sketch their two silhouettes just then, they’d be mirror images of each other.
Even at fifty and even in a plain beige dress, Samantha Payne was a striking woman. She was tall and full-figured, with a dignified carriage that had led some to call her proud. Her large eyes were black, accented by bold slashes of brow, and her dark hair was no less luxuriant for being threaded with white. Hannah had inherited every bit of this bounty and then some. Over the years, she’d endured many a lecture from her mother on the folly of earthly vanity. She and Becca had sat through them together, but it had been apparent to them both that Hannah was the primary object of these admonishments.
“I’m not here to comfort you,” Hannah’s mother said now. “I have no more sympathy for you than you had for that innocent baby.”
Hannah could hardly breathe against the weight of her mother’s words. “Then why did you come?”
“I want to know his name. The name of the man who dishonored you and then sent you off to abort your child.”
Hannah shook her head involuntarily, remembering the feel of Aidan’s lips on her skin, kissing the inside of her elbow, the tender instep of her foot; of his hands lifting her hair off her neck, raising her arms, pushing her legs open so his mouth could claim every hidden part of her. It hadn’t felt like dishonor. It had felt like worship.
“He didn’t send me,” she said. “It was my decision.”
“But he gave you the money.”
“No. I paid for it myself.”
Her mother frowned. “Where would you get that kind of money?”
“I’ve been saving it for a while. I … I thought I might use it to start my own dress shop someday.”
“Dress shop! A store for Jezebels and harlots is more like it. Oh yes, I found all the sinful things you made. I cut them to pieces, every last one of them.”
Another brutal, unexpected hail of stones. They hit Hannah hard, rocking her back in her chair. All her creations, destroyed. Though she’d known she could never wear them openly, the mere fact of their existence, of their prodigal beauty, had buoyed her during the long, dreary days of her imprisonment. Now, she would leave nothing that mattered of herself behind.
“Did you make them for him?” her mother demanded.
“No. For myself.”
“Why do you protect him? He doesn’t love you, that much is plain. If he did, he would have married you.”
Her mother must have seen something in her face, an unconscious flicker of pain. “He’s already married, isn’t he.”
It wasn’t a question, and Hannah made no answer to it.
Her mother held up a forefinger. “You shall not commit adultery.” A second finger. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s husband.” A third. “You shall not murder.” The little finger. “Honor your father and mother, so that you may—”
Her anger woke Hannah’s own. “Careful, Mama,” she said, “you’ll run out of fingers.” The remark shocked them both. Hannah had never spoken so derisively to her parents, or to anyone for that matter, and for a few seconds she felt better for having done so, stronger and less afraid. But then her mother’s shoulders buckled and the flesh of her face seemed to wither, shrinking inward against the bones, and Hannah understood that her sarcasm had broken something in her mother, some fragile hope she’d clung to that the daughter she once knew and loved was not wholly lost to her.
“Sweet Jesus,” her mother said, wrapping her arms around herself and rocking back and forth in her chair with her eyes closed. “Sweet Lord, help me now.”
“I’m sorry, Mama,” Hannah cried. She felt like she was breaking herself, into fragments so small they could never be found, much less pieced together again. “I’m so sorry.”
Her mother looked up, her eyes bewildered. “Why did you do this thing, Hannah? Your father and I would have stood by you and the baby. Did you not know that?”
“I knew,” Hannah said. Her mother would have stormed, and her father would have brooded. They would have rebuked and sermonized and interrogated and wept and prayed, but in the end, they would have accepted the child. Would have loved it.
“Then I don’t understand. Help me to understand, Hannah.”
“Because—” Because I would have been compelled to name Aidan as the father or go to prison for contempt until I did. Because they would have notified the state paternity board, subpoenaed him, had him tested, ordered Ignited Word to garnish his wages for child support. Destroyed his life and his ministry. Because I loved him, more even than our child. And still do.
Hannah would have done anything at that moment to erase the grief from her mother’s face, but she knew that to tell the truth, to speak the syllables of his name, would only hurt her more, by stripping her of her faith in a man she revered. And if she blamed him and decided to reveal their secret … No. Hannah had aborted their child to protect him. She would not betray him now.
She shook her head, once. “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.” Stones of her own, falling hard and heavy into the space between them. The wall rose in seconds. She watched it happen, watched her mother’s face close against her. “Please, Mama—”
Samantha Payne stood. “I don’t know you.” She turned and walked to the door. Stopped. Looked back at Hannah. “I have one daughter, and her name is Rebecca.”
ON THE FOURTEENTH DAY, Hannah was sitting against the wall thumbing listlessly through the New Testament when she felt wetness between her legs. She looked down and saw a bright smear of blood on the white floor. Its arrival unleashed a spate of emotions: Relief, because although the abortionist had assured her that her cycles would resume eventually, she hadn’t been able to shake the idea that God would take away her fertility as punishment. Then, swiftly on the heels of that, bitterness. What difference did it make if she was fertile? No decent man would want to marry her now, and even if she found one who did, she couldn’t have a child with him; the implant they gave all Chromes would prevent it. Then, despair. By the time she finished her sentence and the implant was removed, she’d be forty-two, assuming she survived that long. Her youth would be gone, her eggs old, her chances of attracting a man to give her children diminished. And finally, embarrassment, as she remembered the presence of the cameras. She felt herself blushing and just as quickly realized that no one could tell—a small blessing.
She stood up, ignoring the blood on the floor, and went to wash herself off. When she came out of the shower, the panel was open. Inside were a box of tampons, a packet of sterile wipes and a clean tunic. Looking at them, she felt a shame so profound she wanted to die rather than endure another moment of it. When she’d been lying on the table with her legs spread and a stranger’s hand moving inside her womb, she’d thought that there could be nothing worse, nothing. Now, confronted with these everyday items that represented the absolute and irretrievable loss of her dignity, she knew she’d been wrong.
SHE ALMOST HADN’T gone through with it. She’d taken the pregnancy test at just over six weeks, after her second missed period, and then agonized for another month before screwing up the courage to act. She’d asked a girl she worked with, a salesperson at the bridal salon with whom she was friendly, though not friends. Gabrielle
