Читать книгу Sanctuary - Brenda Novak - Страница 9

IT TOOK HOPE a moment to make out Arvin from among the long shadows of the trees. When she did, her palms grew moist.

“It’ll be okay, Faith,” she murmured, her heart pounding.

Faith looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Arvin, I—”

“You’re what?” he interrupted. “You’re planning to run out on me in the middle of the night? Is that what you’re doing here?”

“I’m sorry,” Faith said. “I know it isn’t right to leave this way. But I’m not happy, Arvin. I haven’t been happy since we married. I think you know that.”

“What, you’re not satisfied with having me in your bed? You want some Gentile rutting between your legs?”

Faith jerked as though he’d shot her, and Hope stepped between them. “That’s vulgar, Arvin. Below even you.”

“Vulgar.” He chuckled. “She’s so prim and proper, no one will want her. Look at her. You think some other man is going to desire a woman who’s bearing the child of her own uncle?”

“How dare you try to belittle her for what you—”

“You might be my uncle, but you’re also my husband,” Faith said at the same time. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Hope tried to bar him from coming too close to Faith, but he stepped around her. “They’re not going to care about your version of right and wrong, Faith. They don’t understand the principle. The outside world will think you’re a freak, a freak without an education or any way to support yourself. They’ll have no use for you or our baby. Is that what you want? To be a laughingstock? To have no one?”

“She’ll have me,” Hope said.

“You stay out of this. It’s none of your affair,” he growled. “You belong here, Faith. Don’t let Hope paint pictures of dreamlands that don’t exist.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Hope said. “I’ve painted no dreamland. Arvin is the only freak I know. Let’s get out of here.” She tugged on her sister’s arm, eager to get them both away before Arvin tried to stop them physically, but Faith resisted her efforts.

“What if he’s right, Hope? What if I don’t fit in?” she asked. “I can’t expect you to take care of me and my baby indefinitely.”

“You’ll fit in just fine,” Hope said. “When the baby’s old enough, you’ll go to school and learn to support yourself and your child. There’s nothing to worry about. I’ll take care of you as long as you need me. You’ll see. Come on.”

Still, Faith hesitated. “That’s asking a lot of you, Hope, and I feel so lost already….”

“What about your poor mother?” Arvin asked, his eyes shining like obsidian in the darkness. “Are you trying to break her heart? You’ve seen what Hope’s already done to her. Now you’re going to do the same thing?”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” Faith said.

Hope gave Arvin a look of disgust. “Stop pretending. You’re not worried about our mother. You’re only worried about yourself.”

“Oh, yeah?” he countered, and those shiny eyes seemed to stab right through her, eliciting more of the revulsion she’d felt toward him even as a girl. “I have eleven other wives. I don’t need an eighteen-year-old girl who knows nothing about pleasing a man. Why, she’s so frigid I practically have to pry her legs apart.”

Faith gasped, and Hope raised a defensive hand as if she could ward him off. “Then let her go, Arvin,” she said. “She doesn’t love you. She never has.”

“And give you what you want? After the way you’ve treated me? Like hell!”

Hope couldn’t believe her ears. Unless she’d missed her guess, this wasn’t about Faith; he didn’t desire her, he didn’t need her, and he certainly didn’t want her. This was about the past. “See, Faith? He’s just trying to get back at me. We need to go.”

“Faith, come home with me,” Arvin said, his voice imperious. “Right now, before I feel the need to go to the rest of the Brethren and complain about your behavior.”

Hope wished she could wipe the smug expression from Arvin’s face. Obviously he thought he’d win the tug-of-war between them. She was afraid he would. But what could she do? Faith was of age and pregnant. She needed to make her own decisions.

“I said we’re going home,” he said even more forcefully.

Her sister glanced at the parking lot where Hope’s Impala waited. “I live in a house with two of your other wives,” she finally said, “who don’t seem to like you a whole lot more than I do. I don’t have a home.” With her back ramrod-straight, she turned and started toward the Impala.

Hope felt a rush of pure adrenaline and hurried after her. Faith was actually going through with it. She was leaving Arvin, Superior, the Everlasting Apostolic Church!

“You’ll be a pariah,” Arvin called after her.

“Don’t listen to him,” Hope murmured.

“I won’t let you come back here!” he shouted. “You’ve just kissed your friends and family goodbye, not to mention your eternal salvation. You’re going to rot in hell, Faith, right along with Hope!”

Hope opened her mouth to tell him he’d be there, sweating right along with them, but Faith turned and spoke before she could. “I’d rather go to hell with Hope than spend one more night with you,” she said, and got in the car.

Stunned, Hope scrambled into the other side, started the engine and peeled out of the lot.

THEY TRAVELED south without speaking, the thrumming of tires on pavement the only sound for more than an hour. Hope finally turned on the radio, hoping music might soothe the raw emotions jangling inside her and take her mind back to where it was before she’d returned to Superior. But when Faith’s gaze cut toward the radio, she quickly flipped it off. She didn’t want Faith to feel the shock of having stepped outside her sheltered existence quite so soon. Superior had regular radio stations of course, but the Everlasting Apostolic Church encouraged parishioners not to listen to the “devil’s music,” and Hope guessed Faith was one of those who obeyed.

“You can listen if you want,” Faith said politely as the quick spurt of music died.

The tone of her sister’s voice gave no indication of what Faith was feeling, which made Hope uneasy. Tears would be good at this point, she thought. But after Hope had left Superior, she hadn’t been able to cry for a year, and she saw no sign of tears on Faith’s face, either. Maybe it was a Tanner thing.

“I’m fine with having it off,” Hope said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

Headlights bore down on them from the opposite direction. A truck passed, and then they were once again alone on the road. Hope peered nervously in her rearview mirror, as she’d been doing since they left, just to be sure. She certainly didn’t want Arvin, or anyone else, following her. She’d spent too long making a safe home for herself to compromise it now.

“You going to be okay?” she asked, sending her sister a worried glance.

Faith sat in the same position she’d taken when they left—legs clamped tightly together, back straight, hands folded primly on her belly. “I think so.”

Hope adjusted the heater because it was getting too warm in the car, and at last forced herself to ask the question she knew she should pose before they went any farther. “Are you having second thoughts, Faith? Do you want me to take you back?”

Her sister stared through the windshield without blinking, and Hope imagined she was watching the broken yellow line in the center of the road rush past. Each break took her farther from her home, farther from everything she’d ever known, farther from everything she’d ever believed she would do….

Finally Faith shifted her weight and eased further into the seat. “No.”

Hope sighed in relief. Don’t worry. It’ll get easier as the days and weeks pass, she wanted to say. I’ve been there. But now wasn’t the time to go into what the future would or wouldn’t hold. It was nearly one in the morning. Her sister had to be exhausted. And if Faith’s feelings were anything like Hope’s when she’d run away, she was too confused to make sense out of anything.

A few more miles and Faith’s eyelids drooped until her lashes rested on her cheeks. As her breathing evened out, Hope began to relax, too. Faith’s situation might be similar to the one she’d been in eleven years ago, but Hope silently promised that it would end differently. Faith would get to keep her baby. She’d never experience the ache Hope felt every time she thought of the infant she’d borne but was never allowed to hold. She wouldn’t have to wonder if she’d made the right decision about giving up a child she would have loved with her whole heart.

She would, however, have to lie about her baby’s father.

The words Arvin had flung at them in the park came immediately to Hope’s mind, making her cringe. You think some other man is going to desire a woman who’s bearing the child of her own uncle?…You’re a freak…They’ll have no use for you or our baby…. The bastard. He’d made her a freak. And while Faith was swallowing her distaste and submitting to him because she believed it was God’s law, Hope felt sure he was delighting in the perversion of having church-sanctioned sex with his own niece.

Highway 14 came up on her right. Hope automatically made the turn that would take her to I-15 and then on to St. George. Her glowing instrument panel indicated she was speeding again, but she was too engrossed in her thoughts to care. The genetic connection between Arvin and Faith was unfortunate, for Faith and the child’s sake. But everyone had secrets. Hope had managed to keep her own past a secret from almost everyone, except the people at The Birth Place—Lydia Kane, Parker Reynolds and the others employed there.

What was one more skeleton in an already crowded closet?

AFTER ANOTHER HOUR and a half, the adrenaline that had kept Hope alert through the entire drive ebbed, and her eyes began to burn with fatigue. When she finally turned down her quiet residential street of small brick homes, she was longing for bed and a few hours of unconsciousness before trying to help Faith face the future. Hope had insulated herself from others by focusing on becoming functional and productive—and to a certain extent, being a chameleon. She blended in. She didn’t make waves. She withheld the part of herself that knew pain. But helping Faith meant she’d have to engage emotionally, and that frightened her more than anything. What if Faith couldn’t reject the teachings of the Brethren? What if she gave up and went back? What if Faith clung so tightly to the past that even Hope could no longer escape it?

Hope didn’t want to be thrust into that environment again, didn’t want to think about Superior and her days there, because doing so only revived old heartaches. Images and memories of Bonner sometimes hovered close enough as it was. He was so tied to thoughts of her baby…

Hope hit the garage-door opener and let the car idle in the driveway while she waited for the door to lift. So what if the man she’d loved had married her sister? It didn’t really change anything. It just created a jumble of emotions Hope hadn’t felt in a while—and something more. Something akin to…envy?

It wasn’t envy, she told herself. How could she envy Charity, who’d looked so pale? Sure, she had Bonner’s children, but Hope had control of her own life. Nothing was worth relinquishing that. What she felt now was the sting of her father’s betrayal. That he’d let Charity marry the man she’d begged him to let her marry spoke volumes about Jed and his lack of love for his ninth child. Had he given her and Bonner his blessing, they would’ve become husband and wife. She would’ve stayed in Superior and raised her child as part of the family.

But then she would have remained a member of the Everlasting Apostolic Church. Which wasn’t so good, she decided. Bonner had claimed he had no desire to take any other woman to his bed, ever. Yet he hadn’t been strong enough to make good on his words by leaving with her. And he’d gone on take three wives!

Maybe her father and Bonner had done her a favor. Hope knew she couldn’t have stood by and watched Bonner marry again and again, couldn’t have welcomed those other women into her home and into her husband’s bed. This way, she was out of Superior and the strictures of the church. She was living a normal life that promised far more than she would’ve had if she’d stayed. And now she had Faith.

She glanced at her sleeping sister as she parked in her small detached garage and cut the engine, recalling the times she’d read the Bible to her, or braided her hair, or curled up in the same bed on Christmas Eve because Faith was too excited to sleep. They never received much for Christmas—gifts detracted from the true meaning, according to her father. But they were filled with expectation all the same, if only for the little presents they gave each other.

Her last Christmas at home, Hope had earned extra money taking in ironing so she could give Faith the beautiful Barbie doll her little sister had seen in the store window and long admired. Her father had immediately condemned the gift as being too frivolous and expensive, but the joy on Faith’s face when she tore off that wrapping paper made Hope believe her money had been well spent. Later that night, she’d found Faith’s most prized possession on her pillow—a plastic journal with a small lock and key. The pages that had already been used had been torn out and replaced by some roughly cut scrap paper. A short note written in Faith’s childish scrawl told her she wanted her to keep the journal.

And here they were eleven years later. A lump swelled in Hope’s throat. Faith might have been overlooked by others, but she’d always been Hope’s favorite. More sensitive than the rest, she’d always soothed Hope.

“Faith, we’re home,” she said, gently shaking her shoulder.

Faith blinked and sat up. “I should have kept you company on the drive, Hope. I’m sorry.”

“No. It was better that you slept, better for the baby.”

Her sister’s gaze circled the garage. For a moment she looked completely bewildered. “This is your house?”

“Just the garage. And I don’t own it. I rent.”

Faith climbed out, following wordlessly as Hope led her around to the front of the house, where she nearly tripped over Oscar, a large gray cat, who screeched and ran for cover.

“What was that?” Faith asked as he slipped into the hedge separating her house from his owner’s and crouched to glare at them.

“That’s Oscar,” Hope said.

“Your cat?”

“He belongs to my neighbor, but I think he’s trying to move in with me. He comes over all the time.”

“Do you feed him?”

“Occasionally. Mr. Paris doesn’t mind. I guess we sort of share him. Oscar generally won’t let anyone but Mr. Paris touch him, anyway, so it doesn’t matter much. He just hangs out on his own.” A cat after her own heart, Hope added silently.

Bending, Faith held out her hand to coax him closer, but he was still put out by his close call. Whisking his tail in a show of irritation, he didn’t budge.

Hope unlocked the front door and swung it open. “He’s not very friendly, but I admire his independence.”

“I like cats.” Faith peeked into the house. “Do you live alone?”

“I’ve had roommates in the past, but ever since I started making enough to afford the rent, I’ve been living alone,” Hope said, holding the door.

Faith still hesitated at the threshold, glancing toward Oscar as though she’d rather hide out with him in the hedge. Probably the idea of moving in with Hope made a decision that had been somewhat impulsive now seem permanent. “So you’ve never been married or…or anything?”

“No. No husbands, no live-in lovers, no steady boyfriends.”

Faith finally stepped into the living room. “And you’re not seeing anyone?”

Hope thought of Jeff, her neighbor’s son from down the street, and the doctors, male nurses and other hospital staff who asked her out on occasion. She knew they talked about her, perceived her coolness as a challenge. But no one had managed to pique her interest. She wanted a husband and family eventually, but the moment whoever she was seeing began to push for commitment, she felt such a terrible panic she broke off the relationship. “Not really,” she said.

“But you’re so pretty.”

Hope chuckled. “I guess I’m a little jaded,” she said, nudging her sister farther inside.

The house smelled of the fresh flowers Hope routinely cut from her garden in back and kept in a small tin bucket on the kitchen table. She liked the contrast of fragile versus resilient, old versus new, delicate versus careworn.

Hope flipped on the light. “What a beautiful home,” Faith breathed, almost reverently.

Hope took a moment to see her surroundings through Faith’s eyes. The house was old. It still had its original hardwood floors and plaster walls, but had been remodeled so that the front room, which had once been a porch, was enclosed by a series of paned windows. The rooms were spacious, despite the fact that the house was only about a thousand square feet. The kitchen opened into the family room, both of which could be seen from the front entrance. An office, set off by double doors, opened to the left. The hall that led to both bedrooms branched off to the right.

“Did you decorate this place all by yourself?” Faith asked.

Hope nodded. “On weekends I search the classifieds looking for treasures, and I often pick up a piece of furniture for a fraction of its value. I fix and refinish wooden items in the garage, if I want the grain of the wood to shine through. Or I paint or stencil on various pieces I find, like that old church pew in the kitchen.”

“It’s lovely,” Faith said.

Hope dropped her keys on the counter. “An old widower down the street owns the house, but I take good care of it, so he pretty much lets me have free rein.”

Faith continued to walk through the main rooms before pausing in front of an arrangement of cross-stitch samplers on the kitchen wall. Large and elaborate, there was one for each season. “These are great,” she said.

“Thanks.” Hope liked to cross-stitch and collect odds and ends. Her dishes, silverware and linens were all mismatched antiques or one-of-a-kind items, like the Flow-blue plates and creamers from seventeenth-century England that adorned the white, built-in shelves on either side of the fireplace in the kitchen/living room.

“You must make a lot of money to live like this,” Faith said. “I’ve never seen anything more charming.”

“I don’t make a lot of money,” Hope said with a laugh, “but I grew up in the same household as you, remember? I know how to stretch a dollar.”

Faith cocked an eyebrow at her. “You’re better at it than I am.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. This is just my version of The Boxcar Children. Remember that book? I used to read it to you when you were little.”

“I do,” Faith said. “It was my favorite.”

“This might sound silly, but when things got really tough for me after I left Superior, I used to pretend I was one of those children, finding or making what I needed out of the things other people discarded.” She moved into the kitchen to check the answering machine on the breakfast bar. No calls. Not unusual.

“I can’t believe you’ve done all this.”

“It’s nothing.” Hope changed the subject because her sister’s praise made her feel guilty for having so much when her family had so little. “You said you were living with two of Arvin’s other wives. Which ones?”

Faith paused next to the black-iron baker’s rack where Hope stored her pasta and cereals in uniquely shaped jars. “Do you remember Ila Jane?”

“That old battle-ax?”

A smile flickered at the corners of Faith’s lips. “She’s the only one of us who ever dares put Arvin in his place. He likes her cooking but doesn’t bother her for anything else, and she’s happy that way. Being around her was actually the best part of being married to Arvin. She took me under her wing, like another daughter. Her oldest is close to my age, anyway. But I’m not fond of Charlene, Arvin’s second wife. She lives with us, too. Her children are especially difficult, like her, all except little Sarah. Sarah’s only seven, but Charlene ignores her, so she spends most of her day with me.”

“Is Charlene still pretty?”

“Pretty enough, I guess. She’s given Arvin ten kids, so she’s done well by him.”

Hope no longer agreed with using that kind of measuring stick for a woman’s success, but she knew it would take a while for Faith to understand and adjust, so she said nothing. “Does he spend much time with Ila Jane or Charlene?”

“No, or his children, either. When he moved me into that old house on Front Street—”

“Not the big yellow one,” Hope interrupted. “We always thought that house was haunted, remember? We’d dare each other to ring the bell, and then we’d run.”

“That was when the Andersons lived there, and old lady Bird, Sister Anderson’s mother, used to sit rocking in the window of the attic for hours.”

“I take it she’s passed away.”

“Oh, yes, and her son was excommunicated for stealing from the storehouse. That’s how Arvin got the house.”

“So that’s where you’ve been living?”

“For the past few months. When he moved me in with Ila Jane, I knew he was putting me on a shelf.”

Hope rummaged through a glass-fronted cupboard for two mugs. “And you think it’s because of the baby? You said something earlier about your condition being ‘unappealing’ to him.”

“He claims he’s trying to leave me in peace, since pregnancy can be so uncomfortable. But I know he’s not really interested in doing me any favors. Arvin doesn’t work that way.”

“No kidding,” Hope added.

“He’s probably just sidetracked for the time being, what with marrying Rachel and everything.” She sank onto a stool at the counter.

A million biting comments about Arvin rose to Hope’s lips, but she voiced none of them. Setting the cups on the counter, she said, “I thought maybe I’d make us some hot cocoa before bed.”

Faith shook her head. “None for me, thanks. I’m too tired. All I want to do is turn in.”

Hope put the cups away, secretly grateful Faith had refused her offer. She was almost ready to drop. “Your room’s just down the hall,” she said, her sandals clicking on the floor as she moved through the house turning on lights. Stopping at the first room on her right, which was decorated in Battenburg lace and pink with yellow accents, she waved Faith inside.

“Nice,” Faith said as she stood at the foot of the bed and gazed around.

“Make yourself comfortable while I get you a nightgown and a toothbrush,” Hope said at the door. “Tomorrow we’ll go shopping for clothes and toiletries.”

“You don’t have to go to work?”

“Not until evening. I’m a nurse, so my hours vary. Tomorrow I have the night shift.”

Her sister plucked at her skirt, reminding Hope of a nervous habit their mother used to have.

“I know this must feel strange, Faith,” Hope said, “but you’ll be comfortable here, I promise. We’ll buy everything you need tomorrow.”

“But isn’t it going to be expensive to replace everything I left behind?”

“It won’t be too bad. I’ve got the money.”

Faith still seemed ill at ease, so Hope tried to combat her insecurity with a confident smile. “Don’t worry about anything.”

“Okay.” She started to turn down the bed, and Hope moved toward her own room to get the promised articles, but her sister called her back.

“Hope?”

“Yeah?”

“What happens if you get sick of me? Or we run out of money, or…whatever?”

Hope’s heart twisted. How vividly she remembered what it was like to feel as though the ground beneath her feet might crumble at any moment. She was still protecting herself from that possibility, wasn’t she? That was why she worked so hard to make her house a home. So she’d feel safe and protected.

“I might get sick of you, and you might get sick of me. But that won’t change the fact that we’re sisters, Faith. You’ll always be welcome here. We’ll work together to build lives we’re both happy with, and we’ll help each other get through the tough times.”

“Why?” Faith asked suddenly. “It’s been eleven years, Hope. Why bother with me when you have all of this?”

All of this. By most people’s standards, Hope’s home wasn’t anything special. But Faith had known only overcrowded trailers and duplexes and old houses with bad plumbing, all of which had been filled to bursting with children, secondhand clothing and shabby furniture.

“I know this will probably sound crazy to you, because you feel you’re forsaking God by leaving Superior, Faith. But I believe He’s put me in the position of being able to help you for a reason. I want you here, and Charity and the others, too, if they ever want to come.”

Faith smiled, and on impulse Hope walked back and hugged her. “It’s good to be with you again,” she said. “Whatever the future holds, we’ll get through it together.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be easy,” Faith said, clinging to her.

“No,” Hope agreed. “It won’t be easy. But nothing worth having ever is.”