The next morning I woke with fresh pain. The soreness of the night before had increased tenfold. As I dressed, I realized my thighs were streaked with blood and semen. I did my best to wash it off with the washcloth and pitcher of water on the nightstand, but it did little to make me feel any less dirty.
Anne fetched me from my room like always. She tried to talk to me, but I couldn't bring myself to respond. The whole day passed without me saying a word, not even when Ofmilton begged.
For two full weeks, I was silent. 'Blessed are the silent' the Aunts loved to say. I didn't feel blessed. I felt tired, numb. I didn't even feel anything anymore when the tears rolled down my face at night. I found myself unable to pray. I was too dirty. A slut. A whore. A Jezebel.
In the dark of my room, I let myself remember. I hadn't let myself before. At the Red Center, memories would only have gotten in the way, would have gotten me punished. Now I replayed the memories in my head, trying to find where I messed up that led me to this. My mom's funeral came to mind often. It was a small ceremony with the reception hosted at our house. It wasn't like she would've liked.
She was Catholic and had raised us that way even though our father no longer practiced by the time I was old enough to talk. She took my sister and I to pray at St. Mark's in the evenings after school. I remembered how the lace veil she'd place on my head would slip off every few minutes. Mom would look over and smile at the crooked cloth, and gently pin it back in place. Her hands were cool and soft. I remember the scapulars she gave us and how she told us to wear them with faith always, that way when we died we would be sure to go to Heaven.
Dad pulled hers off when she lay dying at home from radiation sickness. She'd been traveling for work when Austin was bombed. We'd thought she would be safe, as far away from the blast as she'd been out in a neighboring city, but we were wrong. Dad tore down the crucifixes over our beds too. When I stood in the way, he punched me in the face, sending me sprawling.
"It's your satanic devotion to idols that's killing your mother!" he yelled as I tried to staunch the bleeding from my broken nose. "I have tolerated your mother's evil ways too long and now we pay the price. But no more, I shall reform this family if it kills me."
My brothers had helped him burn the religious items we had, including our bibles which were "the wrong ones, filled with the words of the Devil." I managed to hide a small necklace with a gold crucifix on it, the one my grandmother had given my mom on her wedding day, by sticking it in my mouth during the search. My father had merely praised me for learning my place and keeping quiet. They took that necklace too at the Red Center.
School changed too after Mom died. I was a straight A student in all AP classes. I was going to be a biochemical engineering major at the best school I could manage, my studies were all important. Mom had always been supportive of me, despite being a stay at home mom herself. I remember the week after she died, I was writing an essay on Macbeth for my English class. The front door slammed shut, and the familiar stomp of my father's boots echoed down the hall. I gripped my pencil tightly as the sound grew louder.
"What do you think you're doing?" He asked.
I looked at him. His shirt was rumpled and there was a large wet spot on his trouser leg. His eyes bulged from his skull and his face was flushed. Drunk again, I knew.
"I'm just working on my essay for school," I replied, keeping my tone neutral.
He went to the kitchen sink and pulled out a dirty dish. "What is this then? Did I raise a lazy slob who neglects her God-given duty for her own vanity? Why are these not clean? Why have I come home from a hard day at work without a meal to greet me? Do you want me to starve because of your laziness, your insolence? You bitch!"
He threw the plate at me, but drunk as he was, the plate missed me and shattered against the wall behind me. I bent down to clean up the pieces as he screamed at me. Another dish came flying, this time hitting the back of my head. I felt something warm run down my neck before I felt the burning pain from the gash in my skull. The sight of blood quenched the fire in my father's eyes and he allowed me to clean up the blood and porcelain with only occasional mutterings. The next day he unenrolled me from school. I was to stay home and tend the house in place of my mother while he arranged my marriage.
I remembered him barging into Connor's and my bedroom on a Ceremony night, two Eyes in tow. These were supposed to be less formal than those for Commanders, but we're still required of all married couples. Connor and I had abstained for the entire two years of our marriage. I later found out that after so long without getting pregnant, my father had become suspicious and ordered a camera placed in the bedroom. That's how the Eyes found out, but at the time we had no idea anyone knew our secret. In the hall, a doctor waited to examine me for proof of the Ceremony. Upon finding me clean, we were each given fifty lashes. The next Ceremony was to be observed by the doctor, the Eyes, and my father.
After that, we ran. We didn't have a plan, just head north and pray. That was our mistake, abstaining. If I hadn't been such a coward, and let them watch us consummate the marriage, Connor would be alive and if I had conceived… At least I'd know the child would be raised with a good man for a father. Now such a thought was a dream and it was all my fault.