The shock of the sign is enough to keep me silent and make everyone in the Home sit up and take notice. I lower my eyes to the floor to avoid the stinging stares. I cannot even speak to defend myself. I’m only allowed to speak with the OC group’s two teachers, Uncle Steven and Uncle Joel. How can I ever hope to adjust to my new home now?
That afternoon at naptime, Uncle Steven hands me a Mo Book opened to a Letter titled Prayer for Magdalene. Then he leaves, and I’m alone once again. My hands shake as I feel the weight of it in my fingers. I know what this means. This is the scariest prayer for anyone in the Family. As I sit on the bottom bunk, my neck curved to not hit my head on the wood above it, I make the most difficult request of my life: I ask God to break me. My lips tremble as I ask Him to break my pride and spirit. My eyes again burn with tears as I give Him permission to do terrible things to me. I am so scared, as I have absolute conviction that He will do it. But I don’t see any way out.
For the first few days, it’s hard to remember that I am not to speak, especially with all the new rules I’m expected to know. My father liked to act militaristic—two sheets of toilet paper, two-minute showers—but the Thailand commune takes the Family’s militaristic attitude to a whole new level. In addition to marching everywhere in single file, the OC group is on dish duty for the whole sixty-person Combo. As we wash, everyone, except me for now, must quote Bible chapters out loud in unison, without pausing or slipping up. After we wipe down the large tables, Uncle Steven bends down eye level with the table to see if we’ve left even a speck of dirt. I learn to be very thorough.
If we slip up, there is the demerit chart—a large chart on the wall with everyone’s name and the days of the week. If we do anything we are not supposed to, an “X,” to signify a demerit, is marked next to our name. Anyone who gets three demerits in a day or five in the week will be punished with extra chores and miss the weekly movie. The cruelest invention is double or triple demerits. If you are caught “goofing off” in class, the teacher will yell out, “A demerit for you!” If you try to explain or justify yourself, you’ll get another demerit for talking back. As I watch Uncle Steven hand down punishments, I’m almost relieved my silence keeps me from condemning myself.
I read the list of Mo Letters that Uncle Steven assigns me, and each day at naptime, he sits with me on the balcony, where I tell him what I’m learning from the Letters and my punishment. “Yes, I was rebellious, feeling like I was too good for the kids’ group and deserved to be in the teen group. Now, I see that was my abominable pride,” I confess.
During the hour of family time each evening, I sit mutely on the floor, not allowed to even speak to my mother. She looks worried as Jondy pulls on my shirt to get me to play with him and four-year-old Nina cries in her arms. I desperately miss the Farm, the animals, my friends and siblings. What is everyone doing? Patrick? My brothers? I have no idea and no one to ask. I have no way to communicate with them. We’re allowed to write letters and turn them over to a Shepherd to mail, but doing so doesn’t seem worth it.
Uncle Steven is the only person I can talk to in this unfamiliar home and country. Isolated from everyone else, I grow close to him, and he speaks to me like he is my confidant.
“How long will I be on Silence Restriction?” I finally have the courage to ask.
“Until we feel that you have truly changed,” he replies.
Ten days into this everlasting silence, Uncle Steven permits me to speak for one night to celebrate my twelfth birthday. Like the bat mitzvah in the Jewish faith, this is supposed to be the biggest birthday of my life, when I become a woman. This is the only time a person gets their own party separate from the group birthday that celebrates all the birthdays in a Home under that month’s astrological sign. People pray over and receive prophecies for the new twelve-year-old. The birthday person is given a personalized certificate declaring them a man or a woman.
But with the Family’s decree changing the age for sex with adults and for drinking wine to fifteen or sixteen instead of twelve a couple of years ago, reaching this milestone doesn’t have quite the same practical significance.
After dinner, the OCs gather in our bedroom, where Uncle Steven presents me with a cake and a laminated certificate that reads, “Becoming a Woman,” along with my name, age, and the date. Beneath a small picture of me, there is a caption that reads, “‘Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.’ Proverbs 31:10. ‘Loyal and Willing, with whole hearts, we’re giving our lives for the Kingdom of God!’” This birthday is such a letdown. I don’t feel like a woman, just another insignificant kid.
All of us kids sit in a circle and eat a dense homemade carrot cake. I struggle to stretch my lips into a smile. I’m painfully aware of the Mo Letter Uncle Steven assigned me to read yesterday. It said that no matter how we feel, we must always smile and put on a happy face for others. Then everyone gathers to pray over me. As I kneel in the center, they place their hands on my head, back, or arms, wherever they can reach, and commit me to God. Afterward, my short reprieve is done and I’m back to Silence Restriction. Humiliation is my home.
At lights-out, because of the humidity, all of us kids line up in our underwear so Uncle Steven or Uncle Joel can rub talcum powder on our naked backs. Some of us older girls try to cover our breasts with our arms or hold a shirt over our chest as one of the uncles rubs powder on us. Then, once we’re in bed, Uncle Steven comes for our underwear check. Grandpa says that in tropical countries the genitals need to be aired out, so we’re not allowed to wear underwear at night. We have no air conditioning, and in one hundred degrees with 100 percent humidity, I lie under my sheet, sweating. I want to rip off the itchy cotton covering, but I’m naked, and at twelve, I’m far too embarrassed to lie fully exposed in a mixed-gender room with two male Shepherds. I’ve learned not to take those risks. So, every night, when Uncle Steven comes around to feel our hips under the sheet to make sure we don’t have anything on, I push my underwear to my ankles, and when he leaves, I pull them back up under the sheet. My small, silent rebellion.