance of a conviction.
But one look at my sisters tear-streaked face told me she wouldnt even consider what I saw as our only option.
No! Nina, theres a person in here. She pressed one small fist against her flat belly, and something deep inside me cracked open and fell apart. Its a babyor it will be. Its my baby, and its real, and its defenseless, and Im going to be a great mother.
But it wasnt that simple. She was too scared and confused to see the real problem. We dont have a soul for him, Melanie.
Or her. It could be a girl. Her words came out in broken, halting syllables half choked by wrenching sobs.
The gender doesnt matter if the baby doesnt live.
Maybe Mom will She couldnt finish the sentence, and I couldnt finish it for her. The thought was too horrible to voice.
You know she wont. Our mother was only thirty-nine years old, and I couldnt say for sure why shed ever had kids in the first place. The chances of her giving up her lifemiserable as it was latelyfor an illegally conceived grandchild she would never see were slim to none.
One of Adams parents, then. They love him. They wont want his baby to die.
She was right. But Adams parents werent much older than our mom, and Do you really want to take one of his parents away from him? Away from Penny? Adams little sister was only twelveway too young to lose one of her parents and half of the familys income. Would you really make them decide who should die to pay for a mistake you and Adam made?
She looked crushed by the realization that that was exactly what shed be doing. What about the public registry?
Melanie, thats no guarantee! And I wasnt even sure theyd put her baby on the list if the Church declared her unfit to procreate. They would never make her end the pregnancyin fact, they wouldnt let herbut they wouldnt hesitate to let the child die a natural, soulless death.