Leah’s younger son was my grandfather, Solomon Miles, and he stayed at Heavenly Shepherd to carry on with Jedidiah’s plan. Micah died when I was just a baby, but I remembered my great-grandmother Leah as a cranky old woman whose bony face and hands terrified me. She died when I was about six.
By the time my grandfather was born, the world outside had gotten terrible. The government put out reports saying that only one in every ten thousand women could still produce a child. When I was around ten, I found some boxes full of old news clippings that told about scientists who worked day and night to figure out the problem and fix it. At first, Ruth just snatched the box away and refused to answer my questions, but I kept asking until she finally gave in. Those scientists had done studies—“more like experiments,” Ruth would say with a shudder—that showed how it was a virus that caused the barrenness, and those rare women who didn’t get it seemed to be immune. Over time, those “lucky” girls became nothing but the government’s breeding stock, kept hidden and safe from any threat to their ability to reproduce. Later, the government heard rumors that a few babies were being born in secret, outside of their control. No one saw the C-PAFs as a safe haven anymore or went into them willingly. Then there were agents assigned to wide territories, making their rounds over the course of a year or so, checking in with folks in case any miracles had occurred. But that was a few years off yet.
Solomon and his bride, my grandma Ruth, were blessed with four healthy babies, three of them girls. Three children still safe at Heavenly Shepherd, but one of them lost. That was the youngest: my mother, Elisabeth, and when she was born in 2084, they didn’t have to worry yet about the C-PAF men, as folks came to call them. But by the time Elisabeth had me in 2104, she did have to worry about the C-PAF men. My family knew this, and like Great-Great-Grandpa Jed, they made a plan. By the time that agent came around, they knew that spies might have told him I had been born. Somehow, they often seemed to know before they got to the families that a baby would be waiting for them. Just hiding me would be too dangerous, so they dug a tiny grave and filled it with the bones of some poor baby buried a hundred years before in the old church graveyard. They would say my mother had run off, crazy with grief, headed north to the C-PAF, where she could have more babies under the proper medical supervision. This story would be checked, of course, and he might be back again when she did not turn up.
It was easy enough to hide a little infant on a moment’s notice, but my mother couldn’t risk being found and dragged behind those walls to be bred like a dog to strange men. She had run away, and I liked to think that she was filled with grief for the daughter she left behind, but she surely was headed south, as far from the Centers as she could get. Soon after that, the president of the United States took his own life, as thousands of others did in those terrible days so empty of hope. Ruth used to say that despair is a sickness, and it spreads the same as any other. The new president announced a change of policy: We would cut our losses, she said, and focus all our resources only on those who wanted to be helped. Lines were drawn, and those who chose to remain outside them were cut loose. We thought then that my mother would come back, but she never did.
“So now here we are,” Papa said, looking around the table at all of us and letting his eyes come to rest on me. “These is hard, strange times, no doubt. A man has got to make his own way if he wants to find what the Lord has in store for him. But there comes a time when every wanderer must find his home. It just might not be where he left it.” This was an invitation, and everyone knew it. I saw Jacob shift a little in his seat and look down, hiding his expression. Rachel and Billie both had their lips pressed tight in a line, their faces so alike in disapproval, but they took care not to meet their father’s eyes. David was sopping up the juices on his plate with a roll and seemed to be the only one not interested in the conversation.
“Well, sir, I believe that you are right,” Zeke said. “A man is not truly a man until he has a home and a family, is he?” Now, slowly, all eyes turned to me, not just Papa’s. I felt my cheeks burn with shame, and then Jacob knocked his glass right off the table and it landed on the linoleum with a dull thunk, sloshing out cloudy sassafras tea as it rolled. Ruth jumped up to mop up the mess while Jacob made apologetic noises.
Papa focused his gaze on his son now in a way that made me squirm. “That’s the truth,” he replied to Zeke’s question. “Sometimes I fear that the lack of children will keep a man from fully reaching his potential, no matter what he comes from.” Poor Uncle Jacob. He had always been sweet to me, whittling me little animals from pine branches and telling me silly stories he made up as he went along, singing me songs that Ruth claimed she never taught him. It wasn’t his fault if May couldn’t have a baby. And I didn’t think he was such a poor example of a man. He was not like Papa, but maybe that wasn’t such a terrible thing. Surely there was room in this big empty world for more than one kind of man?
Jacob didn’t seem to feel as sorry for himself as I did for him, though. If Papa’s hurtful words had found their target in his heart, he didn’t let on. Instead he looked at David and said, “Speaking of a man’s family, David, I hate for your sister to miss out on this fine meal.” David jumped a little, like he’d just remembered something his belly had made him forget all about.
“Well, Amber is feeling a little poorly today. Women troubles, I suspect. Why don’t you take her a plate of this delicious supper, Ami? I think it would do her good, don’t you?” His voice was light and even, but his eyes were steady on mine in a way that felt serious. I jumped up before Ruth could protest. I knew she would want me to help clear up, show off my woman skills for Zeke. And then Rachel and Billie surprised me by jumping in.
“Bless her heart,” Rachel said. “Lord knows we’ve all been there. That is sweet of you to think of your sister, too, David! Billie and me can take care of all this, can’t we, B?” Rachel was already up and stacking plates with her quick, strong hands, so Billie gave a little grunt of agreement and followed suit. I moved quickly then, grabbing a clean plate and filling it with dainty portions of each food. Amber did not eat much, and I had my doubts about whether she would want this dinner at all. I wasn’t sure what my aunts and uncle were up to, but wasting food was still a sin, so I went easy.
All this time, Papa sat still, a king on his throne while the women buzzed around him. David was swapping hunting stories with Zeke now, keeping him talking, while Papa listened and interjected the occasional comment or his gruff bark of a laugh. If Zeke was concerned about my leaving, he didn’t show it. In fact, he seemed more relaxed than he’d been all afternoon. As I swung toward the door with the full plate, Rachel put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Don’t forget the bread,” she said, just an ordinary reminder, but her eyes seemed to search my face. Everyone was behaving so strangely. Suddenly I needed to get out of that room. I wished I could drop the plate and run across the road and into the woods until the house and everyone in it disappeared. Maybe I could have gotten away with that as a little girl, but those days were over for me now, and I knew it.
“Thanks,” I said to Rachel, grabbing a roll and adding it to the plate. Then as quick as I could go and still be walking, I was out the door and headed toward Amber’s trailer.