I type out a quick email to my dad to see where they are and click send. For the next day, I wait impatiently, until I finally see his name in my inbox. His email informs me that a month after I left Xiamen, my mother took Jondy, now eleven, and moved into her own apartment to be with Ivan, who she’d been secretly dating the whole time. A couple of months later, my parents traveled together to the States to visit relatives. My father saw this as an opportunity get Mom away from Ivan and put their marriage back together. But, once in America, they went their separate ways. Dad traveled to Houston to see his mother, and Mom flew to Oregon, where, for ten months, she and Jondy stayed with her aunt Virginia; Nina, already fifteen years old, stayed in a Family Home. Now, Mom’s gone to Russia to marry Ivan, leaving Jondy with Dad.
The news swirls around in my mind. More than twenty years of marriage, and it’s over. But they are not legally married and own nothing, so the split is relatively simple. Even though I knew they’d been having trouble, it’s still a shock. Yet I also understand. In Ivan, my mom saw an educated man who could talk with her about books and her new interests. I realize that for years, she’s been looking for a way out of the Family, but she only had the courage to make the leap attached to another man.
Dad seems to have moved on from the split, still living in Texas, floating around in a van with a young Mexican disciple, Maria, who is about my age, trying to raise money to go back to China.
Now that I have his phone number, I decide to call him. It will be easier to share news of my decision. To keep the peace, I tell him and everyone else—and very nearly convince myself—that my leaving the Family will be temporary, just a short stint away—a chance to go to school before coming back to continue serving the Lord. After a long diatribe on the importance of being a missionary and the waste of higher education, Dad realizes he won’t budge me.
For so much of my life, I’ve longed for his recognition, his approval. I wanted him to praise my swimming abilities back at the reservoir, I’d imagined him rescuing us when we were sent to Thailand, and I was grateful when he showed up in Atlanta to take us back to the Farm. But with all I’ve learned of him, his disappointment and disapproval no longer budge me.
I email my mom, but I have little hope of hearing back in time. From what Dad has told me, she’s accessing email only every few weeks.
I call my grandparents. Grandad offers to send me a couple hundred dollars, not nearly enough for the ticket and expenses to move to the US, and Grandma says she’s already sending my mom money and can’t afford more. I don’t want to show up destitute like before. I need to find a way to make it myself.
I reach out to Dad again. I know he can’t help me with money, as he hardly has any to support himself, but perhaps he knows someone who could help me. “You remember Adriano, our old Fish?” he drawls. “He is opening a new gambling club in Macau. Let me see if he might have a job for you.”
“Please,” I say gratefully.
The few bills in my money sock feel far too light. But I have enough in there to buy a ticket from Taiwan to Macau, which finally got its own airport!
Three days later, my two suitcases contain all my earthly possessions and I have my ticket for my flight the next morning. After dinner, I’m about to flop down on my mattress when I look up to see Uncle John leaning against the doorframe of my bedroom. He smiles a sad smile and asks if he can take me out to get an ice cream, one last time.
“Sure,” I say to my old witnessing buddy and ally in this frigid little Home.
We get into his van, but on the way to the store, he passes the turnoff. Laughing, I point out the mistake and tell him he’s already lost without me. He smiles but doesn’t turn around. Instead, he pulls up to a rent-by-the-hour motel.
I ask what we’re doing here, and he says, “I have to check on a Sheep.” He explains that there’s someone inside who needs our help, and he wants to talk to them before heading to the store. Can I join him?
I watch as he goes to the front desk for a key, and then I follow him down a bleak, gray hallway. Why did he get a motel room just to meet a Sheep? A vague dread presses on my chest, but my heart refuses to acknowledge the inconsistency of his words. I follow him as if it were any normal outing. The key scrapes in the lock. We walk inside, but there’s no one there. I hear the door click behind me. Faced with a dark room and a double bed, I can’t avoid the screaming question.
“Uncle John, what’s going on? Where’s the Sheep we are meeting?” My voice sounds high and tinny in my own ears.
“God has told me I need to share His love with you before you leave,” he says.
Real panic sets in, but I try to appear as if it’s just a joke or a giant misunderstanding that I can play my way out of. I tell him it really isn’t necessary, that I don’t want to share God’s love.
But then I feel his hand take mine, and my throat closes on itself, any further words drying up as he leads me to the bed.
I’ve been so trained not to refuse, to obey my elders, that I don’t have the words to object. All I want to do is run, but I don’t have a car, a phone, or money. I have no way out. There are no other options I can think of. I’m trapped. Trapped by my own mind, which has been conditioned to never refuse an uncle.
The mattress sinks under my weight, and my feeling of helplessness howls inside.
He pushes me onto my back and takes off my clothes. I just stare at the ceiling, trying to make my mind blank as I focus all my attention on the tiny LED lights. They look like little stars, and I fly away, into them, to escape what is happening to my body.
Uncle John tells me he wants it to be good for me. I say nothing, stiff as a mannequin. I hate that he’s pretending this has anything to do with me or my pleasure. I hate that he justifies this in his mind as showing me love. I’m sure he’s convinced himself that if he could just have sex with me, I would feel love or enjoyment and want to stay in the Family.
But he knows I don’t want this. Over the last months we’ve been living together, he’s offered to share with me, even sending his wife once to tell me it was okay. I’ve declined his offers as politely as I can, thinking that as a sympathetic friend, he might not report me for refusing. But now I’m trapped.
Unable to defend myself or speak up after my first feeble refusal was ignored, I must lie there and take it. I can scream, but these rooms are soundproof. I can fight, but he’s much larger than I am. Even worse, the thought crosses my mind that if I pretend to like it a little, he’ll finish quicker, but I can’t. I just want this to be over as fast as possible while I try to distance myself from what’s happening.
A wave of nausea ripples through me as I force my focus back to the lights.
I hate him. And I hate him even more because I liked him. I trusted him. I thought he was my friend.
When he finishes with me, I remain frozen on my back. Between the physical and psychological pain, only one thing is clear: I’m never coming back.
27
On My Own