“So you left the group, anyway.”

“I finally figured out that I had no choice. I’d suffocate if I didn’t. In the most basic sense, it came down to them or me, and I couldn’t live my whole life for them. Sometimes I still feel guilty about that,” she added softly.

“You deserve the right to lead your own life,” he murmured. “Everyone does.”

“I believe that now. I just wish... I don’t know. If I was more like them, maybe I could’ve been satisfied with such a simple life, too.”

“It’s not just simple. You structure your whole life around your religious beliefs. If you can’t buy in, it’s no wonder you couldn’t stay.”

“I tried to believe, to conform. But it was impossible for me.”

“What about your brother and sister? They’re true believers? And they’re happy?”

“My brother is. He’s the oldest, and he’s following in my father’s footsteps. One day, he’ll inherit the farm. But my sister... She married at seventeen and started her family about the time I moved to LA. After she’d had her second child, she contacted me, secretly, in tears. She told me that she had to get out, too, that she was miserable. And I felt so sorry for her. Despite what I’d been through, and how much I missed my family, my freedom was the most important thing to me. So I felt like it was my responsibility to help her—and I tried.”

“In what way?”

“Eventually, I managed to save up enough to send her plane fare for her and the kids.”

“What about her husband?” he asked in surprise.

“I figured they’d divorce and he’d find another Mennonite wife, one that might be more satisfied. Then, everyone would be happier.”

“Divorce isn’t a sin?”

“It is, but it’s...more of a gray area.”

“Yet she’s still with him.”

“Yes. And Phil, my brother-in-law, hates me to this day. The rest of my family will never forgive me, either.”

“What happened?” he asked. “Did she ever come?”

“She tried a year ago. But her oldest daughter, Anna, refused to leave with her. She told her father what was going on, and there was a big fight and a family-and-church intervention. Everyone joined forces and told her if she left, she had to leave alone.”

“Without her kids.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“She wouldn’t do it. I would’ve made the same choice.”

“I wish my mother had been more like her,” he said bitterly.

She stared at him through the steam rising from the hot, bubbly water. “Do you think she regrets what she’s done?”

“Not at all. That would require too much self-awareness.”

“Do you ever hear from her?”

“Never.”