She hadn’t been unhappy although it never occurred to her to ask herself what that word meant. Not that she knew what happiness was either. She just went along and did what she was told and stayed out of trouble. It was safer to avoid being noticed. That way everything proceeded more or less as it was supposed to do. As God willed it to do.
But now, she could tell the difference between happiness and unhappiness, and she didn’t much care for it. Unhappiness was an aching emptiness in the pit of her stomach. Unhappiness was being told she could never see her mother again. It was being separated from her brothers and sisters. Being moved a long distance from the only home she had ever known.
Her father had angered the diviner somehow. It was so serious a matter that all his wives and children had been reassigned to other men. Hannah’s mother had been her father’s favorite. She had pleaded to be allowed to stay with him. In order to teach her a particularly harsh lesson, the diviner separated Hannah’s mother not only from her husband but also from her own children. They were distributed among the other compounds. Hannah had been taken to Illinois. She knew which state it was from the geography map in the schoolroom. She didn’t know anybody here. Her foster mother had a dozen children of her own to look after. She seemed tense most of the time, and Hannah was afraid to ask her anything.
The girl reached into the pocket of her nightgown and drew out a small wooden doll. Her mother had pressed it into her hand when she was being taken away. “Remember me,” was all she had time to say. The doll had been one of Hannah’s earliest toys. It had sat neglected in the locker at the foot of her bed for some years after she decided that she was too old to play with dolls. She slipped it back into her pocket. It didn’t matter if she was supposed to be too old for toys. She always kept it with her now. It was all she had left.
In this strange new place, all the women spoke in whispers. They stopped speaking altogether if she happened to walk by. She pretended not to notice. All of them, men and women alike, seemed terrified of the diviner. She was scared of him too. He was old, and he scowled most of the time, and he talked directly to God. She wondered if that meant God liked him. God didn’t seem to care much for the rest of his creation, as far as she could tell. He was always punishing people who disobeyed him. Killing them in floods or banishing them from gardens. He even made his son Jesus die to make up for all the things that displeased him about human beings. She wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to God even if he wanted to talk to her. He would probably just yell at her.
She picked absentmindedly at the quilt on the bed. The fabric felt odd to her touch. As if this was a dream and she was touching a dream quilt instead of the real thing. It all felt like a very odd dream. Two days ago, the diviner had called everyone together to announce her marriage to his son Daniel. They all came crowding up to congratulate her. They all told her what a good thing it was for her. In spite of her father’s transgressions, the diviner was allowing her to marry one of his own sons, and the scion at that. They all told her how happy she must be. There was that word again. Happy? She didn’t think that she felt happy. Numb, maybe. Shocked definitely, but not happy.
The wedding had taken place just this afternoon. Again, she was singled out in front of the whole congregation. She changed her grey smock for the garb of a married woman—a shapeless grey shift and apron. Instead of wearing her hair in a long braid down her back, the braid was coiled around her head. All those things meant she wasn’t a child anymore. How did that work exactly? Changing her clothes didn’t change how she felt. She still missed her mother and her sisters and brothers. She didn’t feel very grown up, but everybody told her she would learn to be.
She got off the bed and walked over to the dresser. Picking up a hair brush, she combed out the braid and brushed her hair. She looked at her reflection and couldn’t see any difference between her married self and the way her face had always looked.
Her mind drifted off to her husband. It felt so odd to say that word. He slouched. His suit seemed two sizes too big for him, and his voice quavered when he said, “I do.” She guessed he must be about thirty. Twice her age though she supposed that wasn’t too bad. Many girls were married off to men much older than that.
She knew what was expected of her on her wedding night. Women were meant to breed heirs to the kingdom. That’s how they were allowed to enter heaven. Only if they became wives and mothers, consecrated brides, would they be worthy. She knew that was her duty, but she didn’t know why. It was God’s plan and not for her to question. Who was she, after all, to ask about such things? It had all been set down many generations ago by wise men.
She had braced herself when her husband had entered the room, but he didn’t appear as she expected. She was dressed in a cotton nightgown, but he was still
