Chapter thirty-two

Dear Leah,

I meant my next letter to be full of the wonders I have experienced since last I wrote. Unfortunately I must take care of another matter first.

I have received the letter concerning the church discipline process being threatened against me. Given that I no longer consider myself a member of the church I do not intend to respond in kind. What they think is no longer my concern. I am, however, concerned that you might believe their lies and think poorly of me, and perhaps given that might not seek your own freedom in the future.

To that end let me attempt to explain myself and reassure your mind.

I freely admit that I sought contact with a man Father did not know. He was not entirely unknown though, I reached out to Henry's godfather specifically because I believed Henry when he said that he had been taken against his will and that his family, including his godfather, were in law enforcement. My intentions were not to commit any form of sin but rather to rectify a sin; that of taking a child away from his loving mother and father. Yes, I did say father, Henry has always known his father, and his parents are now married. I do not consider reaching out to return a child to his rightful home a sin in any way. Neither do I consider lying about it a sin since I believe that Father was a party to this wrong.

I did not stay alone in a hotel with a strange man; I stayed alone in a hotel. I swear on my honor nothing happened that night. Henry's godfather has been a complete gentleman and I have been blessed with his help and his friendship, nothing more. And no, I did not suddenly turn into the Whore of Babylon and seduce him. I had a hot bath and a good night's sleep; that is all. Ever since then I have been willingly chaperoned every night and not by militant lesbians either. By a sweet old widow who is teaching me how to cook.

I would not have worn the garb of men had our mother not insisted I leave my clothing behind. That was all that was available at the time. I would have considered wandering about naked the greater sin. Since that day I have not worn the garb of men once. I don't know how men do it; it's not at all comfortable.

I assume that by exposing myself to strangers they mean allowing a doctor to examine me. He never got my clothing off and I was well chaperoned the entire time. The doctor was far more concerned with the state of my heart and my eyes than my body. Both are as fine as can be expected if anyone there cares to know.

Yes, I have removed myself from under the protection of my headship. I want to live a life, not be a burden and that is not something I can do on a farm. And so I have and I do so willingly, absolve him of all responsibility for me. Should anything happen I will personally answer to my Creator for my decisions.

Yes, I shared church business with strangers. I've been asked not to say anything about that and I agree with their reasoning so I won't but I will say that I feel that I have answered to the greater good in doing so.

And as for destroying the bonds of family, my hope for my family in all of this was to give each and every one of you a chance at a future. To have the little ones grow strong with full bellies and full minds, and to give you and Rebekah and Ellen a chance to find the husbands you desire and start the families you long for. I was not trying to destroy my family but to save it, and that is still my fondest hope for you all.

Now I do not intend to present myself to the church. I fully intend to continue my relationships with my friends here. I will not turn over any funds or documents that might be in my possession. And I will not share any sins I have committed with Pastor Driscoll or anyone else, nor will I beg forgiveness of the church. If I wish to confess and beg forgiveness I will do so at the foot of the cross and nowhere else for that is where true forgiveness and grace may be found.

Now hopefully in my next letter I shall tell you of curry and e-mail and the Metro line and how to cook eggs and sausage when you can't see what you're doing. And hopefully they will let you write back, soon.

Your loving sister still,
Susanna

Firehook Bakery
3114 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington DC

Spencer

Spencer had written it all without response, but the words had filtered in to the lucid part of his brain for consideration. Now he had to ask. "Whore of Babylon? I would have thought they would be more concerned about rape."

"No." Susanna chuckled without humor. "For all that they preach of the terror of rape in the city they don't actually believe in rape. If a woman is raped she must have the heart of a harlot, completely unredeemable, and thereby she somehow seduced the man into losing control simply by her presence. Women who come forward with accusations tend to just disappear."

"That's deeply disquieting." He had been concerned with a false allegation, so much so that he had quietly discussed it with Hotch, who already knew that he wasn't capable of such things and was on his side. "I know I'm not supposed to bring my personal feelings into this but can I just say that I'm glad you're out of that system?"

She smiled at him. "Yes, you can say that. Can we switch to happier topics or should I be more concerned with their threats?"

"Happier topics, please. The first question being do we need more coffee or more pastry?" He had figured they needed some sweet to go with the bitter of that letter so he brought her to one of his favorite coffee places.

"Another piece?"

"The joys of being chronically underweight." Everyone said that someday he'd have more than a 28 inch waist but so far it hadn't happened.

"I don't know; that lemon tart is going to be hard to beat."

"Ever have cheesecake?" She shook her head. "Cheesecake. And we'll get a chocolate cake for you to take back to the house. Hold on." A few moments later he returned, cheesecake for her, chocolate cake for him. "You said you had some paperwork?"

"I do. Nancy…she the social worker Penelope asked to work with me…has had me doing all this testing over at the school, she said it was placement testing, checking for learning disabilities, I don't know what but the testing center gave me the results today…" She pulled a file out of her bag.

A thin file. "But not in Braille?" Oops.

"Yeah. Granted I wouldn't know what I was reading anyway. Help."

"My pleasure." Academic tests, something with which he was intimately familiar. "Um, well, no learning disabilities, unless you count blindness."

"Yes, but I'm learning to work around that."

Ah, they had done an IQ test. He sat and stared at it a moment. "What?" She asked.

"They performed an IQ test. They do, it's considered a measure of academic potential."

"That bad?"

"Actually that good." Not as high as his, of course, but he was a rare bird. But she was up around both his mother and Maeve, which given the bias against those with non-standard experiences was impressive. It was like a girl being pretty, he thought. I don't care what she gets on an IQ test just like I don't care what she looks like. But I do like looking at blonds with soft curves and I'm most comfortable with a woman who I can talk to about anything and not have to hold myself back and those women tend to score very high.

"So you're saying that as long as I put the work in there's no reason not to succeed?"

"Exactly." He shuffled over to the placement tests. "Huh."

"Huh what?"

"Well according to this you tested into and out of higher level classes in English language and composition, in everything but modern literature, and in history prior to World War I. You're also fluent in Latin and Ancient Greek. But your modern history and literature scores are near zero. You also didn't even finish high school math and your science scores are pretty dismal."

Susanna nodded. "That's about what I expected. Church curriculum doesn't cover the modern era, too sinful and corrupt and not really needed for understanding the bible and church history, Momma couldn't teach math past level 7-8, Father refused to teach me with my brothers and they use what they call Creation science. I'm just glad I got to use the boy's curriculum instead of the girls."

"They segregated their curriculum by gender?"

"Not…deliberately? I'm not…boys are expected to have their own interests, to follow them as they grow, to eventually develop them into a business or perhaps a calling of some kind. And once they reach their teens their studies are usually supervised by their fathers who, even though they work more or less never really do as much work. But…by the time a girl is twelve or thirteen she has at least six little ones under her and her mother is exhausted from repeat pregnancies and it's heavily implied that taking four or five hours a day for you is selfish. You're praised for helping with the other children, for teaching them how to read and write enough for the bible and day-to-day business and for feeding little ones and changing diapers and cleaning house, not for studying. And their mothers don't have time or energy to really supervise their studies any longer and their only goal is to be a wife and mother anyway. They call it getting a PhD in homemaking but in reality none of those girls make it past the 8th grade. The intention is there but it just never happens."

"But it did for you."

She shrugged, "Hard to help around the house when you're blind, or so they thought. And when our homeschool co-op invested in a copy of the curriculum in Braille the church sent out the entire thing. I just kept reading. Of course now I have to catch up with the housekeeping stuff…"

"Yeah, but it's not that hard."

"Exactly," she beamed at him.

He couldn't help but smile in return. "If you have a copy of the course catalog I'll help you pick out the classes you need to catch up."

"Deal."