To Be Child of God [A Merome Story]

✧Chapter 3✧

I took a couple of days to think everything over and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that maybe I was like Rachel- Lachlan. Maybe I was transgender. Maybe I wasn't a girl. I needed more information but from what little I knew, the few minutes talking with Jerome, it sounded... right. It felt right. There was a lot of internal conflict and I did a lot of praying, soul searching, because my whole world view had very suddenly been flipped on its head. I had always been told that the Lord was all powerful and never made mistakes, but now I knew that was wrong. He could make mistakes, he could allow someone to be born in the wrong body.

As the oldest child I was expected to wake all of my siblings each morning, getting all of the girls up and ready first after returning from the kitchen. I woke every morning at 4am except on Sunday's and Monday's to prepare the breakfast. Faith came 4 days a weeks, Joy came two because she was only 14 and Hope was just beginning to help out, coming once or twice each month. They said it was because they didn't want to burn the girls out but us older ones, the ones who were closest to getting married, were often left responsible for everything, under the supervision of one or two adults. Anna, Sarah's mother, was in charge of the baking.

On Thursday morning, only four days after receiving the news that I was to be betrothed, I shook the girls awake. No one had gone with me that morning.

"Faith?" I shook her shoulder. "Wake up, it's 6 o'clock. Time to get up." She groaned, long hazel hair spread across her pillow. We didn't cut our hair. Following that I woke Joy, Hope and Justice. Mercy stayed sleeping. She was only two and didn't need to be woke for another half an hour. All six of us girls slept in the same room while the four boys were in the other. If Mother had another girl we would likely have to move houses, as there simply wasn't enough room for another girl, although I might have been married by that point.

In the other room I could hear Gabriel already waking my brothers, thankfully as I didn't have the energy to fight with the boys if they decided they didn't want to get up. I despised the differences between the way we were raised. Us girls did the cooking, the cleaning, the washing, the raising of the children and all the womanly chores. We were raised to be submissive, obedient, good and godly wives. They were the breadwinners of the household, working long hours and coming home to expect a clean house, tidy children and a meal on the table. I hated it.

I had to help Justice into her skirt as she still struggled with the tapes that held her skirt up. She was nine and it did annoy me sometimes since I believed she was well capable to doing it herself, but I reminded myself that I had been her not so long ago, but without an older sister to help her.

That morning had gone just as any other had. I had woken at 4 o'clock to a vibrating alarm under my pillow, gotten dressed into my work dress and had walked the couple of minutes in the dark to the community kitchen. Sister Beatrice was running it that day- she normally ran the day-care but due to Sister Anna recovering from the birth of her child, she was there. Abigail was there as well with two of her little sisters. Sarah and Ruth arrived not long after. It was Susanna's day off.

This time in the kitchen, when there was only a few of us working to prepare the breakfast for seven hundred people in the community, was our time to talk. We could laugh and joke without worrying about being told off for not being seemly or godly. Sisters Anna and Beatrice knew us girls needed some time to relax, we didn't have to be seemly all the time.

It was during those conversations that morning that Sarah excitedly talked about her new baby brother. He was yet to be christened but would be called Isaiah when he was. I listened with feigned interest, but her excited talk of a new family member scared me. She and my other friends, both Susanna and Abigail and Ruth, wanted children. They were excited about being betrothed and married, they liked the rule and that women here had so many children. They wanted to be good and godly women, raising their children to be the same. I didn't feel that way.

"Who do you think you may get married to Charity?" Ruth said excitedly, stirring the large vat of porridge. "There are six boys but obviously you will not marry Gabriel, so you have a better chance at guessing than we do."

I shrugged, but I was thinking about it. There were us five and a younger girl, and the boys that would choose from us were Gabriel, Jerome, Abel, Joshua, Matthew and Noah. The girl Luke had been betrothed to wouldn't be considered again until the next group came of age.

"I'm- I am not sure." I said. Sister Beatrice was watching us- she might let us laugh and joke, but that did not mean she let us shorten our words. "It is not up to me, I will have to wait and see who the elders decide is best for me. I do not envy one of you if you end up with Gabriel."

I ended with a light-hearted joke, trying to not make it obvious that I didn't want to get married. I didn't want what they wanted. And as we turned back to preparing the food, I internally sighed. How would this ever work out in my favour?

---------------------------------------------------

Jerome had once again gestured 2 o'clock, this time just as he passed by our table, and I had nodded without looking at him. I didn't have anything to do at that time either so once again I slipped from the kitchen after finishing the lunch dishes and walked the back road to the field. I was there first this time, but Jerome arrived less than a minute later.

"Hey Jerome." I said, folding my hands in front of my stomach. I still wasn't used to this, this feeling of knowing I was willing breaking the rule and doing it again and again.

"Hey." He sighed. "How've you been? Thinking over everything?"

"Yeah. It's been... difficult. There's been lots on my mind but I think... I think that might be right. What Lachlan is. That might fit what I'm feeling. I need more information though and I don't know how to get it, I'm going to be married soon and... god I don't want to, I don't want to be a wife. I don't want to have kids." I stared off at the horizon as I talked, unable to look at Jerome.

"I've been thinking too and... well, I don't know how to say it but... I don't think I can't leave until I'm married. I'm under constant supervision so until I'm considered an adult I'm not going to be able to get in contact with Lachlan for you to talk with him." He sighed deeply, rubbing his forehead. "I don't know if you're going to be okay with what I'm suggesting-"

I caught on before he finished his sentence.

"You want us to marry." He nodded, flushing a deep red.

"It says wrong to say it out loud because we're not meant to organise them ourselves but if you end up with someone else I don't know how I'll help you and if I marry or get betrothed to someone else... I wouldn't want to leave her. I'm honourable. I would never leave a girl like that, even if I wanted to leave the community."

God, more to think over. First it was everything discussed the other day and now it was this- the potential for me to marry Jerome. It kind of made sense to me, he could contact Lachlan and we could leave together, but the weight still sat on my shoulders. Marriage was sacred, a bond that could never be broken between a man and a woman. A marriage was to create and raise children in the love of the Lord, and I wanted to do none of those things. If I wasn't a woman, did it count?

The conflict must have shown on my face.

"I'll give you some more time, okay. It can't be too long because I need to discuss it with the elders soon, and it isn't guaranteed because they might find another girl for me, but it would make everything easier. Just... think it over. Okay?"

"Okay?" I whispered, as he turned and walked away.

Everything seemed to be crashing down around me, but there was some new hope.