Page 4 of Goodbye Paradise
“I…” I cleared my dry throat, feeling every pair of eyes on me. “I never use my old lists, because if there are new tools then I’d miss them.”
“So. You make a new list each time?”
“Yessir,” I choked out.
“The missing weapon was part of your recent inventory,” Elder Michael said, pinning me with his gaze.
I nodded. It was silent in that room. Nobody even breathed. Because no one else dared draw the attention of an angry elder.
“Do you have anything to say for where it might be?” he asked.
Of course I did not. Andmanypeople had access to that storage room. But I would not point this out, because it would sound as if I were desperate to shift blame. “I have no idea, sir,” I said. It was not a great defense, but it was my only move. “I remember the gun. It was new in August.”
The portly elder frowned. “Well then. Tomorrow, first thing, you will come with us to the tool shed and look again at the inventory. We need to know what else may be missing.”
“Yessir,” I’d said.
My stomach had remained in knots ever since.
I had no idea what would happen tomorrow. None at all. It was possible that they really only wanted my assistance. But an inventory was an easy thing to read, with or without help.
My fear was that someone had stolen the gun, knowing the theft would be pinned on me. There was nothing I could do about it. A man cannot prove his innocence. He can only prove another’s guilt.
I had, of course, no idea who took the gun. And it did not matter a whit that I had noreasonto take a gun. I had no way to sell it, or curry favor with another for handing it over.
But you must never look for logic in Paradise.
Stewing over the problem wasn’t going to help. It’s just that I didn’t have anything better to think about. Caleb was not here in our room. He was in the garage, changing the oil in the Tacoma.
And kissing Miriam, maybe.
Someday it would happen for real. Caleb would marry a woman. He was just the sort of bachelor who would eventually be granted a wife. When the time came, I would watch the ceremony with horror in my heart. And I would lie awake in the bunkhouse that night, wild with jealousy as he made his bride into a woman.
I forced myself to imagine it from time to time, if only to maintain my grip on reality. Caleb building a house for his bride. Caleb in a wedding suit.
Caleb removing all his clothes, and spilling his seed into a woman.
When I was twelve, I had seen the act done. I’d been home at an odd time of day, because my mother had asked me to change a couple of lightbulbs after lunch. With my task finished, I’d walked quietly along the upstairs hallway of our house.
At the end of the corridor was the youngest wife’s room. The door had been open a crack. I paused there because I heard the strangest sounds coming from within.
My real father had died when I was four, when he overturned a tractor. The man I’d called “father” ever since had married two of my birth father’s wives, including my mother. His name was Seth.
Seth’s hairy ass was the thing I saw first when I peered into that room.
It took me a moment to realize what I was witnessing. But even when I understood, I could not look away.
It was fascinating.
The breathy grunts he made washed over me like steam. And the way his powerful thighs flexed through each thrust was beautiful to me. He growled and he groaned, and finally he shook. With a cry, he collapsed onto the wife that I’d barely noticed was underneath him. Coming to my senses, I’d snuck away.
Someday, that would be Caleb. And no amount of wishing otherwise would help.
I stared at the page of my Bible until the letters blurred together.
* * *
Perhaps two hours later, I woke in the dark. The Bible was gone from my hands, but I spotted it on the bedside table. Someone had placed it there for me.
