right, I’ll go,” Hope said when no one spoke, but Faith caught her by the arm.
“It’s Mother’s Day,” she said, appealing to their father while clinging to her. “Can’t Hope stay for an hour or two?”
“It’s been so long since we’ve seen her,” her mother added. “She doesn’t mean what she says. I know she doesn’t.”
“Why does she have to leave at all? I think we should celebrate,” Faith said. “You know the story in the Bible about the prodigal son returning. This should be a joyful time.” She hesitated. “Even if she doesn’t plan on staying long. At least we get to—”
“You keep out of it, missy. I’ll not have her poisoning you, too,” Arvin said, and something about the proprietary tone of his voice told Hope that Faith was more than just a niece to him now. Was that his baby her sister carried?
The thought made Hope ill. She’d come too late for Charity and Faith. A profound sadness swept through her as she gazed at her beautiful eighteen-year-old sister.
Again Faith wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“I meant every word,” Hope told her father.
“Then leave, and don’t bother coming back,” he said.
Hope took in the many women and children surrounding her—the adults, the teenagers, the babies and all those in between. “I won’t. You have so many children, what’s one twenty-seven-year-old daughter more or less?”
Dropping the flowers on the ground, she turned and stumbled blindly to her car. She couldn’t save anyone here, she realized, swiping at the tears that rolled down her cheeks. They were too firmly entrenched in the lifestyle, too easily manipulated by the visions and visitations her father claimed to have.
Just as she used to be.
But when she reached the parking lot, the same little girl who’d called her pretty a few minutes earlier hurried out of the bushes and intercepted her before she could open the door of her car. The child had obviously been running and had to pause for sufficient breath.
“Faith said…” pant, pant “…to tell you to meet her at the cemetery…” pant “…tonight at eleven.”
CHAPTER TWO
HOPE SAT ON ONE of the swings in the park, which was lit by a bright moon and the streetlight across the street, while she waited for Faith. Her sister had asked to meet at the cemetery, but Faith would have to pass the swings to get there, and Hope had no desire to go inside. Not because it was spooky in the Halloween sense. She didn’t like Superior’s cemetery because the stooped and weathered headstones represented the people who’d never escaped the yoke of the Everlasting Apostolic Church. Her mother would be buried there, and so would her sisters when they died, even though they’d never really lived….
“Hope? Is that you?”
Faith’s voice came from the darkness behind her, and Hope turned. “It’s me. Come have a seat.”
Her sister moved into the moonlight, one hand braced protectively against her swollen abdomen, and Hope was struck by how far along Faith must be. Eight months? More?
Faith looked carefully around as though she feared being seen. “Thanks for coming.”
“Do you want to talk somewhere else?” Hope asked. “We could go for a drive.”
“No. If I get in that car with you…” Faith let her words fall off and took the swing next to Hope, using her feet to sway slowly back and forth.
If she got in the car, what? Hope nearly asked, but she didn’t want to press Faith. She wanted to give her the chance to say what she’d come to say.
An old truck rumbled down Main Street. Hope could see it stop at the light glowing red near the corner of the park, then take off when the signal changed, but there wasn’t much traffic in Superior, especially this late at night. The Everlasting Apostolic Church didn’t believe in shopping or going out to eat on the Sabbath, so the few businesses that did open on Sunday closed down by five, even the gas station.
“So you can drive?” Faith asked when the rumble of the truck engine dimmed and the only sound was the creaking of their swings.
Hope nodded. “I learned how when I was nineteen.”
“Where did you go today? After you left the park?”
“Up to Provo. I thought it might be more interesting to shop at a different mall.”
“Provo’s pretty far away.”
“I had the time.” With a deep breath, Hope studied her sister. “It’s Arvin, isn’t it?” she asked. “The father of your baby.”
Faith’s face contorted in distaste. “Yes. How’d you know?”
“It wasn’t difficult to guess.”
Silence.
“So how is it, being married to Arvin?”
“How do you think? He pretends to live the Gospel, but he’s really arrogant and mean and stingy.”
Somehow, even as a child, a sixth sense had warned Hope about the existence of a dark side beneath the eager smile Arvin had always offered her, together with the candy he carried in his pockets. Hope had done everything possible to keep her distance from him, which had eventually led to her outright rebellion. Faith, on the other hand, possessed a calmer, more long-suffering temperament. Hope had last seen her when she was only eight years old, but even then Faith had been a peace lover. A typical middle child, she was like a kitten that immediately curled up and purred at the first hint of praise or attention—the most patient and tractable of Marianne’s five daughters.
And this was what Faith’s good nature had brought her, Hope thought bitterly, staring at her sister’s rounded stomach. Arvin’s baby.
“Did Charity refuse to marry Arvin, too?” she asked. “Is that how it fell to you?”
Frowning, Faith cast Hope a sideways glance. “What you did eleven years ago embarrassed Daddy in front of the whole church. I don’t think he wanted to push Charity into doing the same thing.”
“She would have refused?”
Faith shrugged. “Charity’s more like you than I am.”
“Are you saying a woman should marry a man she detests for the sake of her father’s pride?”
“No.” Faith’s swing continued to squeak as she moved. “Arvin always admired you. He’d been asking Daddy for you since you were small, and Daddy had already promised him, that’s all. I’m just trying to explain why Daddy did what he did.”
“I know why he did it, Faith. But that doesn’t make it right. I was in love with someone else.”
Her sister stopped swinging and scuffed the toe of one tennis shoe in the dirt, as though finally cognizant of the fact that the generous skirt of her cotton print
