My body trembles as she treads toward me, her lips quivering as much as mine. I’m frozen to the ground. I don’t know what to do or what to say. All I can do is stare at this woman in front of me, this woman I’ve tried to find for so long but could never reach. Always disappearing, always out of my grasp.
And now she’s right here in the flesh.
It wasn’t my imagination.
She was always real.
And now she’s here, holding out her hand to me.
Should I take it? Is she really … my mother?
My hand rises, but I hesitate. She hasn’t said a word since she called my name, but anyone could. My name’s been called out many times before by Noah and some of the wives in the huts. Can I trust her?
She glances around skittishly, almost as if she’s afraid someone’s going to find us here, and I look around too to make sure no one does. Then she beckons me again, this time a little more assertively.
I bite my lip and then go for it, grasping her hand.
She holds on tightly and whisks me away with her, through the woods, along the edge until we reach a lonely hut separate from the others, situated right next to the woods and very close to the end of the community’s land. If I squint, I can clearly see the fences that lie beyond the woods from here.
The woman pulls me inside and suspiciously looks around again before closing the door behind us. It’s dark inside, and I stumble backward, almost tumbling over a chair I manage to grab just in time.
The woman looks at me for a moment, her face stark and undecided, before she goes to the fireplace. There she grabs a box of matches from the top shelf and lights it, throwing it into the blocks of wood. It takes a while for the fire to turn into a blaze and for it to properly light the room, and when it does, she turns around to face me.
I gulp as I clutch the table, unsure what to do. Did I make the right choice, or is this woman dangerous?
She fumbles with her hands, stepping in place as though she’s unsure if she should approach me. I feel the same, but one of us has to make the first move.
So I step closer, sliding along the table until I’m on her side. I lick my lips before opening my mouth. “Who are you?”
She looks serious, almost as if she’s upset I asked.
“Why would you ask that? You … you don’t remember?” Her lips tremble. “I’m your mother.”
Tears well up in my eyes. Deep down, I knew it was her. I just needed to hear it from her mouth.
She takes a step closer, and I do too, and within seconds, we’re in each other’s arms, hugging tight. Tears cascade down my cheeks and onto her sweet-smelling lilac dress, the same scent I remember from all those years ago.
“Oh, my baby,” she murmurs. “My sweet Natalie.”
“Mother,” I mutter, clutching her even tighter.
It’s been so long since I last felt her arms around me like that, but for a split second, a sliver of doubt shoots through my mind. How do I know she is who she says she is? How does she know I’m her daughter?
“Wait.” I push back and look her in the eyes. “How did you know?”
She clutches my face with both hands. “Honey, don’t you think I would recognize my own daughter standing right in front of me?”
“But I’ve been gone for years,” I say.
“Your eyes—they never changed.” A big smile forms on her lips. “And those beautiful freckles across your nose. And that same voice that always followed after a tug at my dress.”
I snort and wipe away some tears. “I remember that.”
“How much do you remember?” she asks.
“Everything,” I say. “Noah … he forced me to dig into my mind until I found them.”
Her face turns dark when I mention his name. “Did he hurt you?”
“What? No … well, I …” I wipe more tears and sigh. How do I explain this to her? I don’t want to hurt her by telling her about how they brought me here. But I think she already knows, judging from the mournful look on her face.
“Did he put you in the suffering hut?” She grabs my shoulders. “Tell me the truth.”
After more hesitation, I nod.
Her eyes fill with a type of rage I’ve never seen before, one that could split mountains in half.
“That bastard,” she says through gritted teeth.
I rub my lips together and mull it over. I don’t know how much I should tell her … or if I should even tell her anything. She sounds as though she hates him, but I don’t understand why. I was supposed to be his betrothed. Yet she pushed me to leave this place.
“Why did you make me leave?” The words spill out before I realize it.
“What?” She frowns. “I didn’t—”
“Don’t lie to me,” I say, pushing her hand off my shoulder. “You were the one who pushed me away from my home, who forced me to go beyond the fence and into the normal world. You left me when I was only a little girl.” Tears fill my eyes again. “I don’t remember much, but I clearly remember you and that scarf you put around my neck that changed my life forever.”
“I … I …” she stammers.
“Tell me the truth, Mother,” I say, standing my ground.
Her eyes fall, and she lets out an exasperated sigh. “God only knows how badly I wanted to keep you with me.”
“Then why didn’t you?” I ask.
Her eyes spark open. “Natalie. Look around. You’ve seen what they do to people like us here.”
“Like … us?” My eyes widen.
Does she mean …
“I’m not from this community either. I came from out there, from the world where people don’t punish others by locking them in cold, concrete cells, by putting scarves over women’s mouths, by forcing them to marry, or by … fucking.” She swallows hard. “And you don’t belong here either.”
She approaches me again, clasping my hands close together. “I wanted a better life for you. Anything was better than staying here. Yes, I forced you to leave, but I did it to save you.” She looks into my eyes with the same kind of sorrow I’m feeling in my heart right now, and it eats away at me. “You have to believe me. Please.” She can barely keep it together right now, I can tell. “It was the only way to keep them from branding you.”
“Branding me?” I mutter.
She rolls up her dress sleeve and shows me the same symbol that’s on Noah’s hand. “It’s a patriarchal symbol. They would’ve done it to you too at your age if I hadn’t gotten you out of here,” she says. “Along with all the other terrible things that happen here—”
“That I’ve now also experienced …” I interject.
She sighs and looks away. “I wished … I wished so badly you wouldn’t ever return. I missed you. I missed you so much my heart ached, but you should’ve never come back. Why did you let him take you?”
Now I can’t look her in the eyes. “Because … I’d forgotten everything, and I needed to know where I came from.”
Curiosity. That’s my excuse. After my mom risked everything to get me out, that’s what ultimately brought me back into the place she fears the most.
“Why didn’t you leave with me?” I ask.
“Honey, there are too many guards. They watch over us captured more than anyone else here,” she explains. “When I heard your name coming from Noah’s lips I knew you were back, but I couldn’t get out, they wouldn’t let me. I managed to slip past them only a few times to try to find you.”
“But you’ve been here so long. Why are they still keeping you behind closed doors?”
“They don’t trust me, and they shouldn’t. All I’ve wanted was to escape this place. But I’m still a prisoner,” she laments. “And now you are too, thanks to that …” She grunts. “God, I wish I’d never trusted him when he said he’d get you out.”
My pupils dilate. “What? He’d get me out?”
She nods. “It was Noah’s idea to put you in one of the traveling cases during a trip to the outside world with his father to gain more followers. I only knew where to bring you and when, but it was up to him to cover up for you. I assume he let you out of the case when it was safe and left you on your own so no one would notice you’d come with them outside the community.”
It’s so much to take in all at once that I just concentrate on breathing instead.
“But why don’t I remember?” I mutter.
“Sometimes the mind blocks out traumatic events,” she says, her forehead creasing. “I thought it was worth it. At least you could see the world as it really is. Like I remember it.” She adds a smile, but it quickly dissipates into thin air. “But he had to bring you back here again just so he could make a child with you…” Her fist balls. “You can’t trust him, Natalie.”
My throat feels constricted. I know she’s right, and I knew it deep down in my heart, yet I let him persuade me anyhow. “It’s too late.”
She grabs my shoulders. “It’s never too late.”
BAM!
I jolt up and down in my seat at the loud thump. The door collapses inward. Three guards barge inside … followed by Noah.
“No,” I squeal as one of the guards grabs me and pulls me away from my mother. “Let me go!”
“Natalie!” Mom yells, but another guard grabs her too.
“I didn’t want to do this, but you give me no choice,” Noah says.
“How dare you?” I growl at him.
He completely ignores me and focuses on my mother instead. “I told you not to intervene, Marsha. Don’t force my hand and make me tell your husband.”
Her pupils dilate, and she immediately stops resisting the men trying to keep her from chasing after me.
Noah flicks his fingers at his guards and points at me. “Take her home.”
“No, wait!” I yell. “Let me talk to her!”
But my request falls on deaf ears. I’m dragged away from the hut she’s still in, and she doesn’t even budge. It’s as though she’s gone completely numb under the threat of being exposed.
“Go back to the temple, Marsha. Do your job as the president’s wife, and I’ll do mine,” Noah says, and he walks off.
The president’s wife?
But that doesn’t make any sense.
Because if she’s his wife, then that makes him …
My father.
