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By Root 430 0

days straight; each year we each got a brand-new miniature tablet notebook with a fresh pencil, and during the afternoon meeting she would dole out a few pieces of hard candy to each of us and then—late in the afternoon, and we always anticipated it—a single piece of Trident original flavor sugarless gum. I still buy it just for the memory. When Mom had to leave with one of the babies or to give a tube feeding, Dad’s meaningfully raised brow was usually enough to quell any percolating misbehavior. I recall entertaining myself by drawing cartoon heads and watching doomed flies land on the flystrips dangling from the rafters, where they’d buzz in futility until their wings became trapped against the oily ribbon. Some of the boys used to catch flies. Then they’d pluck a long hair from their poor sister’s head and tie it around the fly so it could get airborne but not get away. You’d see these flies circling in tethered orbit and some kid evilly grinning. We never got that one past Dad’s raised eyebrows.

Between services we ate in a giant tent. It was dark green and probably army surplus. We stood in line, and when the dinner bell rang and the flap was opened we filed slowly inside to the homey aroma of beef stew and piping hot dumplings. We sat at long tables and sang grace, and then the food was served—great marbled plastic bowls of boiled potatoes, plates of sliced peppers and tomatoes, trays of bread and cookies. The whole operation from cook to bottle washer was run by volunteering Friends—children pitched in too, often carrying the pitchers of coffee, tea, and water from table to table, and gathering the dirty dishes as people finished. On cold days the tent was the best place to be, full and warm with the heat generated by all the cooking and the clouds of steam rolling around Mr. Ramsdell in his rubber gloves and apron beside the homemade scalder. The forks made a silver clatter when he dumped them from the basket, the sound of their steely tumble ringing above the muffling green of the trodden grass.

When I grew older, the time between meetings became charged with the nervous hope of love. We were sometimes admonished by the workers to remember that convention was about worship, not dating. But when you belong to a group as rare as this in which marrying outside the faith is fundamentally forbidden and you suddenly find yourself with free time and girls who believe, you make romantic hay. Or try. I rarely got past furtive glances. The standard procedure was to wangle your way into conversation with a likely candidate and then invite her on a walk. The convention grounds were perfectly suited for this, with trails that wound all through the hills and fields, and on a sunny day between meetings they were filled with teenage boys and girls walking in couples and clusters. I envied the boys out there strolling, because I was too shy to pull off anything that straightforward. In line with church precepts, the girls who walked the paths wore long dresses—mid-calf at the least—that ranged in style from evening wear to Little House on the Prairie. Their long, thick hair was wound and folded carefully into buns and swoops held in place with invisible pins and beautiful clasps, and the general absence of makeup lent their faces a frank clarity. To this day the look draws my eye in a way no swimsuit model can manage. I became hooked on the idea of purity, and that hair tumbling down. My poor wife has learned that if she dons an old jeans skirt and twists her hair up to grub around in the garden, I tend to lurk around the kohlrabi and attempt to make small talk.

Of all the children in our family, none have continued in the Truth. Looking out across the sunny country now, over the coloring hills and to the west, I think of Mom and Dad gathered right at this minute, and I wonder if this is heavy in their hearts. Once when it was early in my “losing out,” I came to convention with long spiked hair and dressed like a cross between a U2 roadie and Don Johnson’s personal shopper. I was sitting by Mom in the dining tent when she