The Program

Chapter nineteen

When she finished this time, TD stroked her hair. "There, now, that was really great progress."

She slid off the bed onto the blanket and sheets laid out on the floor; the Teacher needed room in bed to sleep undisturbed. TD rolled to his side, and within seconds his breathing slowed. Leah lay awake as she had the night before, one hand clutching the butter-smooth sheets. Not wanting to disturb TD, she didn't move, even though her right arm was falling asleep. Split by the slatted blinds, the moon crept molasses slow up the blanket covering her.

She certainly had it better than Nancy, who had not reappeared from Skate's shed. All day Skate had patrolled the perimeter and shadowed TD with a satiated grin, disappearing at intervals. On the ranch, sex was a rationed privilege.

Leah was surprised to catch herself questioning the benefits of this aspect of TD's tutelage. She thought about her perverse need to be negative during a wonderful opportunity like this. Staying On Program, listening to the Teacher – that was how people grew.

A dying candle persisted on the nightstand beside her, next to a telephone with its cord removed – TD called for the phone cord rarely and only for essential Program business. Tacked to the wall above the nightstand was TD's phone sheet, the schedule of hours at which he had set incoming calls. Callers, knowing they had a window of maybe five minutes to reach him, developed a discipline.

Her thoughts seemed a Christmas-light tangle, impossibly snared, granting flashes of lucidity at random yet somehow connected intervals. Nestled in the warm swirl of sheets, she reminded herself that she was privileged to be able to learn about her insecurities with the Teacher. She ran through Program precepts until they became thoughtless blurs. After an excruciating block of time, she heard the outside door creak open. The faint tap of a footstep. And then another.

Leah lay frozen.

A startled scream – Lorraine. TD bolted upright and rushed to the door, tugging his pants on, Leah trailing meekly for fear of being left behind in darkness.

TD hit the switch as Nancy shrugged off Lorraine's two-arm tackle. The misaligned buttons of Nancy's dress created mouths in the denim through which skin and bra peeked. The hem was ripped, the fabric marred by muddy groping. Her bed-swirled hair stuck out in all directions. Nancy began sobbing, her words barely comprehensible. "Teacher, please, lemme back with you. Lemme be your Lily. Pleeease."

TD calmly cinched his silk robe about his waist. "After you were with that filthy man?"

Skate was in the door, scratching his scalp, his fingernails giving off some good noise. "Guess she got away."

"Take her off the ranch. This one's not salvageable."

Nancy emitted a high-pitched moan, collapsed, and began crawling to TD. Skate pinned her beneath a knee and twisted her arm behind her back. Then Randall appeared, controlling Nancy's other side. They picked her up as if hauling a carpet and bore her out horizontally. Her hair whipped about her head, her screams so shrill Leah squinted against them. Her cries continued all the way up the trail. Somewhere around Cottage Circle, the wind finally carried them off.

TD went back inside and slid into bed. Leah followed and sat on her sheets, trying to sort her thoughts. Finally TD rolled over and said, "Yes?"

"Where…where will they take her?"

"Down the hill. Into the city. They'll leave her somewhere safe. But she's no longer my concern. Nor should she be yours."

"She'll" – Leah wiped her cheeks, glad the darkness prevented TD from seeing how shaken she was – "she'll die without you."

"She's dying already," TD said with finality. After another pause he sighed and shoved himself up against the headboard. "What, Leah? If you have something to ask, ask it. Don't just sit there radiating stress and fear."

"What do you mean, she's dying already?"

"She's decaying. Women peak reproductively at an early age, just after puberty. In primitive cultures and in the early days of this country, females got married when they were thirteen, fourteen years old. They'd bear several children and pass by twenty-five, maybe thirty. Women are designed to peak, breed, and perish. Nancy is twenty-four years old. Her eggs are old and stale. She looks forward to a future only because the artificial intervention of modern medicine has prolonged human life well beyond its natural range. But even medicine can't stop her body – that obese, jiggling mass around her – from slowly breaking down, from dying in minuscule increments as it has been for the last eight years. Her very appearance is indicative of a diseased way of thinking. Nancy won't figure her way out of her death dilemma. She'd rather be a victim. One of the dying. With her mind-set, she has nothing to look forward to but aloneness and the further putrefaction of her body."

He sighed and ran his hands over his face. "I know it might appear cruel, but I have a responsibility here. I can't let someone like her infect the rest of you who are working so hard to grow past your physical and psychological limitations."

His indirect compliment warmed her, if only slightly.

"Before you go weepy for Nancy," he said, "why don't you reflect on the fact that this wake-up call is the best thing that could ever happen to her?"

Leah asked tentatively, "Do you think it was the best thing for Lisa Kander?"

She was worried TD might get angry, but he just laughed. "Now that you mention it, yes. She found life without The Program too much to bear. So she took her comfort in the soothing hiss of the tar pits. Beats living a lie. Beats being one of the walking dead. At least she took back some control in her death." He reached over and stroked Leah's head. "Good night. I need my sleep, and so do you." He smiled. "Big day tomorrow."