Yesteryear: A GMA Book Club Pick: A Novel by Caro Claire Burke - 37

The last few days have been very peaceful on the ranch. Mary’s mood has improved. Abel seemed to enjoy his trip with Old Caleb, and has left with him several times since then. On the first day, he came back grinning and told Noah, I’ll tell you when you’re old enough. Now Noah walks around all day with a dazed, slightly ecstatic look in his eye, like he knows the day of his own death.

And me? I think the Lord is happy with me. I can feel Him all around me, stronger than I ever have in my life. Sometimes, when I’m doing laundry or getting eggs from the coop, I tilt my expression to catch the cold winter sunlight, and I swear I can feel His breath on my cheek.

When I was a girl, I thought of the Lord the way other girls in my class thought of crushes. I imagined the lines of His face each night when I fell asleep. I doodled His name in my notebook in cursive, swirling hearts in glitter gel pen pink. I wondered if He thought of me as frequently as I thought of Him. And sometimes—as a reward, I think, for such pure thoughts—He would enter my body, filling me with an unbearable pleasure, a sense of communion so deep and animal and satiating that it left me slick and panting upon its departure.

I stopped experiencing those moments the day I was married. But now, miracle of miracles: the feeling has returned. I feel Him everywhere. In the air. In the ground beneath my feet. I feel Him, too, on the evenings Old Caleb reaches for my hips beneath the quilt. Pleasure beyond imagining. Like I am in a constant state of ascending.

For the first time in my life, I am being properly satisfied by a man.

I’m not alone. I’m not stuck, not lost, not forgotten, not punished. I am here, a chosen one, with Him, and I will remain here, wherever here is, until He decides to take me elsewhere.

Sometimes, when I have a moment to myself, I drop to my knees and let the gratitude hum out of me in waves. I cry hysterically, overcome by the magnitude of His power and His glory.

Imagine how you would feel if the Lord created a whole universe just for you. A customized parable; a new biblical story in the making. Maybe one day, even, they’ll talk about me in Sunday School. Saint Natalie. I like the ring of that.

The days slip away from me. A blur of divine exhaustion. Another week passes, and then another. The temperature drops further. Dinner comes earlier. We are crowded around the fire by midevening each night. Mary takes Old Caleb’s most worn-out pairs of socks, the ones that have become so thin at the toes that no amount of restitching will save them, and she turns them into a new pair of sock puppets for Maeve, with mismatched button eyes. Maeve has two puppets already. She’s been begging Mary for a third pair of puppets. Mary tells her to be patient, and Maeve, a good little girl, usually manages to quiet herself for a good thirty minutes before she comes sidling back up to the table, eyeing Mary’s handiwork with an interest verging on desperation. Finally Mary finishes and gives Maeve the third pair, and Maeve is so excited by the gift that she becomes overwhelmed and cries fat little-girl tears. It’s such a startlingly adorable scene that I begin to laugh, and amid all the joy I think to myself, Yes, I can bear this life. I can even sometimes enjoy it.

And then, just as quickly, I’m thinking of my other children—the ones who are out there, somewhere, in this life, in another life—and the laughter dies in my chest. The girls notice the change in temperature and back away immediately. The boys eye me warily from across the room, and I spend the rest of the night staring moodily at nothing.

Then one morning, I wake up and realize two things simultaneously: it’s been almost two months since Old Caleb slapped me that cold dark morning, and I haven’t gotten my period.