Out of Heaven's Grasp Read online

  “Why?” said Thomas, grinning. He had his oldest daughter on his lap, and she was braiding his beard. “You want to come?”

  “Oh, I can’t,” I said. I was rocking the baby. He’d just gotten to sleep, and I didn’t want to wake him. “Can I?”

  Thomas shrugged. “I don’t see why not. What do you think, Carla?”

  Carla stirred vegetables on the stove. “Definitely. It’ll be fun, Abby. When was the last time you went?”

  “It’s been since I was a little girl.”

  “See,” said Thomas. “There you go. You should definitely come along. It might be your last chance. I imagine the elders will be marrying you off any day now.”

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll be getting married.”

  Carla laughed. “Don’t sound so excited, Abby.”

  I peered down into the sleeping face of my nephew. “Well, I guess if I came along, I could help out with the children.”

  “We’re not taking them,” said Carla, turning away from the stove.

  “You’re not?”

  She grinned. “Nope. They’re going to stay with my mother’s family.” Carla had been her mother’s last child, so her mother had an empty nest and probably missed having little ones underfoot. “We’ll be free, and we can go wild.”

  Thomas laughed. “See? You have to come.”

  I shot a wary glance back and forth between them. What did going wild mean? Lebenet was a worldly town, with all kinds of sinful temptations. I had to admit that I was curious about all sorts of things in the outside world, but I also knew that they were all sinful.

  Thomas scooted his daughter off his lap. “I’ll talk to Father,” he told me.

  “Well…” I smiled a little. “It does sound fun.”

  “Good,” said Carla. “Then it’s settled. It’ll give us all a chance to breathe a little bit.” She went back to the stove. “Now, spill it. Why don’t you sound very excited about the idea of getting married?”

  I turned back to the baby. “I never said that.”

  Thomas wrapped his arms around her from behind. “How much longer is dinner going to take?”

  She elbowed him playfully. “It’ll be soon.”

  He kissed her neck. “I’ll be in the living room, all right?”

  She smiled after him.

  The two of them seemed happy, and they’d been arranged to be together. But Carla was lucky. She’d been married to a man nearer her own age, one without any wives. There was no guarantee of that. I could be married into an already-established family, one with two other wives already and tons of children.

  Carla looked back at me. “You’re going to make the best wife and mother ever, Abby. You’re so good with kids.”

  I shrugged. “I’m no better than anyone else.” We all came from huge families, and we helped out with our younger brothers and sisters.

  “No, you’re good,” she said. “You really are. And I see the way you look at the baby. You want your own, don’t you?”

  I hesitated. The truth was that I wasn’t sure if I did. I didn’t know much about the outside world, but I knew a little bit. And I knew that out there, women didn’t have to get married and have children young. It wasn’t that I had anything against the idea, not exactly, but I saw how exhausting it was. Even Carla, who was happy, struggled to do all of her duty. She’d only been married for three years, and she already had two kids. Within a few years, how many more would she have? And soon, if Thomas did well, he’d get another wife, and there would be even more children, more exhaustion. I remembered that Carla used to sing so sweetly at the worship meetings. But now, more often than not, she was too busy trying to keep the baby from crying. When I was married, would there be time for me to play my guitar? To sing?

  Carla raised her eyebrows at me.

  I forced myself to smile. “Of course I do.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Abby

  My father agreed to allow me to accompany Carla and Thomas to Lebenet. I’d be helping them to shop for essentials for the family and also to check in with a few merchants. Our family provided canned goods and homemade health foods to several different places. We’d be restocking with them and collecting on invoices.

  Selling things in Lebenet was one of the ways that families in the community made money. Some families also did the farmer’s market circuit, driving produce out to various places and selling organic and whole foods. As part of our beliefs, the followers of the Life ate very natural, very healthy food. We believed that our bodies were temples for the holy spirit, and that we shouldn’t do anything to defile them.

  Since we’d be doing so much, we took the family RV instead of just a car. It was possible to make the trip to Lebenet all in one day, but doing so was rough, because it meant eight hours on the road, four there and four back. Staying overnight in the RV made things a little bit less arduous. I’d done it as a little girl, when I’d accompanied my father. We’d parked the RV in the Costco parking lot and slept right there.

  The ride there was a lot of fun. Carla knew a lot of silly car games, like looking for letters on license plates and signs. We talked and laughed. I could see that Carla was relieved not to have the children for a day or two.

  We’d brought all our food with us, because the worldly restaurants didn’t prepare food to our standards. But I was shocked when we stopped for a restroom break at a fast food chain, and Carla came back with three soft drinks and a container of French fries for us to share.

  It must have shown on my face, because she laughed at me.

  “What?” she said. “My parents always let us kids have fries and Coke on trips. It’s my favorite thing about leaving the community.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Her parents let her do this? I’d always thought of Carla’s family as godly. My parents would never allow such a thing, and I couldn’t believe Thomas was condoning it.

  But he snagged a fry and grinned at me. “Go wild, Abby.”

  I took a tentative sip of my soft drink. It was really sweet.

  “Good?” said Carla.

  I had to nod. “Really good.”

  She smiled. “I think it’s okay every once and a while. For a treat, you know?”

  “Yeah,” said Thomas. “A treat.”

  The French fries were good too. They were salty and greasy, and I found myself gobbling at them. Still, even as I enjoyed them, I felt a well of guilt. Thomas and Carla both knew that what we were doing was wrong, and yet they were doing it anyway. It didn’t make sense to me. If something was a sin, then even indulging in it a little bit was bad for our spirits and our souls, not to mention our bodies.

  But I ate the food anyway, and I also got a charge from doing it. It was exciting to rebel. It was exciting to taste the wickedness of the world.

  After we arrived, we were busy until dusk, running our various errands. Then we sat in the RV and ate our dinner—hummus and vegetables wrapped in homemade tortillas.

  As the sky grew darker, Thomas and I got out our guitars, and the three of us sang and played music for several hours. But after a while, the singing wound down. I wasn’t tired, not exactly. I was too wired by the change of scenery and the freedom of being away from the community.

  But Carla had her head on Thomas’s shoulder, and he had his arm around her, and I started to feel uncomfortable, like I was intruding on them.

  I set my guitar down. “Um, should we go to bed?”

  Carla giggled. “Don’t you want to do some exploring, Abby?”

  “Exploring?” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “On your own. You could go run around town a little bit and give Thomas and me a few hours of privacy?”

  Privacy. I looked back and forth between them.

  Thomas was grinning. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

  It did? What was going on? Were they kicking me out of the RV?

  Thomas unwound his arm from Carla and came over to me. “You’ll have a blast.” He reached into his po
cket and took out some money, which he handed to me. “Go get a burger or something. You could even go to the movie theater.”

  “Movies?” I was shocked. Movies were expressly forbidden. They were the height of wicked worldliness.

  He pressed the money into my palm. “Come on, Abby. Go wild. I promise not to tell.”

  And so, I found myself standing outside of the RV in the Costco parking lot. I could hear the muffled sounds of laughter from within the RV, and I didn’t know what exactly my brother and Carla were doing in there, but I had some vague idea that it was whatever men and women did together after they were married. No one really talked about it, but I knew that it confused me.

  As I stared out over the parking lot, large streetlights burning in the darkness, blocking out the stars overhead, I hugged myself. From what I understood, the feelings that women and men had for each other were sinful and wrong. At least, they were before you were married. But after you were married… well, I was unclear. Many of the elders seemed to say that it was an evil that must be endured for married people. But other married people seemed to, well, enjoy it.

  Was it like the French fries from earlier? Tasty and wondrous, but bad for you just the same?

  I spotted a truck across the parking lot, and I recognized it.

  It looked an awful lot like Jesse’s truck.

  Could it be that Jesse was here? If so, that would make a certain kind of sick sense. I was contemplating temptation, and the person who tempted me more than anything was right across the parking lot, just when I’d been given money and an order to “go wild.”

  I gulped.

  Something inside me, something I was powerless to resist, dragged me across the parking lot to the truck.

  As I walked, I tried to convince myself that there was no way it was Jesse’s. There had to be lots of other trucks that looked liked his, and the odds that he’d be here in Lebenet at the same time as me were long.

  But as I got closer, I could see that the bed of the truck had a tangle of blankets in it, because someone was planning to sleep there. There was a cover over the bed, but the back was open, and I could see inside.

  And then Jesse wandered around the truck, sandwich in hand. When he saw me, he was startled. He dropped the sandwich on the pavement.

  “Oh,” I said, rushing forward. “I’m sorry. I made you drop your food.” I picked up the sandwich, but it was ruined. Too dirty to eat. I stared down at it, feeling awful.

  “You really need to stop apologizing, Abigail London,” said Jesse.

  I gulped again, and I raised my gaze to meet his. All at once, my body seemed kick into a higher gear. My heart sped up, my breath grew shallow, and my face flushed.

  He smiled. “What are you doing here?”

  “Um… shopping at Costco for the family.”

  “Me too,” he said. He looked around. “You alone?”

  I pointed at the RV. “I’m with my brother Thomas and his wife. But they, um, wanted privacy.”

  Now Jesse blushed. He quickly looked away from me.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Why had I mentioned that? That was the last thing I should talk about in front of Jesse. I shouldn’t be talking to him at all, in fact. We were alone, and it was against the rules for unmarried men and women to be alone. Actually, it was against the rules for me to be out here alone without a chaperone. Everything was topsy-turvy and confusing. I was still holding Jesse’s dirty sandwich. I flung it on the ground.

  Out of nowhere, courage surged through me. I tossed my hair back. “My brother gave me some money. I should buy you dinner. It’s my fault you lost your food.”

  A sly grin crept over his features. “You want to buy me worldly food?”

  “Well,” I said, “unless you think ravens are going to come down like they did for Elijah. You can’t starve.”

  He scanned the night sky. “Yeah, I’m not seeing any ravens.”

  “Look, if you think it would be too sinful—”

  “I never said that.” He grinned at me. “Besides, who’s going to know?”

  That was what my brother had said. I felt guilt shoot through me, but it was tinged with a rush of excitement, and I couldn’t tell which was stronger. I felt giddy and free. I could stare at Jesse as long as I wanted here, and there was no one to tell me it was wrong.

  He looked out across the parking lot. There were clusters of different restaurants surrounding the Costco lot. “Where should we go?”

  “I…” I really had no idea. I pointed. “That one.”

  “Applebees?” he said.

  I shrugged. “Maybe they have apples?”

  He glanced at me. “You ever do this before?”

  I shook my head. “But Thomas told me I should go wild.”

  Jesse laughed.

  “What about you?” I asked. “You ever done it?”

  “No.”

  We walked across the parking lot to the restaurant. There were other people getting out of their cars—people in wordly clothes. The women wore pants and had short hair. Their faces were painted garishly with makeup. The men were clean-shaven, in jeans and t-shirts. They all openly gaped at us in our simple, homespun clothes. I wore a simple dress, and Jesse wore a flowing tunic and trousers. But people had been staring at us all day, and we were used to it.

  We followed the worldly people into the restaurant, watching closely to see what they did so that we could mimic it.

  But it didn’t help, because we were still confused. The woman at the door asked us, “How many?”

  We’d both watched the other people answer this question, but we didn’t know where they were getting their numbers. Was this some kind of worldly code that we didn’t understand?

  I looked at Jesse. He looked at me.

  And then he looked back at the woman. “How many what?”

  The woman laughed. “How many of you? Just two?”

  “Oh,” I said, realization dawning.

  “You guys are those Jesus hippies, right?” she said. “We see you guys in the Costco all the time, but no one ever comes in here to eat.”

  Neither of us knew what to say. What were Jesus hippies?

  She just chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. This way. I’ll get you a table.”

  I wasn’t sure what fascinated me the most about the place. Maybe it was the smooth wooden table tops or the bright, electric lights. Maybe it was the individual, disposable packets of sugar and things I’d never heard of like Sweet and Lo. Maybe it was the brightly colored menus we were given, with pictures of huge portions of food all over them. My mouth watered as I gaped at it.

  Jesse and I were still staring at the menus when a woman came by and asked what we wanted to drink.

  I only knew of one worldly drink name from Carla earlier that day, and so I said. “Coke. We’ll have Coke.”

  “Pepsi okay?” the woman said absently.

  Pepsi? “Um… what’s that?”

  She looked up at me, and it was as if she was seeing me for the first time. “Whoa,” she said. “You guys are from that cult.”

  I winced.

  Jesse got red again.

  “You don’t know what Pepsi is?”

  I shook my head.

  “It’s the same as Coke,” she said. She bit her lip. “Well, we’re not supposed to say that, because it’s a brand thing or whatever, but trust me, it’s the same.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  Jesse still looked confused, and I didn’t really feel any better about what was going on. Maybe this whole thing had been a mistake.

  The woman looked back and forth between us, furrowing her brow. “I didn’t think you guys ever went to restaurants.”

  I blanched. Even out in the world, we were being reminded of how we were rebelling. I started to get up. “Maybe this was a bad idea. We should go.”

  “Oh, hold on, wait,” said the woman, her eyes wide. She lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Are you guys like breaking the rules?”

  My
face got hot again.

  But Jesse just grinned. “Yes, actually.”

  The woman grinned too. “Awesome. That is so cool.”

  I slowly sat back down again.

  “So, have you ever been to a restaurant before?”

  We shook our heads.

  She was still grinning. “Well, that’s okay. Don’t worry. I’m Missy. I’m your waitress. Do you guys know about waitresses?”

  We didn’t say anything.

  “I’m going to take care of you,” she said. “Don’t worry about anything. This is going to be great, and you’re going to love it.” She grabbed the menu. “So, aren’t you guys like vegan or whatever?”

  “Vegan?” said Jesse.

  She nodded. “Yeah, like no animal products, right? No meat, no milk, no eggs?”

  “Oh,” I said. “That’s right.” We didn’t eat meat because of the bible story of Daniel in captivity. He and the Israelites had only eaten vegetables and water and become stronger than the others. We believed that eating only plants was better for our bodies, which was ultimately better for our spirits and souls.

  “Well,” said Missy, “there’s not a lot on the menu that’s vegan, but—”

  “Maybe we don’t have to follow that tonight either,” said Jesse.

  Missy’s eyes sparkled. “Oh, you guys are little rebels. I love it. You know, my sister has a store in town and she sells a lot of the clothes that you guys make, so that’s why I know some stuff about your beliefs. I’m sorry I said it was a cult. I guess that was kind of rude.” She made an apologetic face. “Anyway, I just want you to know that I think it’s really cool that you’re trying new stuff.”

  I was starting to feel a little better. We’d always been taught that the worldly people were all either possessed by demons or under the thrall of demons. But Missy didn’t seem like a horrible, evil person. She was even a little bit nice, helping us figure this out.

  I looked back at the menu, which still seemed overwhelming. What was it that my brother had said? Something about… “Do you have burgers?” I said.