Chapter 2

It was the middle of the night and Lisa couldn’t sleep. She could hear the steady breathing of her little sister just on the other side of the room as she stared at the ceiling. She had been restless all night. She turned to face the clock.

2:31

Lisa let out a soft sigh as she contemplated getting up. She closed her eyes again, in the hopes that her mind would stop racing, only to find her thoughts returning to the same memory: catching her brother staring at her sister’s nipples poking out from her thin T-shirt.

She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. She kept asking herself: Am I jealous? What would I want Michael to do? Why do I want him to look at me?

Normally she would have asked her mother these questions.

Her mind drifted again. She imagined her brother staring at her body. She was surprised that her mind would return to this image and further surprised that she didn’t recoil at it. If anything, it made her body tingle. It was a feeling that was unfamiliar to her. The Church of the Holy Trinity practiced what was called “intentional courtship”, which required parents of children to approve any dating activities. The goal of the practice was to ensure that parents knew their children’s suitors, much like what was the custom in the early part of the 19th century.

Pastor Rivers wrote a best-selling book called “Dating is for Sinners; Courtship is for Winners” that outlined his philosophy as well as step-by-step instructions on how to proceed with courtship with biblical verses that justified their obedience. It was after the book was published that they found more people coming to their church, mostly families with daughters.

Naomi heard her sister stirring and rolled to her side to face her. “Are you okay?”

Lisa took a deep breath, hoping the feeling would go away. “Yeah. I just can’t seem to fall asleep.”

Naomi pulled the blanket further and hugged it from the front. “Maybe some chamomile tea will help. I think we still have some in the kitchen.”

“Maybe.” Lisa stood up from the bed. She sighed heavily as she felt coldness in her panties and threw them off in a fit of rage. She walked to her dresser and opened a drawer, frantically looking for another pair. She sighed again and grabbed her bathrobe.

The hallway was lit only from the moonlight that was peering in the window from the opposite end of the hall. After cinching her bathrobe around her waist, she walked softly past her brothers room and down the stairs. The kitchen was just as dim and she made the most out of the limited light.

After putting the kettle on the stove, Lisa crossed to the other side of the house toward the study. She rarely had reason to be in the room. It was often where her dad would be balancing the checkbook or reading his bible. But it was where the majority of books were kept and she wanted to see if there was a book that could help her get her mind off what was going on in her body.

She grazed her finger across the bookshelf and an older book caught her eye. “Man and Wife,” she said to no one in particular. It was the first book Pastor Rivers published.

Lisa was old enough to remember when her parents moved to the town. Her parents denied that the book was the reason to move but it seemed like an awful coincidence. Before the book, her parents were constantly fighting. Whether it was about how to raise the children or money and finances, they constantly disagreed. That’s when a friend recommended the book and it changed everything.

She thumbed through the book and saw her parents’ familiar handwriting in the margins. She got to the chapter titled “Roles in the Home”. She read a few paragraphs of the chapter before attending to the now whistling kettle.

Making herself comfortable on the wooden rocking chair, she put the cup on the small end table and re-opened the book. She skimmed the beginning paragraphs until something caught her eye.

Every man should take their job seriously, for they are called to ensure that their family is ‘blameless and pure’ in the eyes of the Lord. Men should ensure that women under their care are without any blemish. For this reason, women must be in constant submission to the men of their households. By doing so, it gives men the ability to make them holy as an argumentative woman is as toxic as the snake in the Garden of Eden!

Lisa skimmed further down and landed on a peculiar section:

Women are to be subservient to men, obeying them for they have been ordained by God to lead the family. Wives are to submit to their husbands, children to their fathers, sisters to their brothers. Men and women take their roles with humility and vulnerability, trusting what the Lord has set before them.