The End

           “We can’t do it,” Liz whispers to her family sitting around her.  Eva listens intently for the first time in her life.

            “You can’t do what?” their mother asks kindly.

            “We can’t leave it behind.  We’ve tried for years, but we can’t leave it behind,” Jackie explains.

            “You left, didn’t you?” Eva asks.  “You quit, you walked out, Liz kicked a man in the crotch.  You came back to us.  And now you tell us that you can’t move on?  Don’t you think that’s a little…I don’t know…late?”

            Liz shoots Eva a look.  “You know what?  You spend nearly nine months in a cult like that, then tell me how easy it is for you to forget it.”

Chapter Twenty-Four, Part Two

          Boxes upon boxes sat in the attic common room.  Half were marked as being for Liz’s dorm room, the other half marked as being for Jackie’s.  They had spent the last three days putting everything they would need for college into these boxes.  Tomorrow, they would be moving into their respective dorm rooms.

            Liz sat on her brand new blue bedspread, reading through her old Rose notebook, tormenting herself with these rules for the last time.  Finally, she reached a certain highlighted page.  She had never asked Sandra about this passage she had found.

            “I returned, and saw under the sun,” Liz read out loud, “that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”  She stared at the words for a while longer before a single phrase suddenly popped out at her—nor the battle to the strong.  She wasn’t strong, not physically, and for a while she hadn’t been mentally or emotionally strong either.  She hadn’t wanted the battle that had come to her.  But the battle had come anyway and she had somehow won it.  She ripped the page out of the notebook and tucked it into the suitcase that lay on the floor beside her bed.  Liz leaned back again, her back hitting the wall.  Without warning, the cross that Sandra had mounted above her bed fell down the wall and hit her hard on the head.  It was at least the fourth time it had fallen down since she had moved home.  She hadn’t taken it down, because she still thought it was a nice-looking cross, but this was the final straw. 

            “I give up!” she yelled.

Chapter Twenty-Four, Part One

         The first chance that they got, Liz and Jackie went with their sisters and mother to replenish their wardrobes and get new decorations for their bed- and dorm rooms.  If nothing else, it gave them a chance to catch up on what they’d missed over the last several months.  They stocked up on jeans, t-shirts, tennis shoes, short skirts, and sweatshirts.  They bought every single thing they had not been allowed to wear in the Children.  The freedom was exhilarating—no longer was someone dictating to them what they could and could not wear in public.  The group also stopped by a salon.  Jackie and Liz both sat down and got their hair cut.  And while they were out, Mom insisted they take Liz to the doctor.

            “There could be something seriously wrong, Liz,” she explained as they pulled into the parking lot of the family physician.

            “But where will she start?” Eva asked sarcastically.  Liz turned around so fast to glare at her sister that she almost gave herself whiplash.