“How can you be so sure?”

  “I know it because I’ve asked Him. A rough patch but we’re being guided. Not even the accident has pushed us away from Him.” He was working on it. Talking about the accident no longer brought bile rising in his throat. He was starting to believe in his innocence. And he had to believe that he had a future with Amber—that he deserved it. After all, that was why he was taking them to Jim’s: he had hope. When he thought of a life without her…when he thought of her leaving him, finding another man…

  “You mean, He answered you?”

  Why was she so surprised? “Yeah, last night.”

  She rolled over, until he eyeballed her confused pupils, and her nose nudged his. ‘Hello’, he mouthed. ‘Hello’, she mouthed back.

  “You don’t have to grieve, honey,” he said. “That part of our journey’s over. He said it was all part of his plan. And honey, He is so proud of you.” He closed his eyes again from the intensity of her stare.

  “How can He be proud of me? I’m living a lie.”

  “No, sweetheart, he recognised Gilly for what she was. At the cusp of evil.”

  He saw Amber’s jaw tense. “Don’t you dare say that!”

  “She escaped the house that night, Amb. What more do you want from me? She was acting out. At risk of turning dark!”

  “It was an accident!”

  “I know that. The accident was the hand of God. People don’t understand that, even we can’t understand it, but I’m just guessing...Anyway, look at me.” He tilted her chin with his thumb. “No, look at me—I see no coward here.”

  “I didn’t say I was a coward,” she said under her breath. He raised himself slightly on his elbows and composed himself.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m feeling real good, Amber. It’s not my time to grieve any further. We waste the Lord’s wishes for us, if we do.” He hoped his energy was infectious. That she’d realise there was a way to heal, if she’d let him in again—but he was met with reluctance.

  “And what is that?” She watched him warily. She doubted him, that much was clear.

  “Well, obedience to Him, of course. Reform Ivan first.”

  “It’s not that easy, Chad. He’s hurting.”

  He felt his jaw lock. “How can he be hurting?” More than me, more than us?

  “He knows something, Chad. He’s not stupid. Sees something is up with me, at least.”

  You’ve not exactly been trying to hide it. But he knew he would only push her away if he voiced it.

  “Now that we’re married, we can have children of our own. That’s important,” he said as he brushed a strand of hair away from Amber’s forehead, but she shrugged his hand away.

  “How can you say that?” She held her forearm as though he had burnt her.

  “Say what?”

  “Nothing can replace her!”

  “Now you’re just putting words into my mouth, Amber. You know I didn’t say that.”

  “Not everyone can be God’s messenger,” she said, as though to a child. “I’m glad you’re praying, but that doesn’t mean you received divine guidance on how I should live my life—”

  “Our lives, Amber.”

  “Or how I should grieve.” The silence between them was electrically charged. Here was a woman who pushed against him. Something he had thought he wanted; found attractive. But something had to be done. There was a limit to being understanding all the time, covering for her mood swings to Ivan, cooking all the meals and blaming her silences—or absences at church—on migraines.

  “No. Look here—I’m the head of the family, it’s the father who should be communicating with God.” Chad drilled his fist into the carpet in frustration. “I’m going to be having the revelations from now on!”

  “But, Chad, that’s not possible.”

  She half-laughed. She was laughing at him. She thought his dominance was some kind of joke?

  “You think I’m not the head of this family?”

  “I’m not saying that—”

  “You think I’m not holy enough?” he spat.

  “But Chad, I’m a visionary. You know that.” She sat further back, watching his fists as they flexed.

  “Yeah, well, you’re the first female I’ve heard of chatting to Him.”

  Maybe Uncle Jim was right. He let her walk all over him. She assumed his adoration, but wasn’t it time she earned it?

  “This was never an issue before,” she said, crossing her arms. ‘Try me’ her face read. It was an insult.

  “A wife should respect her husband. Not tell him what to do.”

  “I’m not telling you what to do! Chad, if you push me away, where will we be? That’s what you’re doing now—push push push!” When she pouted, her bottom lip looked like a ripe plum. It softened him. He wanted to lick it.

  “Well, I don’t think I want to hear any more of your visions,” he concluded. “Want to think my own thoughts. I’ve started listening like you do. Having my own revelations. I’m going to lead the family from now on.” He watched her swallow a retort, adjust her facial expression to compliance.

  “Let’s go home,” she shrugged. “We need to check on Ivan.”

  “We need to send Ivan to Uncle Jim already!” It came out as a sharp bark. Truth was that Ivan’s questionings scared him. He couldn’t keep up with his own lies.

  “Is that a revelation, then?” A fizz: his hand across her face. Instinctive. He recoiled in shock. She had spoken uncensored, but he knew he had gone too far. When he found the courage to meet her gaze, he found her face stoic.

  “Well. Looks like we’re being honest with each other,” she said, still clutching her face.

  “I’m scared, Amber. I’m sorry. We can’t control Ivan.” He reached out his hand for her to take and when she removed hers from her cheek, he saw the white of fear circling the pink of his slap.

  “Ivan can go to Jim’s. Let’s arrange it,” she said quietly, heading for the door ahead of him.

  19TH JUNE, 2015

  CHAD

  “Yeah, I know they thought it was some kind of joke! And it was—some kid invents a conspiracy against his God-loving parents? They’d brush that kind of call off any day of the week. But the next time?”

  His leg was still shaking. He’d barely had time to brush the sleep from his eyes this morning when the doorbell had rung. When he had opened the door and seen two policemen standing there…His mind had jumped to all sorts of conclusions. He gripped the kitchen’s peeling window ledge, his eyebrow twitching like a stuck record. He couldn’t see it pulsing in his reflection, but he felt it under his fingertips.

  “Ivan calling the police is the last straw,” he told Amber, who seemed fixated on tearing at her cuticles, steadfastly avoiding his gaze. He was sick of dealing with Amber’s insolent kid. Is Gilly home? One of the officers had been young enough to be Chad’s kid, not even able to grow his own stubble. It had been easy to convince him that Ivan was a troubled child, prone to compulsive lying. But what if someone checked in for a second time, someone less of a pushover? Chad’s poker face had never been a strong point. He knew the lies would crumble.

  “There won’t be a next time,” Amber quietly said. Chad’s jaw clenched.

  “Oh, you’re gonna watch your kid 24/7 now?” When Chad had met Amber, he had never felt love before. It had been a kind of crumbling of sense and logic. Now, when he looked at her, he wondered if he had really found love at all, or merely infatuation. “Do you know where he is now?”

  Amber looked up at the ceiling. “Upstairs. Listening to you, no doubt.”

  Chad grimaced, knowing she was right, and lowered his tone. “Every day since you and the kids moved here, it’s been trouble. I swear I’m losing my hair. I’m going grey. I’m not sleeping and I slept like a baby before you.”

  She came up behind him. “It’s just your bad dreams.” Amber’s voice was soothing, her hand on his shoulder cool, but timid. He pushed it away.

  “You’re my bad dream.”

  She nodded, nursing her hand as though he had removed it with a poker. And then her face hardened. “What do you want from me Chad? Sympathy? Try throwing some my way, you asshole,” she hissed, a glimmer of hatred settling in her gaze. Somehow, that was comforting.

  “I want some action, okay? Take some responsibility for your son.”

  “He can’t ring the police if I confiscate his phone, can he? There’s a simple solution to everything Chad, if you just stop seeing red all the time! And talk to me without that tone,” she added. “That would be a start.”

  Seeing red? He saw it everywhere. It was caked over his hands, dripping down his calves.

  “What do you think I’m bloody doing now?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh great, we swear at each other now? Just perfect.”

  There was something bubbling in his belly—was it panic? He felt like laughing. What was he becoming? Who had he married? “Have you forgotten you just called me an asshole?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Sit down.” Uncle Jim always seemed to be right, eventually. Here was a woman who needed a firm hand. Amber put her hands on her hips and stood squarely against him: a challenge. He raised the stakes. Led her by the ponytail to a kitchen chair. He glimpsed tears gathering at the edges of her eyes but he questioned everything about this woman now, even her bodily functions.

  “I had a revelation and this is how it’s gonna go for us—”

  “Are you sure?” Still, she goaded him.

  “Stop.” It was all he could spit out. There was a seed of doubt growing in his belly: did he really want to go down this road? But he swallowed it. Now was not the time to be weak. “I told you I’d be leading the family from now on. You can disrespect me, but doubting God?”

  “Go on, then,” she said, eyes defiant with fire.

  “I quote—If you now will not hearken unto the voice of the Lord, you shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies.” Amber nodded, reassured by the scripture. “Ivan doesn’t live by the Lord. Not only that, not only has he rejected the church, but God’s message. He turned on you—turned on us. In fact, you’ve been so blind to his ways. And at this point? He’s so consumed with the devil, Satan is trying to remove us. Put us behind bars. Lord says we can’t sit by and take it. Let the devil suck his bones dry, then ours in turn. What kind of mother would you be then? You said it yourself. Umming and ahhing has gone on for far too long now. Action is needed. And when we’re at Jim’s, we’ll have the privacy to do it.” He laid his hands on her shoulders and felt her gulp, processing his words.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He’d lead her to it. She’d understand there was no other way. That if Gilly had been led to undertake a conversion therapy before the accident, everything would have fallen into place. They had a chance here. “You said it yourself, Amber. Ivan is possessed.”

  She blinked. “I don’t remember saying that.”

  “Troubled, then. It was something similar. You can agree he’s acting out, disobeying his own guardians, right? Questioning us.”

  “…Questioning us, yes.”

  He rushed to face her across the table, placing his palms down flat. “Well, this is our chance, Amber, we can reform him!”

  She seemed to retreat in her chair, hunched over. “What do you mean?”

  It had come to him in a dream. An image of Ivan, underwater—but he was breathing, he was becoming something else, something other. And Chad had been there, his hand on Ivan’s head, raising him up with the energy that flowed from his body, elevating him until Ivan began to glow. In the dream, he had known Ivan was healed. That the power of the water had cleansed him of all sins. That it had the power to do the same for him.

  “I’ve been led by the Lord to undertake a conversion therapy for Ivan.” A strangled sound escaped Amber’s throat, like a gurgle. Perhaps he should have used an alternative phrase. He scratched at his throat. “It’s not like Gilly. Won’t bring her back. But it will…it will right all the wrongs.”

  Amber brought her arms across her chest, hugging herself. “What does it involve?” He had to lean forward to catch the words.

  “A baptism of sorts,” he said, his voice buoyant, his hands gesturing. This was where she would see. “A cleansing. I will offer Ivan’s sins, the sins that have plagued us to the Lord, and the water shall cleanse him—”

  “What water?”

  “Jim’s house has a lake. Well, a large pond.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Ivan can’t swim.”

  Chad’s fists squeezed involuntarily. It was just like Amber to interrupt when he wasn’t done explaining. She hadn’t allowed him to get to the resolution, the moment of absolution. “He doesn’t need to swim, it’s a baptism, Amber, I’ll just be dipping—”

  “But I can’t let you do that, Chad.” Amber’s face had drained of colour. Chad noticed the flowers she had picked for the table had died. Their heads wept over the glass; the water was green with decay. How had they not noticed? Or had she noticed, and allowed it to stagnate all the same? He heard a snivelling, so he moved to the window, where he wouldn’t have to look at her.

  “You know where the Kleenex is,” he grunted. Crying made his insides grind to a stop. It made him feel sorry for her, and that made it hard to concentrate. He had expected her resistance, but not the churning anger it would ignite in him. He pressed his palms against the wall, pushing his rage into something which could resist back.

  “I think,” she stammered, “that you’ve had some dream. A vision, if you like. And it’s made you believe you have a solution. But you don’t Chad. I can’t have you experimenting on my son. Visiting Jim is one thing, farm work, that kind of thing. Perhaps you’re right, that that kind of work could stabilise us all. But some kind of therapy, baptism? No, Chad. We can find another way. This is not—I’m not sure—”

  “This is the will of the Lord, Amber. You can’t talk your way out of it.”

  He didn’t look at her. Fixated on the newly-laid soil and seeding grass. He’d forced himself to see the garden. It looked normal, but it made him feel nauseous. Why couldn’t she accept his words? There was no trust there. Even though he’d given her a home. Even though he’d promised his whole life to her. He’d even taken in two kids, who were never part of the deal, and he’d never complained, no fuss, nothing. He’d been proud introducing her to his friends, his community, and this was how she repaid him. If there was no trust, no submission in their marriage…Hell, did this woman feel anything for him at all? He glanced at her. Coiled locks, big eyes. With him she had a house, and identity. A town community to accept her—the life of a widow in a Mormon community was a solitary one—and financial stability. Had she been using him all along?

  “Do you love me?”

  She looked at him, became roadkill under his headlights.

  “What is this?”

  Exactly. And maybe he had always known that. But immediately, he didn’t want to pursue the thought. To retreat was better. Chad removed his heart from his mouth, popped it back in his breast.

  “Okay, look. As your husband, I have a duty to protect you. Which I’ll always do, Amber, you know that, right?”

  She said nothing.

  “Are you thirsty?”

  She said nothing. He brought her a glass of water anyway, and continued.

  “We’re married, but we’re only getting further away from one another, Amb. And if we’re honest? It’s the kids that done it. But we both have a duty to the Lord, who has obviously set us up for a challenging path, but we must obey Him and His law.”

  Suddenly, she was done with the waterworks and up on her feet. Pushed right past Chad to the ice dispenser. Plucked a sturdy glass and filled the room with the crunch of cubes. Pressed the device to generate water, to cover the rocks. He watched her sip, neck held high.

  “I gave you a glass of water.”

  “I didn’t want yours.”

  He exhaled and counted to ten.

  “You think you’re in charge of this marriage, but I could call the cops on you for Gilly,” she sweetly said, leaning against the refrigerator to assess him. He thought he had her, and yet her tongue was lashing back.

  He felt his heart pound but he forced himself to speak slowly. “I have lived here my whole life,” he spoke carefully, considering the events which could unfold. “And my uncle knows the local sheriff…But then, you’re just a woman, Amber. Would it even get that far? Your voice don’t hold much weight.”

  It was the lowest blow to cut her down with. If she had any insecurities at all, it was her status as a woman. How to command respect in a society which overlooked her. Or resented her. He saw her fold. The light in her eyes dulled.

  “You could help me. This sort of therapy will work better as a team.” He offered an olive branch.

  She ran a shaky hand through her hair. It glistened with grease and it occurred to him that she hadn’t had a shower in days. “There will be no baptism, Chad. I won’t allow it, okay? The visit to Jim’s is enough.”

  He bit his lip. He had planned for this. Anticipated it. Whether Amber was going to help or not, he was going to force Ivan into submission once and for all. He thought quickly. They could head off for Jim’s in just a few days, but first they needed an alibi. That, at least, was something Amber could help with. He added sugar to his tone.

  “I understand. Look, let’s head off this Friday. But first, I need you to do something for me.”

  She put down her glass and pursed her lips.

  “I don’t know how long we’ll be at Jim’s. So, I need you to tell Melanie about it, in case people come looking for him.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  He scratched at his neck. “Hell, Mel will try and convince us to reform him here. She won’t see the point of taking him away.”

  “Who’s coming looking?”

  He paused, watching her for a moment. “Well, the school, maybe. The authorities.”

 

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