dreamed of neither. It seemed I was already a terrible mother.
“Hello,” I said aloud to the baby. I said it again and it rang out high and strange.
“Hello yourself,” Cherry said in my doorway.
“I’m trying to talk to it,” I said. This was the moment for Cherry to offer up some female intelligence about baby growing or birthing or something, anything, of use.
“Time for that church meeting,” she said instead. I pictured the inside of her brain as an empty bowl, dead Goldies and Grampas flying around like bats, the church at the center, Vern a sniper, shooting down every critical thought from the sky of her mind. “Get on and go.”
AT THE SPECIAL meeting the church was emptied just for us. It felt like a lifetime had passed since I had nearly skipped through town to get to Vern with my new blood, how the church was empty that day too but it seemed to glimmer with possibility, the empty pews waiting for God’s people and all we would do. Now the emptiness was matte and gray, dust thick in the air, heat pressing in. It was hard to take a deep breath.
I was the last to arrive by the looks of it. The boys’ club sat scattered around the church. I saw Lyle shooting rubber bands at Laramie, carefree. He didn’t even look up when I walked in. Denay and Taffy sat legs splayed in the front row with the other girls, obvious baby bumps poking out from tight white tank tops. Denay rubbed her belly with her eyes closed. I sat next to Taffy but then I heard Psssst. It was Sharon at the end of the row, sitting a few spaces from the rest. I got up and plopped down next to her. She wore what looked like her father’s shirt, huge and billowing over her body, and flip-flops on her dirty feet. Her face was swollen and scrubbed. Her brown hair was a nest on top of her head and she absentmindedly poked around in it every few seconds.
“Time to let the world know we’ve been knocked up by the white light of God. Can’t hide these stomachs any longer.” She smirked, whispered, “Well, not you, Miss I-have-a-husband. Wish I’d thought of that.”
I was stunned by the way she spoke, so different from the other girls. She reminded me a bit of Florin, but more trapped. I didn’t sense much belief within her. I considered that perhaps she had never believed at all.
Vern breezed to the front, an impatient energy about him. He wrung his hands and kept glancing toward the main door. “Girls, your stomachs are growing and growing! Praise be to the one who created us. In your wombs are church babies, of course. Future leaders of our army. Miracles in human form, the greatest offering we can turn over to God. Only then he will bless us with . . . ?”
“Rain,” we all said together.
I saw Willow, a skinny quiet girl, open her eyes in shock. She grabbed her tiny potbelly. She hadn’t figured it out. This seemed ridiculous to me, but I would probably be like her if Daisy hadn’t explained everything.
Vern went down a list. We were to take care of ourselves in terms of spiritual fitness, which would nourish the babies far more than anything we ate or drank. Only God words through the mind. Only GOTS influence. We must stay steadfast in the face of naysayers. Be prepared for the less faithful to doubt our plan. We were to offer nothing to these people. No explanation. No apologies for our faith. If anything we should feel sorry for them.
Lyle kept his face primed at Vern. He wouldn’t look at me.
“There’s one among us who isn’t following,” Denay said, pointing in my direction.
“What’s to happen to these babies?” I blurted out. I thought of the gloriously smushy-faced infants I’d seen pictures of in my books, how my heart swelled to bursting when I thought of my own baby coming out just like that, nothing but innocent.
Denay’s face broke into a smile. I knew she was excited to meet her own baby, too.
“Their sole purpose will be to share the gospel,” Vern said. He explained it slowly like I was dull. He came up and squatted before me, put his hand on my knee. It seemed a father’s movement, perhaps, after a child has fallen from a bike. But I flinched when he touched me, and he drew his