Sanctuary

“I had the time.” With a deep breath, Hope studied her sister. “It’s Arvin, isn’t it?” she asked. “The father of your baby.”

Faith’s face contorted in distaste. “Yes. How’d you know?”

“It wasn’t difficult to guess.”

Silence.

“So how is it, being married to Arvin?”

“How do you think? He pretends to live the Gospel, but he’s really arrogant and mean and stingy.”

Somehow, even as a child, a sixth sense had warned Hope about the existence of a dark side beneath the eager smile Arvin had always offered her, together with the candy he carried in his pockets. Hope had done everything possible to keep her distance from him, which had eventually led to her outright rebellion. Faith, on the other hand, possessed a calmer, more long-suffering temperament. Hope had last seen her when she was only eight years old, but even then Faith had been a peace lover. A typical middle child, she was like a kitten that immediately curled up and purred at the first hint of praise or attention—the most patient and tractable of Marianne’s five daughters.

And this was what Faith’s good nature had brought her, Hope thought bitterly, staring at her sister’s rounded stomach. Arvin’s baby.

“Did Charity refuse to marry Arvin, too?” she asked. “Is that how it fell to you?”

Frowning, Faith cast Hope a sideways glance. “What you did eleven years ago embarrassed Daddy in front of the whole church. I don’t think he wanted to push Charity into doing the same thing.”

“She would have refused?”

Faith shrugged. “Charity’s more like you than I am.”

“Are you saying a woman should marry a man she detests for the sake of her father’s pride?”

“No.” Faith’s swing continued to squeak as she moved. “Arvin always admired you. He’d been asking Daddy for you since you were small, and Daddy had already promised him, that’s all. I’m just trying to explain why Daddy did what he did.”

“I know why he did it, Faith. But that doesn’t make it right. I was in love with someone else.”

Her sister stopped swinging and scuffed the toe of one tennis shoe in the dirt, as though finally cognizant of the fact that the generous skirt of her cotton print dress had been dragging. “That was the other reason Charity didn’t have to marry Arvin,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m talking about Bonner.”

The 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.