Faithless

“We talk about literature, mostly. I’m afraid I can’t offer her much beyond the usual high school curriculum. Ephraim and I discussed sending her to a small college, perhaps Tifton or West Georgia, but she wasn’t interested. She loves working at the farm, you see. Her gift is helping others.”

“Have you always done that?” Lena asked. “Homeschooling, I mean.”

“We were all homeschooled. All of us but Lev.” She smiled proudly. “Paul had one of the highest SAT scores in the state when he entered UGA.”

Lena wasn’t interested in Paul’s academic career. “That’s your only job at the farm? Teaching?”

“Oh, no,” she laughed. “Everyone on the farm has to do everything at some time. I started in the fields, just like Becca is doing. Zeke’s a little too young now, but he’ll start in the next few years. Papa believes you have to know every part of the company if you’re going to run it someday. I got stuck in bookkeeping for a while. Unfortunately, I have a talent for numbers. If I had my way, I’d lie around on the couch all day reading. Papa wants us to be ready when something happens to him.”

“You’ll run the farm eventually?”

She laughed again at the suggestion, as if ru

“Drugs?” Lena asked.

“Of course,” she said. “But we’re very careful here. You have to earn trust. We don’t allow alcohol or cigarettes on the farm. If you want to go into town, you’re welcome to, but no one is going to give you a ride. We have them sign a behavioral contract the minute they step foot on the place. If they break it, they’re gone. A lot more people than not appreciate that, and the new ones learn from the old-timers that when we say an infraction gets you sent back to Atlanta, we mean it.” Her tone softened. “I know it sounds harsh, but we have to get rid of the bad ones so that the ones who are trying to be good have a chance. Surely, as a law enforcement officer, you understand that.”

“How many people come and go?” Lena asked. “Ballpark, I mean.”

“Oh, I’d say we have about a seventy percent return rate.” Again, she deferred to the men in her family. “You’d have to ask Lev or Paul for an exact percentage. They keep up with the ru

“But you’ve noticed people coming and going?”

“Of course.”

“What about Abby?” Lena asked. “Is she happy here?”

Esther smiled. “I would hope so, but we never make people stay here if they don’t want to.” Lena nodded as if she understood, but Esther felt the need to add, “I know this all may sound odd to you. We’re religious people, but we don’t believe in forcing religion onto others. When you come to the Lord, it must be of your own volition or it means nothing to Him. I can tell from your questions that you’re skeptical about the workings of the farm and my family, but I can assure you we’re simply working for the greater good here. We’re obviously not invested in material needs.” She indicated the house. “What we’re invested in is saving souls.”

Her placid smile was more off-putting than anything Lena had experienced today. She tried to work with it, asking, “What sort of things does Abby do on the farm?”

“She’s even better with numbers than I am,” Esther said proudly. “She worked in the office for a while, but she started to get bored, so we all agreed she could start working as a sorter. It’s not a highly difficult job, but it brings her into contact with a lot of people. She likes being in a crowd, blending in. I suppose every young girl feels that.”

Lena waited a beat, wondering why the woman had yet to ask about her daughter. Either Esther was in denial or she knew exactly where Abby was. “Did Abby know about the thefts?”

“Not many people did,” Esther said. “Lev likes to let the church handle church problems.”

“The church?” Lena asked, as if she hadn’t already figured this out.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, and Lena wondered why she started just about every sentence with an apology. “The Church for the Greater Good. I always just assume everyone knows what we’re about.”

“And what are you about?”

Lena obviously wasn’t doing a good job of hiding her cynicism, but Esther still patiently explained, “Holy Grown subsidizes our outreach into Atlanta.”

“What kind of outreach?”

“We try to carry on Jesus’s work with the poor. We have contacts at several shelters for the homeless and abused women. Some halfway houses keep us on their speed dial. Sometimes we get men and women who have just gotten out of jail and have nowhere to go. It’s appalling the way our penal system just chews these people up and spits them out.”

“Do you keep any information on them?”

“As much as we can,” Esther said, returning to the lemonade. “We have education facilities where they learn manufacturing. The soy business has changed over the last ten years.”

“It’s in just about everything,” Lena said, thinking it would be unwise to mention that the only reason she knew this was because she lived with a tofu-eating, health-food nut lesbian.

“Yes,” Esther agreed. She took three glasses out of the cabinet.

Lena offered, “I’ll get the ice.” She opened the freezer and saw a huge block of ice instead of the cubes she’d been expecting.

“Just use your hands,” Esther said. “Or I could-”

“I’ve got it,” Lena told her, taking out the block, getting the front of her shirt wet in the process.

“We have an icehouse across the road for cold storage. It seems a shame to waste water here when there’s plenty across the street.” She indicated Lena should set the block in the sink. “We try to preserve as many of our natural resources as we can,” she said, using an ice pick to dislodge some shards. “Papa was the first farmer in the region to use natural irrigation from rainwater. Of course, we have too much land for that now, but we reclaim as much as we can.”

Thinking of Jeffrey’s earlier question about possible sources of cyanide, Lena asked, “What about pesticides?”

“Oh, no,” Esther said, dropping some ice into the glasses. “We don’t use those- never have. We use natural fertilizers. You have no idea what phosphates do to the water table. Oh, no.” She laughed. “Papa made it clear from the start that we would do it the natural way. We’re all a part of this land. We have a responsibility to our neighbors and the people who come to the land after us.”

“That sounds very…” Lena looked for a positive word. “Responsible.”

“Most people think it’s a lot of trouble for nothing,” Esther said. “It’s a difficult situation to be in. Do we poison the environment and make more money that we can use to help the needy, or do we maintain our principles and help fewer people? It’s the sort of question Jesus often raised: help the many or help the few?” She handed Lena one of the glasses. “Does this taste too sweet for you? I’m afraid we don’t normally use much sugar around here.”

Lena took a sip, feeling her jaw clench into a death grip. “It’s a little tart,” she managed, trying to suppress the guttural sound welling in her throat.

“Oh.” Esther took out the sugar again, spooning more into Lena ’s glass. “Now?”

Lena tried again, taking a less generous sip. “Good,” she said.