I couldn’t bear to think of the things my siblings would hear from the rest of the church members, who made it a habit to report back whenever they saw ex-members. If Grace and I seemed in good spirits, we would be considered foolish and bestial, not recognizing how vain and worthless our lives now were. If we seemed mournful, we were pathetic, feeling the sentence of death in ourselves. In their eyes, we would never be truly happy—and we were delusional if we thought we could be.
