Chapter 8
8
Dinah Ruth Davidson sat at the old vinyl kitchen table long after she had cleaned up the dinner dishes, reading the Scriptures to herself like she did every night after dinner. Her father insisted on it. Her younger brother Judah was next to her, his own Bible open before him. He’d say something occasionally, when he felt strongly about something.
But mostly he was doing that spaced out thing he did that freaked her out a little. He didn’t really read all that well, and she knew he didn’t understand the implications of the Bible. Not the way she did. Sometimes, she had to help him figure out what the verses meant. How they applied to their lives now.
He was so weird sometimes. Lost in his own head. Nothing about Judah fit into the world around them.
Not here, anyway.
In Texas.
In Nebraska, he’d done okay. There had been other boys like him up there. Working for Father Rei. Boys who had taken care of Judah, looked out for him. That kind of thing. Everything had had a plan then. Felt right.
Their mother had already gone to bed. She’d be up around four to get started on the chores for the day. Dinah would help her a few hours later. Before going into the diner.
It was just the way it was here in Value. Work, work, work.
She didn’t want to work her life away forever. But… she liked it at the diner. The people she worked with were nice and funny and treated her like she was one of them, too. It wasn’t the kind of job a proper unmarried young woman should have, at least not in her father’s eyes. But she wasn’t married yet, and she wasn’t going to sit at home waiting for him to decide her future. Dinah had wanted her own money. And since her brothers had stopped doing errands for Father Rei, they just didn’t have the money for her to sit at home doing nothing with her time now. Or just cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. If she was home, she was expected to be cleaning.
Besides, her mama left her alone when she was giving her money for the bills and all. Dinah did what she had to do.
The front door swung open, and their father stepped inside.
He dropped his thermos onto the counter and let out a long, heavy sigh, shaking his head.
“I hate this town,” he said. Hate. That always meant… he had had a bad day again. “The filth running through it is worse than ever.”
Dinah didn’t speak. She waited. She knew… she wasn’t to speak. She was to listen. Period.
“That preacher’s sister got it tonight. Nearly died. That nurse. Payment for her sins. The Lord sees it all. And he punishes.”
Preacher.
There were only three preachers in Value. And her father only ever referenced one.
“What happened?” Hezekiah asked, leaning back in his chair, expression unreadable. He had had a crush on Genny Hiller since the first time they’d met her. When Dinah, and Genny, had been around sixteen. The first time they had moved here. Gunn hadn’t been their preacher quite yet. But everyone knew he would be, when he finished his studies. Hezekiah had always just watched Genny, and drooled. Hezekiah was rather pathetic at times.
Judah just sat there, listening.
Their father let out a slow breath, shaking his head again. “Got herself stabbed, that’s what happened. Right there in the middle of the hospital. Some doctor, gone mad over her. They are saying she tempted him into madness. Stabbed her with scissors, and near killed her. Went after that blonde whore who runs the ER, too. Both of them, paid for their sins tonight.”
Dinah’s stomach tightened. As she imagined it.
Judah, still flipping through his Bible, finally spoke. “The Lord sees all.”
Their father pointed at him. “That’s right, boy. And He sees what that other woman’s been doing, too.”
Dinah frowned. “What woman?”
“Dr. Fisher.” Their father spit in the sink after he said it. He was always talking about how much he despised Dr. Fisher, for what she did with the men at the hospital. For how she kept getting in his way all the time, too. “She is a harlot. She does not follow the church. She does not live by the Word. She is no woman of God, and she will be judged for it. I showed her how she would already.”
Hezekiah smirked, but he didn’t argue. He never did. He just worked his shift cleaning toilets at the same hospital where their father was a security guard, and said mean things about all the people who worked there. Really mean things.
Dinah just sat there, thinking about what her father had said. She listened as he told her brothers every detail, almost like he enjoyed those women’s pain. She thought she remembered Dr. Fisher, from the diner. She hadn’t seemed so evil to Dinah then.