To Be Child of God [A Merome Story]

✧Chapter 22✧

My brain kicked into autopilot for the next few days, then weeks, dragging me through each day. Each night I found myself lying in bed with no recollection of what had occurred during the day, Jerome already passed out beside me and snoring. He was at work almost fourteen hours a day and even when we were alone we had no time to talk- he left at 5am and we didn't return until after dinner, when he took a shower, fell into bed and just slept. I wasn't sure I even wanted to talk to him.

I felt completely and utterly alone. For the first time I think I understood what Jerome and Lachlan had said, about doing something stupid. About losing me. About dying. That was the moment I realised why they had expressed it that way- I understood why Lachlan hadn't wanted to keep going anymore, and I knew why Jerome was scared I would try. For a fleeting moment, I thought I would myself.

I felt crushed. I was being suffocated underneath this regime, under this pressure to be as they expected me to be. I couldn't be what they wanted, I couldn't be a wife and mother. I couldn't raise children here with the expectation they would turn out like my mother or my sister, young mothers raising a brood of children with an absent, emotionless father doing the discipline. This religion wasn't the true one. Was there even a true god? The elders were obsessed with control, having their little slaves running around them.

Waking at 5am was difficult now that I didn't have to go to the kitchen, so this morning I groaned when Jerome slipped from the bed. He dressed as quietly as he could, turning on the lamp in the corner so he could see.

"Go back to sleep Mitch." He breathed, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I leaned into his touch slightly but was really too out of it to concentrate. He smiled to himself, planting a light kiss on my forehead. "I'll see you tonight."

I tried to go back to sleep but I was just exhausted. My eyes closed but sleep didn't come. My entire body felt like lead. And then, just as 6am rolled around, a wave of nausea completely overtook me and I scrambled from the bed, barely making it to the bathroom in time to throw up into the toilet.

I had to lie there for a few minutes, too dizzy and nauseated to even move. I could barely pick my head up from the floor, that was how bad I felt. Curling up on the cold tile I closed my eyes and I think I must have fallen back asleep.

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There was a knock on the door. "Charity?" A voice called. "Where are you? Breakfast is over!"

I had barely managed to sit up before I heard the doorknob turn and footsteps. The bathroom door was pushed open and there was Susanna, eyes wide with worry, panic flooding her face the moment she saw me cradling my head, sprawled on the floor.

"Oh my! Charity, are you okay!" She exclaimed. I managed to nod.

"I... I think so?" I said. "I don't know. I feel so ill."

It definitely clicked for her before it clicked for me. The possibility hadn't even crossed my mind before that moment, my mind was so flooded with the problems of everyone else that I hadn't even considered what had happened weeks earlier, but she knew. Susanna definitely knew.

"Charity, do you believe you could be pregnant again?" She whispered, a half smile playing on her face. I understood why she made the assumption, but again wasn't the right word. I had never been pregnant before- but was I pregnant now?

I felt the blood rush from my face. I felt faint and scared because the rushing realization that this was the most likely explanation. It had happened a month ago and if I was experiencing symptoms now... The knowledge was crushing. My chest was tight, head spinning, breaths coming fast and harsh. Susanna was trying to speak to me, but I couldn't hear her.

"Charity! Charity!" She shook me, jolting me back to reality. "It is okay!"

I blinked up at her, crying.

"Darling, do not cry. I know you're scared, I know you don't want to lose another child. But it will be okay. I am pregnant again too, it is okay, we will do this together."

I managed to nod slowly, leaning into her touch when she brushed a tear away from my cheek. She helped me to my feet, helping me back to my bed.

"I will be right back, I will tell someone else you are ill and will be staying in bed today. This first week is always the worst, I understand you do not want to be out with the others. Maybe one of the girls can bring you something to eat."

I only nodded again. I didn't feel I could speak, I was too busy thinking everything over. Mother and Terah were both eight months pregnant, my other friends were 6. Susanna and I both must have been around a month, if it was true, although she may have been further along.

Susanna brought back a bottle of cold water, a bucket and a heap of material. She took my sewing kit off the shelf and handed it to me.

"I need to go, but this will keep you busy. It will keep you mind off things as you will need maternity dresses and new clothes for the baby. Ruth is in the kitchen today, I will alert her and she will bring you lunch." She said with a smile, brushing my hair from my face. "It will be okay, I promise. We will get thought this together."

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Jerome seemed surprised to see me when he came back to the room after work to have a shower. I had hidden away the sewing, not even wanting to touch it. I didn't want to consider the possibility that what she said was true, I didn't want to believe. I didn't believe it.

"Mitch?" He asked me, when he saw me sitting up in bed. "Are you alright? Ruth told me you weren't at breakfast this morning. Are you ill?"

I nodded slowly. I didn't want to explain it, I don't think I physically had the words, but I noticed something about him that was off. He was holding himself wrong, his eyes were red rimmed and his hands were shaking. If he hadn't received the news about me, then what was wrong?

"Jerome?" I said. "What's wrong?"

He closed his eyes and just collapsed onto the bed beside me, burying his head in his hands.

"Liz left today." He murmured. "She came to me at work, telling me she couldn't stay, she couldn't be married off. I think she managed to talk to Lachlan at some point or someone else because she said she has somewhere to stay, but... oh god, I just... I can't believe she's leaving."

All thought of everything that had been on my mind that day left it immediately, my first thought was for Jerome. I had known this hurt before, too, with cousins and friends leaving when I was young. Never a sibling, never someone I had been raised with, but I understood the hollow, numb feeling.

Wrapping my arms around him, I pulled him into a hug. We didn't say anything. There was nothing more to say.