Page 7 of Goodbye Paradise
What Asher wanted, Asher got. He was the half-brother of our Divine Pastor. If Asher wanted Miriam… I shuddered.
I turned to study Caleb’s serious profile. It was hard to make sense of everything I’d just heard. My best friend thought that I would be taken out like so much garbage tomorrow. Into a world where I knew literally nobody. Penniless, too. And Caleb wanted to run away?
If he couldn’t have Miriam, that made a tiny kernel of sense. I’d always dreaded the thought of him in another’s arms. Perhaps it was the same for him. If he could not stand to watch Miriam marry another man…
I put my hand close to his ear. “You could ask for Miriam first.”
The expression on his face then was hard to read. It wasdisappointed, maybe. “Shewantsme to ask,” he whispered. “But I know it will never work.” The pain on his face doubled, and so I did not ask more questions. The fact that Caleb wouldn’t eventrywas a shock to me, though. He was loyal to a fault.
Abruptly, the snoring from Ezekiel’s corner of our room came to a halt.
I felt Caleb go absolutely still beside me. We couldnotbe caught like this, lying on the same bed. Plotting together was nearly as great a sin as whatever else they might imagine we were doing.
For many long seconds, we lay there like statues. I still had a hold of Caleb’s hand, though, and I squeezed it. He squeezed back, too.
No matter what happened, I would always remember this night.
An agonizing minute later, Ezekiel began to snore again. Beside me, Caleb relaxed. Then he gripped my hand one more time. Into my ear he said, “the bus station in Casper.” And then he stole silently across the room to his own bed.
Two
When the wake-upbell rang, my eyes flew open. My first emotion of the day was fear. And the second one was shame. I was afraid, and I wasashamedto be afraid.
That’s how it always was with me.
I got up, stumbling into my clothes. Mindful of Caleb’s instructions, I put on my good pair of Carhartts, and a clean undershirt.
“Josh.” I looked up to see Caleb watching me. “Catch,” he said. Then he tossed me something.
It was a new pair of socks. The woolen kind. His mother knitted them for him every winter.
My mother did nothing like that for me. Ever. Even my own mother valued me at zero.
I sat down on the bed to pull on Caleb’s socks. My hands were shaking now. And maybe for nothing, right? If Caleb was wrong, I could give him the socks back after laundry day.
One of my flannel shirts had no holes, so I wore that one. Then I added a wool sweater that had been my father’s, and my canvas work jacket.
The last thing I did was slip a pocketknife into my trousers. That too had been my father’s. My mother gave it to me when I’d turned ten, before it became too obvious that I would not be a leader of our community.
The bell rang again to call us to breakfast and Ezekiel and David ran out of our room. Caleb waited, though. There was a moment of silence, and I could feel him holding back until all the other bachelors assembled in the common room where the food was.
“Josh…” he whispered.
But he was cut off by another voice yelling my name from the hallway. “Josh!” David stuck his head back into our room. “Elder Michael is waiting outside. He wants you at the tool shed right away.”
My heart plunged. David was watching me, so I didn’t risk a look in Caleb’s direction. Though I wanted to. I wanted one more glance at his beautiful face, for courage.
I didn’t see Caleb again, but I did hear his voice. “Bus station” he whispered as I left the room.
Bus station, I repeated to myself as I stepped into the cold morning. I walked quickly toward the tool shed. I was practically racing there, which made no sense. Why hurry to your own execution?
Bus station,I chanted inside my head.Bus station. My own little descent into hell would be accompanied by two words for a place I’d never been, and really had no wish to see.
But they were words that Caleb gave me, and that was something.
Bus station, I whispered as I saw not one but four men waiting near the toolshed. Elder Michael was there, but also Evil Ezra and two of his cronies.
It got worse, too. The Tundra was idling nearby.
