Page 1 of Viper's Desire
CHAPTER 1
EDEN
Every supper,my father’s Bible sits beside his plate. He never misses a chance to read from it.
Supper is where he rehearses Sunday’s sermon. And it’s where he finds different verses to tell me what a disappointment I am.
Tonight, he’s already preaching by the time I eat my first bite of mashed potatoes.
“A daughter who can’t account for her evenings,” he says, “has forgotten whose roof she sleeps under.”
This isn’t actually scripture, but he says it like it is. I swallow my potatoes and set my fork down.
“Daddy, I was at the hospital for school.”
“I’m not finished.”
He’s never finished. He seems to have a comment for every single thing that happens in my life.
So I sit. Twenty-two years old in a sundress he’s already told me tonight rides too high at the knee, and I let him tell me what a Godly woman should be. A gentle spirit. A quiet one. A girl who covers herself and keeps her eyes down.
“You don’t need independence, Eden,” my father says. “You need guidance.”
He’s said it enough that I could mouth it along with him.
“Mrs. Pruitt saw your car outside the gas station,” he says. “On a Wednesday. After dark.”
“I was getting gas.”
“For forty-five minutes?”
Of course I wasn’t getting gas for forty-five minutes. It only took five minutes. And the other forty minutes, I sat in the parking lot with a vending machine coffee, avoiding going home.
Mrs. Pruitt should mind her own business. I don’t say this, of course.
If I talk back, he could take away the one thing that brings me joy—nursing school. It’s the one thing that I chose that he actually allowed.
And he only allowed it because the congregation needs a pious woman who will sit with the sick and the dying and look humble doing it.
I didn’t get to choose where I went to school. I got into a program in Tucson and didn’t go because I’d have to live in a dorm. And living in a dorm meant a life he couldn’t control.
While all of this goes through my head, I smile at his words. But I lost track of what he was saying a few minutes ago. He can go on believing I am listening to his every word, trying to be exactly the kind of daughter he wants me to be.
My mother says nothing. My father always teaches that men lead and women submit. I don’t know if she actually believes that, but she does a great job of following his expectations.
I can’t end up like that. I’m so close to freedom.
Two more semesters and I’ll have my license. A license means a job, a job means my own money, and my own money means I never have to ask this man for a thing again.
That’s the deal I’ve made with myself—be the daughter he wants, modest and grateful and quiet, until the day I can afford to stop. I’m close now. Closer than I’ve ever been.
When I’m done eating, I rinse my plate. I tell my parents I’m going for a drive.
My father says a girl my age has no business on the roads after dark, but I’ve already got my keys off the hook by the door. And if I don’t get out of here, I’m worried I’ll say something I’ll regret.
“Eden. I didn’t give you permission to go,” my father calls.
Permission. Is he kidding? As if I’m a child who has to raise her hand to be excused from a man’s table.
