Where are you, lass? We need to talk.
My reply was simple and consisted of three words. No, we don’t.
Thankfully, I didn’t have time to be rattled. I was pulled into a yawn worthy elders’ meeting to give a verbal accounting of the books as soon as I exited the small computer room. There were a lot of nods and several questions. Luckily, I’d spent the night before going through the ledgers and could answer most of their questions. That had been a stroke of luck. After I had been sent away, my father gave me strict instructions to help the other women in the food line, dishing out plates after I returned the keys.
The chattering women were more than happy to put me to work.
My mother smiled and commented, “You look a little thin,” while others looked curious.
The only response I offered was to hold up the plate I was adding a side dish to. With a waiting line, no one had time to comment more or ask about my reappearance in town.
My feet felt like weighted blocks were attached to them by the time everyone had been served. Finally, I was able to make my own plate and head to the table where my older sister Violet sat with an unfamiliar man.
Seated at the end of a long table, they were curiously left with plenty of seats in between them and another group who sat at the other end. She was all but isolated with only the man who I assumed was her husband.
Violet and I had always been close. She was a free spirit much as I had been. When I suggested she should go off to college with me, she’d only rolled her eyes and told me that the only thing she’d ever be good at was mothering. So it had been a surprise when it was Mary who had given birth first. In fact, Mary was also the first of us to get married.
“Vi.” I quickly set my plate down and then hugged her.
“Bails,” she cried out with genuine excitement.
After returning from the elders’ meeting, there hadn’t been time for me to greet her before I was put to work. She’d had a plate and had been talking to various people.
The man sitting across from her turned and I got the full impact of him. He had the kind of face that belonged on magazines. And for a second, I tried to place him.
“Bails, this is Steven, my husband. Steven, this is my younger sister, Bailey.”
He reached out a hand, revealing hints of tattoos just above his tunic neckline and peeking around his wrist. His long, dirty blond hair was tied back. His beard was slightly unruly but in that appealing way most women found attractive.
“Bailey, I like. It’s a pretty cool name.”
If I hadn’t known everyone in town, I certainly would have guessed from the casual way he spoke, he was an outsider.
“Thanks.”
Violet chimed in. “We’re all named after flowers,” she said and began to name us off like her husband hadn’t met them. “There’s me, then Bailey, which is a flower name, Mary, but her name is actually Marigold, Rose, and Poppy.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I hadn’t really thought about it when I met them.”
I found it extremely odd it had never come up in conversation with a man she’d married, but kept that to myself.
Even odder was that strangers weren’t welcomed easily as residents in our community. Our leaders were cautious of those who might place themselves among our ranks to get insider information to write or publish stories to confirm the outside world’s beliefs that we were some sort of cult or to exploit us in articles or postings on social media.
You had to prove yourself to be allowed to join our clan. He’d obviously passed my father’s test since he’d been allowed to marry my sister. So I gave him a measure of trust.
“It’s nice to meet you, Steven.”
“It’s probably cramped at your parents’ house. You’re welcome to stay with us,” he offered.
I glanced at Vi, who smiled like the world shined on her.
“I’m supposed to stay at Mary’s. Speaking of, I’m not sure when they go to bed for the night. With a new baby, I don’t want to intrude on their schedule. It would be best if I head on over after helping clean up. I don’t want to arrive late and wake them.”
Violet brightened. “Don’t stay with her. You’re welcome to stay with us.”
“We have more than enough room at our place,” Steven added, with a hearty smile.
I liked him. There was something easygoing about him. Didn’t mean I wasn’t curious about how he ended up here.
“Okay… I’ll stay with you tonight. I should go find Mary and let her know.”
I hugged Vi one more time and waved to her husband. Before I could leave, my younger sisters, whom I had only glanced at while they slept, found me. They hugged both Violet and me as if they’d seen neither of us in a very long time.