them in. Neither shalt thou conceal him.
But Grace hadn’t turned Justin in. Maybe she wouldn’t turn me in.
I needed to think before I spoke to Grace. Where would we go?
I forced myself to stop crying and let the logistical part of my brain kick in.
I immediately dismissed the idea of going to any ex-member of Westboro for help. We kept close tabs on the few who ever spoke up publicly about their time in the church, and it was clear that those people were awful. So many lies.
I thought a moment, and then went to pick up my phone. I switched the ringer to silent so that the telltale trill wouldn’t sound over the speaker as I re-installed Words With Friends.
* * *
Grace came home on her lunch break the following day, and as had become our habit, I followed her up the stairs, down the hall, and around to my room in the corner of the house. We hadn’t been eating much, and the heaviness of our silence had become habitual, too—particularly since the ultimatum. My sister had never been anywhere without permission, never been given any freedom or independence of any kind, and now she was on the cusp of being thrust into the world on her own at nineteen, with almost no practical life skills—for texting.
We sat side by side on the edge of my bed, staring at the wall in silence for a minute, and then I started to cry. I laid my head in her lap and sobbed for a few moments. She cradled my head and slowly dragged her fingers across my scalp, trying to comfort me.
“Grace…”
I tried to compose myself, but the longer I waited, the harder I wept. How was I even going to say this?
“… what if we weren’t here?”
I couldn’t bring myself to say What if we left? aloud. I couldn’t bring myself to make it real.
Her hand paused for a beat and then slowly continued its path through my curls.
“What do you mean?” she asked quietly.
What did I mean? My body was racked with sobs, and I tried to control them long enough to get the words out.
“What if we were somewhere else?” Slowly, slowly.
I don’t remember any words after that. Only an eruption of despair. I tried to explain what had happened the day before in the basement, my terrifying realizations about the church, but what came out was almost entirely incoherent. I couldn’t settle on any one idea long enough to articulate it, because I was overcome by a hysteria the likes of which I had never known. That familiar fear always just beneath the surface—the little voice accusing that in spite of everything, I really was a reprobate—had amplified a thousandfold. I knew logically that I couldn’t escape the wrath of an omnipresent God, but the sense of His imminent judgment had kindled a fire in me, a desperate urgency to get out. I wanted to jump out of my skin. There was no way to consider the magnitude of the devastation that I would soon be forever cut off from everyone I had ever loved: my faculties simply shut down before I could even approach that reality. I was betraying my beloved mother—treated unconscionably by the church body and then abandoned by her own daughter. How could I leave her? Monstrous.
And all the while, Grace held my head in her lap, running her nails through my hair, periodically asking questions in a low, cautious voice. Distrustful. Why now? What has changed? Where would we go?
I had no other ideas, so I mentioned C.G. Maybe he would help us.
I didn’t tell Grace that I’d spoken with him already, partly because both she and he were behaving as though they were afraid of me. As if they didn’t know me. Their reactions were crushing, because they confirmed what I already believed: that outside of Westboro, I was nothing. Within the church, I was a cherished daughter—I wielded no power, but my skills were many and useful and valued. I was dependable, and trustworthy, and called upon frequently. I had built my life and identity around the church, and I was well-beloved. Who was I on the outside? I was the perpetrator of untold amounts of harm in the world. I was a lover of tragedy, cruelly attacking the grieving at their most vulnerable. I was a willing participant in the most aggressive anti-gay picketing campaign the country had ever seen. What reason did anyone have to give