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On nights like this, Orin could almost imagine that nothing changed. She sat next to Dove on the front porch swing, listening as her cousin plucked out a tune on her guitar. They’d passed time this way countless times before. Dove played and Orin drew. They practiced their God-given gifts and everything was right with the world. Except that now she couldn’t help but notice every time Dove lifted her gaze to look toward the road. When a car passed, and there were so many cars that passed these days, she’d pause and glance up. Like she was waiting for something.
Orin kept her eyes on the sketch she was working on, trying not to press her pencil down too hard.
They were cousins, yes, but they might as well have been sisters. As close as they were raised, sometimes even members of the congregation forgot they weren’t. The only young women in the church and so near in age, how could they be anything but close? Even after Dove had been chosen to lead after her daddy went to the woods, Orin had prided herself on being her nearest friend.
Except now there was something in the way.
“Gettin’ airish.” Orin said aloud. It was the edge of spring. The days had gotten warm while the nights were still bitter.
Dove hummed an agreement, fiddling with the tuning pegs of her guitar. Orin crosshatched a shadow into her sketch.
It was clear that Dove’s mind was somewhere else. It had been for months. Of course she’d kept going through the motions of running the church, of giving sermons and ministering to the flock. But it was with less single-minded focus.
No one could challenge it, not when there was a surfeit of blood to cleanse sins away, the bones of saved sinners feeding the black earth deep in the trees behind the church. Her choice to give up some of the land that had belonged to her daddy had created concerns. It'd made Orin’s own granddaddy question her. But there was money for the church now, there were sinners being saved.
And yet still it stuck in Orin’s craw.
In the distance there was the sound of a heavy vehicle crunching over dirt and gravel. Almost as if on command, Dove’s head lifted. She watched a black SUV come around the bend. Dove didn’t smile, her expression barely flickered, but something in her muscles seemed to loosen. She set the guitar aside next to Orin.
“Didn’t know you were expectin’ company.” Orin could hear the petulant pitch in her own voice over the lie.
“I didn’t know if he was comin’ today.”
Him. Orin’s lip pulled back at one corner, her nose wrinkling.
“I don’t know why you let him—”
“He’s not stayin’.” Dove took a few steps to the railing, laying her hands across the rotting wood, watching the SUV pull into the drive.
The windows of the vehicle were dark, the driver's side window rolled down an inch or two to let a curl of cigarette smoke escape.
“Won’t be long, promise.” Dove said, smoothing down her dress.
“Dove—”
“Orin.”
“You don’t know—”
“Come on, don’t start.” Dove said.
Orin sucked her teeth, gripping her pencil tight. They’d had this conversation before.
“Nothin’s gonna happen. He’s helpin’ spread the faith.”
“That all he’s doin’?”
Dove whipped her head to look back at Orin, eyes sharp. “You keep that tongue ‘tween your teeth ‘fore I snatch it out.”
“People are talkin’.”
“Only voice I hear is yours.” Dove bit, turning away and stepping off the porch without another backward glance.
Orin watched her walk away.
She remembered the first time she realized that Dove was beautiful. When she was fourteen and Dove was sixteen, she’d overheard two men from church talking about her, about what a good wife she’d make someone in a year or two. Suddenly she could see Dove through their gaze, with her long hair and soft hips. It seemed to have occurred almost overnight but from that day on it was as if the world turned with Dove as its axis. Beautiful and holy; as desired and untouchable as divinity itself. Something in Orin had ached, both fascinated and disgusted by the interest men showed in her. It was as if she’d lost something in the recognition.
But at least if she’d chosen someone, married someone, in the church it would be a holy thing. She watched Dove walk barefoot over the grass before stepping unflinchingly onto the driveway gravel toward the SUV.
Enver Gortash was older than the both of them, by at least fifteen years if Orin had to guess. And he wasn’t even handsome. She might have at least understood if he had been. His hair was dark as an oil slick and he was alligator skinned. He had a constant shadow of stubble on his jaw and he had a crooked nose and black pits for eyes. When he talked it was with a smug city accent. Everything about him was hateful, from his stupid black boots to his suits. If someone had asked her to describe the devil, Orin was sure that his appearance would be what came to mind. It made Dove’s interest all the more unfathomable. This was no David, no Solomon. Just a man of lead and clay. What was he compared to her?
Enver met Orin’s gaze and he raised two gold-ringed fingers off the steering wheel in a gesture of greeting. Orin let her mouth pull back in a sneer. It only made the awful man smile and say something she couldn’t hear to Dove as she opened the car door. Dove didn’t even glance back at her as she responded. She didn’t get into the car right away, leaning against the door for a moment, talking. Orin wished she’d learned to read lips, every syllable she could make out could have been a thousand stupid, sinful things. Enver laughed suddenly. That she could almost hear: coarse and ugly and wreathed in cigarette smoke. He beckoned at Dove and Orin watched her hesitate. She held her breath and tried to find something to say to bring her cousin back to the porch.
But then Dove was getting into the car, putting her knee on the passenger seat before climbing in, setting her dusty bare feet on the dashboard. She slammed the door shut behind her.
Orin’s pencil lead snapped against the sketch pad. She imagined his hand on Dove’s thigh, whispering lies into her ear. She’d always thought Dove was too smart to trick, but the perfidy of men was endless. He would deceive her, make her throw away her glory. He’d turn her into some earthly whore instead. He’d make her waste all of her God given gifts. And she was letting him.
Enver put the SUV in reverse, backing out of the drive in one smooth sweep of the wheel. Dove glanced briefly back at Orin, their gazes meeting until the angle of the car made it impossible.
Orin thought of her own mama, sullied and untrustworthy. Who couldn’t even remember who Orin’s father was, forced to creep around the edges of the church occasionally wailing in testimony. At least she’d had granddaddy to look after her and make sure she grew up holy in spite of her mama’s failings. But Dove’s daddy was in the woods now, and how often could he keep an eye on her like that? Maybe she ought to tell him. Go deeper into the holler where the hawthorns wove together and the deer went to die to tell him what she was doing. He could check her, if he knew. What else were fathers for if not to curb their daughters?
The gravel crunched under the wheels and the SUV took off back down the road, disappearing around the bend and further on until all Orin could hear was the scream of the jar bugs deep in the trees.