Free What She Left for Me by Tracie Peterson Page B

hippies.’ Why’d they say that?”
    Her dad shook his head. “Because they don’t understand. It’s true enough we don’t dress like the rest of the world. I used to wear a suit. I had to when I was training to become a doctor. When your mom was in boarding school, she had to wear a uniform. Did those things make us better people? I don’t think so.”
    Eleanor knew her parents had grown up in structured environments. So structured, in fact, that her father had described it to be like a noose around his neck. They had both come from moneyed families, but the money couldn’t make them happy—or so her father had said on more than one occasion.
    “So what’s a Commie?” Eleanor asked.
    “Well, that’s a person who believes in Communism.”
    She frowned, her brows knitting together. “Is that a bad thing?”
    “I don’t think so. People are terrified of it, however, because it’s different. Communism focuses on everyone sharing everything they have with one another. It encourages people not to be rich or poor, but to be equal. It’s just another way of living—one that even the Bible promotes.”
    “So if God wants us to live like this, why does the world hate us for doing that? I thought the Bible was a good thing.”
    “It is. But the world hated Jesus too. He even said so. There’s a verse that talks about how the world hates me, so they’ll hate you too. It’s the sad truth of how things are.”
    Eleanor tried to comprehend it all. It seemed so silly that people should strive so hard and yet be so miserable. She worked up her courage and asked her father the same question she’d asked her mother earlier. “Will the police come back again?”
    Her father leaned back on his stool and shrugged. “Probably. They really didn’t know about us before, but now that they do, they’ll probably hassle us until we choose to move or they haul us all out of here. They’ve already judged us to be lawbreakers; they’ll probably come up with a few more laws and come back to tell us how bad we are.”
    “But we aren’t bad,” she protested. “We’re good people. We were happy. Now I hate them and want them to stay away.” She hadn’t realized the anger that she held inside.
    “No, Ellie. You don’t hate them. It isn’t right to hate. You need to love them. Love them because it’s the right thing to do. They won’t understand it, but it will make you feel better.”

Eight
    Eleanor went home in time to find her mother topless, taking in the laundry they’d hung together earlier. Nudity was common in the commune. Children were taught not to be ashamed of their bodies, and Melody had often told her daughter that this was how God had made people, and that was how they should stay whenever it was comfortable to do so.
    Eleanor had begun to grow very uncomfortable with the matter, however. She felt shy around other people and didn’t like the way they stared. Especially as her body began to change and develop. The entire matter distressed her mother, who said that despite her efforts to give Eleanor an idyllic world, her daughter just didn’t appreciate the effort.
    “God never intended for Adam and Eve to leave the garden,” her mother had once taught during homeschool. “And He certainly hadn’t planned for them to wear clothing.”
    Eleanor supposed her mother was right. She had read the Bible for herself and saw that Genesis indeed revealed this truth. But still, now that things had changed—since Adam and Eve had left the garden—perhaps wearing clothes was a better idea than going around naked.
    “Don’t forget,” Melody called from the line. “We’re going over to Star and Ringo’s tonight. I need you to watch the boys.”
    Eleanor nodded. Allan and Tommie were a handful, but three-year-old Deliverance and two-year-old Spirit were even more difficult to deal with. At least she could reason somewhat with the older two, but because of her mother’s rejection of discipline in any form,