Page 9 of Liar Byrd
Mom talks enough for both of us, filling the bathroom with her excitement and sharing her hope that Jeremiah will choose a man for her to marry, someone just like him.
Angelica runs a comb through my white-blonde hair. The women marvel at how long and thick it is. I imagine chopping it all off, walking down the aisle with a hacked head of hair and tears running down my face.
Wouldn’t Jeremiah love that?
I shiver in my thin slip, but no one seems to notice.
The wedding dress is made of cream lace, with long sleeves and a high neckline. Passed from woman to woman for their wedding day, it’s almost as old as the compound when Jeremiah brought his dream of a perfect society to life.
Mom pushes a plate of cut fruit and bread toward me.
Between my shaking my head and refusing it, the sky turns a dark blue, the rest of the compound gathers in the church, and the acolytes come to get me.
It’s near sundown, and I haven’t spoken a single word.
Not to anyone.
“She’s so beautiful,” the women whisper as the music, coming from a small radio that Jeremiah seldom takes out, plays.
And even as Deacon and Pierce walk me down the aisle of the church, I look to my mom sitting near the front. Like a fool, I keep expecting her to remember she’s my mother and to protect me.
My steps falter when Jeremiah turns to look at me.
He smiles, proud.
I nearly turn and run.
Deacon’s fingers tighten around my arm, concealing the force he’s exerting to keep me moving behind a pleasant expression. “The bride is nervous,” he says, and everyone laughs.
And he continues guiding me forward, past my mom, who doesn’t rescue me, and her leg that has already bled through the bandage and needs changing.
“I now pronounce you man and wife.”
Jeremiah’s lips are soft on mine, and I realize no one asked me if I take this man to be my husband, but who would? This is what Jeremiah wants, and everyone wants to please Jeremiah, so that’s what he gets.
Someone snaps a camera, and I startle at the flash.
And it’s over.
It’s all over.
The first week as Jeremiah’s wife is the worst.
It takes that long for me to realize that I will die if I stay.
Escaping from the midst of a rural compound in New Mexico is like waiting for rain to fall in the Sahara.
Hopeless.
Impossible.
Wrist-long sleeves and ankle-length linen skirts conceal every bruise and cut from the stinging lash of his belt when I fight back.
My awareness of time fades.
I lose the ability to think past knowing the day will end, the sun will set, and when darkness comes, I’ll have to return to his cabin again. And to his bed.
I have never wished so hard for the world to end.
