That was a holdover from the Eamon Fields days. In the first year or two of the Blessed Acres’ existence, each family home had a line. As Eamon rose in prominence and renown among the settlers, he’d encouraged a paranoia about outsiders destroying their group and the prosperity they’d achieved. He suggested limiting phone access to a select few, the men who made up Claws’ loosely organized leadership council. Later, when he invented the position of Reverend and filled it, he took away all the phones but his. Off the back of the group’s radical vision, he’d made his own personal theme park to play in. Cainland?. He knew how to maneuver himself into power.
Vern was grateful his megalomania meant there was only one phone number to memorize, at least, and dialed. It rang three times, then: “You’ve reached the Blessed Acres. You’re speaking to Ruthanne. How can I help you this blessed morning?”
Vern closed her eyes upon hearing the familiar refrain. She recognized her mother’s voice immediately. It hadn’t aged or changed. It wasn’t quivery with grief for having lost Vern. It was the voice of a woman who loved Reverend Sherman and loved Cainland. She hadn’t changed at all. Here she was as she had been a year ago, doing her duty, sounding chipper to do so.
“Hello?” Ruthanne said when Vern didn’t answer. “Anyone there?”
Vern could not breathe, let alone speak. She’d stepped into a pocket of the world outside of time where she was a little girl again back on the compound, sitting under Reverend Sherman’s desk while her mam worked the phone.
“Hello?” Ruthanne repeated, this time in a rushed whisper. Though Vern’s mam was many, many miles away, she felt the woman’s manner shift. “Who is this? Who’s there?”
“It’s me,” said Vern, filled with such abrupt longing for her mother she thought she might disintegrate from the lack of her. Ribbons of brine streaked her cheeks.
“Right. Mrs. Humphrey. Yes, we’d be happy to accept the library’s book donations. I’ll call you back as soon as I can arrange a good time for drop-off. Have a blessed day.”
The line disconnected with an audible click but not a moment later began to ring. Before the barkeep could grab the phone from her, Vern pulled it away from his grasping hand and answered. “Hello?”
Vern let a long, shaky breath stutter through the phone’s speaker. “Mam? That you?”
The voice on the other end of the call trembled wordlessly. “Is this a joke?” asked Ruthanne.
Vern exhaled. “It’s no joke. It’s me. It’s Vern.”
Ruthanne’s breaths cut through the line, loud as death gasps. “No. No. God of Cain, no. They said you were gone. They said God of Cain raptured you in the night.”
The relief Vern felt to be talking to her mother was short-lived. “And you believed that?”
“Of course not, Vern. But I thought Reverend Sherman might’ve—I wondered if he’d killed you. I figured you’d back-talked one too many times and that bastard did what he does.” The familiarity with which Ruthanne said did what he does revealed a side of Vern’s mam previously hidden. This mam knew what the reverend was.
“You really thought there was a chance Sherman could kill me and you let me marry him?” asked Vern.
“I didn’t let you marry him,” Ruthanne protested. She and Vern remembered it very differently.
The proposal happened the day Vern had been with that cop. Sherman sat behind his desk in the temple office and called Vern’s mam in. She strode inside and pulled Vern into a possessive hug. “Did he—Vern—did he make you do something? Oh Lord, you’re all right, baby, you’re all right. It’s not your fault.” She turned to Sherman and pleaded, “She doesn’t know no better. You understand that, right?”
Sherman placed a few stray sheets of paper into a stack, then took a sip of coffee. “Of course, Sister Ruthanne. I would not even be surprised if that officer made up the entire incident.”
Ruthanne let Vern go and took a seat on the plastic-covered floral sofa next to her eldest child. “It’s not your fault, honey, no matter what happened.”
“The police officer is the one I done it with,” admitted Vern brazenly. “He was lying about another man.”
Vern’s eyes shrank away from the beams of midafternoon light coming in through the open window. Sherman adjusted his glasses, then scratched a patch of his cheek covered by beard. “I’m sorry that you had to experience firsthand what we mean when we talk about the nastiness of the white man, and specifically of police.”