mention of Bonner’s name sent chills cascading down Hope’s spine. “What about him?”
“His parents came over a couple of years after you left and said they’d been praying about Bonner’s future, and God told them Charity was to be Bonner’s first wife. They said God wanted to reward him for not running away with you.”
Reward him? For clinging to the safety of his parents and their traditions, even though he didn’t believe in them? For breaking her heart?
Hope told herself to breathe, to suck in air, hold it, then silently let it go. The pain would ease…“So Charity’s married to Bonner?” she asked, her voice sounding small and tinny to her own ears. “Those are his children I saw with Charity today?”
“Actually they have three,” Faith said. “You probably didn’t see the oldest. Pearl, LaDonna and Adam.”
Hope thought about putting her head between her knees to stop the dizziness washing over her, but she told herself that after eleven years she could take news like this. What she felt for Bonner had dulled into disappointment long ago, hadn’t it? This was no more than she should have expected. “Does he have any other wives?”
“He had to take the Widow Fields.”
“Because…”
“Because no one else wanted her, I guess. She petitioned the Brethren, and that’s what they decided. It was sort of a consensus.”
Hope didn’t know what to say. Though Bonner wasn’t yet a man when they’d pledged their love, only a boy of eighteen, she’d expected so much more from him. It was as though he’d never whispered those things to her in the dark, as though he hadn’t helped hatch the plan that had culminated in so much heartache.
“He married JoAnna Stapley, too, about three years ago. And he’s already asked for Sarah, when she’s old enough,” Faith added.
Mention of another sister caused Hope’s scalp to crawl. “He wants Sarah?”
“Why not?”
“She’s only fourteen!”
“She’s so excited to get a husband under the age of forty she’s willing to marry him now.”
Hope sighed in disgust and resignation. “That’s crazy, Faith. She’s still a child. And he’ll be thirty-two by the time she turns eighteen, which isn’t so much younger than forty.”
“Maybe to the outside world it seems strange, but not here. You’ve been gone a long time.”
Too long. Or not long enough. Hope couldn’t decide which.
“Why’d you come back?” Faith asked. “Was it because you were hoping that…maybe…Bonner had changed his mind?”
Hope touched her own stomach, once again feeling the phantom kicking of Bonner’s baby in her belly. She’d thought a lot about Bonner over the years, had dreamed he’d change his mind and somehow find her, that the two of them would recover their child and become a family. But she knew that if he hadn’t had the strength to leave before, with their love and their child at stake, he never would.
When Hope didn’t respond, Faith grasped her swing. “I’m sure he’d take you back,” she said. “I saw it in his face when Charity told him you’d been at the park.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“No, I saw regret and…and pain.”
Whatever pain Bonner had suffered couldn’t compare to what Hope had endured. That much she knew. “So you think I should become his…what? Fourth wife?” she asked, chuckling bitterly. “That’d make Jed happy.”
“It would,” Faith said earnestly.
Hope shook her head. “No, it would smack too much of me finally getting my way, and he couldn’t set that kind of precedent. He still has two daughters to coerce into marriages they may not want. Maybe he’s even planning to give them to Arvin.”
Faith visibly cringed. “I don’t think so. He’s not very pleased with…with the way Arvin treats me. Deep down, he knows you were right about Arvin. Daddy’s just not ready to admit it.”
How many daughters was it going to take?
“How’d you get away tonight?” Hope asked. “I can’t imagine that after seeing me in town, Arvin would stay anywhere but with you.”
“He and Rachel, the seventeen-year-old Thatcher girl, were married a week ago, and he hasn’t tired of her yet. He likes his women young—real young, Hope. He would hardly leave me alone the first year we were married. But then I got pregnant. He finds my swollen belly…unappealing, so now he almost always sleeps elsewhere.”
“Does that bother you to know he’s with others?”
“No, I’m grateful. I can hardly stand it when he touches me,” she said with a shudder.
Bile rose in Hope’s throat at the thought of her eighteen-year-old sister not being young enough for Arvin. Or maybe it was the mental image of him touching Faith in the first place that bothered Hope so much. “We should call the police,” she said. “If Rachel’s not eighteen, that’s statutory rape.”
Faith’s shoulders slumped. “I can’t do that to Daddy. It would bring too much negative publicity on the church and hurt families who are trying to live the principle the way it’s meant to be lived.”
Hope had some questions as to how the principle was meant to be lived in this day and age. But she understood that Faith would be much more sympathetic to the church’s beliefs than she herself would, especially after being away so long. “Sexual predators shouldn’t be tolerated in any community. Even one as tightly knit as this,” she said, sticking with a line of reasoning Faith could not refute.
“I don’t think you can call him a predator,” she said. “Rachel married him willingly enough. And he’s careful not to touch anyone who isn’t his wife.”
“Are you sure about that? What about his children?”
“I don’t think he’s hurt any of them,” Faith said, but the lack of conviction in her voice made Hope more than a little nervous.
“Have you talked to Jed about your suspicions?”
“What suspicions? I said I don’t think he’s hurt any of his children.”
“You’re worried that he might.”
Her sister didn’t answer right away.
“Faith?”
“Okay, I tried to talk to Daddy about some of the things Arvin’s said to me, but he didn’t want to hear. Arvin’s his brother and a pious church member.”
“Pious?” Hope scoffed.
“He pretends to be, especially to the other Brethren. And you know the police won’t do anything. You’ve heard Daddy say it a million times: ‘This is America. It goes against
