• • •
The door to Dr. Johnson’s examining room opened and a woman and a girl about Enid’s age came out. She was someone Enid recognized. Her name was Mary. She was fourteen and betrothed to Bishop Lowell. The wedding was due to happen the following month. Marrying the bishop was supposed to be a huge honor. From the desolate expression on the girl’s face, Enid knew that she had just been forced to undergo the dreaded virginity test. Only virgins were allowed to marry Elders, and written certification of that from The Family’s approved physician, Dr. Johnson, came only after he had determined the hymen was fully intact.
From the set of Mary’s mother’s jaw, Enid could see the woman was angry. As Mary walked past with eyes downcast and shoulders slumped, Enid understood that, for some reason, Mary hadn’t passed. Enid put her hand to her mouth in a gesture of unspoken sympathy because she knew what came next. Mary would be taken back to The Encampment and locked in the concrete block cell behind the church. The next time the Elders met, there would be a trial of sorts, with Bishop Lowell serving as judge and with only the Twelve Elders allowed on the jury. Everyone knew it was all for show. There wasn’t the slightest chance that Mary would be found innocent.
Cast-Off girls weren’t allowed to stay in The Encampment for fear of passing their wickedness on to someone else. Once convicted, Mary would be stripped naked and forced to stand in the back of Bishop Lowell’s truck in broad daylight while she was driven away from the church and out of The Encampment. Everyone in The Family would be there, lining the road and looking on in absolute silence while the truck went past. No one knew what became of Cast-Off girls after the truck disappeared from view, and anyone stupid enough to ask would soon be on the receiving end of a willow-switch beating.
No one was allowed to ask about what happened to the Not Chosen girls, either. They too disappeared, but without the same kind of shame or spectacle as the Cast-Offs. Not Chosens were the girls who, by age seven or so, were somehow deemed unworthy and, as a consequence, were not yet betrothed. Like unwanted kittens in the barn, one day they were there; the next they were gone.
That’s what had happened to a girl named Judith, whose cot had been next to Enid’s on the girls’ sleeping porch. The two girls had been the same age but, because Judith was Edith’s daughter, they had not been friends. One night they went to bed in the usual way, but the next morning, when Enid awakened, Judith was gone. Her cot had been stripped down to the bare mattress, and the chest with her clothing and belongings in it was gone as well.
Enid had discovered later that Judith wasn’t the only Not Chosen who had disappeared that night. Another five or six had vanished from other households as well—at least that’s what one of the older girls said in a whispered conversation after church the next Sunday. Disappearing Nights happened at odd intervals during the year. Afterward, any discussion about them was strictly forbidden. That didn’t mean that the speculation didn’t happen, but it was conducted in wary secrecy.
After one Disappearing Night, one of the older boys claimed he had seen the girls being carried onto a plane that had flown away into the night. Another said the Not Chosens were transported to an island somewhere to be fed to cannibals. As unlikely as both stories seemed, Enid from age eight on had been grateful each morning to wake up in familiar surroundings. Back then terror of the Outside had been greater than the unrelenting drudgery of living under Aunt Edith’s thumb. Now, though, at age sixteen, that had changed. Being Outside was what Enid Tower longed for more than anything, for herself and for her baby.
• • •
“Susannah,” the nurse announced.
Aunt Edith stirred while another pregnant woman—someone Enid knew but not well and who looked as though she might deliver any day—levered herself up from her chair and waddled into the exam room. As soon as the door closed, Aunt Edith closed her eyes again.
Enid looked longingly at the dog-eared magazines scattered on the table in front of her. The ones she really wanted to study were the torn back issues of National Geographic. Even though she couldn’t read most of the words, she had caught a few stolen glimpses of the photos—colorful photographs of strange, faraway places Enid hoped to see someday. There was also a single copy of something called TV Guide. She wondered about that. Members of The Family weren’t allowed to watch television or see movies, so why did Dr. Johnson have that magazine in his office? As for the woman pictured on the cover? The clothing she wore was far too revealing and her teeth were impossibly white. The Family believed in Dr. Johnson, but they didn’t believe in dentists or in toothpaste, either. Baking soda was it.
Even with Aunt Edith fast asleep, Enid didn’t dare pick up the magazine. Anyone caught with what Bishop Lowell called “godless literature” in her hand could count on a willow-switch beating the moment she got home. Besides, all Enid would be able to do was look at the pictures. The children in The Family were all supposedly being homeschooled, but Bishop Lowell didn’t think there was any need for girls to learn to read. He claimed there were too many books and magazines that would do nothing but lead them astray.
Hidden away in a closet on the younger girls’ sleeping porch and using a purloined flashlight, Enid had managed to teach herself some reading skills by working her way through some of the younger boys’ reading books. Even so, she knew she would never be able to read a whole magazine on her own. That was something she was hoping she would be able to give her daughter on the Outside—the ability to read.
Barely ten minutes later, Susannah came out, still buttoning her blouse. The nurse stood in the doorway, glancing at a list. “Enid,” she announced.
Taking a deep breath, Enid stood up. She had no purse to carry. Purses were considered vain. Instead, womenfolk from The Family were expected to carry nothing more ornate than small homemade pouches made of cloth that were large enough to hold only a small Bible and a single hanky. As Enid crossed the room, she gripped the pouch tightly in both hands, hoping that Aunt Edith wouldn’t wake up and spy the telltale bulges in the pouch that concealed Enid’s “ill-gotten goods”—the small scissors, the spool of white thread, and the needle she had smuggled out of the Sewing Room.
She crossed the room hurriedly, more than half expecting Aunt Edith to lumber to her feet and raise an objection. She did not. When Enid had come to see Dr. Johnson for her first prenatal checkup, Aunt Edith had insisted on accompanying her into the examining room. It had been humiliating for Enid to be up on the table, with her legs spread open in the stirrups and with Dr. Johnson peering at her while Aunt Edith watched from the sidelines. That evening, in bed, after Enid had given Gordon everything he wanted and more, she had pleaded her case.
“If I’m old enough to have your baby,” she said, “I should be old enough to see the doctor without having Aunt Edith in the room with me.”
Thankfully, Gordon had capitulated. Aunt Edith was furious about it, but even First Wives had to abide by their husbands’ wishes. Enid was counting on that.
In the second of the two exam rooms, she slipped out of her dowdy, ankle-length gingham dress and the homemade cotton slip. Some of the girls in The Family insisted that women on the Outside wore a garment called a “bra” that helped to keep their breasts from sagging. Seeing her overripe body in the mirror as she slipped on the ugly green gown, Enid wished she owned something like that. Maybe, someday she’d have one.
Once gowned, Enid hitched her unwieldy body up on the end of the examining table and waited quietly while Vera, one of Dr. Johnson’s wives as well as his nurse, took Enid’s temperature, blood pressure, and pulse. Very few members of The Family were allowed to live outside The Encampment. Dr. Johnson was one who did.
“Pulse is a little elevated,” Vera muttered. “Are you upset about something at the moment?”