She lets the sentence hang until I break the silence. “What happened in Libya?” Mom loves an audience.
“Well,” she says, sighing theatrically. “I remember when I got invited to Libya with Aunt Faithy and your dad. I was so excited I was going to meet Grandpa for the first time. I was already in love with him from the Mo Letters. Anyway, one of Gaddafi’s men who was assigned to take care of our group during our stay got me alone and nearly raped me. I pretended to be sick to avoid his advances. It was only later I found out that Mama Maria and Grandpa had invited me on the trip partly to sleep with that horrible, slimy man so that he would act as a King—a supporter—for the Family in Libya. Sayyid was his name. They were going to offer me up as his second wife.” She makes her yuck face. “But before they could put that plan into effect, Gaddafi arrested him for stealing money that he was supposed to be using to take care of our team. He was thrown in jail.”
Mom laughs at her near escape while I stare at her in awe and horror.
“Other than that little hiccup, I loved Libya! That’s where Grandpa put your father and me together,” she says, smiling. Yes, that part I know.
“It’s also where I got to spend some intimate time with Grandpa,” she confesses with a sly smile.
“What?! You had sex with Grandpa?” This is the biggest shock of the night, of the year!
She covers her mouth with her hands, like she’s a little girl again. “Mama Maria brought me to his bedroom to have sex with him,” she blurts out. “It was a little strange, but such an honor.”
For as long as I can remember, my mother has treated me more as a peer than as a daughter. But even though she’s never had much of a filter, this disclosure is a blockbuster. My mother had sex with the Prophet! It truly is a high honor. Why has she never mentioned it before?
“And?” I press.
“Well . . . Grandpa couldn’t really get an erection, so the two of us just petted for an hour or so. Mama Maria sat there the whole time, typing in the corner,” Mom recalls.
Ahh, perhaps she never said anything because she was ashamed she couldn’t give him an erection. The reveal certainly does take away from his image of sexual prowess and appetite described in the Mo Letters.
It’s well known that Grandpa has no issue with incest as long as close blood relatives don’t have babies together (to avoid deformity), so I would normally not think Mom’s experience with Grandpa was strange. But probably because of all the System influence I’ve had in the past couple of years, it makes me uncomfortable to think that Mom nearly had sex with my grandfather before she became my dad’s wife.
“Anyway.” Mom blinks away the past. “We were talking about you and your sexual experiences!”
One confession deserves another, I reason. Besides, I am disappointed with my dating experience and I’m tired of sneaking out. Perhaps this is God’s way of intervening.
I gaze at her hopeful face. She wants me to share. I could give it a try.
“Yes,” I tell her, “I’ve been sneaking around with Em and Jen for months.”
True to her word, my mom doesn’t blow up or even scold me. But she does tell my father, and he reports us to the Shepherds in Japan—to the nameless, faceless people on the other end of the phone who control our lives.
If it had just been me sneaking out in the evenings, she and my father would have dealt with it as a family. But knowing that Emily and Jen were involved, teenagers the Family had entrusted to their care, they were obligated to report it, and they couldn’t report on them without reporting on me. Word that I was involved would have gotten out eventually through the girls, and that would look far worse for my parents if they hid it.
The truth is, I am not really surprised. We’ve been conditioned to report on each other.
Within days, word comes down from on high. There will be no third chances. Em and Jen will be sent to the US and excommunicated. The Shepherds buy their tickets, and my dad takes them to the airport. We have no idea what will happen to them or where they will go, and I never hear from them again.
I’m given a choice: I can move to a Teen Home in Japan or be excommunicated like the girls. Excommunication is too scary to contemplate; we nearly didn’t survive when we were cut off from the Family in the US. I may be sixteen now, but I know I couldn’t survive on my own.
A few weeks later, Auntie Crystal flies in from Japan to convince me to move to the Teen Home that she and Uncle Michael run there. She is all sweetness and understanding: “I know you’ve been cut off out here without teen friends or good Shepherding. We have a great group of fifteen teens. We have a singing group and do lots of fun stuff. You’ll love it. You’ll get to be with your siblings again.”
I choose Japan over excommunication. It’s an easy choice, the accepted path. Japan is the pinnacle of the teen community that I’d been hearing about in the Family News for years. All of my older siblings left home for Japan at sixteen, and I’ll finally get to see them again. Well, a couple of them. Josh has since moved to Taiwan with his new wife, Laura; Nehi and Hobo have moved to Brazil; but Aaron and Mary are still in Japan. Esther has disappeared into WS, no one knows where.
I’m eager to escape my parents, to grow up. I suspect I’ll miss my dad, the new version, more than my mom, but mostly I’ll miss Jondy and Nina, my babies.
Going to Japan feels like I’m about to finally rejoin the natural flow. But I’m also nervous: Can I readjust to the rigidity of the Family? On the Farm lately, I’d been engaging in worldly pursuits: studying for high school, reading novels, sneaking out of the house to have a System boyfriend, teaching horseback riding, and hanging out with Portuguese teenagers.
We still studied the Bible and Mo Letters and prayed every day, but my life hasn’t revolved around witnessing for years now. Will I be able to recommit myself to God and to the Family’s mission?
In my last few weeks at the Farm, I work like a whirlwind and finish my high school curriculum. I know I can’t take that—or my novels—with me. I am heading straight to the heart of the Family.
20
All for One Means None for You
Arriving in Japan is an unexpected culture shock. Japan is the exact opposite of China. Everything is perfectly clean and ordered. There are vending machines for whatever you might want. Things here are kawaii, cute, if they are small. Maybe I’ll finally fit in?