Faking Faith Page 6

  I smiled, feeling touched.

  “Thank you,” I said. “That was very sweet of you.”

  “Hello Faith, I’ve heard so much about you,” Chastity said, a little too cheerily. “We’re going to have such fun with you here!”

  Asher walked by us toward the front door, carrying my suitcase. As he closed the screen door behind him, he shot me a smile that I pretended not to notice, even as it sent a thrill through me.

  Stop. Stop that immediately, Dylan!

  “I hope so!” I replied, looking back at Chastity.

  “Will you keep watching the littles for a while?” Abigail asked her sister. “I need to show Faith around the house.”

  Chastity’s smile clouded over.

  “But, I wanted to—”

  “Please, dear,” said Abigail firmly. “Be a good helper.”

  I watched Chastity’s face as an obvious internal debate raged inside her. She clearly wanted to pout and complain about being left behind, as I knew from experience that younger siblings often did. But within a few seconds, Chastity mastered herself. Her expression cleared and she smiled and nodded at her sister.

  It was kind of amazing to witness.

  “Of course, whatever you say,” Chastity said, taking the baby back from Abigail and going back inside, calling to the kids.

  “Sorry about that. Chastity’s going through a bit of a willful phase,” Abigail said, looking embarrassed, as if Chastity had just thrown a screaming tantrum. “Plus, she’s a little clingy and never has to share me, so I think she’s a bit envious that you’re here.”

  “Oh!” I said. “That’s perfectly okay. I understand.”

  Abigail took my hand and grinned at me.

  “Come up to my room. I want to show you my hope chest! I just embroidered a darling new set of sheets!”

  . . .

  Later that evening, as I sat at the dinner table and let myself get lost in the flow of words, my reasons for coming felt more valid.

  Every member of the family was present, from Abigail’s mom and dad bookending the long table, to Asher and Chastity on down to Mercy in her high chair, eating a home-cooked meal of beef stew and biscuits. There had been a long prayer, and now everyone was respectfully listening as each family member talked about something nice that had happened that day.

  “They’re putting on a little show for you, you know,” Abigail whispered, grinning.

  “It’s wonderful,” I replied, genuinely.

  “I helped process chickens with Asher,” said Matthew, the oldest of the little boys. “I learned a lot and it was real neat.”

  Asher, who was sitting next to him, reached over and ruffled his little brother’s hair affectionately.

  “Really neat,” corrected Mrs. Dean gently. She was a kind-faced woman who looked like the absolute cliché of a mother with many children. When I’d first met Mrs. Dean in the kitchen that afternoon, she was wearing a pastel pink apron and had a smudge of flour on her cheek. She’d given me a warm hug that felt like snuggling with a pillow.

  I couldn’t help but compare her to my mom, who was all hard angles from her obsessive Pilates practice.

  “Really neat,” Matthew said obediently, glancing at his father, who grunted.

  Mr. Dean was still an unknown entity to me. He owned a small house-building business, and when he came home from work, he’d greeted me politely, asked me a few questions about my trip, and then seemed to dismiss me. He had an outwardly jolly appearance, broad chested with an ample beard and ruddy skin. But there was something about his eyes that I couldn’t quite read. There was a hard and watchful quality about them.

  He caught me looking at him and I stared back at my food, my cheeks burning.

  “Asher, your turn,” Mr. Dean said.

  Asher cleared his throat.

  “I enjoyed teaching Matthew how to process chickens,” he said, smiling at his little brother, who grinned back. I had a good idea about what processing chickens involved, and it wasn’t something that required further details.

  “A-A-And … ” Asher seemed to be having trouble forming the words; his face looked anxious. Everyone was waiting patiently for him to continue, as if this occurred normally, and I realized that Asher must have a speech impediment.

  “Spit it out, son!” Mr. Dean said, with a harsh laugh. The rest of the family stayed quiet.

  I coughed to cover up my gasp at Mr. Dean’s casual cruelty. No one else seemed surprised by it.

  Asher closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and then he looked at me.

  “A-And I was glad to help Abigail welcome her new friend, Faith,” he said quickly. He blushed and gave me a small smile. Even though I didn’t really want to, I couldn’t help but smile back, charmed.

  The table went even more still. Except for the youngest children, everyone stared at Asher and then at me. Mr. Dean was stern, giving a raised-eyebrow look to his wife. I glanced at Abigail, who pursed her lips and shook her head a little.

  Something was very wrong. And very weird.

  “Thank you,” I said, to break the silence. “I’m very thankful to be here with all of you. Thank you for your nice welcome.”

  At that moment, the baby burst out babbling and broke the tension, and everyone went slowly back to eating.

  TEN

  Faith! Faith, wakey-wakey!”

  I moaned and turned over to bury my head under the pillow. “Go ’way Scottie. Too early.”

  The voice laughed. “Scottie, who’s that? You silly thing. Wake up! We have to go milk Maybelle.”

  I’d never been so instantly conscious in my entire life. I shoved the pillow off my head and looked up at Abigail leaning over me in the gloom of pre-dawn, smiling.

  “Good morning, sleepy head!” she said brightly.

  It all came back in a rush. The bus, meeting Abigail, Shady Acres, looking through Abigail’s impressively extensive Hope Chest, dinner, the weirdness with Asher at the table, a whole hour in the living room of Mr. Dean droning on and on from the Bible as we sat around and listened quietly. And then up to Abigail’s room, where I was given Chastity’s bed. Chastity had been shipped off to sleep on the floor of the nursery, which she was obviously none too pleased about.

  “Are you getting up or what? It’s almost past six!” said Abigail, putting a hand on her hip. She was already washed and dressed, and I could hear the voices of people in the hall and downstairs.

  “Six? Like in the morning?” I said, trying not to sound whiny. “Okay, okay. Yeah, I’m up.”

  I didn’t even get up at six during the school year, let alone during the summer.

  Slowly, I sat up and swung my feet around to the floor. I didn’t feel remotely ready for the whole fish-out-of-water scene when I was this tired. All I wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep until a more reasonable hour.

  “Rejoice, Faith!” Abigail said, leaving the room with a little skip. “For this is the day the Lord has made! See you downstairs.”

  “More like this is the morning Satan made,” I muttered, looking down at the frilly pink nightgown Abigail had given me the night before so we could match. I made a face at it.

  After yawning at least ten times, I put on my robe and headed for the bathroom. Where of course there was a line three kids long, patiently waiting their turn.

  “Good morning, Faith!” the little kids chimed.

  “G’morning,” I mumbled, as cheerily as possible, stumbling back to Abigail’s room.

  After I’d put on some of my newly acquired modest clothes—a dark blue skirt that came down to my ankles and a loose summery shirt—and finally gotten my turn in the bathroom, I went downstairs.

  Most of the family was already gathered around the table, eating big heaps of eggs and toast and bacon. Abigail and Mrs. Dean were wearing their aprons and standing at the stove, cooking up a storm, while Chastity ferried plates of food to the table.

  “Can I help?” I asked, but Mrs. Dean shooed me away with her spatula.
/>   “You’re a guest, dear, sit down!”

  I took a place at the table and glanced around. Asher looked up from his plate and I immediately looked back down, pretending to be examining the toast in front of me.

  Breakfast was a much less formal affair than dinner, and everyone was talking over each other about their plans for the coming day. Mr. Dean was giving Asher instructions about mending a fence. The little kids were talking loudly about little kid stuff, and over by the stove, Mrs. Dean had her arm around Abigail and they were both laughing.

  I slowly ate my eggs, waking up and trying not to stare.

  Alien planet.

  . . .

  The first day felt both endless and quick as a flash. We traveled from one activity to the next without stopping for a breath, and I was very glad I had “guest” status and wasn’t expected to contribute much.

  All I really wanted to do was look around in disbelief and absorb.

  After breakfast, there were the farm chores (where I watched with wide eyes as Abigail expertly milked her ornery brown cow in under ten minutes). And after washing up from chores, there was homeschooling for all the younger kids. Abigail worked with Martha and Joseph, quizzing them on the letters of the alphabet, while her mother had the older kids read out loud to each other as she bounced Mercy on her lap.

  Apparently Abigail’s own education was considered finished at this point, which I found strangely sad.

  I helped Abigail make sandwiches for lunch, and then helped pick up after the meal. The food preparation and cleanup for a family that size was basically endless. Plus there were no frozen TV dinners, no cereal from a box, no ordering pizza. The Deans baked their own bread, grew their own vegetables, milked their cows, and collected their own eggs from the chickens outside. Everything was labor intensive and made from scratch. And delicious.

  My mom’s head would have exploded all over the neatly decorated walls.

  The older boys were sent out to help Asher for a few hours that afternoon, and there was a whole list of cleaning chores that had to be done inside the house for the girls. Mrs. Dean had a giant binder of all the children’s activities, and their time was carefully regimented in color-coded spreadsheets. I paged through it in wonder as Abigail swept and mopped the kitchen. She wouldn’t let me help.

  “It’s time for afternoon scripture study!” Mrs. Dean said an hour later after looking at her watch. Chastity went to call the boys in and the whole family gathered around the table and listened quietly as Mrs. Dean read out of her pink-leather-covered Bible.

  I longed to take a nap like baby Mercy, but I kept myself as alert-looking and pleasant as possible. Because if there was one thing that wasn’t tolerated in the Dean family, it was an outwardly negative attitude. Everyone was sweet and compliant and good-natured a vast majority of the time. And anyone who acted up was taken aside and swiftly rebuked by Mrs. Dean, no matter how young or old.

  Then more homeschooling, more farm chores, then getting dinner ready. It was always the women who cooked, of course. Chastity was still “in training,” but Abigail and Mrs. Dean worked together like a well-oiled machine, getting everything prepped and cooked and on the table with the efficiency of professional chefs. I just tried to keep out of the way as they whirled around the kitchen.

  In the half hour while dinner was cooking and everyone was busy with other things, Abigail beckoned me over to the little wood-paneled computer room off the kitchen.

  “Come on, Faith, I have a surprise!” she said.

  We sat down in front of her computer, a lumbering old PC my school would have junked years ago.

  “I posted an ordinary update early this morning before you woke up, but now I’m going to tell everyone in blogland that you’re here for a visit!”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “Is that really a good idea? What if people … think it’s strange?”

  “Oh, you’re silly! We’re having such fun together, aren’t we? They’ll be happy for us.” She nudged me with her elbow. “Let’s take a picture.”

  A thrill of fear went through me. Except for the one picture I had Scottie take when I first started my blog, I hadn’t posted any further photos of myself. And I was sure I had nowhere near the traffic that Abigail had. Thousands of people would see this post.

  What if someone saw me and recognized my face?

  Abigail took a digital camera from a drawer in the desk. “Say cheese!”

  She put her arm around me and her face next to mine, and I tried to smile as normally as possible for the camera. We looked at the resulting picture, and I thought the fear in my eyes was a little too obvious. I looked tense and awkward next to the sweetly smiling Abigail.

  “Um, sorry,” I said. “I’m not very photogenic.”

  “Shush, you’re lovely. Let’s take some goofy ones, too!” she said, wiggling in her seat.

  So we both stuck our tongues out and made stupid faces, and then loaded them into the computer and laughed at the results.

  “Do you want to help me write my blog entry?” she asked.

  I smiled, thinking how bizarre it was to be helping my online hero write her blog. I tried to imagine telling me-from-six-months-ago what lay in the future, and totally failed. I wouldn’t have believed myself. Wouldn’t have believed I’d ever have the guts to do this.

  “Sure!”

  We worked together for a while, typing out a scripted conversation about how we had “met” and what we were doing while I was visiting. I tried to help Abigail liven it up a little bit and include some tasteful jokes. As much as they fascinated me, I’d noticed that a lot of girls from these families rarely read anything other than the Bible, cookbooks, and Jane Austen novels, and their prose was often a little stilted and strangely formal as a result. Plus they used a lot of weird made-up words like “convicting” and thought that “purpose” was a verb. Abigail seemed to appreciate my help.

  “You’re so clever!” she said, giggling. “How did you get so clever?”

  I just shrugged. “Oh, you know … a God-given talent, I suppose!”

  “Mama will get such a kick out of this,” Abigail said. “She reads it before I’m allowed to post it, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Your parents read your blog posts before you publish them, right?” Abigail asked.

  “Well … sure,” I said awkwardly. For some reason, this lie hit me a little harder than all the others. If there was one thing my parents were completely oblivious about, it was my online activity. I could be running an illegal gambling operation for all they knew.

  “I’m glad they keep such good watch on us, aren’t you?” Abigail said. “It’s scary how big the Internet can be. I’m glad to just have my nice little corner where we found each other.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “It is a pretty nice corner.”

  As Abigail was uploading a goofy picture of us to the blog post, she glanced at me.

  “Faith, do you remember the first question you ever sent to me?”

  Uh oh.

  “Hmm, I don’t know,” I said. “It was such a long time ago.”

  “About the being-very-lonely thing,” she prompted. “Because you did something wrong?”

  I started playing with some paperclips on the desk, compulsively hooking them together and taking them apart. “Oh, yeah, I guess I remember that.”

  She put her hand on my hands, gently ending my fidgeting.

  “Will you tell me what that was about?” she asked. “I mean, now that we’re real-life friends.”

  Well, this was great. Time to come up with something tame and logical on the spot. I’d never really filled in this part of Faith’s back story in my mind. I’d hoped that somehow Abigail had forgotten about it. What a total mistake.

  “It’s kind of a long story,” I said, stalling for time. “And aren’t we eating dinner soon?”

  “We have a few minutes,” she said, looking at me worriedly. “But … you know, it’s pe
rfectly okay if you don’t want to talk about it.”

  I sighed. Her being so sweet and understanding made me feel even guiltier. I’d just have to wing it.

  “Um … so, I used to have these two friends. At … church. And we were super close and did everything together for a long time … ”

  “And what happened?”

  “Well … I started hanging out with … another friend. Who they didn’t like very much. They thought my new friend wasn’t very, um, virtuous or faithful. So my old friends got really angry and yelled at me and then stopped talking to me.”

  Abigail’s mouth was hanging open.

  “They yelled at you? That’s terrible!” she said.

  And also not very fair. To my friends.

  “Well, I mean … I stopped speaking to them, too, I guess. Because I was mad at them for not trusting me. So it was sort of mutual.”

  “I see,” she said, looking confused. “But … what did you mean when you said you did something bad?”

  I shrugged awkwardly.

  “The thing is, they were totally right about the new friend and I should have listened to them,” I admitted. “The new friend was … not a kind person. At all. We aren’t talking anymore either, which is definitely a good thing.”

  “But your old friends still don’t want to be friends with you? Even after you realized you’d been wrong?”

  “No,” I said miserably. “But it’s okay. I don’t deserve it anyway.”

  “Faith!” Abigail admonished. “Of course you deserve it. Did you ask their forgiveness?”

  I shook my head, folding and refolding a paperclip, not looking at her.

  “Did … did you ask the Lord for forgiveness?” she asked softly.

  “No,” I said, suddenly feeling like I might cry.

  “ ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,’ ” she quoted. “You know, from John. God knows that we all make mistakes, and we all deserve forgiveness if we own up to our failings and always strive to be better. Right?”