Tanner's War by Amber Morgan Read Free Book Online

the house,
forgetting that it was Abram who kept them from repairing the cracked window
frames or the dying boiler in the first place. Beth’s gut churned the whole day
as she pictured Mary’s black eyes and wasted body. She couldn’t eat the meal
her mother served. She pushed the meat and vegetables around her plate
nervously while Abram talked of duty and honor, and her parents nodded
solemnly.
    Afterwards, her parents and Abram
retreated into the front room, leaving Beth and her sisters to clean up. Beth
felt dizzy and faint, barely able to concentrate on her chores. A grim sense of
foreboding fell over her like a shroud. Once Abram left, her parents delivered
the news. She was to be married. Her oldest sister, Hannah, could take over
helping with the youngsters and the household management. Beth was to become
Abram’s new bride.
    She’d known it was coming, but
their words were still like ax blows, blunt and brutal. She barely managed to
get outside before she threw up.
    “It won’t be until after your
birthday,” Sam said, as if that made it any better. Beth punched her pillow
that night, then cried into it, unable to shake cold visions of the future
where Abram kept her pregnant and beaten until she was dead too.
    The day after her birthday, Abram
cornered her alone in the kitchen. Her sisters were at a Bible study class, her
parents were working. She realized later it had probably all been
pre-arranged—how often was she ever alone? She’d been sat at the table, trying
to mend a shirt that really needed to be thrown away, when he appeared in the
doorway, his shadow falling across her.
    “I thought it would be prudent for
us to talk before the wedding,” he said.
    Beth swallowed the bile that rose
in her throat, keeping her eyes fixed on the shirt. “Oh?” Her voice trembled.
She hated herself for it, but she simply couldn’t overcome it.
    She felt him move closer. “You
shouldn’t be afraid to look at me, Bethany. I’ll be your husband soon.”
    When she still didn’t look up, he
knotted his fingers in her hair and yanked her head up. She gasped in pain,
eyes watering. Abram smiled.
    “You’ll quickly learn I’m an
impatient man,” he told her. “But you’re a good, obedient girl, or so your
mother assures me, so I’m sure we won’t have any problems once we’re man and
wife, will we? Stand up, please.”
    He released her hair and Beth
stood, chewing her lip to keep herself from crying. He pulled her into the
middle of the kitchen and paced around her, like she was a horse he was
assessing for purchase. She gasped again when he ripped her shirt open,
exposing the dirty white bra underneath. He grabbed her by the hips, squeezing
and tutting critically. “Narrow hips. Mary had good,
strong hips.”
    “Sorry,” she heard herself saying
distantly, as if she was watching herself on TV. His touch repulsed her, but
she couldn’t pull away.
    He groped her breasts, flexing his
fingers hard into her flesh, as if he was trying to bruise her. “You’re young,
at least. And your mother is obviously fertile, so let’s hope you inherited
that.” He sounded vaguely disappointed in her, and Beth wondered what he’d
expected. He’d known her for her entire life—it wasn’t as if she’d been hiding
childbearing hips and bountiful breasts away somewhere. He could have picked
any woman in the Church. He had
forced himself on her , not the other
way round.
    He tilted her chin so she was
forced to look at him, one hand still mindlessly roaming over her left breast.
His touch was passionless, automatic. It made Beth feel infinitely worse.
“Given my position within the Church, Bethany, it would not be improper for us
to consummate our relationship before the actual marriage. God has chosen you
as my bride—we are already wedded in heart and spirit.”
    Horror cut through Beth and it must
have shown on her face. Abram frowned and pinched her breast, making her wince.
“’Wives submit to your husbands