There were places women could go to fix that particular problem. I didn’t know where any of those places were, but I could find out. Maybe we could put Mellie’s physical off if I told them she was sick, and then when she showed up for the makeup physical, we’d only have to deal with the fornication issue.

We could survive fornication, even if the Church took custody of us and split us up. But fornication, unlicensed pregnancy, disobeying a Church official, and any other sins they uncovered when they looked into our living situation…?

The more sins they charged her with, the greater the chance of a conviction.

But one look at my sister’s tear-streaked face told me she wouldn’t even consider what I saw as our only option.

“No! Nina, there’s a person in here.” She pressed one small fist against her flat belly, and something deep inside me cracked open and fell apart. “It’s a baby—or it will be. It’s my baby, and it’s real, and it’s defenseless, and I’m going to be a great mother.”

But it wasn’t that simple. She was too scared and confused to see the real problem. “We don’t have a soul for him, Melanie.”

“Or her. It could be a girl.” Her words came out in broken, halting syllables half choked by wrenching sobs.

“The gender doesn’t matter if the baby doesn’t live.”

“Maybe Mom will…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, and I couldn’t finish it for her. The thought was too horrible to voice.

“You know she won’t.” Our mother was only thirty-nine years old, and I couldn’t say for sure why she’d ever had kids in the first place. The chances of her giving up her life—miserable as it was lately—for an illegally conceived grandchild she would never see were slim to none.

“One of Adam’s parents, then. They love him. They won’t want his baby to die.”

She was right. But Adam’s parents weren’t much older than our mom, and…“Do you really want to take one of his parents away from him? Away from Penny?” Adam’s little sister was only twelve—way too young to lose one of her parents and half of the family’s income. “Would you really make them decide who should die to pay for a mistake you and Adam made?”

She looked crushed by the realization that that was exactly what she’d be doing. “What about the public registry?”

“Melanie, that’s no guarantee!” And I wasn’t even sure they’d put her baby on the list if the Church declared her unfit to procreate. They would never make her end the pregnancy—in fact, they wouldn’t let her—but they wouldn’t hesitate to let the child die a natural, soulless death.

“Then I’ll pledge to the Church!” she cried, swiping tears from her cheeks with both hands, and I glanced nervously at the closed laundry room door. We couldn’t hide forever, but we couldn’t afford to be discovered before we had a plan. And my sister pledging to join the Church was not a good plan.