Page 7 of So Far Gone

“Racist?” Kinnick asked.

“No, not that.” Mrs. Gaines gave a thin smile. “I was going to say opinionated.”

“Mom and Shane have been arguing about the new church.” Leah took a deep breath, her lips pursed. “Mom thinks the new church is too radical. Shane just keeps saying that Mom isn’t whole with the Lord, yet.”

“Tell the rest of it, honey,” Anna Gaines said.

Leah chewed her bottom lip.

“Do you want me to tell it?” Anna asked her.

Leah sighed. Fine. She would say it. “Shane wants to betroth me.”

Kinnick cocked his head. “He wants towhat?”

“Betroth me. To the pastor’s son. David Jr. It’s not as big a deal as it sounds, but when Mom found out, she got really mad.”

“Betrothyou?” Rhys repeated.

“It’s not like that,” Leah said. So much about the new church she thought was misguided, but why did they have to talk so much aboutthispart. “It’s just a thing they do at this new church when two young people like each other, that’s all. It’s supposed to be joyful. It’s like... a plan is all. That Imightmarry David Jr.? Like... when I’m older? And it wouldn’t even be for sure. Just... you know... if we both still want to. When I’m older.” She could feel her face heating up.

“When you’re older,” Kinnick repeated. “Sure.”

She sighed again, angry to have to explain this. She and Davy weren’t freaked-out about it, why did other people have to be? “See, in our new church, if a boy likes a girl they aren’t supposed to hide it. They announce it during services, and then, if the apostolic council approves, then the congregation prays over us, and eventually, when I turn fifteen, we could have supervised dates. And, if we still liked each other after I turned sixteen, we could go to Idaho and get married. If we wanted to. Since we’d already be betrothed. That’s all.”

The room was quiet.

“But it would probably be after I’m sixteen. Like... when I’m eighteen.”

The room was quiet.

“I would get a promise ring now,” Leah said. “And then, if wedon’tget married, I just give the ring back. But like I said, that’s a long ways off, so—” She smiled as if—see, no big deal.

“You can get married younger in Idaho than you can in Washington or Oregon,” Asher added helpfully.

Leah shot him another glare and Asher shrugged again.

Kinnick made eye contact with Anna Gaines, and they held it for a long time. “How old is the pastor’s son?” he asked finally.

“That’s not—” Now Leah’s face was burning. “He’s nineteen, but—” She sighed. “It’s not like—” She knew how bad this all sounded, but Davy hadjustturned nineteen and she wasalmostfourteen and— “He’s not— We haven’t even—”

She let out a deep breath. To her mother’s point, no, she didn’t necessarilywantto get married atsixteen, but she didn’t see the harm in getting a promise ring from a nice boy like David Jr., who was smart and sensitive, and a reader like her, and who had bright green eyes the color of the outside feathers on a peacock. They’d met at Bible Camp last summer, when she’d talked about the book she wanted to write, and they had spoken again this winter, when he came home from Covenant College, in Tacoma, where he was a sophomore studying theology. And, unbeknownst to her mom and Shane, they wrote emails back and forth, talking about books and the college classes he was taking and her future post-Apocalyptic novel. Theylikedeach other. That’s all. Why did everyone have to make such a big, gross deal about it? Sometimes, Leah felt like the whole world was a shirt she’d outgrown, squeezing tight around her chest.

There was no sound in the old house except the faint whistle of firewood burning in the stove. Suddenly, Leah spun toward her littlebrother. “Shane did not kill Mom! Why would you say that? That’s a terrible thing to say! And it’s not true!”

Asher looked at his grandfather and shrugged once more.

***

Asher was relieved as they walked Mrs. Gaines to her car and watched her drive away, a wake of dust rising on the driveway behind her. He liked Mr. and Mrs. Gaines, but the way they talked about Asher’s dad, like he was a dangerous kook, made Asher nervous. And when Asher felt nervous, he couldn’t stop talking, and he said dumb things like the thing about his dad murdering their mom, which wasn’t at all what he thought had happened, but what he thoughtotherpeople might think had happened, and sometimes, when he gotreallynervous, other people’s thoughts seemed to rush into Asher’s mouth, and he felt the urge to say what he thought people were thinking before they said it.

Asher knew that his father’s beliefs upset people, like thinking they needed to move to the mountain redoubt to prepare for the coming holy war, and that God had commanded Shane to be the master of his wife, and that Shane should not spare the rod to his children and that Earth might be flat and that chess came from the Arabs or from a secret Satanic society. But the rest of the family just let him talk and it mostly didn’t affect them. And his dad didn’t seem to mind that they believed other things. He didn’t say anything when Asher read books about dinosaurs, or when he made a book report saying volcanos were millions of years old, and a lot of what Shane talked about, he didn’t even do—like not sparing the rod? He’d never hit Asher. Some of the other kids from Bible Study got hit a lot, but his dad hardly ever even spanked him, only one time that Asher could remember, when Asher was interrupting, and it wasn’t even very hard, more like a swat so that Shane could tell the other guys at church that he’d done it.

But none of that was what Asher worried about. The thing Asherworried about was the sort of trouble they’d had last year in Grants Pass, when his dad got upset that they were teaching about sex in Leah’s science and health class and he made a big fuss at school, and tried to pray in her classroom, and the teacher said she felt threatened, and after that, they’d had to get homeschooled.

Asher didn’t like home school as much as he liked school school.

They watched Mrs. Gaines’s car disappear through the stand of spotted white birches. “Those trees look like the legs of tall, skinny Dalmatians,” Leah said. It was true, Asher thought. His sister really did have a way of describing things.

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