Chapter 8

We finished with Jonas, and I asked, politely, if the girls wanted to see their families. Their resounding, "NO!" got my full attention. There was clearly some unresolved anger there.

We had time, so I took them to a very nice, western steakhouse, and we had it out.

"Ok. What's the reason none of you wanted visit your families?" I knew some of it, but needed to hear all of it.

Ruth took the lead and gently led the discussion to avoid a couple of minefields. "Noah, the girls and I have spent considerable time getting better acquainted since our ceremony. I can tell you that, for me, there are only bad memories when I think about going home.

"In fact, when I think about going home, I think about being wherever it is that you and they are," she said sweeping her arm to include Mary, Martha, and Marian. "For me, Noah, it's not where, it's who." She smiled when she said, "who," and I smiled back.

Marian spoke up, surprising me. "You were forced to marry us, just like we were forced to marry you. My father didn't give me a choice. He didn't even TELL me until Ruth came to get me ready for the ceremony. I found out he'd given me to you when Ruth handed me the white veils and said to get undressed so she could help me into my ceremony dress.

"I was scared, Noah. My father is a brute, and if I had even asked him about it, he would have hit me, or maybe done something worse. My mother wasn't about to protect me. She knew I would be safer, and better off away from the hamlet, even if you were a complete jerk, than I if I stayed because someday my father would lose control again." Her eyes flashed when she mentioned her father. There was some serious fear, and resentment working behind those eyeballs.

Martha looked sad, scared, and angry all at the same time. "When I thought Caleb got me pregnant, I was thrilled, because it meant getting out from under my father's control. When I found out I was marrying you, I nearly ran away. I believed Caleb and I were meant to be together, but that was before I found out what a marriage was.

"You ruined everything, Noah, because you didn't act like THEM! When you decided to treat us like people, instead of property, you ruined it for every single person in the hamlet, because they still act like jerks, and you treat us like people."

She smiled, sadly and continued. "My mother LET my father give me away, knowing I was in love with Caleb. THANK GOD she did, because I didn't love Caleb at all. I thought he was my way out from under my father's strict hand. All I was doing was substituting one man's abuse for another.

"But I didn't know that. When Ruth wanted to put your ... you know ... thing ... inside me at the ceremony, you refused. It hurt me so bad, because I thought you were rejecting me, and afraid of what the men might do when they found out. But then you knelt down between my legs, and checked to make sure I was not too dry, so you wouldn't hurt me.

"It made no sense. No man would ever consider caring whether or not the ceremony hurt his wife, or not. It's supposed to hurt. But you cared and you had never met me! You even used your mouth to get me ready, which was something I didn't even know was possible. And when I had my pleasure, it was like there was this entire world that I never knew existed, and you opened the door and tossed me right into the middle of it.

"Oh, My, God, it felt so good. I knew I was screaming but there was nothing I could do about it. Then I got afraid, because I thought I had shamed you, and that meant a terrible whipping for me, but you sat back and smiled while you wiped my juice off your face.

"Then you went so slow inside me that I forgot that it never hurt like it was supposed to and I forgot to cry so the men could laugh at me, and make fun of you. But just as I worried about shaming you because I didn't bleed, and cry, you made me feel so good, I started screaming again, because I FELT so good, and THAT set the men off.

"Noah. I'm your wife. You let me discover how wonderful being with a man could be, and that was when I realized the hamlet was the place where I was afraid, lonely, and hurting. I don't want to go home because I don't want to be reminded of how unhappy I was before you walked in for the ceremony. I really want to be your wife, and have YOUR babies. Please let me."

I felt torn between love and thankfulness. My heart wanted to soothe their pain away, and my head wanted to take the hamlet apart, board by board, and scatter them all to the four winds, in hopes that they would have to change to survive.

Ruth looked at me, and seemed to know the struggle I was having with their revelations. "My first husband never touched me gently, Noah. Not once. He would shove my night dress out of the way, and frequently tear my panties, which I would have to mend the next day, and take what he thought he owned. I was never a person to him. All I really meant to him was being the women that cleaned his house, and cooked his meals, and a place in which to shove his dirty, smelly, ugly, thing.

"And then he died ... I remember looking at him – he was dead - before the Elder told the men to cover the box. I thought, 'I never loved you. I never even liked you. And I don't like you any better dead, than I did when you were alive, ' It didn't hurt when they lowered his coffin down, or when they shoveled the dirt over him. He was just the man who violated my body anytime he felt the need, and left me sore and sad when he was finished."

Her voice was soft, and her eyes were far away, somewhere. Ruth needed to talk, and we needed to hear what she had to say. The girls were perfect sisters for her, and I wanted to be the perfectly, supportive husband.

Back with us now, she looked at me, and said, "My brother raped me for the first time the next night. I realized after he took his pleasure, and left me sore and sad, that he was no different than Josiah. He used me like any other tool, and threw me down when he was done, expecting me to pick up the mess, and clean up after him. I died inside, a little, every time one of those evil men violated me. When the elder took me, he was rough on purpose, intentionally hurting me to make sure I knew that I was nothing. They committed acts of hate against me. We never shared any kind of love.